Roswell Fanatics

By the next day Max had finished mapping target coordinates, and he moved his FAV carefully eastward through the valley, hoping to get further information about the Skins westward travel. He was almost 20 miles east of the silos when he saw the debris.

The battle in the air had been much quicker than the battle on the ground, and the loyalist and Skins infiltrated units of the US Air Force had knocked out one another early in the war. That was the reason that Whiteman AFB itself was essentially a ghost town. But the fact that they had died quickly didn't mean they'd gone easily, and Max was looking at the remains of the carnage. There was the wreckage of scores of hummers and other vehicles.



He was lucky that he spotted the broken canister of the cluster bomb unit. It had either been jettisoned by a damaged fighter or released at too low an altitude to arm, he decided. It had hit without arming but where there was one there was at least the possibility of others. It took him only a few seconds to discover the first of the small bomblets.

It looked like the area had been the scene of a CBU attack. The cluster bomb unit was probably the most lethal of the conventional munitions in the inventory of the human and Skins forces, and they had been pretty much used up early in the conflict, and the carnage they could cause was truly awesome. But CBUs left a residue...10 to 15% of the bomblets didn't explode initially, they were what was called an area-denial weapon. The valley was laced with the bomblets left over from that attack years ago. It wouldn't stop the Skins advane, but it should slow it measurably...without causing the Skins to be aware of enemy forces in the area.

Max retreated back toward the west, talking to the picture that was now his only companion.

"Well, Taylor's people caught a break there. That'll slow the Skins by at least a few hours...hopefully they can just fire the damn missiles and get the hell out of Dodge."

He looked at the picture again...losing himself for a second in the memories of bygone better times.

"I'm not going with them. I've decided to stay and fight, even if Bryan pulls everyone else back. Every day I can keep those factories from being built...well, multiply every second by the lives of six billion people..."

'Besides,' Max thought to himself. 'This has gone on long enough.'

"Anyway, babe,....we should be together soon..."

As darkness gathered, Max found a place to park the FAV in the brush out of sight on the western slope of a small hill. He tossed a camouflage net over it, doing his best to make it fade in to the brush background. As he ate an MRE he got ready for sleep. The Skins were lead by several tanks and infantry fighting vehicles and if they arrived in the area he wouldn't need an alarm clock. It is an infantry truism that armor couldn't sneak up on anyone...except perhaps other armor. If they got close he'd have ample opportunity to take the speedy FAV to safety.

He used his last glowstick to illuminate her picture as he covered himself with his sleeping bag and slept in the seat of the FAV. Max was glad it was almost at an end, he decided. He didn't know why Liz's sacrifice had been in vain...why it hadn't worked. He couldn't believe that a future he would ever change time...at least not without discussing it with him, unless somehow the sacrifice of the life they might have had would have meant something. But he'd spent two years trying to make the four of them into some sort of a fighting force and it had worked...after a fashion. Their power together was more than the sum of their individual powers...there was synergism there...but not enough...not nearly enough. Even combining his power with the other three, there was no way he could do what the TOW missile above him could do...to reach out two miles and take out a seventy-ton tank with almost 97% certainty. The foursquare had been good....but not nearly THAT good.

"I feel like I failed you, babe,...failed everybody. I tried...we all tried...but..."

But the galling thing, he wanted to say, was that he hadn't only failed...but had not even done as well. They weren't going to last fourteen years this time. Whatever else, he was always stronger....surer....better, when he was with her. He'd failed the whole world, not just her.

"Maybe soon we'll be together....maybe you can tell me what I should have done. You always did have all the brains...Miss Scientist. I remember that first day when I saved you? Michael freaked...Izzy freaked...hell, I freaked. Then when we were headed out of town when you and Maria stopped us and Izzy asked what YOUR plan was? The three of us had ten years to come up with a plan for what to do if someone found out...and the best we could come up with is to run away. You not only dealt with the surprise but came up with a way to get Valenti off our trail. So I hope you can tell me what I should have done...not that it'll make any difference...but I'd like to know...."

But the picture said nothing...just a sixteen year old girl smiling back at him...as if she had not a care in the world. He talked to her for almost an hour...mostly just reminiscing about the good times...the ones they'd had way too few of, but the memories that still were the best memories of his life. In an hour and a half, he had dozed off.


When everyone was working their tails off you had your staff conferences wherever you could with only those who could temporarily be spared from their real duties to attend. So Colonel Taylor wasn't surprised that there were few representatives present at the impromptu breakfast meeting, or that Lieutenant Baker was representing Major Young. "How are the missiles coming, Lieutenant."

"Well sir, we have some bad news and well...some worse news, I'm afraid. The number two Missile...that was the one we needed to put the guidance system in...well the guidance system is from a Minuteman III, not a II. The three had a larger booster...more thrust, and the guidance system and warhead assembly is consequently heavier. Because of that we can only put about 80% of the agent in the warhead, compared to the number one missile."

Colonel Taylor wasn't going to let that bother him. Eighty percent of the payload would be enough if it was delivered accurately, 'If the damn stuff works at all...' he reminded himself.

"If the accuracy of the missile is good enough..well that shouldn't be a problem."

"Sir, the guidance for the III's was much better than the guidance for the II's because it had to be. The III's were MIRV'd and that required greater accuracy...but that brings up the second problem. Because the booster was upgraded...it had more thrust...well the immediate post launch steering commands needed to be less...."

"Son, I'm just an old chemist. Can you explain that like you didn't think I had a clue what you were talking about? Because I don't."

"Well sir, immediately after lift-off the missile uses vanes in the thrust of the engine to pitch and roll...to align itself with the target. Because we have a weaker solid rocket booster it won't have as much pitch or roll authority....it can't aim itself as well. Now that won't be a problem once the missile gets going...but the problem is in launch. If the wind is too high...well the missile has a lot of sail area...the wind can blow it over far enough that the engine vanes won't have the lateral thrust to right it...it could fall off to the side and explode."

"So how much wind can it take with your cobbled up system, Lieutenant?"

"Sir...we just don't know. We'd need a supercomputer...and we don't have one. The original design could be launched in 80 knot winds...but cobbled up like this..it's anybody''s guess. Probably fifteen knots...but I doubt much more."

"So what are the AVERAGE winds in this region this time of year, Lieutenant?"

"According to a couple of locals we've talked with...about like they are right now...maybe 10 knots in the morning...hitting twenty-five or so in the afternoon."

"So...any chance these birds will both be ready tomorrow morning? We may not have a hell of a lot more time than that."

"We'll certainly do our best, sir."




"Liberty Actual, this is Justice Actual...." The radio call awoke him finally.

Max shook his head and reached for the radio. The callsign for his regiment was liberty, ....Bryan had chosen justice...as much a reflection of the time he had spent in the Justice Department as an FBI agent as anything else. It wasn't like there seemed to be all that much justice in the world anymore. And what little liberty remained appeared to not have much time left either.

"Justice Actual, Liberty Actual....go ahead," said Max into the Sincgars.

"Liberty Actual, One battery is set up and dug in at grid alpha alpha 17. You can figure on support from them for your easternmost targets. The other battery is set up at grid charlie 22. They can cover you to almost within 4 kilometers of the silos. The plan is to engage first with the easternmost battery. That gives us the opportunity to use the western battery for fire support if the Skins take the bait, but leaves them closer to the silos if they don't. If it looks like the Skins aren't taking the bait...if they blow by to the west rather than turning northward, we'll have the other battery to support you and another chance to lure them northward. Since we aren't likely to be able to actually defeat these guys, it seemed more reasonable to at least give us two strikes at turning them."

Max understood Bryan's reasoning. The infantry regiment could fire and fall back continuously and eventually outpace their pursuers. Taylor's poorly equipped troops wouldn't have that opportunity. If they got by the final line....3 or 4 kilometers or so from the silos, the Skins would tear the retreating artillery and lab personnel apart. It made sense.

"Liberty Actual copies all..."

"Justice Actual...over and out."

It was only then that Max heard the muffled whumps to the east. He clambered quickly to the top of the small hill and turned his fieldglasses toward the rising sun.

“Zint’s blood,” screamed Overseer Zata as the second large truck exploded in flames.

He was wearing a uniform that identified him as Colonel Deering that had indeed once belonged to James Deering, who no doubt would have taken exception to Zata’s dress had he still been alive. But since Zata was also wearing Deering’s skin as well, Deering wasn’t alive to object. As the bomblet exploded under wheel of a humvee, overturning it and undoubtedly killing the two Skins inside, Zata found the microphone of the radio and sent out an urgent message.

“Hold your positions…all personnel, hold your positions. We have entered some sort of Zint-damned minefield. No one…no one at all move until the engineers clear pathways.”

Zint was the third most powerful in the Skin pantheon of gods….not that anyone really believed in them anymore. He was the Skin god of War…the soldier’s god….the equivalent to the god Mars in this world’s mythology. Mythology of these humans was more than a hobby for Zata….he believed it gave him insight into the soul of his adversaries.

As he heard movement to the rear of the column Zata looked back in annoyance….watching the ponderous recreational vehicle come forward despite his order to hold until the engineers could clear the bomblets.

‘Pray Zint that bastard hits a bomblet,’ he thought, but unfortunately the driver kept to the track of one of the tanks and was soon safely alongside him.

“The Governor commands the presence of Overseer Zata,” said the speaker on the vehicle. Zata winced, not that he feared the governor, but at the breach of security. The war was not yet won and whatever the civilian members of the government believed, they had not won their battles by either the quality of their soldiers or the superiority of their weapons, and certainly not by matching the ferocity of the human fighters. They had won by stealth and guile, by mindwarp and replacement of key humans with their own people, and they could ill afford even now to have the people of this world start to understand there were aliens controlling them.

These people, he realized, truly were sons and daughters of their god Mars, at least once they understood who they fight. He’d once seen six of his soldiers killed by a seven year old human they had somehow overlooked while harvesting the skins of her family. She’d dispatched them with a training toy…something called a BB gun that had belonged to her dead eleven year old brother.

But the sons and daughters of Mars weren’t his greatest fear, Zata realized, as he prepared to go see the Governor. It was the sons and daughters of Vulcan…the armorer of the gods of this planet that he most feared. They were a strange people…unlike any in the Five Worlds. They flourished in war….their greatest advancements in weaponry…medicine…science…had come not in peacetime…but in wartime. And this war, he knew, had gone on far too long.

Zata deployed the two tanks forward to provide protection and ordered the engineers out, then hurried to his audience with the governor.

“Why are we not moving forward,” demanded Tafor.

Zata bowed low, feigning respect while he sought to control his temper. Did the fool not just see three vehicles blow up?

“We have run across an old battlefield. They fought here years ago when the airbase was neutralized….there are residual weapons scattered from that battle. We must clear paths through them before we can proceed, your Excellency.”

“We have a schedule to keep. Does that mean nothing to you?”

“It can’t be helped, Excellency. We cannot build your facility if all of the material to build it is destroyed enroute….the explosives must be cleared, and that will take hours.”

“So once again the military fails us…”

Tafor had said that as a statement, not a question, and Zata choked back the reply he wanted to give…the reply that would have cost him his command if not his life. The Skins military had not asked for this war. They had been overextended merely occupying Antar where for the last seventy years the opposition forces against the Dictator….that is…against his esteemed majesty Kivar, ruler of two of the Five Worlds, and hopefully soon ruler of this Zint-damned toxic planet. It was his decision to occupy this planet….his and that of his idiot political advisors like the governor before him.

“The opposition here is far more capable than we were led to believe, your Excellency. Why no one truly looked at the history of this race before we chose to attack them….”

“They are primitives. The one thing I will never understand is why our military forces didn’t sweep them before us when we first arrived here…why you have let this drag out so long…why YOU CAN’T KEEP TO THE SCHEDULE.”

Zata counted through all the gods of the pantheon before replying. His personal opinion was that the number of things Tafor and those like him didn’t understand was legion, and what little they did understand applied more to the ins and outs of political backstabbing than it did practical matters.

“These people are primitives in most ways, but not in the ways of war. The weapons we removed from the holes in the ground in this area four years ago were more advanced…more terrifying…then anything we had. They could have rendered the entire planet uninhabitable had they understood who or what they fought…”

“Only by destroying their own world as well.”

“Which they would have done, your Excellency.”

“Do you truly believe even they are that mad, Zata? That they would have destroyed themselves and their world rather than letting it fall to us? That seems difficult to believe.”

“You have not read the history of their world, your Excellency. It is called a ‘scorched earth’ policy, and in this case would have been literally correct. I have no doubt they would have done that. Their history is replete with such actions as well as that of individuals who would sacrifice themselves willingly to kill their enemies. The Kamikaze, the Stracency, the Taran, the Spartans at Thermopylae, the Sikhs at the Battle of Saragarhi.”

“Perhaps they were fearful warriors in older times. I see little to believe they are that way now.”

“You see little, your Excellency, because we have confused most of them..it is those who come to understand that we have always had to fear. When I was first assigned here I thought as you do….that whatever bravery they once had was long departed. But when they truly understand….I saw six of my men die by the hand of a seven year old child, because we had killed her family. She could have run…might have even gotten away…but instead she attacked my men…using a toy pneumatic rifle that she compressed with her own small muscles, not even using chemical propellants…she fired small round metal pellets into the eyes of my men…breaching their husks…letting the oxygen in to destroy them. Even after the first few were dead she might have claimed her revenge and gotten away. I think she wished to join her family….she attacked until she was finally herself put to death.”

“So our military has come to this..? To live in fear of the infants of these primitives. Perhaps I should replace you with someone who has a better stomach for fighting.”

Tafor looked into Zata’s eyes and realized he had gone too far with the insult. He saw death in those eyes briefly, as the man struggled to control himself.

“Overseer…I have perhaps spoken too harshly…forgive me. This project is well behind the schedule given for it as well, and because of it Kivar himself ordered the husk removed from my predecessor. I was given this job with one priority, to get the halon plant in production. Kivar himself will be visiting to assess our progress. I cannot afford to fall behind the schedule he has set for me. Is there no way…no faster way to get our people through this area?”

Zata’s hand came away from his sidearm slowly. “There is always a way. We can ignore the scattered bomblets and accept the casualties, we can clear only a narrow path and all use it to push forward….but to what purpose? The other plants have already started. In six months the planet will be unlivable for humans. With no resistance, plants can be built adjacent to major cities…not in this wilderness.”

“It isn’t quite that simple, Overseer. We need this planet…we need to bring slaves here…they need to be allowed to gather the resources of this world without the hindrance of a husk. Even though the humans will die in six months, without this plant and other additional plants, we are limited in the people that can work this world, and work it we must…or we lose everything.”

“The suppression of the insurrection on Antar is going badly?”

“Badly? Disastrously is closer to the truth. I say this only to you, Overseer Zata, and if you were to repeat it I would call you a liar. It was an act of incredible stupidity for Kivar to try to conquer this world before Antar was completely pacified…and we are paying the price on Antar for the resources that were diverted here. Perhaps we did underestimate these humans…but the resources that have come here…the troops…even the material to build the halon factories…they came at the expense of our ability to continue to occupy Antar.”

“But surely the Royalists are almost gone.”

“It is not the Royalists with their stupid dream to restore the monarchy that we ever needed to fear. Monarchies are the easiest governments to conquer…cut off their head and they die instantly. No, this revolt is more general…all of the people hate us, but increasingly they do not fear us. The monarchy will never be re-established, the Royalists are fools.

But our leader was the greater fool. There was a legend that the Royalists saved the DNA of the Royal Four, mixed it with the DNA of Earthlings taken by remote probes of this planet, and sent their creations here to Earth to hide until they could lead a rebellion on Antar. It was a ridiculous plan, even if it were true. There was no chance of it ever working. But our leader believed it, and because he believed it he could not…would not…be dissuaded from this war. And because of that, Overseer Zata, we need the resources of this world, we need them quickly and in abundance, or all is lost.”

“I will send the tanks through the mined area in echelon…it will clear a path perhaps three meters wide. All vehicles will need to stick to that path and move swiftly…but should we be engaged by enemy forces while in the minefield…unable to maneuver…I take no responsibility for the casualties we will sustain.”

“Thank you Overseer. Perhaps you might pray to Zint that there are no enemy formations near, because we have little choice but to take the chance.”

Zata bowed deeply, and went back to his command vehicle to give the order.

Max watched the two tanks make their way across the old battlefield, their progress periodically accompanied by the quick flash of an explosion beneath the tread of one or another of the vehicles. Someone was in a hurry, that was for sure.

The two tanks were stamping out a path for the vehicles to follow by exploding mines with their treads, one behind the other. The treads were only about two feet wide, but by working together they could carve out a road through the bomblets that was twelve or so... certainly wide enough for any of the vehicles to follow, but it left in its center a strip that was perhaps three to four feet wide that was not cleared of mines. This area needed to be straddled by the following convoy. It was a dangerous tactic, depending on the discipline of every one of the everal hundred drivers in the convoy to keep all of their wheels in the treads tracks..and to not touch the center area at all.
Max wasn't sure he would have tried that if he were the Skins commander. Murphy's Law always seemed to affect human military operations. He could only hope it would affect Skin's operations as well.

By noon the road was completed and the convoy was halfway through the area of the bomblets. Max shook his head, watching them lined up like ducks in a shooting gallery. If they had been within range of the artillery...if they just had one helicopter gunship or A-10 left....it would be a slaughter, with perhaps a two hundred-fifty Skins vehicles lined up and moving slowly within the kill zone, surrounded by a lethal mine field. If they were attacked now, they couldn't run...couldn't hide...couldn't even disperse to limit the effectiveness of incoming fire. But Max didn't have artillery support this far out, and the helicopter gunships and A-10s...at least those held in human hands, were long since expended.

It occurred to Max that the upcoming battle was probably going to be the last major battle of the Skins-human war. What few troops they had left other than the two regiments they'd brought were still back protecting the real President in New Mexico. After the battle any surviving human troops would likely move quickly to get back to their families in New Mexico or wherever ...to be with them at the end when the halon factories brought extinction to the human race. Max knew he would not be with them. He wished that he'd left on better terms with Maria....told Michael goodbye, ...that he'd said goodbye to his sister and Alex...even Tess and Kyle. Most of all he wished he'd said goodbye to his parents...he'd never really thanked them for loving him so much. He wished he'd said goodbye to the Parkers as well. But none of that could be helped now...perhaps there was nothing anyone could have ever done. Perhaps it was just destiny that the human race became extinct...he didn't know. He'd given up on finding answers to those questions long ago. All he knew for sure was that somewhere along the line Max Evans had made a terrible mistake...no matter if it was the Max Evans he was now, or that future Max Evans that had come back to convince her to throw away those fourteen years...those fourteen years that they might have had...and for what? To die here in Missouri...alone...in one last act of defiance at the Fates?

Max shook his head, seeing her picture beside him. In his mind he could almost hear her voice reproach him gently. 'It's not about us,' she'd say, '...it was the Skins that were the enemy. They were at fault.' And he took what little solace he could from that thought. If he could do nothing else, he could kill Skins. Kill them until he could kill no more...then lay down and join her in death....and if there was a kind God somewhere...the God of love that Liz had believed in, perhaps he would even see her again. He hoped so at least......

It only took one moment of inattention...one moment of complacency, one moment of forgetting that war is never routine. The seeds of the disaster had been sewn two days previously, when the driver of the humvee had been eating when the refueling truck had come by to top off the vehicles, and elected to do it later. But he hadn't done it, and in the excitement and hurry to get through the narrow chokepoint, he'd forgotten a second time. He remembered as the engine died, only then looking at the fuel guage that read empty.

The fuel tanker was only three vehicles behind the humvee. It would have been simple to stop briefly and carry a couple of five gallon fuel cans forward to it. But the driver remembered the urgency of getting the convoy across the hazardous area more than he remembered the hazard of the area. The way seemed clear to drive up alongside the humvee...he checked it closely...he simply forgot to check the area that he was straddling which had not been cleared by the treads of the tanks. It turned out to be a costly omission.

As the left rear tire of the tanker truck moved into the middle of the tank tracks it found there a bomblet that had been dropped almost four years previously. The bomblet had rolled over three and a quarter times since being released from it's dispersal container and detonation only took three and one-half. The added quarter turn as the wheel pushed against it was all it took. The result was immediate...and loud.

Even from two miles away Max was rocked backwards by the sudden explosion of the tanker truck. The vehicles in front of it hurriedly put distance between themselves and the fast spreading conflagration. The vehicles behind were not so fortunate, their way blocked by the convoy behind them. Two were caught almost immediately in the spreading pool of burning fuel, their crews running from their vehicles on fire....getting a surprising distance actually, since they had little need to actually breathe oxygen, only to crumple into dust as their husks finally burned away enough to allow the oxygen to get to their true bodies. For the vehicles even further behind there was chaos. Some rammed backwards into the trailing vehicle, disabling them both, the crews running backwards along the line of vehicles seeking safety, some pulling out of line and taking their chances on the bomblet strewn ground...two exploding quickly...one humvee almost getting to safety before an explosion overturned it.

'If we'd only had the artillery deployed further forward...' Max thought, '...or just a little armor....'

But woulda-coulda-shoulda never won battles. It would take them the better part of the day to extricate their convoy from this mess, he realized, and he doubted the commander would be so unwise as to continue this quick march during the night. Max got in the FAV and drove westward, the smoke billowing into the sky in the rearview mirror the funeral pyre for a score of Skins. Unfortunately that still left about five thousand more.

The tanker truck burned throughout the day and into the night, with acrid smoke filling the small valley, but the tanks eventually stamped out a path through what amounted to a minefield. But the day was spent before they finally licked their wounds and reassembled on the western edge of the old battlefield and with the possiblility of similar areas to the east, Zata knew better than to continue on into the darkness. He doubted seriously if the empty reaches to the west of the old airbase were actively defended, he had been out there three and a half years ago, helping to remove the warheads from the weapons that these people had built.

That any species would use nuclear weapons against their own kind puzzled Zata, but it fit what he had learned about the zealotry of these humans. Perhaps no less than the nuclear bombing of two of their cities would have turned the believers of the Divine Wind from the way of the Kamikaze. What these humans called World War II would have been an epoch struggle on any known planet. It was strange to believe that they had gone from muzzle-loading rifles and bayonets in the mid-nineteenth century as the people of this land reckoned time, to fission weapons that destroyed cities in scarcely the span of one beings life for a Skin, but what they had done after that time was even more bizarre.

These people had continued at war...even after they themselves knew that none could survive the weapons they had developed...a Cold War, they'd called it, although it had apparently been hot enough in the proxy fights that had happened in places like Korea, Vietnam, and Afghanistan. The main players had built vast arsenals ...so vast they even scared humans...and they stood ready to destroy this world rather than let the other side have it...in a policy they called Mutually Assured Destruction. 'These people ...when they are not confused...are warriors unrivalled in the known universe,' Zata thought to himself. 'We were fools to ever come here...and have been incredibly fortunate to win...' he thought, just before the chill hit him. It was bad luck to count your victories before the ribbon was awarded to your battle standard...and even now perhaps there was some earthling scientist...some son or daughter of Vulcan...readying some new horror against them.

"We press on at dawn...at first light. See that all are ready."

"Yes, Overseer," echoed the voices of his subordinates. "It shall be done..."


Max drove the FAV slowly westward by the light of the fading sunset and the fading quarter moon. Perhaps that was symbolic, he reasoned...the fading of the sunset and the fading of the quarter moon representing the fading fortunes of their forces in the battle with the Skins...or perhaps, just the fading of his life since he'd lost her. Neither mattered, he decided. 'The past is the past,' he told himself, '...and you couldn't change it even if you tried,'....except he had, he realized. He'd made it worse.

But that wouldn't matter either, Max told himself as he reached the first observation post...the first of the three hidden shelters where he could call down artilery on the Skins...where he could set off the Claymore mines and other devices the engineering troops had rigged for his use....where he could have a clear field of view of the narrow valley and reach out with his TOW missiles to take out the heavy armor of the Skins force.

He placed the small picture beside him and illuminated it with his last glowstick. "We used to argue about your God. I remember telling you that I didn't think a just and loving god would let little kids die of cancer. I guess I tried to play God, Babe,...and I guess I fucked it up a lot worse than He ever did. Maybe I should have listened to you, Babe....maybe He wasn't that bad a guy after all...."

As he turned over on her back and looked up at the ceiling of the ittle bunker, dimly lit by the greenish-yellow glow of the little glowstick he said a short prayer, still not entirely convinced he believed....
'Well, Sir if you are up there listening....I'm not asking to survive tomorrow....I really don't think I've wanted to live since I knew she died...and I'm probably not worthy to be wherever she has gone....but if you'd just let me see her one more time...let me tell her how terribly sorry I am for the years I cost us...if You would just do that, sir...well then You can do whatever You want with me....' He stared at the picture for long minutes, then brought it to his chest, cradling it there. He hoped he could die well tomorrow...hoped wherever she was...somehow she'd know...and that she could be proud of him once more, if only for that.

“I ordered you to take no offensive action that could precipitate the Skins moving further eastward,….” Said Colonel Taylor.

Bryan bit his tongue briefly before answering. It was bad enough having one of his best friends risking his life….hell, probably about to die to try to save this guy’s command, and it sure didn’t help that he seemed unappreciative of it.

“Sir, we’ve done NOTHING that would provoke the Skins to accelerate their deployment westward, but the fact of the matter is they ARE deploying westward, and probably by the early afternoon they will be within sight of you, and once that happens any chance you might have had to get these missiles off decreases enormously. By deploying the troops and artillery where they are there is at least a chance we can draw them northward, or failing that, pin them down and at least slow their advance…,” said Bryan.

Colonel Taylor looked at the Lieutenant at his side. It had again been a morning of good news…and of bad news. The good news was that the missiles would likely be ready…at least one would, and the other as ready as they would be able to make it…by noon, but the weather was the bad news….and now this….the Skins were closer than they’d anticipated.

Taylor looked past Bryan to the Major wearing the Field Artillery insignia…one of the actual rocket scientists who had been struggling to prepare the incomplete missile.

“Your opinion, Major?”

“Sir, Lt. Colonel Ramsey is correct about one thing at least. As the missiles are launched….early in their boost phase…they are vulnerable. They have a lot of mass and getting them out of the silos intact requires that they start somewhat slowly….that’s the main reason we are worried about the wind velocity at launch. If you’ve ever seen a silo-launch, well they are pretty spectacular. A whole lot of flame comes out of the silo and then the missile slowly rises out. In the early boost phase they aren’t just susceptible to wind….they are traveling slow enough that you can hit them with a rifle bullet. Set up a fifty-cal two miles away, and you could hit them pretty easily. And the solid rocket booster….I mean it’s all fuel. Hit it almost anywhere and you can knock it out…probably explode it altogether. The new Improved TOW…that’s got about a three mile range. If the Skins have weapons pointed our way…and they are within three miles, they can probably knock out at least the second missile we launch, even if the first one takes them by surprise.”

“So Colonel Ramsey….you believe that you may be able to lure the Skins northward?”

“Yes sir. The paln is to engage them…just with artillery from the north, and to attempt to draw them further northward….catch them in a kill zone. They outnumber us rather substantially, but we should be able to put artillery fire on them long enough to hold them up…reduce their numerical superiority somewhat. But the key thing is just to get them away from you…”

Taylor looked outside at the clouds…moving quickly across the sky in the night breeze. Then he looked at Bryan.

“Colonel Ramsey…you probably need to know…one of the missiles can’t be launched in high winds. The winds tonight are supposed to die down, but there is a gust front due tomorrow…likely about the time we’ll have the second missile ready for firing. If we can’t fire tomorrow…the winds may be too high for another 24 to 36 hours after that time.”

“If you fire tomorrow…before we can lure them northward,….well sir, there really is no chance we can hold them long enough for your people to get away. If they get within ten miles….and see the launches…hell sir, they are going to come at you with everything they’ve got. You aren’t going to have time to pack up and go, and they’ll be at damn near minimum range for your 155s….those really aren’t direct fire weapons. Once they are within two or three miles, you’ll lob your shells right over their heads.”

“All of my artillerymen will be tied up launching the missiles in any event, Colonel Ramsey. It’ll take some time after the launches to get my people into position to man our artillery.”

“Well in that case sir, I think it might be better if you waited. Let us lure the Skins northward….get them away from you. Otherwise, they are going to trap you…overwhelm you.”

“No Colonel…the moment that we can successfully launch those two missiles…they get fired. I won’t take the chance that the Skins send out flankers and perhaps spot us…the missiles are simply too vulnerable.”

“Sir, you fire those missiles before we lure the Skins out of the area…well we only have one observer and a few Claymore fields between the Skins and your people. That man will die…and so will you, long before my men could redeploy to help you.”

“All of us dying here is an option, young man. Having the Skins stop us from firing these missiles…that isn’t an option. In the end, we are all expendable, to get these missiles launched.”

“Are you that sure that the missiles will do the job, sir, ….that you are willing to lose all your people…just to avoid the chance that the Skins might double back after they start northward?”

“Honestly….we aren’t sure the missiles will work at all, Colonel Ramsey…they’ve been pickled a long time. And if they do…well, we’ve never been able to give the agent a test…in theory it might work…but it’s the best chance we have….actually, the only chance. Not for your friend or for my people, but for humanity.”

“Well, I’m sure that Max…that is, my friend out there will do everything he can to buy you time, whatever happens. He’s a rather exceptional….well a rather exceptional human being, Colonel. I didn’t always believe that…but I do now. Please just don’t waste the opportunity he’s going to buy for you…..”

“We’ll do our best, Colonel Ramsey…..every man and woman in my command. You can depend on that.”

Zata looked at the radar projection for the upcoming storm, and cursed silently to himself. ‘First the Zint-damned minefield…now this coming storm….’ He had hoped to have his personnel a hundred miles to the west by now….his troops deployed along a defensible perimeter, while the technicians moved in to some abandoned buildings and began the assembly of the machines to manufacture the halon. Skins disliked severe weather on this cursed planet where a sandstorm could abrade away a layer of their husk, or even the bright sun could cause a severe sunburn that….if no lotion were available, might peel away critical amounts of the protective layer keeping oxygen away from their true bodies. Even this large thunderstorm….Zata had seen hail that would almost erode the husk off troops while stationed in Missouri.

“We will need to quicken our pace, he told his officers at the morning meeting. If we can get beyond the borders of this military base before the storm hits there may be shelter in some of the small towns west of here. If the weather-guessers are correct, the storm will hit us in the early afternoon. I do not wish to be out in the open when the storm hits.”

His officers nodded their agreement and he turned to look at the old base map….remembering the two silos. He’d wanted to destroy the two missiles…the ones without warheads, at the same time they’d removed all the other missiles and taken them to storage, but the old regional governor had ordered them left alone, saying they were harmless. He had once thought the old bastard likely had hoped to someday salvage them himself…but then he caught himself. It was bad luck to think ill of the dead, and whatever the mans crimes, the way the Dictator had him put to death as an example to others…welll, the man had certainly paid the price for his failings. But as they went by, it might be prudent to demolish the ancient missiles…just to be safe….though with the humans soon to be extinct, the new governor might want them left alone as well. Politicians were greedy,,,and sloppy. It might be better just not to tell him.

“Also….,” said the Overseer, “…there are two obsolete missiles still in these silos. They were once a communication backup system. As we go by….have one of your demolition teams destroy them both.”

“The silos, sir?”

“No fool, of course not the silos. Just the missiles inside them. And keep this in military channels….the governor doesn’t need to know.”

“Yes, Overseer…it will be done.”

‘Good,’ Zata thought, ‘….with any luck at all, the missiles should be dust by late afternoon, and by nightfall we can be bedded down in the civilian towns to the west of the military base.’

Max had spent the morning watching the Skins force creep laboriously up the valley. It had now reached nearly to the edge of the easternmost Claymore mine belt, and his options were simple. Either allow the Skins to pass the first Claymore barrier, rendering it useless, use the mines, and give away the fact that he was in the area, or call in the artillery, and attempt to lure the Skins northward. The decision was fairly easy. He made the radio call....

"Justice 1-7, this is Liberty Actual. I have a fire mission for you....Beehive rounds, coordinates AA-7 through AB-5. One spotting round please...."

Ten miles away, Colonel Taylor finally got the word he was waiting for. "Sir, we just got number two buttoned up. We'll be ready to launch in two minutes, as soon as we get our people out of the silo."

The wind had been blowing strongly all morning, too strong to risk launching the crippled number two missile, but as the storm front approached it had indeed become the proverbial lull before the storm. There might be a short interval where...if they moved swiftly...they could launch. The sound of a 105mm howitzer firing to the north crystallized the decision in his mind.

"Launch one now, launch number two as soon as the personnel are out of the silo....launch them both. This may be the only opportunity we get, we'll take our chances with number two."

"Yes sir."


As the first round hit the unprotected trucks of the Skins, a half dozen in the middle of the convoy went up in flame as well as several humvees and even one of the Bradleys. Max quickly keyed the mike..."First round 300 meters east of target....bring them 400 meters west and fire for effect."

"Liberty Actual, those rounds will be danger close...."

"Justice 1-7...I understand that. They are going to be danger close all day...I don't need the warning. Just fire dammit..."

Max watched the armor and the IFVs turn and proceed north, dispersing to limit their vulnerability. If this kept up the plan might actually work...unless they fired those missiles right now. If they did, all bets were off......