Final Assault by Dean Wesley Smith, Kristine Kathryn Rusch Page B
Authors: Dean Wesley Smith, Kristine Kathryn Rusch
Tags: SF, Space Opera
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period of time.
Cross likened it in his mind to the way humans lived two hundred years ago, when cross-country travel was time-consuming and difficult. Those who lived in extreme northern climates spent the short summers working fields, growing food, and preparing for the long winters.
That was what the aliens were doing.
Only this time they had encountered a serious disaster, similar to a spring drought, combined with summer wildfires that had ravaged not only the fields, but the homes of the farmers as well. If aliens did not have a successful harvest this time, they would not survive their long harsh winter. They would be destroyed.
They were fighting for everything. And when humans had everything at stake, they made mistakes.
Cross could only hope the aliens would.
That would be the basis of his final report to Maddox. That, and one other thing. Humans, when they were pushed to the very edge, when they knew they had to prevail or they would lose everything, became extremely dangerous creatures.
Maddox and the world leaders who were trying to fight these aliens had to get them to spend too much energy, had to prevent their harvest, and had to protect themselves against an even more frightening enemy than the one Earth had first encountered.
Because, Cross suspected, the aliens were as determined—perhaps even more determined—than the humans were.
Cross believed that humans, even after all they had been through, didn’t entirely understand the finality of this fight.
He also believed that the aliens knew that if they lost this fight, they would lose everything.
He was afraid that distinction would make all of the difference.
November 10, 2018
11:49 Universal Time
Second Harvest: First Day
General Gail Banks squeezed against the control panel in the newest section of the International Space Station. The remains of her crew—the best, most important members—were pressed around her, concentrating on their work inside the long, narrow control room.
In the last thirty days, she had transferred all of the ISS’s operations into this space. It had taken some work. Over the years, the ISS had scattered its operations throughout the various sections. So in addition to all the work the crew was doing for the fight against the tenth planet, Banks had had to siphon off some of her better programmers to make certain operations came out of one room.
That way, she at least had a chance of saving lives.
She had evacuated nonessential personnel to the surface yesterday. The eighteen remaining knew they were on a suicide mission. All of them had had the opportunity to leave and none of them had taken it.
Banks doubted she would have offered them the opportunity to leave if she thought any of them would. She needed them to launch the missiles. It was a job she couldn’t do alone.
She gazed at the small viewscreen above her. One hundred seventy-nine missiles were scattered across its surface like tiny black slashes against the universe. These missiles were not the hodgepodge she had had in the summer. Most of these had been built— quickly—for this mission.
And she hoped the aliens had no idea they were here.
There was no way of verifying what the aliens knew, of course, but the scientists on the surface said they saw no evidence of the aliens’ having the abilities that so many science fictional aliens did—of scanning through planets, of using instrumentation that read through solid rock. Earth was gambling on that, and gambling hard.
In the last month, Banks had moved the space station. She had sped up its orbit slightly so that when the aliens passed the moon coming toward Earth, it would be on the far side of the Earth.
Hidden.
The nuclear-tipped missiles were hidden near the ISS. She was going to launch them at the tenth planet.
She hoped that the ISS’s position would give them enough time to launch the missiles out of Earth’s gravity well and on their way before the aliens saw them. If the
Cross likened it in his mind to the way humans lived two hundred years ago, when cross-country travel was time-consuming and difficult. Those who lived in extreme northern climates spent the short summers working fields, growing food, and preparing for the long winters.
That was what the aliens were doing.
Only this time they had encountered a serious disaster, similar to a spring drought, combined with summer wildfires that had ravaged not only the fields, but the homes of the farmers as well. If aliens did not have a successful harvest this time, they would not survive their long harsh winter. They would be destroyed.
They were fighting for everything. And when humans had everything at stake, they made mistakes.
Cross could only hope the aliens would.
That would be the basis of his final report to Maddox. That, and one other thing. Humans, when they were pushed to the very edge, when they knew they had to prevail or they would lose everything, became extremely dangerous creatures.
Maddox and the world leaders who were trying to fight these aliens had to get them to spend too much energy, had to prevent their harvest, and had to protect themselves against an even more frightening enemy than the one Earth had first encountered.
Because, Cross suspected, the aliens were as determined—perhaps even more determined—than the humans were.
Cross believed that humans, even after all they had been through, didn’t entirely understand the finality of this fight.
He also believed that the aliens knew that if they lost this fight, they would lose everything.
He was afraid that distinction would make all of the difference.
November 10, 2018
11:49 Universal Time
Second Harvest: First Day
General Gail Banks squeezed against the control panel in the newest section of the International Space Station. The remains of her crew—the best, most important members—were pressed around her, concentrating on their work inside the long, narrow control room.
In the last thirty days, she had transferred all of the ISS’s operations into this space. It had taken some work. Over the years, the ISS had scattered its operations throughout the various sections. So in addition to all the work the crew was doing for the fight against the tenth planet, Banks had had to siphon off some of her better programmers to make certain operations came out of one room.
That way, she at least had a chance of saving lives.
She had evacuated nonessential personnel to the surface yesterday. The eighteen remaining knew they were on a suicide mission. All of them had had the opportunity to leave and none of them had taken it.
Banks doubted she would have offered them the opportunity to leave if she thought any of them would. She needed them to launch the missiles. It was a job she couldn’t do alone.
She gazed at the small viewscreen above her. One hundred seventy-nine missiles were scattered across its surface like tiny black slashes against the universe. These missiles were not the hodgepodge she had had in the summer. Most of these had been built— quickly—for this mission.
And she hoped the aliens had no idea they were here.
There was no way of verifying what the aliens knew, of course, but the scientists on the surface said they saw no evidence of the aliens’ having the abilities that so many science fictional aliens did—of scanning through planets, of using instrumentation that read through solid rock. Earth was gambling on that, and gambling hard.
In the last month, Banks had moved the space station. She had sped up its orbit slightly so that when the aliens passed the moon coming toward Earth, it would be on the far side of the Earth.
Hidden.
The nuclear-tipped missiles were hidden near the ISS. She was going to launch them at the tenth planet.
She hoped that the ISS’s position would give them enough time to launch the missiles out of Earth’s gravity well and on their way before the aliens saw them. If the
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