by Isaac Stone
I spent most of my time in the quarters already assigned to me. The only thing I could do to occupy my mind was check on the men under me and make sure they stayed up on their training. I tried to put aside my brief memories of Tara. It was bad enough she was the kind of woman I would have stayed with the rest of my life, unless of course that was the perfume talking, it gets fuzzy when you try to think about things too hard. I’d never wanted kids, and it’s not like the one she died carrying was going to be mine, but still, a guy has too much time to think during these deep space runs.
If we didn’t stop the Invaders soon, there was no telling what might happen out there. The Invaders continued their policy of killing every human they encountered wherever they appeared in a human portion of the galaxy.
I didn’t have a mother to write to myself, much less a father or any sort of legitimate family. She might be still alive, but I had no knowledge where she might be in the world. One day I’d come home from school and she was gone. Took the other kids with her. I knew she had issues over what kind of people I hung around, but never did I expect her to vanish the way she did.
It is a terrible shock to come to your home and find it vacant.
I remembered standing in the empty rooms. It was stripped clean. She’d wanted me to know she was gone and would never come back. The only things she left behind were my clothes and some books I had saved. Books were a rare commodity in those days, so if you were given one you tended to hang onto it. So what if they were all literary smut from the old days?
I stood there for a long time trying to figure out if she was serious this time. Another three hours passed before I decided she was gone. I went to see the manager of our part of the building where we lived. He wasn’t too shocked. The old man was constantly on me for the trouble I and the gang I ran with caused around the building. We were just a bunch of noisy kids and needed something to do in our depressed building. Most of us quit school the moment we turned twelve.
He sent me down the road to some shelter for people who needed a place to stay. They eventually found a small factory that needed someone to clean up their processing equipment. I stayed at the factory for five years until I was old enough to leave and seek my fortune.
The other thing that came to mind was the first woman I ever saw naked. This was after I’d left the factory and began to hang out with Philly Bob. He was one of many miscreants that led to my eventual stay on the prison asteroid. Her name was Cierra. She lived closer to the old city than I’d ever traveled. The gang I ran with stayed close to the neighborhood.
I met her one night at a bar near the oldest part of Philadelphia. This was an area where you could legally buy drinks if you were over twenty-one. Much of the city banned alcohol, dogs and pork by the time I ventured into it, but there were still some places that held onto the old ways.
“You’re new here,” she said to me the second week at the bar. Cierra had started her shift for the evening and had a keen eye for anyone who didn’t resemble the existing crowd. I was as obvious as a meatball in a shark pool.
“How’d you guess?” I asked her. Truth was, I hadn’t seen her either I walked into the place.
“You have the look,” she told me. “I can spot someone who’s new at the game the moment they come inside. Who are you are you running with? The Spazz Boys or those Orange Sharks?” She seemed serious.
“A new group,” I told her. “The Stone Dogs. You’ll be hearing about us soon.”
“That’s good,” she told me. “You can tell me more about them tomorrow night.” Cierra grinned at me.
“What’s tomorrow night?” I asked her.
“The big concert you are going to take me to,” she told me. “By the way, those gang names I just made up. It’s another way I knew you were new at this. You’re paying, in case you haven’t guessed.”
Actually, I’d made up the name I gave her. We hadn’t progressed to the actual “colors” stage, but I wanted to impress her. Somehow, I don’t think it worked.
We spent the next day together at the show and the night in her bed. She had a place in an old building near the middle of town. Cierra claimed it was city hall at one time, back when they had such things. I didn’t care. I was too busy giving her the hard one to pay attention. At least she took care of herself. Before we got naked, she even showed me the certificate that proved she’d had the procedure and couldn’t have kids.
It came to an end months later when she wanted to leave down for a better job. She wanted me to come along, but I had things underway with Philly Bob. I didn’t want to leave. I never did find out whatever happened to her.
Nor I never found out what happened to my mother and other kids in the family. Wherever she went, she didn’t want me to follow. I really hate deep space travel. And prison. And bank guards.
More reports began to filter in through the informal network, which allowed rumors to flourish on board the starship. We were assigned to it prior to our return to base. The Invader Armada was the biggest assortment of their vessels anyone had ever seen since their arrival. It appeared near the space between Earth’s sun and several others near it. The betting money claimed the Invaders were using some sort of advanced jump port to get it through the galaxy.
As of now, no one knew much about the Invaders. It was still a mystery where they came from and what they wanted, other than the obvious. Anatomical studies on Invader bodies proved to be useless, as they all resembled each other. The control box I captured was under study, but the scientists attached to the Force were still in the early stages of their analysis. No one knew much about how their society was organized or even if it was organized. One theory had them to be highly evolved insects that reacted on instincts and not thought. There was a chain of command among the Invader troops, but not one that anyone could decipher.
I spent hours with military intelligence when I was brought aboard. They wanted to hear about what I’d observed from the siege of the plateau. There was so little information on the Invaders at the time that any amount of new material, no matter who brought it in or whatever the source, needed to be interrogated about every detail.
“And you said not one of them fled despite how badly the fighting turned against them?” one of the officers asked me later. “Your men defeated a force which vastly outnumbered your own, and you did it using bayonets and a reckless charge. In modern military circles that would be an offense worthy of court-martial had your tactic not proven victorious.”
“Maybe something to do with those control boxes, perhaps a force-wide malfunction that caused them to allow themselves to be slaughtered,” the other one snipped. Both of them were fair with smooth hands. I could tell they weren’t the kind of intelligence guys who did field work.
“When you’ve been in enough firefights,” I told them, “some things become obvious. I don’t know a lot about these Invaders, I expect no one does, but I can tell the difference between a soldier fighting for his life and one who has given up. We had a few the first few weeks of basic. They didn’t get far and ended up staying longer than they planned. If you want my opinion, these were lower ranked troops who had no choice but to stand and fight, no matter how bad we were giving it to them. As to the snipers and elites that might still be building their insurgency on the planet, that’s not really something I can speak to. We’ve smoked those guys before, but never as bad as this.”
“Not going to do that right away,” the second one said. “The Invaders have dug in on Chaos and they don’t want to leave.” The first one shot him a look as he’d given away something he wasn’t supposed to do. Military intelligence, now I understood why that was considered an oxymoron. Heavy emphasis on the moron.
TWO
The speculation running wild around the mess hall was that the latest Invader fleet was all they had left. It was a vast Armada because the Invaders pumped every last ship they controlled into it.
The Armada hit a few planets on its way to Earth, and now it was clea
r that the seeds of insurgency they’d attempted to plant were just the precursor for an endgame ploy. The Force decided early on to let the planets in its path know it was on the way before the Armada reached them. In most cases, these were planets with small populations that could be evacuated with speed. Most of them didn’t have enough resources to put up any kind of defense. They got out quick, in some cases only a few days before the Invaders made an appearance. Video feeds and spotters, which remained behind after they were evacuated, recorded how the Invaders dispatched their kaiju on the planets and destroyed everything they could find which reminded them of humans. They weren’t so much conquering as they were laying waste. The game had definitely changed.
At least one planet ignored the warnings and decided to stand up to the horde from the stars. It was a world known by its settlers as Novus.
Novus was among the first worlds settled by humanity after the discovery of the jump point drive. Although it was impossible to tell where a blind jump point would open outside several parsecs, multiple jump points could be used to increase the precision of any one of them. Novus was the first inhabitable planet settled by humans and had a population of several million. It also possessed its own manufacturing ability and could turn out enough nuclear weapons to deploy in space against the enemy. Or so it thought.
The Novians didn’t bother with negotiations. All attempts at dialogue with the Invaders ended in failure from the beginning. Negotiation parties were exterminated the moment they entered Invader weapons range. Once the Novians calculated the approach of the Armada, they mined the space around their planet with all the nuclear weapons they could build. Then they waited for the Invaders to show up.
The first wave of nuclear explosions caused some loss on the Invader Armada, but not enough to keep them away. The second wave had less effect because the Invaders brought up their hardened ships that could survive the explosions. A nuclear blast in space needs to be very close to its target due to a lack of atmosphere it can push around. The bombs they used resembled hand grenades with the giant pineapple packed with enough heavy matter to cause damage in all directions.
By the time the remainder of the bombs was detonated, the Invaders had their heavy attack ships around the main body of the fleet. They experienced little damage. The Armada that reached Novus was hurt, but not by much.
Some of the citizens of Novus managed to get out in time, but not many. The Force, bringing up everything it had for the defense of Earth, had to watch video feeds and reports of thousands dying on the surface of Novus in the most disgusting ways imaginable. The Invaders killed everything remotely human on the surface of the planet. Later, it was discovered they’d even killed apes in a zoo.
The only positive thing that resulted was that the Force could see what the Invader Armada looked like up close. They realized it could slaughter everything in its path.
Two days into our voyage to the jump point, I was summoned down to the executive deck. I have never understood why they call these places in space down or up since those terms have no meaning when there is no gravity. I was once told a lot of terrestrial naval terminology transferred over to the space fleet when humans left the big gravity well known as Earth. It never made any difference to me. I never did like space travel and would’ve spent the rest of my miserable life on Earth if the bank job didn’t turn into a disaster.
I knocked at the door, asked to enter the room, and received permission. Three officers of the Battle Force Jurassic were seated around a table as they went over some illuminated screens. I prayed this wasn’t going to be a dressing down over what happened on Chaos I had expected. The mission turned into an absolute mess when we found out they weren’t going to pick us up right away, but I did the best I could in the situation. I was certain they would grill me for the loss of so many soldiers, settlers, and sisters, but I didn’t care. I hadn’t asked for the damn sergeant’s position.
“Sergeant Claymore,” the senior officer said to me, as he looked me over. “We’ve reviewed your performance as a sergeant on the surface of Chaos. We want you to understand the position was never intended to be permanent, but we needed people with some leadership potential down there. Do you have anything to say in your own behalf?”
I tried not to show the grimace in my face. “Sir, I did the best I could to save the lives of the civilians and my fellow Raptors while we were on Chaos. I know there were some casualties, but more would have taken place if I hadn’t done what I did. Sir.” I remained quiet and prepared myself for the worst, being returned to a jail cell.
“Sergeant. Claymore,” the senior officer said to me, “Come over here. Stand in front of me.”
I floated over to him. It’s hard to stand in space when you have no gravity, but you do the best you can do.
“We’re promoting you to full captain,” he announced. The officer waited for it to sink in to me.
“What?” I said to him. This was unexpected again.
“You have shown exceptional ability at leading an isolated unit under fire,” he continued.
“If you hadn’t taken command down there,” he continued. “Every person in Raptor Nine, including Captain Daphne and Terry, would be dead by now. And the civilians too. We need people with your ability to win this war. We’re promoting you to lead an entire brigade when we reach Earth. You will have five dino mechs under your control. Everyone, including the dinosaur riders, will be under your supervision. If you accept this command, your unit will be used to take out a dangerous Invader position on Earth. Your sentence will be commuted as well. Do you accept this challenge?”
I inhaled and thought for three seconds. What was the worst thing that could happen? I could be killed. Would this be any worse than returned to the prison asteroid?
“I accept,” I told him.
The officer slapped the captain bars on my shoulders. With his other hand, he removed the sergeant’s stripes. From convict to captain, not bad for a gang kid from the wrong part of Philly.
THREE
I didn’t know at the time, but that the Force had discovered an island in the Pacific where the Invaders had hidden a jump port. Up until that moment, it was assumed the portals couldn’t be used on a planetary surface. Even experiments to place them on asteroids ended in failure. The gravitational pull was too great for the powers that they commanded to make them useful in gravity well. The gravity waves from a large mass would disrupt the portal and make it collapse. Portals couldn’t be operated anywhere other than in deep space.
Somehow, the Invaders had found a way to place them on Earth. Because the operation of one would send out all kinds of background radiation, which would attract attention, they found a remote island in the Pacific to place it. The island wasn’t all that populated and the Invaders managed to exterminate everyone who lived there in one night. All except for one old man who left with his grandson under the cover of darkness. When he reached the nearest landmass, he informed the government what took place on his island. The Force was able to send one scout into the island to spy on the Invaders’ activity.
He was able to report on what they were doing on the island in a matter of hours from arrival. It didn’t take him long to report on the portal jump gate under construction in a cave deep near an extinct volcano. The Force was shocked and terrified when he reported a successful test of it.
They had no other choice but to capture the jump gate. A portal which the Invaders could use anywhere on Earth was a direct path to conquest of the planet. With the space Armada on its way, the Invaders now had a tunnel under the orbital wall the Force had assembled between the moon and Earth. All they had to do was activate a gate on the other side and the Invaders could slip in right behind the defenses of Earth.
By now it was common knowledge amongst the officers, and with me newly among them I was privy to such news, that the bulk of Solar Force had been wiped out. The Black Road was now a floating graveyard of destroyed ships, and every planetoid out there was piled hi
gh with the bodies of Solar troops and Invader soldiers. As it turned out this was just as much humanity’s last good fight as much as it was the Invaders. Both militaries had pretty much wiped each other out, and the confrontation brewing now was all that remained to decide the fate of the war. Too bad for humanity that their last standing army was comprised of convicted felons and test tube dinosaurs. That has got to be the most cruel cosmic joke since the invention of the duckbilled platypus.
The obvious solution was to hit the jump point with a nuclear weapon, but this would reveal to the already scared population of Earth that the Invaders were already upon them. Plus, the intelligence corps wanted to know how the Invaders built it without anyone able to find out they were on the island. Finally, if there was a way to build a jump portal on Earth, everyone wanted to know how it was done. The gate needed to be captured and reverse-engineered so Earth would have access to the same kind of technology. If we survived this war we would need to know how to defend ourselves the next time around, because if there’s a first time then there will most assuredly be a next time.
I found Hamid later and told him the news of my promotion and the new assignment. He looked at my shoulder bars with a little amusement and asked me how I felt about being an officer.
“It’s a little strange, isn’t it?” he questioned me. “Not too long ago you were looking at doing a long stretch on that asteroid. Now you’re leading men into battle. How do you plan on taking out that damn Invader position?” He noted I held a folder in one hand with all the relevant material on the mission.
“I’ve got to look these over,” I responded to him. We were in a small corridor between the sections in the starship. There were plenty of people who were headed in one way or another down that corridor and I didn’t need to discuss it in front of them.
