It hadn’t been a complete loss, he knew, as the further reports came in. They had hurt the aliens, sometimes badly, and they had managed to get a few thousand civilians out of the firing line, but overall…they had lost. The aliens had managed to make the red zone completely impregnable, as long as they retained their command of space, and yet…getting at the aliens in space seemed impossible. Perhaps the captured ship would provide some clues, or maybe…maybe, they had lost. Maybe it was the end.
“Get the post-battle reports in as soon as you can,” he ordered, finally. “Once everyone is debriefed, we can decide what to do next.”
The President looked a broken man. “Operation Lone Star failed,” General Hastings admitted. “I take full responsibility and…”
“Enough of that,” the President said, bitterly. The guilt in his voice made the listeners shiver. “I ordered the attack, after all. What happened?”
“They kicked our asses,” General Hastings said. “We had some successes, but once they brought up more parasite ships, they pounded everything of ours that they could see. I don’t think that there’s an active tank left in Texas or the surrounding states. The insurgents hurt them worst, but without our support, the aliens gave them a beating as well.”
The President didn’t want to ask, but there was no choice. “How many dead?”
General Hastings hesitated. “Around two to three hundred thousand,” he admitted, reluctantly. The President blanched. America hadn’t taken so many losses in a single battle since…well, ever. “We massed every fighting man we could who wasn't needed elsewhere, with all of the armour and supporting units that we could muster, and deployed them against the aliens. The assault failed. The figure might be too high, Mr President; the guards at the border have been discovering hundreds of stragglers trying to make their way out of the red zone.”
“Thank you,” the President said. He looked over at Paul. “We caught some prisoners, right?”
Paul winced inwardly. The President sounded as if he were coming apart. “Yes, Mr President,” he said. “We took eight prisoners alive. We had a ninth prisoner, but he died on us while the medics were trying to save his life. We’re still not sure why. Two of them speak English and are talking to us, the remaining six don’t speak English…”
“Unless they’re playing possum,” Deborah growled. Paul had to admit that she had a point. They knew so little about the aliens, let alone the difference between real illness and faking it. The doctors would certainly refuse to try drugging the aliens with human truth drugs. “What sort of information are we getting from them at the moment?”
Paul frowned. “They’re still a little in shock,” he said. “The two females – those are the ones who speak English – are rather stunned by being captured. One of them seems to be a researcher into humanity; the other…we’re not sure what her role is, yet. The males appear to have been their escort.”
“Find out what they know,” the President ordered. Paul suspected that the aliens would know very little that was tactically useful, but the President was right; they had to find out what the aliens had in mind. “If only what will happen now.”
“They’ll attack northwards,” General Hastings said. “There’s fuck-all left to oppose them now, apart from the militias and the survivalists. It’s going to take weeks to rebuild the shattered force from the survivors. They knew we’re weak, so they might come after us…”
“Then we have to go nuclear, now,” Deborah said, firmly. “What other choice, young man, do we have?”
Paul had no answer.
“Find one,” the President ordered. “Do whatever you have to do.”
He left the room, a broken man.
– Anon
Ambassador Philippe Laroche tried to remain calm as the F-15 raced over the Atlantic Ocean towards Europe – and France. The American fighter might be the first aircraft since the invasion had begun to actually fly over the sea; the aliens had picked off every aircraft that had been in flight since the war began and then tried to keep the remainder of the human aircraft firmly grounded. No one dared to fly, he’d been told, apart from very short trips, although there were plenty of American daredevils willing to risk sudden death from above in making flights across America. The death rate was apparently high; a handful of people who’d tried to fly into the alien-controlled red zone had disappeared without trace.
