by Howard Marsh
“Right. I’m well-armed too. Remember that breech gun? That should take care of the rock that the bastard is hiding behind.”
“OK, but be careful with that gun. Whatever you do, don’t fire it at the storage building. We can’t risk damaging the pathogen containers or showing the alien battle group that there’s been a fight down here. You have to keep the alien from getting into that building. We don’t want to fire into it, and if it gets in, there are some heavy weapons that they stored there.”
“Understood. I think that it’s too badly hit already to be able to get very far from the rock that it’s behind. Otherwise it probably would have picked me and Doug off when we were in the open. Its suit must have a pretty bad leak too, even if it has sealants like ours. If it does try to move out, I’ll use my machine gun. I’ll be careful.”
The action against the robots went much more smoothly. Ludmila’s cue to Yuri and Harry went as soon as she heard Nigel’s command, and Yuri issued the commands to send the alien robots into states of chaos. Everything happened almost immediately, and the results amazed everyone except Yuri. He knew what to expect. The chaotic state in the robotic brains caused unstable feedback and produced effects like epileptic seizures, just as Yuri had said. Harry and Yuri could sense the seizure states, and the others could see the effect on the robots as they watched the video sensor outputs. A few of the robots tipped over and fell to the ground, trembling uncontrollably. Others just stood with their arms waving in the air, and a few just froze.
“Amazing,” Harry exclaimed, patting Yuri on the shoulder. “It’s like what you said. We can even see a variation of conditions, like grand mal seizures and petit mal seizures. Absolutely amazing.”
Meanwhile, Nigel engaged the wounded alien that stayed in hiding. His estimate that it was too badly wounded to run was right, and he was able to move into a position where he had some cover and could fire the breech gun at the boulder without endangering the storage building. The penetrating explosive did a good job on the boulder, pulverizing it and creating a shower of small fragments. But it didn’t immediately kill the alien. Its leg wound had been bad, and the rock fragments from the disintegrating boulder tore into its chest and arm. It was mortally wounded and its suit was leaking like a sieve. But it was still alive, and it fired back at Nigel, fortunately missing him by a wide margin since it had trouble aiming the gun or even holding it steady.
Nigel ran quickly, zigzagging to avoid fire from the alien, but that was not necessary. The alien was no longer able to even lift the gun. It was dying and very quickly. Nigel still took no chances. He approached cautiously, and when he had good line of sight, he fired a long burst from his machine gun and cut the dying alien almost in two. “These bastards are tough,” he reported. “They may be small, but I’d hate to have to take them on in an even fight.”
Yuri reported that his interaction with the robots produced the desired effects, which everyone could already see. Then he and Harry directed Igor and Robby to dispatch the alien robots, starting with the sentries. They used their x-ray guns and quickly finished with the sentries and then the workers.
Nigel went over to the dead alien and fired another burst into it, even though that was clearly not necessary. He was just pissed off at what it had done to Gladys. Then he joined Doug to see if he could help with Gladys. Judith was already there with the medical kit, and the two of them were getting Gladys stable and ready for movement back into ops base, and they obviously had things under control without Nigel’s help. Gladys had regained consciousness and gave the three of them a thumbs-up with her good arm, and that made everyone feel a lot better.
So Nigel left them and made a final check on the dead aliens and robots to make sure that all of them were permanently out of the picture. He even fired more rounds into each of the sentries as insurance that they wouldn’t spring back to life. No chances, no surprises, not anymore if he could help it.
“OK,” Brad said. “Let’s get Gladys in here and then get those bodies and robots out of sight. We don’t know if the battle group will send an advance ship to inspect the area. I don’t want anything to look suspicious. Put the aliens into their bunker. You can probably fit most of the robots in there too. The rest can go into the storage facility. Close all the doors. Make everything look like the aliens and robots went into their ships as ordered.”
Nigel started on the cleanup work while Doug and Judith carried Gladys back to the base. Then, once Gladys was inside, they came back out to help Nigel. The aliens were easy to move. They were very small and light, especially in the reduced gravity of Mars, and by the time Doug and Judith returned, Nigel had already taken two of them into the alien bunker. They quickly disposed of the other four and then started work on the robots. That was a bit harder since the robots were heavier and more bulky, but Harry directed Robby, Igor and the three workers to help them. Within a few minutes, the area was cleared of the bodies and debris from the ambush.
Now that this phase was completed, the next job was to load the pathogens onto one of the robot ships and have Robby and the two old model workers fly it as quickly as possible to the alien fleet. But Brad wanted Nigel and Mikio to inspect the containers to make sure that they were still in good condition. It wasn’t clear what they could do if something was wrong with them, but he wanted to check anyway.
“I can check them myself,” Nigel radioed back when he got the order from Brad. “There’s no need for Mikio to suit up.”
“OK, but be quick about it. I want to get that shipment off as soon as possible.”
Nigel did a quick inspection. He went into the storage facility, opened the storage cabinet, and looked at each of the pathogen containers. Everything looked good. He then took a small shaving from one of them and placed it on a small piece of specially treated cloth that he took out from one of his suit pockets. He’d been prepared to do this test before even suiting up since he too wanted to be sure that the composite material and its special chemical-biological matrix were unchanged. The cloth turned the proper color of red within seconds of touching the shaving, so he knew that everything was as it should be, and he closed the cabinet back up and told Brad that they were good to go.
Harry was in charge of this next part of the operation. He gave directions to Robby and the two workers and monitored them as they loaded the pathogens onto the ship. It took only five minutes for the containers to be moved from the storage unit to the robot ship. The workers were able to take the entire cabinet instead of taking the containers one at a time. It had been constructed to hold the containers during transit, as Harry had noticed when he made his first visit to Mars with Milo and Brad. The workers secured the cabinet in a cargo area in the ship.
Then Harry verified that the flight plan from the alien fleet’s earlier message was properly stored in the robots’ memories and that they understood it. He directed them to follow those orders and to travel at maximum speed and then to obey the commands from the aliens at that end. He also inserted an override code that he could use later to take control away from any aliens if that was necessary. Since the three robots would be a full light day away, he doubted that this would be useful, but it didn’t hurt anything and was an insurance policy against something that might bring them in close proximity again.
Robby and the two workers then boarded the ship, closed all the hatches, and prepared for departure. Once they were underway, there was almost no chance that the aliens would be aware of anything wrong until after they reached the fleet and unloaded the containers. Within a few hours, it would be too late for them to do anything to prevent the pathogens from infecting all the places where the containers went. Within a day, the plague would probably spread to at least 90% of the ships in the fleet since all of them were linked together and shared the same circulating air supply. They never did consider the spread of airborne pathogens when they designed this efficient way to deliver life support when the fleet was docked. Now their systems would deliver death as well.
At least that was the plan.
Harry gave the final command for the robots to take off. The ship rose slowly to about three hundred meters and then accelerated quickly in the direction of the enemy fleet. It disappeared from view in less than two seconds and was out of sensor range in about two minutes. The pathogens were on their way.
Now the task for the team was to get Gladys back to Nebula and to prepare to deal with the battle group, especially that battleship and heavy cruiser. Nebula’s fighters might be able to handle the light cruisers, and they were even matches with the alien fighters, but the heavier ships were a concern. They had to be eliminated as soon as they arrived, and that called for another ambush, to get them before they had a chance to shoot back. Fighting dirty definitely had its advantages, hopefully enough advantage to overcome the “David versus Goliath” mismatch.
Milo arrived less than nine minutes after Brad sent the message. He piloted one of the latest model fighters and was accompanied by a large utility ship. Haverford and several soldiers were in Milo’s fighter and the medical team was in the other ship. They had two surgeons and two nurses and all the medical equipment that they would need until they reached the hospital at Nebula Ops.
The two ships landed near the alien fighter and the remaining robot ship. Haverford, Milo, and the four medical personnel were already suited up and went immediately to the AFO bunker. One surgeon and one nurse went through the airlock first, followed by the second surgeon and nurse. Haverford and Milo followed last, and by the time that they got through the second door, Gladys was already getting emergency surgery.
“We should be able to save the arm,” the head surgeon reported, mainly to Gladys, but clearly for all to hear. “It’s a pretty bad wound, but your friends did a good job, especially keeping the arm warm enough and under enough air pressure while you were still out there. There’s quite a bit of bone and muscle damage, but the remarkable thing is how little damage there was to any of the nerves.”
“Will I be able to play the violin?” Gladys said, with a grimace that was about all she could manage in the way of a smile.
“That’s an old one,” the surgeon replied, and everyone chuckled. It was good to see that Gladys was handling things well, especially given that she was a chemist and not a soldier. “You should be almost as good as new. I expect that there’ll be some numbness in your hand and fingers, at least for a while. But the nerves look like they’re in pretty good shape, and we have ways to deal with minor damage that they may have sustained. The main thing is that the shoulder and arm are going to be OK. It may take a few months, but you’ll be back with your chemistry set and whatever else you want to do. But I think that you’re going to miss the rest of this war.”
“She already did her part,” Brad said to the surgeon, as he walked over to Gladys and gave her a thumbs-up. “Now it’s up to the rest of us to follow up.” He patted Gladys on her good shoulder. “You take care of yourself, and we’ll see you back at the ranch.”
Then Brad went over to Haverford and Milo, and he motioned to Nigel, Doug, Judith, Mikio, and Ludmila to follow them as they went into the conference room, off to the side of the main ops center where Yuri and Harry were still connected to Igor and the remaining worker robot. Brad went over to them and told them to hang up the headsets for now and join the others. This action was concluded, and it was time to plan and coordinate for the next action, likely to come within the next few hours.
Chapter 10
“Our first problem is the battle group that’s going to get here in a few hours,” Haverford began, as they all gathered around the conference table. “I think that our new class of fighters is almost a match for the light cruisers, but we’ll need to take out the battleship and the heavy cruiser before they have a chance to react. Here’s what I plan to do.”
Haverford then outlined the battle plan. It was straightforward and started with the alien fighter, piloted by Milo, waiting in a position that the aliens expected and with Igor piloting the robot ship, also on station as the aliens would expect. When the battle group arrived and approached Mars, the plasma cannon that the aliens had erected would fire at the battleship and hopefully destroy it or at least take it out of action. Milo’s alien fighter would have to hit the heavy cruiser at the same time.
“If Judith is right about the weapon on it being a very high power EMP cannon, it might be able to fry all the electronics in the cruiser and any other ships nearby. Since it was intended to disable most electronic systems world-wide from over a hundred thousand kilometers away, it should be able to penetrate the alien ships’ defensive shields and take down most of their systems at the range that it would be when it fired on them. That’s what you’ll need to do, Milo. If possible, you would attack with the fighter’s other weapons at the same time as you fire the EMP cannon. I assume that they’re more or less the same as ours, so they should be pretty effective against the light cruisers and fighters at these ranges. But you’ll only get a chance to fire one or two bursts before you’ll need to get out of there. You need to figure that they’ll return fire within less than ten or twenty seconds, even if they’re taken completely by surprise.”
“There are a few problems here,” Judith replied. “First off, we don’t know if I’m right about that weapon yet. I need to go out there and try to figure out exactly what it does and how to use it. Then there’s the problem that we haven’t even been on the fighter yet, so we have no idea of how to operate anything on it. We don’t even know if we’ll be able to learn to fly the damned thing before they arrive. Your whole plan is based on a lot of assumptions, and we know where that got us already.”
“That’s why we need to move fast and figure all these things out. You should start on that now. I told Sgt. Olivetti and Sgt. Morgan, two of my best tactical system operators, to go into the ship with you and help however they can. They’ll be the ones to use the systems, so they need to have as much time as possible to get familiar with them. Milo will go with you too so he can look at the flight controls. He’s pretty familiar with the controls from the alien ship that crashed in Roswell, and he’s even flown the reconstructed model, so we’re hoping that this one isn’t too different.”
“That’s a good idea, Judith,” Brad concurred. “Suit up and see what you can do. We’re going to need that fighter and its big gun.”
“OK,” Haverford said as he resumed describing his proposed course of action. “When we make these first strikes, the element of surprise should even the odds a bit. The aliens will probably try to go after the plasma cannon and Milo’s fighter, but it will take them some time to react. The cannon might be able to get off a second shot, but it’s a sitting duck once the enemy starts to take action. So I want our artillerymen to be able to control it remotely, from as far away as possible. Can we do that?”
Mikio answered. “We’re pretty sure that we can. When the aliens fired the test shot, they used a hand-held device. It’s stored on a bracket at the rear of the cannon and probably can work from pretty far away. Doug and I can go out and get familiar with it. We can do a bit of aiming and fire off a couple of shots to see how far away we can be when we control it. I also want to get a feel for how much time it needs between shots.”
“OK, Mikio,” Brad said. “You and Doug go out there and let us know what you learn. But make it snappy. We don’t have too much time left.”
Haverford continued. “So now that we’ve taken out the battleship and heavy cruiser, and probably some other ships, we need to engage the rest of them with as much force as we can and as fast as we can. That’s where Igor’s robot ship and the rest of my task group come in.”
The plan was to have Igor charge the battle group immediately after the first shots were fired. The aliens might be confused when they see the robot ship approaching since they might still think that it was there to defend them. That would give Igor a chance to hit and run, and it would also provide a diversion to let Milo get the hell out of there. He could retreat at
near light speed as soon as he fired his salvo.
At the same time, Haverford’s other ships would come charging in like the cavalry riding to the rescue. “I’ll have twenty-two ships with me in addition to Milo’s alien fighter and Igor’s robot ship. That’s almost one third of our total force. We need to win this one in a big way. It’s probably the last big surprise that we’ll be able to pull. After this, they’ll know that they’re in for a fight, and we want to make them think that we’re a lot stronger than we really are so they don’t just come back here with the rest of their forces.
“If we do it right, it should convince them to use the biological weapons, and that should keep them at bay until the pathogens do their job. What I want is a total destruction of the battle group, and I want their commanders back at their fleet to know that it happened and that we probably took almost no casualties. They should have deployed sensors nearby that will monitor things and report back. We seeded the whole region from Mars out to the asteroid belt with sensors, so I assume that they did something like that too. I want those sensors to report that it was a slaughter.
“My fighters will be parked out of sight, with twenty on Phobos and five on Deimos. They’re pretty small moons, and Deimos is really tiny, but we did some simulations, and we should be able to hide that number of ships on them. They won’t know that we’re nearby until we jump out at them. We should outnumber them, and we’ll still have some element of surprise in our favor. If the EMP weapon is as effective as I think it may be, we should be able to wipe them out without taking too many losses ourselves. Any comments?”
Brad nodded but looked a bit grim. “It’s a good plan, Brendan, as long as everything works right. But have we built in anything to deal with contingencies? We also need to define how we’re all going to coordinate things. It can’t be just a free-for-all.”
