Invasion

The aliens were coming in, shooting. Nguyen knew that that was useless, but hoped they’d burn though their ammunition before they actually encountered live resistance. They were taking it more carefully now, but the explosion had revealed some of the underground network and they were sending in their infantry to probe for other booby-traps. More of them seemed to be swarming in from nowhere – they couldn’t allow a human force to remain in Athens, threatening their supply lines – and joining the hunt for the human defenders. Smiling to himself, Nguyen rolled back over to the hatch, slipped down into the store, and headed carefully towards the next observation point. As he left the building, careful to remain under cover, he flipped a switch and closed the door.

When an alien patrol opened it, ten minutes later, the C4 exploded. They died instantly.

***

“Here they come,” the commander breathed. “Wait for it…wait.”

The crew of the small Bradley Linebacker had known, almost as soon as they’d been told the mission, that they probably wouldn’t get out of it alive. There simply weren’t many military vehicles left in the combat zone and if they tried to manoeuvre they would reveal their existence to the aliens, who would stomp on them from orbit. Their vehicle had, in fact, been due for retirement, but fortunately it hadn’t been scrapped before the invasion began. The experts who’d hidden the vehicle, under cover of darkness, in Athens had warned them that they would get one free shot, and then the aliens would know that they were there. Remaining with the vehicle would prove fatal.

“Got them,” he said, after a long moment. He keyed a command into the console and watched as it blinked up an ‘OK’ signal. They were committed now; for a moment, they would be out of sight, but within seconds, the alien helicopters would over-fly their location. “Go!”

The three men didn’t hesitate; they ran for their lives into the warehouse and down into the basement. If they were lucky, they might make it out of the city alive, although the commander doubted it. They had bare seconds to act now…and the aliens had surrounded the city before starting to storm it. If they thought anything like humans, they’d have taken hundreds of casualties and they’d be in an evil mood. The commander switched on the air-tracking system, toggled the automatic fire switch, and dived out of the vehicle, running for his life. Behind him, the four mounted Stinger missiles rotated towards the sky, tracking the alien helicopters, and were launched into the air. The commander hit the ground as the fourth missile was launched, right into the teeth of the enemy formation, the sound of explosions suggesting that they'd hit something. A secondary explosion and a shockwave that passed through the ground showed that at least one of the helicopters had been hit and crashed. If they’d been lucky, they’d hit a different helicopter with each missile.

He pulled himself to his feet and kept running. The Bradley was out of missiles now, but the aliens didn’t know that. He was still running when the KEW came down and smashed the Bradley, the warehouse and collapsed the underground tunnels. He died without knowing just how successful he’d been.

***

Under War Priest Aflaha was in a furious mood. “Get the additional forces brought up and break into that damned city of heretics,” he thundered at his subordinates. He’d been running the battle directly from his command vehicle, very aware of his responsibilities…and he felt as if he were losing. The War Priest had commanded that the city – the humans called it Athens – be taken, but somehow it was stalling his most powerful thrusts. “I want it taken before dark!”

The humans had barely showed themselves, but they were delaying his advance, step by step. Rockets had been fired from cover, nasty bouncing mines had revealed themselves and damaged and destroyed tanks, insurgents had mounted sneak assaults on his supply units…it was turning into a nightmare. Some of the smaller human habitations had been rigged to be lethal traps; he’d come to the point where he was ordering them all levelled, just to prevent more of his warriors from being lost. He wasn't losing, but the High Priest was not going to be happy…

“Push on,” he snapped, to a question. Taking the city was the only way he would redeem himself. “Take that city!”

***

General Ridgley carefully opened the small box, mounted on the single console, and pulled the key from around his neck. It looked so…small, barely more than the key to a teenage girl’s diary, but it commanded unimaginable destructive power. He tried to analyse his own feelings as he placed the key within the device and turned it, but it was impossible. A dull inhuman calm had come over him. The key opened a second section within the device, this one demanding a fingerprint scan, and he placed his thump to the scanner. A moment later, a single click revealed that the device was now functioning.