SODIUM:3 Fusion (14 page)

We landed beside our hangar. There were no people in sight... only flattened piles of debris. The elevators and the tunnel that headed off to who knows where were buried under the rubble. I again tried all comm channels in an attempt to raise Battle Command and the chamber. Again there was nothing but silence.

The chaotic pilot chatter had died down. The remaining alien fighters had retreated to the safety of their carrier. Whip got on her console and began to coordinate with the other pilots to return to Regents Field.

Even if there was nothing left we needed a rally point and Regents Field was as good as any. Within half an hour the 22 other remaining Defenders joined us on the tarmac. Three were heavily damaged.

One of the crews had followed the retreating fighters back to their carrier. They had 76 fully functioning craft and 36 that appeared damaged. Their robotic assistants were no doubt busily at work making repairs. We had 88 crewman left to do battle with this titanic vessel and its 100 or so fighters that remained. It was impossible odds.

We had no weapons except for our coil guns. We had no command coordination for an attack. We each wondered just how long it would take before the aliens mounted another assault.

After evaluation, two of the damaged Defenders were deemed unfit to do battle. The decision was made to scrap them for spare parts. The design of the Defenders was such that they were extremely simplistic and modular. Parts could easily be removed and fitted to another craft with the small set of tools that each Defender carried.

Pop got to work on stripping the circuits for our second reactor while Bigg and Whip changed out BHD rings. Within an hour Defender A55 was once again battle ready.

But, we still had no plan. No one in command. Arguments were beginning to break out over heated discussions of what we would do next. At that moment I made a decision. I stepped into the small crowd of Defender crewman and let it be known that I was now in charge.

I split the crewmen into groups for quiet discussion. Two groups of each type of crewman were quickly organized. I gave direction to discuss any and all possible options. No arguments. No raised voices. I gave a speech about how everything was still on the line. Billions of citizens were still counting on our ability to defend. Our families, friends and fellow countrymen needed our help now more than ever.

If we were to fail, everything would be lost. It was the talk everyone needed to hear. Soon afterward the groups were hashing out possible scenarios of the options before us. As the discussions proceeded Pop came to me with an idea. He could mount a third reactor in our Defender. We could also double up on the BHD rings.

He thought it might give us a shot at punching through the much stronger gravity wave being put out by the carrier. If we could take out the carrier we had a much better shot at the war of attrition General Buck had contemplated.

I then asked Whip to calculate a speed at which our active skin could handle hitting the carrier head on. I asked what if we made our Defender into a Driller of sorts. Whip typed feverishly at her console and within minutes came back with the answer. It might be possible. It was not the answer I wanted to hear, but it looked like we were out of options.

I then made the command decision. Defender A55, with three reactors and ten BHD rings, would fly outward from the planet, turn, and then accelerate back towards the carrier at more than light speed. We would pass Jupiter and then turn behind its cover. If we reached light speed before coming from behind the planet we could fly right into the alien carrier before they saw us coming.

It was a Kamikaze run. And, it was our only hope. Before I had a chance to finalize the plan the pilot of A224 scrambled to her Defender. We all watched in wonder as the door to the craft closed and the active skin powered up.

With only the pilot on-board Defender A224 lifted off and headed straight up. Word from the pilot soon came over the comm. She was putting my plan into action. If she was unable to make it through upon impact then so be it. She could at least do damage.

I tried to convince her that it was suicide without the extra shielding provided by our triple reactors but she did not care. Her Defensive specialist came over with the reason why. Her husband and children had been in Boston when the battle began. She had nothing to go home to. She reasoned that perhaps her sacrifice could show us if the plan would work without sacrificing those who had something to live for.

Pop then reminded me of just how long it would take for her to enact her plan. It would be at least six hours before she was able to achieve light speed. So, six hours out and six hours back.

With our added rings we could do the trip in its entirety before she turned her ship around. I then ordered my crew to stand down. They were off duty. I would be flying alone. There was no sense in all of us dying if the attempt was a failure. But, my crew would have none of it. They each pushed past me and boarded A55. I could not have been prouder.

I then barked the order for a new commander of the group to step up. Three crewmen did so. I selected the eldest among them with the hope that they would be the most experienced. I gave the command over and then had a final word for the rest. I told them that if this failed it would fall to them to do their best. To fight for the Earth and all who were on it.

As I turned back to board the Defender several crewmen shouted out in support. I sat in my chair and connected in as the door closed on the cheers behind us. We lifted off and immediately went to full throttle. The readouts on my holo-gauges moved much faster than before. We programmed in the flight plan and seconds later were greeted with our friendly familiar countdown timer.

As we sped away from the planet the monitors gave us our first look at the rallying alien craft. Half were in flight, buzzing about the carriers protected space while the rest remained docked. We sped outward in a wide arc, ever accelerating. Instead of a straight trip out and back it was determined that a giant loop would allow us to continue to build speed all the way to our target.

The counter ticked away from two hours twelve minutes. Pop worked feverishly at his console while we accelerated towards our destiny. I asked what he was planning, but only received silence. I looked at the others whose responses were shrugs.

With just over an hour remaining Pop sat back in his chair. He apologized for the silence and told us of his efforts. He had reprogrammed the power split to instantly divert to the active skin if it was reaching its limit or to divert excess from the active skin to the BHD if available.

He also sent a new course to my console. He reasoned that if we were going to hit this thing we wanted to do it endwise. Fly in one end and out the other to inflict the maximum possible damage.

The new course for the attack was laid in and the timer recalculated to add the needed extra four seconds. Whip then presented an idea of her own. We could fire all four coil guns in a spread pattern just before we entered the carrier. She was not even sure what would happen when fired at that speed, but she quipped that if the physics held, the tungsten pellets would do major damage of their own.

We all sat back in our chairs as the timer ticked down to 30 minutes, then ten and finally three. As the counter continued to run I thought about Paige. Was she alive? Injured? Had she perished along with so many others? And what of all the destruction? Would we be able to recover and rearm before the bulk of the alien fleet arrived?

My head was spinning as the final seconds ticked away. In a flash the tiny Earth grew large and then small again. My console showed that the coil guns had indeed fired. We had passed completely through the eight kilometer long ship in 26 millionths of a second. I checked the readouts and the shields had hit 96%.

I looked at the high speed video feed from our sensors, but the frame rate was not fast enough to capture any impact. We had a blurred image on approach but the image on regress was too distant to tell if anything was there.

I then flipped the ships direction and had Pop divert all available power towards the BHD. It would be another two hours before we would be back within range of our sensors.

The wait was agonizing. Had we missed the target altogether? If so, then why did the shields spike momentarily to 96%? And what of our coil gun rounds? The ride back was again silent and my thoughts once again turned towards Paige. For nearly two hours I sat contemplating what I would do if she had not survived.

I had lived my whole life bouncing about from relationship to relationship before meeting her. She was everything I had ever wanted and more than I had ever dreamed of finding. Would life be worth living afterward, knowing what had been taken from me? I decided the answer was yes. David Brenner had thought so. The Earth was worth defending if only for the purpose of exacting revenge on our alien attackers.

If Epsilon Eridani was their home I wanted to journey there and wreak havoc on their world. An eye for an eye was forefront in my mind. After reaching the halfway point on our return I flipped again and we began to decelerate. In less than an hour we would know the fate of our mission.

With ten minutes remaining our sensor resolution was such that we should see the aftermath of our efforts. There was no eight kilometer ship hovering just above the Earth's atmosphere. Had it moved? Had it left? And what about the fighters? As we got closer 17 blips lit up our displays. They were green blips!

The new Commander came online first to congratulate us. The alien carrier and all the fighters were now history. They quickly piped a video feed to our consoles so we could watch. The back three quarters of the alien ship just rolled up and vanished while the remaining quarter first imploded then exploded forward following our path. The destruction of the carrier brought with it a shock wave that disabled all but two of the remaining fighters. Our 17 Defenders made short work of them and made sure the others would never fly again.

It was a tremendous victory. Any immediate threat from the invaders was now gone. But, the celebration was short lived as we were now faced with a much more formidable force that would be upon us in less than two years, along with a massive cleanup and recovery from the destruction that had been laid upon us.

My attention turned to Paige. Was she alive and how could I find her? I gave the order for all ships to return their crews to their loved ones. We would attempt to rally back at what was once Regents Field in three days unless otherwise directed.

I first set down in Orlando to drop off Pop. Then it was off to Seattle to drop Whip with her family. Bigg and I returned to Regents Field in an attempt to access the chamber. Along with Paige, Bigg's son was also there.

After a short excursion attempting to dig through the rubble we again boarded our Defender and made our way to Area 51. The buildings were intact. I set the Defender down outside the building I had been taken through during my first visit to the chamber. Two guards came out to greet us.

I asked about the chamber and neither one knew what I was referring to. I then asked for their commanding officer and was escorted inside. The security officer on detail had no knowledge of what was beyond the elevator on their floor. He did a quick bio-scan of Bigg and I and allowed us to passage.

Once down to the next level we again worked our way through the security levels before finally arriving at the floor that contained the shuttle and its tunnel. The floor officer had bad news. The tunnel had collapsed at some point along the line prohibiting any further access to the chamber from that point. I asked if there were other access points to which the officer responded that he did not know.

I asked if he had an idea of how far down the tunnel the blockage was and if there were any crews tending to it. He replied that no one had approached it from this end so he was unaware of any rescue efforts. Everything had happened so fast and the level of destruction of the areas that were hit was so complete that information about and coordination of any rescue efforts was just trickling out.

The floor officer checked the messages on his console and pulled up a status report he had just received. The blocked area was 648 miles down the tunnel. I turned to Bigg and remarked that if we could draw a 650 mile radius circle around area 51 we should find a spot where the aliens had attacked.

We hurried back to the surface to our waiting Defender. Big punched in the parameters and a map popped up on our displays. The nearest city to the circle was Denver. An almost exact match.

We quickly flew to Denver and began to search for the remains of any military surface facility at the 648 mile mark. The area in question had not been touched. Five miles to the east was utter devastation. I then checked our battle logs for other skirmishes. A dozen fighters had been directed at the Grand Tetons before returning to assist with the assault on Denver.

We made haste to scout their targeted area. At the western base of the southernmost Teton there was an area of ground almost a mile in diameter where it was evident that the alien fighters had used their gravity wave weapon. We circled for half an hour looking for any evidence of other roadways or tunnel entrances. None were to be found.

Our sensors were powerful enough to penetrate ground but would only go so far through solid rock. I scanned the area leading into the flattened zone and took note of an anomaly leading away towards Area 51. I attempted to scan the other side of the zone but was greeted by the solid granite that formed the Tetons. I pinpointed the location where I believed the tunnel would have continued and set the Defender down beside it.

I looked at Bigg and asked if he had any ideas. He remarked that we could always just make our own tunnel. We could turn on the BHD and slowly drill our way to wherever we wanted.

It was genius. The Defender was powered up and I turned the nose down. Within five minutes I had a hollow detected on our scanners. I slowed our progress as we approached. We drilled to a location beside the hollow and then turned upright to continue.

As soon as the smallest of holes had broken through I backed off the drilling. If there were survivors on the other side attempting to dig their way out I did not want to bring them harm. I moved the Defender from side to side to hollow out an area large enough for us to walk around our ship when we set down.

I parked the Defender and opened the rear door. Bigg and I hurried out to the front of the ship and to the hole through to the tunnel. It was just big enough for us to squeeze through. The tunnel on the other side was in complete darkness. Bigg soon returned from the Defender with an emergency light.

I looked down the tunnel to the southwest and could see the large boulders that made up the blockage. We turned northeast and began walking along the tracks towards what we hoped was the chamber.

We arrived after a three quarter mile walk where we were greeted with a large closed door. We beat on the door but to no avail. After ten minutes of attempting to signal someone inside we returned to the Defender. We powered up the BHD and began drilling in the direction of the tunnel door.

Ten minutes later we broke through into the shuttle room. We left the Defender and boarded the elevator to the long hallway of doors. When the doors opened to a dimly lit hall there were two Marines laying on the ground.

We quickly attempted to assist them, but it was evident they were dead. We raced down the hall to my Great Uncle's office but no one was there. We next entered into the chamber. Again there was only emergency lighting. There were bodies lying about everywhere. We continued to try to assist, but they were all dead. Walls had collapsed. Items had been overturned. The chamber had the look of having been through a tremendous earthquake.

I then told Bigg I was going to find Paige and he turned immediately towards where his son Chris would normally be. I ran and ran fast towards Paige's lab. Bodies lay where they had been at the time of the attack. As I raced towards the lab I came across the first live person.

They were on the ground, moaning and rocking slowly back and forth with evidence of dried blood coming from their ears. The concussions from the gravity wave weapons must have been tremendous. I stopped to attempt to help the fallen man. He was incoherent... delirious... There was nothing further that I could do. I once again sprinted in the direction of Paige's lab.

As I continued there were more signs of life. Small groups of individuals were sitting on the ground or in chairs. As I approached one group a lady in uniform waved frantically at me. I stopped to assist.

Just as the others her eardrums had burst. But, she had her wits about her and was assisting others. She asked if the war was still ongoing. I grabbed the closest piece of paper and wrote that it was over, we had won, but at a high cost.

I then gestured that I had to go and continued my run to find Paige. When I entered the lab her two assistants lay motionless. I then saw her. Curled up in a ball holding her ears.

I rushed to her side and took solace in the fact that she was still breathing. I scooped her up in my arms and carried her back to my quarters. I lay her down on what was once the anti-grav mattress. It now had no power.

There was no one to call. No emergency help. Everyone in the chamber had been killed or knocked unconscious by the concussions. I wet a cloth and began to clean the dried blood from her ears. As I carefully wiped she stirred and then opened her eyes.

She had a foggy gaze at first, but it soon turned into a smile. She was alive and she was going to make it. After half an hour of comforting my wife and informing her of the battle I then went looking for Bigg. I found him in the reactor technician's lab holding a still groggy Chris.

It was determined that we needed to access the comm center if we were going to get help. The breaker to the comm room had popped just as with most of the chambers circuits. We hustled to the power room and began the process of restoring the power to the chamber one section at a time. As the power came on we checked for fires before moving to the next section.

When the lights in the comm area came on I left Bigg and rushed back. I logged into the first console that came up, but there were no comm paths to the outside of the chamber. Whatever lines had been there before had been severed.

I turned and ran back to Bigg just as the last of the breakers was restored. I told him to take his son to my chamber and watch over Paige. I was going to the surface for help. I then sprinted back to the Defender. I powered up the BHD and set a course for the west side of Jackson Hole, Wyoming... the closet town to the Tetons.

After 20 minutes of tunneling I emerged into a field beside a small jewelry shop. The owners came out to see what the commotion was. When the rear door of the Defender opened I was greeted by an old man with a shotgun. He demanded to know who I was. I told him of the results of the battle and of the secret chamber under the mountain. I then told of the condition of the soldiers and scientists trapped within.

Shortly thereafter the Sheriff arrived and within hours the people of the town of Jackson Hole were working in unison to bring the chamber personnel to the surface for whatever assistance they could provide.

Paige and Chris were alive and would recover. It was well into the evening before word of David Brenner came. He was alive and well. He had gone to one of the other chambers to oversee bringing it online.

While I was thankful for the news that my Great Uncle had come through unharmed I then got the news about General Buck. He had not been so lucky. A large chunk of rock had fallen from the ceiling of the chamber onto the Battle Room. General Buck and many of our Battle Planners and Tacticians had been in its path.

The town of Jackson Hole continued to assist in the evacuation of the chamber. By the time the last of the survivors and victims had been brought to the surface 36 hours had passed. The scene at Jackson Hole was played out in many a suburb of the targeted cities. The estimated toll of human lives was quickly set at north of 180 million and climbing.

Boston, New York, Atlanta, Chicago, St. Louis, Dallas, Denver, L.A., San Diego, San Francisco and Honolulu had been destroyed in the United States. For unknown reasons the Washington, D.C. area had been spared. I reasoned that perhaps it had been too heavily defended.

Tokyo and Osaka had been crushed in Japan, Seoul in the Koreas, Beijing and Shanghai in China, Moscow in Russia and Berlin, Paris and London rounded out the other major cities hit. Along with those various other military and industrial targets had been taken out.

As a world we had been badly injured, but not broken. There was still a bigger threat coming our way. By the best of counts we had just over 21 months to recover and rebuild our defenses. This time in preparation for a far more powerful assault on our planet.

The nations of the world called a grand council that met in Brisbane Australia to determine our course of action. David Brenner presided over the members and the work to be done was equally divided amongst every capable being and every country. All efforts were geared towards the coming war.

Foods were rationed, resources directed and manufacturing built and manned with one goal in mind... to build as many Defenders and coil gun defenses as possible and to train the crews to man them.

If was a coordinated effort like man had never seen. We were all brothers. We were all on the same side. We all had everything to gain and everything to lose. My days were long and were spent training crews. The same for the other remaining Defender crewmen. Paige spent her time in a lab continuing to attempt to turn out entangled pairs for our comm systems.

Our time together was limited to a few hours per week. It was all we could spare from the duties we had been assigned. Bigg and Whip had found a moment to tie the knot. Pop trained his crew, had his two beers a week and continued to grin endlessly.

Our world had drastically changed. There was little to no crime. There were no freeloaders milling about sucking on the tit of those who had. Entertainment was largely frozen in time with no resources devoted to its continued existence. Everyone was busy on every day.

Everything and everyone had one purpose... the defense of our precious Earth. It had been more than 70 years since the Sodium Apocalypse. And we still had no idea of whom our enemy really was or what they wanted. There were no ambassadors, no envoys, no messages or communications of any kind since the S.A. The attacks and the aliens persistence was beyond reason. Who they were was beyond our reach.

This night I lie on my anti-grav mattress with Paige lying before me. I stroke her hair as we gaze into each others eyes. In my heart I know exactly what it is that I toil for day in and day out. It's my wife... the woman I love. The woman I would fight and die for a thousand times over. She gives me purpose and reason and life.

The aliens could come down from the heavens and crush our cities. They could wipe us from the face of our precious Earth. But they would not take our spirit, our freedom or our fight.

In 21 months we would know out fate. I wondered if man would continue to learn and grow and prosper. I wondered if we would overcome our foe and then reach out to the stars. I wondered if one day we would be at their doorstep... threatening their existence. I held my wife close as I closed my eyes. The assisted sleep came quickly.