“What the fuck is that?!” the corporal exclaimed as his cigarette went flying. The noise broke the stunned silence of the general.
“Major!!” The general had to yell it twice to break the major out of his stupor. “Major!!”
“Sir!? What the…”
“Major! No time! Rally the troops!! Now! I want defensive positions immediately! Get the tanks up here now!” The general had to give the major credit. He snapped it together in an instant and was belaying orders to the junior officers. Some of the Marines had to be pushed into action, judging by their bewildered stares. The vast majority knew their part; they had trained hard and long for this. Maybe not this particular scenario, but going on the defensive was the same, no matter who the enemy. Marines scurried around, jumping into fighting holes and readying their M-16’s or SAW’s. The tanks were just beginning to ramble up into the camp.
“Yea, though I walk through the shadow of death…” The General started.
The corporal had been through a few scrapes with the general but had never before seen him utter the Lord’s Prayer. At that moment, the corporal wished he had listened to his mother and stayed in school.
Chapter 16
The world governments knew first, then the major telescopes around the globe, then pretty much anybody who had a scope from Sears. Not until the line of ships was visible, did the planet reach its most heightened state of alertness. Most people didn’t have enough time to panic. More than likely, that was a good thing.
Chapter 17
The girls had retired to the front porch and were enjoying some wine in the cool mountain air when they became aware that something was amiss.
“Beth, do you hear anything?”
“No, nothing at all. It’s so quiet up here, none of the traffic like back East.”
“No, Beth. I’m not talking about traffic I’m talking about anything, bugs, crickets, owls, anything?”
“Now that you mention it, I don’t hear anything. I thought it was just me, but I was beginning to feel a little creeped out.”
“Yeah, sort of like when we were on the ship.”
Both girls looked up, almost as if on cue. Deb was vaguely aware as she spilled some wine that it was probably going to stain her parents’ front deck, but the importance of that completely eluded her.
“Dad!!!” Deb screamed.
Her father came hauling ass after hearing his daughter. “What’s going on?” her father said, nearly panicked. “Deb, I thought a mountain lion was attacking you two!” He then noticed the spilled drinks. “Girls, I really think you can handle this mess by yourselves, without all the drama!” he chided. He was beginning to feel a little perturbed that his daughter caused his blood pressure to rise by fifty points for the spilled drink. “You know, if you don’t wipe that up soon, it’s going to stain.”
“Dad, get Mom and Duke and the keys to the root cellar.”
“Hon, they don’t have tornadoes in the foothills. You know that. A lot of lightning, but no tornadoes.”
“Dad, shut up and get Mom.”
Deb’s quiet steeliness unsettled her father, but he was still under the impression that this was just one of her many panic attacks since returning from heaven only knows where.
“Dad!” Deb exclaimed as she pointed up into the sky. Recognition finally dawned on his face.
“I’ll g-g-go get your mother.”
“Good idea, Dad.” Deb said returning her gaze skyward.
Chapter 18
“Hey Paul! The last of our troops should be arriving within the next five or six hours.”
“I don’t think they’re going to make it, Wags.”
“Come on, Paul! You told me yourself you got away from the Marines without them discovering anything.”
“You’re right, buddy, they have no clue; but I just got off the phone with the observatory in Hawaii and our interplanetary friends are on the way.”
“Paul, tell me you’re kidding. We’ve only got about half of our troops ‘holed up’.”
“No joke, Wags. He says the front running ships will most likely be here in an hour, or two, tops. I want you to issue a Code Red callback on all of our troops. Tell them if they’re not back in an hour, then don’t bother. At one hour exactly, I want the cave gates closed and locked. Then I want everything topside blacked out, and I mean completely out. I don’t so much as want a lighter up there. I also want all satellite transmissions halted immediately. Understood?”
“No problem, consider it done. Paul, I just have one question.” Paul knew it was coming and was somewhat surprised that it had taken so long.
“Paul, where is Mike?” Paul thought about lying and saying that Mike had left camp to be with Beth but thought better of it. Historically, he had never been a good liar and Dennis was bound to find out eventually.
“Paul, Ron’s here. I’m going to have to tell him something. And it’s not only him; I want to know and there are others.” Dennis suspected Paul might be trying to blow him off by stalling, but he was determined to find out the truth. Something stunk around here and he meant to get to the bottom of it.
“Dennis,” Wags didn’t like the tone of Paul’s voice any time someone used his first name. It usually meant bad news, and this time was no different. “Mike was a spy.”
“What do you mean ‘spy’? And what do you mean ‘was’!”
“Dennis, I don’t have time to explain it all right now; but I did what I had to do; I took care of it. I promise to tell you everything and show you the proof as soon as we have some down time.”
“Paul, what do I tell Ron?”
“You tell him that you have no idea where Mike is; tell him that you think he’s still in Colorado.”
“Aw Paul, I don’t like this. I don’t like this at all.”
“I’ll explain it later, but for now, get my orders in motion or I won’t have to explain myself at all.” Dennis understood that completely, but he was still shaking his head in disbelief as he headed out the door.
Chapter 19
The Marines were nothing, if not prepared, General Weston thought to himself. They had completely dug themselves in, thanks, in large part, to the departing army that preceded them. It truly was an amazing maze of trenches and cave systems that crisscrossed the mountain top. They must have worked twenty-four/seven, the general thought to himself. He felt more secure here than at the El Toro base. He wasn't sure if even those defensive measures would be enough to withstand the coming onslaught.
Chapter 20
Militaries around the world braced for the storm. Enemies who, moments earlier, were locked in mortal combat now stood shoulder-to-shoulder waiting for the impending doom to rain down. For the briefest of times in the globe’s history, world peace was upon us. Man stood beside his fellow man, regardless of race, creed, color, or any other bogus manifestation of hate created by human discrimination.
For a few hours in the history of man, something that had been prophesized for millennia was taking place. The why of it had always been conveniently omitted by the ancient prophets. The lucky souls who passed away by natural causes in those last few hours and thereby escaped the coming hell would be forever thankful.
Chapter 21
The gun ships were roughly the size of the tanks they were attacking, with far more mobility. The general noted no props or detectable engines of any kind. There was no rotor splash or jet exhaust; how they flew was a complete mystery. Their mobility, however, was not as good as he had expected. They appeared to be more designed for spatial combat, not terrestrial. They flew well but not spectacularly well. In reality, they looked more like Volvo station wagons with fins--basically flying bricks. Okay, so they were big bricks with unimaginable weaponry.
The first rounds slammed into the recently vacated and newly repopulated mountaintop above Vail. Rounds? General Weston thought to himself. He didn’t really think that they could be classified as rounds.
The bluish light that emanated from the
gunships was in sharp contrast to the silvery red that begat the devastation the blasts made when they struck home. The M-1 Abrams tank that was targeting the gunship while awaiting orders to fire had been what? Not vaporized, more like liquefied. All that remained of the fifteen-ton vehicle and its five crew members was something akin to slag. Bright, red-embered slag. Could it be brought down? Visible panic dominated the afterglow for a few seconds of almost every Marine on that mount. But none broke ranks. There would be no running, not that there would have been enough time anyway.
The Progerians’ first strike was all the incentive the Marines needed to open fire. The mountaintop was lit up like a spectacular fireworks display. Red tracers shot upwards as blue fire rained down. The remaining tanks began to move and fire rapidly so as not to make such easy targets. The gunships targeted the behemoth machines first.
General Weston wondered if the aliens were possibly afraid of them. Then, as if on some cosmic cue, a tank round hit pay dirt. The gunship rocked sideways from the force of the blast, that was all the general noticed at first with a serious heaping of dismay. If the strongest weapon in their arsenal at this moment couldn’t do more than knock the ship off course for a few seconds, then of what use would small arms fire be? The general desperately wanted to sound the call to fall back, fall back where though? The carnage was mounting, the screams of Marines writhing in agony was deafening. He began to flashback to his Vietnam days.
“Oh God, what have I done?” the general asked as he stood up and surveyed all that was happening around him, almost oblivious to it all. What sent him further away was an incredibly loud ‘POP’.
***
He recognized it as the sound that his old cork gun made when he was seven years old. The one his brother had traded for a pack of baseball cards. He had been so mad then, he almost cussed. His mother would have paddled his ass for an hour, had he not thought better of it. It all worked out in the end. His brother had to buy him a new gun, he got the pack of baseball cards, and he got to watch as his mother paddled his brother’s behind.
Days later, his big brother, Mikey, got him back. Mikey was more upset that his little brother saw the tears welling up in his eyes. Mikey made it look like an accident with the swing, but they both knew better. His brother kept pushing the swing higher and higher, even though Johnny screamed for him to stop, to no avail. Johnny was terrified that the swing would fly off into space. He got so scared, he simply let go. Had Johnny turned around, he would have seen the mortified look on his brother’s face. Johnny let go when the swing reached its highest point. Mikey knew no good would come of it and slowly Johnny fell, straight at first, and then a little skewed to the left. Finally, he plunged to the ground with a snap and a crash.
***
“What was that?!” the general snapped back.
“Sir! We got one! We got one!!!” There was a huge, tumultuous “Ooh Rah” and that was the last thing the old man heard before the command post joined the majority of the combatants on the hill. It seemed a pretty fitting ending, the general thought as he watched with indifference. Then, slowly he ascended, failing to understand the imagery below him. The battle waged on; men didn’t need leadership when their ass was on the line. Saving one’s skin was incentive enough.
Another gunship was brought down, this one seemed to be more from mechanical failure than anything the Marines launched. All the tanks had been taken out early, especially after they proved lethal to the ships. The Marines M-16 fire was about as affective as the charge of the Polish Cavalry against the German Panzer division in World War II, basically nil. Fifteen hundred human men was an awfully high price to pay for two gunships, although the Progerians didn’t see it that way.
Chapter 22
Aboard the Mother Ship
“The supreme commander is going to be awfully disappointed with your tactics, Kuvlar.”
Kuvlar, for lack of a better term, was the interim supreme commander. The Progerians didn’t have any sort of fail safes in place like our government; such as, if the president is out of the picture, the vice president steps in, then the House Leader, and so forth. Eleven Progerians had stepped into the Coliseum and performed ritualistic battle. Kuvlar had dominated those games and was now interim supreme commander. But Kuvlar’s emotions more closely resembled a human’s.
He wasn’t proud of it, but he loved his newfound power. He basked in it, wanted it. He hoped that the supreme commander was dead and, if not, maybe he could do something to change that. This was no cold, calculating thought process that humans often attribute to crocodiles; it was more like red-hot, human passion. That was why the sub-commander’s remarks elicited a loud snarl and gnashing of Kuvlar’s jaws.
“Right now, Sub-Commander Tuvok, I am the supreme commander. I have only myself to answer to.”
“Sir, we just lost two gunships in our first attack.”
“I am fully aware of that. I guess the puny hu-mans really do have a nasty bite.” Kuvlar was remembering the blast that had wiped out a significant portion of their fleet. He hoped that the thousands of ships launched would be enough to conquer the planet. The only other alternative was for him to be forcibly brought back to his home planet to answer for his ineptitude. By then, the meeting would be no more than a formality, after which he would be enslaved and forced to fight in the very games he loved to watch.
Chapter 23
“What the hell is going on?!” Deb shouted in horror as she peeked out the storm cellar door to see five more F-16’s scrambling.
“Honey, shut the door,” a nervous Mr. Carody said softly. He wasn’t sure if anyone could hear him over the din, but he was afraid to say it any louder.
“It’s happening, Beth, isn’t it?” Deb asked, turning to Beth. Beth was huddled in the corner. If she had found more room, she would have been in the fetal position. Now Deb appeared to be the stronger of the two. Beth had spent so much time trying to obliterate the memories from her mind that she was now having a difficult time wrapping her thoughts around the present.
“Oh, Beth,” Deb said with true concern in her voice as she passed by her shivering father. Shivering? Was it cold? Her dad afraid? Impossible! The man was a rock. He must just be cold, Deb thought to herself as she wrapped her arms around Beth. Deb grabbed her openly weeping mother and pulled her into the fray too. Her dad came willingly enough after that. For two hours, they stayed like that; nobody dared move. Maybe if they stayed still long enough nobody would ever notice that they were there.
Chapter 24
Above Vail
“Con 7? This is Yankee Whiskey 1,” Colonel Dodson said from the cockpit of his F-16.
“Go ahead, Yankee Whisky 1, this is Con 7,” the control tower at AFB Denver replied.
“Con 7. Vail Mount is burning. I repeat, burning. No signs of life below.” The colonel had no idea who was down there but even as high up and fast as he was going, he could tell that the devastation was beyond anything he could ever compare it to. “Please dispatch helo’s.”
“Confirmed, Yankee Whiskey 1. What of the bogies?”
“We have them on radar, Con 7. They seem to be heading your way.”
“We see them. Any sign of them in your area?”
“Negative, Con 7.”
“Do you have an intercept Yankee Whiskey 1?”
“Con 7, at their present speed, we can intercept but it’s going to be close. You may want to evacuate.”
“Negative, Yankee Whiskey 1. We have jets scrambling from Colorado Springs.”
“How many, Con 7?”
“Two air wings.”
“Con 7, even if we make it on time, we’re still outnumbered five to one. I must strongly urge you to evacuate.”
“Colonel? This is Major General Baslin on the line now. That is a negative on the retreat. We will not abandon our post. We are your eyes and ears and the last line of defense for Denver.”
“Roger that, Major General. Squadrons two and four, I want you on full burn with m
y wing ‘til we intercept. Three and five, I want you to maintain present speed. We are going to need fresh fighters with plenty of fuel. Good luck all, today we fight, tomorrow we’ll worry about dying.” That elicited a chorus of loud “Whoop’s" over the radio before everyone attended to the business at hand.
***
Five rescue helicopters from the Forest Rangers department attempted to land and aid. That was an impossibility. The ground itself appeared to be on fire.
“Shit!”
“What is it, Cappy?” Ranger Buckley asked Joe 'Cappy' Fremont.
“That ground down there looks like when I used to fly tourists in Hawaii over Kilauea, the active volcano. I thought I would never see that kind of heat again.”
“Why did you leave a cushy job like that? Taking tourists on a little cruise flight.”
“I’m afraid of fire.”
“So you joined the Rangers to fight forest fires?”
“What can I say? I love trees.”
“Cappy, that doesn’t look like just trees down there.”
“Hold on! I’m going to see if I can get us a closer look.” Even from five hundred feet, they could feel the heat from the blaze below, but the proximity did allow them to identify some shapes.
“Hey Buck! Are those tanks?” Cappy asked as he pointed down and to the left.
“Cappy, I think you’re right but what the hell are tanks doing here? You think this was some sort of firing range accident?”
“I don’t think so, Buck, not unless they were firing some low-level nukes. Radio the rest of the helo’s. We’ll attempt to land closer to the city and confiscate some cars.”
“Roger that, Cappy.” A fresh bead of sweat rolled off Buck’s brow and it had nothing to do with how close they were to the blaze.
***
The F-16’s thundered through the sky. For those that did not yet know what was happening, the squadron solved that little problem. Houses shook, knick-knacks flew off shelves. People cried anew. Most really had no clue what was going on; but they saw the invaders come in. One look over at the mountains and you could tell a major battle had been waged and now U.S. fighters were screaming through the air. Most citizens were still under the impression that this was some sort of terrestrial attack, Russia or perhaps, China. For those unlucky few who knew the truth, there would be no comfort tonight.