“Let’s go! We’ve got all hell incoming. Sixty seconds, tops!”
Kat didn’t waste one of them. She raced the rest of the European contingent up the ramp as fast as her rubbery legs and concrete-filled heart could push her. Washington gunned the craft’s anti-gravity engine the second the door shut, slamming her into a bulkhead.
Kat just slid to the floor and rolled her head towards the nearest viewport. The future ship had no windows, but most of the flat interior surfaces doubled as display screens for the endless mini cameras mounted around the hull.
“Wow. Good to know we made a difference.” She snarled at the screen as Dore collapsed beside her and popped open his muddy, salty sweat-stained vest.
Dore shook his head at the fresh wave of Caliphate fighters pouring out of Milan. Hundreds of drones led the charge, followed closely by thousands of pickups and Armored Personnel Carriers full of whopping Jihadis.
“Washington, where the hell’s this artillery you promised—”
A man-made neutron star birthed behind them, blinding the cameras and pitching the ship end over end. Washington, the only one around who had time to strap into a seat, blinked furiously and swiped his hands in the air. The aircraft pulled up just meters before impaling itself into the nearest Alpine summit.
Kat stayed on the deck and snagged a water bottle bouncing off her helmet. She drained the entire thing in a second. “I guess someone’s done playing around! Was that the Brits or the French command? Those assholes still have some troops close enough to get microwaved!”
Washington unsnapped himself and slid over. He hesitated and awkwardly squeezed her one shoulder that wasn’t resting against Dore.
“From what I understand, it was the Germans. They managed to whip up a few thermonuclear warheads in secret.”
“That makes even less sense. Won’t the wind blow most of the fallout right over the Fatherland?”
Washington sighed and wedged in next to her. “Does it matter? Munich was overrun a few minutes ago and Berlin’s already a crater. They’re firing a nuclear spread at every major Islamic concentration from Madrid to Prague. I’m getting the feeling they don’t give a shit anymore.”
“Well, at least they spared a rescue mission for us.”
“Ah...They didn’t.” He chuckled and gave her a sideways grin. “I might have kinda stolen this ship when I heard what was happening. Last time I saw General Andre, I had to be a little... uh, proactive to get this thing out of the hangar. Maybe you could put in a good word for me when we get back?”
Lake Constance/Bodensee Switzerland
“You know, I wasn’t expecting them to fire up the band, but still...”
Kat jumped back as yet another semi-truck squealed out of the underground command center and raced across the landing tarmac without a care in the world.
“Where the hell is everyone? What’s going on, Captain?”
Dore flashed the rest of the huddled team a reassuring thumbs up, before turning his back and hissing into her ear. “How should I know? I am but a mushroom, same as you. Kept in the dark and fed endless shit.”
General Andre’s favorite lackey, Lieutenant Kroos, slammed the rear doors shut on a cargo truck and whistled. He dashed over, every crease on his formal dress uniform in perfect place, and unsnapped his sidearm while glaring out from under a black eye.
“You treasonous son of a bitch! I told you we needed every asset available for the evacuation.” Washington dropped to his knees and stuck out his palms. Kolchak appeared out of nowhere. Snarling, he hefted the terrified puppy to his feet.
“Stand like a man, for Godsakes!” Kolchak spun on Kroos. The Spetsnaz operator didn’t say a word as he slipped on a pair of brass knuckles and advanced.
Kroos puckered his lips and yanked on his sidearm handgrip. “Stand down, Captain. This has nothing to do with—”
Kat saved his life by shoving her rifle barrel into his ribs. “You want to talk about treason? Who left us out there to die? Did you talk the general into it? Or did you bastards even spare a moment’s thought about us?”
Kroos’s nostrils flared but he at least moved both hands out into the open. “Honestly, the subject never came up. We’ve lost a million civilians and militia fighters in the last 24 hours, so pardon me if we were a little concerned about the bigger picture!”
Dore gave Kat’s shoulder a squeeze. She leaned ever so slightly against him even as her face still smoldered in rage. “We don’t have time for this petty bickering. Lieutenant, just what the hell has been going on?”
Kroos’s perfect posture gave way as he slumped his shoulders. “You should know better than anyone else. We’ve lost the war. Come on, we haven’t evacuated the Tactical Operations Center yet. I’m sure the general would like a word.”
Kroos pivoted on his heels and marched through the bunker’s camouflaged entrance. Kolchak and his scowling team stalked after him with hungry predator strides. The Americans and Euros just traipsed along out of routine.
Dore twisted to the side as he headed down the ramp, doing his best not to bump the endless loops of detonation cord and C4 a team of engineers were running through every nook and cranny around.
“We’ve been losing since day one. So what’s with the sudden panic now?”
“I didn’t say we are losing.”
Kroos stopped briefly at a side storage room, now stacked to the ceiling with body bags. He shook his head and picked up the pace.
“I said we’ve already lost.”
***
General Andre slammed his laptop shut and bounded to his feet as soon as the operators wedged inside the command bunker. Kat’s pent-up rage collapsed as she studied the first real smile she’d seen in a long while.
“So it’s true! You all made it out? Thank God. Sorry about that nasty nuclear business. The Germans didn’t even warn us until their cruise missiles were already airborne.” He dashed around, shaking everyone’s hand and slapped Washington on the back. “Son, I’m glad you were the only one able to see through the chaos and worry about our long-term survival. If you hadn’t taken the initiative, we’d be out of options. Are you tired of being a civilian in all this? I’d be honored to offer you a battlefield commission. How does that sound, Captain Washington?”
Lieutenant Kroos ground his teeth. Dore jumped in before he exploded. “There’s only twenty of us left. I know Milan was a clusterfuck, but at least half your army escaped. That should be enough to hold the line for a while. Especially with the replicator pumping out real weapons for them to use.”
Andre scrubbed his bloodshot eyes, his short burst of euphoria evaporating. “Weapons? Well that’s the problem. The Caliphate have a new secret weapon that’s kicking our asses.”
He leaned over and opened up his laptop. A second later, the massive screen on the wall brought up a worldwide strategic overlay.
Kat gasped. “Tell me that’s a smudge on the screen.”
Andre sat on a corner of the table and worked his jaw. The black lines marking the Caliphate’s advance in Europe and Asia had doubled in the last 72 hours. Even as they tried to soak in the disaster, some staffer made an update and refreshed the screen. Another few inches of East Asia turned black.
“The bastards are offering peace and amnesty now. And it’s worse than any bomb. They’ll stack a horde of Jihadis and warbots in one sector, then send in emissaries loaded down with convoys of food, fuel, gold... and video footage of normal life in the Caliphate.”
“You can’t seriously be worried about propaganda.”
“What you call propaganda, most of these survivors would call heaven. Life in the Caliphate is pretty damn rosy. No shortage of food, power or consumer goods. Real law and order, access to their super nano-medicine... you get the idea. On the other hand, life in the ‘free’ zones around the world ranges from bleak to... well, the worst parts of the Bible. Especially in Asia. When they aren’t sacrificing themselves to just slow down the jihadi tide, the local soldiers
—hastily armed civilians really—are fighting bandit gangs, famine and disease. Knowing that the nightmare could all be over, for them and their families, if they’d just lay down their arms is too much of a temptation for many to pass up.”
Kat opened her mouth, but Andre stuck up his hand. “And before you wax poetically about freedom, remember that most of these people, Russians to Vietnamese, have never seen such a thing. As far as they’re concerned, it’s just swapping one dictator for another. At least the new boss is quite generous.”
Kolchak shook in rage. “Now who’s spitting propaganda? A few cowards aside, Mother Russia will never surrender! Not for Napoleon, not for the Nazi’s and sure as hell not for a bunch of Islamists!”
Andre eeked out a grim smile. “Doesn’t matter. No nation has yet formally surrendered, but it’s working though. The carrot and stick approach is thinning our ranks faster than any weapon. The Chinese front collapsed this morning, which has freed up the bulk of their army. As you’ve seen yourself, Northern Europe’s on its last leg. I don’t know how long it’ll take the Caliphate to shift those extra troops back here, but then it’s game over.”
Washington seemed more shocked than anyone else. “What about these new guns? I’ll man the nano-assembler myself. Don’t have to waste time training anyone else. We’ve been pumping out five hundred advanced rifles a day, but if you keep me in raw materials I could double that soon. We could even replicate a few drones ourselves. We just need a little more time…”
“We’re out of time. It’s too little, too late to save us right now, but this replicator should make a huge difference down the road.”
Dore perked up. “So where you taking it?”
“To a safe zone somewhere in South America. It’s already at sea, as a matter of fact. The Federal Council accepted that the homeland was lost a while ago. So for the last week, we’ve been working with the remnants of the EU to evacuate VIP personnel from every member nation. The exact location is classified even beyond my level, but we’ve smuggled hundreds of ships out of the warzone with tens of thousands of our best people aboard.”
“You mean politicians and rich folks, huh?”
Andre flashed his teeth. “Oh no. Mostly scientists, engineers, various technical specialists, doctors and all the children we could squeeze in. Sure, we took a few senior members of the Federal Council to ensure a legitimate civilian government, but that’s it. Wasn’t too hard to enforce the rules. We made sure that all the guards overseeing the boarding process had a child on board. The first billionaire that showed up and tried to take a kid’s place was the last. From what I heard, his body is still hanging from the pier.”
Andre managed another ghost of a smile. “Which reminds me of why we need you all.”
Kat narrowed her eyes. “The body or the pier?”
Andre just grunted and shouted in French at a few silent men in civilian clothes fidgeting at the back of the room. “There isn’t much left of the French navy, but they lent us Commander du Casse and some of his best people to get you out of here.”
Dore stuck out his hand to shut up Kat and Kolchak. “The hell with that. We’re not going to hide in some rain forest and just sit this out. If you folks are tired of fighting, then leave us the new guns. We’ll put them to good use. Go guerilla style in these mountains and keep killing these assholes for months; years if need be!”
His over-the-top bravado shut up the entire room. Even Kat slumped into a chair and stared at the ground.
Andre chuckled without mirth. “Be careful what you wish for, Captain. I have six large shipping containers outside. Five are bursting at the seams with railguns and plastic explosives. The sixth has been retrofitted with air holes and seats. We’re just waiting on final confirmation from our contacts in Libya that everything’s ready...”
All the operators were on their feet now. Kolchak snapped back on his body armor and whooped. “We’re counterattacking? Good to see you finally growing some balls!”
“You are. Not us.” Andre stabbed his hand at the strategic map. The black lines of the Islamic advance had expanded even farther in the last few minutes. “What’s the point in chewing up a little more of the Caliphate’s cannon fodder here on the front? We don’t need any more martyrs. You want to make a difference, then you have to start there. Infiltrate the Caliphate, arm and train the local rebels and start an insurrection that will burn the whole evil empire to the ground!”
Kat rolled her eyes and imitated his serious fist pounding. “You’ve been under this damn mountain too long. This isn’t the Cold War. How the hell are we supposed to sneak in there? Even if we could, we’d need to raise an army of thousands of locals. Hundreds of thousands, actually. In case you haven’t noticed, not one of us speak Arabic!”
Andre waved over Commander du Casse. “ISIS is about as popular with most Muslims as the Westboro Baptist Church was with most Christians. We’ve cultivated contacts among every significant rebel and tribal militant group from Morocco to Kabul. We didn’t just slap this plan together overnight. It’s been in the works for a while. If we could only get them some real support, they’ve guaranteed us they could organize an insurgency the likes of which the world has never seen. We’re talking millions of fighters. All rising up at once!”
Kat and Dore shared a snort. Kat threw up her hands. “For a moment I thought you had a real plan. We’ve heard promises like that from local warlords before. You haven’t been to the sandbox, have you, General? If they’re so fired up with holy rage, why haven’t the locals already risen up? You’re being conned by a bunch of goat fuc—”
Andre ripped off the stars on his shoulder. “Do you have a better fucking plan? If so, you can take charge right now of this whole operation. Otherwise, shut the fuck up, Sergeant!”
Kat bit her tongue until a trickle of blood slipped out the corner of her mouth. Washington shrugged off his meekness and pulled her back.
“Um, I hate to be the civilian that has to point this out, but this whole argument is a moot point anyway. I’ve seen these primitive shipping containers. They’re huge. We don’t stand a chance of sneaking them into the Caliphate’s territory. Even with the dropship. It’s one thing spoofing the friend/foe beacons during a chaotic firefight on the frontlines, but out in the open, they’d gun us down before we got halfway across the Mediterranean. You can’t even imagine how tightly networked their Artificial Intelligence systems are.”
Commander du Casse uncrossed his arms and finally spoke up. “That’s where we come in. The main reason we were able to sneak out so many refugee ships was because the Caliphate’s running ten times as many cargo freighters from Europe back to their homeland. Spoils of war, but thankfully they’re getting quite spoiled and sloppy with security. As long as our ship departs from a Caliphate-occupied port here in Europe, we won’t have any issue getting to Africa.”
Andre sprang off the table, dragged a large metal chest out and popped it open. The perpetual frowns from the operators only deepened at the gleaming golden bricks shining back at them. “We’ve worked out all the details and already paid the deposit. This is the final payment along the way. We’ve organized a network of, um, private contractors able to smuggle you down to the docks in Naples, Italy. There’s a well-paid civilian freighter waiting to take you to Benghazi, where you’ll hook up with a friendly tribal militia. They’ve worked closely with the CIA in the past and have promised their full support.”
Dore cocked an eyebrow. “Just what type of private contractors made it through the end of the world and are still operating?”
Du Casse shrugged. “Cockroaches can survive even a nuclear war. The Mafia guys transporting us overland down to Naples should be reliable. We know where their families live, after all. It’s the human smugglers on board I’m a little unsure about. This Zuwara guy is bad news. We were hunting him for years before the invasion. Still, if there are any problems, then feel free to take him out. My crew can handle his ship. Several of my guys speak
Arabic too. What more could you ask for?”
Washington cut through the seething gloom and raised his hand. “I’m no soldier, but I know these Caliphate people. They’re master manipulators, but there are also only a few hundred of the original invaders left alive. If we could, you know, take enough of them out, then who’d be running the show? You know the present day terrorists better than I do. Wouldn’t the rest of this weird alliance of religious extremists fall apart as they start slaughtering each other? My Artificial Intelligence puts the odds at better than 90%.”
For the first time in the whole meeting, the room shut up in contemplative silence.
***
“Run it again then!”
The doctor chuckled. “Your blood sample isn’t exactly a credit card, Sergeant. I’m sorry, but there’s not a single nanite left in your body. My guess is that the last of them were used up fighting off the lingering effects of radiation poisoning, so quit feeling sorry for yourself.”
“You people have had weeks to study the Caliphate’s space-age medical shit. Can’t you guys make some more?”
“Honey, it’s like going back in time and asking Hippocrates to whip up a batch of modern penicillin. You want my advice? This might cost me my license, but I’d recommend injecting yourself with as many of those strange nanobot syringes as you can the next chance you get.” She patted Kat’s arm and chuckled again. “And save one of those dirty needles for me. If they can cure cancer, they must work wonders for crow’s feet!”
“How the hell can you find anything funny nowadays?”
The older woman flashed a girlish grin and giggled. “Hey, a day without laughter is a day wasted. You should try it. Anyway, I’ve given you every vaccine we have left. Most importantly, you don’t have any tumors yet from all the radiation exposure and you’re not any more banged up than the rest of your team, so I’d say you’re good to go on your little African vacation. The only problem is, I’m afraid we don’t accept your insurance...”
The Caliphate Invasion Page 38
