Chapter 027: Landing
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[Northern Edge of Washington DC]

Lieutenant Colonel Robert Franklin, the battalion commander of the 12th Infantry Battalion in the 7th Armored Infantry Division, stands at the head of a conference room. His first order on arriving outside of Washington DC is to get his people spread out and dug in, and then calls his company commanders to a briefing.

Franklin is a hard-nosed veteran of several conflicts around the world and expects no less of his people than he does of himself. At the same time, he cares deeply for all of his troops and won’t abide by poor or lackluster leadership of them. In his time, he’s seen far too many poor commanders get too many good people killed.

He clears his throat to garner the attention of his company commanders.

"All right, gentlemen," he begins “we’ve trained for situations just like this plenty of times. The only change is that they’re here with far more troops than we ever expected and earlier than the predictions said, but that doesn’t affect our mission. We have our full equipment and ammunition load-out, and the Peregrines are standing by to take us wherever we need to be by the time we have a likely landing site for them.

“Persephone has predicted that the large cities are their likely objectives. Hence, why the 12th, 23rd, 37th, and 30th battalions have been deployed around DC. There are effectively two possibilities. We’ll be a landing site or we won’t be. If not, the Peregrines will take us to the closest one to assist in destroying them. On the highly probable basis that DC will be a landing site, I want all of the companies fully loaded and ready to engage the enemy within a minute of my order to do so.”

He pauses for a moment, obviously trying to find a good way to say something. “Men, it’s highly likely that there are civilians still in DC. We all know how dumb some people can be and think they know better than everyone else. I’m sure you already know this, but some of them may be in the lines of fire. You are to order your people not to risk themselves for them. Unfortunate as it may be, they made their decision to stay in a war zone. I think that if you haven’t talked about this, you probably have thought about it.

"You’ve all seen how the Alkarin warriors are. Your people may be tempted to try to save the citizens fleeing the Alkarin. Gentlemen, I’ll court-martial anyone who does that. We have no real choice here. We’ll be outnumbered, and we’ll have no time to deal with people who decided to stay. If they get in your line of fire, that’s simply too bad for them. These are our orders from the highest level. Is that clear?” There are hesitant nods, and quiet grunts of acknowledgment as he looks into the serious faces of his commanders. “Very well, are there any questions?”

Only one hand rises, that of the youngest commander amongst them. Young he may be, but he’s an excellent leader of his company. His rank of Captain proves that since he graduated from OCS just a year ago.

"Yes, Captain Elden?"

"And if we’re surrounded, sir?"

The commander pauses and again looks around the circle of serious faces. Most of them have known each other off and on for a couple of years, and he wonders how much longer he will have the pleasure of serving with many of them. “Well, Captain, in that case, we fight, die, and take as many of these Alkarin bastards with us to hell as we can. They sure as fuck won’t take any prisoners, so surrender isn’t an option.”

The same scenario plays out around the world as the troops are briefed to meet, engage, and destroy the Alkarin landing forces.

 ◇ ◆ ◇ ◆ ◇ ◆ ◇

Major Sanders, the current SDO at CMCC, nervously approaches General Chambers’ office. He wouldn’t be so nervous if the Queen wasn’t also there. He taps on the door, hears, “Come,” and opens the door to tell them, “Approximately five hundred Alkarin troopships have just reached geosynchronous orbit. Far more are approximately a half-hour behind them. Persephone’s analysis calls for landings to begin within the hour.”

“Thank you, Major.” After he closes the door, Jason looks at Sora. “And so, it begins.”

She merely nods in agreement, maintaining her placid facade.

A half-hour later, Persephone has highlighted some two-hundred landing sites across the world. Moments later, the information is sent out along with orders for various troops to move to intercept. In some cases, moves aren’t necessary. Colonel Franklin’s battalion being one of them.

 ◇ ◆ ◇ ◆ ◇ ◆ ◇

Major Melton, Franklin’s XO, walks up behind Colonel Franklin as he looks out over the city.

Major Melton stops and looks at the city for a moment as he waits for his commander to recognize him.

“Yes, Kevin?”

“We just got word from CMCC. Persephone has narrowed down the likeliest landing sites. DC is one of them, although that is not yet certain.”

Franklin simply nods and then tells him. “Send out orders for the troops to hunker down. I expect we’ll be hit from orbit before they land.” He turns to look at his XO. “Kevin, I hope you got your beauty rest because I highly doubt we’ll be getting much for quite a while.”

 ◇ ◆ ◇ ◆ ◇ ◆ ◇

At CMCC, another live press conference is being held. This time, it’s led by the CMCC PIO, Colonel Karinov.

“Okay folks, before we begin the briefing, are there any questions?”

A reporter raises her hand and then stands. “What’s happening with the fleet? Why didn’t they even attempt to intercept the landing forces?”

“The fleet is still engaged with the main Alkarin force. Their landing forces have slipped around them, and they couldn’t engage them since this incursion has been outside all the expected parameters,” Karinov responds. “The inner system defenses have whittled them down somewhat before being destroyed, but the bulk of their landing forces remain intact.

“I have to say this: the fleet are doing a hell of a job tying up the Alkarin in the outer system. They are dishing out far more damage than they are taking, despite the disparity of the forces they face. Their actions in defending the Sol system are beyond heroic.”

Another reporter asks, “Can you provide us with any video of the action?”

“Of course. We have several defense satellites in the area. We’ll provide you with all the footage you could wish for from the Operations center after this. Having said that, we’re committed to keeping the people informed, but at the same time, we are rather busy. So, if you ask for something, and it takes a while, it isn’t that we don’t want to, it’s just that we have limited personnel here, and everyone is busy doing their jobs to defend us. Understand?”

“Yes,” reply the reporters.

“We’re happy to provide you with information, but I will not pull people away from their duties to do so. When the techs have the time, I’ll have them hook you up with access to the real-time video as it comes in. So, I don’t want you to pester our people with inane questions, clear?”

“Clear,” the reporters answer. Who ever thought something like this would ever occur? Usually, throwing an unanswerable question at them was the best way to get a great sound bite, but this situation is so far out of the norm that they’re half-afraid to ask since the people they were interviewing were in charge of saving not only their lives, but the lives of their families and loved ones. Rattling the people defending you suddenly doesn’t seem like such a good idea.

“Good.”

Another reporter stands and asks, “Sir, is the Queen going to be available at a later time?”

Karinov shrugs. “Honestly, I have no idea. I do know she is busy with General Chambers, so I would say not to expect her to say anything until either something catastrophic happens or the battles are over with. Now, if you’ll follow me, I’ll have a tech set up the feed in a more comfortable room where we will provide refreshments while you wait. I’ll be back from time to time to give you updates and answer any questions you might have.”

Karinov and his aide lead them down a short corridor and over to a set of double doors. On the other side is a fairly large room with a long table along the far wall and many comfortable-looking sofas and chairs. One entire wall is covered with displays.

He gestures for them to enter. “Relax. I’ll have the tech come in and set up the repeaters for you as soon as they can.” He then looks at his aide. “Get the kitchen to bring some snacks and drinks for them. Today is bad enough already; let’s not make things worse than they already are for them.”

 ◇ ◆ ◇ ◆ ◇ ◆ ◇

“This is Robert Gentry reporting from the CMCC. We’ve been informed that the Alkarin have finally made their commitments to landing sites. As we have been telling you, until they commit to a reentry trajectory, the landing areas remain only possibilities. Now, however, they have committed themselves to multiple targets around the world. New York, Los Angeles, Washington DC, Moscow, Paris, and London are amongst the many reported sites. A full list will be shown scrolling across the bottom of your display soon.

“Mars has fallen to the Alkarin, and all personnel are feared to be dead.”

“They’ve made several orbits around Earth, under constant attack from the planetary defense fighters, we assume to pick their landing sites. As we’ve reported…” He pauses, touching his earpiece as he’s told something. “We now cut to a live feed from the Washington DC area reconnaissance drones.”

Throughout the world, people stop whatever they’re doing, and turn to watch the broadcast. Hundreds of fiery streaks can be seen coming down on a heading for Washington DC as Gentry continues narrating events as they happen.

“As you can see, hundreds, if not thousands, of landing ships are coming in rapidly.”

Tens of missiles, then hundreds blaze up to intercept them.

“And, now, air defense has begun the battle.”

The landing ships begin jinking all over the place in an attempt to avoid the missiles. It’s a valiant effort, even if it is futile because the missiles are not aimed at their ships. The missiles continue through their dancing formation and finally detonate in huge bright flashes of antimatter above them, crippling many of them, and sending them crashing to the ground with no survivors. Of the ships the Alkarin dedicated to landing at Washington DC, roughly a third are destroyed before they can even face their enemy.

The view zooms out and shows the craft landing in multiple sites around the city. A few minutes later, Major Melton trots over to Colonel Franklin. “Sir, we have reports of civilians heading for our lines.”

“Allow them through, but troops are not, I repeat not, to even attempt to do more than that. Tell them to keep moving. Those morons were warned multiple times and still chose to stay. Whatever happens, it’s on them, and we don’t have the time or resources to mollycoddle a bunch of civilians.”

“Yes, Sir.”

Looking toward DC, Franklin thinks, ‘Four fuckin’ battalions, a thousand armored infantry, against thousands of bloodthirsty Alkarins, for who knows how long. Even if reinforcements arrive, we’re going to lose a lot of good troopers.’ He switches over to the general comms channel. “Alright, boys and girls, we have a target-rich environment in front of us and a bunker with millions of citizens 30 kilometers behind us depending on us to keep them safe. We’ve trained for this, so keep calm, stay with your teams, and pour on the fire. There isn’t going to be much finesse to this. Just kill these fuckers so that we can move on to our next target.”

Slight variations of the same scenes and thoughts take place around the world.

As always: A huge thank you to all my Patreons!

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