Dark Dragons (39 page)

This peaked Darren’s interest.  He sat up straighter in
his seat.  “Special operations forces?”

Towsley said, “Ten years ago, we created an SOF specializing
in covert and direct action operations in
astronomic environments.
 
They wear computerized combat suits designed by Mr. Chapman’s Natick Soldier
Center.  They’re not as . . . technologically cutting-edge . . . as your
suits obviously but we trust their reliability.”

“What kind of personal weapons do they use?” Darren asked.

“None of your fucking business,” came the graveled,
Dixie-laden reply from across the desk.

Darren turned in the good general’s direction.  “I just
want to know if they have what it takes to fight effectively against alien
invaders, that’s all.  Don’t go ornery grandpa on me.”

“We use mostly conventional weapons with some
unconventional
assets.”  The solid voice behind Darren had the weight of steel.

Darren turned in his seat to see a black, six-foot-five
muscular statue of flesh and bone decked out in a form-fitting green t-shirt
that revealed cannonball shoulders, armored pecs and 20-plus inch guns. 
Leaning against the doorway with his arms folded behind his back, he had a
tight salt-and-pepper afro and a rather
un
military goatee.  How
long he’d been holding up the wall, Darren couldn’t be sure.

“Major LaShaun Carruthers,” he said. “Commanding Officer,
Altair Company, Space Warfare Development Operations Group.  SAWDOG is one
of four Tier One units under the JSOC’s Special Mission Unit.  You may
have heard of the other three . . . SEAL Team Six, Delta Force, and 24th
Special Tactics Squadron.  SAWDOG you’ve never heard of . . . we don’t officially
exist . . . which means we get no media-glory like the SEAL’s, but the pay is
outstanding.  Better than the chump change Delta paid me.”

“Hoo-ha,”
Towsley said.

“Hoo-ha.”

Darren shook his head.  “Having to transfer from
macho-Delta to pussy-Air Force must’ve been a blow to your ego.”

Carruthers gave just the slightest of grins.  “Yeah,
but we get to play with the coolest toys and the travel is out-of-this-world.”

Yeah, right.
  “Picnics on Mars, huh?” Darren
said.

“Better than Iraq and Afghanistan,” Carruthers replied. 
“To answer your question about personal weapons . . . we use the latest Marks
of conventional systems that fire fifty-caliber BMG and NATO-standard
7.62-millimeter munition, twenty-five and forty-millimeter grenade delivery
systems, and a nasty piece of hell-raiser called the FGM-172 Predator which is
basically a giant shotgun.  We also have a few toys straight out of
Star
Wars
.”

Apparently, Darren was supposed to be dazzled by
Carruthers’s effusive observations.  He wasn’t.  “News flash,
major.  Unless your boys are using armor-piercing SLAP rounds or
high-explosive fifty-cal
and
aiming for head shots where their armor is
thinnest, your Starship Troopers are going to wind up as cannon fodder. 
So forget the ‘center of mass’ body shots, okay?  You’ll just tickle them
with SLAP or high-explosive rounds there.  Go for the head where their
armor is thinnest, and just maybe you’ll put up a valiant defense.  That
advice is free, by the way, so you’re welcome.  And I hope your ‘toys
straight out of
Star Wars’
aren’t heavy and bulky because your guys will
have to move fast and furious against crack Vorvon troopers.  The one I
killed the other day could move like a fucking gazelle.”

“I’m impressed with you, Darren,” Carruthers said.  “You
teenage commandos are bad-ass, stone cold to the bone, no doubt about it. 
I’d love to jump in my suit and face you down in yours——”

“You wouldn’t last two seconds.”

“——just so I could show you with brazen abandon how capable
SAWDOG is to defend Earth against a more tech-superior foe.”

“Like the Aztecs against the Spaniards?” Darren asked. 
“Like the Poles against the Nazi blitzkrieg?”

“No . . .  like the North Vietnamese against the United
States,” Carruthers replied.  “Like the Afghan
mujahedeen
against
the Soviets.  Have a little faith, Darren.  I know you will.” 
There came an uneasy silence in the room before Carruthers started up
again.  “Kudos, by the way, for your daring bank robbery foil.  The
security camera footage the LAPD turned over to us is recommended viewing among
my boys.  They love that invisibility shit.”

“Thanks, major.  I’ll see if I can teach your boys how
to do that over coffee and doughnuts sometime.”

“Cut the horseshit,” Taggart said.

Darren looked at General Taggart.  “X-ray lasers? 
ScramHawk surface-to-airs?”  Then he turned to eyeball the others. 
“Naval forces?”  His eyes went to Carruthers who had a defiant,
tight-lipped expression.  “Bulky spacesuits made in Massachusetts and
7.62-millimeter?”  He shook his head.  “Spears and rocks, man. 
You know the problem with alien invasion movies?  They’re so
unrealistic——the humans always win in the end.  Sure, you’re supposed to
suspend your disbelief and just go with it.  But it’s all a crock. 
Alien technology will
always
trump human valor . . . and by the way, the
North Vietnamese weren’t exactly primitive savages——they had tanks and fighters
and SAMs just like us, and the CIA was arming the
mujahedeen
with
hundreds of Stinger missiles which is why the Russians left Afghanistan because
they were losing all of their aircraft.  How come?  Equally-matched
technology, that’s how.  Which me and my bros had possession of just two
days ago until they were captured and locked up in an underground base with a
general who thinks we’re the enemy.”

“You must get a lot of A’s in school,” Taggart said, sarcasm
on full boil.

“Made the honor roll last quarter,” Darren said.

“Good for you.  Your extensive knowledge in military
history is praiseworthy.  But I have a curveball to throw you . . . ‘He who
tries to defend everything defends nothing.’”

Darren nodded.  “Sun Tzu. 
The Art of War.
 
I’m familiar with the quote.  I hope your group understands the meaning of
that proverb, too.”

“We have on many levels.  The question is . . . ‘have
you?’”

“We did.  We had five contingency plans drawn up based
on a single point-defense using our proton destroyers as primary stand-off
weapons.  The Vorvons would have never have come within fifteen million
miles of Earth.  But now——” Darren shrugged his shoulders “——since you
guys showed up in the helicopters and threw a monkey wrench into the works, the
bad guys could show up any time and make low-earth orbit while the four of us
are still squatting in a military cell.”

“Which is exactly where I want you,” Taggart said.  The
general leaned forward.  “That . . . thing . . . you fly is a goddamn
killing machine.  What we like to call around here in military parlance as
a
weapon of genocidal confidence.
  ‘Weapon of Mass Destruction’
isn’t strong enough to apply to extraterrestrial technology.  I’m supposed
to trust eighteen year-olds with proton destroyers?  Not to mention a
thought-controlled weapons system?  Son, all it would take for you is to
have one bad thought and, poof, a whole city evaporates in the blink of an eye.”

“As I explained earlier, there’s a thought-resident,
lock-out——”

“Oh, that’s right.  I forgot, so I can still trust
you?”

“Yeah, that’s right.”

The general opened a manila folder on his desk and removed a
single sheet of paper.  “Your buddy, Tony Simmons?  Smart ass like
you.  High IQ.  Only thing is, we detected——what was the wording you
used Dr. Ngatia?——copious concentrations of THC in his urine sample? 
Marijuana to be exact.  Now am I supposed to trust
him
with proton
destroyer missiles and a thought-controlled weapons system?”

Darren, for the first time, found he had nothing clever to
say.

“You’re not exactly a clean bill of health either.” 
Taggart paused to leaf through some more notes in the folder.  “Your blood
pressure taken yesterday was one-seventy over ninety.  I’m sixty-three
years old, and I’ve never had my blood boiling that high, and I’m a true-blood
Texan who eats dry-aged porterhouse every night.  Tells me a lot about
your physical condition.

“I can sit here in my comfortable chair and openly admit
that I don’t trust you.  We don’t know who you are.  We don’t know if
you are friend or foe, and we sure as hell are not going to let you go.”

Darren still could not queue up a response.

Taggart leaned back in his chair and suddenly looked tired. 
“Darren, I’m not trying to be a hard ass, here.  You have to look at this
from our perspective.  We have known since 1994 that Earth will be
recipient of an extraterrestrial invasion.  And then suddenly, you and
your friends show up with alien-fabricated weaponry that can zap everything on
the ground from here to Kansas.  And you claim that
another
alien
race sent these weapons here for reasons you have explained rather
ambiguously.  It appears to me that these Xrel were much more
technologically advanced than the Vorvons invading their planet, so how come
they lost?”

Darren looked up from the floor and gave Taggart a cold
stare.  “It was brand new tech.  They didn’t have time to fire up the
conveyer belts and mass produce——”

“Oh, I see.”  Taggart looked down at his desk and
adjusted himself in his leather chair.  “Then how did this cargo drone
manage to escape and make it all the way to Earth without a scratch?”

“I don’t . . . know.”

“There’s my point.  I think you know more than what
you’re letting on.  We’re done with Darren today, Colonel Towsley. 
You can take him back to his cell.”

“We’re going to bust out of here,” Darren said, getting out
of the seat.  “With our fighters.  So just get ready for it.”

“You have a better chance of busting out of Fort Knox with
two bars of gold bullion in your back pockets,” Taggart said.  He slowly
rubbed the general’s insignia on his shoulder.  “Have a good one, Mr.
He-Who-Greets-With-Fire.”

Thursday, May 20

After Colonel Towsley and Darren Seymour left, Dr. Ngatia
stayed behind to implore Taggart for the fifth time that month to okay a slight
increase in the NESSTC’s already tight medical budget when the general raised
his hand.

“I know what subject is on your mind, doc, but right now I
want to talk about something else.”

Figures.  “Of course.”  Perhaps it was time to
resign.

“So what do you think?  Are these boys dangerous?”

Ngatia shrugged.  “Perhaps, but dangerous to whom?”

“To us, of course.”

“I don’t really know.  Their central nervous systems
have changed.  It’s possible their behavior could have changed as
well.  If that means they’re dangerous to us, I can’t say.  I have to
admit, neurology isn’t my strongest field.”

“About these changes.  Can you say these boys are no
longer . . . human?  I ask that in the lightest sense.”

“I would indeed say that, yes.  A common occurrence in
evolution is that brain structures that are no longer used for one function may
form the basis for the development of a new function.  It appears the machine
aboard the alien ship accelerated the process by stimulating the growth of
those strange brain tumors.  They act as neural implants that both
generate and process high-mental information and relay that info to the motor
regions.  The boys could be using brain functions that are meant for us a
million years from now.”

“What kind of functions?”

“Well, I believe the boys have a form of extra sensory
perception.  Able to sense the presence of an intruder just around the
corner, for example.  Their reactions and thought processes are faster,
which means they’re able to keep up with the rapid functions of their
fighters.  They may also possess precognition——future sight.  We
really know so little of the human brain, it’s ludicrous.  There could be
countless changes that my examinations might not have detected.”

Taggart finished his coffee and looked down onto the floor
of the Ops Center.  “As far as I’m concerned, these boys are
dangerous.  I don’t want to take any chances.”  He turned to
Ngatia.  “Are you at all trained in hypnosis, doc?”

“No, but can I ask why?”

“We may have to disconnect some faulty wiring.”

“You’re not suggesting——?”

“Yes, I am suggesting, Raymond, and if you were smart, you’d
see my point of view.

Since hypnosis is out, would shock treatments be an
alternative?”

Ngatia could only stand there and stare at this man who, a
minute ago, had been thinking clearly.  Now he was staring down Dr.
Mengele.  “We don’t have the equipment for shock treatments,” he
murmured.  “We felt there was no medical reason to have that kind of gear
in a facility such as ours.”

“Certainly you have anti-psychotics that would create
long-term amnesia.”

Ngatia shifted his weight from one foot to the other. 
“We have 25-milligram tablets of chlorpromazine in the pharmacy locker but that
dose produces only a mild sedation.”

“Then you’ll up the dose to a hundred milligrams in their
Mountain Dews.  And Towsley is not to know about it.  Understood?”

“Why?”

Taggart gripped his coffee mug tighter.  “Raymond, I’m a
person who believes in the benefits of debate, but only when I’m wearing blue
jeans.  When I have three stars on my shoulders, debate and democracy
cease to exist.  Your status as a civilian in a military environment
grants you no fucking liberty to question my orders.”

Ngatia realized he had slipped his foot into the opening of
a closing door where it did not belong and pulled it back.  “Yes,
sir.  When do you want this done?”