Reckoning by Mark Tufo
***
“Yankee Whiskey 1, this is Yankee Foxtrot 2.”
“Go ahead, Foxtrot 2.”
“Sir, I have visual confirmation of bogies.”
“My radar is scattering, Foxtrot 2. Where are they located?”
“Eleven-thirty, sir.”
The colonel turned his head slightly to the left and, by squinting, barely saw the glint of the gunships as they flew over Lakewood.
“Good work, Foxtrot 2. Let’s give them hell.” Hell might have been a little difficult that night, but they did give them a big heaping of heck.
***
ABC Affiliate KDVR, Denver
“You better get the chief for this one, Malone.”
“What’s up, Stewart?”
“You have got to see what Fox is reporting!” Bob Stewart shouted over the reporter on the televisions he was monitoring. All the stations did it… Sort of like the big discount stores shopping each other to make sure that the competition didn't have a leg up on them. While most of the stations were scrambling for the details up in Vail, some had already confirmed that it was either a terrorist-detonated bomb, an industrial accident, or a military jet crashing, depending upon which station reported it. Fox, however, always sensationalized their reports. And it was doing wonders for them. The fledgling station had made dramatic leaps in the ratings war.
“Fox is reporting that we are under attack.”
“Attack? From whom?”
“Malone, just get the chief.” He meant the editor-in-chief, Warren Sapstein. A severe man who had the disposition and temperament to match his dour looks. “He’s gonna flip.”
For such a busy man, Stewart was surprised with the speed at which Sapstein made it down to the monitoring booth, as it was affectionately called. It had, once upon a time, been a fairly large room; but now, with all the monitors stuffed into it, three people could barely fit side-by-side.
“Stewart, this had better be damn important. I have five news vehicles heading up to Vail and another crew headed towards a shooting in Aurora.”
“Sir, Fox is reporting that we are under attack.”
“Who is under attack, Stewart? This station? An embassy in China? An Army barracks in Germany? Who?”
“Sir, the United States.”
“What? What are those assholes doing?” Stewart flinched at the severity in the boss’ voice. “I love ratings as much as the next guy, but what are they doing? Where, son?”
“Here, sir. Vail. They’re saying that Vail is under attack.”
“What kind of commie crap is this? Why would the Russians give a rat’s ass about a bunch of stuck-up rich socialites and the ski bums that serve them?”
“Sir, they’re saying it’s not the Russians.”
“Spit it out, Stewart, or you’re going to be sorting mail on Monday.” His wasn’t the greatest job in the world, but it beat sorting mail. He was getting paid to watch television, for shit’s sake.
“Sir, they are saying that it’s an extraterrestrial attack and that they have the video to prove it.”
“Like E.T.?”
“I’m thinking more like ‘Alien’, sir.” He was hoping that the chief had seen the movie; he didn’t want to have to explain it. It sounded entirely too strange.
“They have video?” Apparently the connection was made. “Stewart, I want you to find out whoever made that video and double whatever price Fox paid for it.
Stewart meekly answered, “Yes, sir.” But he didn’t have a clue in the world how he was going to accomplish that. As the chief was about to begin the second part of his tirade, multiple military jets screamed over the station. Everyone who was at the station ran for the exits to see what the commotion was all about. Stewart was thankful the chief was among them.
***
The Mountain in Colorado Springs.
“General Burkhalter we have multiple bogies heading this way.”
“How many, Captain?”
“Sir, I can’t tell. There are so many of them they are showing up as a blob on the screen.”
“Scramble everything we’ve got.”
“Sir?”
“I know, Captain. We sent half our forces to Denver. It’s too late for us but let’s give our pilots a shot. The captain didn’t see the likelihood of good odds. A hundred or so jets against what appeared to be roughly around five hundred of something.
Half of the fighters had been airborne when the first rounds made impact. The mountain shook like a fat man on a treadmill. But she stood. The fighters in the air didn’t even have to take aim; if they pulled the trigger, they were bound to hit something. One of the fighter pilots noted that the sky looked like Maine during the black fly season.
“You can’t smile without eating some of them.” And that was the last transmission Captain David Parker of Bangor, Maine ever made. His jet, moving at more than one and a half times the speed of sound, instantly became a flying molten ball of super-heated metal. Planes were dropping out of the sky at an alarming rate against the onslaught, F-16’s, F-15’s, Harriers and bombers. There was no discrimination in the slaughter. The jets were able to inflict some damage, although minor. Five alien fighters found the turf before the melee was through.
The second barrage of rounds that slammed into the mountain made spider fractures along the cavernous roof. Many of the personnel were getting ready to run for the exits when the general belayed that.
“Folks, it has been an honor and a privilege to work with all of you throughout these last tumultuous years. I will remember you all.” It began to dawn on everyone that they were doomed. There was nowhere to go. Death would be swift there. A thunderous crack echoed throughout the mountain before an eerie silence that seemed to last for an eternity. Then the roof caved in under the third and final volley from the aliens. The United States command and control center had fallen in less than four minutes.
***
Indian Hill, Walpole, Massachusetts
“Sir, we’ve been monitoring the news channels. They all have conflicting stories but the gist of it seems to be that Mount Vail is no longer there.”
“As in our base and gear, soldier?”
“No sir, as in twenty feet of the mountain literally sliding down into the valley below.”
“Leave me, Lance Corporal.” Paul laid his head in his hands. Mike had been right, he thought to himself. “Did I do the right thing? He did warn us.”
“Paul, you couldn’t have done anything differently,” Frank said as he stepped away from the table to put his arms on Paul’s shoulders.
“Couldn’t I have…”
“Paul, how do you think they knew to hit Vail? From all reports, it’s the first place they hit.”
“I know. I know. But he was my best friend for so many years. Could you please excuse me, Frank? I’d just like to be alone for a while.”
“I understand, sir. But don’t beat yourself up over this. You did what you had to do to protect your troops. And there is not a man, woman or child here who doesn’t thank God for your decisions.”
“What about Ron?”
“Sir?”
“Ron, his brother.”
“I’ll leave you to your thoughts, sir.” Frank departed.
Paul didn’t have the answers; nobody did. War demanded tough orders. The good of the many had to prevail over the good of the individual. Paul understood that; his decisions up to now had never been so close to the vest.
After the major left, Paul began to recall some of the highlights in his and Mike’s relationship. The one Paul would never forget was the time he, Mike, and a few of their college buddies decided to climb Mount Elbert, one of the fourteen-thousand-footers that dotted Colorado. A group of six started out that morning before the weather took a seriously nasty turn about a third of the way up. The four others decided to turn back. “No sense in taking any chances,” they said, almost as one. Paul could find no reason not to go back down, since it sounded like the right thing to do.
“Fuck that!” Mike yelled. Paul thought he could hear him now. “We came this far; I’m not turning back now.”
“Come on, Mike. This is crazy, you can’t go it alone.”
“There’s some pretty serious rope work involved and now you have the weather to contend with,” one of the fading friends from school said.
“See you back at the dorms,” was all he said as he turned and headed back up the mountain. He wasn’t going to argue with anybody or try to persuade them otherwise; but he wasn’t going to stop either.
“Come on, guys. He’ll go another couple of hundred yards and turn back around.” Someone else had stated.
Paul watched as the group headed down and Mike headed up. He’s not even turning around. He’s not bluffing. Well, why not? Paul thought to himself as he raced to catch up to Mike.
“What took you so long?” Mike quipped.
“I had to tie my shoe.”
So up they went in the blinding rain and flashing lightning. Mike never wavered. “We’re on a mission,” he stated more than once, and more to himself than to me, Paul thought. So, for five grueling hours, they climbed, two steps up, one step back in the terra un-firma before they finally crested the summit. The view was unbelievable; they could barely see their hands in front of their faces. They laughed like crazy men while they signed their names on the roster at the top.
“I’ve got a surprise for you,” Mike said as he turned to Paul with a devilish grin. Paul wished he hadn’t watched “The Shining” the week before because Mike’s grin looked just like Jack Nicholson’s as he peered through the bathroom door. Paul half expected Mike to pull out an axe from his backpack. Instead, he was pleasantly surprised when Mike handed him a remarkably cold Moosehead.
“How did you know to carry two beers up here? There’s no way you could have forecast the weather up here and our friends’ reactions.”
“Paul! I brought a six pack for those peckerwoods but none of them are here so I guess we get three each.”
And so there they sat in the driving downpour, drinking beer and philosophizing on life and the pursuit of women. Actually, it was mostly women; but there were a few deep thoughts now and then. By the time they got back to the dorms, a full ten hours later, because they also stopped at a local pub, they were loud and raucous. High on life, Paul absently thought. They went to the mountain on a mission and Mike made sure that they accomplished it.
Paul never doubted the story Mike told him about being aboard the ship. He had witnessed his determination first hand as well as his almost blind, single-mindedness. But Paul would always doubt his own actions.
***
The Earth shook for hundreds of miles in all directions as the aliens dropped some sort of charges on Denver. The alien charges looked like the lights that can be bought at novelty shops in the mall, with the spheres of electricity that spider out like some low-budget Frankenstein movie, only these spheres were the size of VW Bugs. When the giant special effects balls hit the ground, the charges inside of them were freed and they would run rampant. The destruction was devastating. One bomb could level a neighborhood of ten city blocks.
The pictures from World War II, featuring the shell of some bombed-out building or the remnants of a house were in stark contrast to the devastation the aliens wrought, there was nothing left. Nothing except a three–foot-high wall of debris. It looked like some huge monster’s foot had come down and flattened everything.
In the days and weeks that followed the initial attack, not one miracle survived. Nobody was found half-starved under a wall. Nothing, not even so much as a dog was seen wandering around, looking for its master. The city of Denver had been halfway to oblivion when the Colorado Springs and Denver air wing defenses caught up. They barely slowed the juggernaut down.
Los Angeles, Seattle, Denver, New York, Miami and Washington D.C. all disappeared that night. Seventy-two million Americans perished in an instant. Heaven, itself, was not prepared for that level of human carnage. Nobody knew at the time, but the rest of the globe was suffering the same fate at nearly the same rate.
Surprisingly, it was the Russians who inflicted the greatest damage on the aliens and, in return, also suffered the greatest wrath. The Russians discovered that by gaining height on the attackers and striking from above, they could inflict more serious casualties. The Russians were actually able to hold their own in the beginning, trading plane for ship at an almost equal swap.
Then the bomber ships began to carpet bomb the entire country, knocking out any semblance of radar control or spotters. The Russian fighters began to fight blindly, and subsequently, they fell like everyone else. Russia lost over sixty percent of its populace in one night. Something the Germans once spent four years attempting to do. China fell without so much as a whimper. Europe, especially Germany and England, gave valiant efforts in their losing causes. Australia fell next.
The United States’ war effort was hamstringed from the beginning, having made the poor decision to place its armed forces in major cities. All but one regiment, which was stationed outside of Boston, had been wiped out. The aliens had done their homework thoroughly. Every known and suspected military base around the globe had been targeted with the same deadly efficiency. If anyone had been on the moon that night, they would have been treated to one hell of a fireworks display as the cities burned and antiaircraft from around the globe sprayed upwards in the slim hopes of finding a mark.
Chapter 25
The Mother Ship
“Supreme Commander Kuvlar, our first wave of gunships and bombers are returning.”
“What is the status of Earth and our ships?”
“Sir, Earth’s defensive capabilities have been completely neutralized.”
“Excellent, Sub-Commander! That’s excellent news,” he exclaimed as he wrung his hands together.
“Sir, there’s more.”
“Well, get on with it, Sub-Commander! I want to get to phase two of our invasion as soon as possible.”
“Sir, we lost fully sixty percent of our fighter ships in the invasion.”
“Sixty percent? That’s impossible.”
“Their weaponry was more effective than our computer models showed it would be.”
At that moment, the ISC wished he could display the capability of humans to sweat, which was less noticeable than dropping open his gaping jaw. As worries of a high court martial swirled inside of his head, he thought he could still salvage his career, as long as the rest of the invasion went according to plan.
He knew sending the fighters in without enough Battle Master Class ships was risky, but these were puny hu-mans; what could they do? Actually, the hu-mans were more than a qualified adversary. Never in their long history had the Progerians been dealt such staggering losses. They were much more accustomed to dealing out blows than receiving them. Sure, the majority of the planets they had encountered weren’t nearly as technologically advanced. But even the ones that were had fallen with much more ease. Heads were going to roll and he would make certain that his wasn’t one of them.
As quickly as they had come, the aliens began to depart. But not after nearly cutting the population on the planet in half. There was not a soul left who had not in some way been affected by the invasion. Fires raged, from cities to remote parts of the rain forest, and there was nothing and nobody to put them out. All semblances of infrastructure had been annihilated. Any city that had not been targeted began to send as many supplies and manpower as they could spare to whomever was in need, which, at this time, was pretty much everybody.
Although the president survived in an underground bunker in Maryland, nothing that even closely resembled the United States government survived. Most of the Senate and House members had been in Washington debating about how the troops should be dispersed. Few had been outside of the city limits when the barrage began. For days, news stations desperately tried to get back on the air. Radio was first, and the news was not good. The devastation had been as
Russia had been the last country to check in, suffering the most damage. Short wave radios had been banned for decades in that country. News that filtered out had been of the nineteenth century type, refugees fleeing on horseback. The bombing of Japan had been particularly crippling. The bombs not only raining their devastation from above, they also weakened the already unstable tectonic plates that lay beneath Japan’s islands. Nationwide earthquakes measuring in the sevens and eights paralyzed any type of rescue effort by what remained of the local authorities.
China had attempted to send some rescue boats over to their ailing neighbor but they were lost in port to one of the many tsunamis that were spawned from the shifting globe. What remained of Oahu after its numerous military bases were permanently disabled was completely obliterated to the incoming walls of water. Most of the islands in the Pacific rim suffered similar fates.
Another ten percent of the global population lost their lives in those chaotic first days after the aerial invasion. Some from shock, especially the elderly and the young who suffered with no one to care for them. A lot died in the ensuing panic that arose from the chaos of not knowing what was happening and not having anybody in charge.
Most people began to look out only for themselves. Altruism was at an all time low. People shot each other for fresh produce. It was the lawless, wild west of the 1800s again, only on a much wider scale. Communities raced to establish some sort of control, before the human condition degenerated any further. National governments had quickly become neighborhood principalities. Governments were established on a street-by-street basis. Each street became responsible for its own borders. Neighbors who lived just one street over were now unwelcome in what had once been their community mere days previous. Supermarkets became forts. Whole towns moved into them, sleeping and living in the aisles.