Sullivan Saga 3: Sullivan's Watch (18 page)

The wormhole had appeared between their barricades. A dozen alien soldiers had poured through and attacked the men and women at the barricades, killing many of them and forcing the rest to fall back into the building. They had sustained their fire on the building’s entryway and blew the door off its hinges.

Ives had seen it all from a second-story window, where he’d put himself on sniper duty. He’d dropped the alien soldiers who’d attacked the barricades, but as soon as they were down, another dozen came through the wormhole. Fortunately, the wormhole was directly facing his position, and Ives and the others on sniper duty were able to force them into defensive positions on the opposite sides of the barricades.

Ives was currently exchanging potshots with the aliens behind the barricades. They were covering more aliens as they came through the wormhole, and over three dozen had assembled at the base of the building, preparing for an assault.

Ives raised his weapon again and popped up from below his window. He blasted a hole in a car that was forming part of the barricade but missed the alien crouching behind it.

He held up a small hand mirror he’d taken from one of the apartments and used it to look out without exposing himself to fire. Another alien popped through the wormhole, but as soon as he cleared it, something strange began to happen. The wormhole was normally just a dark disc, featureless except when something was coming through.

As Ives watched, it began to flicker. Blue lights flashed from within as the flickering increased in frequency. Ives could intermittently see the wall of the opposite building through the wormhole.

Just before the disc of the wormhole blinked out completely, half a dozen mangled forms oozed out from it. Ives guessed they had been alien soldiers, but they had been mutilated beyond all recognition, as though they’d been both blended and pressed through rollers at the same time.

The attention of the other aliens was on the bodies. They were as surprised by what had happened as Ives was. Taking advantage of the opportunity, Ives sprang up and fired off three shots, killing two aliens before they had a chance to turn their attention back to him and return fire.

Ives didn’t know if Sullivan was responsible for what had happened with the wormhole, but it didn’t matter. Something bad had happened as far as the aliens were concerned, and Ives was determined to use their confusion against them.

Gail came into the room from behind him. She had been in the next apartment, also taking shots at the aliens. “Did you see that?”

Ives nodded and smiled. “Yes. And if it means no more aliens are coming through, it’s time to use these.” He held up three of the alien grenades.

“They’re assembled on either side of the entryway,” Gail said. “Give me one, and I can take some of them out on the left.”

Ives handed her a grenade and used his mirror to recheck the aliens’ positions. He was directly over the entryway to the building, but he could lob one to his right and take out the first few aliens. He’d have to move to another apartment for the other to be effective just now, but he also wanted to save it for their assault. The people inside the lobby were well back and behind barricades. If he dropped the grenade as the aliens attacked, he could bottle them up at the doorway and give the people downstairs some good targets.

He heard an explosion and flipped his mirror to look down the other side of the building. Gail had dropped her grenade.

He pressed the arming button on one of his grenades and threw it as hard as he could along the side of the building. The second it went off, he popped up with his gun and leaned out the window. He killed one alien, but the others recovered quickly, and Ives fell back as they raised their weapons. The top and side of the window frame splintered as the shots from the energy weapons gouged deep holes in the wood.

The sound of movement alerted him to the aliens’ advance. Using his mirror, he saw that the aliens at the barricade had moved up to the wall as well. They were preparing to attack. In his mirror, he saw the first of the aliens sweep around into the doorway and begin firing. The other aliens followed behind him to press the advance.

Ives armed and dropped his last grenade. As before, he sprang up as soon as it went off and began firing. He saw a flash in his peripheral vision and knew Gail was also firing from her window.

Despite their efforts, the aliens managed to break through into the lobby. As soon as the last alien had left the street, Ives ran for the stairs. He met Gail and two others in the hallway and quickly communicated to them that he would take point as they went down the stairs. He pushed open the stairwell door, and the sound of the fighting grew louder.

He swiftly moved down until he could see the door leading into the lobby. He paused. The small rectangular window in the door was lit up by the discharge of energy weapons. Ives knew the people at the barricade would hold that position as long as they could. If they did have to retreat, they would come into the stairwell.

He waited, and after less than two minutes of intense fighting, the stairwell door was thrown open and three people rushed in. They paused for a second as they saw Ives but continued past him. A few seconds later, two more came through the door.

The lobby was quiet. The aliens had breached the barricade, and now they were planning their next move. If they did what Ives expected, they’d also be coming through that door. He adjusted the grip on his energy weapon and waited.

AN EXPLOSION NEAR the large alien ship caught Commander Pickett’s attention. It looked like it had been a stray missile from a dogfight, but it had moved beyond the alien ship’s shield and exploded against the hull.

Had it been a lucky shot that got through as the aliens launched more fighters? He didn’t see any fresh fighters moving away from the ship.

Several squadrons of F-66s had been launched from Earth bases to join the battle, and the tide had momentarily surged in their favor. A fight with an alien fighter had taken Pickett around behind the alien ship while the main battle still raged in front of it.

Taking advantage of his relative solitude, Pickett swung his fighter around and zeroed in on the alien ship. He fired off a single missile and watched it approach its target. It moved beyond the threshold of the shield and hit the ship, gouging a hole in its side.

“All pilots, this is Commander Pickett. The main enemy vessel’s shield is down! Repeat, the alien ship’s shield is down!”

As soon as he heard the chatter that indicated his message had been received, he fired off two more missiles and sped his fighter forward. The missiles met their target, and he banked in behind them, strafing the side of the alien ship with his cannons. He fired along the hatches that launched the smaller fighters, hoping to either jam their opening mechanisms or breach the launch bays so they’d have to be sealed.

Three more F-66s reached the alien ship as he finished his strafing run. He flipped his fighter and fired his thrusters to slow his momentum away from the enemy ship. He watched as the three F-66s wrought significant damage to the alien ship then prepared for another run.

Before they could attack again, the alien ship began swinging around, away from Earth. The fighters retargeted and fired again as the alien ship propelled itself forward, away from the threat.

A dozen missiles from the three F-66s reached the alien ship, striking a single location and causing significant damage. Four or five seconds after the last missile detonated, another explosion went off at the site of impact. This was followed by several more explosions farther up the hull.

Pickett flipped his fighter back around and accelerated away from the alien ship. On his display, he could see that the other fighters had the same idea as they rushed to get themselves clear.

Pickett’s aft-facing camera showed him that the explosions inside the alien ship were continuing. Some sort of chain reaction had been set off.

After over a minute of near-constant explosions, the ship went quiet. Its momentum was still carrying it away from Earth, but it was no longer accelerating. The ship appeared dead in the water.

Pickett checked his instruments. He had one missile left. Several more fighters reached him as he joined up with the F-66s who had made the last attack.

“Set missiles for long-range detonation,” he said as the other pilots fell into formation around him. He leveled the nose of his fighter at the alien ship and targeted it. “Fire!”

The ragtag squadron fired their missiles and quickly banked to put more distance between them and the alien ship. The missiles struck and restarted the internal explosions. A particularly large explosion near the center of the ship tore it in half, and Pickett could hear cheering in his headset. An even larger explosion in the nose of the ship obliterated the front half of the alien vessel. The rear half slowly spun away into deeper space, leaving a trail of debris and vented gasses in its wake.

Pickett looked down at his display. A handful of alien fighters were still in the engagement, but some fresh F-66s from Earth looked like they had the situation well under control. A warning light began flashing. He had only a minute or two of fuel left—not enough to enter the atmosphere and land at one of the ground bases.

Using as little thrust as possible, Pickett maneuvered his fighter into a high Earth orbit. He’d be able to sustain the orbit long enough for rescue to come. As he slowly orbited, Pickett listened to the chatter in his headset. The last of the alien fighters had been destroyed, and rescue operations were beginning. There was also word from ground-based forces that the alien wormholes had all closed. There were still significant alien forces on the ground, but it seemed that no more would be coming through.

Pickett switched his display to show only emergency beacons. He zoomed in on each one. After the first few, he found Lieutenant James Kern’s signal. Of all the original pilots on the
Vigilant
, they were the only two survivors. The others had been shuttled up from Earth after the first battle.

Kern’s vital signs were weak but stable. That indicated he had been injured but not severely. Pickett had no idea how many others had not been so lucky. The
Vigilant
, the
Artemis
, the
Europa
, the
Oberon
, the
Izumo
. Every major warship in the system had been destroyed, their crews killed. How many more people on Earth were also dead and still dying?

Pickett knew he would never be able to make sense of it, so he didn’t try. The Earth would never be the same again. He wondered if any of the other inhabited planets had also been attacked.

After orbiting for two hours, observing the rescue operation, chatter in his headset indicated that something was going on. He finally zeroed in on a single conversation that, if correct, meant that their problems were not at an end. A rescue ship had launched from a station orbiting Ganymede but had been unable to enter hyperspace. What did that mean? Were the aliens preparing another attack? Were they somehow blocking them from using hyperspace to prevent reinforcements from arriving?

Pickett scanned the chatter, trying to get more information, but no one seemed to know any more about it. He didn’t like being in the dark, but there was nothing else he could do. He’d just have to wait. They would all have to wait and hope that whatever this was, it didn’t mean another attack—or something worse.

IT TOOK SULLIVAN nearly two hours to get from where he’d dropped out of hyperspace to Earth orbit. He was stunned by the amount of wreckage around him. He’d watched the battle play out and knew the alien ship had been destroyed, but the toll had been horrific. He didn’t know why the alien ship’s shield had seemed to fail, but he guessed it was somehow tied in with the collapse of hyperspace.

He ordered the freighter’s autopilot to move slowly toward Earth. Dozens of rescue ships and fighters moved back and forth through the battlefield, the former searching for human survivors, the latter most likely for alien survivors.

Using his Bureau authorization code, he was able to get by unmolested. Even if he hadn’t had the code, he doubted too much fuss would be raised over a single freighter trying to make its way back to Earth.

Sullivan programmed the ship to return to New York. Jeff Ives was the only person he knew on Earth, so he figured his building was as good a place as any. He prepared to land on the top of the building across the street, but upon seeing the barricades and the dead aliens outside Ives’s building, he changed course and brought the freighter down in the middle of the street, his side hatch facing Ives’s building.

He raised his small energy pistol and opened the hatch. The first thing he saw was movement at one of the second-story windows. He raised his weapon but lowered it as he saw a woman already pointing one of the alien energy weapons at him.

“Is Jeff Ives here?” he called up.

The woman nodded, and Ives appeared at the window. “Sullivan! I’ll be right down.”

Sullivan waited next to his freighter, and a minute later Ives came out from the lobby. They shook hands.

“Did you do it?” Ives asked.

Sullivan nodded. “Yes. Frank helped me get an alien device off their mothership. I set it off, and it collapsed hyperspace.”

“You mean it’s gone for good?”

“I’m afraid so.”

Ives took a moment to process this information. “But it means there won’t be any more aliens coming through, right?”

“Yes. But Frank… he’s gone, too.”

Ives looked away, down the street.

“It looks like you’ve had a hard fight here.”

“We have. They got into the building at one point, but we managed to push them back into the street. Then our snipers at the windows finished them off.”

“Casualties?”

“All told, we’ve lost twenty-eight.”

“What’s the status down here, Ives? How many aliens are still on the ground?”

“I have no idea. I haven’t been able to get in touch with the Bureau. I don’t even know if there still
is
a Bureau.”