Battleship

SADDLE RIDGE

The Land Commander is satisfied with the way in which matters are proceeding, even as he fights his frustration over the manner in which he must work.

He surveys the readiness of the power cells, all of which appear to be running at full capacity. He nods in approval as he appraises the various displays and vertical satellites, the human technology that they have cannibalized for their own purposes. He supposes that there is a certain irony to utilizing the very equipment that summoned them in their campaign against the current residents of this ball of dirt and water.

Yet it appalls him that it should be necessary.

He cannot help but dwell on his meeting with the World Commander. That smug bastard, looking down at him with such arrogance, making decisions about how they were to proceed based upon his understanding of how such matters were supposed to proceed. All of it theoretical, none of it taken from actual firsthand experience. The World Commander, sitting there safe and sound in his so-called “strategic center” back home, sent in troops as if Regents’ lives mean nothing to him. Let’s see him at the helm of a combat vessel being dispatched into a war zone and see how he likes it.

And crippling their resources while he was at it? The unadulterated nerve of him. If the landing teams had had the redundancy equipment that they’d asked for, it wouldn’t have mattered that one of their arrays had been destroyed during the unfortunate mishap upon landing—there would have been backup resources. Instead the World Commander dares to talk of how the Regents are spread thin throughout the galaxy. He talks of how—rather than providing the landing troops with all that they could possibly require so as to enable the invasion to run smoothly and flawlessly—they are to take only what they need and make use of found materials upon the target world should there be problems. What sort of nonsense is that? How are they supposed to eradicate the humans with minimal difficulties if the World Commander hampers them? Who sends troops into a war situation without properly outfitting them? Even the humans likely wouldn’t do something so stupid, and they’re primitives.

It prompts the Land Commander to wonder if politics are not being played here. If the World Commander doesn’t have priorities and agendas of his own that are being pursued. Once this operation is completed, it might well be worth the Land Commander’s time to join forces with his hatchling mate, the Sea Commander, and see about having done with the World Commander once and for all. A seemingly unthinkable notion, but still… worth considering.

That is when the Land Commander hears an unexpected noise. It is a loud roaring; not living, but mechanical. His best guess is that it sounds like the sort of noise made by an engine propelling a primitive human vehicle, similar to those vehicles that they destroyed upon first making landfall. So it couldn’t be one of those…

Wait…

The Land Commander suddenly tries to recall. Did he wind up actually destroying all of those vehicles? Or did he leave one in working order because he got distracted with dismembering the humans, the first of the species he’d had a chance to inspect close up?

His answer arrives seconds later as one of the vehicles tears into view. The humans—two of them, sitting in the front—are shouting loudly, their words incoherent but their intentions clear.

The vehicle’s wheels churn up dirt beneath them as it heads full bore straight at them. Its speed and solid construction are proving to be a formidable combination as the Land Commander’s troops are knocked aside by the vehicle’s velocity. Before the Land Commander can intercede, before he can even target them, the creatures hurtle directly between two power cells, ripping cables loose. The power cells go dark. The vehicle continues on its path of destruction, heading directly for the main dish array.

If it had been constructed solely of solid Regents materials, it would be impervious. But thanks to the damned World Commander, it is a hodgepodge of Regents technology combined with more breakable Earth tech. That proves the sort of devastating problem that the Land Commander had anticipated, but had been unable to convince the World Commander to take precautions for.

One of his warriors comes running out of nowhere, his helmet off, clearly having been in the midst of a salt stick break and not having had time to reattach it. He attempts to get in between, and then the vehicle crashes directly into him, pinning the soldier to the base of the makeshift tower. The impact crumbles the front end of the vehicle, beams and debris tumbling down upon it.

The Regents-provided components of the antennae, deprived of power from the cells, begin to wilt. They slump forward and are now angled toward the ground, rather than the sky for which they are designed.

The Land Commander cries out a trill of alarm. He ignores the humans in the vehicle—they will be dealt with soon enough. Instead he struggles to repair the ripped cables. If he does not…

…the alternative is simply too horrible to contemplate.