Chapter 4
Seb slipped back into the chair that served as part of his computer desk, but ignored the Commodore for a moment as he looked over his shoulder to make sure his mom wasn’t paying attention. Only when he was sure of that did he lean over and speak in low tones.
“Al, what’s going on?”
“The Delta Team is currently under jamming fields,” The VI responded, “however I pulsed out the message and update before they went up. They confirmed the presence of an FTL communications point via a description of Cherenkov radiation.”
Seb sat back, thinking back to what he knew about the enemy’s FTL comm points.
He had basic understanding of the technology, but only to a level marginally over what would be taught to high school students…
which was to say, he really didn’t know anything about the technology, because nothing taught to high school students was ever accurate in any course.
Even the simplest of subjects was far too complicated to go in depth on unless you were specializing in it, and most people never needed more than an abstract basic understanding of it anyway.
Cherenkov Blue was a very specific color of radiated light that was emitted when particles surpassed the speed of light in a given medium.
This happened commonly in nuclear facilities, where small high energy particles passing through cooling water were less impacted by the liquid medium than light was, however it also occurred in air and vacuum when dealing with FTL particulates as they either surpassed or slowed through the lightspeed barrier.
This was why the enemy’s FTL comms glowed blue, as they captured the FTL signals and slowed them through the barrier it would give off the distinctive color of light, and similarly when they transmitted and pushed particles up through the barrier into FTL, the same would occur.
Unfortunately Cherenkov radiation was extremely short-lived and had little to no penetrative power. It could literally be blocked by a piece of paper, making it all but useless in tracking the enemy positions.
Confirmation that they were already on Earth, however, was really not what he’d been hoping. Against all hope, Seb had honestly wished that Al’s analysis had been mistaken. Maybe the code had been some obscure human code that the aliens usurped, or something equally unlikely.
If the Delta Team had spotted Cherenkov radiation, though, even that slight hope was out the window and now he had to rethink all of his, thankfully crude, planning.
If they’re here, then we’re already at war. Most of us just don’t know it yet.
Seb rubbed his hair back, thinking about that.
I’ve been at war with aliens basically my whole life, and never even knew it?
That would have to remain the norm for the moment, however.
Telling the world that it was at war with aliens was almost certain to end with him in some sort of mental institution, on heavy anti-psychotics and sedatives.
Either that or buried in some Intelligence dungeon, being wrung for whatever intel he might have.
If the second were the guaranteed option, he might even risk it, but Seb had no idea if the various Intel agencies were in the know yet, or if anyone was in fact.
Revealing Albert would likely get him some credibility, but it would also lose him his best chance of operating under the enemy’s scanners.
If they’re here already, then they may have infiltrated the governments on any, or, every level. Learned that the hard way during the early days of the invasion.
Orders being lost, key words being redacted, even entirely false orders being sent out. The chaos they caused during the first few opening days crippled human response and resulted in the loss of most of the heavier firepower various governments had at their disposal.
Even the United States, the world superpower at the time, went from an unmatched nuclear power to fighting a guerrilla war with little more than hunting rifles by the time the first strikes had taken out over ninety percent of stored munitions and the like.
If they’re already infiltrated, giving Albert to anyone is an act of suicide.
That made all of his future plans one hell of a lot more complicated, and now that he thought about it, almost made him regret the message he’d sent to the Delta Team.
It hadn’t felt right to allow them to be killed when he could act, but they would certainly report what he’d said and that meant that there was now a distinct possibility that he would have to dodge both the US Government, among others, as well as the Enemy.
Damn.
“Al, increase the priority of monitoring all communications you can. We may not be the Five Eyes, but they don’t have you either.” He said with a sigh.
“Understood, Mein Herr. Efforts to that end will be limited, however, with only a single base station.”
“Nothing to be done about it,” Seb said, leaning back with closed eyes. “We’ll have to get internet access as soon as possible.”
“Five years to the earliest public access,” Albert supplied helpfully.
“Not in these parts,” Seb shook his head. “I can’t remember when we got it, but probably closer to a decade. I think we’d prefer something a bit better than a ninety six hundred baud dialup anyway.”
“Indeed.”
“Well, I have a lot of work to do before that’s a concern anyway,” Seb sighed as he booted up the old computer and grimaced as he went through the load process for the word processor.
Load interword comma eight comma one. Alright, let’s get back to it.
He hoped the Delta team was doing alright.
*****
Piotr Vennick didn’t swear as he ran, but only because he needed the breath for the running. Behind them, the whole Delta team could hear the unearthly screaming or whining or whatever the heck that sound was as it chased behind them, and it sent shivers down their spines despite the desert heat.
“They’re still on us, Sarge!”
“I know!” Piotr snarled, half turning to swing his M4 to bear, mag dumping the weapon in a furious roar that accomplished absolutely nothing. “Shit.”
“Remember the message, Sarge,” Menendez yelled, “Seven Six Two or higher!”
“I know! But we don’t have battle rifles on us!”
“The FAVs are mounted with Ma Deuces!”
“Go,” Piotr ordered, “I’ll hold them, drop your mags here.”
The corporal stared, wide eyed, “Are you out of your ever loving mind, Sarge?”
“Just do it! They’ll weigh you down anyway,” Piotr ordered. “Move your ass, get to the FAVs, and get back here to save my sorry butt. Drop your mags! Now!”
The rest of the team started shucking their ammo pouches, dropping them on the ground as Piotr tossed the empty and slapped another into the receiver. He leaned on the boulder they’d stopped by and quickly mag dumped another thirty rounds into the charging enemy.
“I’ll hold them here as long as I can, go!” He ordered over the ringing in his ears.
The rest of the team nodded, some reluctantly, but they did what they were told and ran for it. Piotr quickly flipped away the empty magazine and loaded his last one, chambering the round as the inhuman screeching sound loomed closer.
What am I looking at? He wondered as he leveled his weapon again, flipping over to full auto as he shifted his grip on the weapon.
There was a technique to firing on full auto, if you wanted to hit anything at least, particularly with a weapon as light as an M4 Carbine.
You had to plant it in your shoulder and adjust your grip to counter the muzzle climb, lean into the stock as you squeezed off the burst, and then you rode the thunder as the polymer weapon tried its damndest to shake your fillings out.
Thirty rounds, three seconds.
More or less.
He put most of the magazine into the center mass of the roiling monstrous things, and barely seemed to slow their roll as they kept on coming. He flicked the empty mag aside with a twist of the carbine, sending it flying to one side as he picked up a spare from the ground and slapped it home.
Wrapping his fingers over the top of the polymer heat shroud that ran along the barrel, Piotr again leaned in and braced against the recoil.
Normally, he’d never mag dump his rifle in an actual fight, that crap was for showing off at the range or in the back forty back home.
In the real world, full automatic made your weapon less effective, not more, counter to Hollywood these days.
For the moment, though, he was hoping to induce catastrophic failure in whatever the hell it was that these things were using for armor by putting as many rounds into it as fast as he possibly could.
Great theory. Too bad it isn’t working!
Each burst of five five six did little more than cause a brief slowing in the advance of the thing, its bizarre form of locomotion chewing up the sand and dust of the desert ground in its charge.
The dust cloud it was kicking up was choking the air, blowing around in the twirling winds that whipped around Piotr from all sides.
He snapped up the next magazine, the practiced reload taking only a couple seconds, but in that time the thing had advanced another dozen or more feet.
He could hear the scrabbling and grinding of its motion getting so loud that even the now constant ringing in his ears from the multiple mag dumps couldn’t entirely wash the sound out.
The sound sent chills along his nerves that made him shiver even in the desert heat, some part of his soul screaming at him to get the hell away from the source of the sound but Piotr held his ground as he squeezed the trigger yet again.
Thirty more rounds, three more seconds.
Same worthless result.
Piotr nearly fumbled the next reload as the screeching, grinding, sound got close enough that he could smell the source.
He couldn’t place the hot bitter smell, but part of his mind recoiled at it with such intensity that his hands shook while seating the next mag.
Despite that, however, Piotr felt the satisfying click as the weapon was once more loaded, and he let the bolt slap closed, loading the first round.