Alien Storm Read online

  COLD WAR

  Alien Storm

  Ken Bebelle

  Julia Vee

  Cold War: Alien Storm

  Ken Bebelle and Julia Vee

  Copyright © 2019 Ken Bebelle and Julia Vee

  All rights reserved.

  This book or any portion thereof may not be reproduced or used in any manner whatsoever without the express written permission of the publisher except for the use of

  brief quotations in a book review.

  Printed in the United States of America

  First Printing, 2019

  Sixth Moon Press

  P.O. Box 2802

  Cupertino, CA 95015

  Cover art by Holly Heisey

  Contents

  Alien Incursion

  1. Smoke, Ash, and Ice

  2. This is Recon Only

  3. Blow This Joint

  4. Get Out Alive

  5. Missile Launch Aborted

  6. Survivors

  7. Betsy

  8. A Man, a Plan, and Three Blast Canons

  9. Meet Ripper

  10. Imprisoned

  11. A Full Unit

  12. Dogtags and Whiskey

  13. Jump

  14. Fighting Back

  15. Saving Jonesy

  Alien Siege

  1. Rats in a Maze

  2. Gearing Up

  3. A Bad Idea

  4. Pinned Down

  5. Home

  6. Beaufort’s Breakthrough

  7. Infiltration

  8. Lost

  9. Welcome to Project Icebox

  10. The New Girl

  11. Out of the Frying Pan

  12. Special Delivery

  13. Ready the Torch

  14. Into the Fire

  15. Jump

  16. Mother Knows Best

  17. Escape

  18. A Round on the House

  19. Escalation

  Alien Strike

  1. Blasting Out

  2. Brunch and Biofilm

  3. Flight Lessons

  4. Tortilla Soup and Memories

  5. Contact

  6. Plans

  7. ThreatCon Delta

  8. New and Improved

  9. Pain and Pleasure

  10. Descending

  11. Bananas

  12. Going Rogue

  13. Fire and Ice

  14. A New Ride

  15. Lockdown

  16. A New Plan

  17. The Package

  18. Homecoming

  19. No Exit

  20. The Hard Way

  21. You Belong To Us

  Epilogue

  Acknowledgments

  ABOUT THE AUTHORS

  First Contact!

  Coming November 2019!

  Alien Incursion

  Vol. 1

  One

  Smoke, Ash, and Ice

  121630UFEB10, near Lake Tahoe

  Cam wished she had at least finished her coffee before heading off on this bug hunt, but she wasn’t about to argue with Colonel Phillips. The threat of aliens in the green zone left no time for niceties. Now she hunted with her unit, the eight of them roasting in their warm weather tactical suits, scrambling across the scrubby Sierra Nevada terrain.

  They crested the last craggy rise with Jonesy on point. Jonesy’s big muscled frame cast a long shadow in the late afternoon light. She stepped up beside him and raised a hand to her chest, anticipating the old pain. It was a reflex she’d developed after her injury from defending the retreat from Quebec. What a clusterfuck that was. Her titanium alloy ribcage didn’t hurt at all but the memory of the injury was still bright, with sharp edges of splintered bone. Her Frostbite was minor as well. I’m one of the lucky ones.

  The rest of her team gathered around, everyone breathing a bit harder than they should have. O’Neill brought up the rear, huffing under the blast cannon strapped to his broad back. Her unit had operated under far worse conditions and rougher terrain, but they’d gotten soft at Camp Glenn. Rehabbing injuries in the green zone meant no combat with the Ringheads. No bone-chilling cold, no monstrous aliens dicing up soldiers like slaw, and no holo visits with grieving families to tell them their child had died in combat. Yeah, some aspects of life at Camp Glenn aren’t so bad after all.

  Cam zoomed in through her helmet visor to assess the devastation of Segovia below. Curls of dark smoke rose from the rubble of the tourist destination. Only the Segovia Village Inn remained standing. The Inn’s distinctive replica medieval stone structure appeared intact, alone in the ravaged central square. In the distance, the setting sun dazzled off the mirror surface of Lake Tahoe.

  A low whistle came from her left and Cam turned to see Jonesy shaking his head, “Man. This looks bad, LT.”

  Cam nodded. “Yeah, but why does Phillips think it’s Ringheads?”

  Shrugs all around. Garcia’s cherubic face creased into a wide smile, two deep dimples flashing as he patted his pockets. “I’m ready, LT.” It was hard not to smile in response. He usually carried enough ordinance to bring down a mid-sized building.

  Cam took a deep breath, still guarding against the sharp stitch that didn’t come. “We’ll take the Inn and set up shop there. Two entry points, Bravo team take the south side. Assess the ground floor and radio the all clear.”

  O’Neill nodded as Burke, Garcia, and Cho formed up behind him. “Bravo team is ready.”

  Nell Campbell paced the edge of the cliff, calmly firing in pitons at regular intervals. She used to limp when Cam had first arrived at Camp Glenn. She and Nell had rehabbed side by side with Doctor Patel’s guidance. Nell looked strong now, unmarred by her time in the frontline. Cam wished she felt the same.

  After the last one, Campbell tucked away the gun and flaked out the ropes. “I don’t care what it is, but we better not come back late. I have a hot date tonight.”

  Mack bent down to pick out a rope and let out a low wolf whistle. “I saw you flirting with that pilot.”

  Campbell gave a throaty laugh. “He can take a number, honey.” She sauntered to the edge and leapt off the edge.

  O’Neill put a hand to his chest and faked a stagger. “If I were fifteen years younger…”

  Mack hooted. “And if you hid all of Kate’s knives.”

  Cam shook her head at their antics. O’Neill had been married to his high school sweetheart Kate for two decades and was as loyal as a hound to her. “Mount up Wolves, we got recon to do.”

  Mack piped up, “I bet it’s HF.”

  God, I hope not. The thought of tangling with Humans First terrorists left a sour taste in her mouth. Ringheads were almost better. At least with aliens, she knew for certain who the bad guys were. Checking the darkening skies above, Cam saw no signs of the dreaded Ringhead jumpships.

  She gestured to the cliff. “Doesn’t matter who it is. We get in and do our jobs.”

  Nods all around and the Wolves clicked in, ready to rappel down the steep cliffs and shortcut the longer drive along the sole road in and out of Segovia Village.

  O’Neill grabbed Cho by the arm and walked the young man to the cliff’s edge. “Let’s pop your cherry, kid.” He launched them both into the emptiness. O’Neill had taken Cho under his wing, and with the grizzled veteran’s tutelage, Cho was becoming a natural weapons master. Cam hoped it was enough for whatever tonight had in store for them.

  One by one the rest of her team jumped into action, Mack’s rangy form a last tall shadow. Cam looked again at the forlorn rubble of Segovia, and stepped off the edge.

  Cam let herself pretend for a moment that she wasn’t on a mission and just delighted in the freefall and controlled bounces against the smooth granite. The rapidly cooling air rushed up over the exposed parts of her face
, stimulating her senses as she kicked her boots against the sheer face of the cliff. She loved the Sierra Nevadas, the vast expanse of these glacier carved mountains. Cam tucked in her chin and stayed quiet, but she imagined she was alone on a night climb with the freedom to whoop in pleasure. Someday, but not today.

  Mack on the other hand, had no reservations about whooping and howling like a coyote. Idiot.

  O’Neill snarled at Mack as they hit the ground. “Shut the fuck up, you dumbass. You want to bring every Ringhead in the universe running?”

  Mack snorted. “Sarge, there ain’t no aliens out West. This is a boondoggle!”

  O’Neill reached up and smacked the back of Mack’s helmet, knocking Mack forward into a stumble. “Button it up, soldier. We might be in Reno but this isn’t a fucking vacation.”

  Jonesy grunted in annoyance, turning away. In the fading light, Cam could just make out the faintest glimmer of the neural pattern on his cheeks as he turned away, his personal souvenirs from the Quebec debacle. The implants to repair his sight and hearing had changed his appearance, but Cam knew who he was on the inside. No cybernetics would change this steadfast soldier. He’d saved her life and his family had embraced her warmly. She’d spent many a Thanksgiving with the Jones family, stuffing herself with Mama Jane’s fantastic cooking.

  Cho turned to Cam. “Lieutenant? You think it’s the aliens?”

  She couldn’t see his eyes under the visor, but she heard the nerves in his voice just fine. Cho was smart enough to be afraid of the Ringheads. She wished she could reassure the young soldier that today that he wouldn’t see them, but she never lied to her team. “No idea, Cho. We just do our jobs and see what we find. Remember your training and follow O’Neill’s lead.”

  She looked up at the dark skies again. No jumpships but she didn’t like the feel of this. Cam heard nothing but her team, the occasional scrape of their boots against the loose gravel. No animals, no traffic from the road that wound around the cliff to their location.

  Punching her security code into her wrist gauntlet, Cam accessed the small drone AI hovering far above them. “Jeeves, what can you tell me?”

  Jeeves responded, transmitting to the entire team through their comms. The AI’s voice had changed with the most recent update, now speaking with a slight East Indian accent. Goddamned Stan, always tinkering.

  “No movement in the village, Lieutenant. Thermal imaging shows anomalies on the east side of the inn, the pool area, and near the lake on the west side of the town. These areas are colder than the ambient air temperature by approximately thirty degrees Centigrade. I am unable to determine the reason for the thermal anomalies. The main concentration of victims appears to be in the central building. There is no sign of aerial activity for a radius of twenty kilometers.”

  Mack snorted. “That’s it? C’mon Jeeves, throw in a pack of gum or something. You got nothing else for us?”

  The AI voice continued, unperturbed. “The drone is unable to approach the town more closely. Crossing a radius of approximately 100 meters from the city center results in a significant degradation of drone capabilities and surveillance quality.”

  Cam frowned, her annoyance at the new AI voice forgotten. No Ringhead sightings, but no solid intel from the drone either. She pressed her fist into her chest again. Cam looked at her hand, made a small, disgusted noise, and dropped her arm to her side. Time to get back in the game, girl.

  As her team pulled in their gear, Cam turned back to assess the distance to the village. Two hundred meters to the village from here through a maze of jagged boulders and desert scrub. Decent cover if we need to get out. On her signal, her Wolves moved out, scrambling across the rocky terrain, taking advantage of the natural cover. The dark gray of their tactical suits blended with the dusk as the sunlight faded. Cam heard only the occasional crunch against the gravel. The temperature dropped sharply and small flurries of dust shadowed their passage as they made their way over. Pulling up the rear, Cam yanked her buff over her nose to keep from eating dirt.

  The village took on an eerie quality as night fell, all of the lighting a casualty of the earlier destruction. Darkened windows of shattered glass stared at them like empty eye sockets. The Inn loomed before them, silent in the heavy darkness. Close now, Cam smelled the smoke, leaving the taste of creosote on her tongue even through her buff.

  Cam remembered a few years ago, when she and Keenan had spent a weekend here. They’d walked the cobblestone village in civilian clothing, marveling at this re-creation of an ancient Spanish town. The restaurant at the Inn served them savory paella, rich with saffron and loaded with prawns and sausage. A stolen weekend just for them, away from the team and the pressures of command.

  They’d made love in the four-poster bed, as if they had all the time in the world. The battlefront had been in Northern Europe back then. She suppressed her sadness at seeing this magical town destroyed. Instead she would fan the flames of her ever burning anger, feeding it for when she needed it.

  Cam pressed a button on the side of her helmet and her visor filmed over, engaging night vision. As she ran from cover to cover she did a quick scan, but saw no one other than her own team. Colonel Phillips had given Cam clear orders--verify whether this was a Ringhead attack and search for survivors. So far, no signs of any survivors. Not good.

  Lake Tahoe was considered well within the safe zone for humans, too warm for Ringhead attacks. This tranquil village in the Sierra Nevadas hadn’t seen snow in decades. Since the Great Quake of 2088 which took out the entire coastal region west of I-5, the country had altered drastically, with Reno becoming a hub of power in the west. Here wealthy elites lived in safety, free to conduct business as usual far from the bitter cold of the battle front. Wolves like Cam came to West Coast base to recuperate, booted off the front lines after injury. While she hungered to see action again, she hadn’t expected it to follow her here.

  O’Neill veered off, his stocky frame vanishing as he led Bravo team to circle through the broken rubble and twisted steel to the rear of the inn. Cho’s slight legs hustled behind Burke and Garcia and Cam felt reassured at the sight of another cannon strapped to Cho’s back.

  It looked like the gas line had ruptured, the explosion taking off the facade of the east face of the building. Cam and the three members of Alpha team scrambled over the debris field, scanning the bodies. All dead. With their eyes wide open, surprised before their deaths. What had these poor people seen?

  At point, Jonesy knelt next to one of the bodies, a village staffer garbed in medieval dress, her long black hair twisted into sad little knots. He turned her over, looking for wounds. Nothing. No blood. The dead woman’s eyes bulged, the sclera a grotesque red. She looked different from the other bodies. As Jonesy eased her back, his right hand crushed her arm into dust. Nell stifled a cry as the severed forearm rolled away. Jonesy jerked back and dropped the body as the pulverized flesh puffed up in a cloud. The body hit the ground like dry cordwood.

  Cam’s stomach turned over. This didn’t look like an alien attack. This was something new and more gruesome. God help us, how long will we be quarantined after this? She took a pained breath and pressed a fist into her chest, biting back memories of her last encounter with a Ringhead. This was definitely different from last time. She wondered if the nanites in her blood would protect her if this was some kind of biological agent.

  Jonesy turned away for a moment, then brought out his bandana and covered the dead woman’s face. Cam blinked, moved by the emotion on his face and saw Campbell reach into her tactical suit to hold her cross in a white knuckled grip. Cam didn’t hear Campbell praying, but she didn’t want to either. She needed to think of all of them, of their safety, which she couldn’t do if fear gripped her in its sticky tentacles.

  Steeling herself, Cam singled out Jonesy. “I’m going to need you to scan her.”

  He nodded, a curt motion and held out his hand. She dropped him a stim tab. Jonesy took off his helmet, revealing his perfectly
shaped skull, his dark skin gleaming with sweat. Cam watched the neural tattoo on his right cheek flash a quick sequence as he closed his eyes. Cam hated asking him for this. Joney’s implants were the next best thing to an onsite lab. Unfortunately the integration was tenuous, hitting his nervous system in a bad way.

  Jonesy chuffed as the stim took effect. He opened his eyes and grunted like he’d been kicked in the gut. Cam knew from experience that the dark brown of his irises would be an almost orange sliver, diminished by enlarged pupils. He panned across the body, breath coming in ragged gasps. The squints at Base would do a complete work up of the upload later, but Jonesy could give them some insight right now. He closed his eyes and bowed his head. Cam kept scanning the horizon, giving him a moment to get it back together.

  Jonesy stood, a little wobbly, and took a slug from his water tube.

  “Report?”

  “Take your pick. Multiple causes of death. Severe cervical fractures, crushed trachea, parts of her so frozen she’s essentially turned to ash, and there's the residual alien energy leeching out of her I can’t identify that will probably keep me up the next couple of nights. I’m not seeing any signs of bio-agents, so at least we’re clear on that end.”