Chapter 14

Day 537, Boston Massachusetts, Falling Skies Universe.

Corporal Searix Fairmoon desperately wanted to scratch his nose, and the more he thought about it the worse it got, only years of iron discipline kept him from doing so. He'd been hunting since he was old enough to draw a bow, and it held him in good stead for his new profession, only now he wasn't hunting deer or boar, he was hunting a much more dangerous prey.

Fairmoon had been laying prone under carefully arranged rubble for the past two days, switching off with his backup, Private Whiteriver, so either could grab a few hours sleep as they waited for their target to arrive. In his arms lay one of the first 'natively' developed weapons of Endeavour, the LRR1, or Long Ranged Railgun version 1, affectionately called the Thumper by some and not so affectionately the Big Black Bitch, and abbreviated to TripB, by most others. The lack of sniper weapons had been a puzzling oversight in the equipment recovered from the Star Wars dimension, their optics were incredibly advanced, and their blasters hardly lacking in range, but none were designed for use at more than eight hundred meters.

Searix and the others that had showed an aptitude for stealth, and marksmanship had initially trained on weapons sourced from generic twenty-first century worlds, which while very good weren't as powerful as the other weapons in their arsenal, given the type of opponents they were likely to go up against they was considered just not good enough.

The Joint Weapons Research team had soon provided the answer, the principles behind railguns were well known but the bottleneck had always been providing a power supply with enough grunt to make it worthwhile while at the same time keeping it man-portable.

In stepped the recovered Star Wars technology once again, a single blaster powerpack could provide sixteen shots at full hypersonic power, and with the ammunition supply integrated into the housing of the powerpack allowed for quick swapping in the middle of combat. The ammunition itself was currently a tungsten core wrapped in an aluminum / copper jacket, though Searix had heard that was only until they could source enough depleted uranium to provide an ammunition supply, he was unsure why his more modern comrades didn't seem to like the idea.

The weapons themselves were large, each bigger than M107 rifles he and the other snipers had trained on, painted matt-black, with one hell of a kick, which accounted for both nicknames, each weapon had the best optics and targeting systems they could get their owns on, allowing Searix to read newsprint at over a kilometer. Every LRR1 was custom built by the engineers back on Terra Prime, and it was unlikely they'd ever go into mass production, but for a stopgap solution they were highly effective.

Searix was jolted out of his thoughts by three quick clicks on his comm, the signal to ready for action. 'It's finally kicking off' he thought with fierce joy as he slowly brought his weapon up to his shoulder, making sure not to disturb his hiding place, it's big bulky frame making it awkward to move in the confined space, and more than once he almost jammed the large upside down triangle-like barrel into the rubble.

By the time he had the weapon up and ready he could hear the rumble of the large Alien craft heading towards the clearing he was overlooking. It still amazed him, even after almost two years in Lord Alexander's service, flying machines! What marvels. What a time to live!

The big black craft hovered over the clearing for a moment, throwing blue light from it's propulsion system everywhere. It slowly came down to land on three large struts that extended from the main body of the craft.

Searix tensed as the door to the craft opened and a number of the spider-like Aliens rushed out. He used his weapon's optics to get a good look at them, before dismissing them. They weren't his job. He resighted his weapon on the craft's door, doubt about their intelligence bubbling up within him. He ruthless crushed it. If they were wrong, they were wrong, they'd fade back into the night and try again another day.

Finally after an interminable wait his target appeared on the embarkation ramp. He'd seen photographs of the Espheni, also known as The Overlords, the real leaders of the Alien scum that had invaded this Earth, but seeing them for himself in the flesh was something completely different. They were massive, almost twice the height of a full grown man, but at the same time seemingly fragile, their limbs long and spindly, but the strangest aspect of the being was the seeming lack of a neck, their head just growing out of their torsos.

Puffing out a small breath Searix discarded his thoughts and focused on his mission. He slowly sighted his rifle on the Alien beast, the targeting reticle falling where the human breast bone would be. They weren't sure about the best place to shoot the bastards, but the general consensus was that sixty grams of metal moving at hypersonic speeds wasn't going to be healthy for anything.

Searix tensed his left hand, triggering a small stud on the inside of his gauntlet with his thumb, opening the comm. channel, "Longshot-1 to control, target aquired, ready to execute on your order"

"Overwatch-1, Longshot-1, acknowledged, standby for go order" Clayworth's gruff voice came over the comm-line a few seconds later.

Searix chewed on his lip as he kept his weapon trained on the Espheni commander, he knew down there were two dozen of his comrades, all relying on him to make the shot.

The comm-line flared to life once more, "All Units, Go. Go. Go."

Searix Fairmoon didn't react, didn't think, didn't do anything other than apply a tiny amount of force to the trigger of his weapon. It was almost a surprise when the recoil slammed into his shoulder, even protected by his armour it was painful. Through the advanced optics of his weapon he watched as the Alien monster seemed to explode into a shower of gore, it's limbs flying in different directions as it's torso was ripped apart.

Swinging his weapon around he sighted on his secondary target, one of the four large mechs already in the clearing, unlike the organic skitters, it was already reacting to the death of it's commander. Another thump against his shoulder and the mechanical warrior just slumped, like a puppet with it's string cut.

Fairmoon heard another loud ripping sound, his backup entering the game, and another mech blew apart. 'Two down, two to go' he thought idly as he swung onto his next target.

Down on the ground the men of 1st, 2nd, 4th, and 5th section charged into the fray, their blasters firing in tight controlled bursts, and all around them skitters died terrible deaths as the super-heated plasma ripped into their bodies.

"Overwatch-2 to all units be advised," Buzz Phillips voice came over the comm, "Mothership-1 is altering it's orbit, ETA until it enters weapons range is fourteen mikes, repeat, one-four mikes until KEWS start raining down boys and girls so get a move on"

Searix grunted as he fired his fourth shot of the night, destroying the final mech. Scanning the battlefield rapidly he noted that all the other Aliens were either dead or about to be very quickly. He watched as six men broke off from the main push and charged up the boarding ramp into the Alien craft, each of them a volunteer, they had no way of knowing what awaited them inside that ship, but that was the point, they needed to know what was inside the Alien ships if they were ever going to get rid of them.

Half the remaining forces took up sentry positions, and the rest rushed to snatch the harnessed human children, they were to bug out immediately and get them to the evac point.

Time dragged on slowly, minutes seeming like hours, until the boarding party came running down the ramp, large bags over their shoulders, two having slung their weapons in favour of carrying huge black containers of some sort.

"That's it boys, everyone get clear of the site" Clayworth's voice came over the comm-line, tight and controlled as always, but with an undertone of concern.

Searix jumped up from his hiding place, rumble falling all around him. He slung his TripB over his shoulder and took off at a fast run, along his planned evac route.

Five minutes later he was still running as a bright light flared and a huge overpressure wave slammed into his back sending him flying. Struggling to his feet he suddenly grinned behind his face mask, that had been a big hit, bigger than anything the Alien's had used before, he'd lay good money they were really pissed off.

Day 538, Massachusetts, Falling Skies Universe.

Alexander faded into view near the new command post, an old farm house well outside the city of Boston proper. He was met with a dozen blasters pointed at his head. He grinned and held up his hands, the blasters were quickly lowered.

"Clayworth inside?" Alex asked the nearest trooper. Getting an affirmative reply, Alexander nodded his thanks and headed towards the bombed out building.

As he made his way into the building he idly noted the troopers were already swarming over his cargo, a few duffles of supplies, a large leather satchel, and a half dozen large coolers full of freshly made sandwiches. He didn't like to show up empty handed, so he had a standing order for food to be ready every time he knew he'd be making an in-person visit. His 'army' was outfitted with a large stock of liberated American Army MREs, which were actually rather good, much better than the stuff his grandfathers and uncles had eaten during their time in the service, but they were no substitute for fresh food.

Alexander watched as the off duty troopers came strangling out of the various buildings, obviously alerted by their comrades, both for the food, and for the contents of the satchel. A Sergeant had already opened it and was organising the mail call. It had been another thing he'd overlooked at first. Most of the soldiers still had only basic English skills, but there were enough modern personal to help with the reading and writing. The satchel would be refilled with outgoing mail and ready for when he left. Mail from home had done wonders for morale, taking it from excellent, to skyhigh.

Alexander made his way down to the basement of the farm house, nodding to the occasional sentry he saw. When he entered the command post he smiled a greeting and took a seat next to Clayworth.

"You lot look cheerful" Alexander said, and they did, there were smiles all around the table, even from the normally taciturn Master Sergeant Anderson.

Clayworth smiled widely, and Alexander hid a wince at his terrible breath, "Aye lad, we had a good night, everything went off without a hitch"

"Good to hear, nobody hurt?" Alexander desperately wanted to ask about the haul, but he hid it and forced himself to ask the troops first.

"Just a few bumps and bruises from where it got up close and personal, but nothing a good night's rest won't cure" Clayworth said.

"So it was worth it?" Alex asked.

"Definitely" Buzz Phillips interjected, "the boys stripped as much as they could out of the ship before they had to start dodging KEWs, looks like we got parts of the navigation system, a few of their handheld weapons, and other bits and pieces"

"More importantly," Clayworth said giving Buzz a look, "we gave the bastards a bloody nose, one dead officer, a trashed ship, four busted mechs, a few dozen charbroiled skitters, and forty rescued slaves"

Clayworth's pronouncement was met with firm nods from the table, it was easy to hate an enemy that enslaved children.

Alexander nodded and the conversation continued, dealing with the expected fall out from the previous night's mission, what supplies they were requesting, and their future plans. After an hour Alexander got up and said his goodbyes, heading out to where the slaves and salvage were stored, ready to start porting both back to Terra Prime, the salvage to the boffins at the ESRO, and the slaves to the Doctors already waiting to treat them.