TLIAFD: Peashooters against a Dreadnought

[James G]

I am writing a TimeLine In A Few Days (TLIAFD). It will be short but not very sweet.
The story concerns Britain under attack in 1996 by the alien race using the inspiration of the 1996 film Independence Day.
I am not going to use any of the fan created or movie studio canon for this story.

[James G]

Peashooters against a Dreadnought


Introduction

In July 1996, Britain was attacked by the Alien race which struck elsewhere in the world too. The country came under assault with a massive loss of life suffered during the engagements with those who came from the unknown beyond the stars. Despite the final human victory during the short global conflict, for the UK to consider itself to rank among the victorious is in many ways regarded as a sick joke due to the utter destruction to the nation and the death toll incurred.

The fighting undertaken by the British Armed Forces as part of the war effort was in many ways almost the case of the use of a peashooters against a dreadnought.

[James G]

The Dreadnought makes its opening move

City Destroyer #7, what became known in Britain as ‘the Dreadnought’, arrived over London in the afternoon of July 2nd. The immense space craft had the form of a gargantuan flying saucer so beloved of science fiction tales. It was real though and above the nation’s capital. Disruption came at once to civilian air travel with airports suspending flight operations due to the rather severe hazard to navigation which the Dreadnought posed. These difficulties were nothing in comparison to the panic among ordinary Britons. Seen by those that Tuesday when it arrived at a quarter to three and then with images broadcast across the nation on the news, there was chaos everywhere… even far away from London. Nationwide, there was fright and terror which gripped the country at the thought that this was the beginning of an attack. An appearance on the news by the Prime Minister, John Major, that evening did nothing to calm these worries. People began to flee from London en masse. In addition, within the city over which the Dreadnought loomed large, and also elsewhere in the UK, that night saw outbreaks of civil disorder. There was looting and general criminality which occurred. Major had told the country that there was nothing to worry about and everything was under control but this wasn’t believed.

The Dreadnought stayed where it was that night. Efforts were undertaken to ascertain what was going on with it using both civilian and military means. Britain tried to work with allies across the Atlantic and on the Continent in sharing information on the vessels above their capitals & major cities as well as trying to understand intent. Communications efforts were made to see if there was anyway of contacting whomever might have directed the Dreadnought to park itself above London. As to that vessel, the very centre of the Dreadnought – looking upwards at it – was positioned right above Nelson’s Column in Trafalgar Square. Some distance up it was yet it was large enough to form its own micro-climate underneath affecting London. Before sunset on the 2nd, daylight had been blocked out and throughout the night the wind and temperature over the city was in flux. Military helicopters flown by the British Army and the Royal Air Force had a devil of time making observation flights and making shuffle runs for VIP lifts within the London area with such an obstruction in the sky. An air ambulance, a civilian helicopter transporting a road casualty incident towards St. Thomas’ Hospital, crashed during a flight made underneath the Dreadnought. Five deaths were incurred in this unfortunate incident. They were far from the only ones which were seen. People fleeing London where accidents occurred and the lawlessness in many places were the causes of this additional loss of life.

With no contact coming from the Dreadnought, Major and key figures within the British Government remained in London throughout. A history-defining moment with the arrival of this vessel (and forty more across the world) heralding the confirmation of life from beyond earth had come. It needed to be dealt with by the government. Advice was given by military officers that perhaps it might be prudent for the whole of the government to not stay in London while what could be a hostile vessel remained above but this wasn’t heeded. Major did make a concession in the early hours of the 3rd, part following the example set by news coming out of France that President Mitterrand thought it prudent to not be in Paris, that there should be some caution taken though. The French Government fled Paris yet in London only a few ministers left the city just in case. Discussions were had to as to whether there should remain the presence of the Queen within the city too. It was agreed that she would leave Buckingham Palace at dawn on the morning of the 3rd and go to her weekend retreat of Windsor Castle. This was all about being prepared ‘just in case’. However, Major followed the example set by the American president where he stayed put. In Paris (it was later discovered that China, Israel & Russia did the same) they ran fearing the worst but the British Government did not take the view that it was necessary to do that. There was authorisation given for military preparations to be made yet these were nowhere as thorough as wanted by senior uniformed officers.

Major and most of the top tier of his Cabinet were below Downing Street the next morning in one of the Cabinet Office briefing rooms for emergency situations. Michael Portillo, the Defence Secretary, was also underground while over the road below the MOD Main Building. These places weren’t really bunkers but instead command centres. They were there when the Americans tried their ‘light trick’ using a helicopter to make contact with the City Destroyer over Washington (that one being #5 of forty-one). The White House was evacuated before the fatal conclusion for those aboard that helicopter with the president finally doing what Mitterrand had urged him and getting away from danger. It was reported to the British Government that the Americans had done this though Major wasn’t told the reason why. The communications links with Washington went down in an unexpected fashion. For several days now, ahead of the appearance of the Dreadnought over London, there had been international difficulties with communications though this particular severance of the trans-Atlantic link-up was unexpected and at that time unexplained. It was not understood that morning that those above them had capabilities for making attacks beyond what they did with their City Destroyers. The link with Washington was a sub-sea cable and it was knocked out by one of those weapons later deemed ‘Rods from the Gods’ that were employed quietly ahead of the Main Attack then with abundance afterwards.


That Main Attack came just after half past seven on the morning of July 3rd.

Employing the primary weapon which it carried, the Dreadnought delivered downwards an immense energy pulse. Nelson’s Column was bathed in an unnatural green light before being engulfed in a fireball. It was fire which the weapon created, an airborne fire. Spreading outwards from Trafalgar Square in every direction this went after initiation. It sucked all available air in, feeding it as it went forwards without abandon. Nothing stood in successfully in its way… apart from the Dreadnought above. No damage was recorded to this vessel due to its external shielding measures, a defensive system which aided the fireball in its rampage through London by deflecting it outwards. Out to a radius of fifteen miles that then went. Everything within this circle of death created was subsequently consumed within fire. Millions of people were killed within minutes. Those members of the government underground didn’t survive either with the country being left rudderless in the aftermath of what should have been something there was a chance to prepare against properly.

From Watford to Biggin Hill, from Dartford to Heathrow, from north to south, from east to west those fires raged. They didn’t destroy everything nor kill absolutely everyone yet the Main Attack was just what it was meant to be: the beginnings of a mass extermination of the earth’s population ahead of a global strip-mining for resources.

[lordroel]

Aug 29, 2020 15:21:00 GMT James G said:

I am writing a TimeLine In A Few Days (TLIAFD). It will be short but not very sweet.
The story concerns Britain under attack in 1996 by the alien race using the inspiration of the 1996 film Independence Day.
I am not going to use any of the fan created or movie studio canon for this story.

Not even the radio episode called Independence Day UK

But nice to see a mini TL about the 1996 War James G,

[James G]

Aug 29, 2020 15:34:51 GMT lordroel said:

Aug 29, 2020 15:21:00 GMT James G said:

I am writing a TimeLine In A Few Days (TLIAFD). It will be short but not very sweet.
The story concerns Britain under attack in 1996 by the alien race using the inspiration of the 1996 film Independence Day.
I am not going to use any of the fan created or movie studio canon for this story.

Not even the radio episode called Independence Day UK

But nice to see a mini TL about the 1996 War James G ,

Nope, not that either: I have heard it was good though not listened to it.
The story continues...

[James G]

PERICLES and the peashooters

Military command and control for the armed forces wasn’t completely destroyed during the opening strike against London. Portillo and the defence chiefs were killed when below the MOD and the fires raging out from Trafalgar Square did consume the headquarters complex at Northwood on the city’s edges too. Northwood was just inside the fifteen mile radius of destruction and its loss was just as grave as that of the command post underneath the MOD on Whitehall. However, there was the survival of other headquarters facilities for elements of the British Armed Forces which were far beyond London. Portillo had authorised the beginnings of Operation PERICLES a few hours before he died. This allowed for there to be a readiness made in case the Dreadnought over London had hostile intentions. That it certainly had. In the few hours after the destruction of the nation’s capital, PERICLES turned from a contingency plan into a reality. Two senior surviving members of the government, Ken Clarke and Stephen Dorrell, the Chancellor of the Exchequer and the Health Secretary, were taken to RAF High Wycombe in Buckinghamshire. Clarke had been removed from London as a sort-of ‘designated survivor’ while Dorrell had been absent for other reasons when everyone else was killed. Clarke assumed the role of Prime Minister when he was assured by those in uniform that there was no chance that Major nor anyone else in the middle of London was alive. He and Dorrell, joined by a few Civil Service officials, agreed that a military counterattack needed to be made against the Dreadnought. It was still over London but the (correct) hypothesis was that it might move onwards to continue its reign of terror.

PERICLES was a plan for the RAF to make that counterattack. Elements of the US Air Force based in Britain joined in too: they had no contact from home and their commander assumed the worst. Fighter aircraft were to mass and make missile attacks against the Dreadnought with the intention of destroying it and bringing it down. Such thinking represented those in uniform as what to do with an airborne target such as the one above their nation which had just killed millions. As many aircraft as possible were given orders to arm up and get airborne. There was coordination so that the fighters wearing the markings of the RAF and the USAF would all come towards the Dreadnought at the same time from every direction. PERICLES was meant to be the greatest of all aerial victories against a helpless airborne opponent who had – at that point – shown no ability to resist such an attack made against it.

Jaguars and Tornados were sent towards it as well as F-15 Eagles. Those pilots involved had no idea about the shielding employed by the Dreadnought nor that it had its own onboard air power to counter them. Missiles were fired against the vessel with none of them making a successful strike. Faced with what was thought to be an electromagnetic defence, British & American pilots were given orders to go in close and use their guns. Before they could do that, out of the Dreadnought came those attack-fighters carried within: ‘Hornets’ would be what the RAF would later call them due to their attack behaviour when the Dreadnought came under threat. That first aerial engagement was a massacre. The Dreadnought was on the move, heading slowly in a northwestern direction, when it was attacked and the Hornets were first seen. Aircraft wreckages would litter the ground among the ruins of London as well as across Hertfordshire and Buckinghamshire. Not a single Hornet was lost in action nor was the paint on the Dreadnought scratched. More than fifty RAF & USAF jets were downed though when engaged by the weapons carried by the Hornets were employed.

They might as well have used peashooters.


When the skies were cleared of those aircraft, the Hornets made a return to the Dreadnought and conducted a turnaround. Out they came again afterwards and this time not into early afternoon skies filled with jet fighters. Unopposed, they went on the offensive in one of the many Hornet Raids which the Dreadnought used its organic air power to strike out while it carried on with its own deadly tasks at the same time. In groups of either four, seven or eleven in each attack (the RAF could count them on radar screens but not understand the mathematical reasoning), the Hornets raided military bases across the East of England. They went after where many of those attacking RAF & USAF fighters had come from though also struck elsewhere. Last-ditch opposition was mounted against them yet, once again, without a single appreciable gain despite much heroism and all efforts expended.

Six airbases were raided by low-level attacks made using multiple passes by the Hornets employing their mounted weapons which caused air-feed fires. In Lincolnshire, they targeted RAF Coningsby and RAF Waddington. Tornado F3 interceptors flew from the former; out of the latter were based Sentry AEW1 airborne radar aircraft. These aircraft had been involved in the failed attacks against the Dreadnought that lunchtime and now their home bases were shot-up with aircraft attacked on the ground. RAF Coltishall and RAF Marham in Norfolk were on the attack list too. The Jaguar GR1s from Coltishall had been massacred when engaging Hornets earlier that day while the Tornado GR1s from Marham hadn’t been involved because they were principally strike aircraft. Marham got the attention of that group of eleven Hornets who did a tremendous amount of damage though including successfully targeting the hardened aircraft shelters inside which the Tornados sat. The reason for that was a matter of long-term planning with regard to the Alien belief that in the conquest stage of their war against humanity they would be facing these aircraft then when they brought their landing force into play. Down into Suffolk more Hornets went. They struck at RAF Lakenheath and RAF Mildenhall: where the Americans could be found. F-15s at Lakenheath and a variety of supporting aircraft in the form of airborne tankers & electronic warfare aircraft were at Mildenhall. Each of the half dozen airbases were thoroughly worked over.

Non-flying stations used by American forces based in Britain for military intelligence and national security electronic purposes also gained attention from the Hornets that afternoon. They launched assaults against RAF Chicksands in Bedfordshire, RAF Feltwell in Norfolk and RAF Molesworth in Cambridgeshire. Antenna array and satellite dishes were blasted to ruin. This was strategically-important infrastructure part of the global military network of the United States’ war machine which was lost so early in the conflict. It was all taken out in overt attacks from recognised attackers. That wasn’t the case with other strikes made though. Up in earth orbit had been seeded those Rocks from the Heavens. When the City Destroyers had come down from their Mother Ship, they had placed into orbit hundreds of rocks. A few of them had fallen ahead of the Main Attack against earth’s cities where they quietly knocked out global communications links. No longer with the element of surprise sought, more of them fell to earth following the elimination of more than three dozen of the world’s biggest population centres. Part of the rocks burnt up in earth’s atmosphere but the core of them – taken from planets far beyond humanity’s knowledge – remained intact and slammed into their targets. There was only kinetic energy used here rather than explosives yet the results were devasting. Of the ones which hit Britain on the war’s first day, the American facilities at RAF Fylingdales and RAF Menwith Hill were targeted by such destruction. These two locations in North Yorkshire were even more important to the United States in the strategic sense than the East of England sites but were likewise destroyed. RAF High Wycombe was hit by one of these giant rocks striking home with perfect accuracy, forming a crater and annihilating the military presence here for good. The trio of hits in Britain were coordinated with those against NORAD under Cheyenne Mountain, NATO’s military headquarters at SHAPE in Belgium as well as nuclear bunkers underneath Russia too.

Before it’s loss, the High Wycombe facility was a hive of activity with signals emissions being tracked by the Dreadnought and information was then relayed on to the Mother Ship from where the attack using one of the Rocks from the Heavens was directed. Among the hundred plus deaths which occurred in the Buckinghamshire countryside were those of Clarke and Dorrell, the two men trying to put together a new British Government in light of that morning’s decapitation strike. Meanwhile, onwards the Dreadnought kept on moving, still going in a northwestern direction away from London… towards Birmingham.

[James G]

Wall of fire

Britain’s second largest population centre, Birmingham, was next on the target list for the Dreadnought after London was eliminated. Not long after four that evening, the centre underneath was positioned above New Street Station: the city’s central rail hub. The primary weapon was then engaged and out from outwards as far as fifteen miles in every direction, the wall of fire soon raged.

Birmingham sat in the middle of West Midlands conurbation, a huge urban area with large towns with a shared industrial heritage like the bigger city which they were gathered around. The edges of Coventry ended up getting singed but, closer in, complete destruction came to Bromsgrove, Dudley, Lichfield, Redditch, Solihull, Sutton Coldfield, Walsall, West Bromwich & Wolverhampton. A mass of people had left their homes beforehand though so many of them were still caught by the fires due to the transportation chaos which that exodus had brought about. All of these lives, close to a million, were snuffed out just like all those who’d been in beneath the Dreadnought in London earlier that day. Many of them were slain ahead of the fire reaching them when buildings collapsed around them and the air was literally sucked from their lungs as it rushed inwards to feed the fires moving onwards. So many more burnt to death though. There was no escape for the fires which raced outwards from the centre and towards them.

What force of evil could do such a thing to the helpless below!?


For a time longer than humans could imagine, those who set exterminating them had been crossing the galaxies doing the same to every life-form which they had encountered beforehand. Uncountable worlds had been visited and destruction caused. Once there was nothing left in their way, those who rained death from above moved in to take everything which they cast their gaze upon. What was of value was seized with everything else disregarded ahead of them moving onwards to the next prize. That was what they did, that was the purpose of their race. The intent was to carry on with that once Earth was dealt with.

The planet Earth was discovered through observations in 1922 and first visited in 1946. A second visit the next year resulted in the loss of a scout vessel on the surface of the planet at Roswell. Thirty-two years later, during the fourth visit (the third made without incident) undertaken in 1980, another scout craft was detected by humans when it then had difficulties trying to take off from a landing site in a place humanity named Rendlesham Forest. While eventually escaping, and bringing out much information, collated data analysed informed the would-be conquerors that the Earth’s primary species were advancing faster than projected. Their capabilities for killing each other was noted though there was no indication that they could defend themselves against an external attack. However, the belief was that might rapidly change with the passage of time. No species on any planet had ever challenged them before though the humans were of a concern. There was a change of schedule made to the head off such a possibility. The Mother Ship which came towards Earth as it did in 1996 had been elsewhere yet diverted towards that planet to put a break on human development.

Attacks from above had been made against other planets where there was a large number of the dominant species gathered. The repeating of this against humanity was a tried and tested method. Other strikes using the Hornets for general disruption and the dropping of rocks from high above had been done too. Once it was judged that no more could be achieved with the use of fire as a weapon, the plan to be followed for Earth was likewise the same as it was elsewhere. Up aboard that Mother Ship, there was an army gathered for conquest. Soldiers would be landed on Earth and they would finish what was started: wiping out all life forms, human and animal, from every corner of the globe. Priority areas already identified which be targeted first. These were where observations had shown that the most idea resources to be removed from the planet were located. There were minerals and chemicals all desired in abundance on Earth, many of which those who sought to exterminate them didn’t believe that the humans below knew about either.

Such was why the attacks made by the Dreadnought first against London and now Birmingham were made. This opening mass killing humanity was only the start of what was coming the way of those who called Earth home. It was all about clearing the way for those who wanted what Earth had.

[James G]

Hornets on the rampage

During its time over Birmingham, there was no resistance to the Dreadnought from either British or American aircraft. There remained combat aircraft available yet none saw action. The stunning losses incurred earlier that day – all for zero return – was a factor in that and so too were the devastating air attacks made by the Hornets towards many of the airbases from which those fighters had flown. However, the most important factor was the lack of command and control following the sudden demise of the headquarters staff (and the politicians too) at RAF High Wycombe. No orders came for anything like what was attempted around lunchtime to be repeated. Moreover, there were other elements of Britain’s armed forces still waiting upon their own orders too. They waited and waited. In the meantime, the Dreadnought send out its own aerial attackers while it moved away from Birmingham towards the next major population centre on the list for destruction.

The Hornets went on the rampage to the west that evening after striking out to the east earlier on. The results were just the same: complete success everywhere with zero effective opposition. The Royal Air Force was first in the firing line. The Hornets went and swept over the transport airheads at RAF Brize Norton and RAF Lyneham in the Thames Valley region. Big jets and large turboprops were caught on the ground. Base facilities and the runways came under fire too. A flight of Hornets raced towards the extensive RAF Fairford as well. That was a standby base for the USAF and while there were no aircraft there, the place was shot-up and engulfed in fire. Should the Americans have wanted to make use of it in the future, they would have been unable to. Boscombe Down, an airfield used by the MOD for experimental flights and the Empire Test School, was given the same treatment. Up on the Mother Ship far above Earth, detachments of the invasion force were planned to make landings in the South-Central area of England where these airbases were located so they were attacked first. In addition, the whole region was littered with garrisons for the British Army as well. Towards many of them the Hornets flew and they fired their weapons against them with impunity. Barracks’ across Hampshire, Wiltshire and the eastern side of Surrey were set alight.

The South Coast was home to Royal Navy facilities. At Portsmouth and at Plymouth’s Devonport, there were warships present when the Hornets appeared. Others had already set sail with orders to just get to sea and away from immediate danger. This all took time though and much of the Fleet was still tied alongside when the skies filled with attackers. Warships fired off missiles and their guns too, all finding that they couldn’t do anything at all to neither stop nor distract their attackers. Fourteen warships and four submarines tied alongside were wiped out. On that blackest of all days for the Royal Navy, those losses included the two aircraft carriers HMS Ark Royal and HMS Invincible. Portions of the US Navy’s Atlantic Fleet and the French Navy’s Mediterranean Fleet had already been struck at while tied alongside at (respectively) Norfolk and Toulon by more Hornets from City Destroyers over their homelands too: what was done here to Britain’s naval forces wasn’t a one off.

Moving away from military only targets, the rampaging Hornets struck further that evening. In Gloucestershire, GCHQ Cheltenham – a communications interception facility in the similar vein to America’s NSA at Fort Meade (also eliminated) – was set on fire when Hornets fired upon it with their mounted weapons. Government offices in the small city of Bath, down in Somerset, were attacked due to information gleamed through signal interception conducted by the Dreadnought that there was activity at them of a high-level political nature. The burning of a portion of the historic city did achieve the objective of killing several junior ministers from the shattered British Government who’d been brought to Bath for the purpose of trying to establish some form of political control. A pair of Hornet flights – seven each – also went after the bridges over the Severn Estuary. Two road links went over the river to connect Southern England to South Wales. They were full of civilian refugees fleeing English towns and cities fearful of being killed. The bridges were brought down resulting in hundreds upon hundreds of deaths and wiping out major transportation links that any British resistance on the ground to the planned follow-up invasion would likely need to support a fight against conquest.

The Hornets returned to the Dreadnought as it moved into final position against the third population centre to come under fire. When they did so, more of those Rocks from the Heavens fell again. Porton Down (right next to the burning Boscombe Down) was hit by one of those, blowing the place to smithereens. It was targeted because it was the home of Britain’s chemical & biological weapons research. Those who destroyed it feared a role it could have played against them. The nuclear research facility at Aldermaston was evacuated of personnel right after Porton Down was wiped out though no lump of rock from outer space fell upon it despite those fears. Nuclear weapons didn’t cause concern by those aiming to conquer Earth: what might have come out of Porton Down was something of worry though and so the threat was dealt with pre-emptively.

[lordroel]

Aug 30, 2020 17:30:38 GMT James G said:

Hornets on the rampage

During its time over Birmingham, there was no resistance to the Dreadnought from either British or American aircraft. There remained combat aircraft available yet none saw action. The stunning losses incurred earlier that day – all for zero return – was a factor in that and so too were the devastating air attacks made by the Hornets towards many of the airbases from which those fighters had flown. However, the most important factor was the lack of command and control following the sudden demise of the headquarters staff (and the politicians too) at RAF High Wycombe. No orders came for anything like what was attempted around lunchtime to be repeated. Moreover, there were other elements of Britain’s armed forces still waiting upon their own orders too. They waited and waited. In the meantime, the Dreadnought send out its own aerial attackers while it moved away from Birmingham towards the next major population centre on the list for destruction.

The Hornets went on the rampage to the west that evening after striking out to the east earlier on. The results were just the same: complete success everywhere with zero effective opposition. The Royal Air Force was first in the firing line. The Hornets went and swept over the transport airheads at RAF Brize Norton and RAF Lyneham in the Thames Valley region. Big jets and large turboprops were caught on the ground. Base facilities and the runways came under fire too. A flight of Hornets raced towards the extensive RAF Fairford as well. That was a standby base for the USAF and while there were no aircraft there, the place was shot-up and engulfed in fire. Should the Americans have wanted to make use of it in the future, they would have been unable to. Boscombe Down, an airfield used by the MOD for experimental flights and the Empire Test School, was given the same treatment. Up on the Mother Ship far above Earth, detachments of the invasion force were planned to make landings in the South-Central area of England where these airbases were located so they were attacked first. In addition, the whole region was littered with garrisons for the British Army as well. Towards many of them the Hornets flew and they fired their weapons against them with impunity. Barracks’ across Hampshire, Wiltshire and the eastern side of Surrey were set alight.

The South Coast was home to Royal Navy facilities. At Portsmouth and at Plymouth’s Devonport, there were warships present when the Hornets appeared. Others had already set sail with orders to just get to sea and away from immediate danger. This all took time though and much of the Fleet was still tied alongside when the skies filled with attackers. Warships fired off missiles and their guns too, all finding that they couldn’t do anything at all to neither stop nor distract their attackers. Fourteen warships and four submarines tied alongside were wiped out. On that blackest of all days for the Royal Navy, those losses included the two aircraft carriers HMS Ark Royal and HMS Invincible. Portions of the US Navy’s Atlantic Fleet and the French Navy’s Mediterranean Fleet had already been struck at while tied alongside at (respectively) Norfolk and Toulon by more Hornets from City Destroyers over their homelands too: what was done here to Britain’s naval forces wasn’t a one off.

Moving away from military only targets, the rampaging Hornets struck further that evening. In Gloucestershire, GCHQ Cheltenham – a communications interception facility in the similar vein to America’s NSA at Fort Meade (also eliminated) – was set on fire when Hornets fired upon it with their mounted weapons. Government offices in the small city of Bath, down in Somerset, were attacked due to information gleamed through signal interception conducted by the Dreadnought that there was activity at them of a high-level political nature. The burning of a portion of the historic city did achieve the objective of killing several junior ministers from the shattered British Government who’d been brought to Bath for the purpose of trying to establish some form of political control. A pair of Hornet flights – seven each – also went after the bridges over the Severn Estuary. Two road links went over the river to connect Southern England to South Wales. They were full of civilian refugees fleeing English towns and cities fearful of being killed. The bridges were brought down resulting in hundreds upon hundreds of deaths and wiping out major transportation links that any British resistance on the ground to the planned follow-up invasion would likely need to support a fight against conquest.

The Hornets returned to the Dreadnought as it moved into final position against the third population centre to come under fire. When they did so, more of those Rocks from the Heavens fell again. Porton Down (right next to the burning Boscombe Down) was hit by one of those, blowing the place to smithereens. It was targeted because it was the home of Britain’s chemical & biological weapons research. Those who destroyed it feared a role it could have played against them. The nuclear research facility at Aldermaston was evacuated of personnel right after Porton Down was wiped out though no lump of rock from outer space fell upon it despite those fears. Nuclear weapons didn’t cause concern by those aiming to conquer Earth: what might have come out of Porton Down was something of worry though and so the threat was dealt with pre-emptively.

The aliens know where to strike.

[James G]

Aug 30, 2020 17:37:26 GMT lordroel said:

Aug 30, 2020 17:30:38 GMT James G said:

Hornets on the rampage

During its time over Birmingham, there was no resistance to the Dreadnought from either British or American aircraft. There remained combat aircraft available yet none saw action. The stunning losses incurred earlier that day – all for zero return – was a factor in that and so too were the devastating air attacks made by the Hornets towards many of the airbases from which those fighters had flown. However, the most important factor was the lack of command and control following the sudden demise of the headquarters staff (and the politicians too) at RAF High Wycombe. No orders came for anything like what was attempted around lunchtime to be repeated. Moreover, there were other elements of Britain’s armed forces still waiting upon their own orders too. They waited and waited. In the meantime, the Dreadnought send out its own aerial attackers while it moved away from Birmingham towards the next major population centre on the list for destruction.

The Hornets went on the rampage to the west that evening after striking out to the east earlier on. The results were just the same: complete success everywhere with zero effective opposition. The Royal Air Force was first in the firing line. The Hornets went and swept over the transport airheads at RAF Brize Norton and RAF Lyneham in the Thames Valley region. Big jets and large turboprops were caught on the ground. Base facilities and the runways came under fire too. A flight of Hornets raced towards the extensive RAF Fairford as well. That was a standby base for the USAF and while there were no aircraft there, the place was shot-up and engulfed in fire. Should the Americans have wanted to make use of it in the future, they would have been unable to. Boscombe Down, an airfield used by the MOD for experimental flights and the Empire Test School, was given the same treatment. Up on the Mother Ship far above Earth, detachments of the invasion force were planned to make landings in the South-Central area of England where these airbases were located so they were attacked first. In addition, the whole region was littered with garrisons for the British Army as well. Towards many of them the Hornets flew and they fired their weapons against them with impunity. Barracks’ across Hampshire, Wiltshire and the eastern side of Surrey were set alight.

The South Coast was home to Royal Navy facilities. At Portsmouth and at Plymouth’s Devonport, there were warships present when the Hornets appeared. Others had already set sail with orders to just get to sea and away from immediate danger. This all took time though and much of the Fleet was still tied alongside when the skies filled with attackers. Warships fired off missiles and their guns too, all finding that they couldn’t do anything at all to neither stop nor distract their attackers. Fourteen warships and four submarines tied alongside were wiped out. On that blackest of all days for the Royal Navy, those losses included the two aircraft carriers HMS Ark Royal and HMS Invincible. Portions of the US Navy’s Atlantic Fleet and the French Navy’s Mediterranean Fleet had already been struck at while tied alongside at (respectively) Norfolk and Toulon by more Hornets from City Destroyers over their homelands too: what was done here to Britain’s naval forces wasn’t a one off.

Moving away from military only targets, the rampaging Hornets struck further that evening. In Gloucestershire, GCHQ Cheltenham – a communications interception facility in the similar vein to America’s NSA at Fort Meade (also eliminated) – was set on fire when Hornets fired upon it with their mounted weapons. Government offices in the small city of Bath, down in Somerset, were attacked due to information gleamed through signal interception conducted by the Dreadnought that there was activity at them of a high-level political nature. The burning of a portion of the historic city did achieve the objective of killing several junior ministers from the shattered British Government who’d been brought to Bath for the purpose of trying to establish some form of political control. A pair of Hornet flights – seven each – also went after the bridges over the Severn Estuary. Two road links went over the river to connect Southern England to South Wales. They were full of civilian refugees fleeing English towns and cities fearful of being killed. The bridges were brought down resulting in hundreds upon hundreds of deaths and wiping out major transportation links that any British resistance on the ground to the planned follow-up invasion would likely need to support a fight against conquest.

The Hornets returned to the Dreadnought as it moved into final position against the third population centre to come under fire. When they did so, more of those Rocks from the Heavens fell again. Porton Down (right next to the burning Boscombe Down) was hit by one of those, blowing the place to smithereens. It was targeted because it was the home of Britain’s chemical & biological weapons research. Those who destroyed it feared a role it could have played against them. The nuclear research facility at Aldermaston was evacuated of personnel right after Porton Down was wiped out though no lump of rock from outer space fell upon it despite those fears. Nuclear weapons didn’t cause concern by those aiming to conquer Earth: what might have come out of Porton Down was something of worry though and so the threat was dealt with pre-emptively.

The aliens know where to strike.

They been watching and planning for some time!

[lordroel]

Aug 30, 2020 19:10:45 GMT James G said:

Aug 30, 2020 17:37:26 GMT lordroel said:

The aliens know where to strike.

They been watching and planning for some time!

So no United Kingdom in space because there is not much left of it when the aliens are done.

[forcon]

Interesting stuff: I'll read over it properly when I'm finished at work.

There is a radio drama about the UK's battle during Independence Day. It can be found on YouTube. Some of it is pretty cringe-worthy but parts of it are entertaining.

[James G]

Aug 30, 2020 19:48:24 GMT lordroel said:

Aug 30, 2020 19:10:45 GMT James G said:

They been watching and planning for some time!

So no United Kingdom in space because there is not much left of it when the aliens are done.

Unlikely after the battering the country is taking.
Of course, the Dreadnought will get its comeuppance in the end... but before then it will cause devastation.

Aug 31, 2020 9:22:53 GMT forcon said:

Interesting stuff: I'll read over it properly when I'm finished at work.

There is a radio drama about the UK's battle during Independence Day. It can be found on YouTube. Some of it is pretty cringe-worthy but parts of it are entertaining.

Thanks. Just a short story but something I have thought about before.
Lordroel mentioned that upthread but I have yet to hear it.

[James G]

Clutching at straws

Up until the previous December, the headquarters for the senior RAF officer holding the post of Air Officer Scotland & Northern Ireland had been located at RAF Pitreavie Castle. By July 1996, the use was made of a bunker at RAF Leuchars following a defence review. In the aftermath of the destruction of the command post at RAF High Wycombe, control moved to Leuchars with regards to Britain’s air defences. That day when the Dreadnought was blasting cities and its Hornets were running riot saw plentiful confusion with patchy and often inaccurate information available to the RAF. Up at Leuchars, the threat posed was still misunderstood many hours after it had first been on full display. Using jet fighters against those seeking to destroy Britain was believed to be the only course of action available. Raids by Hornets striking military bases had focused on first eastern and then southwestern regions of England: the northern portions and also Scotland had been untouched. Numbers and capabilities, especially the range, of the Hornets was unknown giving the impression that there would be safety further north. Out of Leuchars came instructions for any and all RAF air units to evacuate from the South to go North and West too. These orders were sent via the fastest means of communication… radio signals all which the Dreadnought picked up. While gathering strength, the RAF opted to make another attack against the Dreadnought on the evening of July 3rd. Operation PERICLES wasn’t directly repeated in detail but the results would be the same: the peashooters would fail in spectacular and tragic fashion.

Information had come to Leuchars that the Luftwaffe had been active over German skies earlier that day where they were reported to have caused possibly disabling damage to the City Destroyer over their country which had laid waste to Berlin, Hamburg and then the Ruhr. It was said that Soviet-built MiG-29s (in Luftwaffe service following German reunification) had engaged Hornets coming out of one of the openings of City Destroyer #12 and fired missiles inside there. The electromagnetic shielding was reported to be inactive when Hornets departed & returned leaving a vulnerability which the Germans had exploited. This what the RAF were told. It didn’t tell the whole story and the results of that stroke of luck were overmagnified. It wasn’t an act of malice: just misunderstanding and too much hope. The RAF were clutching at straws in believing this and would pay the price.

RAF Tornado F3s were sent back into the fight. They flew from Scottish airbases with many of them having evacuated facilities in England during the day. Following the plan drawn up, several flights made themselves known by coming at the Dreadnought high and with their radars active. The Dreadnought was moving north at the time, closing in towards another British city, and from out of it came those Hornets. On cue, the Tornados rapidly turned around, lit their afterburners and ran back north as fast as they could. At that moment, two move flights of the RAF’s premier air defence aircraft, which had been flying low with radars off, climbed and raced towards the Dreadnought from each side. They intended to fire carried Skyflash and Sidewinder missiles right where their enemy was exposed at that key moment. Such a thing didn’t occur though. Right ahead of the Main Attack launched against Washington, the City Destroyer over the American capital had shown an air defence capability of its own before the presence of its Hornets had been revealed: it had shot down a helicopter using a mounted laser-type weapon. No one had told the RAF about this and the Dreadnought over Britain had yet to employ the many of those last-ditch defences which it carried against an attack. The Tornados were taken under fire from the Dreadnought itself with almost all of them were wiped out. Such a thing had happened to many of those German MiG-29s too and it had been them exploding, not the City Destroyer, which had been observed. The tragedy over the skies over the Ruhr was repeated above Staffordshire.


Another politician had been at that point taken by the military into safety with the view of giving the country some form of legitimate political guidance. The Scottish Secretary, Michael Forsyth, was in a bunker below HMNB Clyde: the nuclear submarine base at Faslane. Flag Officer Scotland & Northern Ireland (the Royal Navy’s equivalent to the RAF officer at Leuchars) joined him and they received information about the RAF’s attempted attack and also monitored the progress of the Dreadnought too.

They were told that there had been complete failure in engaging the immense vessel and that it was bearing down upon another city that night without delay. Manchester was to where it was heading and there was nothing that the RAF was able to do to stop it.

[James G]

Death incarnate

It was a quarter past nine that night when the Dreadnought arrived over Manchester. It lined up its main weapon, fitted in the centre on the underside, above City Tower. This was the tallest building in Manchester, overlooking Piccadilly Gardens. When the weapon was fully charged it was then engaged.


Almost fourteen hours elapsed between London being hit and then Manchester targeted (with the destruction of Birmingham in between) as morning turned to night. During that time, a lot which could have been done to if not save Manchester – as was tried by the RAF – then at least ensure that the loss of life which came there would be far lower than it was didn’t take place. Evacuation efforts could have been tried to get many of the people who lived there and nearby some distance away from the fires which would ravage the entire built-up area around the city. Alas, that wasn’t done. There were many reasons why. Only the barest of preparations had been made by the British Government to the possibility that the Alien visitors might be hostile. That they would do something like they did just wasn’t comprehended. When it happened, everything was so fast. London was gone in an instant and with it went almost all of those in power who had the authority to make decisions. What exactly occurred was unknown too. It wasn’t the case that everyone in Britain – those left in positions of power, those in uniform and, especially, civilians – knew what was done there nor elsewhere. The dearth of information caused confusion and ignorance that extermination of the country’s population was underway. Using the Hornets carried by the Dreadnought, and with the Mother Ship dropping Rocks from the Heavens where appropriate, those launching this war against the Earth cut communications where they wished to see that done.

It wasn’t as if those who lived in Manchester watched images of London and Birmingham engulfed in the raging fires which they were. There was none of that to see and what they heard was rather limited. They had no idea what was coming.

People had been fleeing Manchester since the day before – July 2nd – when the Dreadnought arrived. The presence of an alien vessel caused fright in the country’s third largest population centre like it did elsewhere. Those were the exception though. Most people watched the wall-to-wall television coverage and waited for something to happen. When it did, they missed it: the signal died ahead of Nelson’s Column becoming the focal point for London’s elimination. Rumours arrived in Manchester during the day of what happened and there was some information on the radio. Television stations were out though and what was on the radio wasn’t anything official. Before the Dreadnought arrived, the power went out across Manchester. Mass looting and various acts of criminality were already taking place when the skies then got darker faster than expected on that mid-summer’s evening. More people fled from Manchester upon such an appearance above them of what looked like death incarnate. They didn’t get very far away. Even then, the concept that the ring of fire moving outwards would go as far as it would wasn’t understood. Those who escaped Manchester often didn’t get far away.


From the epicentre being Piccadilly Gardens, the fires would reach fifteen miles in every direction. Areas such as Salford, Tameside and Trafford were bathed in flames close to the centre of Manchester but the destruction went far beyond to wipe out the famous mill towns which had grown up when Manchester did around the turn of the century. Bolton, Bury, Oldham, Rochdale and Stockport burnt too. Distant Wigan and Warrington survived yet there was no such luck for Altringham and Leigh. The fires even went up the sides of the Pennines and would set portions of the Moors alight as well.

Two million lives were taken.

From Liverpool to the west and in the densely-populated areas of West & South Yorkshire over the Pennines to the east of Manchester, the orange ‘light show’ would be seen all through that night. Millions fled their homes in response, away from the cities and towns from where they saw that the whole of Manchester was being removed from the face of the Earth. No one organised this and countless tragedies unfolded during the flight of so many in the fashion which they ran to save themselves from what they feared was coming their way next.

The Dreadnought was going north again though.