The Invaders Must Die

Chapter 9

      Will, Faraday, and Guoh arrived at the landing pad. Exiting the Humvee they were greeted by Fleet Admiral Harem, who was standing on the ramp of a Pelican.

Harem nodded to them and motioned for them to get in. They did so and Harem nodded to the pilots, who closed the ramp and lifted the Pelican off the ground. Within a few moments, they felt the acceleration as the dropship zoomed upwards towards an orbiting battleship.

After a couple of minutes, the Pelican landed in the hangar bay of a Tornado Class Battleship. It was the USS Tornado to be exact.

The group exited the Pelican and followed Harem as he led them out of the hangar and to a door that had about ten heavily armed Marines outside of it. One of them was even manning an M-2.

The Marine that was directly in front of the door asked for everyone's identification. When he got them, he nodded and opened the door to the room.

Inside of the room were about 20 or so more Marines along with 10 Secret Service people as well. They were all protecting one man, who sat at a desk in the center of the room.

When Harem led Will, Guoh, and Faraday in he looked up.

"President Freeman." Harem said. "You wished to speak with us?"

Freeman nodded "Yes, please take a seat." He said, gesturing to several chairs that were in front of his desk. "Now Will, if I may call you that?" he asked.

Will nodded so Freeman continued, "I am aware that you and your squad were the first to defect from the ESN." He said.

"That would be correct." Will replied.

Freeman nodded "And I also understand that you used to be the Deputy of the ESN as well correct?" He asked.

Will nodded.

"Good." Freeman said. "Who are the ESN's commanders?" he asked him.

"It's Commander Xphol Largni. Cold-hearted and stubborn, the only way to stop her is to kill her." Will said. "The new deputy was one of my very good friends, Ylant Vitini. He is not nearly as bad as Xphol and I probably could have convinced him to defect with me if I had seen him when I recruited Sorcha and Neila." He told Freeman.

Freeman nodded slowly "So the best approach to defeating the ESN is to assassinate Xphol." He said.

Will nodded "That's what I would suggest." He said.

"Alright then, I'll get a SEAL team organized for this." Freeman said, making a note of it on a sheet of paper.

"Now, Sergeant Faraday, your CO put in a recommendation for your promotion and if you would stand I would be honored to do that." Freeman said.

Faraday stood and Freeman walked over to him. "Sergeant Rick Faraday, I now declare you a Gunnery Sergeant of the United States Marine Corps." He said, handing him the new rank patches. They shook hands.

"Thank you, Mr. President." Faraday said, and then sat back down.

Freeman went back to his desk, but right before he sat down the Tornado shook violently, causing the President to stumble, a few of the Secret Service members to fall over, and Will, Guoh, and the newly promoted Faraday to leap to their feet.

"What the hell was that?" Freeman yelled.

One of the Marines from outside stuck his head in the door as the ship rocked a second time. "We've got two ESN cruisers on our tail. We need to get you out of here." The Marine shouted over the wail of klaxon alarms.

"We'll get him out of here on our pelican." Faraday said.

The Marine nodded "Alright, we'll cover it." He said.

Faraday motioned for Freeman, who had produced a Magnum .357, to follow him, Will, and Guoh.

They ran down the hallway, the seventy or so Marines and Secret Service following behind.

As they neared the end of the hallway, five aliens came around the corner and opened up on them.

Faraday snapped his M16 up and drilled two of them in the head with two three round bursts.

Will took another one down with his revolver and Guoh got the fourth with his Needler.

Freeman killed the fifth alien with two clean shots from his Magnum.

"Nice shooting Mr. President." One of the Marines behind him said.

The group kept moving towards the hangar, taking out all the aliens they encountered along the way, which was quite a lot of them.

"Something's not right about this." Faraday muttered as the Tornado shuddered as it fired its MAC. "There's too many aliens confronting us. They had to have known who was here, but how?" he wondered as they rounded the corner into the hangar.

In the hangar, the eight pilots were pinned behind a barrier by about twenty aliens.

The Marines that were behind Freeman quickly took care of them as Faraday, Will, Guoh, Freeman, and the Marine that had been guarding the door earlier, whose name was Vic, ran for a Pelican.

As they neared it an alien stepped out in front of them from behind it, his weapon aimed at Freeman.

Faraday reacted quickly, tackling the President to the floor as the alien fired.

The alien only got off one three shots before it was killed by Will with a point blank revolver round to the face.

Despite this, Faraday was hit by all three of the shots in his right hip. He yelled in pain as he rolled off of the President, grabbing his hip to put pressure on it.

Will helped Freeman up and pulled him into the Pelican. He and Guoh got in after him.

Vic pulled Faraday into the seat right next to the door, and he manned the M-2 that was mounted in the back of the Pelican. He clipped the safety cable onto his belt and shouted back to the pilot that they were ready.

The four Pelicans lifted out of the hangar, the other three having the rest of the Marines in them.

As they descended, they were intercepted by several Vampire Interceptors.

"We've got company!" Vic shouted as he opened up with the machine gun. The 70mm gatling gun on the front of the Pelican started up too, sending a couple of the Interceptors down.

The Pelican to their right suddenly burst into flames and went spinning down and out of sight.

"Shit." Vic muttered and kept firing, the heavy .50 caliber rounds slamming repeatedly into one of the Interceptors, causing its shields to fail and explode soon after.

After about five minutes of intense fighting, the last of the Interceptors were destroyed and the Pelicans continued without incident.

As they continued their descent, Guoh began tending to Faraday, wrapping up his wounds. The good news was that none of the shots had hit anything vital so his injuries were not too serious.

Once Guoh was done, Faraday stood and walked back to where Freeman was, ignoring the pain.

He sat down next to the President. "Mr. President, I have a feeling that there is a traitor in our midst. He then went on to explain how it seemed that the aliens knew exactly where Freeman was and where he would be taken to and such.

Freeman was silent for a moment after Faraday finished. He leaned back. "I think your right, and until we find out who it is none of our plans are safe."

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Sorry about the long wait, but I can't promise a shorter one for Chapter 10 with Marching Band kicking into full gear next week.

Who do you think the traitor is? *Hint: it's someone in this chapter XD* Vote, comment, and tell me what you think!