by Evan Currie
“You don’t believe that,” Isaacs said, his tone grim.
“No, I don’t,” Pierson acknowledged. “I think it’s a direct assault on humanity. What’s the cheapest way to win a war?”
Isaacs snorted, “Don’t fight one.”
“Exactly,” She said with finality. “Don’t fight the war. Let the enemy destroy themselves. It’s not like we don’t do this all the time ourselves. A little arms delivery to rebels here, some money to political rivals there… pretty soon a country or event an empire is torn to shreds with infighting, or under control of someone we prefer to deal with. We did it in Iran, we did it multiple times in South America, if you want to get historical the French did it right here to us in seventeen seventy six… it’s so common a military practice as to be damn near ubiquitous.”
Pierson took a breath, “In my opinion, we’re getting a taste of really being on the other side of that for the first time in over three hundred years. I don’t know what the endgame for this little action is, but I doubt any of us will like it. So we need to do everything can to shut it down now, and then we need to figure out where the next attack will come from… We can’t afford to be taken by surprise like this again.”
*****
Chapter 14
Berlin
Tessa double checked the wording on the tanker they’d… appropriated, making certain it wasn’t diesel this time before she nodded to where Pitr was standing. He looked up in the sky, then gestured casually before peering into the tear he’d opened up.
“Hmmm… not quite,” He mumbled, flicking his hand again and changing the scene slightly. “That’s better. Alright, Malcolm! You’re up!”
The big truck rumbled to life in response, starting jerkily forward as the gears ground almost painfully.
Tess and Pitr rolled their eyes as the truck rumbled past them and into the tear, Malcolm whooping all the way.
Once through the portal, Malcolm took one glance down at the world spiraling below him and ported directly out of the truck, this time only a few meters to the tank on the back. He straddled the big rig and made a show of waving his hat wildly in the air as truck and now passenger plummeted through the cold atmosphere.
*****
“Whoa.”
“What is it, Boss,” Beakman asked reflexively before his instruments blared loudly at him. “Whoa.”
“I know, right?” Brolin asked. “Are you seeing this?”
“I don’t know what you’re seeing, but something big just appeared out of nowhere at Angels thirty.”
“Yeah, I can see it,” Brolin said, “I’m going to dip in a bit, try to get a better view on this while we’re waiting on final clearance.”
“Roger, Colonel. Side scan systems are up, let’s get a picture.”
The Blackbird dropped its nose, heading down for thicker atmosphere, and they could hear the warning sounds as temperatures began to increase on the front end. At the speed they were going, there was only so far they could drop before things became significantly too dangerous and they had to slow down.
Brolin kept one eye on those numbers, knowing where the redline was and just how far he could push it was his job after all, but his other eye was on the UFO that he’d spotted.
Unidentified falling object, in this case.
“Is that…” He trailed off.
“I’ve got it on the side scan,” Beakman muttered, “picture coming up.”
It took a few seconds for the digital image to appear, and when it did both of them just stared before Brolin pulled back on the stick to get the blackbird back up to Angels 80.
“Nope,” He said, shaking his head. “I didn’t see that, you didn’t see that. If you have to send it back to the barn, make it look like an automatic send because I’m not explaining that.”
Beakman wordlessly killed the image, leaving it in the system’s memory to wait for the automated dump.
There were somethings you learned not to bring up as a military officer, and a guy with a cowboy hat, riding a tanker truck like a bronco, while it plummeted several thousand feet toward an alien space jelly had to be one of those things.
If it’s not, Beakman thought dryly, it will be after today.
“See what?” He asked aloud.
*****
Hale heard a whistling sound that was both familiar and very unfamiliar at the same time and flinched automatically as he looked around quickly, then up. His eyes widened as he spotted the headlights of the truck bearing down on him, down being the key word, and quickly made certain he wasn’t in the damn things path as he gained a little altitude and distance from the target in order to track the falling big rig without coming under attack himself.
It had to be the portal guy, whoever that was, though what he was seeing here was whole levels of magnitude above chucking a flash bang at the back of his head from a few hundred feet away.
I don’t even want to know what sort of energy requirements there are to pull something like this, Hale decided as the truck plummeted past him, and he froze up momentarily.
Hale blinked. Twice.
The guy sitting on the tanker, waving a cowboy hat adamantly refused to go away like he would if he had any sense of decency at all.
“What. The. Ever. Living. Fuck?”
The world had gone from normal, rational, everyday life, to dark surrealist super powered insanity, and was now apparently dipping a toe into absurdism.
“Fuck my life,” Hale growled as he noted that the truck was going to miss the Jelly this time, so he accelerated down to intercept it before it could hit the city like the massive freaking bomb it probably was.
He caught up to the truck in an instant, slowing to match it, “You’re missed!”
The idiot in the cowboy had stopped his whooping and looked around, spotting the jelly off to the side slightly thought still below by a thousand feet or so, and let out a string of swearing in German before vanishing in a puff of smoke.
That put Hale back on his metaphorical heals by a bit, wondering what the hell he’d just seen.
That wasn’t a portal. Teleportation too? But if he was the portal maker, then why not just open another one and ‘re-aim’ the truck?
Hale had a bad feeling about this, but there was no time at the moment to really follow it through. He got under the truck and planted himself at the axes about midway up, then began to push.
As it had been when he tested his power, lifting was much easier in the air, like he was somehow making the object lighter rather than just picking it up the way he would when his feet were planted on the ground. It was still ungainly and difficult to balance, but he could easily manhandle this much around.
Maneuvering over the space jelly, something that bugged him to even think, Hale hefted the big beast of rig over his head as much as he could to clear his vision, then heaved it up and over until it was upside down and he was pushing it down.
The truck turned into a kinetic weapon as Hale went right up to the edge of supersonic and then heaved.
A condensation cone formed around him as the truck sped on itself, likely becoming the first tanker truck to go supersonic in history, slamming into the jelly with enough force to burst the tank and send liquid fuel spray in all directions like from a massive atomizer.
After that, all it took was a spark, of which there were plenty to go around.
Hale was blown backward by the blast from the largest improvised Fuel Air Explosive he’d ever heard of, a fireball the size of a small town lighting the sky for miles in every direction.
*****
The probe winced internally.
The heat from the flames was negligible, as it was designed to withstand significantly higher temperatures, but the sudden application of rather high levels of force across the entire dorsal section of its body was sufficient to cause significant internal damage.
It would self repair, but the ongoing cost of the current conflict was detrimental to the mission and would serve no further
point.
It began to accelerate away.
*****
Hale tapped his earpiece, amazing that the little thing was still intact and hanging on.
“Pierson,” The familiar voice responded instantly.
“It’s moving away, accelerating quickly.”
“Roger, we see it. The President is giving authorization to the blackbird pilots now,” She said, “They’re going to engage with air to air tactical nuclear weapons. Stay out of the way, Captain.”
Hale grimaced, “Roger that. Don’t plan on getting cooked today.”
“See that you don’t. Blackbird is inbound, Captain. You’ve done your job, let the air force do theirs.”
*****
“Codes acknowledged, weapon locks disengaged,” Brolin said by rote, trying not to think too hard about the fact that he was now sitting, more or less, on three live nuclear weapons.
It was one of those things that you didn’t bear on if you could help it, really.
Beakman was working behind him, “Target locked. We have heat and radar locks at the moment… oh boy do we have a heat lock.”
“Let’s hope it can’t go stealth, burning like that,” Brolin said, shaking his head slightly. “How much longer do you think the fires will last?”
“Not long,” Beakman said, “it’s climbing too fast, there’s not much oxygen to burn up here, but it’s also accelerating. Air friction is adding to the heat, so even with the fires going out, I’m registering a heat increase now that we have it locked on our scopes.”
“Roger,” Brolin said, “ETA to minimum safe engagement range?”
“Let it get another ten thousand feet between it and the city,” Beakman advised. “We’re within the technical safe range now, considering the payload of the AIM-26s, but I’d rather not take chances. We’re going to blow out windows all over the damn country, no matter how this plays you, you know that right?”
“Yeah well, let’s hope the brass are on the ball and warn people to stay away from glass.”
Beakman chuckled, “They’re supposed to, according to the briefing. With all the crap going down right now, though, I think people are either out in the streets or hunkering down with the lights off. Should be about as safe as possible.”
“I hope so,” Brolin said grimly. “Cause we’re about to light this sucker up.”
“Target locked, Colonel. Falcon is clear to launch.”
“Roger that,” Brolin said as he flipped the safety off the controls and eased him thumb over the red firing switch while opening a radio channel. “This is Striker One… Fox One.”
He pushed his thumb down on the switch, and the first AIM-26 missile dropped from the hastily added in-body launcher, into the night sky over Germany. It’s rocket motors screamed into action a few scant seconds later, and the nuclear tipped air to air missile roared away.
“Missile clear,” Brolin announced, “Cycle for the next shot.”
“Cycling.”
*****
The fire burning in the sky caused Pitr and Tessa to pause and just stare for a moment, admiring the sight.
“That’s impressive,” Pitr grinned.
Tessa nodded silently. “Nice shot.”
“Not really,” Malcolm said from behind them, making both jump as they’d not heard him appear.
“Don’t DO that, you ass!” Pitr snapped, clutching his chest.
“What do you mean, not really?” Tessa tensed, but was able to keep from similar antics on her part.
“We missed.”
The two looked from him, then back up to the burning thing in the sky, then back at him.
“Really,” He protested, “We did.”
“Then explain that?” Tessa pointed over her shoulder.
Malcolm shrugged, “Not sure. Probably the Marine decided to make use of the truck rather than let it hit the city?”
Pitr tilted his head, “Whatever. Close enough then.”
“Let’s try again,” Tessa said.
Pitr frowned, looking up at the jelly fish looking thing. “Not sure we can, it’s moving fast, and leaving the area. Hitting it with any real force would be just luck at this point.”
Tessa pouted again, “You mean it’s going to get away with wrecking my city…”
Pitr sighed, “I really don’t know what we could…”
He was cut off by a flash of light that caused the three of them to involuntarily twist away from the source while covering their eyes. The silence that seemed to follow it felt all kinds of wrong, and each of them slowly uncovered and turned in the direction of the fleeing target just in time for the thunderclap to smash through them and scatter them to the ground.
Glass exploded from windows nearby, cars began to scream as their anti-theft alarms went off. Pitr rolled over onto his back, jaw hanging low as he stared up at the fireball climbing into the sky in the distance, already blacking into a cloud that was masked by the night.
“Fuck-ing HELL,” He swore.
“What was that!?” Tessa screamed, hands over her ears.
“I think they just dropped a nuke on that damn thing!”
“What!?” Malcolm yelled.
Pitr shook himself, sitting up, and looked around with a hint of paranoia in his eyes. He grabbed his two comrades and dragged them along as he got to his feet and made a gesture to open a tear before pulling them through.
*****
Hale shuddered as the shockwave rolled over him, but it wasn’t too hard to deal with at the current range. He felt worse when he went hypersonic, though the heat flash was… different. His BDUs were already seared pretty bad, but the smoke rising from them had an acrid smell that bothered him.
Note to self, see if I can find tougher BDUs somehow, He thought.
It would be a tradeoff, he supposed. Quality versus price, and there were functional limits to what any clothes could take, but maybe he could do a bit better.
The fireball was already fading, being consumed by the smoke as he flew into the blast zone. Hale hoped that he was immune to the effects of radiation as well as he could handle heat and other things, but it was a risk he was going to take one way or another.
Have to make sure that damn thing is down.
Hale angled to go up and slightly over and around the nuke flash, eyes peeled for the target. He wanted eyes on to make sure it was finished, he had to see it for himself. That thing had been in his dreams since Hong Kong, and he wanted to see it burn.
Metaphorically, of course, Hale thought with a smirk, since he’d already seen it burn literally.
The fire was all but consumed by the smoke by that point, and Hale was pushing to Hypersonic speeds to get a better vantage point. In the corner of his eye he could see the vague hint of the SR-71’s thrust as it vectored around as well, presumably looking for the same confirmation.
Where are you… Come on… let me see you, you sucker…
*****
USSOCOM Bunker, Virginia
“Target struck. Striker One can you confirm target destroyed?”
The interior of the operations room was silent as everyone listened for the response. The detonation of the nuclear weapon over German airspace was a risky maneuver, at the best of times, one that the German and EU governments hadn’t exactly been eager about allowing for obvious reasons. Only the fact that they had a giant alien floating over Berlin and actually torching the place had actually gotten them to give in.
Pierson suspected that no one told them that the mission was going to go through whether they agreed or not, but it was nice that someone had freaked out enough to allow it.
Technically it fell under the NATO doctrines, some obscure phrasing in the treaty allowed the move as part of defending their allies and all that, but politically it was still going to be a hot potato no matter what the fallout.
Speaking of which…
“How dirty is that?” Pierson asked softly as they waited.
“It’s an airburst,” The Air Force
general responded in a matching tone, “and a clean one, so the answer is not very. For anything more, you’d need to talk to the experts, but as I understand it, no one in the region is going to be exposed to much more than a few X-Rays worth of rads. If we’d had to detonate on the ground, that would be different, though it would be more contained. They’re going to be picking glass out of stuff for dozens of miles.”
Pierson grimaced, having been briefed on that.
At the height of the cold war, PSA videos had been made about nuclear explosions, specifically for school children. In them, they’d been advised that they should, in the event of a nuclear detonation, hide under the desks. Over the decades since it had become a running joke, often used by comedians in various standups, that people were so stupid as to think they could hide from a nuclear fireball by hiding under a wooden desk.
She knew, as did the people who produced those PSAs, that it wasn’t the fireball that was the issue. If you were that close, you wouldn’t have time to hide. It was game over. The risk for people farther out was in seeing a flash through the window and walking over to see what had happened, just in time for the blast wave to blow shards of glass in your face.
The difference between the speed of light, and the speed of sound, could be lethal.
I hope we didn’t just hurt too many people with that attack.
*****
Chapter 15
Germany
The probe was moving to leave the area somewhat quicker than it had been.
That attack had caused significant damage. Not so much from the heat or radiation, which were significant but well under what might be encountered in various regions beyond the protection of the planet’s magnetic field.
No, it was the shockwave that had damaged internal components quite severely, leading the probe to begin a withdrawal in earnest as it were.
Protocols were implemented, the final phase had yet to be launched despite clearance, and now there was no more time to fine tune the last details of the plan. The probe accelerated production of the final piece even as it began to move far quicker to a higher altitude.
