They rumbled over the bridge, which had been secured at both ends by pod people and a handful of alien troops. The Colonel shivered as he saw their inhuman form, their red eyes glinting in the darkness. There hadn’t been much time to examine the alien defector – and alien bodies always exploded, vaporising the remains – but the doctors had noted that the Snakes probably had better night vision than humans. On the other side, the defector wasn't actually as strong as a well-trained human soldier, suggesting that if they came down to hand-to-hand fighting, humanity would have the advantage. The defector had noted that if they did fight, the aliens wouldn't hesitate to use teeth as well as their limbs. He’d even admitted that the Snakes had a form of ritual combat that could be adapted to fight humans.
The Colonel wasn't particularly surprised. He’d never believed that the Snakes were peaceful, or even that they had never been a violent race. Evolution was a harsh process; Mother Nature was red in tooth and claw. The Snakes would have had to come out fighting, just as humanity had tamed and beaten the lions and tigers and other creatures that had hunted man in the darkness, away from the campfires. They’d done so well that many threats had been rendered extinct. The Colonel sometimes wondered if humans drove so many creatures to the brink of the abyss because, deep inside, they feared them. And if humans felt that way, why should the Snakes be any different?
He straightened up as they approached the gates of Andrews AFB. The soldiers who had once guarded the gates had been replaced by pod people, according to the reports. If the reports were wrong...the Colonel winced as he realised that there were alien troops as well, watching the humans from a safe distance. He hoped that the destruct devices they planted in their own bodies were deactivated; surely, they wouldn't want to lose one Snake and see the others killed in a chain reaction. Or maybe they wouldn’t care. They weren't human, after all; maybe they considered themselves expendable. And he knew that humans had sometimes considered their own people less than human, expendable...
The pod people didn't look particularly alert. Andrews was heavily guarded, after all; the insurgents had generally left the base alone. The Colonel held up the papers and passed them to the soldier, knowing that he might have to kill the man in order to save the rest of America. The pod people had sworn the same oath the Colonel had sworn, but their ability to think for themselves had been stolen by the Snakes. He would have preferred to fight out and out collaborators. Or even the Snakes themselves.
“You may proceed,” the soldier said, finally.
The gates rumbled open, revealing the lane into the base...towards Air Force One and the Snake shuttle, sitting on the runway. For a moment, the Colonel was awed, and then he remembered himself. They were right at the heart of enemy territory, awaiting their moment to strike. He reached for his cell phone, tapped a number into it from memory, and then sent a blank text message. The strike force would be prepared, now. And then they’d come up shooting.
He jumped out of the cab as the truck ground to a halt and waved to his men. They leapt out, forming a protective cordon around McGreevy’s vehicle. The bitch who thought she was President would be safe for a few moments longer. The Colonel glanced over at the aliens, who seemed disinterested in the humans. Perhaps they no longer cared about McGreevy.
A second later, the shit hit the fan.
Chapter Forty-One
Washington DC
USA, Day 73
“Fire,” Mathew ordered.
It had taken hours to slip the assault force close to Andrews. The aliens had been on the watch for insurgents and even the SEALs had felt their skills tested to the limit. A handful of collaborator uniforms and access papers had allowed others to get close to the base, but they’d been very limited in what they could carry with them. The aliens had refused their collaborators anything heavier than their M16s, which was helpful for the resistance, but less useful for attacking Andrews ABF. They’d had to break down the mortars and carry them in to the right position.
The seven mortars fired as one, launching shells towards the base. They came down on top of the guardpost, one of them landing right on top of an alien position. Thankfully, as Mathew had prayed, there was no massive explosion vaporising the alien bodies. The aliens clearly had no interest in seeing their troops destroyed by their own weapons. They’d punish the attack on their soldiers if they had time...Mathew pushed the thought aside and barked orders. The snipers opened fire, targeting every enemy – human or alien – they could see. Meanwhile, the Mortar teams fired a second salvo and then scrambled to shift position. The enemy might have been surprised, but they’d recover...and then they’d track the shells back to their point of origin and target it for destruction. If the US could – and did – take out enemy positions with counter-battery fire, why couldn't the aliens?
He advanced forward, trusting his men to know what they were doing. The alien collaborators were clearly trying to get armoured vehicles out to drive away the insurgents. It wasn't such a bad idea, except Mathew and his men had brought Javelin antitank weapons to the party. The moment they came out into the open, they’d die. Mathew regretted the deaths of the pod people – they had no choice, but to serve the aliens – but he would have no hesitation about terminating as many collaborators as possible. They all deserved to die.
And they had no idea that Mathew’s attack, as violent and unexpected as it was, was really nothing more than the diversion. All he had to do was keep them focused on him for as long as possible...
“Incoming helicopters,” one of his men bellowed. In the lightening sky, two helicopters could be seen, swooping down towards the insurgent positions. Mathew had called in fire from Apache helicopters before, back when he’d been in Afghanistan. Being on the receiving end was not fun. On the other hand, he did have better antiaircraft weapons than the Taliban had ever dreamed of having. “Sir...”
“Break out the Stingers,” Mathew ordered. “Take them both down.”
The helicopters had barely opened fire when the Stingers were launched. One helicopter didn't recognise the threat until the missile had slammed into its underbelly and blown it into a colossal fireball. The second danced upwards, launching flares, but they’d left it far too late and the missile struck home. For a long moment, Mathew thought that the pilot would manage to put the bird on the ground safely, before he lost control and the helicopter crashed into the base. The fireball illuminated the surroundings as the craft exploded. No one made it out alive.
A light in the sky revealed itself to be one of the alien craft. It skimmed low over the ground, launching pulse after pulse of green light into the insurgent positions. Mathew was lucky; one of the blasts barely missed him by several meters. The explosion threw dust and grit through the air. One of the antiaircraft team launched a Stinger after the aircraft craft, but it spun on its tail and neatly picked off the missile with a burst of green light. Mathew would have been impressed if he hadn't known that the craft’s presence meant that his attack had nearly come to a halt. The Colonel wouldn't have the time he needed to take the alien craft...
***
“Now,” the Colonel ordered.
His assault force opened fire. The aliens and their collaborators hadn't been expecting an attack from the rear. They fell below his fire, allowing his men to run towards the alien shuttle, two of them dragging a heavy crate behind them. The aliens in the shuttle had no time to react as the commandos burst in through the hatch, followed rapidly by the Colonel himself. He’d feared that the aliens would destroy their craft rather than risk it falling into enemy hands, but instead they raised their hands in surrender. The Colonel and his men searched them roughly, and then pushed them outside to the trucks. If they could take the prisoners out of the base, they might be worth their weight in gold.
The Colonel took a moment to look around the shuttle’s interior as his men manhandled the crate up to the hatch. It was cruder than he’d expected, something not unlike a military-designed landing craft. A handful of al
ien seats, a set of controls that looked simple, but needed an alien to operate...for a moment, he felt an odd kinship with the alien soldiers. Some truths transcended race, creed or religion. If they’d met in honest battle, he could even have respected the aliens. Who knew what would happen in the future if the humans won the war and expanded into space?
“Colonel!”
The crate opened, revealing the alien defector. He looked alive and well; the Colonel, who would have hated to be confined for so long, had worried that he would be tired or unwell. The Snakes didn't seem to mind confined spaces, luckily. He waved the alien forward and the defector took the seat at the front of the craft. One light was blinking alarmingly on the control panel and he flicked a switch. The light stopped blinking and vanished.
“Can you fly this thing?” The Colonel demanded. “Are you sure?”
“Yes,” the alien rasped. He was flicking other switches; the Colonel felt, rather than heard, a growing hum of power within the craft. “Get your men onboard. They’re demanding that we take off at once to get away from the battle.”
The ground shook as the alien craft high overhead made another pass. “Come on,” the Colonel bellowed. “Let’s go!”
***
Toby stumbled as he climbed out of the President’s personal armoured transport. Andrews AFB had become a nightmare. Air Force One was burning, while enemy soldiers were shooting at two different groups of insurgents and alien troops were running towards them to provide support. No...they were shooting at the collaborators and pod people! For a moment, Toby didn't understand what he was seeing, and then it struck him. The aliens couldn't tell the difference between their brainwashed slaves, their collaborators and the insurgents, so they were firing on all humans! He almost laughed, just before a bullet pinged off the vehicle just above him.
McGreevy’s head appeared in the hatch. “What is going on?” She demanded. Toby was mildly surprised that she hadn’t shut the hatch and cowered inside the vehicle. The driver and his assistant were already dead, even though they were well-protected. Toby wasn't sure what had happened to them. “What’s happening?”
Toby almost laughed, despite the bullets and green flashes of light passing through the air. “The base is under attack,” he said. There was a roar from the direction of the alien shuttle, just before it leapt into the air. Toby knew that his father had intended to lead the mission in person. He’d see Earth from orbit, something Toby had once known that he would never see, and then he would board the alien warship. “I think you ought to run to the aliens.”
McGreevy, moving with surprising speed, jumped out of the hatch and started to run. Toby watched as she fled towards the aliens, half-expecting to see a bullet crack into her back. Instead, one of the aliens lifted his weapon and snapped off a shot at her. Her body glowed green for a second, and then she collapsed on the ground, dead. The alien ran over her body and kept moving. They hadn't known who was running towards them – and probably wouldn't have cared if they had. She’d definitely outlived her usefulness.
“Hey, kid,” a voice said. Toby started, and then saw Harry Garland, one of his father’s younger friends. “Not too bad, eh?”
He passed Toby a pistol and motioned for him to prepare to fight. “Time to start falling back, kid,” he added. “One way or another, we've done all we can here.”
***
The Colonel cursed as he felt the gravity shifting around him. He dropped to the deck as the pressure grew stronger, just before it ebbed to almost nothing. Instead, he felt vaguely dizzy, as if something was badly wrong with his inner ear. The defector seemed to be unaffected, but it was clear that the rest of his troops were feeling the same effect. It had to be an effect of the craft’s drive, he told himself. Any human spacecraft travelling at such speed would have left them feeling squashed as long as the rocket was firing.
He pulled himself to his feet, feeling oddly as if his body was drunk, and settled down next to the defector. Outside, the sky was dimming to black and all the stars were coming out. He looked out of the viewport and down towards Earth. It spun in the inky blackness of space, seemingly unaffected by the billions of humans – and Snakes – who dwelled on its surface. The Colonel had almost walked away from religion after Mary had died, but looking down on Earth, he knew there was a God. Someone had created the Earth, and the human race, and the Snakes. There was an entire universe just waiting for humanity to explore. But then, God helped those who helped themselves. If the human race didn't prove itself worthy of survival...
“That’s it,” the alien defector said. “That’s the warship.”
It came into view slowly, illuminated only by the reflected light from Earth. Unlike some of the science-fiction ships he’d seen on television, it was a blocky shape, clearly military in design. It’s hull was studded with blisters he suspected were weapons, moving around in seemingly random patterns. It was larger than a battleship, larger than an aircraft carrier...far larger than anything humanity had ever put in space. The Colonel found himself speechless as it grew and grew. How could they hope to defeat the beings who had created such ships while humanity struggled to put a single rocket into space? Maybe they were doomed after all.
“Take us in towards it,” the Colonel ordered. “We need to dock with them.”
He shared a long glance with his men. No words were needed. They all knew what had to be done. The Colonel pulled off his rucksack and opened it, revealing the device hidden inside. It had taken days of careful work to remove the PAL and prepare the nuke to detonate on command, but it had worked – he hoped. A great deal of ingenuity had gone into creating devices that would prevent nukes falling into the wrong hands and bypassing them was tricky. It certainly wasn't intended to be easy.
A hissing sound filled the cabin. “They’re demanding explanations,” the defector said. “One moment...”
He produced a second set of hissing sounds. The Colonel shivered, remembering – once again – why humans had termed the aliens Snakes. There was something utterly inhuman about their speech, something that sent a chill down their spine. Mr. Spock and Chewbacca had been barely distinguishable from humans, at least when compared to the Snakes. And it worried him that he had no way of knowing what they were saying to each other. The defector might have had a change of heart. Not for the first time, he cursed the lack of any independent verification.
“They’re ordering us to dock, but not to enter the ship,” the defector said. “Apparently there was some kind of contamination down below and they’re worried about it spreading into the warship.”
The Colonel exchanged glances with his men. Contamination? “Can they pick up human life signs in this craft?”
“I don’t think so,” the defector said. His raspy voice was difficult to understand – or pick out emotion – but the Colonel suspected that he was worried. “They don’t seem to be suspicious of us personally...”
The Colonel nodded. “Take us in to dock,” he ordered. Inside his bag, the nuke was ready to detonate. “Hurry.”
He watched as the alien warship became a wall stretching across the sky, until its immensity swallowed up everything else. It was huge; every time he thought he comprehended the vast scale of the craft, he saw something to throw his mind back into a spin. The weapons blisters were larger than the space shuttle, prepared for a war against aliens with comparable technology. It still struck him as odd that the aliens hadn't armed their freighters and transports, but perhaps it made a certain kind of sense. They wouldn't want to run the risk of rebellion in their ranks. And they did have enemies within. The Pacifists seemed more than willing to fight, despite their name. They just needed a chance to actually take on the Emperor and win.
The dull thud caught him by surprise. “We have docked,” the defector announced. There was a pause as more hissing filled the cabin. “They’re sending an inspection party...”
Behind him, the hatch started to hiss open. The Colonel rammed his finger down onto the nuke and p
ressed the button, holding it down. A moment later, the hatch opened, revealing a team of alien soldiers. They stared at the humans, shocked beyond words. The Colonel understood how they felt. He wouldn't have expected to encounter humans on an alien shuttle either. And he’d always known that it would be a one-way trip.
The Colonel smiled and let go of the button.
***
Toby saw the flash of white light from high above as the remains of the assault group retreated from Andrews AFB. The nuke had detonated, he knew; the Colonel, his father, had taken it along as a last resort. If they failed to take the alien warship, they’d blow it up. God alone knew what had happened in those last few moments, but the aliens had just lost their commander and their biggest stick.
The Trojan Horse Page 39
