Greenflies Read online

  The result was sloppy, amateurish even for a Harvester so newly introduced to a new host. The wolf awoke, to be sure, but it spasmed like a creature possessed, and its blood pressure pulsed to a level so high, it surely would have caused stroke were not the Harvester there to prevent it. To the outside world, it appeared as if the wolf was having a violent fit, writhing around in the snow.

  Sergei felt it was only the humane thing to do to shoot it.

  The Harvester was taken totally aback by the hydrostatic shock of the bullet's passage. It had passed on a precise trajectory through the wolf’s heart, destroying it utterly and sending a pulse of fluid pressure throughout the entire wolf. The pulse shocked the Harvester into inactivity for vital seconds before it could pull itself back together to initiate damage control. The bullet had torn through a section of the Harvester as well, but its functions were so evenly distributed throughout its bulk that minor losses of tissue were little more than an inconvenience. The wolf was in far direr straits.

  The heart was irreparable, at least in the length of time before the wolf expired. All the Harvester could do was seal off and reroute the vessels to minimize the blood loss. It constricted rhythmically along long tracts of vessels to duplicate the missing heart rate, but the effort was exhausting. The wolf’s nervous system was in shock, and the Harvester’s attention was being squandered in a losing battle. Harvesters were only truly vulnerable early in their life cycle. This one felt like the classic cautionary example.

  Sergei walked towards the carcass in the snow. He was a very large man, even by Russian standards, and the rifle he kept trained on the dying wolf made him all the more intimidating. His clothing was made entirely of the animals he had trapped over the years, and his face was no less hairy. He had a thick black beard and matted hair that ran down from his fur hat to his shoulders. Sergei was no spring chicken at fifty years of age, but the rifle he wielded was far older. It had been out-of-date when his father had brought it to the battle of Stalingrad. Despite the years of replacement parts and the stock showing signs of dry rot, as far as Sergei was concerned, it was as ideal a weapon for hunting game as it was for hunting Germans sixty years prior.

  The beast lay still, and Sergei could see the bullet had punctured the wolf’s heart and left an explosive exit wound. A pool of blood was reddening the snow around it. Most interesting was the orange goo that appeared to be seeping from the entrance wound. It was unlike pus or any other fluid Sergei had seen within an animal, and he had certainly seen his fair share. The discovery might be significant enough for some sort of reward from the right people. Sergei had simple needs, but a little added income would certainly not be unwelcome.

  He prodded the wolf with the barrel of the gun, in his eyes an unnecessary precaution as the creature was clearly dead. He reached down and swabbed at the orange goo with his gloved fingers.

  The Harvester seized the moment. The leather gloves were ripped to shreds in an instant by thousands of pseudopods invisible to the human eye. Once in contact with skin, the Harvester pushed hard into the flesh, ignoring considerations of damage or discomfort to the new host. Blood from dozens of wounds dripped to the snow as Sergei thrashed, the wolf being flung about as the bodies were being held together with a bright orange umbilicus. A pair of fingers fell to the ground, severed by the Harvester’s blunt attempt to cut its way into the body.

  Sergei regained enough coherence to point his rifle one-handed at the wolf, perceiving the unconscious creature to be to blame, but it was too late. The Harvester had already managed to get a bit of its mass into the human’s bloodstream. It forced a tendril up the current and took a stranglehold on Sergei’s heart, one of the few organs it had immediate experience with. Sergei dropped the rifle and clutched his chest. The sudden change in blood pressure robbed him of consciousness quickly. He went to his knees and then collapsed atop the prone form of the wolf.

  Once again at peace, the Harvester continued its material inventory.

  “As most of you are aware, the Greenflies and their equipment have multiple kinds of blood, as such, including one that appears to fuel the high energy operations of Greenfly equipment,” Franz began, “We find it circulating in the teleportation umbilicus organ of the Greenflies themselves, the repulsor of the Greenfly transport vehicles, and throughout the various systems of the Greenfly fighter craft We’ve understood the chemistry of this liquid for some time, and, in the Greenfly, it releases a sizable amount of energy but not an obscene amount by combustion standards. Most explosives release far more, but this fluid, when properly catalyzed releases its energy very efficiently in the form of electrical current. When not catalyzed, it combusts with about the energy per unit volume of gasoline.

  “The trick has been in isolating the catalyst. As Biochemistry tells me, enzymes can increase reaction efficiency by ten orders of magnitude in certain chemical reactions in cells of earth creatures. The Greenflies use a similar enzymatic catalyst to reduce the activation energy of the liquid fuel reaction. Biochemistry isolated the enzyme a month ago, and we’ve been told they’ll be able to synthesize large amounts of it soon. For the moment, the enzyme recovered from Greenfly cadavers has been sufficient to conduct our experiments on applications.”

  Franz waved for the two other Physics staff to set up the apparatus and target. The device itself was simply a tube the size of a soda can, placed in a simple mechanical vice so as not to lose its aim. It had a lens at the front and a small automated hypodermic needle, the kind with gas powered injection, stuck out the back of the cylinder. Some green fluid filled the vial at its top. The target was much simpler, a two-inch steel plate with a large stack of bricks behind it. The audience was protected by a pair of large tinted partitions between them and the presenters.

  “This is a simple gas laser, the kind used by laser researchers for several decades. Whether the argon-selenium mixture we use is optimum for this use is a question for another day. We picked it because it gives off very little waste heat… proportionately. In its basic function, the gas is excited, it emits photons, and the photons themselves are channeled in a coherent beam out of the lens. While the designed power source was 240 Volt, we’ve adapted this to inject the gas chamber with aerosol liquid fuel and catalytic enzyme. This will excite the gas to a greater degree than the designed current.”

  Franz walked over to the apparatus and lowered the opaque goggles over his eyes. The audience, on cue, placed the goggles over their own. Caufield thought it odd to see generals taking directions from a gangly kid like Franz.

  “Ready?” he asked.

  He squeezed the trigger on the hypo, and a brilliant blue beam appeared between the cylinder and the target. Flames darted around the periphery of its impact on the steel. It was very brief, a fraction of a second in length, but when it vanished, there was a neat, dime-sized hole in the steel, and some of the bricks appeared to be on fire.

  “When we tested it on a more life-like target, we got much more impressive results.”

  The steel target was wheeled away, and a large pumpkin on a cart was wheeled into position. It conveniently had a series of concentric circles on one side.

  Franz double-checked to make sure everyone was behind the protective shield. He himself buttoned his lab coat to the top before preceding. He pulled the trigger again, and the blue beam appeared. This time, however, the beam did more than just burn a single hole in the target. The pumpkin exploded, the liquid in its interior converting to steam in one cataclysmic event. The protective field was covered in pumpkin gore. Franz, expecting the storm, had ducked behind the laser just in time.

  “Earlier work on laser weapons had assumed that a laser wound would self-cauterize as it burned through tissue. Evidently, we’ve found a high enough energy yield to overcome that and instantly vaporize and superheat liquid. As a result, there is a steam explosion when fired at a liquid filled target. We should see a similar effect in Greenflies and their equipment.”

  Caufield spoke up, �
��So, this fluid is a superior energy source.”

  “Well, in the same way that gunpowder is an energy source, ma’am,” Franz replied. “The actual process of synthesizing the fluid and the enzyme is extremely time consuming and energy inefficient. In order to make enough liquid fuel for that first blast, we would have to expend roughly five times the energy necessary to do the damage. What it does offer is a way to compress our energy into a single use, just as the gunpowder compresses its combustion energy into an explosion.”

  “Finally, something that can counter plasma,” one of the ranking members in the back muttered.

  “Could this be scaled up to an orbital weapon?” asked Lassiter, “Could such a weapon fire on Troy?”

  “Yes,” replied Franz, “The laser weapons will have very long range, superior to plasma. The drawback is that we will have to burn through clips of fuel, while the aliens have a seemingly limitless source. The amount of fluid needed for a large bore weapon would be… quite extensive. Offhand, I’d guess several liters for each shot. That would take nearly a month to synthesize, even with the new methods.”

  Lassiter turned to one of the biologists in the crowd, “And how much can be extracted from a Greenfly carcass?”

  The biologist thought for a moment, “A tenth of a liter, perhaps. It must be done quickly, as it is one of the first elements of the creature to oxidize. The fluid from a transport is useless. The electrical field of its repulsor oxidizes it instantly when the creature dies.”

  “There’s your multiple liters per shot,” said Lassiter.

  “Dr. Lietner,” interjected Caufield, “What would be the time frame on preparing sidearms with this technology?”

  “Weeks, at most. The design is extremely simple,” Franz replied.

  “Pah, sidearms,” said Lassiter, “We’d be better off with cannon for aircraft, for the sake of replacing the missile shield.”

  “Which would burn through a limited resource in big gulps with every shot,” replied Caufield.

  “It’s not a limited resource if we swat enough Greenflies!”

  General Lassiter hadn’t intended to shout. It had just been a necessary tactic in declaring himself the alpha male of the discussion.

  “General, if I may,” Franz said, “We can begin work on cannon applications for any number of platforms you name for us. Building sidearms is something that the engineers can handle. As I said, the design is very simple. It could be built out of a commercially available laser and a paint-sprayer. The use of ammunition should be very low for a weapon of that size. So, the expenditure of manpower and resources would be minimal, and the troops could make real trouble for the Greenflies immediately.”

  The General looked accusingly at Caufield, “Had him practice that, did you? Very well. See to it the engineers have your research and preliminary design. I look forward to our troops bringing home some Greenflies looking like that jack-o-lantern over there.”

  He kept his tongue while the young physicist went over some other aspects of the laser technology and different applications for the alien fuel. Lassiter knew that the use of large laser cannon would soon be necessary, but few others in the room were cleared to know the purpose. The war appeared to be swinging the way of the humans. The Window was reducing in duration as Earth was passing to the other side of the sun from Jupiter. The more optimistic were predicting a three-to-six month hiatus from alien incursions during the transit, as the aliens still appeared unwilling to teleport to any location they could not directly observe from their home base. Still, a war could not be won by staying completely on the defensive, and there were resource issues with the humans’ current strategy. Even as he stood there, craft were being design whose destination would be Troy itself. Having them armed with weapons fueled by the aliens’ own blood presented a certain guerrilla irony he found very appealing.

  Chapter 16: Inconstant moon

  Traffic on I-90 was moving quickly, with none of the hassles that occasionally came with transit on this highway. The Indian reservations weren’t staging protests, there were no truckers driving at 30 miles per hour as a form of union protest, and from the CB, Howie knew there to be no construction this side of Syracuse. All things considered, it should have been a peaceful autumn drive, with the sun nearly set and the moon getting an early start, just appearing over the horizon.

  Howie took a sip from his Styrofoam mug. It was really a cushy gig; hauling cast iron parts across upstate New York. He was never more than four hours from home, and that was a big deal for a trucker. There was more money in long hauls, even more so since those damned aliens could appear at night. The Window was coming steadily earlier these days, but it was still only at night. He’d never heard of a trucker getting whacked by one, but it was pretty common for the night drivers to hit roadblock after roadblock as they drove through areas ‘temporarily under martial law.’ A day-time job like Howie’s was pretty convenient and uneventful, by international crisis standards. Besides, he enjoyed the raw power of driving an 18-wheeler on the highway, his compact and sedan neighbors giving him a healthy dose of respect. If not the king, he was at least one of the royalty of this highway.

  Howie saw a bright flash in his mirror, and heard a peal of thunder over the revving of his diesel. He reached out the window to adjust the mirror, expecting to catch a glimpse of a wreck somewhere in the median back there. His hand was nearly taken off by a careening vehicle.

  “Holy crap!”

  The speeding alien transport raced by his truck, angling across the lanes, and cutting him off. It appeared to be having difficulty controlling its trajectory, as if it had appeared with a significant lateral velocity that it was having trouble getting rid of. After cutting Howie off, the hover-vehicle slid right over the shoulder, twisting and bobbing as the pilot desperately tried to regain control. It skidded along the guardrail for a moment and then rebounded back into traffic. This time, the human vehicles weren’t so fortunate. An SUV was hit dead-center on its passenger door, the impact with a mass as great as a light tank enough to send it flying off the road, rolling several times in the process.

  Howie himself slowed to a stop, doing his best to block both lanes, so that more cars wouldn’t drive into what was probably going to be a war zone shortly. He could see the alien transport racing ahead, human traffic desperately trying to get out of its way. In his last clear glimpse of it before the curve of the road took it out of sight, he thought he saw a Honda Civic being ground under the lower surface of the thing.

  With his truck stopped across the lanes, Howie opened the door and pulled himself up to look over the roof of the cab. There was no honking for him to move, and he could see why. He’d evidently not been the first to encounter the transport. Behind him on both east and west lanes of the highway were strewn a half dozen cars in various stages of destruction. The alien transport must’ve bounced back and forth quite a bit. Ahead of him, there were a few wrecks, but mostly it was just a big empty space, devoid of traffic.

  It was into this space that the other alien transports teleported. Howie watched dumbfounded as the blue flashes and sounds of thunder birthed another four of the alien craft. He was oblivious to the radiation surging through his body with each arrival. Like the first vessels, these craft arrived with a great deal of velocity they couldn’t control. They raced forward and to the side, bouncing off guardrails, wrecks, and each other. One of the craft careened through the guardrail and sent a sign flying through the air before bouncing rapidly down the embankment there. Howie came to the conclusion that Greenflies were awful drivers.

  The sign had read, Montezuma Wildlife Refuge.

  The war room was a maelstrom. The dots on the map were multiplying at an astounding rate, the flight officers were at their limit just keeping track of the new arrivals. Tactical officers, who had been monitoring the Interception and Recovery missions going on, on schedule, in NATO nations, were now splitting their attention with phone lines, calling up whatever teams might be availab
le.

  Caufield stood behind the glass case, cell phone to her ear. It had been a month since the incident with Hegerty, and since then, she had never left the base. She maintained all of her contacts through nearly continuous cell phone time. There had been no obvious repercussions from the attack; Lassiter had made no effort to disband Gamma Team, and there had been no further attacks. The only indication she received of Lassiter’s involvement was the mysterious self-elimination of two soldiers from the Interception program whom Lassiter had sponsored. While there had been no formal medical exams, Caufield would not have been surprised to find one of them had left missing an eye. For the moment, though, there were greater concerns.

  “Dr. Butler, I do not want excuses,” said Caufield calmly but sternly. “The only one who knows how this happened is your Greenfly. If you keep having problems with their fuzzy math, bring the whole of Physics in on it to help you. I expect hourly reports.”

  She clicked the phone shut and started at seeing Dr. Barnard standing next to her.

  “It’s not Jerry’s fault,” said Barnard. “We’ve been expecting them to compensate for the shortening Window somehow.”

  Caufield made a grunting noise, “Seven hours early. That only leaves five hours of downtime for any single location on Earth. They seem to know they caught us with our pants down, too, with neither missile shield nor interception shield ready to stop them. They’re appearing in droves across North and South America and the west Atlantic. How are they doing this, Donald? Where are they coming from?”