“All the bullet holes will be very convincing,” Brent agreed. It was a shame they couldn’t risk a radio transmission — he wanted to check in with the rest of his team — but he was prepared to move. If the assault on the spaceport went in as planned — and, all of a sudden, it seemed like the stupidest idea he’d ever had — they would have their chance. “I’m sorry about the danger, but…”
“Man, if you can do something about my family, I’d help you blow the spaceport up myself,” the driver said. “How much explosives have you put in the trucks?”
Brent smiled, but said nothing. A pair of alien helicopters flew past, probably examining them, but much to his relief, they didn’t insist on the convoy pausing for inspection. He would have done that, if he’d been in command, but that wouldn’t have been safe. The priority would be to get the trucks back to a properly secured location and then search them, just in case. The spaceport was the closest secured location… and, although the aliens didn’t know, it was about to become a great deal less safe.
“There,” the driver said. “That’s their spaceport.”
Brent wasn’t sure what he had expected, but images taken by insurgents had revealed that the spaceport had once been a private airfield, one that had been used by several large corporations and their personnel for some reason. The aliens had overrun it during the first landings, repaired it — after having bombed it from orbit with a KEW during their arrival — and turned it into a spaceport. Even now, in the darkness, Brent could see several alien shuttles climbing up into space.
“They must trust their pilots,” he remarked to Luke, as he slipped into a hiding place. The aliens had two fences surrounding the spaceport and, unless he missed his guess, they would be shown into the first, but held there until they were checked out. “Has there ever been a collision?”
“Not as far as I know,” Luke said. He made a complex signal with his fingers and the alien guards waved them through. “We’re committed now, boss.”
“Yes,” Brent said, taking the risk of looking around. Luke was right; they weren’t in a good position at all, defence wise. The trucks were coming to a halt now, but as soon as the aliens searched them, they would be discovered. “We are…”
The first mortars fired as one, hurling shells over the fence and into the guard posts. A spread of missiles followed, blasting guard towers and alien vehicles alike, shredding alien defences as if they were made of paper. A high-pitched noise started to echo out over the complex as the aliens responded to the attack; for a long moment, they took their eyes off the trucks.
“Move,” Brent snapped, and jumped out of the cab. The remainder of the force was already deploying, halfway inside the alien defences and storming the remaining guard posts. They had to be taken quickly, before the aliens could react, or they would all be caught in a killing zone. “Luke, with me!”
The Rangers had been cooped up in Fort Hood — if one could call that cooped up — for three months. They attacked the aliens directly, smashing through the guards and securing the entrance, throwing it open for the remainder of the insurgent force outside. Brent ignored it, keeping his group together and looking for their target, an alien ship sitting on the tarmac, waiting for permission to take out.
He keyed his radio quickly. “Take out the command centre, now,” he snapped. One way or another, the cat was firmly out of the bag. A moment later, a shell from a mortar crashed down on the former air traffic control building, shattering it and bringing it down in a wave of bricks. “The pilots, with me!”
The aliens didn’t seem to need NASA’s massive hangers and launch frameworks. Their craft needed as little preparation as a helicopter; the only sign of anything that might be needed for the launch was a small moveable stairwell, like one from a major airport. He ran towards it, keeping his head down as alien forces responded to the attack, praying under his breath that they weren’t seen. By now, the insurgents would be attacking as many of the alien bases and antiaircraft sites as they could, trying to suppress them all… and risking everything in the attack. If they lost this time, the insurgency would have shot it’s bolt, at least for a few months. He threw himself up the stairs and into the small alien cabin, discarding his weapon and drawing his knife as he swarmed up into the cockpit.
One of the aliens turned to draw a weapon with astonishing speed, but Brent threw his knife, neatly punching it through the alien’s head. They’d thought that they were safe, he realised; none of them had worn armour. The other two were stunned, staring at the humans bursting into their craft, and were quickly killed. Their bodies were moved down to the cabin below while the pilots jumped into the seats and started work.
Brent leaned forward. “Are you sure that you can fly this thing?”
“If I can’t, we’re all about to die,” Thomas Pearson shouted back. His hands danced across the alien system. “We worked endlessly on the captured ship, but do you know how complex this is?”
Brent glanced down at his watch. “No, but if we don’t move now, we’ll lose our window,” he snapped. The aliens were counterattacking in strength now, driving away the imprudent insurgents… and it wouldn’t be long before they realised that their shuttle had been boarded. “Move!”
“I am declaring an emergency,” the pilot said, in a glacial tone. “Sit down, now, and brace yourself!”
Brent sat. A moment later, he felt as if the weight of the world had suddenly come down on him.
“We’re on our way,” Pearson said. Brent could only wince under the pressure. The pilot seemed all too happy about it. “We’re on our way to space.”
Chapter Forty-Four
What’s the point of having nukes if you can’t use them?
The timer ticked steadily down to zero.
“Ten minutes,” the Captain said, finally. The USS Kentucky had been on station for nearly a week, waiting for the signal. It had come, finally, and placed the submarines on warning; at the precise time, they were to fire all of their missiles at a specific coordinate and then scatter. “Mr Exec, if you would do the honours?”
The Exec was as pale as his commander… and not because of the conditions deep underwater. Kentucky had been on a long patrol before the aliens arrived and now was one of the United States few remaining bargaining chips. The crew knew, all too well, that if they surfaced for too long, they would be picked off from orbit… and that they might never be able to go home. Submarine crewmen were used to long deployment, but no one had really believed that they would never be able to go home, not even if there was an all-out nuclear war. There would always be somewhere to go, but now, if they surfaced anywhere, they could be destroyed without warning.
“I have a targeting coordinate for Texas, USA,” he said, formally. “Mr Navigator, are we in the correct position?”
“Aye, sir,” the Navigation Officer said. The missiles had been reprogrammed as soon as they had received the orders, perhaps the final orders they would ever receive, but they were useless without an accurate position fix. In one sense, it hardly mattered, as long as it looked as if the warheads were going to come down in the midst of the Red Zone, but submarine crewmen were perfectionists. A nuke that went off-course could really ruin someone’s day. “I have an accurate fix and I have updated the missiles accordingly.”