Battle for the Earth (8 page)

He was not to know, however, that he was being closely watched.

Glued to the console and monitoring Verton’s every move, Terry had decided to play the long game. After all they still had the advantage that the Annunaki didn’t have a clue where they were or how many they numbered.

Verton was allowed to fly over Washington unchallenged.

**

Tannacha thought long and hard, Verton and his squadron had not come across any signs of life for the last half an hour, even though they had flown over Washington and New York and the surrounding terrain. It was time to recall Verton and the squadron back to the main fleet. That way they could piece together what little intelligence they had, and at least plan a way forward.

Terry watched closely as the squadron left Earth’s atmosphere and joined the main Annunaki fleet, which had now regrouped about six hundred miles above Australia.

**

Tannacha sat down in the main conference room on board the
Nephilimis.
His chair stood at the head of a large, metallic, rectangular table, almost surgical in appearance. All of his commanders were present and each of them had their own feelings of dread, a shared, total terror of their supreme commander.

Tannacha looked calm enough as he reviewed the screens in front of him, even though they made extremely difficult reading. Nineteen assault vessels, two troop transports and their cargo of ten thousand ground troops lost, and not a sign of the enemy.

Tannacha finished reading and stood up slowly. He began to move round the table, in the direction of an extremely nervous-looking Verton. He stopped behind Verton, bent over his left shoulder and thundered:

‘How can you disrespect me like this, Verton? I don’t understand you. I gave you one simple task, and you screwed it up completely.’

Turning to the rest of the commanders he shouted:

‘Where are they? How are they doing this?’

Tannacha returned to his seat. He was well aware two major mistakes had now been made, both mainly down to complacency. He looked at each of his commanders in turn. All of them were quiet and unresponsive, desperately fearful of provoking a savage attack from Tannacha, aware also that so far he had acted out of character by not simply slaughtering someone in response to the initial defeat.

Tannacha stood up again and, shaking his head, glared at Verton.

‘I’m going to give you one last chance, Verton. Take seven assault ships and a troop transport with one thousand troops, and find out where that ground fire came from. Eliminate it and set up a safe ground base. Fail me and you will wish you were dead already!’

Verton stood up and bowed.

‘I will not fail you, supreme commander.’

The eight ships left the mother ship and descended vertically towards Australia. Verton had learnt his lesson: don’t take this now hostile planet for granted. He was going to be as covert as possible on this mission.

Just west of Rat Island on Australia’s western coast, Verton’s wing slipped into the still waters of the Indian Ocean. Heading west towards the Cape of South Africa, deep in the depths, Verton felt more secure, his destination the Atlantic. After all it had served him well once before.

**

They were west of Cape Town, just coming over the Walvis Ridge, and south of Saint Helena. Now deep in the south Atlantic ocean.

Suddenly Verton’s proximity detector lit up. It was not an electronic signature but a contact nevertheless. He signalled the wing to full stop and defensive stance, while he slipped off to investigate.

In his V-shaped assault vessel Verton could have been mistaken for a huge sting ray gliding effortless over the seabed, quite a fantastic sight, and in its own way soothing. Verton was enjoying his time below the waves.

As his ship descended into one of the many troughs, Verton could see a rough shape looming in the distance; he slowed his craft nearly to a standstill and slowly circled the object. The object was a long, round metal tube, full of holes and totally devoid of life, apart from the many fish and other sea creatures that called it home. Verton wondered what it was, or what its purpose had been. He quickly decided that it posed no threat, and with that ordered the wing to rejoin him.

What Verton had just seen was the U-860, a German U-boat which had been sunk in 1944, during the Second World War. It was also one of the many Dropas warning stations, used for tracking undersea activity.

There were hundreds of these sophisticated tracking stations in the seas of our planet, generally in wrecks like the U-860. These tracking stations were all controlled from Sub Sea One and directly under Thourus’s command.

Verton and his vessels were now approaching the coast of North America. He updated his section leaders with his plans.

**

The conditions above the North Atlantic were stormy and inclement. Verton hoped to be able to use this to his advantage. It should allow him to land his ground troops successfully, then he could get his mission to find the resistance and eliminate them underway.

Verton and his craft made land at Loch Arbour, flying low and very slow as they headed west towards Freehold, New Jersey, which was the town that had been picked to decamp the ground troops. Verton was well aware that it had been around here the most resistance had originated. With a bit of luck they would be able to flush them out and teach them a fatal lesson.

The ships were taking no chances this time, hugging the rooftops of the buildings below them and constantly sweeping for electronic signatures around them. Verton slowed his craft to a full stop. There was a perfect spot for the troop transport to land, a large green open space surrounded by trees. He ordered the troop transport to land and disembark the ground troops.

The huge troop transport spun round to line up with the selected landing area and started to descend slowly but surely into the clearing below it. The landing was a textbook exercise, and the doors of the troop transport gently unfolded to let the troops disembark. The decamp was a well-practised exercise and within ten minutes the landing area had been secured.

Verton landed his own craft next to the troop ship and disembarked. The sight of so many Annunaki troopers was impressive, Verton sought out the squad leader to give him his final instructions.

**

The squad leader was a seasoned Annunaki warrior, well rehearsed in the theory of war, considering that it had been an age since actual combat had taken place with the Dropas - or anyone else for that matter.

The brief was simple: a street-by-street ground search, find the enemy and engage; the assault vessels would supply air support and the enemy would be vanquished; an appropriate area would be selected and secured as a ground base; then more troops could be brought in to secure the rest of North America.

Verton was well pleased with the way things were finally going. Gone were the negative thoughts of defeat, and the confidence, arrogance and complacency had returned. This feeling that he was now experiencing was probably the Achilles’ heel of the Annunaki. All of them had it, from the supreme commander to the lowest trooper, an inherent flaw, if you like, also an extremely dangerous one.

Verton contacted Tannacha, to let him know what progress had been made, Tannacha was pleased but reminded Verton of his earlier threat. He acknowledged his commander and thanked him.

Unknown to Verton, Tannacha had repositioned his flagships orbit back over North America and was watching his every move closely.

**

The ground troops were now filtering out of the secured landing site and spilling onto the streets of Freehold, as they headed slowly in a northerly direction towards East Freehold. As the ground troops fanned out, they took on a diamond formation, one on point, one on either flank, and one bringing up the rear. Slowly and methodically they worked their way through the streets between Freehold and East Freehold, along Dutch Lane Road and the surrounding area.

Verton was hovering in his assault craft along with the rest of his formation, eagerly anticipating the commencement of hostilities. The seven craft were criss-crossing the area just in front of the ground troops, looking for any sign of activity. Nothing was stirring and Verton was starting to get nervous. Is there anybody out there, he thought to himself?

Suddenly and from apparently nowhere, a single ESG assault craft flashed past Verton’s front view window heading towards Washington DC. Verton barked a command to the rest of his wing and they engaged in a high-speed pursuit with Verton taking point. He was committed to getting a kill, and pursued with a vengeance, pulse weapons spitting out death and destruction in front of him.

The ESG craft was elusive and carried out some hair-raisingly low manoeuvres, still just keeping out of the line of fire from Verton and the rest of his wing. Nonetheless, it surely could only be a matter of time before Verton’s superior numbers and fire power would overcome him.

Unknown to Verton, however, now over the heart of Washington DC the ESG troopers on the ground had let loose a volley of their Ariel mines. The skies over Washington were thick with them, and only the Dropas pilot knew about them.

All the ESG ships had been fitted with a clever positive field emitter, so when coming into proximity with a small but deadly positively charged mine, the two positive charges would repel, and the mine would be swept harmlessly out of the craft’s way. This also had the added advantage that no two mines could crash together and explode, not to mention the constant fluid effect of the mines repelling each other and constantly moving like ripples on a pond.

Verton’s wing didn’t stand a chance as they ploughed into the minefield blind, vessel after vessel crashing into the deadly hockey-puck-sized mines. Tannacha would not have to punish Verton for his latest blunder. All seven Annunaki pilots and ships were lost. Verton’s arrogance had cost the Annunaki war machine dearly, yet again.

As soon as the Annunaki assault ships started to take off in pursuit of the ESG craft, the sniping began. Most of the Android troopers had been posing as dead bodies. They were perfect for this, no life signs, and suppressed electronic signatures, lifeless to Annunaki scanners.

Pulse weapons-fire was everywhere, Annunaki troopers were dropping like stones. The surprise element had once again been lethal. It was a massacre. Even though the ESG Android troopers were outnumbered ten to one, they produced a hail of deadly accurate fire that cut through the formations of Annunaki like a scythe through hay. Then the two Dropas pods in East Freehold joined in. It was like taking a sledgehammer to a nut. The Annunaki ground troops didn’t stand a chance.

**

On board the
Nephilimis
, with a snarl, Tannacha gave the order.

‘Widespread pattern, fire!’

The banks of pulse weapons on board the flagship spat into life. Huge blue teardrop-shaped streaks of death started raining down on the area south of East Freehold. The slaughter of the Annunaki ground troops had now progressed to the vaporisation of everything, both Annunaki and ESG, stopping short of the troop transport still on the ground and extending up to and into East Freehold itself, destroying one of the pods completely and virtually disabling the other. Five square miles of devastation in all.

Two fully complemented troop transports were already on their way to the area laid waste by Tannacha, their escort of fifty assault vessels around them. Verton and his troops had just been bait to draw the enemy out.

Five of the Annunaki ships easily dealt with the remaining pod, levelling it to the ground, while the troop transports landed and disembarked their cargos.

The Annunaki now truly had a foothold on planet Earth.

**

19

On board the Dropas flagship Jumouk had been watching events intently. He turned to Konoco and said:

‘We need to take out their cruisers, don’t we?’

Konoco nodded, then reflectively shook his head and remarked:

‘That’s going to take a plan and a half. However, we still do have an advantage. They still don’t know we have a moon base, so all their attention is directed at Earth, even more so now there’s been resistance. So, it’s obvious that our best hope is Blue Star Base and a direct all-out attack with our fleet.’

Jumouk started to pace along the alloy decking of his bridge.

‘OK, but isn’t that putting all our eggs in one basket?’

Lee had been listening and made his way over to one of the display screens.

‘Look at this.’

Jumouk and Konoco joined him at the display screen. It showed a three-dimensional image of Earth, the moon and surrounding space. All six of the Annunaki battle cruisers were shown in their relative positions in orbit above our blue planet, and by now, a constant stream of troopships and support vessels could be seen coming and going between the fleet battle cruisers and all the continents on Earth.

Lee continued:

‘Why don’t we concentrate on the closest three battle cruisers, and use a two-pronged attack with just half our forces, that way we can keep the rest in reserve?’

Jumouk smiled and patted Lee on the back.

‘Go on, Lee, you’ve got our attention.’