Second
Front
Prologue
On Monday 21 May 2033 sensors picked up
something large entering the solar system, the radio astronomy
observatories watched this object perturb the paths of known
asteroids. The speed and direction of the object showed that it would
head for the Earth. Eventually.
Scientists determined that a rogue
planet, a wandering world with no parent star had been captured by
the sun's gravity and pulled in. Many people were frightened and
there was panic buying and selling in some parts but this very
premature and rare enough to be an oddity.
It was soon determined that this new
world was about the same diameter as the Earth and just a little less
dense, but still making it the second densest planet in the solar
system. It had an atmosphere of some type, almost as thick as the one
on Earth.
On 14 August scientists held a press
conference to report that the new world would enter into a proper
orbit around the sun by the end of the year. The big news was that
this planet would share Earth's orbit and would end up being close
enough to see in our daylight sky. Especially at dusk.
27 November 2033, the planet was now a
dot in the night sky. More big news was revealed by the global
community of scientists. The new world had a nitrogen-oxygen
atmosphere, much like our own and oceans, although shallower than
ours.
4 December 2033, a whistle-blower
revealed that radio signals were being detected from the other planet
and that these were not natural phenomena. The new arrival had radio
broadcasting systems although they had not been decoded. This was the
most shocking news so far, of course.
7 December 2033, the FBI and other
agencies raid and shut down a religious organization who were sending
radio waves directly at the planet. They had the intent to convert
these beings to Christ. The governments warned that we had no idea
what might offend our new neighbors.
11 December, the new world was now
almost as big as the moon in the sky although more than twice as far
away. It did not orbit the Earth, it just stayed in a leading orbit.
You could now see the world in the sky before the sun went down and a
little while after, a large reddish planet. It was something that
nobody had really imagined before.
23 December 2033. Multiple “falling
stars” were reported across Asia as night fell, with many said to
have hit the ground and the sea. Then live pictures were picked up
from Nogura, Japan of a wrecked building. A black sphere sat amidst
the rubble.
As the reporter watched police rope the
area off to await the soldiers of the Japan Self-Defense Force, the
sphere split in half and a black shadowy shape emerged. It quickly
lunged at the nearest police and civilians and lifted them into the
air, shook them and then threw them against the wall. A police
officer fired several times from close range only to be lifted by his
head and then his head was crushed by the claws of the creature.
The world was now alarmed as reports of
these “falling stars” were now being reported in mainland China
and later parts of western Russia. It was moving along with the side
of Earth that faced this new world. North America had less than a day
to put the military and the people of the country on alert. Highways
and airports were closed, ammunition and firearms sold out wherever
they were sold.
Reports of attacks from Asia were
studied. The tiniest piece of information could prove to be valuable
n repelling these invaders. Reports from India and countries farther
and farther west were added to the pile as the day wore on. The
beasts did a lot of damage but eventually they were killed by large
caliber rounds.
Russia launched several ICBM missiles
that exploded in space when the incoming spheres were detected. Radar
had now been honed to find them, but the reaction time was short
because radar could only be extended so far. The west waited for the
news.
A smattering of the black spheres fell
on eastern Russia, most of them did not split open. The Russian
military cut one open and found an alien beast dead inside. It was
brought to a secret location for study, the information they found
was shared. Already, though, western Europe was faced with the
decision,
The EMP from the explosions had caused
scattered outages, this news emboldened the Europeans so that France
and the UK fired their own nukes as a shield from invasion. It seemed
to work, a few beasts survived but the military was ready and had
dispatched them. They did a lot of damage, but they were mortal, they
did die.
While North and South America awaited
their turn, the new Space Station Terra was boarded by smaller
beings. These beings wore space suits and carried weapons and killed
the astronauts as the whole world watched. The last one they actually
made sure was in front of a camera before they used a blade and
impaled the poor man from behind, the blade coming out of his chest.
The United States used its ICBM arsenal
to shield the America's from the wave of spheres, more or less
successfully, reports were confirmed than a second wave of larger
vessels had departed from the new world now universally called
Nemesis. So while mopping up the surviving beasts of the first wave
had been pretty simple, in relative terms, the worst was yet to come.
At a secret meeting in the White House
basement a group of countries agreed that somehow a military force
had to be sent to Nemesis. It might be a suicide mission, but if they
could somehow hold off the second wave, it would be done. While the
world awaited the new invasion, it secretly planned to invade the
alien world in response.
To open a second front.
The aliens were about as tall and
strong as we were. They were more agile but they were not any less
mortal than us. They wore powered armored suits but this did not
protect them from large caliber rounds.
Their skin was splotchy between gray
and dark black, their eyesight in their red eyes was not great, but
many of them had enhanced themselves with implanted visors. They had
bat-like ears and could hear really well and they had claws on their
three fingers and their thumbs.
Whether they had intentionally used
their planet as a spaceship or not they had some technology far
beyond ours, but in many respects they were peer competitors. Probes
showed Nemesis was a barren wasteland, the trip through the void had
probably taken generations. Without light and heat from a parent star
nearly all the vegetation on their world had been killed. It was
believed that the aliens lived underground.
…
“We need six-man teams. The idea is
that we will send them to Nemesis.” The General explained to his
peers from the UK, Russia, Korea and Australia.
“A bloody suicide mission, mate.”
The Australian officer responded.
The others on the LCD screens were
nodded. They were having their meeting over the military network of
satellites, it was heavily encrypted.
“We know that. In all likelihood
these men will never survive, the first ones there will face an
environment unknown to them. We do not know what kind of germs and
viruses that world has, for one thing.” The American told them.
“The bottom line is their world is
dead, they want ours.” The British officer said, “Assuming the
second wave can be handled, we don't know how many of their soldiers
are on those ships, you will have all the volunteers you need, I'd
imagine.”
“They will carry suitcase nuke, no?”
The Russian General asked.
“Yes, we call them Man-Portable
Tactical Nuclear Weapons. Or backpack nukes.” The American told
them, “Each of the teams will have one or two of them, these
devices weigh about 22.6 kilograms, they will be carried in separate
packs by separate soldiers and assembled at the sites.”
“How do we plan on getting these
teams to Nemesis?” The Korean General finally spoke up.
“That is a right good question!”
The Australian said.
The American General touched some keys
on a keyboard. The image of a small, blunt shuttle on the tip top of
a large rocket was shown to them. “Meet the XSR-75. Quite capable
of lugging a team of 6 into orbit and then to Nemesis without
refueling.” The US General told them, “One of our secret projects
turns out to actually be useful, for once.”
“I assume you want Marines for this.”
The British officer said.
“Mostly.” he answered “We intend
to send an Army Ranger or equivalent with sniper experience with each
team.”
“We're about to have a bloody hell
lot of soldiers with a fookun' lot of experience, General.” The
Australian said, referring to the second wave.
“Yes, come to that, we all have
better things to do than talk about what comes afterward.” he told
them and the connections were terminated.
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A new possible on-going story for this blog. This is just the prologue, expect part one in a couple of days.
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