SODIUM:4 Gravity (10 page)

I landed gently on the transparent roof and looked down at the five squids manning its posts. Four were gunners while the fifth was a pilot. I stomped hard on the roof of the skimmer until one of the squids turned its four eyes upwards to look. Before it could react I used my gravity pulse pistol to blast a hole in the roof the size of a basketball and then another hole through the bottom. The concussion knocked the squids out and their chariot tilted hard to the left and headed for the ground.

I again activated the skin of my BGS and flew to the next closest skimmer. Two more blasts and it was off to the next. It only took moments for the aliens to attempt to counter my efforts, but they had no good response to my disappearing and then reappearing elsewhere. I was like a ghost attacker for which they had no defense.

I continued my bloodthirsty assault on skimmer after skimmer, each time deriving a great deal of pleasure from the looks on what I perceived to be their faces. I continued my rampage for half an hour before the first 100 skimmers had fallen victim to my vengeance. I then got a flash of the alien nursery in my head.

These aliens were unlike us in almost every way and yet I somehow had a small level of anxiety running interference with my thoughts. What if these squids were just following orders? What if they had thoughts and feelings just like us? What if my indiscriminate and merciless killing, even if during battle, what if it was wrong? I pushed those thoughts to the dark recesses of my mind and continued on with the kill.

As we hit the outskirts of Portland my kills had surpassed 300. The aliens soon adopted a tactic of firing their gravity weapon just over the top of their adjoining skimmers in an attempt to catch me when my skin was inactive.

I had noticed the tactic as one of the first shots annihilated a blackbird flying just above the skimmer I was about to land on. I quickly changed my tactics to land on the ground below and behind the skimmer and to fire my pulse pistol upward.

The skimmers then adapted to also pummel the ground in a random series of blasts in the hopes of getting that one in a million shot. I again adjusted my tactics to deactivate and then to fire in mid-air. My relentless and uninhibited killing of the squid forces began to take its toll.

The aliens began to move their skimmers in tight pods where their weapons were much less affective. I continued to fly in and around the invaders killing at-will. I had again adapted my tactics to wait until I sensed a gravity pulse in my direction and then to fire immediately when it ended.

The big guns at Portland were effective for a time, but one by one they were taken down by the skimmers. By the time Portland had fallen the aliens had lost half of their subsurface fighting force. I had taken down more than a thousand skimmers and with them their crews.

With Portland in ruin the remaining skimmer force turned and headed back towards the Pacific. The 227 fighters continued northward to finish off Tacoma. I pushed hard with my glove, but I could not keep up with either force. Tacoma soon met with the same fate as had Seattle, Portland and Eugene.

With Tacoma finished the alien fighters returned to the depths of the Pacific to rejoin their skimmer force. I headed back towards my crew and the tunnel I had dug with our GAF. They were gone.

I then realized I had not checked in with Command since my killing spree had begun. My commander listened in disbelief at my story. They knew the aliens had been losing a high number of skimmers, but they did not know why. My adapted tactics were soon sent around the globe to the other BGS fighters. I had hopes we were onto something big, something useful to our weak defenses, something that could turn the war back in our favor.

The remaining alien skimmers in Montana had continued their southern trek overwhelming the forces defending Casper Wyoming and were quickly approaching Cheyenne. From there it would only be a short run to Denver. But the alien invaders were not prepared for the BGS squad moving north from Colorado Springs.

A dozen Marines who had no qualms about killing squids were in route to the front lines. Command had quickly passed on my tactics. Denver committed another 50 Defenders and for the first time since its landing the alien force was finally losing and losing big. The dozen BGS Marines wasted no time with their highly efficient methods and the newly adopted tactics.

With the tides of war turned squarely against the invaders they turned in retreat and sought refuge in the depths of Grayrocks Reservoir. The BGS Marines were not far behind and the bloodbath that followed was one that would no doubt be talked about for centuries. Centuries of Man's history that had yet to be written, if we were to survive.

Two more squads of BGS marines were then loaded onto transports on the East Coast and sent to San Francisco. If the next alien invasion came we would be prepared to defend. Our factories were now turning out more than 100 updated BGS suits a day and training camps were being setup to accommodate the new force.

Defenders were stripped of much of their insides and setup as fast transports to move the BGS Marines into battle where needed. Our Tacticians and Battle Planners now had a formidable weapon with which to counter the invaders. Plans were being put into place of how to best deliver decisive blows.

I was soon met by my crew with a repaired and reloaded GAF. I begged Command to send us into battle. My crew would take me in close and I would do the rest. This time the orders came down as desired. With a heavy burst of our BHD we were soon setting down in Brazil near the alien force that continued to devastate the Brazilian croplands.

Ten minutes later I was hard at work destroying skimmer after skimmer. I had not slept in more than 72 hours, but I felt as full of energy as I had ever been. The stimulants of my BGS and my highly conditioned body had given me the ability to fight non-stop. I didn't need sleep, I didn't need food and I didn't need breaks for the restroom. Man had never seen a soldier such as me.

I was soon joined by the squad of BGS Marines who had defeated the ground force north of Cheyenne. We pushed the limits of what our suits would allow and soon had the alien forces retreating. Their fighters circled helplessly overhead having nothing to add to their defense.

When the skimmer force had finally escaped our wrath their numbers had been reduced from the thousands to several hundred. We were picked up by our transports and headed to the coastline where they had initially deployed from. The skimmers were gone; the alien fighters gone and the alien destroyer gone, vanished into the vastness of the Atlantic Ocean.

They disappeared deep into the Atlantic where our sensors could not detect them. Our acoustic capabilities were the best they had ever been, but the aliens were a water species and their technologies somehow allowed then to move under the waves without detection. The fog of war was vast and deep.

We soon received new orders to head to Tokyo after a refit in San Francisco. Command had a new addition to make to our micro BHD glove. The Japanese had been in a slow torturous battle for their homeland with Osaka finally succumbing to the relentless onslaught. Nagano was in danger of falling with Tokyo next in line.

The Japanese BGS fighters had not been as effective as our Marines. The alien forces had locked in on their micro BHDs and had picked them off one by one. If not for the fierce determination of the conventional forces the nation of Japan would have already fallen.

With our Brazilian operation complete we headed back to San Francisco for our updates. When we were over the skies of the bay Shepard let out a yell. There was a giant swell of water moving into the mouth of the bay with another one a kilometer or so behind.

The island of Alcatraz was soon inundated with huge waves which spread rapidly outward. Fisherman's Wharf was quickly underneath 20 meters of water. The swell spread throughout the bay area washing over everything in its path.

The second swell followed soon after the first, pushing the walls of water further inland. Alameda, Oakland, Berkeley and Richmond perished in heavy flood. Waters ten meters deep spread as far south as Fremont and Sunnyvale. In less than twenty minutes, more than five million souls were lost in the Bay area.

The aliens had devastated the lowlands surrounding the bay without risking any of their troops. Word spread around the globe and the immediate evacuation of coastal cities was begun. Only minutes after San Francisco fell victim to the alien tsunami, Hong Kong and Shenzhen suffered the same fate with another 8 million lives taken. Within an hour Kuching and Brunei in Malaysia were engulfed by walls of saltwater destruction.

The aliens had a new strategy that we had no counter for. The alien forces attacking Japan soon turned and dove deep into the Sea of Japan, abandoning their assault on Nagano. But the tsunamis brought a new threat to their citizens. Anxieties changed from a fear of death by crushing to a fear of death by flood and drowning.

The seventeen million citizens of Tokyo were racing northward towards the hills of Kamagaya. Authorities feared it was only a matter of time before an alien tsunami would strike. The tides of war had once again turned and this time the invaders held the advantage.

With the Bay area devastated we were sent southward to the hangars at Long Beach. When we landed a team of technicians boarded and soon surrounded my chair. An extension was added to my glove that partially surrounded the BHD with an active skin. The alien forces in Japan had used detection of the BHD to track and annihilate the BGS Marines there.

The new BHD shield would limit detection to when the BHD was aimed directly at an alien craft. Our new instructions were to fly at angles at all times or risk the same fate as the Japanese warriors. It did not take much to convince me.

The Marine BGS squad that had fought so fiercely in Brazil was soon sent around the world to the Chinese mainland. The Black and Caspian Sea forces continued their ruthless destruction of the croplands of China. The Marines engaged the enemy and within minutes began to lose soldiers. The BHD shields were only partially effective.

The Marines continued their assault, altering their tactics. They would lay in wait on the ground until the enemy was within range. They would strike hard and then fly off always heading away from their foe. The adjustment limited their exposure, but greatly reduced their ability to fight.

The invaders abandoned their quest and raced to the security of the South China Sea. The eight remaining Marines in the BGS squad were soon landing in Long Beach. Debriefings followed with tactics discussed and again sent around the globe.

For an hour there was silence. The alien forces were hidden in the oceans. Evacuations continued and arguments ensued as to how best to counter the devastating tsunami threat. I waited with my team circling low over the city. The silence did not last long.

The next wave of assaults started with Da Nang, Nha Trang and Ho Chi Minh City. Twenty-two million Vietnamese citizens were lost as wave after wave washed deep into the coastal cities. Singapore saw the next assault where nine million of their citizens became victims of a violent wall of water.

I again yelled at Command to give me orders to attack, but there was nothing to target. The aliens remained hidden behind their liquid curtain. A major swell was soon detected off Malibu. I watched in horror as it slowly rolled towards Santa Monica and downtown Los Angeles.

My attention was then turned to my tactical screen with a single green blip screaming down from the mountains near Angeles National Forest. The blip quickly passed the incoming swell and then detonated in a bright flash and fireball directly over the area the swell had originated from.

My tactical screen showed an alert of a similar explosion off the coast of Singapore and Ho Chi Minh City. The fireball rolled up quickly into a mushroom cloud and the nuclear alerts on our screens showed red. We then received orders to go to and dive down at ground zero. Command wanted to know if our new tactic had been successful.

The first swell that was generated by the aliens came ashore from Santa Monica south to Torrance. A 10 meter tall wall of water washed inland annihilating everything within a kilometer of the coastline. A second smaller swell generated by the blast followed but the outgoing wash from the first countered its destructive power, leaving the remaining lowlands unscathed.

As I approached ground zero I had to pull up hard to avoid the green fog that was bubbling to the surface. Shepard then reminded me that with our active skin the green fog would have no effect. Command soon determined the nuclear strikes to be as deadly to the aliens as their tsunamis had been to us.

The Singapore strike had taken out an alien cruiser and two alien destroyers. The strike off L.A. another destroyer and the Ho Chi Minh bomb another cruiser and two more destroyers. The alien forces attacking our world had been cut in half. The enemy's aggression again went silent.

I had to marvel at the thought of our old conventional weapons being the ones that were most useful against our alien foe. They could hide unseen in the ocean's depths but they could not hide from the violent concussion released from a one megaton neutron warhead. The ocean waters carried the shock and delivered a deadly blow.

As we patrolled over the skies of Long beach a full day passed without any further attacks. I had been on station for nearly 72 hours without rest but my spirits were energized and my body strong. Word then came of the alien fleet exiting the central Pacific waters and shooting skyward. I received orders to shadow their departure.

I pushed the throttle to full and within seconds I had video of the enemy on my holo-screen. Our sensors returned a count of one cruiser, two destroyers and four carriers. The heavily reduced alien fleet was followed by 5,168 fighters.

The alien fleet joined the mega-ship and carriers at a position about twice the distance of the Moon from the Earth. We stayed far away and let our sensors do the dirty work. Command followed up with orders to observe and report.

The populations of the world began the grizzly task of locating and identifying the dead. The initial tally came in at over 500 million of our brothers and sisters. Many of our major cities had been devastated or completely destroyed, but we had held.

We had held against a superior force, making use of our ability to reason and adapt. I wondered what the carnage would have been like had the mega-ship joined in on the attacks. Whole cities would have been at its mercy from a distance beyond the reach of our guns.

The west coast of the United States had been hit hard, but much of the rest spared. My grandfather and parents had not had to endure the terrors of the Northwest. I took a moment to imagine the quiet peaceful beauty of the farm, of a warm spring breeze coming in from newly planted fields.

I then began a discussion with my team about all that had transpired. We talked of hundreds of millions of our citizens who had been killed. We talked of our changing tactics and the BGS with a BHD. We then moved to the topic of neutron bombs.

It was an aging weapon whose only purpose had been the continuing threat of mutual destruction. This day, one of the most hated, feared and least used weapons in our history had probably saved Mankind.

We then talked of what the aliens might do next. Would it be a new assault utilizing the powerful beam of the mega-ship? Would they come up with something entirely new? Or, would they turn and head back towards Epsilon Eridani?

As the discussion continued I again began to dream about home. I was growing weary of the death and destruction of war. I had seen incredible sights and had accomplished fantastic tasks, but the excitement was beginning to fade. I then began to think of Zack.

My mind wondered about what it would be like to have a real date with the young man that had captured my fancy, if for only a brief meeting. Would he be a gentleman? Would he be kind and attentive? Would he be strong and forceful if the circumstances called for it?

I then came to the realization that I was dreaming about life, a life that had been foreign to me since joining the Corps. I leaned back in my chair twirling my finger on the armrest as my mind wondered. My life had been anything but living.

The alien vessels sat motionless for weeks while Earth licked her wounds. Our factories continued to churn out weapons and our teams of Defender crews continued to train. The alien threat still loomed large on our tactical screen, but it somehow seemed diminished. Little did we know that our cheery outlook would soon change.