Invasion

Sergeant Darryl Tyler wiped his forehead as the small patrol made its way across the devastated country. Sage, his Atika-Husky bitch, looked up at him, her tongue hanging out, as if to ask why the patrol had stopped. Technically, the presence of a dog was against regulations, but Sage had saved their lives several times during the first battles with the aliens, if only howling to warn them of their advance. No man in the small patrol, or even in the entire army, would have refused to allow her to serve, despite what the rules said.

“Don’t worry,” he said, more to her than the rest of the men. The seven men and two women of the patrol had been on duty for several hours and it was getting hotter. “We’ll be on the road again soon.”

The Army’s defeat had scared hell out of the civilians, he reflected, as he peered into the distance, towards the Red Zone. Only the presence of a black helicopter, several kilometres away, warned him that anything was amiss. The civilians who were actually army-reservists had been drafted back into service, while the remainder had been evacuated from the area to somewhere safer, although there weren't many places in the United States that could be termed as ‘safe’ these days. The Marine and Special Forces operators had been through a three-kilometre wide area and carefully rigged the entire zone with booby-traps. Lake Palestine was no longer a safe place for swimmers, while the towns had been converted into death traps. Snipers and survivalists lurked in the bushes, prepared to shoot any alien who so much as showed his face, even though most of the locals had been removed. They had wanted to stay and defend their homes, but instead they’d been removed. The army couldn’t take the risk of them falling into enemy hands.

Sage barked and gambolled around while the patrol checked around. The problem these days was simple; the aliens could come at them at any time, with very little warning. They moved awesomely fast on the ground, weren't bothered by the destroyed or rigged bridges and radio transmissions tended to draw a strike from orbit. The Special Forces had rigged up a lot of dummy transmitters, trying to dissuade the aliens from taking pot shots at every transmitter, but still, using radio was dangerous. The patrol was, effectively speaking, on its own.

“Move out,” he said, and strode off, confident that his men would follow him. They were a confusing mixture of reservists, soldiers whose units had been destroyed in Operation Lone Star and even a pair of civilians who had somehow talked their way into a military unit, but they knew their stuff. If they were attacked, he was confident that they would manage to acquit themselves well. They marched up a hill, watching out for infiltrators…and saw, instead, a line of alien vehicles, advancing right towards Athens. They were coming directly up the road, their passage almost soundless, right towards the defence lines.

“Shit,” he snapped, and pulled a small radio out off his belt. Keying in a single command, he placed it down by a rock, and then led the patrol away from the radio. Thirty seconds after he’d left it, the radio sent a single burst transmission and then shut down. The aliens didn’t bother to destroy the radio from orbit; the odds were, he decided, that they had already started to jam the human communications. When they decided to put on a blitzkrieg, they were almost unstoppable. “Come on.”

He led the patrol down towards a possible ambush point. They could have retreated into one of the hidden outposts the Army Engineers had scattered around the cleared zone, but that wasn't in his nature. He knew that there was little that they could do to slow the aliens, despite the mines and suchlike that had been left in the area, but they had no choice, but to try. The aliens were not going to break through the lines without a fight.

In the distance, he could see the light of falling KEWs. Overhead, a seemingly endless swarm of enemy helicopters passed, heading towards the human lines. The aliens were definitely on the move…and all they could do was die bravely. By now, they probably couldn’t even make it back to the human lines.

***

“It’s confirmed, sir,” the aide said. “We’re looking at a major push from the Red Zone.”

“Thought so,” General Ridgley admitted, as he peered at the map in front of him. One advantage of working in relatively static lines, even if they had to keep it very low key to avoid attracting alien interest, was that they could rig up a whole new battlespace communications network. It wasn't as capable as the one they’d enjoyed prior to the invasion, but at least it allowed him some additional control over events. The sensors they’d scattered throughout the cleared zone actually allowed them to track the aliens fairly closely, although not all of the readings made sense. “They’re heading for Athens?”