“I wouldn’t know how to use one,” Weaver admitted. “But I’ll be glad to learn if we get out of this.”
“I need to go find the company commander,” Glasser said. “Miller, Sanson, stay on the doctor. If it goes to shit, get him out.” With that he stood up and sprinted off behind the line.
“What did it look like on the other side?” Weaver asked.
“Like being in a big, green, stomach,” Miller responded. He had pulled off his mask and now had a chew in again. “I think it was the inside of some big organism. Big. The room we were in was at least a hundred meters long.”
“Shit,” Sanson said, dropping out his magazine and slapping in a new one.
The reason for his exclamation was clear. A new type of creature was pouring through the gate. These were bipedal and large but otherwise similar in general appearance to the earlier attackers. The big difference was in their armament. The tops of their beaks appeared to be hollow and as Weaver watched they stitched the line of defenders with projectiles. Two of them concentrated on the big machine gun, which had been gotten back into action, and the two man crew was riddled with the projectiles, their blood splashing all over the truck, which was still painted in desert camouflage.
The beasts were, also, heavily armored and seemed to shrug off most of the rounds coming their way. Only the heavy rounds of the MG-240s seemed able to penetrate their armor and the things were now concentrating on taking out the machine guns one by one.
“Joy,” Weaver said, turning over and pulling out his cell phone. He noticed that a news crew had set up behind the line of firing. Alien invasion, live. Joy.
He pulled out his PDA and found the number he had been given then dialed it.
“White House, National Security Advisor’s office.”
“This is Doctor William Weaver,” he said. “I’d like to speak to the NSA if she’s available.”
“I’m sorry, Dr., she’s in a meeting at the moment,” the operator said. “Is that firing I hear?”
“Yes,” he replied. “You might want to get a message to her that we’re being invaded by aliens and the National Guard company trying to hold them off is about to be overrun. It should be on CNN by now. That was really all I called to say, anyway. Thanks. Bye.” With that he cut the connection.
Lieutenant VanGelder’s SWAT team had been more than happy to let the National Guard secure the site. But, on the other hand, this was Lake County and the gate was a clear and present danger. So he’d had them stick around and had taken over one of the upstairs rooms of the Edderbrook residence as his headquarters. When the firing broke out most of the team had been in the room and they had immediately stepped to the window to watch the growing firefight.
Most of the team was armed with MP-5s, which was not going to do much good in this battle. But in the team vehicle were heavier weapons. Some of them so heavy that the SWAT team got a good bit of ribbing for having them.
“Jenson, Knapp,” he snapped as the smaller beasts started pouring out of the gate and the SEAL team retreated. “Go get the Barretts.”
Weaver had stuck his head back up over the side of the hole just in time to see one of the big monsters go pitching back with a hole in its breast. From the rear there was a loud BOOM that was audible even over the sound of the firing around him.
“Barrett,” Command Master Chief Miller said, spitting out a line of tobacco juice. “Probably them SWAT boys. Doctor, I think it’s time for us to get out of here.”
“Agreed,” Weaver said, just as one of the things turned and sent a stream of projectiles their way. He ducked down and looked behind them where some of them had embedded in a tree. They looked like thorns about two inches long, glittering black against the grayish-brown trunk. “How?”
“Low,” the chief said. “Crawl out the back. Keep your butt down and your head down. There’s enough of a parapet in the front that if you stay low and go you’ll be covered by it. We’ll be right behind you.”
VanGelder tracked right until the rifle was lined on another, then squinted through the scope. At this range it would have been better to use iron sights but there hadn’t been time to take the scopes off much less rezero the sights. So he used what he had. He lined up the next beast through the crosshairs, stroked the trigger and then worked the bolt.
“Got him,” Knapp said. He was standing by with another magazine and spotting for the lieutenant. “Left, monster in the open.”
VanGelder tried not to laugh in near hysteria as he tracked left and shot another of the things. Unfortunately, it was like spitting in the ocean. The right flank of the National Guard company had been rolled up and most of their medium machine guns had been taken out. And more of the little monsters were pouring through now.
He shot another, changed magazines and then looked at the overall situation. Most of the national guardsmen were trying to scurry out of their holes and run. He didn’t think anything against them for it; the situation was clearly out of control.
On the other hand, be damned if they were going to invade through Lake County if he had anything to say about it.
“Get on the horn. Call dispatch. Tell them to send everything we’ve got. If we can hold them by the gate we can hold them. Hell, send out a general call, anybody with big guns. Even a hunting rifle. Get your ass down here. We’ve got to hold them, here.”
“I’m on it,” Jenson said. “There’s a news crew down there, I’ll tell them, too.”
VanGelder nodded and looked back through the scope. Monster in the open.
Sanson squatted by a window, firing single shots in rapid fire. Miller had scooped up one of the abandoned MG-240s, its two-man crew dead, and was laying down fire from another window.
Dr. Weaver had settled on the couch in the front room and was contemplating gate activity. So far there had been one gate caused by man and one that appeared, apparently as the result of a hostile alien force. The first one sort of made sense. The Higgs boson had caused some sort of wormhole effect, either to another planet in this universe or to another universe. The second one did not. And then there was the hypothetical gate through which Tuffy had appeared. Would there be more? And why were they occurring.
He dialed his phone again.
“Garcia.”
“Have the detectors arrived?”
“About an hour ago, and you were right. There’s a fairly continuous stream of subatomic particles coming out of it. I think it’s degrading.”
“Okay, good,” Weaver said.
“Is that firing I hear?” Garcia asked.
“Yeah, we’re being invaded,” Weaver replied and yawned. “Monsters from the eighth dimension or something. I think we’re about to get overrun.”
“Jesus! Get out of there!”
“Well, we’re sort of cut off,” Weaver admitted. “Look, what sort of particles?”
“Muons and something else,” Garcia said. “Do you really want to talk about this now?”
“Yes.”
“Okay, there’s some muons, like I said, but we’re getting readings on others. They’re not anything I recognize, not mesons, not quarks, very high mass. I’d guess they might be bosons.”
“That doesn’t make sense,” Weaver said, squinting his brow as the machine gun set up an almost continuous clatter. “Not the big particles, the muons. I’d have expected neutrinos.”
“I don’t happen to have a neutrino detector on me at the moment,” Garcia said, sarcastically. Neutrino detection required very large tanks of chemicals, usually in the tens of thousands of gallons. When the neutrinos hit the chemicals they were accelerated to faster than light speed, creating Cherenkov radiation detectable as purplish-blue flashes of light.