by Weston Ochse
I fought the urge to scream at him, reminding myself that he wasn’t military. Just a punk kid with video game mastery. “Yes, I mean lay down.”
“Oh, okay. Why didn’t you just say that?”
We were seriously going to have to work on military commands. While I ran the last kilometer, I sent the quad-copter forward to replace the UAV. I definitely wanted to have eyes on the Special Forces.
I gaze-flicked the radio. “Merlin, you have enemy inbound. Get the 50 cals pointed the right way and get them cranking.”
“Which way is that?”
“Look for the EXO with giant spiders chasing it and you’ll figure it out.”
“What do you—Oh shit.”
“Yeah, that.”
Twenty seconds later Hero Three and I arrived at the C-130.
The side of the plane with the damaged engine was away from the oncoming action. The pilot and co-pilot were making good use of their skills, trying to fix it as best they could. The pilot glanced at me as I arrived, a look of frustration carving his otherwise smooth features.
The crew chief and his assistant were laying down grazing fire to each side of Charlemagne.
These were matched by barrels that had appeared in the front of each spider bot and began to fire. Charlemagne was hit with several rounds in the back. He staggered, but kept coming.
The crew chief went down with rounds through the face.
Merlin didn’t hesitate. He jumped over the body and was soon laying down fire with the M2.
I gaze-flicked Heroes One’s and Three’s IRL and selected three rockets from each of them to fire, targeting each of the onrushing spider bots, then let them fire. If what I thought had happened before, the rockets should find their home easily. I watched as the six rockets streaked towards their targets. One of the bots stopped and turned to its left. Just as before, a round disc unfolded and within seconds two of the three rockets heading towards it exploded in midair. The third rocket hit the central bot, just as the other three hit it. The middle bot exploded, pieces of spider legs shooting in every direction. One impaled the side of the aircraft. The end bots both scored one hit.
“Hero One and Three, attack.”
The EXOs leaped to their feet and ran at the wounded bots.
“Go for the blister on top. I bet you’ll find the driver there.”
As the spiders turned towards their new opponents, I made my move and began sprinting towards Charlemagne. Although his vitals were in the green, I had to see for myself. When I got to him, I spun him around. The EXO armor was scored, but no rounds had made it through. He grinned at me through his faceplate.
With Pearl now at my side, the three of us joined the fray.
Nance fired point blank at his spidertank, unloading a hundred rumbling rounds at the already smoking machine. His EXO was half as tall as the bot, and as I saw the tank raise five meter spider legs into the air, their battle looked straight of a Ray Harryhausen film. In Jason and the Argonauts, The 7th Voyage of Sinbad, and Clash of the Titans the stop-action animator had pitted humans against titans, dinosaurs, a giant octopus, and an immense Cyclops. Seeing Nance’s battle, it was hard for me not to relive the wonder I’d felt when I’d first seen those movies. But that awe only lasted a second as Charlemagne joined me and we rushed to help Nance.
We had to dispatch these two spidertanks before the other three appeared with ground troops or we’d be quickly overwhelmed.
Then my blood went cold as one of the legs pierced Nance’s EXO and pinned him to the ground.
I screamed and let loose with a missile aimed right at the blister. I didn’t dare do more with Nance so close by. I chose to target the blister, believing that if there wasn’t a driver beneath, it was at least the brain of the bot.
Charlemagne roared past me, his harmonic blade in hand, swinging it like a Highlander.
The spidertank tried to turn and face the oncoming missile to bring to bear its mysterious disc, but by impaling Nance to the earth, it had also pinned itself in place. The missile struck true, exploding the blister. The bot immediately folded on itself, legs dead and loose, rattling to the ground.
“Hero Two, get to the other bot,” I shouted.
Charlemagne wheeled right, and joined the twins, who had already ripped the blister free and were holding an angry Russian high above the tundra.
But all my concern was for Nance. I gaze-flicked to a private channel. “Nance, you okay?” Checking his vitals, I could see he was quickly declining. His blood pressure was dangerously low, telling me he was probably bleeding out.
Labored breathing and a cough answered my question.
I skidded to a stop and fell to my knees. The leg had punctured the very center of the EXO. Lance’s eyes were wide. He’d already coughed blood onto the inside of his visor. The tip of the leg that had pierced his suit was made of polished metal. I glared at one of the others and noted that it came to a vicious tip.
“Hey, kid. How you feeling?”
Nance’s eyes opened and he stared at me with wide, fear-filled eyes. He knew the truth of it, just as I knew the truth of it. Even if we were able to get him free of the leg, there wasn’t any critical care medical facilities within a thousand miles.
“How—how—the others?” he asked, barely able to speak.
“The others are fine. You led them well, son.”
“But I—you are the—”
I shook my head. “It was you who brought them here. It was you they followed.”
He coughed more blood against the visor. His body shuddered and his vitals, which had been flashing red, stayed solid red. The kid was gone.
Heroes aren’t born. They are made through actions that are witnessed and lauded. Shannon Alder took it further and said: Heroes are not made. They are born out of circumstances and rise to the occasion when their spirit can no longer coexist with the hypocrisy of injustice to others. Pretty speak, but basically it says that a regular person can only take so much before they are forced into action. Why am I lathering on about heroes? Because I think it’s time we had one. The Greeks had Achilles, the Norse had Beowulf, the Mesopotamians had Gilgamesh, and the British had King Arthur. So where are the heroes now? When will they rise? Have you seen one?
Conspiracy Theory Talk Radio,
Night Stalker Monologue #1803
CHAPTER THIRTEEN
WE HAD JUST enough time to and reload and make some barebones plans before the rest of the Russian forces crested the horizon. Merlin and the crew chief had been able to recover the remaining workable spidertank and had driven it to a place behind the C-130. The driver’s instrument panel was pretty straight forward and allowed them to move it, but everything else was a mystery. The crew chief postulated that the disc was some sort of acoustic weapon similar to the Short Range Acoustic Device, or SRAD, that had been deployed around airfields in Afghanistan to defeat shoulder-fired Taliban anti-aircraft missiles, but he couldn’t be sure. We’d figure it out later.
I deployed Heroes Three and Four both left and right a kilometer and had them go to ground. I wanted them to be in a position to get behind the ground forces if possible. I also left Nance in place. As much as it sickened us to treat his body that way, he was far more useful to us where he was than if we’d retrieved the body. He had almost a full magazine and most of his rockets. Although he was dead, I still had access to his suit and could use it as a possible Trojan horse. Charlemagne and I would remain at the plane, making it a large target for the incoming enemy forces who would hopefully not be able to determine the locations of Three and Four until it was too late.
I felt the tingling in my head once more. I queried it, seeing if Thompson was trying to contact me. One of the side-effects of the weaponized zombie fungus was that my brain had been rewired and I now had access to previously unavailable theta waves. The Hypocrealiacs never made anything for a single purpose. The fungus had not only been a way to be rid of humans, but it also allowed humans to be their eyes and e
ars, controlling the fungees with a single transmitted thought. I’d been cured of the effects of the fungus, but what lingered was the ability to communicate remotely with HMIDs. But I’d always wondered if I couldn’t also communicate with the Hypocrealiacs. Since they’d purposely developed the fungus for communication, couldn’t it work both ways? Was that what the tingling was about? Were there live aliens about?
“Thousand meters out and closing,” Charlemagne said.
I gaze-flicked to the quad-copter’s UAV feed. The Russian spidertanks were one line with thirty meters separating each of them. The machine gun and SRAD were deployed and ready. Behind each bot were four Special Forces soldiers kitted identically. One carried an RPG while the other three carried some variant of the Kalashnikov. Both weapon’s systems were old as hell, but were as reliable as they were deadly.
“Merlin, you guys figured out that bot yet?” I asked through the suit’s radio.
“Nuh uh. Lots of buttons. Don’t know want to press the wrong one and go boom.”
I grinned as I glanced at the pissed-off Russian we had tied to one of the pallets in the hold. “Boom would definitely be bad and I don’t think the bot driver is going to want to be forthcoming.”
“Even if I asked nicely?”
“Do you know how to ask nicely in Russian?”
“Как вы водите это?”
I laughed. Of course he knew Russian. With all the fisherman docked in Savoonga basic competency in the language would be something easy to obtain. “Then maybe after this is done you’ll get a chance to ask him. Until then, do what you can without going boom, okay?”
I resumed my vigil. The enemy was now even with Heroes Three and Four. Once they moved forward three hundred meters, I’d let them attack, taking out the bots from behind first, then the soldiers. But the Russian forces stopped. I saw each of the Special Forces soldiers huddling behind their spidertanks. Did they really think they could go up against OMBRAs EXOs? It was a shame really. The Faraday suit was designed to defeat the Cray. Using it on fellow humans seemed wrong.
The Russians continued to remain in place. What were they doing? Suddenly my coms crackled and I heard in heavily accented Russian, “American forces. Stand down. Do not try to attack again. We request parlay.”
Interesting on many levels.
I contacted my squad. “Prepare for action on my mark only.” Then I gaze-flicked to the radio. “To whom am I speaking?”
“Commander Putrachev, formerly of the 24th Special Purpose Brigade, Mother Russia. Now of the 1st Special Purpose Company, Yukos Prime.”
Wary of delaying tactics, I was ready to launch an attack within seconds. But my curiosity needed sated. “What is Yukos Prime?”
“Was oil company. Had technology. Now in charge.”
Like OMBRA. I thought about my reply for a moment then said, “Lieutenant Mason, formerly of the 173rd Infantry Brigade Combat Team, America, now with OMBRA.”
Silence ruled for a tense thirty seconds, then came the reply. “Hero of the Mound Mason?”
Seriously? How could they know unless… but of course. Mr. Pink had probably used me as a recruiting tool across the globe. Join OMBRA and watch all of your friends die around you. We kill more of your friends before 9 AM than most organizations do all day.
“What do you want?” I asked, tired of being infamous.
“Why did your combat machine attack us?”
Combat machine? Oh, he meant the EXO. I thought about how to respond and realized that we’d fired the first salvo of this conflict and maybe we hadn’t needed to. At the time, I’d felt that Charlemagne’s actions were logical and spot on. But in retrospect, we never allowed the Russians the opportunity to explain their presence or desires. We’d spent so much time fighting the Cray that we’d forgotten the time honored tradition of parlay. Even the French at Agincourt sent a messenger to King Henry prior to the battle in an attempt to stop the conflict. Ultimately the English forces, heavily overmatched and outnumbered, had won, but that was because of superior technology. Much like the situation we faced here.
“Why did you fire on our aircraft?”
He didn’t answer.
So I asked, “What are your intentions, Putrachev?”
“Hand over your man in combat machine.”
“That’s never going to happen,” I said. Then asked, “What were your intentions prior to attack?”
“Investigate crash. Recover technology.”
“Same as ours.”
“But this is not your land. This is Russian land.”
I checked radar, then the UAV to see if there was any movement, but I detected nothing.
“I thought you said you worked for Yukos. Like America, there is no Russian.”
A few seconds of silence was followed by, “Russia is in the heart.”
Interesting. I’d lost my patriotism long ago. Given the opportunity to join the New United States of North America I’d turned them down. I was tired of belong to things. Then again, I realized that I was still within OMBRA’s grasp, but that was of my own doing. I’d consciously decided to rejoin and conduct this mission. I could understand when he said Russia was in his heart. But I didn’t feel the same. America wasn’t in my heart. She hadn’t earned the right to be. But my friends were, both living and dead.
“Cease your combat operations, Putrachev. You are outnumbered.”
“You destroyed six of my combat machines and killed six of my men.”
“I have dead as well.”
“All the blood is on your hands, Mason.”
I sighed. “Isn’t it always? This is one thing I can be sure of, Putrachev. If you continue you will die.”
“Then we die. We must continue to fight. It is who we are.”
I felt the urge to punch something. Halfway through the conversation I’d decided that I no longer wanted to fight the Russians. But here they were insisting that they die. Why couldn’t we unite against the alien forces? Why couldn’t we fight together instead of against each other?
“Putrachev, listen. Give us twenty-four hours and we will depart this location. The debris field is immense. You will find what you were looking for, I am sure.”
A moment of silence was followed by the Russian’s voice, now low and filled with sadness. “You do not understand. My men have been killed. They must be avenged.”
“Fight for the living, Putrachev, not for the dead.”
“I do not understand this concept,” he said.
“You are not alone, comrade. Very few do. It is an idea that one must come to realize through great agony.”
“I have yet to have this agony,” he said.
I sighed. “Give it time.”
I waited five minutes. As each minute ticked down, I became evermore hopeful. But then the Russians began to move forward.
“Stand by, Heroes,” I said. Then an alarm went off on my radar. A fast moving object was heading directly towards us. I stepped out of the back of the C-130 to get a visual. My jaw dropped as I observed my first space ship plummeting towards me. At first it was a silvery object, then it became bigger and bigger as it came closer. I noted that the Russians were still moving. The last thing I needed was to be in combat with an alien space craft incoming. “Putrachev, stop! Incoming space craft!”
The Russians halted and we all stared as the space craft dropped to within fifty feet of the ground and hovered. It was easily the size of a house. It was donut-shaped with a hollow center. The skin of the space craft seemed to be moving in circles around the circumference of the machine. I chewed my lip, wondering if I should shoot it or greet it.
The tickling returned in the back of my mind. Was it coming from the space craft? Were these the Hypocrealiacs, and if so, what sort of weapons systems could they bring to bear? I was thinking I should instigate actions when another alarm went off. Multiple unidentified flying objects were coming in from the south. I counted more than a hundred of them.
Damn.
Cray!
The space craft suddenly lowered to the ground over the top of Nance and the spidertank that had killed him. They disappeared from sight. Seconds later, the craft rose straight up. Nance and the bot were now in the donut-hole of the ship, held in place by metallic arms. Then it raced south. When I lost visual on it, I continued following it with my radar as it intersected the Cray. The icons indicating incoming Cray began to wink out one after the other, which could only mean that the space craft was somehow taking them out of the equation. It couldn’t be the Hypocrealiacs. So if it wasn’t them, then who?
I was so entranced watching the Cray being killed that I failed to notice the Russian’s movement.
“Hero Prime, the Russians are withdrawing.”
I turned my attention back to the situation at hand.
The Russians were indeed pulling back. They held formation and were backing towards the road.
“Commander Putrachev, what are your intentions?” I asked.
“Today we will not fight.” Then he paused, “But tomorrow is not today.”
I nodded to myself. “I understand,” I said.
I waited until they were two kilometers distant, then ordered Heroes Three and Four to RTB. I ordered Charlemagne to keep an eye on them. Then I let out a sigh of relief. It seemed as if no one was going to die in the next twenty-four hours. Small victory, but victory nonetheless.
Assuming there are one hundred advanced intelligences in our own galaxy and that they are evenly spread throughout the galaxy, the nearest one would be about 10,000 light-years away. To cover that distance by any means we know of would take at least 10,000 years and very likely much longer. Why should anyone want to make such long journeys just to poke around curiously?
Isaac Asimov
CHAPTER FOURTEEN
I HAD TO put the alien space craft or UFO out of my mind for now, even though I wanted to do nothing more than talk about it. It’s one thing to fight aliens, but another altogether to see their ships. Up until now all of the technology had been organic—the hives, the Cray, the fungus, the kudzu, the leviathans, et cetera. We’d sort of forgotten that there were other alien races, that there was a war somewhere out there.
