Divided (#1 Divided Destiny) (4 page)

Leo had been the first of his unit to reach McGuire, but by mid-morning the next day, the entire unit had been flown in, along with a large infantry contingent to reinforce the National Guard. Although Leo wasn’t sure how much help the infantry would be; people were frightened, and when faced with a swell of humanity, there wasn’t much anyone could do to stop them.

An emergency summit of the United Nations had been called, and phone lines burned between allied nations. For as long as the aliens remained silent, the fear was palpable; the unknown was always much scarier than something concrete. With their attacks being so easily thwarted, and the aliens not picking up the phone to negotiate, even amongst those better trained who should have known better, panic was spreading freely.

Aside from the surgical strikes against the world’s nuclear arsenal, the aliens hadn’t done much. It was obvious to everyone that their real attack had yet to begin. However, many civilians had already died due to the chaos, even though the aliens hadn’t lifted a finger to kill them.

That is, assuming the aliens had fingers. There had been no signs of life. The only indicator that the beings aboard the ships would likely understand them was that their booming demand had been made in English, rather than an unknown alien language. Leo had heard two officers discussing that earlier. The theory was that the aliens used English because that was widely considered the international language of business
—
for now. It was clear the aliens had been studying Earth for some time.

“Hey, I got it, buddy.” Don rushed over and grabbed the door for Leo.

He was carrying several large cases of gear out from the supply room to the aircraft hangar ready to be issued to the arriving infantry. Leo had made sure he grabbed a few hours’ sleep; they all needed to get what rest they could, especially when they didn’t know when next they would have the opportunity.

However, he needed to stay busy, to do something until his unit got their orders. As the rest of his comrades had trickled in, they had done the same, doing whatever they could around base. Leo suspected that would soon change, though, because for the last hour Captain Decker had been on the phone with Colonel Clark, their battalion commander back at Camp Pendleton.

“Thanks, man,” Leo said automatically. He put the gear down and stretched. This waiting was killing all of them.

“So what’s your theory?” Don asked as they headed back to the supply room for another trip. Leo raised an eyebrow in question. “The aliens, and I can’t believe I just said, they got here last night. They wiped out our nukes, but why haven’t they done more?” Don elaborated. “Jakeman reckons they are like the opposite of vampires and can’t come out at night.”

“More like they are biding their time, waiting to get the best bang for their buck,” Leo muttered.

Don leaned down to pick up several crates; his muscles bulged with the strain. In any contest between them, speed versus strength, Leo would win any races and Don would win when it came to brute force. He was solidly built, with closely-cropped dark hair and usually a ready smile. That smile had been noticeably absent, or forced, since the previous evening when the world had changed.

“Yeah, I get you. If they want to conquer us, then they need to crush the resistance to win. They are waiting for us to organize and then bang, lights out.” Don leaned against the door leading back into the hangar, pushing it open. “Damn scary, man,” he admitted.

The military bases would be the first hit, but with those beams of death, no matter where the soldiers were deployed, it wouldn’t matter. The aliens could pick them off one by one and there was nothing they could do. Some of the nukes had been kept in bunkers that were fortified against a nuclear strike; the beam had just punched through like it was paper.

“Yeah,” Leo agreed. He sighed wearily.

“Oh, heads up,” Don said, nodding towards the other side of the hangar, where their unit was assembling. “Our orders just came through.”

Leo and Don jogged over to join the rest of their unit. Hopefully the orders were to attack the enemy ship and get some payback for all the lives that had already been lost. Show the aliens that they would not bow down and worship them, that they should find some other planet to dominate because the people of Earth were not going to be their slaves. Attacking was dangerous—the ship was several thousand feet in the air—but at least they would be doing something.

He never had managed to get through to his parents. He had got a connection once to the house, and it had even rung, but there had been no answer. They could have been out, so he had tried again to call their cell. That too had rung, but there had been not answer, which didn’t mean anything. They might not have had any service, or the battery could have been dead. He would try again later.

Behind Captain Decker on the wall was a printout of an image of the alien ship. The image of the whole ship wasn’t very clear; the resolution was good, but the ships were too large for much detail to be seen, even on the massive printout. However, US satellites could read a newspaper from space, and certain raised sections of the ship had blown-up images of their own.

Leo’s eyes narrowed as he scanned the images. Even with the close-up pictures, he couldn’t see any obvious entry points. The angle was wrong; they couldn’t tell what the raised areas were from above. They’d have to go in blind, but that didn’t matter. If the aliens wouldn’t come down from the spaceship, then they’d have to go to them. There had to be some sort of door on that thing, and if they couldn’t blow it up from the outside, then they’d take it from within.

Leo had seen that move a dozen times in the movies. Although given that this wasn’t the movies, he doubted that they would actually be able to fly it, though if they could divert it over the ocean before they blew it up, that would certainly save the city and the millions trapped within who called it home.

“We have our orders,” Captain Decker began. “Staff Sergeant Frasier, Ortiz, you are to lead your squads and attack the alien mothership currently hovering over New York City. A chopper will take you there. You are to rappel down, and you will all be wearing parachutes for evac.”

Decker looked at them all—two squads, ten men to maybe save the country. Though more likely he was ordering them to their deaths. He would stay here at McGuire, along with the other three members of the headquarters element.

“The chopper won’t be able to provide you with any support. Everything that flies near that thing gets shot down, so it’s to drop you and get the hell out of Dodge. Blow a hole in that ship, get inside, steer it over water if you can, but above all just blow it the hell up. Questions?” Decker ended, his face grim.

“No sir,” Leo responded. Ortiz echoed him a moment later.

“Then Godspeed,” Decker said, ending the briefing.

The unit split to grab their gear. After the interminable wait, it was a flurry of activity, and it seemed in no time at all that they were onboard the chopper flying to New York. It was a Black Hawk and had no side doors. The wind whipped through, unwelcomingly chilly despite it being midday.

From this vantage point, looking straight down at the world, things didn’t seem so bad. It looked almost peaceful, laid out like a postcard. Then Leo looked ahead. The alien mothership cast a shadow over the city, both literally and figuratively. It was like a black hole, a darkness on the landscape, sucking out all the light and all the hope. Well, that was all about to change.

“Stand ready,” Leo shouted over the din made by the whirling chopper blades.

Corporal Hellen would be the first down. Leo would be next. He tugged on his gloves, pulling them tighter, his only expression of nerves. Hellen clipped on and grabbed the rope. The chopper flew over the edge of the alien ship and Hellen swung down. When he was a few feet from the hull, the energy shield sparked and became visible. Hellen’s agonizing scream was cut short as he was disintegrated.

“Pull back, pull back!” Leo yelled.

The chopper banked hard, pulling away from the enemy ship. Out of the corner of his eye, Leo caught a flash of light. The alien ship had fired on them! The chopper rolled to avoid it and went into a tailspin. Another flash of light. There was a bang, and then Leo smelled smoke. An alarm started to sound, a steady, repetitive whine. Emergency lights flashed.

They were going down.

The helicopter plummeted towards the Earth. At the last possible moment, the pilot managed to pull up just enough so that they landed on the skids. They bounced, but the dampeners weren’t enough. Leo heard something crack and the chopper lurched sideways.

“Status!” Staff Sergeant Ortiz barked.

“Frasier, no harm,” Leo reported.

He was shaken, and bruised, but otherwise unharmed. Thankfully that was also true for the remaining eight marines. Their pilot had done them proud. He’d even managed to ‘land’ in the large, open area of Central Park, one of the few places in the city that had ample room for a helicopter. Quickly, they pulled themselves out of the stricken chopper. Leo leaned forward to help the copilot.

“My arm’s broken,” the copilot hissed.

Leo looked down and felt his stomach lurch in sympathy. The copilot’s arm was at a distinctly unnatural angle, and jagged bone was poking through the skin.

“I got you,” Leo told him.

He sliced through the seat harness with his Ka-Bar knife and grabbed the copilot’s good arm, helping him out of the buckled door. They staggered away from the chopper, aware that at any moment a spark from the damaged system could cause an explosion. When they were far enough away, they stopped and stood in a rough group.

“Well, that didn’t exactly go according to plan,” Don muttered, just loud enough for Leo to hear him.

“No, it didn’t,” Leo sighed.

They were dealing with forces outside their comprehension. It wasn’t like they’d ever gone up against an energy shield before. Their assault plan had been worth a try, Leo knew that. However, it had cost Corporal Hellen his life. He’d lost a man under his command, and they’d gotten nothing for it.

The aliens had won yet another round.

Central Park was in the shadow of the mothership, and the ship’s cold, leeching fingers set a chill in Leo’s bones. He looked up. The ship was blocking out the light in more ways than one. Leo was about to suggest they commandeer a truck to get back to McGuire when the side of the ship moved in a very familiar way. It was like watching a hangar door retract. Leo recognized it before he named it, and his heart sank.

A swarm of small ships burst from the side of the mothership, like bees exiting a hive. They were oval-shaped, black with a navy tint over what might have been the canopy. They headed straight for the city.

“Take cover!” Leo shouted.

He started sprinting for the tree line; they were sitting ducks out in the open like this. The small pod ships began firing, and beams of white light, barely visible in the daylight, streaked through the sky. They fired at the ground, at buildings, at cars, at people.

Leo turned when he reached the tree line; the once pristine Central Park lawn was now covered in blast marks. Sods of grass and mud flew up in the air when the energy shots hit, churning the ground. He raised his M4 carbine assault rifle and started firing at the nearest pod ship. It was to no effect.

Screams rent the air, and then things got worse.

In the center of the open field in front of them, the air started to shimmer. There was a flash of light, and twenty humanoid shapes appeared. They were large, bigger than any man, but they weren’t human—they were metal. What he saw were suits, exoskeletons, in the same color pattern as the pod ships, black with hints of navy.

They had appeared in a circle, backs to each other, facing out towards their targets. Synchronized as one, they raised their arms and started firing energy shots at the inhabitants of the park. Unlike with the ship above, Leo at least saw where these shots were coming from. It wasn’t a gun, but rather a raised area on the alien suits’ mid-forearm.

“Fire,” Leo ordered.

The hail of gunfire began again, this time more usefully targeting the aliens on the ground. The bullets hit; small sparks could be seen where they connected. The suits were getting dented, but that was all. It wasn’t stopping them, it wasn’t slowing them down, and it definitely wasn’t killing them.

“Hold fire,” Staff Sergeant Ortiz yelled a second before Leo made the same call.

They were just wasting bullets. They all carried extra clips, but at their rate of fire, they would be out of ammo very quickly. They needed to wait, pick their target carefully, and make every hit count.

The suited aliens started to march forward in four separate groups of five. Once they had evacuated the center, the air shimmered again, and with another flash, twenty more appeared. Leo swallowed hard and clutched at his assault rifle, feeling for the first time that it wasn’t enough. They were ineffective; they didn’t have the power. It was like a toy in his hands compared to the forces the aliens wielded against them.

For a moment, time slowed. He turned his gaze away from the relentless marching of the aliens on the ground and looked up, to where the sky was filled with the smaller alien craft. There were explosions, fire, and shattered glass from the skyscrapers all around. He could hear the never-ending screams of civilians in terror.

There was nothing he could do.

Chapter Four

“Leo,” Don bellowed, his voice distorted in Leo’s ears.

Leo shook his head to clear it. They would make a stand here. They would likely die, but he would be damned if he was going to go meet his maker without taking a few of the bastards with him. However impossible that seemed.

“Squad, to me, back to back. Conserve your ammo,” Leo ordered.

Then Don was at his back. Even through the tactical vest, Leo could feel the warmth of his shoulder next to his. To the left, his remaining sergeant and the squad medic made the same formation.