The Mighty First, Episode 3

by Mark Bordner

  “What are we looking at?” He wanted to know.

  Hack pointed at it, “I’m not sure, exactly, but whatever it is, its design is clearly for the purpose of mind or motor control. This is extraordinary.”

  Garnett gawked, “So, you’re telling me that this guy was basically turned into a robot?”

  Hack nodded slowly, thinking, “This is like no technology that I’m aware ever existed. It has to be nano-bot integrated. At first glance, I would assume its original design was intended for medical purposes, perhaps to repair spinal cord injuries. It’s apparently been weaponized.”

  “So, this thing is a military weapon?” The chief asked with growing concern.

  The Coroner nodded again, “And, I would be willing to guess that it’s of Storian origin. This is far beyond our technology, and I can’t imagine the Attayans doing anything this twisted.”

  Garnett took his safety glasses off and pulled the mask down, “Maybe you’d best not continue any further with your autopsy. I need to put a call in to the military liaisons’ office.”

  Chief Garnett sat alone in a corner booth of the Brown Mug diner, his half-eaten burger shoved aside. It was too hot to eat, his appetite squashed during the summers. He instead nursed an iced Coke, his third, as a matter of fact. He was tired from the trying day, and winding down in the quiet of his favorite hang-out was just what he needed. His mind played back on the events of the afternoon, scarcely believing the things that had taken place.

  The Army garrison at the airport had sent a medic back with Bengson. The lieutenant took one look at the thing in the corpse’s back and immediately called his superior. Within twenty minutes, a captain had shown up, followed by a major, then a colonel. A call was made to somewhere back east, and as far as Garnnett knew, word filtered its way to the President. The Army confiscated the body and took it away, but not before making both himself and Doc Hack sign non-disclosure agreements.

  The entire investigation was taken over by the Department of Defense--- every detail, right down to the Carreno’s house. Military policemen were standing guard there now. The DOD had also worked something out with the FBI, and had agents drive up from Phoenix. The whole thing clearly had the government shaken up on multiple levels.

  The evening was turning a fiery red mixed with orange, a signature sunset that lit the interior of the quiet diner. Garnett let out a breath, feeling his nerves calming down, and planned to go home to let the cool shower wash away the day’s sweat. Maybe he’d watch the news videos for a spell and throw back a cold beer or two. Most likely, he would end up asleep in his chair, as happened most nights. What a life.

  Secure Presidential Bunker

  October 3rd

  “I’m getting tired of this briefing room,” President Petra Reyes complained. “Very little good ever seems to come from this place.”

  Major General Parks, the Marine Corps commander and one of her senior military advisors, sat to her left. Next to him was Command Admiral Green of the Space Navy, then Army General Skylar Hopkins, Surface Navy Admiral Deb Fulton, and lastly Tom McDanlee, the Director of Intelligence. To her right sat the new head of the FBI, then the director of the CDC out of Atlanta. It was the fullest that the room had been, having had time to cull replacements from the rubble, so to speak. The government was weaving itself back together.

  It was getting long in the evening, but these latest events simply had to be hashed out, there was no getting around it.

  “So,” Reyes said, thumbing through her open file. “Emperor Grozet has cooked up some sort of mind-control device, and is employing it against us.”

  “That sums it up,” McDanlee told her. “At least as it appears so far.”

  “I have a team flying out to Arizona as we speak,” the CDC director stated. “This to confirm the report.”

  “This has serious implications,” Army General Hopkins voiced. “Grozet can now infiltrate our forces at any point to conduct sabotage, spy on us--- or carry out assassinations such as this one, by controlling our own people!”

  “Are there ways that we can take preventative measures against this sort of thing?” Reyes asked.

  The CDC director steepled his fingers, “The clearest method would be a visual exam, as spotting this device is easy enough. This would be an arduous task, though, as it would mean checking every person individually in the beginning, then conducting such exams for anyone else who has been unaccounted for over a period of time.”

  The general officers shook their heads at the same time, “That would be virtually impossible to do. We have hundreds of thousands of troops in the field, both in the continental U.S., and throughout the Pacific.” Parks stated. “Not to mention all of these others who have flown in from around the globe to help us out.”

  Admiral Fulton held out a finger, “What about strange behavior? Does the affected person exhibit any visible signs that might be recognized?”

  The President consulted a portion of her reports, “The FBI interviewed the wife of the shooting victim, which was none other than the father of Master Sergeant Minerva Corbin, GNN’s poster child. Her mother stated that the shooter seemed to be ill. The coroner’s report describes his body as being dehydrated and malnourished.”

  General Parks rubbed the side of his nose and leaned back against his chair, “That describes any trooper who’s been in an extended period of combat. Some of those poor souls look like zombies once battle fatigue sets in.”

  “It’s also obvious that Grozet is going after the families of the surviving members of the First Battalion. He’s still hell-bent on demoralizing them. So, what do we do, then?” Reyes asked, frustrated.

  Parks sighed, “Well, on the most basic level, we can inform officers and company commanders to watch for unusual behavior. We need to figure out a way to mass-scan for this thing though. Can we rig a type of detector for it? As an electronic nano-device, it must emit some sort energy field, no matter how minute.”

  The CDC director leaned forward at that, “Perhaps you have something there. The Attayan battle suit that our Marines are equipped with employs nano-technology. It has features that monitor its wearer’s bio-rhythms, and transmits them to the command ship in orbit. The suits even administer pain suppressants for wounds and can control bleeding. Maybe the Attayan technicians can tap that portion of the smart-system and figure out a way to create a detector of a sort to find other nano-devices. It could be used from an aircraft to simply fly over a company area, hopefully picking up an errant emission field.”

  Reyes nodded her approval, looking at the Space Navy Admiral, “Doug, can you make the appropriate calls to get that in motion?”

  “Certainly.”

  “I can assign security details to the next of kin,” The FBI director volunteered, “to try to thwart any further assassination attempts against the Carrenos.”

  The President wrote a note to herself, adding, “I need to appoint an Attayan official to my Cabinet; their expertise will be essential in the days to come. I’ll contact Prime Minister Ro, and make the appropriate arrangements. This is what it’s coming to gentlemen, the war just became more complicated.”

  Indianapolis, Indiana

  Storian Command and Control

  Emperor Grozet was having a staff meeting of his own at that moment, and he was none too happy with developments on his side of the proverbial fence. Yet unaware of the success in putting a fright into the Allied command, he was fuming over the attempt on his life the previous night. It was simply inconceivable to him that anyone would want to try such a thing. He was the Messiah, after all!

  “What is this?” He demanded. “How is it that one of my own has turned against me?”

  His senior staff remained silent. All but one, his most trusted, Over-Marshall Jasper Garrow. He knew of Grozet’s emotional nuances and how to best navigate around them.

  “It is a new thread in the religious fervor,” he said.

  Grozet fixed him with a stare, “A new thread?” />
  Garrow was holding a bible and placed it on the table, “This holy book is a printed version found here on Earth. Its stunning similarities to our own are causing confusion in the ranks. Our people want to know what the implications may be, of the Holy Word having been shared by the Creator with these humans dwelling here. Some feel that we may be misinterpreting its directives, and sinning as a result.”

  Grozet’s eyes filled with fire, “The directives are as I say they are to be! I have been appointed to be the angel of judgment, and it is my decision that these inferior breeds be cleansed from the universe!”

  Garrow did not comment, instead standing silent. It was a clear expression of respectful disagreement. This did not faze Grozet.

  “And, who are these people that you speak of?” The emperor demanded. “Who dares to question my authority, let alone attempt to move against me?”

  Garrow thrust his hands into his pockets, “It is no one in particular, my Lord. I speak in generalities. It is a growing question that I refer to, brought by the resilience of the Allied forces. Sometimes it seems that they have Divine guidance. No other military that we have ever faced has stood this long against us, let alone an army of children.”

  Grozet glowered, balling his fists on the table top, processing those words. At length, he waved with a dismissive gesture, “All of you leave me. I need to reflect.”

  Garrow hung behind, waiting for the room to clear. Once the last had gone and the door closed, he spoke, his voice measured. “This was to be expected, my Lord. The ranks have never experienced this sort of resistance before, and this business of the Bible being found not only on Earth, but Attaya as well. Our own combat ministers have compared this to the Tower of Babel.”

  “The Tower of Babel,” Grozet repeated, “The scattering of races to the wind.”

  “Precisely,” Garrow replied gently. “Perhaps it was not referring to only across Storia, but the entire galaxy. Who is to say that the Lord’s children reside on only one world in all of the vastness of creation?”

  Grozet took in a breath, held it, and let it go, willing calm.

  “We have the strongest military in the known universe, Jasper. It is beyond me as to why we are floundering here.”

  Over-Marshall Garrow looked glum, “It seems that is no longer the case.”

  “What do you mean by that?” Grozet asked.

  “This alliance between the Terrans and the Attayans,” Garrow explained. “Their combined strength is clearly a match for us. Our success may not be feasible through brute fighting alone--- maybe we need to out-think them. Versatility is now the key.”

  Grozet held his head in his hands and sighed, “I need solitude right now.”

  Garrow bowed respectfully and left the room. Once alone, Grozet regarded the Terran bible with abhorrence, but reached out and opened it nonetheless. He thumbed through it, looking at things here and there, confirming what Garrow had told him. The thing was remarkably accurate. Despair welled up within him and he stood, gripping the book with an iron-hold, and bellowed at the ceiling.

  “Creator! What would you have of me? Show me your intentions, I implore you!”

  Grozet slammed the bible down on the table and it bounced open, the pages falling aside of their own accord. He looked down at it and sat heavily, his eyes focusing on the first thing that seemed to stand out in the print.

  He felt very cold.

  --- “Behold, the day of the Lord cometh, cruel both with wrath and anger, to lay the land desolate, and destroy the sinners thereof out of it. “ --- Isaiah 13:6

  Two

  Horsemen of the Apocalypse

  The Ohio Battlefront, Columbus city limits

  D-Day plus 3 months

  In the suburb of Alton, just west of the Columbus Limit, life for those living there had been transformed dramatically during the previous year and a half. Before the invasion, things had been typical. People commuted to work, took their children to school, went shopping--- all of the comfortable, if not mundane tasks that defined everyday living.

  On the day of the invasion, events there had begun actually rather slowly; so subtle at first that no one really took it seriously. First, there had been a televised special bulletin interrupting the morning programming as housewives were settling in to the daily soaps after getting their kids off to school. The Global News Network announced the sudden attack on Star Harbor, showing videos of the space station being pummeled by a Storian spacecraft carrier. Many had believed that it was only an extravagant commercial for a new movie release. Yes, they knew that war had been declared against Storia, but that planet was galaxies distant.

  Less than an hour later, all programming ended, replaced by the activation of the Emergency Broadcast System. People then began to wonder, but there was still no real alarm yet. Wives attempted to call their husbands at work, but the phone lines and cell signals were all busy. Then, the internet crashed. The atmosphere had become one of aggravation laced with a hint of concern.

  In the following thirty minutes, school buses were delivering kids back to the stops where they had been picked up just a little while before; school had been cancelled. The kids were excited, but their mothers were finally realizing that something was truly wrong. Some husbands were also appearing unexpectedly, having been sent home from work early. Concern transgressed to alarm.

  People descended on grocery stores and gas stations with a frantic urgency. Shelves were wiped clean. People fought over what was left. People who had been neighbors and friends for years were now strangers snarling at one another as they scrambled to attain goods for their own families.

  In the third hour, the air raid sirens began to wail. Panic ensued at full capacity. The police were helpless against stampeding mobs in the city. Those who lived in the suburbs hunkered down. The electricity went out shortly thereafter, as the first of the nuclear explosions bloomed across the United States--- plunging society back in time in one swift instant. Airliners fell from the skies, creating widespread infernos where they crashed into populated centers. Trains rolled to a stop, as did society in general.

  A tense, oddly silent night passed, and early the following morning the spaceships appeared. Hundreds of them, perhaps thousands.

  Many different types and sizes, ruling the air. There were giant, diamond-shaped vessels that did nothing more than hang motionless, high up in the sky. Occasional intense blue streamers of light issued from them, with no obvious purpose to the casual observer. Then came the smaller, wicked gunships that rained rockets and plasma bolts across key bridges and industrial centers. The domestic Air Force had engaged them over the cities and countryside in pitched aerial battles that raged for hours. Many of the invading craft were shot down, but the spacecraft were more agile and better armed, and the tide of the struggle for superiority swung in their favor. Eventually, there were no more jets to resist them.

  The U.S. Army had managed to mobilize units in some areas around Columbus; infantry and tank divisions, anti-aircraft batteries, command centers. The 3rd Infantry Division, under the command of General Kenneth Sabin, was fully prepared for a head-on clash. For the first week, the aliens seemed content to rule the sky, merely observing the Army as they established their perimeters. The citizens wondered if the whole thing might actually end soon. Maybe the aliens were afraid to try to take the ground.

  On the ninth day, the Storians landed troops. In enormous numbers. The fighting erupted with an instantaneity that was staggering. The lightning assaults drove the Army out within days, and the Storian forces rolled in. A regional command was established, and martial law reigned. Many people were arrested and taken away. Work requirements were distributed and a system of grocery allowances put into place. It was worse for those who lived in the city. Suburbs were largely ignored.

  As food became scarce, the Storians actually gave out seed and ordered people to plant gardens. Yards and any open area became farming ground. Half of any edible crop was confiscated by the occupyi
ng army to supplement their diet, the other half was allowed to be kept by the grower. In this fashion, citizens learned to survive.

  In the suburb of Alton, it was entering the second growing season when the war front found its way to their doorstep. The people living there watched and listened to the pitched battle in downtown Columbus, then cheered as the Storians pulled out in the late hours of the night. Several waves of occupation troops and vehicles fled west on I-70. The provincial commanders abandoned their offices as well, leaving the area in the first quiet of solitude in many months.

  Electricity had been restored some months before, and they watched the GNN reports with elation. Columbus was liberated! The new front line had shifted almost fifty miles further west. Alton was once again free.

  Now, on this crisp October morning, throngs of people had gathered near the freeway, spilling over onto the banks of the nearby Hellbranch Run River, waving and cheering as the victorious line of Allied troops began approaching. The freeway was filled on both sides by a convoy of armored vehicles and tanks, followed by Army soldiers and Marines walking side by side--- pouring from Columbus and embarking on the march to their next destination. The column was miles long. GNN helicopters hovered up above, filming it all. The rejoicing would continue for some time. V-Day had finally come to Alton under a sharp, blue autumn sky laced with cotton ball clouds.

  Leading the armored column were the support elements of the 1st Global Marine Division---a dozen Hummer-Jeeps with Bushmaster 90-watt heavy machine gun mounts on top, followed by another dozen Armored Personnel Carriers filled with the command staff and their aides. Behind them were twenty heavy-battle tanks side-by-side in two’s, ten light-recon tanks, then followed the 4800 Marines that comprised the 2nd Marine Infantry Battalion. Filling the lanes of the freeway next to them were six hundred members of the Army 101st Airborne Division, and elements of the Army 3rd Infantry Division. A total of seventeen thousand fighting men and women.