Battle for the Earth (24 page)

‘Hmm, we’re going to have to operate. They’re brain dead just now anyway; I know it’s going to be dangerous but I don’t see that we have a choice.’

‘Probably not. In any case, we don’t know what they are programmed to do, or what their mission is.’

At that Jumouk shook his head.

‘I meant to say, what did Mark say when you told him about them?’

‘He couldn’t have been more apologetic. He’s been in contact with Finney and Sacha and we’re all doing checks with metal detectors both on Earth and on Mars just in case.’

‘Will metal detectors pick up the implants?’

‘Yes, we’ve already checked that. They show up just fine.’

‘OK, Lee. Where do we go from here?’

After another sip of green tea, and with a furrowed brow, Lee continued.

‘Well, I suggest we let the resistance do their worst. After all they’ve done a good job up till now. OK, it’s only a limited response, but it’s still keeping the Annunaki occupied.’

‘What about these super monsters?’

Lee eased back in his chair.

‘I’ll talk to Mark and see if he can organise something to destroy the production line.’

Almost as an afterthought Jumouk added:

‘Any ideas on how to kill them? After all, we don’t know how many they’ve got already, and I think it might have been them that killed Mark’s snipers.’

Lee nodded.

‘Probably.’

‘OK, Lee, I’ll leave that one with you. Thanks for your input and please let me know how the implant removals go. Bye for now.’

With that Jumouk took his leave, and left Lee to finish his tea.

**

The removal of the implants didn’t go well. Two of the patients died on the operating table, and the third one only just survived, and was now in a coma. The only weak spot that Lee could find on the super monsters was the implant which made them vulnerable to aneurisms.

Pausanias highlighted this when he pointed out the bullet-like mark on the dead body from Dulles. The mark was faint. It was at the front of the skull to the right of the left temple and where the forehead would normally be. The skull hadn’t been badly damaged, but Pausanias considered that the impact of a high-velocity bullet might have dislodged the implant enough to cause the aneurism.

This was of course the Sybote that took the sniper bullet to the head before carrying on to kill the snipers. At some point after the slaughter it had suffered the aneurism, died instantaneously, and was thrown into the room of death at the Dulles base.

Pausanias and Lee were right, they had found a weak spot in the Sybotes.

**

Tannacha now had a total of forty Sybotes and was keen to put them to good use, Nalater had to admit he was impressed by the Sybote technology. They were mindless killing machines, perfect in almost every way.

The psychological effect alone was outstanding. Imagine ten of these monstrous things coming at you. You would have to be the most courageous of warriors not to think twice about standing your ground.

Tannacha also had ten spies who had now been trained with a version of their past lives and what had happened to them. This he hoped would make them more plausible civilians, unlike the previous ones who had been notable failures.

Four units of Sybotes, ten in each unit, were despatched by Tannacha on search-and-destroy missions around the Dulles base. Their remit was to patrol for ten hours and then return to base. If they came into contact with anything not Annunaki, it was to be obliterated. After the Sybotes had returned, Tannacha would then release his spies to be ‘rescued’ by the resistance.

**

Mark received reports back from his look-outs around Dulles that the Sybotes were on the move. He was getting detailed information on the size of each unit, the total numbers and directions in which they were heading.

He had been busy over the past few days. He had detailed plans of all the places where the ordnance had been hidden around the general Washington area. This included two hundred F-22 Raptors, all armed, fuelled and ready to go. As a bonus six Black Hawk helicopters were also included.

Mark had more than enough pilots for these fighters and helicopters and had already assigned crews and ground crews to them. The crews had all been despatched with their specific orders around twelve hours earlier, and by now should be on the various makeshift airstrips awaiting further instructions from Mark.

Five demolition teams and twenty units totalling two hundred men had been sent out to West Springfield to retrieve demolition material and weapons from beneath West Springfield High School.

Mark had the idea of ambush on his mind, and if he was going to do it, he might as well do it right. The demolition charges would be laid in Chantilly, just south of Dulles. The southern area of Chantilly would be one large bomb. From the Dulles Expo and Conference Centre to the Wingate by Wyndham Hotel, the whole area would be totally destroyed.

The idea was quite simple. One that had been tried many times before in mankind’s violent history. Get the enemy to chase you, leading them into a trap, and then massacre them with superior fire power.

‘Do you think it’ll work?’ Bill sounded a bit sceptical.

‘I think so, those robot things may be combat friendly, but none of them have law degrees. I think they’ll take the bait.’

‘What about the Raptors?’

‘They should get enough cover from the explosion for a rapid approach. They’ll all target the same building with rockets and bombs. That should take care of the robot production line.’

By the next day everything was in place, the demolition teams had done their jobs and ground troops were positioned as ordered. Mark signalled the beginning of the operation.

**

A small group of five resistance fighters was spotted by the patrolling Sybotes. Immediately the Sybotes engaged Mark’s men, and a fire-fight ensued. The pulse weapons fire was simply absorbed by the Sybotes’ body armour. The bullets did have some effect but still didn’t slow down the Sybotes by much.

The group of fighters was now retreating towards Chantilly when a Black Hawk suddenly appeared, spewing a hail of fire into the Sybotes’ line of advance. This slowed the Sybotes down noticeably but still didn’t stop them altogether.

The Black Hawk then hovered overhead, dropping ladders and collecting the five resistance fighters. It then flew south at tree-top height.

The Sybotes were on the point of giving up pursuit when another five resistance fighters appeared and resumed the fire-fight. By now three units of Sybotes were involved in what was now a fast-moving chase.

The resistance fighters were now on Westmore Street exactly in the area they wanted. Thirty Sybotes were bearing down hard on the resistance fighters’ position, when once again a Black Hawk helicopter appeared from nowhere, guns blazing as it again picked up the five resistance fighters, then sped off at tree-top height southwards.

Next the commander of the demolition teams gave the order and the whole area erupted in a cataclysm of fire, rubble and smoke.

As the smoke plumed upwards, fifty F-22 Raptors screamed through the dense billowing mass heading for one building on the Dulles base. Rocket fire was first, followed by four small-diameter bombs from each Raptor. The devastation on the ground was unimaginable and the area of the Sybote production facility had become one gigantic crater, with many smaller craters scattered around the surrounding area where the bombs had missed their targets.

**

Annunaki assault vessels were now spewing out of the battle cruisers, intent on exacting immediate revenge on the Raptors.

The Raptors had had to cut and run, but were being hounded relentlessly by the Annunaki craft. Raptor after Raptor succumbed to the superior weapons and speed of the assault vessels. It was now more of a duck shoot for the Annunaki pilots.

Out of the initial fifty F-22 Raptors only six made it successfully back to their base and under camouflage. It had been a heavy price to pay for the mission but, for all that, the mission had been a complete success, and the production of the grotesque robots had been halted, at least for the time being.

**

Tannacha was counting the cost of the latest resistance attack.

The resistance really were becoming a thorn in his side, exactly as Jumouk had planned. His production facility for manufacturing the Sybotes had been completely destroyed and, what was worse, all his raw materials and reserve supplies had gone up along with it.

On the other hand, fortunately none of his assault craft had been damaged, and he had lost count of how many Raptors had been downed. To him this had been a victory with very little cost to the Annunaki war machine.

Still he was going to miss his Sybotes. The unit which hadn’t been involved in the skirmish returned to the Dulles base, which meant he still had ten Sybotes: not quite the army he had intended but better than nothing.

In any case, he could still start again. The template for the Sybotes obviously worked; he would just need to get more raw materials.

**

Mark and Bill were studying the battle reports. The cost of the operation had been high, but the results decisive. Thirty of the grotesque creatures killed and their production halted. However, they also realised that one of the main areas in which they were falling down was in the air, where they were no match for the Annunaki assault craft.

Mark accordingly invited ten of his top pilots to come over and discuss any improvements to tactics, or even hardware. They had to give the planes and their pilots a better fighting chance. This really was a problem area. It would be easier to turn a tank into a racing car. One suggestion stood out from the rest, however: rigging the planes so they could carry airborne mines. At least that way they might be able to down Annunaki craft following them, provided they could gain the element of surprise.

The decision was made to arm the planes with mines in future.

Meanwhile, Bill had been getting on with his documentation of the system of sewers. Initially the suggestion had been to blow up the Dulles base from the sewers, but this plan had been rejected because it would have drawn attention to the sewers, and their favoured safe way of travel would have been jeopardised.

Resistance workers were now travelling regularly around the sewer tunnels and, indeed, were using some of the smaller tunnels to store weapons and explosives retrieved from their hiding places on the surface.

This was working out so well that Finney and Sacha had adopted the idea in London.

Bill had even come up with a strategy for mining the tunnels so if they were ever compromised they could seal tunnels behind them, thus improving their chances of escape.

**

Tannacha had ordered the building of a new, permanent factory to produce Sybotes. The original experiment of using them as ground troops had been a resounding success. Besides, he reasoned, the way he had been getting through his Annunaki warriors, he would soon be running out of infantry. Scouts were sent out to scan the surrounding areas for suitable sites.

The other thing he needed was human beings. Unless he could find another human base, accessing this resource was going to be more problematic.

Then Nalater came up with an innovative idea of where to build the factory. Underneath Dulles, construction had been started on an underground railway with its station, called the Silver Line. This would make an excellent facility, deep enough to be safe, and large enough to accommodate the mass production of Sybotes.

Tannacha ordered the building and customisation of the partially constructed station to begin immediately, leaving the scouts free to concentrate on finding human bases for raw materials.

**

42

Marie was exploring more of the Mars base. Up till now she had only scratched the surface, and she had a strong suspicion that Pausanias was still stonewalling over certain aspects of the base. The central question of who had built it had never been answered, as time after time people had asked but been unable to get a straight answer from Pausanias, or any of his personnel.

Marie still only had access to a limited amount of the Mars base’s systems. She had repeatedly asked for more access, but Pausanias had always found a reason why the systems wouldn’t let her access, passwords he didn’t know, secured files and the like.

Hiding her frustration, Marie had persisted, scrolling through animated three-dimensional files, still looking for any clues as to who had built the base or why.

There was a brief reference in one file to the Island of Atlas, but further investigation of the systems were password protected.

**

Pausanias interrupted Marie’s deliberations to point out a blip on the proximity detectors. A small shuttle had just entered hyper-space after leaving the Dulles base on Earth. Marie moved across to the proximity imagery depiction.

‘Can we tell where it’s going, Pausanias?’

‘No, Marie, once in hyper-space there is no way of telling. However, I could probably hazard a guess.’