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The staff sergeant shook his head, and then said something into his intercom. After a pause, he put his head next to Shirazi’s ear and yelled, “Someone just reported they are at the port, so we are going there.”

  Shirazi nodded, and the staff sergeant went back to concentrating on the mission.

  They went around the corner at the next crossroad, and ran straight into a MinSha patrol. The tank commander immediately dropped down into the turret and slammed the hatch shut, which Shirazi took to be his cue to get the hell off the tank. He walked to the back edge of the deck and looked down—it was a four or five foot drop onto the asphalt, and the tank was still going 20 miles an hour. He dropped to the deck, hoping to slide off, but the tank stopped suddenly, then jerked forward, and the whiplash threw him off. He hit on his left ankle, and blinding white lances of pain shot through his leg as he collapsed to the pavement and rolled.

  With a monstrous detonation, one of the tanks behind him blew up, and a wave of heat passed over him as shrapnel pinged off the storefront closest to him.

  He came to a stop as two of the tanks fired their 125 mm main guns, and at least one of the tanks began firing its 7.62 mm coaxial machine gun. Another detonation indicated the loss of a second tank.

  Something hit his hand, and he wrenched it back from the heat—it was a six-inch piece of metal from the tank that had fallen, spent, onto him. The shockwave from a third explosion rolled over him, and he realized he needed to get out of the street. Pulling himself to his hands and knees, he tried to stand up, but found his left ankle wasn’t working right, and pain like a thousand knives ran through his leg when he tried to use it.

  Biting the inside of his cheek, he forced himself to run to the closest store and around the corner. The glass across the entire storefront had blown in, as it had throughout most of the buildings on the block. He made it to the corner and looked back to the scene of the battle. It wasn’t much of a battle—three of the four tanks were on fire, and several of the MinSha were on top of the tank he’d been riding on. One of the ones on the deck of the tank had somehow opened the hatch, and it reached in and pulled out the staff sergeant, just as easily as he could pull the meat out of a crab leg.

  The staff sergeant screamed, and Shirazi could see a dark stain on the tanker’s shoulder—the alien had grabbed hold of him by shoving its claw through his shoulder to get a better grip on him. The man’s screams were piteous, and Shirazi drew his pistol and fired. The 9mm bullet hit the leg armor of the MinSha and ricocheted down the street. If the MinSha felt it, it didn’t give any indication. Shirazi fired two more times, and both bullets ricocheted off the alien.

  The MinSha started ripping off the staff sergeant’s clothes, leaving bloody creases where its claws scraped down the tanker’s body. He screamed again and Shirazi couldn’t take it any longer—he put the next round through the tank driver’s head.

  This finally got the MinSha’s attention. It threw the body of the staff sergeant over the side of the tank and turned to look at Shirazi. Seeing him at the corner, it pulled a large rifle from off its back and aimed at him.

  Shirazi dove back around the corner, and was once again almost blinded by the pain in his ankle. He looked up to see it had started snowing. No, it wasn’t snow—whatever the alien had fired at him had pulverized a portion of the shop he was taking cover behind, and the plaster was raining down on him. A second hole appeared, lower, and the snowstorm of plaster became thicker. As a third hole appeared, he crab-walked backward before the alien fired any lower and hit him.

  After backing 10 feet away from the corner, he waited, but no more shots came his way. He had to know what saw going on, so he pulled himself up and slid his way back to the corner, using the side of the wall to hold himself up.

  He leaned slowly around the corner, and his eyes widened—it looked like the MinSha were stripping the tank for parts. They had reached into the tank as far as they could and had pulled out everything they could grab. Some things they’d look at before discarding, but others they just threw overboard as soon as they pulled them out. He could see all three bodies of the tank’s crew; they had probably been the first things removed.

  He counted at least four aliens near the tanks and a couple more over by the shops on the far side of the street, which appeared to be looting the stores there. Really? These aliens had flown across the galaxy to loot the shops of Chabahar? Surely they had better things back home—why were they doing this?

  He saw movement behind the aliens as they dropped off the tank and started heading in his direction. An RPG gunner came around the corner at the end of the next block, turned toward the MinSha, and fired. Shirazi, an infantryman when he was younger, had a split second to recognize the unconventional shape of the rocket before the gunner fired it toward him.

  “Shit!” he yelled as the bottle-shaped thermobaric round streaked in his direction. A fuel-air explosive device, its warhead had a 33-foot lethal radius and produced the same effect as about 13 pounds of TNT.

  He dove back around the corner again. Even outside the lethal radius, it still tried to suck the air out of him as it detonated, and then he felt the heat of the blast. As quickly as he could, he stood back up and looked. The rocket had worked—at least two of the aliens were down and not moving. At least he thought it was two, one had been in the center of the blast and had been torn to shreds. It looked like there were only enough pieces to make a second body, but some of it might have been vaporized in the blast.

  The RPG gunner popped back out from around the corner with another thermobaric round attached to the launcher, just as one of the MinSha landed next to him. The alien struck out with its front limbs almost faster than Shirazi could see, and the man fell backward, blood flowing from several wounds to his chest and stomach.

  Losing two of their comrades had appeared to make an impact on the others, though, as several of them came and picked up the body and the pieces of the dead MinSha, and they retreated back down the street.

  The aliens passed the tanks and came to a body lying face-down in the middle of the road. Shirazi didn’t remember the body being there when he had arrived with the tanks, but figured it must have been someone from one of the tank crews or a victim of the MinSha predation prior to his arrival.

  The body must have looked strange to the MinSha, too, because one of them deviated from its path to skitter over to it. It paused to look at the body, possibly trying to figure out where it had come from, and then it reached forward with a claw to flip it over.

  As it did, the body moved—the man wasn’t dead! The MinSha jumped back and raised its rifle as the figure held up a handful of tiny pieces of metal and began laughing. The alien had time to shoot the man once before the grenades—at least four of them—detonated in a nearly-simultaneous explosion. The alien stepped back, unsteady on its feet, before collapsing to its knees. A number of streams of darker blue began to course down the alien’s body to drip to the ground. It was injured! The MinSha shuddered once and then fell over. It twitched twice and went still.

  The rest of the MinSha retreated faster. Where before they had been looking into the shops as they passed for things to loot as they walked back toward their ship, now they began moving with a purpose, and their sole focus was on looking for what might harm them, not what they could steal.

  One of the benefits of six legs was they had four legs they could walk on while still covering the road with their rifles. Shirazi tried to follow them, but he was quickly left behind as they put on a burst of speed his injured ankle couldn’t match.

  They were almost a block and a half ahead of him when he heard someone yell, “Allahu akbar!” He looked down the street and saw someone jump off a second story roof to land on top of one of the MinSha. Mounting it like a bareback horse rider, the man—a Qud commando, based on his uniform—held onto it with his boots while his hand went to his chest. He leaned forward as he pulled out and away from his body, activating the charge on the explosive vest he wore. The C4 explo
ded in a massive detonation, and the MinSha dropped to the pavement like a marionette with its strings cut.

  The remaining MinSha began to search the rooftops, aiming their rifles up to kill any further jumpers. Looking up to search the roofs, they didn’t see the second Qud commando run out from a fabric store until it was too late. One of the aliens swung its rifle at him, and might have stopped him, but the commando was a split-second faster, pulling the cord on his suicide vest. The MinSha was blown backward into a parked car and slumped to the ground, unmoving, a blue puddle forming around it. The rest of the MinSha took flight, quickly vanishing around a corner.

  * * * * *

  Asbaran Solutions - 4

  “Colonel Shirazi, you have a phone call from the airfield.”

  Praise the Truth! Shirazi thought, looking up from his computer. It had been a week since the attack by the MinSha—seven days filled with recriminations for why they hadn’t been able to defend their country against the aliens more successfully, and nonstop planning on how to fight them more effectively the next time. Four hundred regular army personnel had attacked, resulting in 293 killed in action and 52 wounded. 217 of the paramilitary Basij had attacked—188 KIA, 29 wounded. There were also 185 civilian deaths and 326 wounded. The figures on damage to personal property from combat and looting were still coming in; they were staggering. Anything that would give him a break from the MinSha nightmare was exceedingly welcome.

  “Colonel Shirazi,” he said, picking up the receiver.

  “Hi sir, this is Sergeant First Class Kazem at the airfield, sir. We have an issue—there is an American aircraft requesting clearance to land. It says it’s an aid plane and is full of humanitarian aid supplies. Apparently, our embassy gave them clearance to approach, sir, although I don’t know why—the aircraft is registered to a company in America. What do you want me to do?”

  “There must be a reason the embassy approved their flight. Intercept them and have them followed to the field. If they don’t land on their first pass, shoot them down. If they deviate from their flight path in any way, shoot them down. Do I make myself clear?”

  “Yes, Colonel, very clear. If they do anything out of the ordinary, we are to shoot them down. We are launching the alert fighter right now to intercept them.”

  “Very well. I will be right there. We will get to the bottom of this mystery and find out how they got approval to land here.”

  * * *

  Colonel Shirazi showed the ramp guards his identification and drove onto the airfield, stopping alongside the temporary tower facility that had been set up after the MinSha’s last visit to his country.

  “The Americans are inbound now, Colonel,” an airman said, running up from the building.

  Colonel Shirazi looked down the runway and picked up the approaching cargo plane as it neared touchdown. The large Ilyushin-76 aircraft landed on the field, like many Russian planes had in years past, bringing high-ranking Soviet and then Russian officers down to enjoy Chabahar’s beaches while nominally attending a ‘conference.’ The only conferences he had ever seen as a junior liaison officer were when four or five generals and their female ‘escorts’ all swam up to the pool bar simultaneously.

  A pair of trucks with mounted machine guns met it at the end of the runway, with a third falling in behind the aircraft. The trucks escorted the aircraft to the tower, and the men in back kept their large machineguns trained on it at all times. The men in the trucks dismounted and circled the plane, rifles at the ready.

  Colonel Shirazi turned to his subordinates. “Shall we?” He then proceeded onto the ramp and strode over to the aircraft as the loading ramp came down in the back.

  Two men walked down the ramp. The leader was a tall man, who looked like the typical American cowboy. Shirazi pegged the second man as probably a senior enlisted trooper; he had the look of someone who was used to killing and would be a serious adversary. He would bear watching. Seeing Shirazi, the two men turned and walked toward him. As they approached, Shirazi realized how tall the American was—over six feet tall and almost a foot taller than he was. But the man was still an American, and not worthy of his respect. The two men stopped several paces away.

  Still, he was the host, and certain rites had to be observed.

  “Colonel Kuru Shirazi,” he said, saluting.

  “Colonel,” the tall man said, returning the salute. “Captain Jim Cartwright, U.S. Army, retired, now commander of Cartwright’s International.”

  “Welcome to the Islamic Republic of Iran, Captain,” Shirazi replied, dropping the salute. He looked pointedly at the killer behind Cartwright.

  “This is Gunnery Sergeant Theodore Oxnard, U.S. Marine Corps, retired, my XO.”

  Shirazi nodded to the Marine, giving him another appraising look, and he nodded back.

  “This is Second Colonel Farrokh Jahandar, my XO,” Shirazi said, “and Captain Samir Rajavi.”

  Both men saluted, although Shirazi could see the contempt they had for the Americans in their eyes.

  Cartwright returned their salutes. “Pleasure.” It almost sounded like he meant it.

  The proper forms having been followed, Shirazi got down to business. “Now, Captain Cartwright, perhaps you can tell me what you are doing in Iran.”

  “We’re bringing aid,” the American said, gesturing to the plane.

  “Were that so, Captain, you could simply have left it at the international aid staging center area in Muscat. Surely you noticed Oman as you flew over.”

  The man paused, considering. Shirazi stifled a smile before it escaped onto his face. The American hadn’t flown halfway around the globe without thinking about what he intended to say once he got here, had he? Typical American, living only for the moment.

  “We came to find out how you killed the MinSha soldiers,” the American finally said.

  Colonel Shirazi’s eyebrows rose. The answer appeared honest and direct. How un-American. “Indeed?” he asked after looking into the American’s eyes to confirm his sincerity.

  “Yes. All anyone seems to have seen is the aliens kicking your asses all over the peninsula.” Shirazi stiffened at the implied affront, even though he tried not to. “I’ve spent the last week watching every single minute of video I could find on the ground fighting. Forget the air battle or armor; they walked over those with lightning speed.”

  “Indeed,” Shirazi repeated. All one had to do was look around the airfield; it was still easy to see.

  “I mean the small unit action,” Cartwright continued. “From what I saw, you did everything you could with what you had; mostly out-of-date U.S. hardware dating back from before the revolution and antiquated Soviet shit. Every single video shows you out-matched and swept aside.” Shirazi’s eyes narrowed. Perhaps the American was just like all the other Americans and allowing him to land had been a mistake. “And still,” Cartwright continued, “you held this airbase, and you inflicted casualties.”

  “And why are you looking for this information?” the colonel asked, not seeing where this was going. He was also conscious of the time he was wasting with the foreigners.

  “Because we’re considering taking one of the mercenary contracts, and unlike the other American outfits, we don’t think the aliens will be a walkover just because they aren’t a regular military unit.”

  “That is very intelligent of you,” Shirazi said, nodding. He considered what the American had said. He had heard about the contracts that were being offered by the aliens, but had thought they were looking for major army units, and he didn’t have the forces to spare. But if the American could put one together on his own, then maybe, just maybe, there would be something his forces could do, as well. Interesting. Anything that killed the aliens was worth considering. Still, he refused to give in without getting something back in return. “While this plan is admirable, I fail to see what it does for me.”

  “Don’t you want to see us Humans get a little payback?”

  “I care not who else might hurt t
he aliens,” Shirazi said with a small snort. The rest of the world might have forgotten whose honor the aliens had tarnished, but he hadn’t. “I want to be the one to hurt them, and I want to hurt them badly.”

  The American smiled. “I’ll tell you what, Colonel Shirazi. Give me and my men access to your people who fought, show us any recordings you have, and we’ll share our conclusions with you.”

  “And the supplies,” Shirazi said, with a nod toward the loaded plane. “Since you brought them this far, it would be a shame to have to carry them all the way back home again.”

  “Of course,” the American said, bowing his head.

  Shirazi smiled for the first time. The American wasn’t much of a bargainer, but perhaps he could help the Iranians get some revenge on the aliens. Or at least show them how to smuggle a nuclear bomb up to the aliens’ ship. Both were worth discussing. “Come out of the heat, my new American friend, and let’s have some tea while we discuss this further.”

  * * * * *

  Asbaran Solutions - 5

  A trooper led the group into the one undamaged room in the building—a conference room with a large table. The Americans sat on one side while the Iranians sat on the other.

  “So,” Shirazi said, “why don’t you tell me again what your intentions were in coming here.”

  “As I said, we’re interested in taking one of the off-world mercenary contracts,” the American said. “However, unlike most of my comrades, I don’t think the alien mercs are going to be pushovers, just because they’re mercenaries and not full-time national militaries. The galaxy doesn’t have full-time militaries, so I’m guessing the mercenaries have grown to fill this role, and will be very proficient in their duties.”

  “That is a wise way to look at it,” Shirazi said. “It is easy to see if you use the Earth analogues.”

  “I don’t understand what you’re saying.”