Invasion

“Thousands,” Gary said. “Pretty much every surviving USAF pilot wanted in, along with the remaining astronauts, navy and Marine flyers. We put them all through the training period – it’s lucky we have your lady friend; simulating flight was actually quite difficult without her help – and put the best ones to work, simulating attack vectors. So much needs to be done carefully – we can’t really plan this too much – but if luck is with us, we should be able to hurt them.”

Paul nodded. “And the remainder of the gear?”

“I’ll show you,” Gary said, leading him out of the underground hanger and into another large room. A pile of newly recovered alien equipment lay on the table, being sorted out by a group of young engineers, while a second table had several alien suits lying on them. Gary nodded towards the pile of equipment. “Looks crude, doesn’t it?”

“Yes,” Paul said. “Why…?”

“You’ve never been in combat, have you?” Gary asked. Paul said nothing. It was shameful, at least to him, to admit it, but he’d spent his whole life in the military and had never been shot at or fired a bullet in anger. “Trust me; the Pentagon buys a lot of crap that promises the heavens and the earths, but is hell on the battlefield users. The guys in procurement tell the designers to fuck off and they bitch loudly to their congressman, who takes a large bribe and orders the army or the fighter jocks or whoever to accept it. Oh, they’re not always that bad, but…most of them tend to have flaws that need to be edited out, somehow.”

His eyes lit up with the glow of enthusiasm. “Now, take the AK-47, preferred weapon of rag-headed punks from one end of the world to the other,” he continued. “It’s simple, easy to learn and can take one hell of a lot of mistreatment by illiterate ditch-diggers before it craps out. This technology, Colonel, is an alien version of the AK-47; they could build handheld lasers and other really nifty shit, but would it be usable on the battlefield? This stuff may be crude, but it works.”

“But it can be countered, right?” Paul asked. “We can get around their tech.”

“Oh, of course,” Gary said. “Some of their weapons are actually inferior to ours; the handful of their sniper rifles are far inferior to ours, but don’t let that fool you. In the hands of someone who knows what they’re doing, a blunderbuss is a lethal weapon. Their night-vision gear is also inferior, but we’ve actually had reports that they’ve been improving theirs or deploying newer stuff…and they have the distant advantages of not needing to worry about how much damage they do to their surroundings. Who cares? It’s all going to be knocked down, right?”

“So it seems,” Paul said, tightly. The images from Texas were far from reassuring. “If they keep expanding at their current rate, they’ll be knocking down Austin before too long.”

“I bet that will make the people unhappy,” Gary said, lightly. He grinned as he paced over to the other table. “Now this” – he lifted up one of the alien suits – “is sheer genius. There just isn’t any other word.”

Paul studied the garment thoughtfully. He’d seen images, pictures and videos, of the alien stormtroopers, but it was the first time he’d actually seen one of their outfits. It seemed to be composed of slinky silk, something that just shimmied over his hands, like liquid oil. It felt weird to the touch, as if he wasn't touching anything at all, almost as if it wasn’t really there.

“I give up,” he said, finally. “What the hell is it?”

“Buggered if I know,” Gary said. “We had a few dozen materials experts, scientists, even a pair of fashion designers in here and they took two of them to pieces, only to discover that it’s something well beyond our current capabilities. You want to know what this baby can do?”

Paul lifted an eyebrow. “Show me.”

“Watch,” Gary said. He made a fist and waved it in front of the alien garment in a threatening style. “Take that, you…illegal alien.”

He thumped the garment, which made a metallic sound. Paul stared as Gary rubbed his hand. “That always hurts,” he said. “Somehow, you hit this thing with enough force, it hardens instantly, hard enough to repel the attack. You can cut it with a knife, if you try, but come in too hard and it just hardens. We’re lucky they didn’t manage to get the tech even tougher; this stuff is better than our body armour already and if it had been better…well, invincible alien warriors would have kicked our butts all over the world.”

“But they can be killed,” Paul protested. “I mean…the wearer of this one doesn’t need it anymore, does he?”