Worldwar: Throwing the balance v1.1

[spartasman]

Ok, after an unreasonably long hiatus, here is, once again, that damned fic I never got off the ground. For the sake of continuity, I'll be posting those chapters that I had posted before, with a new chapter hopefully everyweekend. Already have a new one done, with another on the way.

Chapter 1.

Fleetlord Atvar strode briskly into the command station of the invasion fleet bannership 127th Emperor Hetto. Officers stiffened in their seats as he came in. But for the way his eye turrets swiveled in their sockets, one to the left, the other to the right, he ignored them. Yet had any been so foolish as to omit the proper respect, he would have noticed--and remembered.

The attention of his officers meant little to Atvar at the present moment, though.

Just as the hologram - which Atvar had studied incessantly on the Fleet's journey - of Tosev 3 had looked like a world floating in space, so the world itself, seen through an armorglass window resembled nothing so much as a holographic image. But to get round to its other side now, Atvar would have to wait for the 127th Emperor Hetto to finish half an orbit.

The fleetlord glared down at the planet below. He had been glaring at it ever since the fleet arrived, one of his own years before. No one in all the vast history of the Race had ever been handed such a poisonous dilemma. The assembled shiplords stood waiting for Atvar to give them their orders. His the responsibility, his the rewards--and the risks.

"The natives of Tosev 3 are more technologically advanced than we believed they would be when we undertook this expedition," he said, seeing if gross understatement would pry a reaction from them.

As one, they dipped their heads slightly in assent. Atvar tightened his jaws--would that he might bite down on his officers' necks. They were going to give him no help at all. His the responsibility. A burden that had begun to weigh heavily on Atvar as the full scope of the situation they now faced had been revealed.

Atvar said, "The Tosevites appear at the moment to be fighting several wars among themselves. History tells us their disunity will work to our advantage." Ancient history, he thought; the Empire had had a single rule so long that no one had any practice playing on the politics of disunion. But the manuals said such a thing was possible, and the manuals generally knew what they were talking about. Of course, the manuals held no precedent to the situation at hand, a fact that further disturbed Atvar.

Kirel assumed the stooping posture of respect, a polite way to show he wished to speak. Atvar turned both eyes on him, relieved someone would say at least part of what he thought. The shiplord of the 127th Emperor Hetto said, "Is it certain we can successfully overcome the Tosevites, Fleetlord? Along with radio and radar, they have aircraft of their own, as well as armored fighting vehicles--our probes have shown them clearly."

"But these weapons are far inferior to ours of similar types. The probes also show this clearly." That was Straha, shiplord of the 206th Emperor Yower. He ranked next highest among the shiplords after Kirel, and wanted to surpass him one day.

Kirel knew of Straha's ambitions, too. He abandoned the posture of respect to scowl at his rival. "A great many of these weapons are in action, however, and more being manufactured all the time. Our supplies are limited to those we have fetched across the light-years."

"Have the Tosevites atomics?" Straha jeered. "If other measures fail, we can batter them into submission." "Thereby reducing the value of the planet to the colonists who will follow us," Kirel said.

"What would you have us do?" Straha said. "Boost for home, having accomplished nothing?
" "It is within the fleetlord's power," Kirel said stubbornly.

He was right; abandoning the invasion was within Atvar's power. No censure would fall on him if he started back--no official censure. But instead of being remembered through all the ages as Atvar Worldconqueror, an epithet only two in the long history of the Race had borne before him, he would go down in the annals as Atvar Worldfleer, a title he would be the first to assume, but hardly one he craved.

But, on the reverse, the decision before him was one that he could hardly say he relished. When the first signs that something was awry had presented themselves, Atvar had attempted to ignore them in the hopes that it was simply a malfunction in the sensor arrays. The memory of a communications officer presenting him with the first evidence of artificial radio transmissions coming from Tosev 3 struck him. The communications Subleader, Erewlo, had nearly run away while he had presented the information, and indeed had run when Atvar had sent him away in a rage fueled by incomprehension and, though he would never admit it, fear.

The situation was far beyond anything that had planned for. Perhaps that, of all things, disturbed Atvar most. The Race was a meticulous species, slow to move and careful to plan. It was that sense of stability that had led Atvar, and indeed the entire Empire, to believe that in the 800 years between the Race's last probe of Tosev 3 and the conquest that was now in motion would have little at all to do with the conquest of the planet. After all, the only other species that the Race had encountered in their expansion and conquest had been near enough to the Race's temperament as to make no difference. Surely that meant it was the norm for all intelligent species!

And yet, as Atvar once again cast the gaze of both his eye turrets at the planet beneath him, all of the cautious nature and careful planning of the Race seemed to shatter into meaninglessness. By some fluke in evolution, the Tosevites had somehow become a much more aggressive and, Atvar shuddered, quick developing species.

His the Risk.

Sensing the apprehension in Atvar, Straha proffered, "exalted Fleetlord, the situation is far beyond anything we had expected, but we must attempt something, for the sake of the Emperor."

At the mention of the Emperor, Atvar and all of the officers gathered lowered their gaze in respect in the traditional show of honor. But as Atvar's eye turrets swung upward, a sudden thought occurred to him. "None of our contingencies cover the situation at hand, the unpredictability of the situation is far beyond anything we are equipped to handle. We can not afford to make hasty decisions".

THAT had prickled the officers into responsiveness. In the Race, to call someone hasty or rash was nearly as bad an insult as could be conjured. Straha seemed to take personal offense to the slight, and his quick rebuttal went more to prove to Atvar that hastiness in the situation would be a mistake. Straha said, "and what would you have us do, return to cold sleep and wait for the Emperor to give us fresh orders! In the time that could take, who knows how much the situation could change again!"

Though he had certainly made a good point, the sheer audacity of the shiplord to challenge Atvar so openly angered him to where he had to restrain himself from openly berating Straha in front of the gathered Shiplords. But now that Straha had said it first, Atvar's solution was now an easier matter to put forward.

"This expedition is to conquer Tosev 3 in the name of the Emperor, not for ourselves! We are not prepared for what now lies ahead of us, we must defer our judgment to that of the Emperor. Only he will now what to do in our situation."

Now that he had come out and said it, Atvar felt relief lift the burden that had been hanging over him for over a year now. Straha was scowling deeply, and many of the Shiplords Atvar remembered as having belonged to his faction looked nervous at the hostile situation.

"The troops are to be returned to cold sleep, as well as the majority of the personnel. We will send the message back to the Emperor and await His command. When the colonization fleet arrives, we shall re-evaluate the situation."

The assembled Shiplords were looking deflated now. They had, Atvar realized, been looking forward to the conquest of Tosev 3. No matter, it would have to wait now, if it ever happened at all. In the meantime, Atvar had a new idea form in his head, one that caused both of his eye turrets to turn on Shiplord Straha. "Shiplord, since you have seemed so interested in the situation on Tosev 3, you are hereby appointed to observe the planet while the rest of the fleet is in cold sleep."

Straha was looking shocked now, but that was soon replaced by a look of near-uncontained anger. The Shiplords surrounding him backed away.

"By your command, Exalted Fleetlord" he grated out, his claws clenched at his waist.

Atvar gave a wary nod, he himself alarmed by the attitude of the Shiplord. Perhaps the years spent in observation of the planet below would serve to temper him better; that was certainly what Atvar hoped for, anyway. In the meantime, the arrangements for re-entering cold sleep needed to be made, and the message to the Emperor needed to be composed and sent as soon as possible. Yes, his the risk, but now, at least, the responsibility no longer threatened to crush him.

"Dismissed", the Fleetlord hissed.

[spartasman]

Chapter 2.

Straha, Shiplord of the 206th Emperor Yower, slumped back into the familiar chair of his personal office. Tiredly, he shifted one eye turret to look at the watch embedded into the wall in front of him; the other, he closed.

Almost lethargically, Straha pulled himself upright, allowing his tail stump to rest comfortably in the seat. Both eye turrets turned downwards, giving the multitude of papers and forms before him a short glance before diverting his attention to the screen of the computer terminal that rested to the left of him.

Straha was not pleased.

When the conquest fleet had first arrived in the Tosev system nearly 48 Home years before, Straha had been positively excited about the inevitable invasion of Tosev 3. Of course, when it had become apparent that the the Tosevites had acquired a higher level of technology than what had been expected, Straha had been slightly derailed in his excitement. He had still expected the conquest to go ahead as planned, for the infantrymales and landcruisers of the race to crush and destroy their Tosevite counterparts, for the Race's killercraft to shoot down the primitive aircraft that were operated by the natives. His expectations, however, had all been misplaced.

"48 years" Straha spoke to no one in particular, "48 Emperor-cursed years wasted."

When Straha had first been given the assignment to observe the Tosevites while the rest of the Fleet went back into cold sleep, Straha had had to constrain himself from openly insulting Atvar. Had he known what laid before him, however, Straha knew that he would have tried his best to claw the Fleetlord's throat out.

In the 48 Home years - roughly half of a Tosevite year - since he had begun his observation, the true horror of what lay before him had nearly driven him mad. To see a species develop technology, and to improve upon it, so quickly...

Straha opened his mouth in laughter, but the noiseless laugh of the Race only seemed to add mirth to his situation. Straha had watched video transmission from the Tosevites, and had found the noise-filled laugh of the natives to be an extremely stupid gesture. As time had worn on, however, the laughs of the Tosevite actors had become torture; Straha could feel the Tosevites mocking him with their stupid laughs. Eventually, he had stopped watching the Tosevite transmissions altogether, delegating the important intelligence work to one of his subordinates entirely.

Straha shifted an eye turret to look back at the watch again, noting that he still had half a day-tenth before his scheduled meeting with the Fleetlords of both the Conquest and Colonization Fleets. That thought nearly caused Straha to cringe. Atvar was enough of a bother, but his foolishness could be countered with Straha's support amongst the Shiplords; the Colonization Fleet's Fleetlord, Reffet, could not be dealt with so easily.

'Fools, both of them' he thought silently, his hands beginning to sift through the papers on his desk with the unconscious ease of years of monotonous repetition.

Finding the report he was looking for, Straha placed it in a corner of his desk where he would compile the necessary information for his next meeting. This one was supposed to detail the surveillance probes that had been sent to Earth, and any vital information that they might have gathered. The form that Straha had just set aside, however, did not detail any such information.

Over the years, certain points of interest had drawn special observation from the probes. Most of these places were military installations operated by the two major competing not-empires on the planet, the United States of America and the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics, but a few others had arisen. This particular form detailed the loss of all probes due to malfunctions and hostile action; Straha marked proudly that the latter category was more populated than the former.

After years of his probes going unnoticed, Straha had begun to fear that the Tosevites might stumble upon his observations, and had pulled his probes ever higher into the atmosphere of Tosev 3. However, when Straha had found the need for a closer look at a target, it had been necessary to send probes down lower to the surface than he would have otherwise preferred. Some of those low-flying probes had been detected by the Tosevites' radar, and several had been intercepted. All of those had been completely destroyed, their self-destruct mechanisms finishing the job that the killercraft of whatever nation the probe had been flying over had started. Only on two occasions had the probe not been confirmed destroyed by Straha, and to his own discomfort, one of them had been due to a malfunction.

The Race's technology was specifically built not to fail. Centuries of careful research and development went into every piece of technology before being slowly integrated into the Race's society. That one of the probes would fail was nearly an impossibility. But it had become a reality, and a nightmare for Straha. The probe had been sent to observe an area of the United States that was being used to test that not-empire's nuclear weapons, something that had garnered the attention of Straha. The probe had been above the arid scrub land that dominated that area, and had suffered an engine malfunction that had caused it to crash.

Straha still worried about what had happened over Roswell. The government of the United States had quickly collected whatever debris they could, and their high military presence precluded Straha sending down a retrieval team. Straha was fairly certain that the Tosevites knew the Race was there. They had simply had too long to observe the skies, too much evidence that presented itself for them to not notice the massive fleet in orbit around Tosev IV; and with the arrival of the colonization fleet, he knew that the combined fleets must have stuck out like a sore claw.

Both Atvar and Reffet had neglected his calls to relocate the fleet so as to remain undetected, and Straha knew that the Tosevites could not remain ignorant of the Race forever, if they had not been discovered already.

Continuing to go through the papers, Straha picked up a small red folder, taking a moment to look at it with both eye turrets before before setting it in its own space, apart from everything else. THAT particular folder held one of Straha's invasion contingencies, one that he himself had spent years creating. He had several such plans already prepared to be reviewed by Atvar, but that was one that he felt especially proud of.

The 48 Home years between the Fleet's arrival and his present situation had been rife with opportunities to plan, opportunities which Straha had not squandered. Dozens of plans had been compiled, changed, discarded, and re-written; so many so that Straha had lost count of them all. He had, with idle horror, watched the various not-empires of Tosev 3 build ever more powerful weapons. Yet, of all the machines of war that the natives had developed, only one truly gripped his liver in fear; their atomics. The Race's atomic bombs had first been built during the wars of unification, 100,000 years ago. The highest yield that had been needed, and approved to sustain the habitability of Home, had been able to level entire cities. On Tosev 3, however, the natives knew none of the restraint that the Race had shown in their development of atomic weapons. Bombs, orders of magnitude greater than the Race's, had been constructed and tested on the planet below. The sheer size of some of them was enough to almost make Straha advocate the abandonment of the conquest, something that had surprised him the first time he had thought it.

But the conquest must continue, and like it or not, Straha was one of the only members of the Race with enough knowledge to attempt it successfully. With that thought, Straha gathered all of the necessary forms and reports into a folder and clipped it shut. With an outstretched claw, Straha depressed a small button embedded into his desk. "Horres, inform the Fleetlords that I shall be with them shortly", he spoke to his adjutant, who acknowledged his order with the familiarity of one who had dealt with a Shiplord for forty-eight continuous years. Straha trusted Horres, possibly more than he trusted anyone else, even his friends back on Home; but the long observation of Tosev 3 had bred a strong camaraderie amongst the 'condemned', as they had all become known as.

Rising from his seat, Straha snatched the folder from his desk, walking out the office's automatic door. As he passed Horres, his adjutant stiffened in the traditional sign of respect of a superior, "The Fleetlords are expecting you, sir", he said. Straha nodded his head before walking out into the corridor inside the ship.

[spartasman]

Chapter 3.

Gefreiter Karl Berger shifted uncomfortably in the hold of the Schutzenpanzer Lang, adjusting his G3 and pack so as to rest more naturally on the metal floor. The inside of the Schutzenpanzer rumbled lightly as the engine idled, lined up next to three others of its type.

"At least they picked a good day to do it, otherwise we'd be sweating our balls off in here!" Karl yelled over the sound of the engine.

"Ja". That was Wolfgang Schmidt. Wolfgang was not one for words, and used them sparingly if at all. Beside him, the three other members of the Schutzenpanzer's Grenadier complement nodded their heads in silent agreement. Their leader, Unteroffizier Wilhelm Adler, gave them all a gaze that reflected the meaning of his last name, that of an eagle.

Checking his wristwatch, Karl nervously counted down the minutes until zero-hour. The training exercises were supposed to begin at 9:00 A.M, and everyone in their unit was anxious to get it over with. The entire event itself was part of a larger set of drills that the Bundeswehr were currently holding, and all of the officers kept spouting off about how it was a prime chance to show off the resurgent German military.

Of course, they did not include the East German Nationale Volksarmee in their speeches, but that was to be expected. 'There are more things in Heaven and Earth, Horatio, than are dreamt of in your philosophy', came to Karl's mind, a thought imprinted upon him by his sister Elsie's love of theatre. Karl's family had always had a flare for the dramatic, and his family tree was full of actors and actresses. Karl had even acted himself a few times before joining the Bundeswehr, but his sister's passion for it far outweighed his own.

Tearing himself away from his musings, Karl noticed that Herr Adler had been shouting something over the sound of the engines. Cupping his hands against his ear only made the Unteroffizier sigh heavily before repeating. "One minute left, make sure everything is secured" he shouted.

Karl gave a quick nod before checking over his equipment for the tenth time, making sure that nothing would bounce around when the Schutzenpanzer got moving. Almost as an afterthought, Karl checked his G3's safety to make sure it was on; they were using live rounds on this exercise.

At the very edge of his hearing, Karl heard the shrill report of a half-dozen whistles being blown over the sound of the engine. Almost immediately, the Schutzenpanzer Lang began to move, the engine noise growing significantly. Even though the engine was roaring louder than anything, Karl could still tell that the Lang was moving rather sluggishly. The 220 horsepower engine was simply not enough to move the 14 and a half ton armored vehicle very quickly, but it still got along at a respectable 58 km/h at top speed.

Shaking along with the armored chassis, Karl tried to listen over the engine as the rest of the armored brigade moved through its trials. Suddenly, the Lang slowed down, and almost as quickly, the 20mm cannon in the frontal turret barked, along with several others from other vehicles. After a few bursts, the Schutzenpanzer began to move again, though not at the same speed as before.

Looking over to Herr Adler, Karl, saw him check his own watch, nodding after a few seconds. Raising his head, the under officer shouted loudly to be heard, "up, up!".

Almost as one, the five Grenadiers lifted open the hatches on the top of the Schutzenpanzer. Karl knew that most other light armored vehicles used rear-entry doors to allow their troop complements access, but the Schutzenpanzer Lang lacked such a thing, and the only way in or out was from the top. Popping up out of the Lang, Karl could see the same thing happening all around him on the other vehicles. Bringing his rifle up, Karl scanned the field for the round targets that he was supposed to shoot, and spotted them coming up. The 'Lang slowed down a bit more, and the front gunner began to fire his MG3 in short bursts, hitting his designated targets.

Karl brought up his own rifle, and drew a bead on the round target that was designated for infantrymen. Pulling the trigger as fast as he could without losing his target, Karl quickly emptied his 20-round clip. Loading another one in as fast as he could, Karl took aim at the next target as the first one passed him. Later, when the exercise was over, the officers would either praise their soldier's marksmanship with some bullshit speech, or show their disappointment by ordering extra shooting practice. None of that mattered to Karl as he emptied his second clip, or his third.

Before he knew it, Karl was standing at attention with the rest of his squad next to the now-quiet Schutzenpanzer, Herr Adler giving them a little speech of his own.

"Alright, you didn't do too bad out there. Berger, try not waste all of your ammo next time, eh? The Army likes to keep SOME ammo in reserve. As for the rest of you, try showering every once in a while, its bad enough being cramped up in there without it smelling like a pig-pen too."

That made Karl's cheeks burn red, but he laughed it off with the rest of his squad all the same. When they were dismissed, Karl and his squad made their way over to the small rest area next to the motor pool. Sitting down on a crate, Karl pulled a pack of Collies out of his shirt pocket, doling them out to his squad-mates.

Next to Karl, Wolfgang was smoking away happily, staring up into the clouds as he laid back in a metal folding chair. Andrei Kruger was next to Wolfgang, and gave a small chuckle before setting back into his own chair, "I think that all went pretty well, eh Karl?" he said.

Nodding, Karl took the cigarette out of his mouth before saying, "Not too bad, I think you may have even hit your target once or twice."

Andrei chuckled again before jabbing back, "Well, somebody had to, I don't know what you were aiming at, but you hit just about everything else".

Karl laughed back at that, taking another drag from his cigarette. Before he could puff out, though, Karl noticed that everyone around him was beginning to stare back at the training field. Curious as to why, Karl twisted his head to see what was going on, and what he saw nearly made the cigarette fall out of his mouth.

It was an absolute beast, roaring, belching exhaust, and traveling faster than Karl had ever seen a tank move. Unnoticed, Wolfgang had sat up to watch the armored monstrosity himself, he pulled the cigarette from his mouth before commenting, "that's the one we were supposed to be making with the Frenchies a while ago. I heard that they were going to be testing them with the regular army today, but I didn't believe it."

"And why is that" Andrei asked, not taking his eyes off of the tank that that was tearing across the field faster than their own IFV.

Taking another puff from the Collie, Wolfgang answered "We just started getting them last year, that's why. It will be a few years before we have enough of them to box the Pattons."

Karl silently nodded in agreement while still watching the Leopard 1 tank as it fired its main gun. Feeling the need to add his observation, Karl said "doesn't look all that different from the Pattons, faster though, and that gun sure is nice."

Seeing the tank fire another round, tearing a wrecked target truck apart, Wolfgang nodded. The American tanks were not bad, but they would be inadequate at best and a liability at worst to the Bundeswehr if tasked against their Soviet counterparts. Now that they had their own, superior tanks, Germany could truly begin to reclaim its prowess on the battlefield.

Slowly, his attention was drawn back to his squad mates, and Karl was soon talking about what rumors they had heard about the new addition to their force.

[Simon_Jester]

Hi again.

My advice is, take the time to do it properly- better to update half as often and twice as well, really.

[doom3607]

Well this'll be a little one-sided. The Race didn't exactly win against WW2 level tech, and now they're going up against us in the late Cold War? When we have absolute mountains of nukes and still have lots of convential forces while we're at it, that are now actually vaguely comparable to theirs?

In other words, I eagerly await the next update.

[Zaune]

Well this'll be a little one-sided. The Race didn't exactly win against WW2 level tech, and now they're going up against us in the late Cold War? When we have absolute mountains of nukes and still have lots of convential forces while we're at it, that are now actually vaguely comparable to theirs?

Not necessarily, actually. The EMP attacks will have a greater impact this time around, and humanity is at a much lower state of military readiness. A lot also depends on how much Earth's various governments know or have guessed about the Race's intentions (I remember from the old thread that the general public is in the dark about it but the fleet orbiting Mars has been noticed) and what precautions they've taken.

[Simon_Jester]

Well this'll be a little one-sided. The Race didn't exactly win against WW2 level tech, and now they're going up against us in the late Cold War? When we have absolute mountains of nukes and still have lots of convential forces while we're at it, that are now actually vaguely comparable to theirs?

In other words, I eagerly await the next update.

Mid-Cold War.

This will be interesting because of what happens- there will be an attempt to oppose the landing, it will get complicated. We put a fair amount of thought into this last year.

Spartasman, I can't promise I'll be doing my old proofreading; life's been hectic lately. But I'll see what I can feasibly do.

[doom3607]

If by 'proofreading' you mean spellchecking and suchlike, if you need any help I'd be happy to do it. Don't have much else to do for a while, anyway.

[Simon_Jester]

There's also the realism and sanity-check for military hardware. I... well, Doomy, with no specific intent to insult, I wouldn't recommend you for that. Not on history of the 1960s.

[doom3607]

Fair enough. That's not really my favorite period of history anyway.

[Mayabird]

I hope it won't end up being a curbstomp because those are getting very old.

But on the other hand it seems an appropriate moment for a Shroomism:

The humans laughed. They fucking laughed.

[Simon_Jester]

The Lizards are almost certain to hold orbital superiority, and the real challenge will be stopping this from breaking out into a nuclear war that will leave Earth devastated. 'Historically' the Lizards didn't nuke Earth into a billiard ball when they had the chance; here, they just might be convinced to do it, and damned if I can see a way to stop them.

[lord Martiya]

Well, I'll wait for updates. And I hope Italian troops will be involved. After all, we managed to get rid of the awful officers with WWII, so maybe the Bersaglieri and that awful lot of Starfigters could be used well...

The Lizards are almost certain to hold orbital superiority, and the real challenge will be stopping this from breaking out into a nuclear war that will leave Earth devastated. 'Historically' the Lizards didn't nuke Earth into a billiard ball when they had the chance; here, they just might be convinced to do it, and damned if I can see a way to stop them.

The only way would be to nuke the ships first. Did the big power had any way to send nukes so high?

[Simon_Jester]

To LEO? Easily- from a handful of launch sites the Lizards can demolish fairly quickly if they've been keeping one eye-turret open. To geosynchronous orbit? Well, we could put a nuke into geosynchronous orbit in 1966 or so, but the odds of getting a hit if the Lizards have even the slightest space to space weapon capability is poor.

One obvious idea is to pump the van Allen belts. If Nick Christofilos has been cleared to know about the Lizard fleet orbiting Mars, I bet he has a few ideas about that...


Also, Starfighters and other high-speed, high-Mach interceptors would probably be very useful in this situation. Lizard killercraft are jack-of-all-trades aircraft, and while their ability to make a high-altitude hop to rendevous with orbiting ships could mean very impressive performance depending on exactly what they're doing, it's hard to say.

[Zaune]

Also, Starfighters and other high-speed, high-Mach interceptors would probably be very useful in this situation. Lizard killercraft are jack-of-all-trades aircraft, and while their ability to make a high-altitude hop to rendevous with orbiting ships could mean very impressive performance depending on exactly what they're doing, it's hard to say.

Come to think of it, could 1960s technology construct an air-launched missile with a useful payload that could reach near-Earth orbit? Something with an Exocet-style kinetic penetrator and a Davy Crocket-scale nuclear warhead would probably put a decent-sized dent in one of the Race's transports without giving us a few tens of thousand tons of deorbiting wreckage to worry about, as long as it could achieve escape velocity.

[lord Martiya]

To LEO? Easily- from a handful of launch sites the Lizards can demolish fairly quickly if they've been keeping one eye-turret open. To geosynchronous orbit? Well, we could put a nuke into geosynchronous orbit in 1966 or so, but the odds of getting a hit if the Lizards have even the slightest space to space weapon capability is poor.

I was just asking due my ignorance in the matter. Well, I hope the Van Allen Belts work.

[Mayabird]

The Lizards are almost certain to hold orbital superiority, and the real challenge will be stopping this from breaking out into a nuclear war that will leave Earth devastated. 'Historically' the Lizards didn't nuke Earth into a billiard ball when they had the chance; here, they just might be convinced to do it, and damned if I can see a way to stop them.

All I can think of is their politics. After all, if they waited until the colonization fleet arrived, they have seventy to eighty million or so colonists who are expecting to be able to settle down there. They probably don't want to go back and they won't want to settle on a radioactive rock.

Of course, that doesn't mean they won't devastate a lot of nations by taking out major cities and so forth.

[Simon_Jester]

When the colonists see the US and USSR shooting back at them with multimegaton nukes, they may become a lot more interested in "take off and nuke the site from orbit."

Also, Starfighters and other high-speed, high-Mach interceptors would probably be very useful in this situation. Lizard killercraft are jack-of-all-trades aircraft, and while their ability to make a high-altitude hop to rendevous with orbiting ships could mean very impressive performance depending on exactly what they're doing, it's hard to say.

Come to think of it, could 1960s technology construct an air-launched missile with a useful payload that could reach near-Earth orbit?

It's technically possible- during the late '50s when the US Air Force was experimenting with air-launched ballistic missiles, they also experimented with anti-satellite weapons.

Problems:

-Lizard ships are free to alter their orbit if they see a missile coming. The missile will need several minutes to climb to orbit altitude and given that Lizard starships are capable of 1g or greater acceleration (planetary liftoff capability), they can sidestep by- hell, hundreds of kilometers, unless I'm doing the math wrong. This is a much more difficult problem than intercepting ICBMs coming at you over the North Pole. This is something the Lizards will probably start doing pretty early on, even if they're not innovative enough to devise actual space to space weapons for their ships, they're not fool enough to forget to duck when someone fires a missile at their head.

-Targeting and command and control are going to be a bear. This is essentially the same problem as building anti-satellite weapons in real life.* You need to track the target (which will be thousands of miles away when you start your attack run to toss a missile up into its path), track the bomber, track the missile, all at once. Not easy. Since the Lizard ships can evade, you'd need a missile capable of accepting course corrections, and big ones- I'm honestly not sure it's practical to build something that could keep up with the course changes a Lizard ship could make as a matter of routine. I'm not sure any ASAT system with the ability to change course on the fly was devised until the 1980s.

-For the 1950s-60s systems, getting a close proximity hit was a challenge- and Lizard starships, designed to survive the intense particle flux of low-relativistic interstellar flight and built very big, aren't going to be taken out by a small nuclear blast at long range.

This is why I favor pumping the van Allen belts. It probably won't stop the Lizard starships, strictly speaking, but it will make the working environment in LEO 'toxic' enough that transferring personnel to shuttles or killercraft, or maintaining unmanned satellites in orbit, will be difficult.

*(except against bigger, meaner satellites; Lizard starships are described as being the size of "pregnant skyscrapers.")

[spartasman]

Chapter 4.

Larry Thorne shielded his eyes from the harsh morning sun that beat down upon him, squinting regardless. Shifting slightly, he brought his eyes into the shadow of one of the wooden beams that formed the cover of his holding pit. Another man sat across from him in the pit, with one more laying curled up in the middle of the too-small dirt floor. Tonight, it would be his turn to lie down at the base of the pit, with the other two prisoners sleeping in a sitting position against the earthen walls. He brought one of his legs off the laying mans back, curling it in front of him and using them as leverage as he maneuvered himself into a crouching position.

The wooden beams above him were several inches above the ground, supported by four stakes at each corner of the pit. Tilting his head back till his chin hit the damp earth of the pits edge, his eyes and nose being the only things that rose high enough to appear above it, he peered out into the wider world. Slowly swinging his head side to side, he took in the view that had greeted him for the last five months of his life.

To his left, a long wooden hut stretched into his peripheral vision, the shallow porch home to bags of rice and crates of cloth, food, and ammunition. Directly in front of him, a machine gun tower watched the forest beyond the barbed wire fence that ringed the prison camp. As he watched, a Vietnamese soldier climbed the ladder to the top of the tower with a sack slung across his back, followed by the muffled voices that meant conversation between the soldier and the machine-gunner.

Keeping half an eye on the tower, he took in the final building that was within his site; the commandants house. His was the closest pit to the hut, which he counted as both a blessing and a curse. The blessing was that it allowed him to view the comings and goings of the commandant and most of his adjutants, the curse...

Larry brought up his left hand to massage the aches in his other, sparing a glance on the blackened fingernails of both, and the broken ring finger on his right hand. He counted himself lucky; had his hand been slightly mispositioned, he could have had several fingers broken when the rifle-but had come down on his hand, and he could still move the shattered digit, though it pained him to perform the most basic of movements with it.

Turning his attention upward at movement, he watched a sallow-faced VC officer stride out of the commandants house, heading straight to the blockhouse. Larry lowered his face just as the officers shadow reached the pit, and sure enough as it did the mans eyes swept down at it. Larry smiled slightly as he rose back up, watching the officers back as he ran up the short row of steps into the blockhouse.

There were a few moments of silence, then the shrill barking that was the officers commands as he roused the guards from their sleep. One by one, the Vietnamese soldiers filed out, lining up in loose formation in front of the blockhouse. Larry frowned at the blatant disregard for order, reminding himself that these were not soldiers, but militiamen.

Out strode the commandant, a rather tall (for an oriental) man with clipped black hair under a cap, black eyes, and a lean, well-trained body that bespoke of something more than a simple militia commander. The militiamen became more erect in their posture, and their eyes all went straight forward. Larry did not frown at this, they may be militiamen, but they had a conviction that rivaled the most well-trained soldier.

As he watched, the prison camps commandant strode down the line of some twenty guards, hardly sparing more then a seconds glance at them. When he reached the end, he barked a few short orders and the men began to move. They came to the pits first, taking off the heavy rocks off of the latticed covers first and then lifting them the three feet necessary to take them off of their stakes. reaching down, they pulled Larry and his now-awoken fellows out of the hole with less than gentle care.

As he was shoved into the open area that the soldiers had occupied previously, he watched the guards empty the rest of the pits. Some of them moved towards the small hut on the other side of the camp, opening the door and shouting at the occupants. Slowly, the hut emptied, the men coming out shuffling and, in one case, being carried towards the prisoners loose formation.

As they took their places in line, the two men carrying the sick prisoner were made to leave him to stand upright. The man leaned back and forth like a branch in the wind, but stayed upright. The commandant came down the line of prisoners now, sparing even less attention to them than he had shown the guards. That is, at least, until he reached the swaying man.

Larry remembered in the back of his mind that the man had been a senior special forces sergeant affiliated with MACV-SOG, who had been brought to the camp three months prior. The commandant watched the man with pitiless eyes for a disconcerting amount of time. The sergeant did not fall over, and after nearly a minute, the commandant projected his finger tip and - lightly - pushed the man. For a moment, the other prisoners tensed, and for longer then a mere moment, the guards pointed their rifles at them. The commandants eyes swept out at the prisoners, then returned to the still-upright sergeant in front of him who defiantly, or perhaps mindlessly, stared forth into nothingness.

Without any indication, without a nod, snort, or sigh, the commandant drew his side-arm, a Tokorev, and placed it between the mans eyes. Their was a muffled cry of "NO" that was emitted from the other prisoners as they watched the sergeants' brains blown back onto the damp soil behind him. The sergeants body fell limply to the the side, and the commandant promptly stepped over the body and resumed his inspection.

Larry's eyes crept towards those of the man standing next to him, who was starring back at him with only a slight sign of dampness in his eyes. His nod was almost imperceptible, but Larry saw it nonetheless, and gave his own nod back before both their eyes went forward again. The commandant had finished his inspection, and now took up a position in front of the gathered prisoners.

"Today" he barked in heavily accented English, "Today you work fields, there will be NO trouble, or it will be very bad."

There was no reaction from the prisoners. Nor was there one from the commandant as he turned and left, leaving a few clipped orders in his own language for the guards; who proceeded to herd the prisoners into a line - one which avoided the still cooling body - in front of the gate, and marched them out. Larry's feel squelched in the wet earth of the dirt road, the feeling chafing his already raw feet. When the closest guards had dropped out of earshot, the man who had been beside him whispered from behind. "That bastard killed Henry, I can't fuckin' believe it!"

Larry's head turned back slightly as he replied calmly, his eyes still watching the guards in front of him. "I told you, I told you what would happen."

Larry let that sink in for a moment before adding, "so are you in or out?"

"I'm fuckin' in" came the immediate reply. Larry did not nod, or say or do anything else, his head simply swung back forward as the prisoners continued their march.

The work in the fields was back-breaking, but Larry was no stranger to such things. Tending to the rice paddies was also tedious work, and before he knew it, the sun was beginning to sink low in the sky. As the guards began to shout the prisoners back into line, Larry felt someone come up behind him. Tensing up, he felt something cold, wet, and solid pressed into his hand. Looking back only long enough to see that it was the man from earlier, Larry quickly shoved the rusty metal pick into the space between his thigh and groin. The metal poked him unpleasantly, but he managed to school his walk as he was marched back to camp.

Larry smiled. He fucking smiled.

[Simon_Jester]

This needs a bit more work, spartasman. Give it a proofreading once over, then PM me a draft some time and we'll patch it up.

[spartasman]

It's just filler for now, Simon, I'm not particularly concerned about it being a literary masterpiece quite yet. I'll send you the next chapter when I get it done.

[Simon_Jester]

Now really, spartasman, there are Standards.

It wouldn't take that much work to fix the gratuitous capitalization and such.

[spartasman]

Chapter 5.

Bartholomew Cronsby drank deeply from his canteen, using the back of his arm to wipe the brow under his straw hat when he was done. Beneath the shade of a lone baobob tree, he watched as several of his farm hands worked ox-driven plows beneath the African sun. Many of the farmers in the territory had started using mechanical tractors for this kind of work, but not only was the Cronsby farm relatively isolated, but the owner himself didn't enjoy the prospect of tying his capability to work to something as arbitrary as a tardy petrol truck.

Sliding the canteen back under his armpit, Cronsby walked back towards the plow team he had momentarily abandoned; the oval tin container bumping against his ribs as he stepped over the turned-up earth. Only one of his hands waited by the plow, slowly demolishing an apple, the juices dripping down from his chin and coating his hand as he leaned against the wooden handles.

"I take over, sir. You die in the sun, no good for me" spoke the black man, wagging his juice-coated hand at his boss. Silently, Cronsby nodded and conceded to the man.

With a smile, Cronsby quipped, "maybe the wife was right, Solomon, maybe I do spend too much time on the horse. I might have to come back tomorrow, make it a regular thing."

Solomon's expression went blank for a moment after that, but soon his black face was split with a wide white-toothed grin. Cronsby knew that some of his teams took unsanctioned 'breaks' during the day. With the sweltering heat of the Mashonaland sun bearing down though, he could hardly blame them.

Still, most of the men on his fields had been employed for many years, and many of their families lived nearby; they would do an honest day's work, and they didn't need their boss down their neck everyday to know that they had damn well better. Cronsby had fired a dozen men before: shirkers, layabouts. And everyone in the territory knew him as a man that tolerated no laziness, and certainly no dishonesty amongst his hands.

That was the legacy his father had left him five years ago, and it was one he intended to maintain. The Cronsby family had carved out their own little slice of the continent here in the wilderness half a century before, and it would only be theirs as long as they worked for it. It was work that that any Englishman worth his boots would be glad to do.

Cronsby frowned at that, taking up the switch to help spur the two oxen forward, plowing the next row of soil for for the summer wheat.

Rhodesia had officialy declared independance from the Empire the year before, and the act was still sour in Cronsby's mouth. The British had betrayed their colonies, using them up to fight their wars, and then casting them to the dogs when it was no longer politicaly acceptable to support them.

The Cronsby family had always been loyal citizens of the Empire. His own great-grandfather had been a mayor in England at one time. But one could ultimately have allegiance only to the country of his birth, and for Bartholomew, that country was Rhodesia.

And what a country it was! Off in the distance, the midday sun gleamed off the red clay of the highlands, a flock of birds traveling towards them over yawning valleys, streams, and forests. This was as virgin a land as there had ever been, and the beauty was quite enough to take even a native's breath away.

Wiping away the sweat forming once more on his brow, he decided that he would come back out to the fields tomorrow. Sitting on his arse all day wasn't good for stamina, and he wouldn't want the wife to start complaining if he got flabby.

Still, he thought with a sidelong glance, he wouldn't need to come out in the same company. He would accompany a different team tomorrow, treat it as a sort of inspection of his workforce. Cronsby nodded at the good sense of that idea, resigning himself to the work before him as he took over the plow again, driving it forward into the African soil.

[spartasman]

Chapter 6.

The Green Phone was blinking.

General Raymond Reeves stared at the blinking light on the receiver for what must have been a long time. But whether it had been a few seconds, or ten minutes, did not matter. It continued to ring. Finally snapping himself out of his daze, General Reeves slowly sat up straight, reached over, and plucked the phone from it's pedestal.

Positioning it appropriately, he listened as the caller rattled off his rank, name, and clearance code for the channel. Licking his lips, he replied.

"This is General Reeves, acting commander, Aerospace Defense Command, Identification number one-three-zulu-uniform-seven-bravo-9. I confirm your authenticity Colonel Burns, this is a secured channel."

The formalities out of the way, he wasted no time asking, "what has happened?"

There was a pregnant pause, but the shallow breaths of the officer on the other side of the connection could just be heard. The General was about to ask his question again when the response came.

"Sir, ten minutes ago observation post Echo reported movement from target Alpha. Observation post's Romeo and India have confirmed. Initial analysis indicates a Sierra-1 situation. Sir, I am officially requesting that Plan IRIS be initiated."

General Reeves' eyes were roaming the room, his mind simultaneously scrambling to remember all of the protocals and procedures he had thought he would never use.

"I concur, Colonel. I clear and accept responsibility for a phase-one initialization, standby for further orders."

After confirming that the Colonel had received his orders, General Reeves set the green phone back onto it's receiver, taking a deep breath to calm his nerves before picking up the red one.

For a moment the phone rang, but only a moment, the dialing tone soon ended replaced by the slightly accented voice of the President.

"Yes, who am I speaking with?"

"Mr. President, this is General Reeves, commanding officer of Aerospace Defense Command."

Again a moments pause. Normally, the channels that information concerning national defense went throught meant that the commander of a NORAD subsidairy would never call the President directly. But there was one reason, and one reason only, that the General could circumvent these channels, and the dread at such a revelation filled the Presidents reply.

"Yes, General?"

"Sir, we have a Sierra-1 emergency, confirmed. I have initiated Plan IRIS, as per instructions."

"Very well, General, contact NORAD Command immediately, and inform them of the situation."

"Yes sir."

Before the click of the phone hitting the receiver was heard, the General had another phone in his ear. There was no pause this time, and the General immediately began informing the duty officer at Ent Air Force Base of the situation. After three minutes of talking back and forth, he had informed NORAD Command of the situation, gotten confirmation to initiate Phase-2, and orders to read the sealed instructions in the wall safe that hung behind him.

He paused then for a moment, halfway out of his leather office chair, and for the first time in ten minutes allowed himself to think. The weight of the world seemed to crash on his shoulders, and he sank back into the chair, a trembling hand coming up to cover his eyes.

"Oh god," he whispered in horror.

[Col. Crackpot]

And so it begins... so roughly how much time has the race spent mulling things over from orbit? Quite a while it seems.