Ural Mountains, secret underground facility of the Red Army, Earth (Tosev 3)
"You are nuts, totally nuts! You are so nuts that you do not even realize how nuts you are!" the visitor yelled at the Soviet engineers and scientists. He was absolutely furious about what he was just been revealed to.
"Trust us, we knew what we did when we built it." one of the engineers said.
"No, you do NOT!" he said enraged, pointing at the large bipedal machine that was stabilized by a large metal framework. "What you built there should not have existed until 2098. This thing may look like a Mecha but it will never be be able to work. You got NOT the computing systems that would be necessary to control it, you got NOT the right alloys to make it last for a longer time and last you got NOT an energy source that could provide the 10 Megawatt that would be needed to make this thing work. So what did you think when you constructed this thing?"
One of the scientists stepped forward, letting the visitor calm down for a bit before he tried to explain.
"We were aware of all the problems you just told us. But when we found this piece of weaponry in your database you gave us, we thought it would be the ultimate weapon to fight against the Race. Just as our equipment their ground forced consists only of machines that roll on tracks or wheels. A walking tank would send a storm of fear through their entire armed forces even if it is just one machine. Shock and awe, I think you will call that one day, isn't it?"
The scientist looked over at the machine, colored in camouflage green, but at the heart of the torso was a small red hammer and sickle, indicating it is the property of the USSR. It had two small arms with 120 mm guns from the modified versions of the T34s and several large machine canons right at the side of the guns.
The he looked at the visitor again. "We were totally aware that with our current technology we would not be able to replicate a...Mecha like we did with, for example a T-55, or other machines. That is why we asked this 'AI' of the assemblers if he would be able simplify the machine that much that we would be able to build one on our own."
For a few seconds the man from another dimension did say nothing, then he lifted his voice that it could be heard through the entire cavern."
"AI! MOVE YOUR NON-EXISTING ASS RIGHT HERE!"
A small silvery colored sphere floated quickly to the group and in front of the visitor.
"Yes, commander? What are your orders?"
In a very calm and low voice the visitor said: "AI, did you, by chance, gave the people of this timeline the blueprints of technology that is way beyond their understanding, despite my order to not give them any information beyond the date of 1970, and did you also, by chance, reverse-engineer modern machinery for them, like, I don't know, a Mecha from the Kongo campaign from 2099?" He pointed lazily at the Mecha at their side.
"Yes commander I did, and no, you did not gave me the order to not give the locals information beyond that specific date. Your order was about historic information only, not blueprints from any time beyond that date."
The visitor did not say anything, he just tried to comprehend the mistake he had made. He was pretty sure that all major powers had by now downloaded and printed out blueprints of technology they could build after the war has ended to accelerate their own technological progress and there was nothing he could do about that now. He could already see F22s and Eurofighters flying through the air, despite the fact that the calender would show 1960. That these stupid AIs always need so clear orders. Damnit.
He grumbled and mumbled a now more exact order to not give the people of this timeline any kind of information beyond the date of 1965 from now on. The visitor thought that the major nations would not protest since by now they would have surely copied pretty much every major technology from now until somewhere in the 21 century.
Then he walked over to the large machine, examining it first with a few skeptic gazes. The he climbed up the ladder and onto the maintenance platforms and looked into several open hatches. The cockpit was nearly identical to the one of a 'Heimdall' Mecha, if it were not for the mechanical displays. Then he noticed a computer-port that would...fit perfectly together with the one of his arm-mounted device, both for computer-control and energy-transfer. He just couldn't believe it.
After nearly ten minutes of inspecting the Mecha he returned back to the waiting scientists.
"You...you even built the bucket seat for my body proportions? You...did build that from the very start with expecting me to be the pilot of the thing?"
The engineers just nodded.
"How did you know I was a Peacekeeper during the last war in my timeline? No wait...the AI did tell you, did it?" Again just nods.
And how did you expect me to get it to the battlefield? It cannot walk on its own from here to the Ukraine."
"The intelligent machine told us you could use your teleport-device to do it. It may not be able to do it in one go, but with several smaller jumps over two days it said it can be done."
The visitor was now really annoyed by all these things that had been done behind his back. He had expected the locals to try to get more advanced tech, but they wanted him to become a pilot of a Mecha and to fight for them...
The interdimensional visitor gave the assembled group of Soviet engineers and officers a stern look, before he talked to them again.
"Okay, you...guileful guys. I will fight for you...BUT, it will be done my way okay? I alone will fight in the Mecha and fight against the lizards in the Ukraine. No debate."
"Allright comrade. For this fight, the 'Mecha' is yours."
Another stern look and the visitor watched the large, bulky machine for a few more seconds. A minute later he was sitting inside the seat, securing the safety belts, then he removed his arm-mounted-device and put it in the designated port.
After a few seconds the large machine came to life.
Good morning, Dave.
The Soviets watched the machine came to life, lamps lighting up and the machine straightening upwards as if stretching its back.
Then they heard the already known noise that indicated an immediate teleport. A gigantic flash lit up the cavern and the Mecha was gone, only the metal-framework left behind.
Southern France, the plains of Provence-Alpes-C te d Azur, Earth (Tosev 3)
Heinrich Jaeger looked through the periscopes of his Leopard 1 for a look around, then lent back and said to his gunner "Lord, it feels good to have some centimeters of steel and some exploding armor all the way around me again," he said.
His gunner, a veteran sergeant named Klaus Meinecke, grunted at that. "Colonel, you don't seem to have done too bad while you were out on your own, either." He pointed to the Knight's Cross of the Iron Cross that Jaeger wore at his collar.
Jaeger's hand went to the medal. He'd earned it for helping Otto Skorzeny take the town of Split on the Adriatic back from the Lizards. He said, "Sergeant, I was in the infantry during the last war. I thought one round of that had cured me forever. Just goes to show, you may get older, but you don't get smarter."
Meinecke laughed as if he'd told a joke. But Jaeger meant every word of it. Fighting from building to building inside the great stone walls of Diocletian's palace had been every bit as appalling as trench warfare in France a quarter of a century before.
Jaeger looked thorough the periscopes again. "Pretty country," he said.
Klaus Meinecke grunted. "I wouldn't know. All I get to see of it is a gunsight's worth, except when we stop for the night." He smacked his lips. "They make good wine around here, though; I'll give them that much."
"That they do," Jaeger said. "They didn't do badly farther south, either."
He wouldn't let himself venture any more in the way of reproach than that. When he'd left the tank forces in the west to head for Croatia, they'd had the Lizards stopped in their tracks between Besan on and Belfort. Since then, with all their new technology and greater numbers of tanks they got from this extra-dimensional visitor, the combined forced of the Federal Republic of Germany (Jaeger still had a hard time to grasp the fact that the Greater German Reich did not exist anymore now, that the Fuehrer was dead, just as was pretty much anybody of the old leadership, but still...it was still Germany, united and strong and he would fight for it until death) and other nations they had driven back the Lizards to Belgrad and in the West, the forces of Germany and France had been able to push them back far into the south, right where they were now.
"I hope we can push them out of all of Europe now." Meinecke said hopefully.
"Let's hope it keeps up," Jaeger agreed. Rushed into production, the Leopard 1 could be balky. Jaeger was one of the very few officers in the new founded Bundeswehr who actually knew about the secrets of this tank, where it really came from. It may have been built by German hands, but the blueprints were actually coming from the future. Night-vision, a much more efficient engine, a gun so powerful like nothing he has seen before and enough fuel to fill the entire Bodensee... J ger could not think about what would have happened if this visitor would not have shown up.
It was an enormous step forward from all earlier German tanks, boasting a high-velocity 105mm fully stabilized gun and thick, well-sloped armor borrowed in concept from that of the Soviet T-34.
But still...Jaeger knew that if you would not be cautious enough the Lizards would still be able to destroy them. The Leopard 1 was meant to be build in the mid 60s of this century, and the Lizard's military technology was about 1995 standard, according to the visitor. So they were still nor really a match against them
"Wish we had one of those bombs we used to blow the Lizards to hell and gone," Meinecke said. "When do you suppose we'll get one of our own?"
"Damned if I know," Jaeger said. "I wish to God I did."
"If you don't, who does?" the gunner asked.
Now Jaeger just grunted by way of reply. He wasn't supposed to say anything about that to anybody. He'd been part of the band of raiders that had stolen explosive metal from the Lizards in Russia-like Prometheus, stealing fire from the gods, said the part of him that, back before World War I, had planned on becoming a classical archaeologist. He'd taken Germany's share of the material across Poland on horseback, only to have half of it hijacked by Jewish fighters there.
Only luck they didn't kill me and take it all, he thought. In Russia and then in Poland, he'd learned what the Reich had done to the Jews who'd fallen into their hands; it made him sick, so he understood why the Polish Jews had risen in favor of the Lizards and against their German occupants.
Without the help of the visitor they surely would have taken way too long to build up a greater pile of the metals needed to build more nuclear weapons. But now, in the Schwarzwald, in the Ural and in the Hanford Site in Washinton state there were tens of thousands of centrifuges producing high-enriched-uranium to build more bombs, which they would use very, very soon against the Race all at once.
Off to one side of the road, an artillery piece barked, then another and another. "Eighty-eights," Jaeger said, identifying them by the report. "That's good."
Meinecke understood him without any more discussion than that: "So they can fire their salvo and then get the hell out of there, you mean?"
"Right the first time, Sergeant. They're easy to shift to a new firing position-a lot easier than the bigger guns." Jaeger paused meditatively. "And Lizard counterbattery fire is better than anything we ever dreamt of."
"Isn't that the sad and sorry truth, sir?" Meinecke agreed with a mournful sigh. "They can drive nails into your coffin from halfway round the world, seems like sometimes. If there were more of them, and if they had the doctrine to go with all their fancy equipment-"
"-The likes of us would have been dead for quite a while now," Jaeger finished for him. "But that is exactly the point. The 88s cannot hurt them really. But the lizards are still stupid enough to use every guided missile they got to shot down our artillery. You would have thought these little bastards would have learned their lessons by now" Meinecke laughed at that. Down lower in the turret, Wolfgang Eschenbach, the loader, laughed too. He was a big blond farm boy; getting more than half a dozen words out of him in the course of a day was just this side of miraculous.
"I just hope the Lizards use the same kind of flank guards we did when we got stretched thin fighting the Russians."
"How's that, Herr Oberst ?" Meinecke asked. "Me, I was playing games with the Tommies in the desert before they stuck me in the Flying Circus here." When Leopard 1 and Koenigstiger 2 tanks started rolling off the assembly lines, the newly founded Bundeswehr put only the best crewmen into them.
"You, you didn't miss a thing," Jaeger said, mimicking his gunner's diction. "But sometimes we'd have to concentrate our German troops at the Schwerpunkt , the decisive place, and cover our flanks with Romanians or Hungarians or Italians."
"God save us." Wolfgang Eschenbach used up half his daily quota of speech.
"They weren't the worst soldiers I've ever seen," Jaeger said. "They might not have been bad at all if they were decently equipped. But sometimes the Russians managed to hit them instead of us, and it got pretty ugly. I'm hoping the Lizards are concentrating all their best troops up where they're trying to advance. I'd just as soon not have to fight the first team all the time."
"Amen to that," Eschenbach said; Jaeger confidently expected him to fall silent till the morning.
The colonel looked through the periscopes again. In the previous tanks he had to look out of the cupola but that was a good way to get shot, but it was also far and away the best way to see what was going on, and if you didn't know what was going on, you had no business commanding a panzer, let alone a (rather battered) regiment of them. Peering through the periscopes of earlier tanks made you feel safer, but it also made you miss things that were liable to get you killed. Those new periscopes were much more advanced, so there was no need to look out of the cupola.
Northbound shells whistled overhead, undoubtedly the Lizards' response to the Germans' 88s. Jaeger hoped the artillerymen had moved their pieces elsewhere before the shells came down on them.
The countryside began to have the look of a land at war: wrecked and burned farm buildings, smashed trees, bloated dead animals, shell craters pocking fields. Jaeger clucked sadly at the charred wreck of a German half-track. The Leopard 1 rolled past trenches and foxholes that showed the earlier limits of the German push to the south.
Jaeger said, "We're moving forward, anyhow." Against the Lizards, that was no small novelty, and boosted his hopes that they had only second-line troops on their flanks.
Through the rasping roar of the Leopard 1's big MTU Friedrichshafen engine came the rattle of small-arms fire ahead. A couple of German MG-42s were in action, their rapid rate of fire unmistakable-they sounded as if a giant were ripping enormous bolts of thick, tough cloth between his hands. But even without the MG-42s they were no longer so vulnerable than they were before. Now every soldier was equipped with a G3 assault rifle instead of a much less powerful MP40, which the Lizards had experienced pretty fast.
The German tanks deployed for action, moving into their blunt wedge formation: two companies forward, Jaeger's command tank and another company in the middle to support them, and a fourth company in the rear as a reserve. They chewed brown, muddy lines through the green of growing crops.
Without warning, a streak of fire lanced through the air toward a Tiger 1 in one of the lead companies. Koenigstiger tanks had 88mm guns almost as good as the ones Leopard 1's carried, but their armor, though thicker than in the earlier models, wasn't excellent protection even against terrestrial foes, and they have not been able to replace every missing exploding armor plate which worked so effective against Lizard antitank rockets. The K nigstiger brewed up, orange flame billowing and a column of thick black smoke mounting swiftly into the air.
Confused, angry shouts filled the radio. Jaeger grabbed the headset, shoved the earphones into place, and shouted orders into the microphone. The nearest surviving panzer poured machine-gun fire into the thick clump of bushes from which the antitank rocket had come, hoping to flush out or knock down the Lizards who had fired it.
Nothing without armor could have survived that hail of bullets. From more than four hundred meters farther to the rear, J ger watched the bushes writhe under it, as if under torture. But a moment later, another rocket incinerated a German tank.
"They've got one of their troop carriers in there!" Jaeger shouted into the microphone. "Give 'em your main armament." Unlike German half-tracks, the Lizards' armored troop carriers bore light cannon that could chew up any of the older tank models they had here, and carried those rockets on turret rails to either side of the cannon. With them, the troop carriers became deadly dangerous tank killers.
But, while they were formidably armed, they were only lightly armored. They could withstand small-arms fire, but when a tank shell came knocking, they opened up. The German tank slowed down a bit to adjust the canon, even with the stabilized gun it was better to slow down a bit for aiming. Moments later, the bushes went up in flames as part of the troop carrier's funeral pyre.
Jaeger whooped like a Indian. He remembered all too well the bad days of the summer before, when killing any Lizard armored vehicle seemed to require divine intervention. He'd done it himself once, with the 50mm cannon of a Panzer III, but he didn't pretend he'd been anything but lucky.
Yet another rocket streaked out from cover and smote a Panzer IV. The rocket exploded in a ball of flame, but the tank did not brew up. Jaeger whooped again. "The Schuerzen work!" he shouted to the world at large. The hollow-charge warheads of the Lizards' antitank-missiles sent a jet of white-hot flame through armor and into a tank. Some bright engineer had figured out that 5mm plates-"skirts," he called them-welded onto a tank's turret and sides would make the rocket warhead go off prematurely and dissipate that jet. Now J ger saw that the bright idea actually worked in combat.
The advancing German tanks kept on spraying the Lizard infantry positions with machine-gun bullets. Covered by that, German infantrymen ran forward, too. The only opposing fire came from small arms. J ger's hopes rose. If the Lizards didn't have any tanks in this sector, the Bundeswehr really could make some gains.
Then three Lizard helicopters popped up from behind cover, two from out of clearings in the woods and the third from behind a barn. Jaeger's mouth went dry; helicopters were deadlier foes than tanks. They launched two rockets each. One blew a hole in the ground. The other five hit German tanks. Two of the machines survived, but the other three went up in flames. A couple of crewmen managed to bail out of escape hatches; most perished.
Then 30mm rapid-fire antiaircraft guns of a Kugelblitz anti-aircraft-tank started hammering at the helicopters. And it worked. The helicopters sheered away from the antiaircraft guns. Two of them were trailing smoke, though they kept flying. Jaeger prayed for them to fall from the sky, but they refused.
The two lead tank companies were already through what had been the Lizards' front line. They hadn't cleared up all the holdouts; a bullet cracked past J ger's tank and several more ricocheted off the Leopard 1. Like any sensible soldiers, the Lizards were trying to pick off the panzer commanders.
"We're driving them," he said, fixing his eyes to the periscopes . "With luck, maybe we can push far enough to get in among their artillery and do them some real harm."
Just then a Lizard troop carrier that had lain low opened up with a rocket and took out a tank less than a hundred meters from Jaeger's. By luck, he was looking through the periscope that showed where the rocket had come from. "Panzer halt!" he shouted, and then, "Armor-piercing!"
"Armor-piercing." Wolfgang Eschenbach had a dispensation to exceed his daily word quota if in the line of duty. Grunting a little, he lifted a black-tipped shell and set it in the breech of the Panther's cannon.
"Bearing 300 degrees, range 700 meters, maybe a little less," Jaeger said.
The turret slewed anticlockwise. "I see him, sir," Klaus Meinecke said. "Behind those bushes, ja ?"
"That's the one," Jaeger said. "Fire at-"
Before he could say "will," Meinecke fired. With the turret closed, the noise was bearable, but recoil rocked the Leopard 1. The shell casing leaped out of the breech; Eschenbach had to move smartly to keep it from mashing his toes. The acrid reek of burnt cordite filled the air.
"Hit!" Jaeger yelled. "Hit! Got him in one, Klaus. Forward!" That to the driver; stopped, the Leopard 1 was hideously vulnerable to enemy fire. The MTU Friedrichshafen bellowed. The Leopard leaped ahead. The advance went on.
Suddenly Jaeger heard screams through the radio.
"Herr Oberst, I can see about forty Lizards tank from my position heading at your position. I repeat, more tha..." Then suddenly the radio went silent, only static noises were audible.
"Scheisse!" Jaeger yelled out. 40 Lizard tanks...that way way too much. He would need to call for support, aerial support would be the only thing that could save them now. He tried to make contact with one of their small forward bases where they have stationed some Flettner Fl 282 helicopters.
Originally they were only meant for reconnaissance duties, but with the new technology from the future they were now much more powerful. A small plexiglass cover for the pilot, a stronger engine, one MG-42 under the chin and two small wings to fit 8 Panzerblitz III rockets under each wing to fight against tanks. They have been quite effective and the Lizards have been so perplexed by the small helicopters that at the beginning of an attack they would just stare at the little thing and not shoot at it. J ger hoped he could reach them.
But all he got in over the radio was one of several French aircrafts that were flying above them. He wondered what they were up to when he suddenly heard a voice with a heavy German accent.
"Oberst Jaeger, stay where you are. We have seen that you are in trouble and here to help you. Our heavy infantry will take care of these green little bastards."
Infantry? Does he want to drop paratroopers behind the enemy lines to attack them there? He looked through the periscopes to see the small jet-powered aircrafts flying fast over the enemy lines, when suddenly several people jumped out of the vehicle. But instead of parachutes opening...he saw trails of white smoke erupting under them, slowing them down, until they were hovering for a second before flying off at the speed of a fast tank in the direction of the Lizard tanks.
"What in the name of...?"
Above the Lizard lines
Jacques pushed the acceleration button and sighed in relief when the turbine of his jetpack roared and two streams of white smoke erupted from the two nozzles at his side, keeping him in the air.
Well, mes amis, we only got 10 minutes before we will run out of fuel so do your best. Vive la France." And with these world all the 30 flying infantrymen flew over to the Lizard tanks.
Jacques could see through the tanks, several lizards looking out of their cupolas and when they spotted them, they were pointing at them wildly but not shooting, they were way too surprised to start shooting, just as the French military has anticipated.
The young Frenchman choose one tank and flew over it, stopped for second and pushed a little button on the control lever. A barely audible noise could be heard from the underside of the fuel-tank as a magnetic mine was released. As it fell on the tank below it, it attached itself on the plating and got activated and just two seconds later the explosive detonated, sending a stream of ultra-hot metal through the plating and destroying the engine of the tank, while Jacques was already on his way to the next tank.
Jacques bent his legs to one side to steer himself into the direction of the next tank, dropping another mine. This time the mine fell directly into the open cupola, the Lizard who was standing inside it, barely managed to get out before the tank exploded sending wrecked metal all around, burning his tail-thump.
The confused Lizard-soldier winced in pain as he rolled around in the dirt. The flying Tosevites were circling around them like a swarm of insects for a few more minutes, destroying several more landcruisers before they all flew off.
For a few more minutes the soldier just sat there, looking around in shock. Burning landcruisers were all around him, and those that were not destroyed were badly damaged.
"By the Emperor, how...can these Tosevites fly...how can..." the thoughts of the soldier were in ruins from the sudden and heavy attack on their group, as he dragged himself away from the battle-scene.
Suddenly he heard and also felt the vibrations of a landcruiser and he sped up to get closer to it, hoping for help. But all his hope was shattered when suddenly a Tosevite tank drove through some bushes.
The Lizard-soldier did stare at the machine for several more seconds, then the landcruiser rotated the turret directly at him. He did not knew how civilized this group of Tosevites were but the only thing he could do now was to surrender to them and hope they would accept his act of submission.
He lifted both his hands above his head and said weakly in the local Tosevite language "Surrender, surrender."
Some more seconds passed by before several German soldiers appeared at the side of the tank. They said nothing, but simply walked over to the lizard, cuffed him and indicated him with a point of their thumbs to follow them. For this member of the Race, the war was over.
Two days later Pripyat marshes, northern Ukraine, Tosev 3, (Earth), Phase one of Operation Armageddon
Several lizard tanks were rolling through over the frozen mud. Many of them have already been in several fights with Soviet and German landcruisers and have been called back to regroup deep behind enemy lines, hoping that they will be able to fight back against the Toservites.
One of the landcruiser commanders was standing in the cupola of his vehicle, looking for possible threats. He had already experienced several fights with the Tosevites and he hoped that with the now regrouped battle-groups they would be able to fight the Tosevites more effectively. Back at the start of the invasion they were stretched out way to far to defeat them. But now he hoped they could do it.
He looked through his binoculars looking for possible Tosevite spies.
Suddenly he felt something weird, as if something large had fallen down, sending shockwaves through the ground. The again...and again...and again. It felt like someone extremely large and heavy was walking through the marshes.
He could see several trees shaking about just 100 meters away from him and just a few seconds later...all hell broke loose.
He could hear two landcruiser guns firing and two troop-carriers were flipped over, as the rounds hit their tracks.
The commander was shocked but when suddenly a gigantic machine came WALKING out of the woods, firing with machine canons and guns at them. He could not believe what he saw.
The machine did not walk fast, every landcruiser could have gone faster. But it appeared and attacked so sudden that it had eliminated 6 tanks before anyone could even react.
Several landcruisers started firing at the large thing, but many rounds missed and some even...detonated before they even reached the large thing.
Several minutes later it was over. All tanks of the group had been eliminated, but to the surprise of the tank-commander barely anyone was killed. Most troop-carriers were just flipped over or lying on their side and the landcruisers were 'just' disabled, tracks and guns destroyed. Only the commanding landcruiser was spared.
"YOU! MEMBERS OF THE RACE! SURRENDER NOW AND YOUR LIFES WILL BE SPARED!" a loud voice bellowed out of a loudspeaker from this enormous machine, two spotlights pointed at the leading tank.
The crew of the commanding tank shivered in fear, the commander gulping heavily as the gigantic machine was standing in front of them, both guns pointed at them.
In orbit around Tosev 3 (Earth) onboard the bannership 127th Emperor Hetto
The command center of the bannership was in totall chaos. Members of the Race were trying to coordinate a counterattack against the Tosevites who not even one hour ago had started a worldwide attack against their lines.
Nearly two-thousand killercrafts of the Tosevites were in the air above North America, Europe, as well as central and eastern Asia. At the same time thousands of landcruisers appeared suddenly all over their front-lines like demons and atacking them without mercy.
Fleetlord Atvar was already at the brink of mental collapse, first because of the fact that the Tosevites had truly been able to construct machines that did give them the ability to let infrantry fly. But what has nearly caused an heart-attack to the Fleetlord was the fact that they had a war-machine that WALKED on two legs. When the first pictures of this thing appeared on their screens, Atvar was absolutely sure that he has lost his mind. Several members of the crew of the command centers truly lost their minds when they saw it and had to be removed from office and brought to sickbay, some even by force.
Fleetlord Atvar knew that if he would loose his mind too, the entire command-structure would collapse and the Tosevites could overrun them without much of a fight. He had to stay strong for this men and for the Race.
"My Fleetlord, this is flight-leader Dreek" Atvar immediately looked at the source of the one who has called his name. It was the pic on a screen showing him one of the brace pilots that were out there fighting against the Tosevite killercrafts.
"Report to me. Have you been able to destroy the groups of Tosevite killercrafts?"
"Yes, my Fleetlord, but...I don't understand this. They did not resist at all. Only the very first did, but the next waves...just flew by and were shot down by us with ease. I think...they were unmanned, my Fleetlord."
"Unmanned you say?" The lizard looked at the large holographic display. He had ordered more than three quarts of all their killercrafts to join this fight, also several from areas which were totally under their controll. Atvar hopped that if they could stand against this attack, the Tosevites would have used all they have got and the Race could finally conquer the entire planet. But why would they send out unmanned killercrafts? Would he ever understand those creatures?
Mid-Atlantic, about 30 feet under the ocean surface, nuclear powered submarine USS Nautilus
"All hands on deck, commencing phase two of Operation Armageddon. One minute left." the captain shouted through the microphone. One minute until four nuclear missiles would be launched from this submarine. But not only from his sub, from hidden places all over the world nuclear missiles would fly into the sky and destroy much of the Lizards equipment in a single blow. All over the Americas, Europe, Africa, Asia and Australia simple V2 rockets with nuclear warheads in their tips were pointing into the sky, like gigantic fingers which would show the lizards that they are not the masters of the universe, all waiting for the final seconds.
The captain of the sub silently counted down, his eyes fixed on the watch in his hand.
When he reached zero, he pressed the large red button in front of him hard and deep. A single second later, hot vapor sent the first missile on its way, ejecting it out of the sub and to the surface, fractions of a second later the rocket engine ignited and sent the missile on its way. It would draw a simply parabolic course and at its maximum height the nuke would detonate, sending a shockwave of high-velocity-electrons through the atmosphere and destroying all advanced, not shielded electronics, which in this case only the Race possessed.
"God bless the United Stated of America." the captain mumbled after all rockets where on their way.
In orbit around Tosev 3 (Earth) onboard the bannership 127th Emperor Hetto
"MY FLEETLORD. WORLDWIDE MISSILE LAUNCHES! 22 MISSILES ON THEIR WAY!"
Atvar could nothing do but gasp as he saw the animation of the missiles on the hologram. There were lines showing their possible trajectory and non of them were heading for them, in fact most of them would simply fall into the sea when they would have reached their maximum height.
While Atvar was still pondering about those weird thinking creatures, the missiles had reached their targets, a height between ninety and one hundred kilometers and one after the other, their nuclear warheads detonated. The strong gamma-radiation hit the upper atmosphere and created high-velocity-electrons which followed the magnetic field of the planet until they hit something they could be conducted into.
Despite the fact that the Killerkrafts of the Race were shielded against EMP, there were always holes for the electrons. Every killercraft lost its communication immediately when the electrons reacted with the antennas of the jets, destroying them totally. The ones that were near enough were so badly damaged that the EMP that destroyed their radios jumped over to neighboring systems and destroyed them too. Many others of the killercrafts had been repaired again and again and therefore there were holes in their hull big enough for the electrons to get into it.
Only about fifteen percent of all fighting killercrafts remained intact, except for their fifty percent just dropped out of the sky and the rest was severely damaged. Similar scenes were seen all over the battlefields of the planet as troop-carriers and landcruisers just stopped driving, halting in their tracks.
Flight-leader Dreek experienced it first hand, when suddenly above him a gigantic flash appeared and mere seconds later all controls of his machine ceased to work. He was lucky that his ejection seat was working mechanically otherwise he would not have been able to get out. While he was hanging there on his parachute he watched the air filled now with more Tosevite killercrafts then Race ones.
About 10 after the nukes detonated hidden underground hangars opened all over the world, in the Alps, the rocky mountains, the Appalachians, the Ural, the Caucasus and many more places, releasing the most modern aircrafts humans had. Northrop F-5s, McDonnell F-4s, MiG-21s, Suchoi Su-15s and many more types, rolling out and getting into the air, whipping the air clean of alien resistance.
Even on board the starships the EMP had its effect, as suddenly maneuver thrusters fired without warning, members of the Race were sent flying through their ships as the starships made sudden movements, injuring many when suddenly metal walls came into their direction, and also destroyed many more important parts.
It took many more valuable minutes before emergency systems took over and their ships were stabilized.
When the situation before the EMP would have been described as chaotic, so it was now a total mess, Their communication was disrupted by the artificial radiation belt created by the nukes, many bases did not even respond at all.
The last thing Atvar heard from the bases in North America and Spain were: "WE HAVE BEEN BOARDED!"
