EnEmE: Fall Of Man (14 page)

A rush of air escaped his lips before his lifeless face lolled to one side.

When I looked up, Lacy was staring at me as she leaned against the comm panels. The ramp to the vehicle held nearly a dozen resistance fighters that she’d brought back with her, looking for shelter from the battle.

They had seen everything. There would no longer be a question of whose loyalties lay where, especially Lacy’s.

We loaded up and pulled out, sounding a retreat signal for any other resistance fighters who were able to get into working vehicles. The remaining handful of vehicles in our armada headed for home at full speed.

Hauer and Freemen’s men stayed behind with a half dozen Humvees equipped with a combination of Raytheon surface-to-air missiles (CATM-120Cs) and Stingers (AN/TWQ-1) that were not committed to the battlefield and hidden, but were ready to strike the incoming mother ships when needed. Max didn’t know about these babies, thank God.

Lacy had told us that the shield generators the Tenachai used in space flight didn’t work in an oxygen rich atmosphere like Earth’s, so they would be switched off while entering the atmosphere. And since the aliens really didn’t consider humans a threat, they would most likely not have fighter escorts either, which should bode well for the upcoming surprise attack on their ships.

She told us the ship’s engines are a giant fusion reactor that must be carefully maintained, with absolutely no blowback into the reactor. Anything going in the wrong way could cause an overload and kaboom, no more fusion drive . . . or anything else for that matter.

The best thing was that you didn’t have to hit a two meter ventilation shaft down a gauntlet of enemy pulse weapons firing at you to knock one of these hulking beasts out of the sky. You just needed to get a relatively small, but fast rocket directly into the gigantic exhaust port and
adios,
alien assholes!

Two dark green Apache copters soared overhead, engines noisy in the valley. Below they could see a battle zone covering a square mile or so leading to the power plant. A small contingent was retreating across the sand, but the majority of the forces lay in the dirt. Bloody bodies and dismantled vehicles carpeted the landscape.

Austin and Mitchell turned their attention, along with the guns in their respective airships, toward the enclave of airships quickly approaching. Their massive size blocked out the sun across huge tracts of land below.

“You hot and ready to rock, men?” Sumner’s voice came over the cockpit radios and headsets.

A chorus of “Yessir!” came back at him, along with, “But these ships are freaking HUGE!”

“If the alien’s intel is on the level, our best chance is to take out the engines. If we disrupt ship propulsion, the ships will fall out of the sky and be crushed under their own sheer mass,” said Major Austin.

“Now we just have to get past their defenses, swing around, and get behind them,” responded Lt. Mitchell.

“Piece of cake!” Sumner responded confidently into his radio.

Both choppers quickly veered in opposite directions as the massive alien warships opened fire, directly into the air where their choppers had been fractions of a second before.

Meanwhile, inside the power plant, Banya continued his cocky stroll down the corridor, next to the reactor, the wall on one side of the hall made of glass, so that technicians could see the pits of heavy water that cooled the plutonium. He could tell by the new sounds echoing through the building after he’d entered, that the Tenachai forces had begun to move in as well, slowly inspecting and occupying the building. It was starting to make him nervous.

As he rounded the corner at the end of the hallway, the butt of a rifle struck him across the face.

As the daze lifted and his vision cleared, Banya realized that two Tenachai host soldiers were menacing over him, one holding him firmly by the lapels and shaking him as he spoke.

“What did you think you were doing, human?” he asked angrily. “Did you think we would just let you walk in here and try to get the drop on our leaders? Did you think you’d get through all of us and kill them?”

“No, actually.” Banya laughed nervously. “What I thought was, we have a giant nuclear reactor here. In the off chance we get ambushed by you DICKHEADS, and can’t take your people out of the sky, why don’t we just make it meltdown, causing it to explode like a nuclear bomb and wipe out you fucks out while allowing humanity to live on.”

“Nice plan,” the other soldier chuckled. “Too bad you’re too weak and puny to have ever pulled it off.”

Banya smirked at the comment, nervously pointing toward the glass in the hallway.

“Well, actually,” he stammered, “I already have. See, I’ve already had enough time to drain the heavy water tanks and the core material is so hot now that it would vaporize any water that we put back in. You guys might want to get out of ‘ere, the radiation levels have got to be very unsafe.”

The guard still holding his lapels leaned forward, peeking into the glass wall to verify Banya’s claims.

Inside, the heavy water tanks were bone dry. The radioactive rods stood exposed to the open air, radiating with an ever increasing blue glow.

The guard looked back at Banya in disbelief.

“Why would you sacrifice yourself and your friends like this?” the guard blurted out. “You humans are crazy.”

“If my friends are half as smart as I think they are, they’re already on their way home and getting out of the blast radius,” Banya said, looking into his captors’ eyes, volume rising as he held the soldiers gaze. “And I’m not crazy, I’m Australian.”

Banya punctuated the end of his sentence with a head butt, planted firmly into the soldier’s exposed face.

The ships approaching the power plant were powered by two giant engines mounted at the rear. Their exhaust ports glowed with giant blue contrails of flame that were more for directional thrust that work in unison with the anti-gravity generators.

The agile helicopters managed to bob and weave to avoid enemy fire. Austin, Mitchell, and their gunners returned fire of their own, getting in place behind the convoy of ships.

Michaels locked his sights onto an exhaust port and fired two of the chopper’s side-mounted Hellfire rockets into it.

Seconds after the missiles had disappeared, a rear eighth of the ship exploded in a massive eruption.

“Yes!” Michaels said into the radio.

“Get to it men, let’s take these alien bastards down,” responded Sumner.

Hilton sighted onto the engine of another ship while Michaels launched a missile into the only remaining engine of the ship he was attacking. The ruined side was already billowing black smoke and flame.

Hilton used his chopper’s mounted mini-gun gun to return fire, while Michaels in his chopper used the Hydra 70
rocket launchers to inflict further damage onto the exterior of the alien ships.

Now it was Hauer and Freeman’s turn with the six Humvees with surface to air missiles. They burst onto the battlefield and went different directions so as to not bunch up. All missile batteries were ordered to fire until empty because they were pretty sure they would be destroyed in short order.

Sumner’s voice came over all the radios. “Foxtrot Six November, release all ordinance, missiles away!!!”

In seconds the sky was ripped with eruptions. Two massive alien ships dropped to the ground. Billowing smoke and collapsing, they collided with the Earth, releasing massive shockwaves more powerful than any earthquake than California had seen in recent years.

Inside the power plant, Banya continued his casual stroll toward the door, now carrying one of the guard’s Earth rifles over his shoulder, but was thrown to the floor with the massive artificial quake from the first enormous ship slamming into the Earth.

He picked himself up and without warning his body was rocked backward by a bullet passing though his collar bone.

“OW!” he screamed.

He slowly stirred, sitting up and looking at the gaping wound in his chest.

“Oy. Now you pricks have gone and done it.” Banya yelled as he stood. “I tried to be civilized about this with you stupid bints, but I can see we we’ll have to play hard ball.”

He looked down a short set of granite stairs at an entire platoon of Tenachai foot soldiers at the bottom and he turned to run. Their only response was another bullet, this time passing through his left butt cheek and spun him around to face his attackers.

Banya launched himself down the stairs at the aliens. The surprise of his resilience gave him precious moments enough to wade into two more soldiers before the rest began to open fire or slash with edged armour ridges. Banya didn’t feel the wounds. He kept fighting like a wild animal as each strike brought him closer to death.

The Tenachai had underestimated the tenacity of Earth resistance, but it had now stirred their inexhaustible rage.

The remaining three ships unleashed a furious all-out assault. Sonic disruptors, lasers, artillery. The largest ship finally released a squadron of small combat ships out of its side. Each fighter, roughly half the size of an Earth jet, was fully loaded with energy weapons and manned by an expertly trained pilot whose purpose in life was to conquer for the Intergalactic Empire.

Major Austin was able to take out one more engine before enemy laser fire blasted through the cockpit and fatally wounded Michaels, puncturing his chest. The rotors had been damaged as well, beginning to careen wildly and billowing smoke. With his dying breaths, Austin gritted his teeth, and aimed his chopper at the second engine that still functioned and accelerated.

“God speed,” said Sumner, as he watched the damaged Apache strike home into the engine and erupt.

As the ship Austin and Michaels had attacked was dropping from the sky, Mitchell and Hilton looked at the two functioning engines of the ship in front of them and hoped. The veteran gunner carefully aimed at one of the engines, pulled the trigger and released a primal scream.

The Hellfire rocket collided into the engine.

Mitchell looked at Hilton with a mix of hope and desperation.

“That was the last rocket.” Hilton said.

The engine he had fired the rocket into moments before exploded, but the ship kept going. A minute later it began to struggle. The glow of the engine exhaust began to blink intermittently before it finally died and the ship collided with the ground in a giant fireball.

“You’re out of munitions and staying there any longer would be an insult to the sacrifice of some of the U.S. military’s finest men,” Sumner said “retreat back to HQ to regroup…and hope for a miracle.”

The olive green chopper veered away, following the tracks of the resistance vehicles, still visible in the sand from their retreat hours before.

The single remaining ship, the largest one, carrying the leaders of the Tenachai Empire continued its approach toward the power plant with nothing left in its way to stop it from successfully landing.

Hauer’s team was completely out of missiles and their hummers where being vaporized by the alien fighters almost as fast as they appeared on the scene. It was a shame as so many lost their lives after tasting humanity’s first small victory.

Chapter 24 - Aftermath

As our convoy approached the hospital, we could see smoke and flame rising into the sky from several miles away in the growing darkness, and feared the worst.

At the sight of the near-destruction of the only home we now knew, battle fatigue began to fade away, tempers spurred on by a mixture of anger and desperate hope. We ploughed forward into the unknown.

Lacy and I were able to run over several of the alien foot soldiers that surrounded the ruins of our home before they realized that our small armada was in fact the enemy, resistance survivors of their planned ambush.

The firefighting started up anew.

We found a place to park the armoured vehicle out of direct fire, protected by a ruined brick wall that offered cover. The ramp lowered and our group of resistance fighters cautiously exited, taking advantage of the protection that the wall afforded them.

I hustled my way along the wall away from the sounds of battle, but keeping my rifle at the ready.

Roughly eighty yards down, the wall was crumbled leaving a large open gap of loose brick. I could see the building beyond. The Tenachai had ravaged it ruthlessly. Nearly half the building was collapsed. Corpses of those who had lived here -- women, children, and elderly grandparents -- were all strewn about the wreckage. With the building out of the way I could see the heavily damaged parking garage. It looked like a concrete and steel layer cake that had had a large wedge cut out of it. Amid the wreckage I could make out a handful of host soldiers, searching the debris for survivors, shooting anything that might not be dead.

Then my heart froze. My breath stopped.

From my vantage point I could see what the soldiers could not.

Unbelievably it was Kiebler and she was alive. Despite being covered in dirt and blood I knew it was her, crawling through the debris behind a concrete boulder, out of the soldier’s line of sight.

I bolted. I probably should have been more cautious, but I couldn’t. The woman I cared about was in mortal danger. I ran along the precarious edge of the ruined building until I reached a point that I felt I could safety make the twelve foot jump down to her.

“Jace!” she blurted out, over the emotional tears welling in her eyes.

“Shhhhh,” I tried to calm and quiet her.

As the handful of soldiers rounded a corner they were met with my unexpected gunfire. A volley of bullets killed three, wounded one, and left another unscathed. Those still breathing took cover behind a nearby wall.

“They took us by surprise, it was an ambush,” Kiebler blurted out, nearly hysterical. “There are so many dead.”

“Shhh…I know, I know,” I tried to reassure her.

Enemy fire broke out around us from the two surviving soldiers. I returned some cover fire and turned back to Kiebler.

“What happened, did…did you guys win? If you won, why are they still attacking us?” Kiebler asked desperately.

“It was all a set-up to take us out,” I replied.

“Lacy?” Kiebler asked.

“No,” I replied. “Max was one of them the whole time. He set us up.”

“I’m so sorry,” she said. “So I guess it’s over. This is how we’re all going to die.”

“Don’t count us out yet,” I said, trying to sound positive. “Didn’t you see those explosions in the sky and feel those shockwaves? Hauer, Freeman and the chopper boys must be pulling off their part of the plan. That’s what counts.”

I turned and caught one of the surviving soldiers with a bullet between the eyes as he poked his head out to see if he was still in any danger.

“But it’s been so long since the last one, and they’re still fighting,” Kiebler said.

Before I could reply, we were interrupted by a familiar beeping sound and Kiebler’s eyes went wide looking at me desperately.

She quickly turned and looked at the jammer on her belt. The light was red. Her battery was almost dead.

“Don’t worry, don’t worry,” I reassured her. “We’re gonna get out of here. There has to be a jammer on one of the dead still working. We’ll get out of here and get you a new one before you know it. It will be fine.”

I hustled around the other side of the boulder, getting a new shooting angle that allowed me to take out the injured soldier that had been hanging on and firing from behind the wall. We had climbed the ramp to the next level of the parking garage when my worst nightmare was realized.

We heard another familiar sound. A Tenachai soldier was sweeping the area with a radio frequency rifle.

“No,” Kiebler pleaded desperately.

I pulled a jammer belt off of a dead member of the resistance and slapped it on her just in time. We stared at each other for a brief moment, holding out collective breath, before breathing a sigh of relief.

“Thank you! Thank you!” she said.

I said, “I love you,” and kissed her deeply.

She said, “I love you, too.”

Slowly, lost in our own world, we staggered out of the rubble, our minds anywhere but where they should have been.

In the rubble I stumbled, weapon lowered, oblivious to the foot soldiers slowly surrounding me and raising their weapons.

Lacy and a couple of resistance fighters shouted and began running toward us from over a hundred yards away, startling me back to reality. They fired desperately, but there was no way they’d reach us in time to stop us from being blown apart by the Tenachai weapons aimed at us.

Suddenly the air around us opened up with gunfire. Armour piercing bullets rained down from the sky, through the alien soldiers and leaving them to fall limp like puppets with cut strings.

Lacy and the others ducked for cover. Kiebler and I ducked behind the wall we’d just left. I looked up to see a large green Apache helicopter slowly lowering from the sky, Mitchell piloting and Hilton behind a mini-gun with clenched teeth, firing into the surprised Tenachai forces around the building

The aliens in the immediate area had been quelled as Mitchell gently landed his chopper on the ground.

A squadron of foot soldiers, including a massive Gamma on his chariot, slowly moved in from the other side of the parking garage, weapons drawn, ready to fire.

We breathed.

At the power plant the enormous spaceship slowly and softly landed in the sand, its long pneumatic legs extending, keeping the ship balanced upright.

Hauer, Freeman and what was left of their team, could only watch as the ship landed. They were praying that the crazy Aussie did his job and they didn’t have to wait long.

A set of stairs melted forward as if by magic, smooth metallic beams settling down upon one another from the ship to the ground.

The ruling class of the Tenachai, tall, slender and noble, dressed in robes of their station, descended the stairs. They quickly recoiled in shock at their greeting.

Standing there, at the entrance to the power plant was none other than Jessie Banya. He was broken, cut, and full of gashes, holes and bullet wounds. The tenacious Aussie was covered in his own blood, blood that was still literally pouring out of him, but still, somehow clinging to life.

He looked at the shocked delegation of Tenachai elite and grinned.

“It’s about bloody time, ye slow arse space tards.” Banya hollered. “Let me be the first to say, Welcome to Earth…and FUCK YOU!”

As he yelled his last words, he extended two bloody hands into the air to deliver a double middle finger.

Hauer and Freeman looked at each other in disbelief and started to laugh their asses off and the men with them followed.

Then the entire power plant erupted behind him with white light.

The sky filled with a brilliant flash of light and a mushroom cloud burst into the air.

We were out of the blast radius and fallout area, but were hit with a shock wave that knocked human and alien alike to the ground.

Moments later the Tenachai forces began screaming with an inhuman wail and falling dead to the ground.

“They must have detonated the power plant,” I said, looking toward Lacy.

“Yes,” she said. “The entire ruling caste has been eliminated. The shock to the hive mind, the feedback of losing such a large piece of itself, must be too much for the individuals to bear. If I didn’t have this jammer, I’d likely be as dead as them.”

The Gamma wriggled in the dirt, still wailing, but using his immense strength to cling to life. I picked up an energy rifle, climbed on top of a nearby truck, and released a full blast into its head, spraying yellow flesh everywhere.

Everywhere we looked, host soldiers and Tenachai were dropping like flies screaming in agony. We hoped this was happening all over the planet

Kiebler joined me. Lacy, Austin and Hilton filled in behind us.

We looked out over the ruined hospital and battlefield. The only thing moving was the surviving human resistance, faces opening, eyes brightening as they slowly realized that we were actually victorious.

Kiebler gripped my hand firmly, intertwining her fingers with mine. Then she hoisted our hands high above our heads.

Nearly 200 voices erupted in cheers of happiness, freedom and victory.