by J. F. Holmes
“Everything and nothing,” he answered. “I have a pretty good idea of how things stand in Central New York, and a vague idea about the world. We laid pretty low.”
“Well, you know about the thirty-degree plague. From what we can tell, the Earth’s population stands around five hundred million, probably less. Europe is a shithole, though there is still a functioning CEF Command in Scotland. We had contact with the Swiss two years ago, and they have military forces, but without radio, there’s no effective way to coordinate with them. Travel through what’s left of France and Germany is too dangerous.”
“Dangerous how?” asked Warren, wrinkling his nose at the smell coming from a bad MRE. Meatballs in Marinara Sauce had become Meatballs in Maggot Sauce.
“For some reason, the Invy don’t occupy it. They just pound it flat every now and then, so it’s reduced to a state of complete barbarism. Target practice, maybe.”
He dug around for another MRE, one that was still good. “What about Israel?”
“Gone. They used nukes on the Invy once they started landing, after the two-year pause, and got turned into an extension of the Mediterranean.” She poured water into the heater bag and placed it on a rock or something. “The Alabama explored the area three years later, landed a Scout Team where Tel Aviv used to be, and nothing.”
“The Alabama? We still have ships?”
She mumbled something, trying to wash down crackers and cheese. Finally getting it down, she said, “Yes, five American and three Russian. Four bases for them also. Azores, McMurdo, one in eastern Siberia, another, and the last in the South Pacific somewhere. Even I don’t know where that one is; Archangel keeps her cards close.”
“Who is Archangel?” he asked, sounding merely curious. “I assume you still have some leadership. Who’s in charge now? Murphy? Stankowitz? Wait, you said she. Is it that old bat Mercel?”
“I’ve said too much already,” she said bluntly. “You may have me convinced of your role in the defeat, but there are many who will want you shot.”
That put a damper on their conversation, and both finished eating in silence. When they had mounted their horses and set out again, Warren probed her for information about the Invy.
“What is there to know? Why do you want to know?” she asked.
““If you know the enemy and know yourself, you need not fear the result of a hundred battles. If you know yourself but not the enemy, for every victory gained you will also suffer a defeat. If you know neither the enemy nor yourself, you will succumb in every battle,” he answered.
Her response betrayed her slight annoyance. “Yes, I know, you were very well educated. Lot of good that did you, and us.”
“Colonel, I didn’t know the enemy, and apparently, I didn’t know us, either,” he said, then continued, “I thought that I was to be allowed full command, even if it came to a retreat, but I didn’t know the politicians that were running things. The Generals I was supposedly in charge of were, at that level, politicians too, and didn’t hesitate to stab me in the back when it became expedient.”
“They paid for it, though, didn’t they?”
A sad, melancholy look grew on his face at the mention. “Yes, yes they did. Cheyenne Mountain fell last, but it did fall, and not to orbital bombardment, either. I was there, in my cell, when the Wolverines hit us. My friends … they gave their lives to get me out.”
They rode on in silence for a bit, starting up a long grade that, a little more than a decade ago, would have been filled with trucks feeding America.
“You know about the towns already,” said Singh, after a bit. “Do you know about the slave gangs? Repairing environmental damage, or so they say?”
He nodded. “I’ve heard of them. Replanting, cleaning up toxically contaminated earth, yadda yadda.”
“Well, it’s all bullshit. They’re mining the remains of our civilization. Gold, platinum, rare earth metals. I think they do it for shits and giggles; there’s plenty of that in space. It’s just another way to kill off our surplus population.”
“You don’t believe their propaganda about saving the Earth for the Human race?”
She laughed, an entrancing sound. “Hell no. We aren’t sure why they’re here, but they have slave races on eleven planets. Not a single race that they’ve encountered or uplifted has escaped their subjugation, if the records from the scout are correct.”
“So why the uplift?” he asked, not knowing much about it.
“Maybe to keep us all at each other’s throats. I don’t know, and I don’t think anyone else does, either. I have to tell you, though, the Cetin and Great Apes have pretty much told them to piss off. The whales actively help us with communications, sending whale song across thousands of miles of ocean and allowing the subs to communicate. I think the dolphins do it for shits and giggles, honestly.”
She smiled, then her face turned serious. “You know about the fighting pits, right?”
“No, what are they?”
“The Wolverines and Dragons pit humans against each other as a form of entertainment. That’s where Master Sergeant Agostine lost his leg; he kept beating his human opponents, mostly criminals and trash, until he came up against a guy he knew from the service and refused to fight him. The wolverines tied off his leg, chewed it off just below the knee while he watched, and then ate it raw in front of him while the Dragons laughed.”
“How did he get out?” asked Warren.
“Someone got word to me. I went in and got him. I don’t leave my people, General,” she said, with a bit of accusation in her voice.
He ignored her tone and asked about the rules that allowed them to travel with pistols, but no long arms. “You can have them in your house, but not on the road. I never could figure that.”
“Easier surveillance for them. They have the orbitals, and around the towns and bases, drones that do pattern recognition. Know how many farmers have gotten smoked for carrying a two by four or a piece of PVC pipe back to their farm after salvaging?”
“Anyway,” she continued, “what it comes down to is that, inside the towns the Invy are brainwashing people, especially the kids, into being their slaves, and outside the towns they’re slowly killing everyone off. It’s time for us to strike back; now or never.”
“Strike back how?” he asked, but just then his horse shied at something unseen, and Warren fought to bring the animal under control. When he had, he turned back to see that Singh had her pistol pointed at him, and held a pair of handcuffs in her other hand. On either side of her horse, two extremely serious looking men pointed M-6 carbines at him, looking through combat optics.
“Put these on, David. I’d hate to have to shoot you, though some would give me a medal.”
Chapter 25
Russian Naval Base
The Dragon paced back and forth within its cage, arms bound behind it and a blindfold over the reptilian eyes. It was bereft of its gold armor, and instead was clad in a re-sewn navy coverall. Around its neck, though, still hung the translator. Dried out, it seemed to be working fine, translating both threats and curses.
Danielle Morano, PhD in Xeno-biology, and the foremost Invy expert on Earth, watched impassively. To her, the Invy were nothing more than a problem to be solved, or disregarded. To be honest, humans often were too, and she made no bones about being a sociopath. A controlled one, though. She saw no point in hurting those around her, because she could gain nothing from it.
“So how are you going to do this?” asked Captain Larken. She stood a full head taller than the diminutive Morano, but felt very uncomfortable in her presence. Something about her reminded the sub commander more of the alien in front of them than an actual human being. Sure, Morano didn’t have six limbs and vertically slanted eyes, but she gave off the same vibe of disinterest.
After getting no answer, she pressed on. “I mean, we don’t exactly know much about their psychology. How do you play good cop/bad cop with an alien?”
Morano laughed, a deep, ric
h sound that surprised the older woman. “You don’t,” she answered, and turned to a man who had come aboard as soon as they had surfaced in the underground base. He was dressed in the camo of the Russian Federation, but wore a leather apron over his uniform, and a twisted, gnarled beard hung form his face, streaked with white. “Vasily, it’s time for us to get to work. Captain, can you send one of your machinist mates up here with a blowtorch? Oh, and you might want to open all your hatches to get the smell out. Charred flesh can be, um, unsettling.”
“You’re not doing that on my boat, lady!” exclaimed the Captain.
Morano turned from her contemplation of the pacing Invy, and looked at Larken with pale blue, dead eyes. “May I remind you, Captain, while you may not like it, I have direct authority from Archangel to use whatever tools are necessary, including you,” she emphasized, “to complete this mission? If I want to take this entire ship out to the middle of the Pacific and sink it as an experiment, with the entire crew aboard, I DAMN WELL WILL!” she almost screamed.
Unseen by the scientist, Chief Ball rested his hand on his belted holster. Larken gave a slight shake of her head, and was about to reply, when they were interrupted. From the cage area, the Invy was hissing in what was, unmistakably, laughter.
Morano instantly shifted her focus away from the Captain, and walked over to the cage, resting her hands on the bars. The Invy hissed at her, laughter gone, and they stared at each other for a full minute. Larken couldn’t help but think that she was actually looking at two alien species, both devoid of humanity. Then the xenobiologist snapped her fingers, and the Russian stepped forward. From under his apron he removed a leather bundle, and laid it out on a table, opening it to reveal a gleaming set of surgical tools.
“Barbarians!” hissed the Dragon’s translator, and it was Morano’s turn to laugh.
“You, who enslave whole worlds and kill billions, call US barbarians? Prepare to feel the pain of an entire world.”
Captain Larken motioned for Chief Ball to follow her out of the room. In the corridor, he turned to her and said, “Captain, she’s fucking nuts!”
“I know, Bill,” she sighed, “but it might be the only way. We need to know the location of the virus labs and stocks, or else everything is going to be for nothing.” She winced at the sounds that started issuing from the closed door, a high pitched, keening scream.
__________________________________________
It took less than a day. “Like most bullies, they’re really cowards at heart,” said Dr. Morano as she sat in the base conference room. With her were Captain Larken and Major General Dmitri Levanov, the base commander. The Russian said very little; after the suppressed rebellion a few months ago, he had focused his energy on rehabilitating the base, without much support. The Russian Government in Exile was in the Urals, and could only communicate by foot or horse, a journey across Siberia that took months.
“Just tell us what you learned,” said Captain Larken. “Did you find where the virus labs and stocks are located?”
Morano stared at her without blinking until the sailor looked away, uncomfortable. “Of course I found out where they are. That was the whole point.”
“Well, then get to the point,” rumbled the bear-like Russian. “And don’t try to play your little head games with me, you sumasshedshiy chelovek!”
The scientist laughed at him, and said something back in Russian, making the officer go pale. Then she laid a report on the table. “The labs are at what was Saigon, or Ho Chi Minh City, as we suspected. The bad news is that the actual viral stocks are contained in the orbitals. There are the 30 degree viruses, and also a general purpose one. They’re delivered by orbital drop, command controlled at Saigon.”
Larken let out a slow breath that she didn’t realize she had been holding, and said, “Shit.”
“Is that a problem, Captain?” asked Morano. “Can’t you just send some people in to take them out?”
Realizing that the xenobiologist was out of her depth on military operations, she answered simply, “It’s not that easy.”
“Well, I’ve done my job, and I’d like to get back to examining the corpse. I need to do a proper autopsy.”
“You killed it?” asked the Russian, incredulously.
A look of puzzlement came across the doctor’s face. “Of course! I have much to learn about their biology, and it’s hard to examine their insides when they are still alive.”
Larken and Levanov both palmed their faces, causing Morano to ask what was wrong. “What if, I don’t know, we wanted to know WHY they’re here on Earth?” spat out the Captain.
“Oh, I asked. I didn’t think you wanted to know. It’s pretty simple, really.” Then she sat still, writing on a legal pad in front of her.
After a full minute, the two military personnel looked at each other, then looked back at her. “Well?” asked Larken, impatience creeping into her voice.
“Well what? I thought we were done,” said Morano.
“WHY THE HELL ARE THEY HERE ON EARTH?!” bellowed the Russian.
Morano narrowed her eyes and gave a wickedly evil look at him. “It’s in my report, if you want to read it. But if you must know, they really did believe in the environmental stuff when they started, in a way. Their home world is pretty much wrecked, pollution, over population. When they discovered wormhole tech, the first planet they found was the wolverine home world. It was easy to conquer, since the wolverines weren’t uplifted yet, and then they got a taste for it. Power corrupts, I guess. They have a fairly feudal political structure, and each Dragon gets to carve out his own estate, so to speak.”
“Why Earth though?” asked Larken.
“Just the next one they could reach. I haven’t taken time to study the astrophysics involved, though I may do so.”
“Did you find out anything about the tactical situation in space? What they have outside the orbitals? Is their fleet still there?” demanded the sub commander, growing exasperated.
“Huh,” said the scientist, a puzzled look on her face. “I didn’t think to ask.”
Chapter 26
Raven Rock, CEF North American HQ
The cell they had him in was bare except for a metal toilet and a wooden bunk bed. Food was brought three times a day, and the lights shut off for what he assumed was eight hours. Other than the Military Police at the far end of the corridor, David Warren saw no one.
He spent the time re-thinking the battle in space, trying to figure out how he could have done anything differently. The only thing he could come up with was to have used the Earth ships as kamikazes, to hopefully smash their way into the Invy ships. Like his instructors had told him though, hope is not a plan. They should have had an alternate plan, but, going off all the technology in the Invy scout, they thought they could win. Even he hadn’t thought that a scout was a plain, simple ship, without shields.
It’s what that kid in the book would have done, suicide this ships, and he knew that, had he ordered it, they would have. But that was just a book; this was real. There wasn’t time, in the middle of the battle, to wrestle with his conscience. Just the argument with his ‘superiors’ to fall back, disengage, and try to negotiate. It had come as a shock to him that he actually HAD superiors; he had thought that he had been given command of all CEF units. If they had disengaged, they could have had time to run, hide in the asteroid belt, rethink their plans; come up with new weapons and tactics.
The cutting off of his ansible connection, and the four MPs who had wrestled him to the ground and hauled him away, had come only a minute into his argument about retreating. The following week had been spent in a cell similar to this one, deep in the bowels of Cheyenne Mountain. A swift, televised court martial, and then back to the cell, amidst the beginning of the orbital bombardment.
Now he stared at the wall, and thought. Thought about the future. He held no grudge against Rachel Singh; she could just as easily have shot him and brought his head back with her. Likewise, the Scouts had jus
t been doing their job. That their presence had made Jeremy go off and attack an Invy patrol was just the spark that had set him off. It would have been something else.
To pass the time, he dwelled on the bits and pieces of information that he had been told, or overheard. He had passed into Raven Rock blindfolded, but the smell of diesel and jet fuel, and the far-off whine of a turbine engine winding up and down as someone tested it for maintenance, told him much. Likewise the many different voices he had overheard told of a great number of personnel, and he began to hold out some hope. The mention of the submarines meant that they had actual assets, sea and air power, plus ground combat troops.
He was interrupted by a cockroach clambering up the wall of his cell, and he took his boot off and tried to smash it. He hit it square, but the insect bounded away when he lifted the boot. Then it scrambled through the bars, turned and stared at him. In the harsh light of the lamps, he could see it better, and it seemed to have a faint metallic sheen to it.
“You’re a goddamned drone, aren’t you?” he asked it, knowing he wouldn’t get an answer. “Did Singh send you down here to spy on me?” That didn’t make sense; it would be too easy to put cameras in the cell.
Down the hall, the door opened, and one of the guards stepped in. The drone/cockroach skittered away down the hall, and Warren watched it go, puzzled. Were there other players in this game that he didn’t know about?
Before the guards made it down the hallway, the drone reappeared, followed by more than a dozen others. They climbed the wall opposite his cell, and formed a letter. He watched in astonishment as they continued to spell characters out on the wall, scattering when the guards approached, running back into the darkness. Warren’s heart beat like thunder, and the blood rushed in his ears, a roaring sound that threatened to overwhelm him.
“General Warren, Archangel wants to see you,” said the senior guard, wearing Master Sergeant’s stripes. He had the same pale look as all the others; sunlamps could only do so much after eleven years underground.
