by Bob Mayer
Of course that did nothing about the Tridents already at sea on station, an oversight the Captain had only brought up once with his superior before being told it was above his pay grade to worry about such things.
“The President suspects the Americans are behind the aliens,” Vladimir said. “It is logical after what happened at their Area 51 and on Mars and the rest. Since our Section IV was essentially wiped out, the President thinks their Majestic committee might be behind a lot of what has happened.”
“Did you see the image of that spaceship?” the Captain asked. “You think the Americans built that?”
“I don’t,” Vladimir said, “but that was my orders. To arm and target.”
“But not to fire?”
Vladimir looked away again. “That wasn’t specified.” He looked back at the Captain. “Perhaps we can retarget it against the aliens? That is why we must know what is going on.”
“They were in the sky, last we knew.” The Captain closed his eyes and muttered a silent prayer for patience. “Are you mad?”
“I follow orders,” Vladimir said.
The Captain checked his watch. “We only have six days before it detonates.”
“You are slightly off,” Vladimir said. “I armed as we went to the bottom. We have one hundred and forty hours before Poseidon erupts.”
MIDTOWN, MANHATTAN
The Assassin wore night vision goggles and moved wraith-like through a deserted and dark Times Square, assault rifle at the ready. She wore black pants and shirt, with body armor and a fully loaded combat vest over the armor. Her boots made no noise as she moved slowly, sure-footed, through the Disney-themed modern version of what used to be the anus of New York City. Except all the lights were off and Mickey, and the rest of the people, were either gone or hiding.
She glanced up at the alien warships overhead. Nothing since the EMP. She’d known what that was right away. The goggles had been in her specially lined locker, shielded from such an event, along with the rest of her electrical gear.
There were fires here and there, some small, some large. Several blocks north, on Broadway, a huge bonfire was surrounded by a large crowd. Lots of alcohol and drugs were being consumed and the Assassin knew that group would devolve into something very ugly before morning. There were fires up in some of the skyscrapers.
No firefighters were attempting to put the blazes out. No police either. She’d picked up chatter on the scanner before everything went dark. The police, fire and even sanitation workers were banding together. Picking spots in neighborhoods to bring their families. Garbage trucks blocked the streets. Armed police guarded the perimeters, joined by other blue collar workers. Those that weren’t skedaddling far out of the city. None of those enclaves were in Manhattan.
Most people had evacuated. Given the EMP, the Assassin imagined that the roads out of the city were now huge parking lots full of panicked people.
She was coming from her basement apartment in a brownstone in Tribeca. Her base of operations while in New York City. She regretted not having left after her last job, but it is what it is and her profession had taught her to work with what is; not what she wished it would be. She’d been making her way uptown since darkness descended.
What bothered her was that she had a feeling the ships overhead could see her. Not just her. Everyone. Why were they waiting? What was next?
The Assassin dropped to a knee and aimed as movement to the left caught her attention. Several hooded figures outside the police substation. The sound of glass breaking.
The Assassin nodded. They were looking for weapons. Smarter than most of the looters she’d passed. The people trying to get into ATMs, as if money was going to matter now. Breaking into jewelry stores. She’d heard screams, but tuned them out.
Everyone was on their own.
Still, it was all a lot less than one would have expected in Manhattan.
The Assassin didn’t know why the ships were stationery. She had no clue what was next, but she had no doubt it was going to be bad. There was a method to this and from her limited observations, she likened it to Operation Overlord, the largest invasion humans had ever mounted. There was always a plan to such a large endeavor. Stages of preparation and then stages in the actual conduct of the invasion. Given the size of the Core, she had no doubt about the inevitable outcome of the invasion.
She continued, leaving the looters to their task. Bryant Park was to the right. There was a large fire in the park, the silhouettes of dozens of people gathered round it. Someone was yelling, preaching, whatever, the crowd listening. The Assassin went to the far side of the street. Past Starbucks. Jerry’s Best Pizza. Jamba Juice. She paused at Fifth Avenue. Scanned left and right. Remembered the Ranger instructors at Fort Benning beating into the students how to cross a danger area. Except they hadn’t warned her that her most dangerous area was her fellow male students as she had tried to be the first woman to graduate that school.
Memories weren’t good. Memories took away from mission. She shook off that time in her life. Sprinted across Fifth Avenue. Across Madison. She scanned the Park Avenue Bridge over Forty-Second leading to Grand Central. A good spot for an ambush.
Nothing moving.
The Assassin moved on. Under the bridge. Across Lexington Avenue. Past the Chrysler Building. She cut through an alley she knew of, ignoring the stinking garbage that hadn’t been collected. She went one block north to 43rd. Across 3rd Avenue, then one more block north along 3rd.
The corner of 2nd and 44th. She took her time, checking the area. Up and down every building via night vision. Some flickering lights here and there: candles or flashlights indicating where people huddled. The fools who didn’t know better and didn’t have their windows covered. The Assassin could feel the presence of thousands of people all around, hiding in the dark. Hoping, praying, but not acting.
They wouldn’t have passed Ranger School.
Throughout the previous day the bridges and tunnels had been packed with outbound. The cars and trucks and busses and trains and planes had all stopped with the EMP. The Assassin had watched three planes go down, one into the Hudson, two others into Manhattan. The sounds of the impacts must have brought back bad memories of 9-11 to some New Yorkers.
But this was worse.
The Assassin sprinted across 4th to the brownstone. The door was unlocked. Maybe she’d gotten out?
The Assassin checked the nanny’s bedroom first. No one.
Back in the hallway. The door to the next bedroom was locked. She slung her rifle, took out her lockset and picked the door. Drew her pistol just in case. Edged the door open. “Hello?”
No noise. The Assassin slid inside. A little girl’s room. Frozen décor bed. She stared at that for a moment, then shook off another bad memory. No sign of the occupant.
But the door had been locked from the inside.
The Assassin holstered the pistol. Got on her knees and crawled over to the bed. Leaned over and raised the dust ruffle.
“Hello, Marly. I’m a friend of your father’s. I’m here to take care of you.”
Two large, frightened eyes stared back. “My father’s dead. He jumped out of the window.”
“I know,” the Assassin said, “but he made me promise to take care of you if something bad happened. I’m sorry it took me so long to get here.”
“It’s dark out,” Marly said.
The Assassin broke procedure by pulling out her small red-lensed flashlight and turning it on, figuring it couldn’t be seen through the window. “It’s not dark any more, is it?”
MARFA, TEXAS
“They filmed Giant in here,” Darlene said from the doorway to the café. “Rock Hudson and Elizabeth Taylor were in the very booth you’re sitting in.”
The pilot scrambled to draw the pistol from his shoulder holster. He wore a flight suit, a bit worse for wear.
“Easy there, cowboy,” Darlene said, stepping inside. “I’m a friend. Looks like the folks in town skedaddled, don�
��t it?” Rex was at her side, hackles raised.
The pilot tried to get to his feet, but he was favoring one leg. “Who are you?”
Darlene pulled out a new pack of cigarettes. “I always wanted to smoke in here.” She fired it up. “Want one?”
The pilot shook his head.
“Saw your chopper outside town,” Darlene said. “Looks like you had a rough landing. Hurt your leg?”
“I think my ankle’s broken,” the pilot said. He looked worse than a broken ankle. His eyes were red and his nose running.
“Can you stand on it?”
The pilot put his weight on the leg, grimaced in pain.
“Aint broken if you can stand on it,” Darlene said. “Just a bad sprain is all. You been sitting here all alone in the dark. That’s a shame.” She walked to the booth, Rex trailing. “Could have lit the candle.” She proceeded to do that. “I work here. Used to work here.”
The pilot made a half-gesture as if to stop her, then relented. He slumped back into the booth.
Darlene sat on the other side. She looked him over. “You’re young to be flying a helicopter. What are you? Twenty?” Rex lay down on the tile floor, putting his head on her foot.
“Twenty-eight.”
“Good genes, then,” Darlene said. “My mama said looks aint everything but they count. Bobby, now, my supposed fiancée, he’s good looking. But dumb as a rock. Of course, he thinks he’s my fiancée but he aint gotten me no ring and he thinks I said yes, but I didn’t. I just needed a place to stay. Nearby. My mama also said you can fuck dumb, but don’t marry dumb, so I don’t think I’ll be marrying him now, not that I was gonna anyways. He was just a tool.” She jerked her thumb toward the ceiling. “With recent developments, it seems making any sort of commitment would be kind of temporary. Plus, the trailer’s gone.”
The pilot was staring at her in semi-shock. “What?”
“You got any idea why they’re just hanging up there? The aliens, I mean.”
The pilot shook his head. “No clue, unless its because they’re waiting on their virus.”
Darlene frowned. “What virus?”
“Lots of people getting sick,” the pilot said. “Some kind of bug going round.”
“Really?” Darlene found that morbidly funny. “You mean other than the Swarm?”
“Something. Started in the cities. Some people have died. Most think it comes from the aliens. Biological warfare. Sprayed by those small ships that swept by the other day. Kill us all and then land and take whatever it is they’ve come for.”
“And what’s that?” Darlene asked.
The pilot shrugged. “No clue.”
“Second time you said that,” Darlene noted. “The Air Force shot one of the small ones down yesterday. Damn thing crashed into our trailer. I mean what were the odds? Bad luck. Good luck we was outside.” Darlene waited for him to respond, but nothing. “You all right? You look sick? You got this here virus?”
“I don’t know,” the pilot said.
“Hmm.” Darlene moved on. “They also filmed part of No Country for Old Men here.” Darlene indicated the street. “We’re a regular Texas Hollywood.” She shifted gears. “You were flying low, looking for something on the ground, but the aliens are up there. What gives?”
“Looking for survivors.”
“Of what?” Darlene said. “Those many-eyed bastards aint even attacked yet. You was looking for something else, wasn’t you?”
“Who are you?” the pilot asked.
“Excuse my manners.” She extended her hand across the table. “Darlene. Pleased to make your acquaintance.”
The pilot reached across and took her hand. “I’m—“ he didn’t get to finish as Darlene jerked his hand toward her, pulling him half across the table. She slammed the dagger in her other hand into his neck.
Blood spurted and his eyes widened in shock. He tried to speak, but the dagger prevented that. Darlene twisted the blade, ripping open the wound, then jerked it out. The pilot slumped back in the booth, blood spurting onto the small metal placard indicating that this was, indeed, the booth Rock Hudson and Elizabeth Taylor had sat in during the filming of Giant.
The pilot was still trying to talk. Darlene dropped the dagger onto the table, reached across, pulled the zipper down on his flight suit, slid her hand inside the blood-drenched outfit and pulled out a medallion hanging on a chain. She snatched it, breaking the chain.
“Myrddin,” she said, seeing the eye inside a triangle engraved on it. Her Texas drawl was gone. “Mrs. Parrish was prepared for every possibility, wasn’t she? Except we were too.”
The pilot’s head slammed forward onto the table, but he didn’t feel it.
Darlene stripped, stuffed her clothes in the washer in the back and began washing herself off, using bottles of sanitizer.
FORT HOOD, TEXAS
The scouts had returned and reported to First Sergeant Donovan. The attack from the Core had been worse than it appeared. Not only was battalion headquarters gone, several other nearby units had either been obliterated or had disappeared.
The units they found weren’t inclined to group together, feeling their best shot was staying where they were. They had also experienced a large number of desertions as soldiers went to take care of their families in this most dire time.
But there was one valuable addition one scout vehicle brought back: two orphaned M6 Linebackers. These were Bradley fighting vehicles modified for air defense. They had an upgraded auto-cannon, 30 mm, loaded with airburst rounds. Instead of TOW missiles, they had a launcher that could hold four Stinger antiaircraft missiles at a time.
Given the aliens were overhead, Donovan welcomed this new addition to his dwindling command. He positioned them inside the circular defense he’d established.
AREA 51
Turcotte barely felt the implant. It could be because he was used to it, it was putting out less power, or being focused took his mind away from the pain. He was back in the Fynbar, reading one of the numerous documents that had been loaded on the ka Lisa Duncan had left for him.
He didn’t quite remember his foolish attempt to remove the implant with his knife. Momentary derangement? Subconscious self-preservation against a foreign body? Losing his mind? Or was it already lost?
This document was a summary regarding the Swarm, an appropriate subject at the moment. Where it came from originally was pure conjecture; perhaps Duncan and her partner, Gwalcmai had uncovered it during their ten millennia battle against the Airlia here on Earth. Or maybe it came with them from their home world? Or perhaps it was scavenged from the database on the Airlia mothership that had transported the two of them and other teams from that world to other human worlds?
Where it came from didn’t matter. It was obviously of Airlia origin. The key is what it contained:
No Airlia has ever seen what controls a Battle Core, since none has ever been destroyed or captured. We believe there is something deep inside, something more than just an individual Swarm. Something that controls the ship and the individual Swarm.
While individual Swarm can operate independently as indicated by encounters with scout ships, it is the best estimate of scientists that the Swarm has some form of collective consciousness.
For a very long time we have battled the Swarm as we would other intelligent species, searching for its home world to destroy. Kill the roots. After all, the greatest secret in the Airlia Empire is the location of our home world.
That strategy doesn’t work with the Swarm. Perhaps there is a Swarm home world. Perhaps it was destroyed long ago. No one knows. But with self-sufficient ships like the Core, it doesn’t matter. We finally gave up on that tactic, facing the daunting task of staying away from the Swarm by expanding our Empire, while trying to inflict as much damage as possible whenever there was an encounter.
Ultimately, the cost of an engagement with a Battle Core has never been worth the losses incurred.
We believe that whatever their origins,
the Swarm are now a space-bound race.
The best estimate of the astrobiologists is that the Swarm is a race of parasites. It attacks Scale wherever it finds it. No Scale has ever communicated with the Swarm, never mind negotiated. It consumes all, then moves on. There doesn’t appear to be a pattern to it or a plan.
Each Core operates independently. We have no idea how many Cores there are or how widespread.
Why the Swarm attacks Scale life is a matter of conjecture. The strongest probability is that the Swarm might be a doomsday weapon invented by some ancient Scale. It was deployed and turned on its creators or perhaps the creators had already been destroyed. There is, of course, the possibility the Swarm evolved as Scale into its present form. Nature has a way of evening things out and the Swarm might be a natural evolution.
In a good news/bad news paradigm, the Battle Cores appear to have no overall strategy, no systematic design of conquest. They always operate alone. No Swarm fleet has even been encountered.
While this seems inefficient it also means that the Swarm has never concentrated all its forces in one place, nor can the moves of individual Battle Cores be anticipated. It’s hard to develop a strategy to counter an enemy who doesn’t seem to have one. Which, in its essence, is an effective strategy given the Swarm’s goal, which is to obliterate Scale.
The Airlia have never destroyed a Battle Core. No matter how many motherships and talons we deploy at one. Three times over the millennia we have managed to muster a fleet of sufficient strength to damage a Core so severely that each time it retreated and disappeared via FTLT.
A temporary victory in an unending war.
