by Rod Porter
Troy was confused only for a moment. Then a chill ran through his entire body as he realized the source of the bomb. He had stared at it many a night. The soldier alien that they had captured from the prison break when Jackson and Troy had been freed-there had been a bomb inside it this whole time, which meant that the invaders could have destroyed Jade at any point. But why would they wait to destroy it for all this time? Then he realized that the aliens had not retreated from their positions abroad. He glanced helplessly at the war room tactical board and realized: they had withdrawn to America because they knew the foreign resistance branches would follow them and congregate in Jade, where they could all be destroyed simultaneously. It had been a perfectly executed trap.
“Corporal,” Troy said. “The Quorum, the Council, the Prime Minister? Did they make it to the evacuation tunnels? What about the other generals?”
“We don’t know, sir. All comm links are down. The roaches followed up the bomb with death squads. Juicers and sentinels are sweeping the city as we speak, finishing off what the bomb didn’t. We’re barricaded in here pretty good, but it’s just a matter of time before they get in. We can hear them outside. They’ve been banging on the blast doors for almost half an hour now. I’m sorry, sir. We have no reinforcements to send. Jade has fallen.”
Nothing could be heard in response but the static of the comm link. Nobody knew what to say. As if on cue the whole fort shook from the bombs that were still being dropped. With the AA guns all but useless, the bombs were getting more accurate and the tremors more intense.
Troy had to stay strong for his troops. “You stand fast, Corporal. Give ‘em hell when they breach those doors.”
“We will, sir. I’m sorry. I wish we could come to your aid. It has been my life’s honor to serve under you, General.”
The Corporal’s reference to imminent death destroyed any sense of hope that had existed in the Fort Anderson war room.
“The honor has been mine, Corporal,” Troy said, with a broken heart. He felt as if someone had just punched him in his gut.
The broadcast was terminated and accompanied by another tremor.
“Sir.” A room operator broke the silence. “We have just lost our last AA gun. There is a fresh group of enemy bombers closing in on our position.”
“How far out?”
“One minute, sir.”
Troy looked in Jackson’s eyes and they both read the same message: game over. There was nothing left to do but wait to be blown up. A couple of sections of the war room had already been damaged by the explosions. Three stations were inoperable and short-circuiting from the bombs.
“Thirty seconds out, sir,” the operator announced, signaling the impending doom.
“Ten, nine, eight, seven…”
There was a tremor just before six, but this one was not like the others. It had been anticipated that the next violent shakes would be accompanied with fiery explosions, but they were not. Instead, a voice pierced the war room main speaker.
“This is Commander Myriad Valcheck with the first Hawk division. We heard you guys needed some help out here.”
At first no one could believe it. Troy wanted to jump in the air and rejoice. Not only had Myriad and her pilots saved the fort, he now knew that she was okay, and the knowledge that she was close by was encouraging in a way that he desperately needed.
“There is still someone down there, roger?” Myriad inquired over the main speaker.
“That’s a roge,” responded one of the stunned operators.
“Good. You guys regroup down there. We’ve taken out that last wave of bombers. They’ll think twice before sending any more. Right now me and the Hawks are going to have some target practice with their ground forces. You pull yourselves together; we’ll buy you as much time as we can from the air.”
The war room felt a newfound vigor. Troy could not stop smiling to himself. Commander Myriad Valcheck and her pilot squad had just saved what remained of the Global Resistance and had given them a fighting chance. With Jade destroyed, they could not afford to lose Fort Anderson.
EVACUATION
“Prime Minister, if we are going to make it to the bunker and the tunnels with the other government officials, we have to leave now.”
By their best estimations, the alien bomb had destroyed eighty percent of Jade and left it a shell of itself. The grand buildings were reduced to rubble, as were the connecting bridges and roads. The city, once a shining beacon of hope and human progress, now had more in common with the wastelands on the surface. The roads and buildings were littered with human corpses burned in the fires of the powerful explosion. Few had survived, and those who had were being exterminated by the alien death squads that were pouring into the city.
Fortunately for Demoskeena, his office was constructed in such a way that had shielded it from the majority of the blast, but this did little to comfort his security detail. The war room was still operational. It had communicated to the security detail’s comm link that there were aliens inside the city and that the Prime Minister and the rest of the government officials needed to evacuate immediately.
All that remained of Demoskeena’s twelve-man guard were two: John and Tommy. Only Tommy and John had elected to show up to protect the Prime Minister. The other members of the detail chose either to save themselves or search for their loved ones. John had been trying to reason with the Prime Minister. “We have to evacuate now, sir.”
“I will not abandon my office until I have gotten through to Fort Anderson. I need to know what is going on. Once I understand the situation, we can evacuate, and not before.” Demoskeena went back to his high-frequency radio, searching for a signal to Fort Anderson.
Tommy walked over to the desk, pulled out his pistol, and fired three bullets into the radio. “Jade has been overrun. God knows what’s happened to Fort Anderson,” he said, once he had Demoskeena’s full attention. “Now, you get your ass up out of that chair and follow us to the evac tunnels, or I’ll knock you out and drag you there.”
Demoskeena was as impressed as he was surprised. Without a word, he stood up. “Lead on.”
“Stay behind us,” Tommy offered, right before the threesome walked out the office doors.
Demoskeena did, and with good reason. Occasionally Tommy and John had to open fire to repel enemy juicers. It was horrifying to witness their surroundings while they ran. They passed hundreds of corpses and destroyed buildings. At one point, they passed a mother lying on her back cradling the dead body of her child. Fortunately, they knew the terrain much better than their alien counterparts. Through a series of secret doors, walls, and sewage passages, Demoskeena and his two bodyguards reached the escape tunnels in a timely manner. They ran at a straight-out sprint through the tunnel until they were ambushed by two sentinels and a juicer. The buffed-up alien soldier blew a hole through John’s forehead with one shot from its weapon and sent Tommy flying across the room with a round to the chest.
With the guards incapacitated, the juicer and sentinels turned on the defenseless Prime Minister. At first, they were going to execute him, but the juicer hesitated. Instead, it approached Demoskeena with shackles. The juicer wrestled Demoskeena to the ground and fought to put the restraints on him, as the manned sentinels looked on.
Back across the room, Tommy was coming to. Luckily, he had been wearing his protective vest. It had absorbed the majority of the impact from the alien weapon. He had been very fortunate. His head was throbbing, and his vision was blurred. He could see the juicer that was trying to wrestle Demoskeena into chains, but he also saw that he himself was right by the exit hatch. All he had to do was turn a blind eye to the situation and walk out the hatch, and he would escape with his life, meet up with the other officials at the rendezvous point, and be ushered to a totally safe location. What did he care if Demoskeena was captured or killed? It made no difference to him. He had only taken this job because it gave him a living and because he was helping Troy collect intelligence on the P
rime Minister. Tommy had been a nomad for his whole life. He lived by the code that you only looked after yourself: screw everyone else. He turned and headed for the exit hatch.
When he got close, he froze, to his own surprise. Thoughts and images flooded through his mind. He remembered the day he was sworn in as a protector of the Prime Minister of the city of Jade. He had felt a nagging pride when he had taken his oath to defend the Prime Minister and the Constitution. He had never had a sense of honor before. Scattered conversations he had had with the Prime Minister about life and religion also ran through his mind. The idea of God and Catholicism had entranced and inspired him, as much as he would deny it. For no single, identifiable reason, he turned back and clutched his weapon.
Aiming his carbon true, he killed the juicer that was trying to restrain Demoskeena. After the juicer was shot, the two sentinels turned and lined up Tommy in their sights. The odds were hopelessly against Tommy, but he charged the sentinels like a madman all the same. If he was going to die, he would die with pride, in the service of his race. His resolve and sense of selfless nobility brought tears to his eyes as he charged. He was that proud of himself.
DAYLIGHT
The aliens had not counted on the aerial reinforcements that had arrived to aid Fort Anderson. Thanks to Myriad and her squad, the first wave of the alien assault had been put down. The air force had bought precious time for the fort to recover. Now that the sun was coming up, they would be better able to repel any enemy ground forces. The AA guns had had plenty of time to cool down and be reloaded with what munitions remained. Tech teams reported that the fort’s power was recharging and they would be able to preserve the auxiliary power.
Despite the fact that they had survived the first wave of the assault, their spirits were totally crushed. Jade had been destroyed, and along with it, what remained of the foreign branches of the once powerful Global Resistance and the infrastructure of both government and civilization. All that remained of the force was the remaining personnel at the fort and at the smaller outposts already scattered about the country.
Myriad and her squad had scouted ahead and reported back with bad news. The aliens were regrouping not far from the fort for a second assault. According to her calculations, the alien force would outnumber the remaining resistance forces roughly thirty to one. By their best estimates, the enemy force that was still being mounted numbered in the high thousands. There was no way Fort Anderson would survive a second assault. There were no reinforcements coming, and Myriad and her pilots would soon be out of fuel, so there would be no further air support. None of the other outposts could be reached.
It was with all this negativity that Troy stood before the remaining soldiers under his command. Troy had suggested that the only thing they could do was attack the nearby mounting enemy force. He proposed that they leave the fort, march north, and ambush the unsuspecting aliens. Although they were greatly outnumbered, they could use the element of surprise to their advantage. Jackson knew as well as Troy that it was a suicide mission, but to everyone’s surprise, he enthusiastically supported it. The majority of soldiers were too afraid and dejected to leave the fort. There were low murmurs, as Troy stood before the ranks, that they should abandon the fort and retreat.
“Retreat to where?” Troy said. “There is nothing left to do but fight.”
Some of the soldiers scoffed at the suicidal notion. What was there left to fight for?
Troy thought it best to be honest.
“It is true that Jade has been destroyed. The Global Resistance has been decimated. We cannot win this war.” He saw the despair in his soldiers’ faces as they heard it from their once-invincible leader’s mouth. “But our children can, and their children after them. Keep in mind we have already evacuated civilian personnel, and they are going to need us to occupy those nearby roaches if they are going to have any chance of reaching the safe-house locations.”
Jackson thought for a moment of his son and his son’s progeny. No doubt he was not the only one thinking this way. For a moment, there were flickers of resolve in the soldiers’ faces, and Troy was going to capitalize on it, even though he knew he would be leading them to certain death.
“There are still humans scattered all over the wastes and all over the planet, still soldiers at other outposts across the country, still those who have avoided the fight. Let us send them all a message today that will open their eyes to the truth.” He paused. “That they must fight!” He could feel the mood in the room beginning to change. “We must fight!
“One day, they will speak of the bravery we will show here today. They will say that our courage and sacrifice spoke to an entire generation. That from the ashes of our bodies rose the fortitude and the resolve for those that followed to retake Earth.” He could see that the troops were getting excited.
“Critics would say that the war has torn a hole through humanity’s heart; that with the destruction of Jade, we as a species are destroyed. That we should surrender. They would say that we should run and hide like animals.” He paused again and looked into the captivated eyes of his troops. “What do you say?”
So it was that, on the same morning they were attacked, the depleted and weary remaining troops at Fort Anderson followed Troy Williams and Jackson Anderson north to attack the remaining alien forces that were massing to destroy them. Knowing full well that they were outnumbered, and would certainly die, they marched to fight with the hope that their courage would inspire future generations. If they could not be the generation to free the planet, they would see to it that they did everything in their power to make sure that future ones would.
In the late hours of the morning, thousands of alien forces turned in utter disbelief to see the remaining troopers of Fort Anderson charging their position. This was a lucky break for them. All they needed to do was take aim and put down the pitiful display of military might with one round of fire from their weapons. The aliens lined up their targets and took aim on the advancing humans.
At the head of the pack, sprinting full-out, Troy issued his last command as General of the resistance. “Fire!” The few hundred soldiers did.
Just as the thousands of alien forces were about to return fire, mysterious explosions of green light appeared among their ranks and inflicted very serious damage to the aliens, who began to scatter in all directions like a horde of panicked insects. Troy, Jackson, and his soldiers stopped in their tracks and looked on the scene in disbelief. Then they turned and looked up into the sky to see the source of the green explosions.
A flock of flying objects were descending majestically from the sky in an ordered formation. They ranged from actual vessels to humanoid beings that seemed to be strapped to jet packs. Turrets on the vessels were firing green ammunition that was wreaking havoc on the alien ranks. Whatever these mysterious vessels and beings descending from the sky were, they had the aliens totally panicked and afraid.
Troy and his soldiers were at a complete standstill looking up at the sky. There seemed to be no end to the descending objects. There were hundreds of them. A column of dots branched off from some of the vessels. As they got closer to the ground, Troy could tell that they were, in fact, humanoid organisms attached to some type of jet-pack suits. About one hundred of them descended in front of Troy and his soldiers, while the other vessels continued to attack the retreating alien forces.
Once the newcomers touched the ground, Troy and his fighters could make out their features. They were built just like humans, but they were clearly not human. Their eyebrows were slanted slightly in the form of a “v”; their ears appeared unusually thin. Their eyes glowed a deep violet in the sunlight. Instinctively, Troy’s troopers stepped in front of him, shielding him from potential harm. They were taken aback when the lead being spoke in broken English.
“Does Troy Williams remain?” it asked.
Everyone was at a loss for words. The idea that a friendly race from space was standing before them was so foreign. Humanity had looked
at the sky as a source of constant fear and anguish; they had great reason to be distrustful.
“I’m Troy Williams,” Troy said, making his way through his soldiers. The humanoid aliens all bowed their heads in Troy’s presence and dropped to one knee.
“We are honored,” the leader replied with his head bowed. “We ask,” he continued, “that you and your people accompany us to our principal star, outside the borders of your star system, where you will be brought before the Galactic Alliance. The fate of our universe is in your hands, Arion.”
“The Galactic Alliance?” Jackson came forward. “What’s that?”
The lead alien stood, while the others remained on one knee with their heads bowed. “The Alliance is a coalition of planets,” the alien began, “united to fight the Riktak, the alien horde that threatens the universe. Earth is not the only planet at war with the Riktak.”
Troy wanted to be clear. “The Riktak. You mean the aliens that you just saved us from?”
“Yes,” the alien leader responded. “The Riktak are at war with the Alliance. Their sole objective being to conquer the universe. All that stands in their way is the Alliance, with which our race is affiliated.”
“And how does one become affiliated?” Troy asked.
“It is a process,” the alien admitted. “First we must transport you away from this star system to the Coalition’s principal star, where you will be brought before the Alliance Senate. From there,” said the alien, looking at Troy with its piercing violet eyes, “humanity’s fate will be in its own hands.”
END OF BOOK ONE
TO BE CONTINUED…
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