He looked up at Stocker. “Are you sure they can be trusted?”
“We’re part of the American Clan now,” the lead alien said. The sibilant voice sent chills down Brent’s spine. He hadn’t realised how much the mask altered their voices. “You welcomed us when others would kill us.”
You don’t know the half of it, Brent thought, remembering how many attacks on the aliens had been motivated by a desire for revenge. The two aliens might not know it, but they were luckier than they deserved to be, really; they’d been recovered by someone smart enough to understand the value of prisoners. The aliens were normally unwilling to allow themselves to be taken prisoner and tended to keep fighting when a human unit would have been trying to surrender.
“Very well,” Brent said, finally. “How do you intend to get into the spaceports? They’re the most heavily guarded places in the entire Red Zone. The collaborators who go into them only do so under heavy guard.” He felt a moment of pleasure at that, because it meant that some of the collaborators the aliens had accepted had turned out to be rather untrustworthy. “Perhaps if we…”
He looked down at the aliens. “With their help, it might be possible to get in, but then… how do we reach the spacecraft?”
A thought blossomed out in his mind. “Perhaps it can be done after all,” he said. “How long do we have to make preparations?”
“Three days,” Stocker said. He nodded towards one of his men, who was carrying a heavy backpack. “If worst comes to worst, we have one hell of a surprise for the aliens here.”
“Good,” Brent said. Three days meant that there wouldn’t be time to call upon the remainder of his people. They’d have to stay on the sidelines for this battle. “Tell me the rest of the plan and then let’s start working on the practicalities.”
The next hour was one of the strangest in his life… and that was saying something, considering all he’d done since joining the army and being streamlined into Special Forces. The two aliens might not have known specifics — it was clear that interrogation was a common feature of their treatment of prisoners — but they were a gold mine of data on how the aliens reacted when faced with specific situations. Their training, Brent wasn’t surprised to discover, had been almost entirely theoretical, although the occupation of Texas had rapidly sorted out the alien infantrymen who wouldn’t, or couldn’t, learn. Their security measures had been limited to preventing humans from breaking into their complexes, not their fellows, a blindspot that Brent intended to exploit. If they could cause enough panic…
“It should work,” he conceded, finally. It wasn’t as if there was much time left, after all; once enough aliens had landed, they wouldn’t need collaborators any more. They might decide to start expanding the Red Zone, or perhaps they would simply slaughter all of the remaining humans. The two aliens had reacted with horror to the concept, but the humans hadn’t been responding well to The Truth and Brent rather suspected that the aliens had a time limit. If humans didn’t become Truthful — he smiled thinly at the pun — they could probably be legally massacred. “Go get some sleep. When the shit hits the fan, we want to be ready.”
Three days later, the insurgents were lurking along the remains of a road. The aliens swept it regularly for IEDs and other surprises, assuming correctly that the insurgents would mine the road just to cause a little disruption and chaos, but this time there was a different surprise. The truckers working for the aliens were transporting alien supplies from the spaceport, but heading back empty. The aliens didn’t bother to provide any proper escort for the returning vehicles, knowing that the insurgents knew that there was nothing in the trucks, and that the truckers knew that their families were under guard. It had only taken a pair of executions to get the message across.
“I’ve got an IFV and two outriders,” Jack muttered, from his position. The aliens had provided just enough escorts to make matters complicated. Brent was almost relieved; if there had been no escorting units, he would have smelled a rat, and if it had been heavily escorted, mounting the attack would have been impossible. “Orders, sir?”
“Take out the IFV as soon as it gets within range,” Brent muttered back. The other insurgent units in the area should have received their orders to stay well clear and prepare for the assault on the spaceport, but not all of the units were under direct command, from Fort Hood or anyone. There were too many loners out there taking pot shots at aliens and their collaborators. Like most advantages, it was a disadvantage at the most irritating times. “Matthew, Luke, are you ready?”
“Yes, sir,” the sibilant alien voice said. They’d chosen new human names, for reasons that made sense to them and little to him, but it was still difficult to tell the difference between them. “We’re ready.”
The LAW lit up the night as it was fired directly into the IFV. The alien vehicle, caught by surprise, exploded into a billowing fireball, while the trucks skidded to a halt, knowing that it was useless to run. Some of the truckers would probably be wishing that they’d been allowed to keep their weapons, just to save their vehicles from the insurgents and their families from the aliens, but others would almost welcome the attack. The aliens dismounted rapidly from the outriders, firing into the darkness, only to be picked off quickly and efficiently by the snipers. So far, at least, the attack had been textbook perfect.
Brent winced. Now came the real challenge. “Follow me,” he snapped, and ran towards the lead truck. The driver was already opening the doors, although it wasn’t clear if he wanted to fight or beg for mercy. “You, what are you carrying?”
“Nothing,” the driver said. Brent looked into his eyes and read his story; his family hostages, his truck used against his country… and the relief that came with knowing that there was no longer any need to make the terrible choice. “They’re all empty.”
“Just get back into the driving seat,” Brent snapped. They ran through the remaining seven trucks, checking that they were empty — the aliens had ambushed them before with ‘empty’ vehicles — and then returned to the original cab. “You need to drive on to the spaceport, understand?”
The driver didn’t. “But…”
“But nothing,” Brent snapped. He drew his knife and held it to the driver’s throat. It would have been much easier if one or all of the drivers had been insurgent sources, but there had been no way to make sure of that. “They’re going to think you’re in with us, so do as I tell you and your family will have a chance to live, understand?”
“…Yes,” the driver said, finally.
“Good,” Brent said. He looked across at Luke. “Do your stuff.”
Luke put the alien radio, recovered from one of the outriders, to his mouth and started to talk. Brent had never heard the alien language before, apart from a handful of shouts from dying aliens, and merely listening to it made him shiver. No wonder the aliens were so confident of their security; human mouths simply couldn’t make the same sounds, no matter how hard they tried. The die was cast now, whatever else happened; the aliens would know that at least one of them had been taken prisoner and had gone over to the human side.
The driver blinked as Luke finished speaking. “What did he say?”
Luke’s voice was softer than normal. “I told them that we’d been attacked, but that we’d beaten the attackers off and the survivors got into the trucks,” he said. The driver gave the alien a sidelong look as he put the truck into gear and moved back onto the road. “They should buy it long enough to reach the spaceport.”