by Jeff Abugov
“Of course, Mr. President,” answered the Colonel.
“And we have no idea how the aliens found out about it?”
“We’re still working on that, sir,” said the Captain-with-the-scar.
“Then however the damn bugs did what they did, they’d just do the same damn thing all over again,” he said with certainty. “Mission failed. Onto the next.”
(The Alien Commander had ascribed only a twenty-three percent likelihood that the tenacious Earth leaders would make this correct decision. Had Peyton ordered new factories to try again, alien moles would have once again blown them to bits, along with the hundreds of human people who worked there.)
How the hell do I play this? Peyton wondered.
He knew that the alien forces slightly outnumbered his own, but not by enough for it to be consequential if he could come up with the right strategy. His civilian volunteer rate had been outstanding as even dovish antiwar protesters of conflicts past showed up to help the cause, but unable to spare even one able-bodied soldier to train them, the task had fallen to veterans of World War II and Korea. The sight of eighty- and ninety-year-old drill sergeants screaming their abuses while leaning on walkers would have been comical if there hadn’t been so much at stake. Peyton didn’t assume that the new recruits would be ready for battle any time soon.
So how do I play this? the General asked himself again.
He had learned long ago that the best way to defeat an enemy is to figure out how they think. Every move the aliens had made so far had been precise, deliberate, and impeccably planned, which told him much about their character.
After mowing down every living soul on the Keys to arrive on the mainland, the bugs had spread their troops across the state as they continued their systematic killing spree north. But once the Florida evacuation had been completed, the bugs reconvened into one single, immense fighting force and headed straight toward the human camp in Jacksonville. This told Peyton much about their strategy and goals.
There are two basic approaches to battle, Peyton knew, be it a world war or a drunken bar fight or anything in between. The first, the most common, is to attack your enemy’s weakness to gain a quick and early advantage. The second, far less common yet extolled by many mythical martial-arts guru-priests, is to attack your enemy’s strength. Riskier perhaps, more time consuming definitely—but once you’ve taken away your enemy’s strength, the rest is a cakewalk. It was clear to Peyton that this was the tactic his new enemy had chosen.
But that was all he had. The autopsy of the alien spy who had killed Michael turned up nothing of military usefulness, although the biologists gleefully reported that they’d be filling the annals of scientific journals for years to come.
And those assigned to study the aliens’ human-skin costume didn’t even know where to start. Based on all science, practical or theoretical, it was impossible—yet there it was before them. A marvel of technology beyond anything they had ever seen, they claimed it a perfect synthesis of biology and electronics. Despite the vast difference between the human frame and the insect exoskeleton, the skin seamlessly wrapped around its subject, stretching or contracting wherever needed, filling in every insect cavity while creating every human contour. On a molecular level, it was completely human down to the last cell, fat deposit and zit. It breathed, lived, and even aged whether the subject was wearing it or not. And most startling of all, it somehow masked the insect interior under scrutiny of X-ray, MRI, or CT scan, displaying instead a perfectly accurate image of human anatomy (the health of which being dependent on the character of the wearer.)
Of course, none of this helped Peyton one lick.
There was so much the former general still didn’t understand about his new enemy. It was obvious why they had denied him air-strike capability, but he couldn’t for the life of him fathom why they had no warplanes of their own, given their obvious technological superiority. A handful of strategic bombers could take out his entire army within days, so why were the damn bugs doing it the hard way?
Then a thought occurred to him, something Jean-François had mentioned to him when they had first met, something that seemed so trivial at the time.
He turned to the astrophysicist who he had been keeping by his side as the resident expert on all things alien—a role in which Jean-François did not feel at all comfortable. “You said they want to keep all our infrastructure intact, didn’t you?”
“Well, that’s what Raymond—er—the alien who killed the President—er—the other President—President Addison—said. That they want them intact, yes sir.”
“And if that’s true,” Peyton continued slowly, rubbing his chin as he hatched his plan. “And given their m.o. so far there’s no reason to believe it isn’t—then they won’t attack us by air either. If you attack by air, you destroy infrastructure. It’s unavoidable.” Another brief silence followed, then Peyton sprung up from his chair smiling ear-to-ear and clapped his hands once.
“Okay, boys and girls, we got ourselves a ground war!”
“Yes sir!”
“Or do we?” said the Commander in Chief with a mischievous grin as he crossed to the three-dimensional map.
“Sir?”
Peyton picked up the pointer and laid it all out for them.
“Right down here in Southpoint, in and around this intersection of Southpoint Parkway and Bellfort Road. I want thirty snipers on top of buildings here, here, and here, with enough supplies and explosives to last a month—I’m talking the heavy-duty stuff—cannons, mortar, artillery—and I want the artillery rigged to fire downward not up. Can artillery be rigged like that?”
“In theory, sir, aye,” said Major Shaughnessy. “But it’ll take weeks.”
“You got twelve hours,” Peyton insisted, then returned to the map. “Then we do the same thing in this area, this area, this one, and here. As the enemy advances, our snipers lay low, quiet, unseen. We let the enemy march right on past them, a good quarter mile. Meanwhile, the bulk of our troops are positioned along this street, this street, and this one, then here, here, and here. We draw those bugs right to us, right into the ground war they’ve been begging us for, the ground war they’ve been forcing us into since the day they got here. We give them exactly what they expect with our ground troops blasting at them from the front—and then we rain the wrath of God down upon their scaly butts from the rear. And if we need to destroy a high-rise or two in the process, let’s do it just to tick the buggers off. Any questions?”
It was all very clear, and very clever. Everyone shook their heads quietly as they did their best to suppress their smiles. Their General was back.
“Good,” said Peyton. “Now let’s get this party started.”
CHAPTER TWENTY
By early the next morning before the crack of dawn, the specific missions had been worked out and orders had been issued down through the ranks. Weapons had been dispersed, command posts established, and the troops were marching across the Main Street Bridge to Southpoint. The enemy was estimated at two hours away.
They may not have been the best-trained, best-conditioned or best-equipped military that the United States had ever sent into battle, but this motley crew of thousands was by far the most motivated. For every soldier knew to the depths of their souls that they weren’t fighting for a mere piece of land, a political ideology or even an abstract God that they took on faith, they were fighting for the very survival of their species.
Even Johnny was catching the gung ho fever. He sat in the pilot’s seat of the Bell 407 that had been assigned him—one of the many helicopters that the Army had commandeered from local TV stations, each one gutted of its equipment and seats (save the pilot’s) to create additional cargo space, the doors on both sides removed for weight. Having memorized the emergency-procedures checklist earlier that morning, he continued to study the overheard and main instrument panels to better familiarize himself with his new aircraft. But the energy and activity that whizzed all around was not lost on him, and he co
uldn’t help but be inspired.
The incident be damned, he thought. It’s a new world—maybe it’s a new army too—and he wanted to be a part of it.
It seemed that it wasn’t only his rank that had been returned to him with his pardon, he was realizing, but his belief in his fellow man as well.
His mission was to transport more than three months’ worth of supplies and ammo that the rooftop snipers would need for what was expected to be a long, drawn-out battle—this next drop being his ninth of nine, his last for the day. The thinking was that once the fighting started it would be difficult to get any air support close enough to restock anything—the aliens having proven themselves quite adept at shooting down helicopters in the sky.
Although most of the snipers had begun their march across the city while it was still dark, a few had been ordered to remain back and help with the loading and unloading. Harve and Frank had been assigned to Johnny’s aircraft, as were Sergeant Sanchez and her kid brother.
“We don’t have to be in the same squad all the time, Anita,” said the eighteen-year-old as the siblings shoved wooden crates into the helicopter’s newly enlarged cargo space. “I don’t want the others to think I need my big sister to take care of me.”
“But it’s my job to take care of you, chico,” she told him with a smile. “Before we left, Mama made me promise to keep you safe.”
“Well, she made me promise to keep you safe.”
“But unlike you, I always keep my promises to Mama.”
Johnny laughed. He was glad that Sanchez had been assigned to him. Although they hadn’t officially met yet, he couldn’t help overhearing her conversation with her brother and found her to have a sharp wit, a good heart, attitude up the wazoo, and most importantly, she was ridiculously hot.
Harve he could have done without.
“All right, we’re at max takeoff weight!” the Sergeant shouted. “Start ’er up!”
Johnny whipped through the pre-start, twisted the throttle to idle, and hit the starter switch. The 407 fired right up, and he was reminded for the ninth time that day how much he had always loved the sound. Batabatabata. He was home.
Harve quickly ushered the other three into the aircraft. First Frank, then Miguel, then Sanchez.
“Heya gorgeous!” Johnny shouted over the whirring rotors. “Need a ride?”
“Yes sir!” Sanchez shouted back, ignoring the blatant come-on, merely looking forward to kicking some alien ass.
“You can call me Johnny.”
“Oh for Pete’s sake!” Harve shouted as he made his way inside. “We gotta get these supplies moving! Fly, you imbecile!”
“That’s ‘fly you imbecile, sir’!” Johnny corrected.
And with that, he steadied the cyclic and pulled up on the collective, easing the 407 up to the sky and then south into history.
*****
Every monitor on every wall in the WTLV control room showed a different part of Southpoint where the pending battle was to take place. Army and Navy officers sat at the consoles switching cameras and adjusting angles and zoom while the screens displayed Major Shaughnessy’s battalions moving south, and the alien army marching north directly towards them.
“We live in a very ‘camera’d’ time, Mr. President,” Lance explained as he led Peyton through the small Northbank television studio. “Banks, small businesses, hotels, all have their own security systems inside and out. It was just a matter of figuring out how to hack into them all and render them one cohesive system.”
“Who are you again?” Peyton asked the young man.
“I’m Lance,” he answered then gestured to Jean-François. “I’m with him.”
“You told me to put together my team, Mr. President,” Jean-François explained. “Lance is my team. He is one of the most brilliant computer programmers alive today. He may not seem it, but he’s very smart.”
“I seem smart,” Lance muttered, hurt.
“Well good work, son,” Peyton said, adding with a chuckle. “I’ve never led a war from a TV studio before.”
“Mr. President,” interrupted the Canadian Lieutenant at the console. “The soldiers have arrived at their locations and are moving into position.”
“This is getting exciting,” Peyton said as he jumped into the director’s seat.
And just as the snipers headed into the stairwells and elevators of their assigned buildings, all the monitors blinked twice then faded to black.
“This is impossible,” Lance said in nervous dismay. “My systems don’t crash.”
*****
The Alien Commander did not feel bad for the genocide that he had begun. It was the correct, logical, even “humane” thing to do.
As he led his ten thousand troops north toward battle, he reflected upon the millennia in which his species had had to live inside their metallic vessel in space. He imagined the original ancestors who began the journey shortly before their home planet’s sun went nova, and how proud they would be that he fulfilled their dream.
Era upon era, ancestors had scoured the galaxy to find a life-sustainable planet, but it was a difficult, often hope-crushing endeavor. There was no science behind it, no patterns to follow—it was simply a matter of trial and error, a one-planet-at-a-time search, a terribly frustrating process for the ultra-logical insects.
But in time, not too long before the Commander’s birth, three prospects were discovered. Each one had a dominant life form that would have to be exterminated, but there was something particularly special about Earth.
It was already built up. It was, in the parlance of its own people, “move-in ready.” The dominant life forms on the other life-sustaining planets were still in a primitive phase, their continents lacking anything resembling a city. It would take decades for the Vessel Dwellers to cover those planets with homes and offices, bridges and roads and airports—all the things that make a world comfortable enough to live on—decades during which the bulk of them would need to remain on their vessel in space. And it would take thousands of years more for any of those new constructions to achieve the romance that comes with decay—like the Earth’s own Parthenon and Coliseum that the Commander was looking forward to visiting.
Consequently, the Vessel Dweller’s ultra-powerful weapons would need to be modified for battle on Earth. Time-space armaments, with their infinite range and perpetual velocity, would be highly inefficient on a planet whose structures one wants to preserve, as well as dangerous for the Dweller soldiers themselves. A soldier in Florida could, hypothetically, fire a beam into and through his human enemy that could continue onward into his own Dweller comrade miles away, through him and onward to blast through the Liberty Bell in Philadelphia, onward from there to destroy the Empire State Building in New York, onward to cause an avalanche in the Arctic Circle, and then off into space to do who knows what. So it was decided that their weapons would be redesigned with a maximum range of one kilometer if unobstructed, and would stop cold upon contact with anything thirteen centimeters in depth—roughly the size of the average adult human chest.
Of course, the notion of peaceful coexistence with these highly skilled builders of buildings had been discussed—the Commander himself as a young teen in training had aptly broached the very topic with his instructors (his liberal phase). If nothing else, he had told them, it would be much easier.
But as he continued his studies, he came to see that humans are a naturally fearful and suspicious species. Even amongst their own kind they are distrustful of all those they view as different, while possessing a deep-seated need to consider themselves superior to their brothers. Any attempts at peaceful immigration could render only one of two possible outcomes: (1) the Vessel Dwellers would be greeted with immediate hostility and violence, resulting in a war for which they had not prepared, or (2) the Earth leaders would greet them with open arms and full immigration, but the Earth people would never truly accept them. In a short time, the Vessel Dwellers would find themselves in a kind of second
-class citizenry, if not full-out slavery. It would be a status they would never accept, the result being a messy, disorganized civil war that would take decades upon decades to resolve, with much death on both sides and massive damage to all those beautiful buildings.
All Earth movies, television, literature and art pointed to war, and not one of the thousands of spies he had sent to Earth ever found evidence to deny it.
Far better to take the time to plan carefully, move in swiftly in an efficient, organized manner, and rid the planet of them all within eighteen months.
Besides, with what the Earth people were doing to their atmosphere, the planet would be unlivable for them in less than a century anyway.
He was doing them a favor.
*****
Harve always grew a little sullen before battle, and it was no different this time as he was flown over the breathtaking sprawl of the city of Jacksonville. It was just his way. Not a Chatty Cathy to begin with, his mind was drawn to his God, his parents, his high school football team, a future life with a handsome woman and many children—all the things for which he’d be fighting and possibly dying.
He knew that others had different ways of preparing themselves for the dangers ahead. His good buddy Frank would mumble the multiplication table over and over, like a prayer or mantra, and often incorrectly. “Six times eight is forty-six, six times nine is forty-six.” It was weird and a little sad, true, but Frank had more than proven himself to be a good soldier and loyal friend, so what did it matter?
“Don’t worry, chico,” Sanchez told her younger brother. “I’ll be right by your side the whole time. I won’t let Mama down.”
“Will you stop?!” Miguel told his big sister in his loudest possible whisper.
Poor kid, thought Harve as he chuckled internally. How embarrassing.
“So you got any plans for after the battle?” Johnny asked the Latina Sergeant.
“Yeah,” she shot back. “Going to bed till they send me into the next one.”
