Rise of Aen (35 page)

Once below the dangers of the upper atmosphere, the drones quickly spread themselves to prioritized targets and began to rain bolts of plasma down on strategic military installations, as anti-aircraft guns and jet fighters engaged the enemy. The sky began to light up as both Husk and human crafts exploded; in the blink of an eye the fight for the Earth had begun and it didn’t take long to see that humanity was overmatched! For every one of the enemy drones to fall, twenty jets or gunner stations were destroyed. Within the first half hour of the attack, the Russian Naval port city of Severomorsk erupted in a gigantic ball of flame as it began to sink away into the sea as it burned. There were no survivors; the destruction of the port was quick and brutally efficient. Patterson watched in horror with the knowledge that this was only the beginning; more cities would fall and many more lives would be
lost.

Portsmouth was next as the swarm tore over the English coast and began to overwhelm the British Navy and air defence network. Thunderous blasts rocked the skies as AA shells tore the once quiet fog of the morning apart and took the fleet of drones off guard; the English were ready and were throwing everything at the siege they had to defend their soil as much more of their defences remained despite orders to scatter and hide. The British Admiral stood proud and tall beside Patterson in the war room, but he knew that it was only a matter of time before this effort fell short too. In a span of forty minutes, the drones gathered themselves and readjusted their strategy, repositioning attack vectors to fly in under the minimum range of the AA fire and low enough to make it difficult for the fighter jets to engage. With these tweaks to the strategy, Portsmouth fell in a matter of ten minutes with heavy casualties and total loss of military assets. The guns were silent, the Destroyers burned as they sank and the skies held no more jets; the only sound was the crackling of flames and the lapping of the waves on the shore with the smell of burnt metal and flesh in the
air.

Across the Atlantic, the swarm spread—the next to fall was the Canadian port of Halifax. Evacuations of the population were well under way and the ships at port were minimal, but the devastation was quick and ruthless none the less; within fifteen minutes the “show” of resistance was wiped clear and Halifax too ceased to exist. From there, the alien drones gathered up and raced down the east coast towards the heart of the Atlantic defence: Norfolk, Virginia. Patterson knew this too would be a lost cause, but he had the city evacuated a long time ago and had a special trick up his sleeve for the
attackers.

It took less than fifteen minutes for the drones to reach the proud naval city and begin pouring down a fire rain to the city below. Computer-controlled AA guns and brave volunteers stayed behind to hold the assault back as long as possible, along with a few older Navy ships and various other assets. Once more, the AA fire caught the swarm off-guard as a fair number of their drones fell from the sky before they adapted strategies to counter attack. But once they did this, the guns went quiet and the fighter jets began to swoop in from above as the human forces mixed things up to confuse the machines. Planes and drones danced in the sky; from a distance, the twirling and sweeping maneuvers looked like a well-choreographed dance routine, although it was anything but. For a while, the tide looked to turn but momentum was never gained due to the seemingly unending numbers of the attacking drones. Just over an hour passed before Norfolk met the fate of its predecessors, but as they began to descend on the city itself to reduce it to ashes, Patterson let loose the surprise he had stashed away for them. Watching from overhead satellites, the city itself disappeared in a flash of blinding light along with the majority of the drones as a small-yield nuclear weapon detonated remotely. In an act of desperation, Patterson and the others determined it to be Norfolk that would be victim to the extreme sacrifice; a difficult and sobering decision that doomed that area to the fallout from a nuclear blast. Within seconds of the detonation, the sky dimmed as a towering mushroom cloud rose from the ashes of a once beautiful and picturesque seaport. Norfolk, the Husk drones, and any possible survivors were reduced to dust; the assault of the drones would not march on to the next
city.

As the debris settled and the massive shockwave dissipated, the war room erupted in cheers with the victory. High-fives and smiles surrounded the cagey general, but Patterson knew that it was far too soon to celebrate anything. He simply keyed the screens to change point of view, switching to the orbiting ship, to watch the next move—he had a hunch the Husk would have a response ready. He didn’t have to wait long as the massive craft began to adjust its positioning and point its nose to the planet below. The nose cone of the ship opened and began to glow wildly in the dark of space; the side of the moon beside the craft began to shine along with it. In a flash, the ship loosed a bolt of plasma the size of an aircraft carrier towards the American Midwest; the cheers in the room died off immediately and Patterson held his
breath.

Seconds later, they felt the reverberations of the impact tremor through the deep rock the base was buried under. They weren’t dead, but the general wondered if they were the true target. Confusion reigned supreme as people scurried about the room to find out what and where got hit. Time stood still until a Corporal looked up from his computer with a look of dread on his face, the color washed away from
it.

“NORAD sir,” he said with a shaky whisper. “It’s NORAD that was
hit.”

“Get me a visual son,” Patterson barked immediately. “Any
survivors?”

“You...you don’t understand sir; it’s gone...all of it.” The soldier stuttered in
shock.

“Son, you aren’t making any damn sense; what’s gone? Peterson base, the bunker,
what?”

“All of it, sir.” He replied. “Peterson Air Force base, Colorado Springs, all of it is just a puddle of
magma.”

The satellite finally brought the location into view and zoomed in automatically, as the grizzly reality of the man’s words sunk in to all. Where once stood a peaceful mountain city and a bustling airbase, there was only a bubbling pool of molten rock and ash. It was the warning shot of all warning shots, and four hundred thousand-plus lives had been extinguished in an instant. Thoughts of surrender crossed every mind in the room; how could they possibly fight back against such a dominant
force?

The answer was simple: fight back or surrender into slavery, and that was not an option. Earth would give them everything they had before they would quit. He watched on as the ship kept its nose towards the planet, but retracted the weapon while the rear spires of the shape extended. Before he could zoom the image in, the spires separated from the ship and bright blue flares of propulsion systems burned behind them, propelling them outwards. A quick count resulted in close to forty craft, all the size of the average city, departing from the main of the ship and turning towards Earth. It all made sense to Patterson—the drone swarm had been sent to both soften up defenses and see what the opposition forces could muster, but now that the planetary defenses had been analyzed, they were sending in the real troops to finish the job. The Husk were brilliantly efficient and calculating; he could only shudder as he imagined what horrors would befall mankind when those ships
landed.

Lyarran Vessel Amarra, Southern Pacific -
Two Hours since Arrival

Aen watched the events unfold on the Amarra’s view screen, unable to do more than what he was already doing about it. He felt little; a coldness about the situation at hand surprised him a slight bit, but he had been detached from the human race for some time now. Other than his family, he didn’t worry much about the average person in the world, and they were safe from all this for now. So as he watched, he was able to watch without bias and see the enemy for what they truly were—a technological marvel. Aen could only imagine what resources and intelligence was required for a species to not only live long enough to reach the stars, but to construct a mighty terror like this to impose their will on other lesser evolved species. They had picked their quarry carefully, but were still in the dark about himself and the Amarra. Although he felt a distance from the humans, he wasn’t about to leave them to be sacked and plundered by the
Husk.

As the swarm of robotic drones emerged from the Husk ship, Aen was intrigued—this was not amongst any of the logged tactics the Lyarrans had collected. He watched as they tore apart key military installations: Russia, England, and the United States all felt the might of this new measure before an atomic trap had been let loose to stop them. As impressed as he was by the leaders of the world, willing to sacrifice an entire city to nuclear fallout, Aen was blown away by the response from the enemy above. With little more than a shrug, the Husk fired their main plasma cannon and blew away the key cog in the American defence network; NORAD was a puddle of lava. From his position in the South Pacific, Aen felt the impact of that single round of fire—not physically, but emotionally. A single shot wiped out and entire city and hundreds of thousands of lives in an instant. It was a hard right hook to the head of humanity that every loss the Husk felt would be returned a
hundredfold.

As the ship shed its ground assault troops—in carrier vessels, headed for the surface—Aen wondered what they would do once he joined the fray. How would they analyze a response to something that they could never anticipate in all their careful calculations? And what could he do to stop the shock troops from escalating the violence once he joined in? There would be a lot of tough questions with no certain answers in the next few
days.

At last he turned from the screen and made his way down the snaking corridors to the armory; it was time to ready himself for the fight. Ground troops meant it would be much easier for him to engage the enemy without betraying this hidden vessel. The Amarra had to stay a secret until it could no longer be kept out of the battle. It was a wildcard in this high stakes game of poker. So he donned the dark red armor of the mighty Ifierin, the warrior caste of the Lyarran Empire, as it was much stronger than the other, more prevalent suits of protection in the hold. He hoped to do its legacy proud. It was more rigid and weighed significantly more than the armor he wore to fight Taylor and his toy soldiers, but it was designed to fight much greater and dangerous foes. It reminded him of a combination of ancient Roman Centurion crossed with a tank and painted blood red. The helmet was not a smooth contour like his other suit; this one was edged hard with a V that started below the chin line and carried over the entire front of the helmet and ending past the top back in a horn look. As Aen turned it over in his hands, he could tell it—along with the rest of the armor—was designed for intimidation as well as
protection.

“When does the first troop transport land and where?” he asked the omnipresent
AI.

“The first ship will land outside of Seattle, followed by others up and down the West coast. ETA is forty minutes. I will relay this data to Patterson’s strategic command so they can rally some resistance to that
point.”

Aen nodded his head in agreement and donned his helmet. There was no more brooding about what had been lost, no more worrying about what could have been. Now was the time to show the Husk and the rest of the galaxy what he truly was, and to make sure the Earth survived the few more days it needed to until help arrived. As the armor’s systems engaged, Aen had a moment of quiet, as all his senses were muted by the suit itself. It was time he used to push down any doubt he had about himself or what needed to be done. The planet had felt the might of the alien Harvesters; it was time the Husk felt power like they never felt
before.

Lyarran Vessel Dark Light, Epsilon Eradini -
Four Hours since Arrival

It was at the edge of an older star system that the Dark Light now rested as it vented the overheated jump engines. Lyxia had pushed the ship far past all operating safeguards much to the chagrin of the techs in the reactor deck. She, like them, worried that they were pushing the ship too far, but they were trying to make up some lost time and more as they raced to Terra Sol. It was this extreme push of the ship that she thought would be up for discussion as she had been summoned to the holo-chamber; Fleet Command was calling and it was time to pay the piper for her abuse of the pride and joy of the Imperial
Fleet.

But as soon as she entered the dark room and stood upon the holo-pad, she realized that this conference was nothing like what she had thought. Instantly, she was face-to-face with the brightest orange eyes and flaming orange hair along with the perfect vision of calm and poise. It was a face she recognized instantly and fell to her knees to bow in respect; it wasn’t Fleet Command that summoned her, it was the
Empress!

“Pardon my insolence, Goddess.” She prayed respectively. “Had I known it was
you...”

“Had you known it was me, then your whole ship would have been notified as well, and that is a spectacle that I am trying to avoid. There simply isn’t the time for that now,” Iana said with a quiet calm. “Please stand my child, for you are much too strong to be kneeling at a time like
this.”

“Why?” Lyxia asked as she rose to her feet. “I hardly think that a minor skirmish over a rim star planet with a rogue Husk cell is a huge
deal.”

“But it is, my child.” The Empress’s expression changed from calm to a look of concern. “Long have we known of the Husk growing in strength and numbers outside the fringe of the Empire; waiting for the day to once again challenge us. This is a pivotal point in the way that the future unfolds. Many outcomes and possibilities hinge on what is to come in the next few days. Out on this rim star world as you call it, paradise burns and a creature unlike any other awaits. The Husk know he’s there as his value is unfathomable as a living
weapon.”