Overlord (64 page)

“Can we help those men?” Darcy asked as he sadly looked on.

“With a thousand SAS personnel, old boy, we can’t even defend ourselves,” Lord Durnsford said as he watched the horrible spectacle before him. “We will have to arm every technician, doctor, yard worker, cook, and kitchen personnel that we can find to delay the enemy long enough until help arrives. Which, I’m afraid, could be long on promise and short on delivery.”

“What the bloody hell,” Admiral Huffington said as he pointed to the screen. “What force is that?”

All eyes again turned to the screen. It was impossible but a force of at least two hundred men were actually advancing on the Grays, who were too intent on rounding up the survivors that they hadn’t noticed the spider traps that the SAS had installed weeks and months before. The trapdoors were open and men were streaming from the interiors and firing on the surprised force of Grays. With the two enemy vehicles on the ground the human element advanced quickly as they laid down a withering fire. They were soon joined by the surviving armored personnel carriers once thought destroyed but obviously had made it out before the crushing “Broken Arrow” attack by the U.S. Navy. Also at least three to four hundred of the battered 82nd and 101st Airborne troops and also men dressed in tank gear and German support troops were also among the hastily formed and very mixed composite regiment trying to save their brethren from being taken like broken cattle back to the waiting saucers. At least twenty of the German- and American-made vehicles were on a rapid advance to cover the fire team that had been hastily organized by someone inside Camp Alamo.

“Look, General Collins has saved his attack helicopters!”

Long streaks of Hellfire missiles arched into the ranks of the Gray rear guard. Explosions wrecked their loading ramps as once more the Gray ground element had been caught off guard by the combined strength of over thirty attacking AH-69 Apache Longbow gunships and more than fifteen Gazelles of the British Army. Hellfire antitank missiles were joined by twenty-millimeter chain guns of the Apaches and the thirty-caliber weapons of the fast Gazelles as they joined together against the attacking Grays, to devastating effect.

“Good show, Jack, old man,” Lord Durnsford said under his breath as he leaned in to better view the attack. Suddenly an inspiring thought entered the old master spy’s head. He turned to the two admirals. “Gentlemen, as they say we must not look a gift horse in the mouth. This is the time that courses and outcomes of battle are made. Admiral Huffington, order every man, woman, and whoever else you can, get them with our SAS boys and get them out there. We either defend from the ground or die like rats inside here, and unlike our German foe Herr Hitler, I don’t intend to go out that way! We owe it to General Collins at the very least.”

Huffington sprang to action as did Kinkaid, and for the first time the two men didn’t argue an order as they came to the same conclusions as Durnsford.

“Shall we get our best winter clothing on and join those men, Darcy?”

“By all means. I would very much like to meet the person responsible for getting a force together so quickly while we sat here and predicted our demise.”

“Then, after you, old man.”

*   *   *

Sarah McIntire had sat and watched Jack’s entire force be decimated on the surface during the defense of Camp Alamo. She had felt sorry for herself for all of ten minutes and then her eyes settled on the men, women, technicians, shipyard workers, and extra military personnel who had no orders for what to do after the
Lee
had been launched. She saw the frightened eyes and knew they couldn’t just set here and wait to die. She knew she had at least three thousand able-bodied personnel that would rather be outside fighting than in here waiting on the Grays to dig them out. She stood and so did Anya Korvesky after coming to the same conclusion.

“We have fifty arms lockers right out there. Now you can either sit in here and wait on those ugly fuckers to come and get you, or we can get out there and help those boys that gave us the time to do our jobs.”

The eyes looked at her from benches; mouths that had been whispering in hushed tones were now closed. It was a burly welder from the shipyard who stood and looked at the gathered personnel in the largest of the bunkers, looked at the diminutive female soldier, and decided she was right. The Englishman looked around at the men and women who had worked for years to get the prize put back together and get her launched.

“I don’t relish the thought of waiting here for those ugly bastards with a bleedin’ welding torch. Let’s take it to them before they know what’s happening!” The men and women, cooks and bakers, military computer personnel, and even the cleaning crews slowly rose and looked toward Sarah and Anya.

“The least we can do is help the survivors get back inside,” Sarah said as she yelled, “This way to the armory!”

Word had spread that an attack was going to be mounted, and everyone who foresaw their deaths at the hands of the Grays decided in an instant that they would rather go out with a weapon in their hand instead of waiting for mercy from a merciless race.

Bunker after bunker had emptied out as SAS guards knew they couldn’t contain the rush of humanity who charged the four armories they were to guard. Before they knew what was happening they too started issuing weapons and ammunition to the workers. The fever had spread like a virus and the carriers of this new disease were two women who now fought for men who possibly would never return.

19

Colonel Henri Farbeaux fought to get the ice and the remains of the command bunker off his body. It felt as though the very life was being squeezed from his lungs as the weight of sandbags and snow covered him from head to foot.

He had lain there for what seemed hours and it wasn’t until the heat from the engines of the rising
Lee
had struck him that he realized he was still alive. He felt the earth shake and the weight of the debris press down even harder as the remains of the bunker pressed harder into his hurt body. He remembered he and the young captain had just broken free of the entrance when the lights, the air, and the world vanished around them as the attacking carrier aircraft laid waste to the command post.

Henri felt strong hands reach into the rubble and pull him ruthlessly out of the situation he was in. He wanted to curse at his rescuers for the indelicate way they were going about it when he heard the familiar hissing and cursed language of the Grays. He knew then that it wasn’t friendly hands freeing him.

He was finally pulled out and thrown onto the ground, and just as he opened his eyes a long sharpened staff came down and stabbed him in the right shoulder. Farbeaux screamed as he felt the alien weapon drive deep, and then among his own scream of pain he heard a satisfying hiss of a Gray as he stood over him. Henri cursed in his native tongue and then tried to roll over and away from the assault, but the Gray grabbed him by the white, blood-soaked parka and threw him again onto his back. Before he could curse again he saw three more Grays in their purplish-colored and strangely styled clothing. The Grays were showing their faces to him as they picked him off the ground and made him stand before them. The Frenchman kept his eyes on the taller Gray that had ruthlessly tested him for life with the sharpened edge of his laser staff. Henri angrily spit out at his tormentor, wanting the animal to finish the job and quit stabbing at him like a trapped and injured fly by a mean-spirited child.

He heard a loud grunt as another captive was thrown down at his feet. It was Will Mendenhall; the boy was out cold. Henri watched as the Gray that had captured his prize also sent the spearlike tip of his strange weapon deeply into Will’s leg. It produced not so much as a cry of pain.

“Bastard!” Farbeaux took a step forward and was mercilessly kicked and beaten to the ground. The assault continued for what seemed like minutes and he thought he was going to get the final coup de grâce, but the killing blow never came. Instead Henri heard a single gunshot and when he managed to look up he saw the three remaining Grays kicking and punching at the young captain, who had curled up in a tight ball to protect himself for the brutal blows. The smoking nine millimeter was lying a few feet away and Farbeaux had to admire the kid for getting at least one of the brutal bastards before they fell on him. Will’s victim was on its knees, still breathing and looking dumbfounded with a nice clean bullet hole in the center of his chest. Mendenhall must have hit at least one of the Gray’s two hearts because as the Frenchman watched the alien just simply rolled over and then fell face-first dead into the snow. Its sickly greenish-purple blood stained the burnt and crusty snow around it. The beating of Will came to a stop as the three Grays hissed and spat. One raised the laser staff and took aim at the now unconscious kid. Henri rolled over and placed his body over Will’s. He was also pummeled but not shot. When the beating was done he was again lifted to his feet.

Henri realized that his right leg was broken and at least four ribs felt as if they had been snapped in two. He had never felt such pain in his life and thought the same as the captain that it was better to go his way than being slowly beaten to death. But as he looked around he saw other survivors of the battle, boys no older than Will being revived and pushed toward two saucers that hovered only feet off the snow and ice. Like Mumbai and Beijing they were being herded together and marched to a waiting butchering at the leisure of their ruthless and barbaric foe. He had decided that wasn’t the way his story would end, it would end the way Mendenhall’s had—on his own terms, not these bastards’.

Farbeaux closed his eyes and thought for the briefest of moments of his long-dead wife, Danielle, the woman whose death had been blamed on Jack Collins for years, and he smiled, knowing that soon enough he would join her in a far better place. He also thought quickly of Sarah McIntire, the complete opposite of his wife but just as loved for no better reason than he saw a kindness to the woman he had never seen in anyone else. With those faces in front of him he charged and the first Gray raised his weapon.

The field of battle once more erupted in gunfire and explosions. Henri felt bullets whiz by his exposed head and the Gray who had just had the intention of ending his life went down in a spray of sickening blood. Once again Farbeaux hit the cold earth and rolled as more fire caught the next two captors and sent them reeling backward. Still the rounds came in a ruthless but satisfying abundance that hit everything near and far. He realized that whoever was firing had very little discipline as to who they were shooting at. He covered his head and waited for the bullets to end what the Grays had started.

He heard Will’s name called in the din of battle and he managed to look up and see many hands pulling at the unconscious captain, then other hands were on him and he knew that the Grays had probably beaten whatever attackers had momentarily saved him and were back in control. He heard the missile strikes and the sound of helicopters buzz past, shouts and screams of men and women as they surrounded him. The hands that picked him up were strong and not very delicate, but he realized that the blessed hands were at least human.

“There, a little worse for wear, but still breathing,” said a Cockney-laced accent as he came face-to-face with a large brutish man with a thick dark beard.

“Who in the hell are you?” Henri managed to ask of the same yard worker who had earlier echoed the commands of Sarah and Anya. The brute of a welder stared in wonder at the injured soldier before him.

“A bleedin’ Frog, will wonders never cease!” the man said and then ran off.

Henri wobbled on his feet and then slowly looked around and saw the attackers were a motley mix of men and women in varying states of dress. The one thing they had in common was the arms they held and the way they used them. His eyes widened when a lab technician—a woman no older than a twenty-something punk rocker with pink and blue hair streaming from her parka’s hood—kneeled only feet away and cut loose with a Heckler & Koch German assault rifle on full automatic. The weapon was spitting bullets as she lost control and sent the rounds into the snow-covered ground and then stitched a pattern that ended up going straight into the air. The woman was nonplused at her inaccuracy as she immediately sent the spent magazine flying and quickly inserted another and then recklessly charged forward.

An American Apache Longbow attack helicopter streaked low overhead and sent a pair of wire-guided Hellfire missiles straight into the open hatchway of the far left, hovering saucer. The interior of the alien vehicle exploded outward in a hail of strange material and flying bodies, then it fell to the ground, where a loud Bushmaster twenty-millimeter cannon mounted on a surviving Bradley Fighting Vehicle slammed its large exploding rounds into the remains of the saucer.

Henri was shoved in the back and as he turned he saw none other than Sarah McIntire, wearing the white camouflage BDUs of a soldier. She was screaming at him to get down as she fired at something rushing their way. Her bullets riddled one of the shocked Grays as it charged them maniacally. The Gray hit the ground and its large body dug a path as it finally slid to a stop.

“Come on, Colonel, help us gather these men together and get them the hell back to Alamo!”

Henri was still in shock at not having his life ended, and further stunned to find out just who his rescuers were.

*   *   *

For a five-mile radius around the crater left by the departing
Lee,
three and half thousand civilian and military personnel were fighting for their lives as they attempted the rescue of the remains of General Collins’s defensive force.

As they fought and died to save their own, a roar filled the sky high above. But before the force of civilians and military could spy the new threat their attention was forced back to the ground. Amid the explosions of Hellfire missiles and mortars they saw the attacking Grays streaming from another saucer that had landed. The rescuers were now slowly being surrounded.