“Ugh!” One of the guards dropkicked the wheelchair from behind. Dixon went airborne, the needle swiping just millimeters from his target, and crashed into the curb. Another guard came up and slammed the butt of his rifle against Dixon’s bandaged legs. Black boots swarmed around and pummeled his face and ribs to pulp.
A giggle pierced the air, breaking up the mosh pit. Heinrich swayed and hunched over, with his hands on his knees, but his dark eyes twinkled. “I guess deep down, I was hoping you’d say that.”
Dixon rolled over and faced the street. Through his only eye that could still open, he caught sight of the Minutemen making a run for it. Not one managed more than two steps.
Dixon puked. The stomach acid didn’t burn his bloody lips nearly as bad as the gunfire scarred his soul.
Day Thirty-Two
Bouchs, Switzerland
“Ah ha! Come here! I never thought I’d be happy to see you bastard Americans again!”
Kat stiffened as the big Spetsnaz officer crushed her shoulders and pecked her cheeks, but not nearly as much as Captain Dore when it was his turn. Captain Kolchak plucked a string on Dore’s frayed uniform and pounded his back.
“How’d you two get so dirty fighting in a museum? I’m jealous. My Spetsnaz boys and I haven’t killed a Jihadi in days. We’re rusting away behind the lines trying to teach these hasty conscripts how to die in style.”
Kat pulled away from the hugging and gossiping collection of special forces operators. She jerked her thumb at the international crowd of warriors, including every known survivor of the Battle of Armageddon.
“I got a feeling that’s about to change. Looks like the Swiss command wants the old team together again. Shit.”
Dore rubbed the stitches on his scalp. “Yeah, I should’ve guessed that this R&R they promised was too good to be true.”
Captain Kolchak whooped and held them both, baring the left side of his jaw. With a jagged shrapnel scar across his right cheek pinching his face muscles tight, that was the closest he could ever come to a smile.
“You really think so? Hmm… The Caliphate still has three undamaged spaceships on the ground. Oh, I bet we’re hitting them all this time!” Kolchak strutted off to his small team of Russian operators, while beating his Kalashnikov against his chest. “Did you hear that boys? We’re back in the war!”
Dore scowled as they whooped and hollered, but a clanking roar from behind soon shut everyone up. A large chunk of the nearby mountain pulled to the side. Kat gaped inside the exposed underground hangar. She’d seen dozens of these Cold War fortifications hidden all over Switzerland in the last week or so, but this was different. Most of the other aircraft hangars were now empty, thanks to the brutal war of attrition in the skies, but this one held a lone, sleek black Caliphate dropship. Several Swiss soldiers ran out and waved the operators inside, all while jerking their heads at the sky.
Kat strolled in first and whistled. “Well, looky here. I thought they would have torn the ship apart searching for intel or scrap metal.”
Dore growled and narrowed his eyes at the futuristic vessel. “Who cares? That damn thing wasn’t worth the cost.”
Kat shuddered but couldn’t summon the same anger. Despite the week she’d spent on the Alpine front lines, doing her best to hold the Caliphate hordes at arm’s length, Kat could never forget the night that brought them all here. She ran her hand along the dropship’s cold side as they marched inside the cave.
“Yeah, well, at least it’s proof that we didn’t piss away a half-million troops for nothing.”
“Kat!”
A hairless man on the far side of the hangar bay dashed over. He lugged a six-foot long Gauss rail gun salvaged from some enemy drone over his shoulder. He set the gun down next to her and swept Kat off her feet in a bear hug.
Kat punched his shoulders. “Put me down, you Goddamn overgrown puppy!”
He dropped her back on her heels, but then stepped away and curtsied. Kat giggled. Captain Dore wedged between them while balling his fists. “What the hell’s wrong with you?”
Abraham Washington furrowed the skin over his eyes, since he had no eyebrows, and gave a lopsided grin. “Oh, nice to see you again as well, Captain Grumpy. Don’t you ever smile?” He turned his full attention back to Kat.
“So that’s not right? I’ve been trying to learn the ancient customs. Someone showed me a 2-D hollow vid where they did that all the time. I’m just trying to figure out your archaic mating rituals here.”
He gently took Kat’s hand in his and pressed his lips to her scarred knuckles. “If only you people were more rational, then we could skip the games and—” Captain Dore folded his arms and butted in.
“The Swiss Army lets you run around free? Why aren’t you in handcuffs?”
Washington chuckled. “I bet they would lock me up if they didn’t need me. Just like you, these mountain people refuse to believe that I’m a simple kidnapped engineer and never had anything to do with the extremists. Only Kat can see things clearly.”
Kat stuck up her hands, but patted his cheek. “Wooah. I never said I believe everything you say, just that your stories are too crazy to be completely made up. Besides, you did save our asses as much as we saved yours.”
Washington beamed at her. “That’s enough for me. Anyway, it’s not like the Swiss have any other option. Who else could show you people how to work the Caliphate’s futuristic equipment?” He winked and leered at the same time. “And especially how to duplicate their tech and make our own modern weapons.”
Even Dore perked up. “Are you jerking my chain?”
Four soldiers behind him struggled to lift the Gauss rail gun onto a dolly, but Washington ignored them. With his usual abrupt, intense energy, he skipped over to some crates on the far wall. Washington came back with a curvy rifle vaguely similar to the Caliphate’s standard weapon.
“Here you go, gorgeous. Keep it. We have a few hundred assembled already.”
Kat cooed as if showing off a new diamond ring. The weapon had a standard M4 style buttstock, grip and trigger assembly, but after that it entered the realm of science fiction.
“Is this what I think it is?”
“Oh yes. These knockoff rail guns have nowhere near the same rate of fire nor accuracy that the enemy manages, and it kicks like a Capellian dragon mule, but unlike your ancient pop guns, this will actually penetrate the Caliphate’s liquid metal body armor.”
“Really?”
Washington blushed. “Well, 90% of the time, assuming the target’s within 100 meters. You have to understand, I’m trying to make Nano Age weapons using Steel Age resources and technology. It’s like building one of your tanks while living back in the Bronze Age. Harder, really, since we need to mass-produce these things. So this is the best compromise between quality and quantity that me and the artificial intelligence can come up with.”
Kat squealed like a schoolgirl and fought the urge to kiss his cheek, but not too hard. Washington pumped out his chest as she pulled away. Dore’s cheek twitched.
Before he could say anything, some Swiss lieutenant stormed out of a side tunnel. He crossed his arms, crumpling his perfectly pressed uniform, and whined.
“Général André would like all…” He crinkled his nose at the muddy troops clustering around him and spit out the words. “Foreign military personnel down in zee Tactical Operations Center immediately for a briefing.”
Captain Dore stepped closer and admired his own reflection off the brim of the staff officer’s polished Képi hat.
“Hold your horses. We’ll get some hot chow first. And who the hell is General André? You mean the base commander, Colonel André?”
The lieutenant tilted his chin up but kept his lips puckered together. “His was the first of many promotions this morning. Ever since you people arrived, the Caliphate has ramped up their bombardment. Zurich was hammered particularly hard last night. We haven’t heard a word from any member of the general staff since then. Will you pl
ease come with me already? And wipe your damn boots first!”
***
The downhill hike through the mountain lasted barely a hundred meters, but seemed like miles through the dim, blue-lit maze. The tunnel finally gave way to an armed sentry prying up a steel blast door. Kat snickered as she marched into the vast pool of white light and squinted. “Not exactly NORAD, huh?”
The converted cantina could have made an impressive tactical operations center capable of managing a large army. All the empty space just drove home how empty the party was. The two dozen staffers hunched over a mix of ruggedized laptops and old-timey telegraph clackers, busy coordinating all that was left of the Swiss military, barely took up a third of the vast room.
A depressingly young man with three stars on his shoulders in the far corner spun around. The general disengaged from his huddle with several even younger officers and stomped over. Rubbing his bloodshot eyes, he picked up a laptop computer and kicked a stool out from under the nearest table. He flicked his hand at the troops standing in formation and gestured towards all the empty chairs.
“Let's skip the formality and customs. Just find a seat already. Help yourself to a beer. God knows you’ve all earned it.” General André snagged a pair of half-liter bottles from the crate next to him. He tilted the neck of the first bottle in his hand and pried the second bottle’s cap off with it. One after the other, he emptied the twenty-count case of pilsner and handed them out in seconds.
“Prost!” While the general took a long pull, Kat licked her lips and eyed her flask.
“Yeah… so what’s the deal, General? You sure as hell didn’t recall us to have a party. What dirty job do you have for us now?”
André flashed a weak smile and downed the rest of his liquid bread.
“Always right down to business with you Americans, isn’t it? Well, that’s the problem. I don’t have a special mission. Frankly, I’m out of ideas and my country is running out of time. So let’s call this a brainstorming session. We need to figure out a new plan before it’s too late. Now don’t get me wrong. The Swiss Confederation owes you all a deep debt of gratitude. We would have fallen fast like the rest of southern Europe if your team hadn’t shown up out of the blue. You’ve shown us enemy vulnerabilities that would have cost thousands of lives to figure out on our own. With that said though…”
He spun the laptop around and opened up a strategic map of the world.
“We can’t keep this shit up much longer. It’s a war of attrition out there and the math is kicking our ass. Never mind the invaders’ technology. They can sacrifice a hundred for every one of us and still come out ahead. The rumors are true. Most of the Muslim world was left relatively unscathed in the initial bombardment a month ago. These clever Final Caliphate schwein left themselves an endless pool of allies to recruit from.”
Dore squinted at the screen. “There’s no way they’ve conquered that much! It’s been less than two weeks since they landed in force.”
General André cracked open a fresh beer but paused with it halfway to his lips. He set the bottle down slowly and focused on the computer. “We’ve double checked with multiple sources. Sure, there are pockets of resistance and active insurgencies everywhere, but the Caliphate and their Jihadi surrogates firmly control every significant population center in Africa, the Middle East and central Asia. They’ve also overrun Spain, Southern France, Italy and most of the Balkans. It’s only a matter of time until the French and German volunteer militias are swamped. Then we’ll be surrounded. They haven’t landed in the Americas with significant numbers, but that doesn't matter. Most of both continents are in anarchy after taking the brunt of the orbital bombardment. With the United States busy slaughtering themselves, well, there won’t be any cavalry riding to the rescue.”
Captain Kolchak stabbed a knife hand at the red enemy pincers stalled around the Caspian and Black Seas. “Mother Russia is still in the fight! As God is my witness, we’ll finish what the rest of the world couldn’t. We might have to wait until winter sets in, but have no fear. Russia will prevail!”
André gave in and snatched up his beer. “Yeah, that’s great. Rhetoric aside, Russia’s only hanging on because they’re slinging tactical nuclear weapons around like hand grenades. Once your countrymen run out of A-bombs, they’re done for. Hell, even if the Caliphate stopped fighting right now, that great big cloud of fallout stretching from the Baltic Sea to Kazakhstan will eventually poison most of the country. Maybe out in Siberia people could survive, but I wouldn’t call that living.”
All eyes turned from the depressing map of Europe and drifted to the Far East. André shook his head. “Don’t get your hopes up. Even if China wasn’t so far away, their human-wave tactics aren’t exactly sustainable. A wall of corpses won’t last any longer than this wall of forts.”
Kolchak drummed his fingers. “What about chemical and biological weapons? That should buy us some breathing room. Don’t give me any bullshit about treaties and war crimes. Geneva is a smoldering crater.”
“I wish it was a simple moral question. The Indians resorted to bio warfare when the Caliphate allied with Pakistan and surged across the border. Only wound up hastening the enemy’s depopulation program. Ask Sergeant Walker about the Caliphate’s nanobot medicine. Ebola and nerve gas are about as troublesome as a paper cut for these space wizards. No, there are no wunderwaffen that can end this nightmare.”
Dore broke the dead silence after a minute. “How do you know all this? Please tell me you’re not using long-range radios. No wonder the drones are coming down on us so hard!”
André nodded at the snotty lieutenant from earlier. Unlike everyone else, the young officer never touched his beer. He preferred to stand at parade rest in the corner and just glare at the foreign troops. With a grimace, he pulled out his smartphone and played a short video of giant black ISIS flags hanging from every minaret at the Taj Mahal.
“We have a large team of civilians culling the internet for intelligence. The picture they weave is far from complete, but it gives us a decent overview of what’s going on in the world.”
“You can’t be serious. Between EMPs and meteorite showers, how the hell is the internet still working?”
“Most of it doesn’t, but there are a decent number of servers around the planet still connected to generators. Especially on the so-called ‘Dark Net.’ With the Caliphate hunting down every radio transmitter, this is the world’s last secure communications net. At least as long as the power stays on and the fiber optic cables aren’t cut.”
He narrowed his eyes at the skeptical faces around him.
“I don’t see why you’re surprised. The internet was originally designed by the US military for stable communications during a nuclear war. That basic functionality is still there, even if the vast majority of servers are offline. The web is the most redundant communication system we have left. If a network link is lost, even in mid-transmission, data packets are automatically rerouted through other nodes. It’s a true self-healing network… unlike the people uploading. We’re seeing fewer and fewer users every day in occupied territory.”
Captain Dore rolled his beer between his hands. “Well, that’s a bit of good news for a change. Let’s use the net to get back in touch with what’s left of the American government.”
The lieutenant frowned and General Andre squeezed his eyes shut. “Sure, but which one?”
He spun the laptop screen across the Atlantic. The old United States and Canada were riddled with red X’s marking blast zones. Instead of the familiar state outlines in the US, hundreds of micro-state borders littered the landscape. The general took a deep breath.
“North America took the brunt of the Caliphate’s initial bombardment. No one knows how bad the losses were. At least 50 million dead, but probably not more than a 150 million. With the bulk of your surviving military deployed to the Middle East for General Jacobi’s ill-fated grand counterattack… well, law and order was whatever the survivors cou
ld piece back together.”
He waved his beer at the screen as the Americans fidgeted in their seats.
“Most of the sparsely populated Midwest remained unified and seems to have come out in the best shape. Rapid City, South Dakota is their provisional capital. The new government still calls themselves the United States of America, even if their reworked Constitution is, uh… a bit different from what you remember. Anyway, since they do have the only known surviving member of the US House of Representatives as their nominal president, Rapid City probably has the most legitimate claim to power.”
Kat and the few other Americans murmured. “Claim? You said they’re the remnants of the old government. This doesn’t make any sense.”
Andre shrugged. “I won’t ever pretend to understand Americans, but don’t forget that few people in your country even know what’s going on. The States were hit so hard and so fast that most people believe they survived a nuclear war. Just about all the Americans we’ve managed to contact refuse to accept our crazy tales of alien invaders.”
He polished off his second beer and eyed the next crate with unbridled lust. “In any case, there are two rival power blocks, led by state governors, which dispute Rapid City’s claim. One in Washington that’s organizing the West Coast and one in Alabama, trying to get the Deep South back on its feet. Each claims to be the only legitimate Federal Government. As for the rest of the country, well, Balkanization doesn’t even begin to describe the mess. Most states have broken down along ideological, religious, political, and/or racial lines. Makes the old five-sided Syrian Civil War look like a game of checkers in comparison.”
Kat grabbed the computer and scrolled around. “What about Florida?”
Andre puffed out his cheeks. “Florida, as well as California, are definitely the worst off. All their high-tech industry and large population centers really attracted the Caliphate’s attention. Both states took the heaviest beating from the first day’s orbital bombardment. Civil order broke down like everywhere else, but unlike some states, no central authority has emerged from the anarchy. Last reports we received out of Florida showed at least a dozen major armed factions vying for control. That was a week ago though. We have no idea what the current situation is like today. Other than royally fucked.”
The Caliphate Invasion Page 34
