They Came Out of the Sun
The sight picture was crap, just a gray blob floating above New York. She double checked the repelling line and her gear. All was prepared. After a deep breath and exhaling it halfway she caressed the trigger. A thin ruby beam shot forth from the barrel of her weapon. She dropped the weapon and felt the jerk as it reached the end of its sling as she leaned back and kicked off the side of the tower built on the ridge. Seeing the first paint splash on the rock she pulled the rope tight to slow her drop.
The knot at the end of her rope jerked her to a stop. As she swung around she grabbed the second rope and shoved it through her D-link and pulled it around behind her back. This rope at least went as far down as the cave. Kicking off she heard the air splitting and knew a thunder clap would follow.
Susan watched her sister drop and spin lifeless like a rag doll. She thanked God that the automatic brake stopped her fall. The scenario had proved accurate so far. It took the recovery team only twenty minutes to reel her sister down and lay her unconscious body on a stretcher. Blood was dripping from her ears, but she was still alive.
The Captains only comment was, “We'll need a taller tower next time, their shot took over 10 feet off the mountain top and started a forest fire.”
Susan turned and yelled, “Don't you give a damn about the people under your command?”
His mild reply was, “Damn right I do! I can build towers all day long, but I know soldiers die in war. I wish it was otherwise.” Turning he walked back down the tunnel as the medics rolled her sister to the infirmary.
That evening reports started coming in. There was now a crater in the middle of NYC. An estimated half million human casualties. The scientist at several locations reported that the original return beam was one meter in diameter, but due to atmospheric resistance and diffusion it was thirty one meters in diameter when it reached the tower. The bad part about the return shot was that its thermal effect left a straight line from the spacecraft to the cliff. They recommended immediate evacuation.
The good news was that they'd caught the main enemy hierarchy halfway between the ship and the UN building. They and their support teams and their escort soldiers were vaporized when the spacecraft brought up its protective force field. Estimated enemy losses were just under a thousand.
From the time of the first shot, the reaction of the force field, dropping the force field and the return shot was 13.5 seconds. That confirmed the fact that the spacecraft defense was completely automated by either a super computer or an AI. Five seconds was implementation of the force field and another estimated 4 seconds dropping it before returning fire.
The move to Hanover was stealthy. All the civilian vehicles gave them excellent camouflage.
The briefing was long. This time two shots would be made at the same time. One was from an automated laser in NYC and the second she would make from the new tower just outside town. The new laser setup was also described.
The next morning Susan climbed the tower and looked over the tripod aiming device. The emerald was being transported from Kentucky and would be installed in two days. Turning around she looked at the zip line from the corner of the tower to the treeline. Putting her gloves on she checked the cable fasteners and gave it a good jerk. She felt the tower sway slightly and turned back to check the sight picture on the laser mount. It was moving on and off the target. With one quick step off the platform she counted six seconds to the treeline where she hooked up to the second zip line while hanging from the first. Ten seconds later she slammed into the mattresses that were her dismount point. After regaining her breath she stormed toward the CP.
The Captain looked at her as she came through the door and said, “You don't have all your gear on for a proper test. Why?”
Flabbergasted she muttered, “It won't work, the sight picture changed as soon as I grabbed the escape line.”
His reply floored her, “Ten seconds after you press the trigger the laser will fire. Four seconds later the mount drops through the bottom of the tower and hopefully the laser gem survives the drop on its own zip line. At eight second intervals after the first hit automated lasers start firing from six automated points within the city. The hope is that the automated defense system of the spacecraft will try evasive maneuvers and damage itself and hopefully kill a lot of the crew. If it rises a half mile and the observatory can lock on with their gas laser and also fire.
“You at least have a chance to survive. The teams in Buenos Aires and Sydney have various amounts of automation and are all ready to die. We all hope that at least one of the spacecraft will crash. We also hope that the aliens will withdraw, at least long enough for the science teams to explore their spacecraft so we can try to either start reverse engineering their stuff or try to figure out how to defeat their weapons. Be glad you're not in China or Russia. They plan on hitting their spacecraft with waves of thermonuclear weapons. Saturday at 1535 hours, the synchronized as attack time.
“And this is completely off the record, their second convoy of ships will be within reach of our nuclear arsenal at the same time. The astronomers calculate that they will start entering orbit at the same time. We got one shot. ”
Saturday the weather was lousy. A hurricane off the Carolina coast had the winds blowing. The tower was swaying slightly as she stood behind the sights. The enemy spacecraft moved from one side to the other. Releasing the locks she put her hand on the elevation and horizontal wheels and started moving them to get the sway pattern. It wasn't to hard to keep the spacecraft centered. Her radio crackled with one word. FIRE. Pressing the button with her index finger she re-centered the spacecraft and got her pattern back. She could see the spacecraft perfectly centered as the laser fired.
When it quit she whirled, hooked up, and jumped off the tower. Reaching her D-link toward the second line she felt the thunderclap and passed out.
The Captains radio crackled and he heard, good shot secondaries under the force field. In the background he then heard, She's hung up half way down. Get a team up there.
Saturday night, Susan's sister wobbled in and sat at the Captains desk. “If she doesn't make it, I'll never pull the trigger again. You'll loose the two best snipers you ever had. One of the guys told me that she stayed on the tower until the laser fired.”
“The doctors say she'll live, but her left eye will never be the same. Besides a detached retina, it's burned from the side radiation off the laser. I'm sorry, but she made the choice to stay up there.” he said as he put his head down on his hands. “Here look at the preliminary report.”
US and SA ships down. Science teams on site to examine. Russian and Chinese ships down but radioactive. They are sending teams in anyway. Australian ship down in the Pacific, non-exploitable at this time. African and European ships in orbit.
Eight of the twelve ships in the second convoy hit and venting atmosphere. Additional ICBM's being readied for launch.
“Well it's their move”, said the Captain as he pulled the report back across the desk. “With their technology edge they can bombard us back to the stone age from orbit, or they can go looking for easier pickings. Even those wimpy politicians at the UN just couldn't sit still and stomach their initial demands.”
Captain, we just got an additional report said the clerk as he dropped a paper on the desk.
Transmission from enemy spacecraft:
Your resistance to our occupation is unwarranted. Our demands were not that severe. Your military's managed to bring down 5 of our 7 planet side ships. You damaged our civilian population ships and killed almost half our population. We now can do one of two things. We can exterminate your species and take what's left of your planet or we can negotiate.
We are requiring an answer within one of your days. Until then we are taking your frozen continent and landing our civilian ships there. Any aggressive move will be met
with extinction force.
Reply sent back to invasion spacecraft:
We will allow you thirty days to repair your civilian spacecraft on our southernmost continent. However you must allow an inspection team within 7 days. The inspection team will be accompanied by a negotiation team. Our governments compute that we are on equal levels now. We still have weapons in reserve and will hold them until a decision is made.
Some of our governments only desire your technology. Others are more concerned about your civilian population.
# # #
About the Author
I've loved westerns and science fiction since I picked up my first book at the public library.
I've been writing on my computer for years. I never planned on any of my stories being published, just to be read by myself, family, and friends. The base journal is on forty spreadsheets with links to about a thousand files of short one day paragraphs plus other stories.
Other books by this author
Grandpa's Hot Sauce
Scout Expedition
Az
Pacific 41
The Plan and other short stories
The Impossible Ambition
Connect with Stephen Brandon
My other website: Saturn Stories
Write me a note: criticism or other comments
~(ToC)~
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