Wolf Pack_Invasion and Conquest

by Rob Buckman

  It has been noted before, that any person on watch for a long period will get tired eyes, and even if something moves slowly into his line of vision, his mind won't register it. This was the snipers best weapon, as the human eyes, and brain don't register the exact position of static objects, like trees and bushes, but looks for anything out of the ordinary. Something shiny, movement, or things out of place or the wrong color. By moving with the wind and grass, the 'bush' that slowly came into view from the unseen watches POV was something that had always been there. Human's put this difference in location to their own movement, which most people are prone to do while on watch, and not the bush moving position. Bushes don't move, they are static objects, so after a while, just like mailmen, or homeless people, they become invisible. Decker could now see into the doorway, and as his eyes slowly adjusted to the darkness inside, he located the watcher, or guard, and stifled a soft grunt of surprise. From what he could see, the person was human, and wasn't even armed. Just then, the person stood, and turned, speaking to someone just out of sight, but what he noticed most were the two dogs that sat there looking directly at him. They sensed something by their questioning noses and cocked ears. They couldn't see him, or maybe they could, but they could probably smell him. He hated the thought of shooting the dogs, as they were one of the best detection systems you could have, beside that he liked dogs. They looked like German shepherds, and nasty to tangle with.

  “About time you got here.” The door guard grumbled.

  “Sorry I’m late Julia, I had to take care of one of the girls who started screaming.”

  “No problem. I just need to take a leak, badly…”

  "Move and you're dead!" A harsh voice cut off the conversation. Both turned, frozen in shock as an innocent looking bush ten feet from the door stood and moved quickly into the doorway.

  "What the f…" Both dogs started growling, hackles raised.

  "If you don’t want me to shoot your dogs, keep them on a short leash." Something wasn't right here. Both the watcher, and replacement were female, and neither of them was armed, not even a knife between them.

  "Who… what the hell are you?" One female asked, sounding a little panicky. Keeping his weapon trained on the growling dogs, Decker pulled back the hood of the Ghillie suit to show his face.

  "My name is Decker, Staff Sergeant Decker, now who the hell are you, and who’s in charge here?"

  "Oh, thank god for that. You’re human. For a moment, I thought you were one of those alien… things running around out there." The younger of the two women leaned against the wall for support, shaking hard.

  "Come on a bit strong don't you sergeant?" The old woman grouched, visibly shaken as well.

  "Until I know what the hell is going on, I tend to be that way."

  "You with the rescue mission we heard tell was coming?" The younger one asked at last, once she’d recovered from her initial shock.

  "I am the rescue mission, or what's left of it."

  "Oh shit. We're screwed." The young girl moaned.

  "Yeah, you could say that." Decker muttered, looking at the cute girl, but kept the rest of his thoughts about screwing her to himself.

  "I guess you want one of us to take you to our so called leader."

  "Might not be a bad idea."

  "Can she stay on watch?"

  "Fat lot of good that would do if I can creep within ten feet of the door without you spotting me."

  "Yeah, well you came on my blind side and wearing… well whatever you are wearing makes it difficult to see you."

  "Blind side my ass. I've been sitting out there watching you for fifteen minutes. How do you think I knew the dogs were tied up and not a threat?" The older of the two jerked her head around and looked at him. There was no smile on Decker's face. "If the aliens are as good as or better than us at concealment, you'd never see them coming."

  "Guess you're right. Follow me. Valarie, you stay here on watch anyway just in case." Valarie went over to calm the dogs as Decker switched off the active cammo. Even so, never the trusting sort, Decker left his weapon on its sling and kept his sidearm against his leg, safety off, trigger finger along the slide.

  “Okay, Julia. Hey, Mister, just don’t tell mommy bitch how easily you got in here, okay, or she’ll have a shit fit.”

  Decker didn’t bother answering, but wondered at the comment as he followed the other woman, Julie, around the corner, down a short, dark passageway, and up a flight of stairs to a large open room. This was only dimly lit by a few candles and the daylight filtering in through the cracks and blown out windows. The concrete ceiling saved this part of the room from the collapse of the upper floor, but even so, it had partly caved in, in a few places, with shattered concrete held up by bent rebar. The cascade of broken material from the upper floors covered most of the windows, with light filtering in through the gaps and cracks.

  "Hey, June. We've got a visitor." Julie called as she walked in. If it was a warning, it went unheeded, as only a few people in the room even bothered to look around. Even in the dim candlelight, Decker could see the apathetic look in their eyes and on their faces. The other thing that struck him was that everyone here was female.

  "Visitor? Who." A strikingly handsome woman asked, looking up and seeing Decker walking behind Julia, her mouth dropping open in surprise.

  "You ask him. You're in charge." Obviously, there wasn't any love lost between these two. Decker moved out from behind Julia, and took stock of what he was seeing. The long, dimly lit room was full of women of one age or another, and not a man in sight.

  "Who are you?" The woman identified as June asked.

  "Staff Sergeant Decker. SAS, Special Operations Group, and you are?"

  "June Landers, the de facto leader of this group… you’re British, aren’t you?”

  "Yes, I’m a Brit.”

  “Don’t they require you to shave in your army, Sergeant Decker?” June Landers asked, a slightly disapproving look on her face.

  “Not in the field.” He replied, cutting her off from asking any more stupid questions by asking one of his own. “So, who put you in charge?" From the look's he saw on the faces of the women, that was the question they wanted an answer to as well.

  "Well… I suppose I did. My husband was the base commander."

  "Was?" Decker looked around, hearing movement, surprised by the number of women here, both young and old.

  "I suspect my husband is dead, Sergeant." June Lander's face crinkled up for a moment as if she was about to cry. "He and the rest of the men left awhile ago…" She stopped and pulled a napkin out of her sleeve to wipe her eyes.

  "I'm betting they left a week ago from what I've seen, and if he and the rest of the men were caught out in the open…” he paused for a moment, but couldn’t think of a softer way to say it, “then the aliens probably killed them." Decker had to hand it to her, as she didn't burst out crying as he relayed the news. He hated crying women. Hell, he hated crying men, even worse. Why did they get to cry when he no longer could?

  "Would you like a cup of coffee, Sergeant?" The door guard asked.

  “I’d prefer tea, but coffee will do, Thanks.” Decker safed and holstering his sidearm before accepting a chipped mug of coffee, nodding his thanks. It was hot and black, but did have sugar in it.

  "Sorry, but we ran out of canned milk earlier today and won’t have any until we find more. Oh, by the way, my name is Julia.

  "Thanks Julia, it won't be the first time I've drunk coffee black." The right side of Decker's mouth twitched up in what a charitable person might call a smile, but there again, no one, except his wife and daughter had ever seen him smile.

  Broken tables and chairs lay scattered about the room, and picking one up that looked reasonably usable, Decker set the cup on the table and stripped off his Ghillie suit, pack, and helmet. After removing his helmet, and out of habit, he replaced it with the sand-colored SAS beret. This brought a few odd looks from the nearby women, as he doubted any of the
m recognized it. He sat and sipped his coffee, relaxed but on guard. This situation was FUBARED and didn't look to get better any time soon. He knew what was coming next, the need for information, on both sides, and within moments, they started bombarding him with questions he didn't have answers to. The one big question that came to his mind was, where the hell were all the men? Before the avalanche of questions started, he asked one of his own.

  "So, what happened and who are all these people?" He asked, looking at the self-appointed leader.

  June Landers sat, neatly dressed in outdoor clothing in dignified splendor behind a beat up desk, trying to look as if she knew what she was doing, and held her hand up for silence. Decker knew it was all a front. This woman didn't have a clue how bad things were, but he had to give her credit for trying at least to keep it all together. These people had made an effort to stay under cover at least. June looked at Decker for a moment, as if deciding what to tell him, but Decker forestalled that.

  "Look lady, you can stop jerking me around for a start, and tell me straight up what the fuck happened here, or I’m gone."

  "There is no need for profanity, Sergeant." Decker had to laugh.

  "Lady, you don't have a clue what's going on, do you?"

  "Well…"

  "Thought so. So, let's just get a few things straight from the get go, so you understand." Decker sighed. This wasn't going to be pretty, but he had to let them know how things stood.

  "About two weeks ago we got invaded by an extra-terrestrial intelligence. After entering orbit, they proceeded to drop a bunch of EMP plasma bombs, that's electro-magnetic bomblets, on every military installation, airport and communication center and antenna farm they could find. That killed all major long-range communications. After that, they started direct bombing of all major cities, road and rail networks, bridges, damn, power generating facilities and major industrial centers from space with KEW’s, kinetic energy weapons and took out damn near everything. After that, they came in atmosphere with their ground attack craft and started strafing and bombing any group of people out in the open." He saw June nod hearing that.

  "That's how we lost the first group…" June looked away for a moment.

  "What?"

  "We… they… a small group of people wanted to run to the nearest town, Tehachapi, about ten miles from here. They didn't make it to the main road before the enemy… alien airship, or whatever it was, hit the group. They were all killed." A soft sob came from several of the women around the room. “At first, we… I thought it was the Russians, or Chinese, but I’ve never seen anything like those aircraft before.”

  "What was special about the group…" Then it hit him, there were no children here. The youngest he could see was about sixteen. "…the kids." June nodded.

  "They didn't have a chance. Those rotten bastards killed them all, strafing over and over again to make sure they were all dead."

  "I see." Decker looked into his coffee cup to cover his own emotions. Anger being the uppermost.

  "All the people here are the wives and older children of the service personnel and local civilian staff who worked on the base, but go on Sergeant. What happened then?" That answered the question of who all these people were, not that it helped.

  "After the communications went, any coordinated response went into the dumpster. It came down to local units doing what they could do to hold off the invasion, so to speak, but there wasn't one." His barking laugh caught them by surprise. "Hold off an invasion by an intelligent extra-terrestrial force with superior weapons? Shit! We don't even know what they look like yet. All we've seen are those fucking… destroyer ships, or whatever they are. For all we know those are remote operated drones."

  "We've seen those flying over the base when they bombed and strafed the convoy." Decker nodded in response.

  "We have no idea what their actual troops look like yet, what they are equipped with, how they fight. Nothing."

  "Any idea why they are waiting before landing troops?" June asked.

  "I have a few ideas, not that the brass would agree with me."

  "What's your assessment?" Decker looked up at June, and shrugged.

  "You really want to know?" June nodded in response. While they were chatting, the others gathered round, eyes wide, mouths open in shock. "I think they are waiting until we, the humans, gather in large groups, which we are wont to do in an emergency, so they can slaughter us wholesale."

  "God, that's cold." Someone muttered.

  "No, calculated. If you want to exterminate the local natives who are in the way of you taking over their real estate, you bomb the hell out of them first, then back off and wait for them to gather in large groups for protection to defend themselves, and then drop the hammer. After that you put boots-on-the-ground and start a search and destroy mission to exterminate the rest."

  "So where does that leave us?" Someone in the crowd asked.

  "Us? Like in you and me?" Decker asked, looking around. "It leaves you up to your neck in shit!"

  "But… but… weren't you sent here to save… rescue us?"

  "Rescue with what? I'm one man. I have no support, no heavy weapons, no transport, and no way to communicate with anyone outside a two-mile radius. You tell me what I'm supposed to do?" The girl's broke out into a babble of voices, a few shouting ideas, others sobbed softly to themselves as the bleakness of the situation sunk in.

  "My Team was ordered to come here, pick up a package, and get it, and whoever was holding it back to a military base up north of here.” The blank look he received in return for that statement told him all he needed to know, they hadn’t a clue what he was talking about. Those orders didn’t include what to do with a hundred odd women.

  "Surely you could lead us out of here?" June asked, a pleading look on her face.

  "To where exactly?" That brought a stunned silence to the crowd.

  "But… well…" June stuttered, looking confused.

  "No buts. Look Lady, it took almost three hours for me to fly here in an aircraft. That puts the closest safe place I know of, is this base at ‘Norden’, about 400 to 500 miles north from here, if it's still there. As far as the Brass can tell, the west coast is in alien hands."

  "So, what do we do?" Came from a young girl, about 15 - 16 years old. Decker shook his head. He could tell them they were all going to die, one way or another before long, but what good would that do? They were looking to him to work a miracle, and he didn't have one. Instead, he asked a question himself.

  "What happened to the rest of the men?" He asked, looking around the group. Few wanted to meet his eyes.

  "My husband was the base commander," June took a deep breath to suppress a shudder, "he gathered all the able-bodied men and women soldiers, and took off to help the townspeople after they got hit."

  "And?"

  "They never came back. As I said that was a week ago."

  "Shit!" Decker muttered.

  "They're dead, aren’t they, Sergeant?" Decker took a deep breath and nodded.

  "It's a safe bet they won't be coming back." The group moved away, sobbing and crying as others moved to comfort them.

  "What was this base?" Decker asked.

  "It was a supply and logistics base for Southwest command."

  "Well, that's something. You can scavenge enough food, and supplies to last out a long time."

  "But… but what about you? You are staying to… well help us, right?"

  "You really mean defend you, don't you?"

  "Yes." June whispered.

  "I hate to tell you this lady, but no. I'm going to try to find this package, and get my ass out of here. I'll head north and try to make it back to this base at Norden."

  "And leave us?" Decker bit back the ‘fuck yes!’ that was his first thought.

  "Lady… June. My enlistment was up a week ago, so technically I'm just like you, a bloody civilian."

  "But you must help. It's your duty!" She yelled, coming to her feet, face red with anger. Decker's laug
h sounded more like a bark.

  "Duty! Duty to whom? The government? It doesn't exist anymore. To you lot. You're already dead, you just don't know it." Why was it so hard for them to understand they lived in a different world now? Everything they knew or believed in was gone.

  "That's harsh, Sergeant. I'm still alive, and so are the rest of them." Decker came to his feet as well, putting his face closer to hers.

  "For how long, a few days, a week? Eventually, those fucking aliens are going to put boots on the ground and start a house-to-house search and destroy mission. Then what will you do, cry and beg them not to kill you? Ha! Fat lot of good that will do you, seeing you don't speak their language. For whatever reason, they want to take this planet from us, and we are just a local variety of vermin to be exterminated."

  June took a step back at the anger radiating from this stranger who'd dropped into their midst. She shook her head, trying to deny what he was saying. She blinked and looked at him with new eyes. What she saw was a tallish, well-built man in dirt covered BDU's, unshaven face and gray killer eyes. Suddenly to her he seemed more alien than the invaders. His anger was almost palatable, springing from a well deep in his soul, and she wondered for a moment what he'd lost.

  “How do you know that? They could just as easy take us captive, or… or…”

  “Or what? I’m not going to bet my life on the aliens supposed benevolence, and just hope they don’t shoot my ass off the moment they see me.” He shot back.

  "So, what are we supposed to do?" It was as if she'd pricked a balloon as Decker suddenly deflated, and let out a long sigh.

  "I don't know." He said it so low that June almost didn't hear him. "I need to get a little sleep. He said at last.

  "We can offer you a shower. The water is still running from the gravity tank on the hill, but it's not hot, just warm from the sun. Also, we have beds made up down in the basement, if you'd like to use one of those."

  Decker nodded his thanks and followed her. The only light in the basement came from a few candles in glass jars sitting on shelves, but it was enough for him to see where he was going. The shower could wait. What he needed right now was a good night's sleep to wash the last traces of alcohol, hangover and his near-death experience out of his systems. After chugging a pint of water, he settled down on an old mattress in the far corner away from the door, and lights, and pulling his beret down and closing his eyes, he started to relax. Sleep didn't come as easy as he'd hoped. Hidden under the cover of the beret, no one saw the sadness, as the face of his little girl, and his lost wife floated in his mind's eye. There was no way he could get back to England now, and even if they weren't dead already, he doubted he'd ever hold them in his arms again. His thoughts turn to the women and young girls trapped here, seeing the fate waiting for them. There was no way he could save them, not by himself. He had a few doubts he could save himself, or travel the five hundred or so miles to this base without getting himself killed in the process, but he knew he had to try. He didn't even stop to ask himself why it was important he get there now, it was built into his nature, and he knew he was going to try. The fate of the hundred or so women haunted him. There was no way he could save them, and so many ways for them to die. What did they expect him to do, make it all magically go away? That somehow all this was a dark nightmare that would go away if he waved his hand? He snorted softly to himself at the thought of him taking these women with him, smiling at the image of them humping their asses over the Sierra Nevada Mountains, bitching, moaning and crying at how dirty their soft hands were, or crying over a broken nail. Somewhere in all this, he fell asleep, the sound of the soft female voices slowly fading away.