Battleground Earth

by Gerry Griffiths

  BATTLEGROUND EARTH

  Gerry Griffiths

  www.severedpress.com

  Copyright 2018 by Gerry Griffiths

  DEDICATION

  For Genene

  1

  It had been 157 days since the crew on the International Space Station had any contact with Ground Control or anyone on Earth for that matter; and now Flight Engineer Cass Freeman was the lone survivor on the habitable artificial satellite that was soon to become uninhabitable.

  That tranquil feeling she’d once experienced drifting around the planet like a leaf spinning endlessly in a mountain stream had changed drastically to tumbling in a clothes drier filled with rocks.

  Every piece of external equipment on the ISS had been damaged or destroyed passing through the asteroid belt, which for some unexplainable reason had attached itself to Earth’s orbital ring and refused to leave, much like a blood-bloated tick on a dog.

  Before the last science officer had suffocated due to an airlock breach, she’d alluded to a theory that the denser asteroids were acting as a cheese grater, shredding the 3,000 manmade satellites as they passed through the belt.

  Cass gazed out of a window on the cupola, the observation dome that the crew used for watching spacewalks and other activities with an out of this world view. Right now all she could see was a sea of space junk floating by; crushed motor housings, shattered solar panels, and mangled antennas.

  The tiny living organisms on the other side of the pitted glass looked like something from a bad cold left on a sneeze guard at a salad bar.

  The ISS was completing its pass over the dark side of the planet. Areas that had been dense cities were pitch black. She wondered if they would ever restore power.

  Another chunk of space rock fell out of orbit and streaked down through the atmosphere. A twisted weather satellite tumbled earthward.

  The alien life forms shimmered as an aspheric sliver of sun shone on the glass.

  Cass hugged herself and shivered even though she was wearing her long-sleeved jumpsuit and gloves. It was cold as a tomb and soon the life support system would fail.

  All her life she had dreamed of becoming an astronaut and making her family proud, and here she was on her maiden voyage. Now she wondered if any of them were even alive. Something terrible was happening down there, and there was nothing she could do about it as she traveled 17,500 miles per hour 250 miles above the planet like a forgotten message in a bottle.

  She gazed down at the Northern Hemisphere and the Great Plains. A wispy layer of white cloud cover parted slowly above the flat wheat-colored landscape.

  A large mass was moving easterly.

  “What the hell is going on down there?” she screamed.

  But no one heard her.

  Not even the things clinging to the other side of the glass.

  2

  Twenty-three M1 Abrams of the 41st Armored Calvary Tank Brigade rumbled across the broad expanse of flatland in a single row almost a quarter-mile wide. Each armored vehicle was spaced fifty feet apart from the next, ample room for the lower section of the tank to complete a 360-degree pivot while the turret remained stationary, never once taking its sights off its intended target.

  All gun muzzles pointed in the direction of the perspective enemy steadily catching up, giving the appearance that the tanks were retreating in reverse when in reality, it was the turrets that were facing backward.

  Engines roared at a cruising speed of 30 miles per hour; steel tracks tore up the lumpy ground and left prairie dog pancakes.

  Ryan Rafferty had only been in for five months and was already Gunners Mate Private First Class and the mechanic on a four-man crew of a sixty-two-ton, four-million-dollar piece of ass-kicking machinery with enough firepower to take down a small army.

  Thanks to the shit storm and accelerated boot camp training, worldwide military recruitment was at an all-time high. Fighting for freedom was a thing of the past. The real badge of courage was getting in the trenches defending the human race from extinction.

  Standing waist high in the turret’s open hatch with the wind buffeting his back, Ryan grabbed both handles on his .50 caliber machinegun and glanced to his right at the other gunners jostling in their tanks, getting their kidneys handed to them as the armored vehicles pounded across the rough open terrain.

  He turned, eyes glued on the horizon for the first sign of the enemy. He couldn’t help thinking about his family and how everyone had been affected by what was being called an alien invasion.

  His stepfather, Frank Travis, said it was more like Mother Nature getting dumped on her head. He had joined a coalition of entomologists and other scientists striving to eliminate the global threat along with Celeste Starr and her associates at the Astronomical Consortium desperately tracking down the meteorite impact sites.

  The last time he had heard from his mom, she was heading up the Nor-Cal Militia in a region of California, which had suffered heavy casualties throughout the past few months. He worried about his sister, Ally, a triage volunteer, and missed his little brother, Dillon. They were all living in the Nor-Cal survivor camp. Maybe someday, this would all be over and they could be reunited as a family again.

  Rumors were rampant about gargantuan bark beetles devouring the woodlands and the rainforests all over the world, and if they continued at the rate they were going, there wouldn’t be a tree left standing in a year’s time and the planet’s oxygen supply would be depleted.

  Bye-bye, Earth.

  Ryan was damned if he was going to hand the planet over to a bunch of bugs.

  “Hoppers!” a voice boomed in the headset inside his helmet.

  He stared out over the grassland and saw a two-mile-wide locust swarm come into view. Even at this distance, he could tell the nomadic grasshoppers were as big as station wagons. It was like a yellow wave rolling over the prairie.

  Devouring everything in its path.

  The horde took flight and descended on the tanks.

  “Give ‘em hell boys!”

  Twenty-three .50 caliber machineguns opened fire, obliterating the herbivorous insects. The result looked like yellow graffiti being shot out of a leaf blower. But for each hopper annihilated, there was another to take its place.

  Ryan swiveled his weapon and knocked half a dozen out of the air. He heard one of the gunners scream. Some of the tanks were completely engulfed by hoppers.

  Two of the Abrams broke ranks, careening into each other.

  A giant grasshopper chomped on a gunner’s helmet and ripped him out of the hatch.

  Every tank unleashed its main and secondary armament: M68 rifled guns, smoothbore cannons, and 10,000-round M240 machineguns.

  Ryan watched in horror as one of the tanks covered with hoppers swung the barrel of its cannon and fired at the tank next to it. The armored vehicle exploded. Most of the tanks’ drivers were operating blind because the tank commanders couldn’t give instructions with the view ports smeared with insect entrails. Gunners left as the only eyes on the road.

  Two F-18 Super Hornets swooped down from the clouds. The lead jet dropped two bombs and laid out a long fiery swath of napalm that ignited hundreds of hoppers into crispy critters.

  The second bomber came in for a pass. A massive wall of locusts rose in the plane’s path. The twin engines sputtered as the turbines choked on the bug guts clogging the vanes. The pilot catapulted out seconds before the aircraft nosed into the ground and went up in a blazing plume of black smoke.

  “Rafferty, button it up!” Ryan immediately obeyed his tank commander and dropped down, closing the hatch behind him. He squeezed into the tight quarters and manned the gunner position. He looked at the screen on the thermal viewer, but there were too many images to targ
et.

  So they waited until the locust swarm was gone.

  They’d lost four tanks that day and sixteen crewmembers, not counting the eight gunners killed—men who died in the defense of their planet.

  An hour later, Ryan was back in the open hatch manning his .50 caliber machinegun as the convoy of tanks rolled up to the command base surrounded by a twelve-foot tall solar-powered electrical fence and heavily-armed gun towers.

  He smiled as his tank passed under the banner he and a few of his buddies had stenciled and hung over the entrance, which read: WELCOME TO THE NEXT WORLD

  His tank filed into the compound and eventually split away from the procession along with the others and headed to its designated solar shade cover where he would perform his maintenance duties and the rest of the crew would ready the Abrams for its next mission. Their military tent was erected next to the shelter. He was bone-tired and was looking forward to some much-needed bunk time.

  As soon as the tank was under the concealment, the rumbling Honeywell turbine engine winded down and turned off.

  Ryan climbed out of the hatch. He slid down on the side skirt, which was covered with bug guts like the rest of the tank and stepped cautiously along the hull so as not to slip and fall. He leaned out, grabbed the cannon barrel with both hands, and swung down to the ground.

  A military transport raced in through the main gate and came to a screeching halt a few feet from the commissary. The tailgate dropped down. Young recruits jumped out and got in formation. Ryan counted twenty. Not one of them looked any older than him.

  “Rafferty!” a voice called out.

  Ryan turned and saw the post’s administrative clerk approaching.

  “Yes?”

  “Commander sent me to get you.”

  “Do you have any idea why?”

  “Best hear it from him.”

  Ryan didn’t like the sound of that. His heart began to race. Was it bad news?

  “All right,” he said and followed the military clerk across the compound.

  When they reached the command tent, the clerk motioned for Ryan to wait outside while the man ducked between the flaps of the command tent. A few seconds later, the clerk pulled back the canvas opening. “The commander will see you.”

  The post commander looked up from his desk when Ryan came in and snapped to attention with a crisp salute. The officer saluted back. “At ease, Rafferty.”

  “You wanted to see me, sir?” Ryan asked, placing his right hand down smartly beside his pant leg.

  “That’s right.” The commander gazed down at the open folder on his desk. “You like being in the Forty-first?”

  “Sir?”

  The commander looked up and studied Ryan over his reading glasses.

  “Very much, sir!”

  “Well, I’m afraid I have some bad news.”

  Ryan began to sway on his feet. He’d been right. He braced himself for the worst.

  “You’ve been reassigned.”

  He hadn’t realized but he’d been holding his breath, waiting to hear that his mother or his sister or little brother were dead. He exhaled the pent-up air. “Where to, sir, if I might ask?”

  “A unit operating in San Francisco. North Bay. I take it you’re familiar with the area?”

  “Yes, sir,” Ryan beamed.

  “Go pack your gear. A transport will be taking you to the airbase within the hour and Godspeed.”

  3

  Frank Travis drove the black four-wheel-drive Chevrolet Suburban into the vacant parking lot of the Muir Woods National Monument Park. The trip up the coastal highway had been foggy and treacherous, the mist even thicker in the surrounding forest of giant redwoods.

  “I used to bring Ryan and Ally here before Dillon was born,” Wanda Rafferty-Travis commented, sitting in the front passenger seat. Seemed like an eternity ago, her oldest son and daughter now in their early twenties and her youngest boy almost nine.

  She looked down and smiled at Winston, curled by her boots on the floor mat.

  The canine had been on her lap for part of the trip but had grown bored staring out the side window and had gone to sleep at her feet, which was fine by Wanda as her muscular fifty-pound pet was a bit much for a lap dog. The white English bull terrier was wide-awake now that the Suburban had stopped. He pushed onto his haunches and stared up at her with his tiny triangular eyes set high in his conical snout. She reached down and scratched behind his ear.

  “Nice to see a place untouched by all the madness,” Crandall Green said, sitting in the backseat next to his wife, Shelly. He craned his neck and gazed up through the window. “I can’t even see the treetops.”

  “If I remember correctly from a past tour, sequoias can get to be over 250 feet tall,” Wanda said.

  “That’s almost as tall as the Statue of Liberty,” Shelly said. Whenever she wasn’t out assisting the North Bay Militia, she was back at their home base at San Francisco’s Fort Mason, helping to teach school to the many children. Shelly had grown to be close friends with Wanda, so it was not surprising that Dillon Rafferty was one of her favorite students.

  “We better get ready. The Eco-Marines should be here any minute,” Frank said, checking his wind-up wristwatch. He opened his door and got out. Wanda and the Greens stepped out of the vehicle. Everyone was dressed for the rugged outdoors: heavy waterproof jackets, jeans, hiking boots, and were all wearing side arms.

  Winston leaped out and canvassed the parking lot.

  The morning sun was blocked by the thick timber and dense fog, but the haze would gradually burn off as the day progressed.

  Frank walked around to the back and opened the lift back. He reached into the cargo bay. He handed his wife a Remington pump shotgun and an ammo belt of 12-guage cartridges. Crandall and Shelly preferred to carry 8-shot Ithaca Stakeouts with short barrels and handgrips. Frank grabbed his Mossberg 500 fighting shotgun.

  Frank and Crandall wore sheathed machetes on their belts while Wanda and Shelly opted for lighter-weight weapons and carried survival knives.

  “Which one do you want?” Frank asked Crandall and held up two crude-looking weapons.

  “I think I’ll go with the bolt gun,” Crandall replied. Frank handed the big fireman the modified spring-loaded captive bolt gun, mounted on the end of a three-foot extension pole, and had a sling so it could be worn across a person’s back. Crandall strapped the bovine killer over his shoulder.

  Frank grabbed the 18-inch aluminum collapsible shaft that could extend to six feet long and had a carbon steel spearhead at the end designed for swift penetration and easy removal for repetitive stabbings. He slipped a protective hard-plastic cover over the sharp tip and stuffed the compact weapon inside a daypack, which he slipped on.

  Wanda saw Winston sitting regally by a trail next to a brown wooden sign with large white lettering: No Pets.

  “Aren’t you the funny boy,” she said. She coaxed him over with a friendly wave.

  Winston immediately sprang to his feet, raced over, and stood guard by her side.

  “This isn’t like them to be late,” Frank said, consulting his watch again. He closed up the back of the Suburban.

  “Maybe they met up with some trouble,” Crandall said.

  “They better get here soon,” Wanda said, “or we’re going to miss our window.”

  Winston barked loudly.

  A diesel engine could be heard approaching in the fog.

  4

  The gray military vehicle appeared out of the mist like an apparition and headed into the parking lot. A large winch was mounted on the front bumper of the huge truck. The all-terrain front tires were massive, five-feet in diameter. A side gas tank with a step-up was under the driver’s door, another tank on the other side. There were two sets of passenger doors behind the main cab.

  Instead of traditional rear wheels, there was a trailer with dual-axle wheels attached behind the passenger section of the truck like a railroad car coupled to the back of a locomotive. The tr
ailer was completely covered with a steel meshed screen, high enough that a person could stand upright inside.

  Frank could hear metal canisters clanging together inside the trailer as the truck pulled up to a stop.

  The doors swung open and military-looking personnel quickly jumped out.

  “Had a bit of engine trouble on the bridge,” Eco-Marine Squad Leader Max Simms yelled out as he climbed down from the driver’s side.

  “I don’t have to remind you we’re under the clock,” Frank said, pointing to his wristwatch.

  “I know. Come on, everybody. Shake a leg!”

  Frank recognized the other members of Max’s six-person squad as they had all worked together numerous times. He watched as the specialists gathered their gear and collected their weapons. Ace McElroy and Vince Rocklin were already up in the caged trailer. Ace was the armory specialist and always wore a flamethrower pack. Vince was the grenadier and ordinance specialist and handled the explosives.

  Julie Brown had been an entomologist student of Frank’s at UC Davis and was now utilizing that knowledge as a threat assessment specialist. The other woman on the team was Denise Washington. She was a preservation specialist and it was her job to make sure the team stayed within the perimeters of the mission and kept landscape destruction to a minimum while eradicating the enemy.

  The sixth person on the team was their medic, Johnny Horn.

  Each squad member wore a helmet, camouflaged jacket and trousers, and combat boots. Julie, Denise, and even Johnny, were armed with Colt M16s and 9mm Glock pistols. Even though they looked like enlisted personnel in the military, Eco-Marine squads were actually made up of civilians that had received cram courses in weapon training and combat skills, and were led by a member that had served in the armed forces.

  Max had been a staff sergeant in the U.S. Marines for nearly twenty-years and had been contemplating retiring from active duty when the planet became overrun.