by J. F. Holmes
I looked at father Feradach and saw that his eyes had rolled back and he was perfectly still, though veins throbbed at his temples. I glanced at the image and the mage snarled one word, causing the lighting to jump towards us. My shoulder caught the padre in the side and sent him sprawling on the floor and the image winked out just as it filled with blinding white light.
“Jesus, Mary and Joseph!” he gasped and pointed weakly to a drawer, “Whiskey, in the desk lad, and be quick!” I found it and looked for a glass but he grabbed it out of my hand, tore off the cap and took a long swig, wheezing as he took the bottle away from his mouth.
“So, you’re a magic user too, like their mages?” I asked as he put cork back in the bottle.
He shook his head. “I’m a T-ball player going up against Derek Jeeter, compared to them. I can scry, look at things that I’m familiar with, from a distance, and as you can see, it takes an immense amount of strength and willpower. There are others who have talent, though we keep it hidden from the world. The Magia exists within the Church and other religions to keep an eye on those with some small power, just in case. Some study and learn, but many are fearful. It wasn’t all that long ago that I would have been burned at the stake.”
“How … how does that reconcile with being a Catholic? I mean, you’re a priest, for Christ… I mean, for Pete’s sake.”
He shook his head. “It exists, and to be honest, prayer helps the talent. For every force of evil in the world, David, there must be a counterbalance of good. In fact, I’ve felt it grow somewhat stronger since they arrived. It’s a shame that Rabbi Friedman was killed in Brooklyn. That man was the head of our local chapter of the order and he could make the sweetest music appear from thin air. Now, well, I shall see what I can do.”
My head spun at the implications of all this, and he saw me thinking. “Never you mind this David, we aren’t going to step out into Manhattan and challenge Lord Tavan to a duel. IF we can learn from them, it will be years before we can openly challenge even the smallest of their users openly. We will do what we can to help, though. Now, you had better go. My head is killing me.”
I helped him up and to a couch, He looked grey and pale, and he pulled a blanket over himself, even in the early morning heat. “One more thing before you go. Nothing about this to Shannon.”
I smiled. “You have my word, Father,” I said.
“Good, a man’s word is all you can count on sometimes. Go to war with God’s blessing, Major Kincaid. They truly are evil.”
Chapter 36
I left Father Feradach in his office after working to set up a system of communication. We couldn’t rely on the internet to stay up; as soon as the Elves realized what it was I was sure they would wreck it best they could. The sword and the book went into a gym bag and I grasped his hand tight. “Live free or die, Padre,” I said.
He replied, “That’s how our Lord and Savior would have it. His greatest gift, freedom of choice. God Bless you, David. And may the Force be with you.”
Ha, this guy was alright. Making my way out of his office, I met O'Neill in the hallway and we moved out, ignoring the Elf in the squad room. There were no more than a dozen cops in the building, mostly admin guys from the look of their guts. The Elf was picking up the phone and punching numbers, then slamming it back down and laughing. “Fucking moron,” I muttered under my breath as I watched, and O'Neill pulled on my arm. Too late. A thin bladed sword whipped out and kissed my cheekbone, drawing blood, then stopped there. I could see the needle sharp point hovering two inches from my eye.
“It would be wise, peasant, to know your place,” said the Elf in perfect English. He stood slightly taller than me, whip thin, muscular and with a face so pretty I wanted to punch it immediately. “Eventually our magi will understand your ‘technology’, for all the good it did you,” he continued, the blade not moving. “You are an officer of the law; I suggest you go enforce it and leave these things to your betters. Is that understood?”
“Absolutely, my Lord. Excuse me for my words, I have been under much stress and my son was wounded in the invasion. I will do the job and honor the badge, though.” I put as much ass kissing into my voice as I could.
The blade disappeared back into its sheath and the Elf smiled. “It is good to know your place, and Lord Tavan rewards loyal retainers.” He turned his back on me and started screwing with a laptop.
I let my hand drop towards the pistol on my leg and found another already there. “Don’t!” hissed O'Neill in my ear, and she shoved me forward with her other hand on the small of my back. For a little thing she was strong as shit, and I mentally struggled for a moment to resist the urge to put a round in the back of that smug asshole’s head. A thousand choices ran through my mind in a second, and a few of them were hero shit, shooting our way out of the building and sending a message. The fact that she had denied me all those choices made me furious.
When we got outside I lit into her. “Don’t you EVER stop me from reaching for a weapon again, do you hear me?” I was angry as hell.
“OK, super trooper, and next fucking time I’ll let that orc standing behind you just cut your goddamned Captain America head off!” she shot back.
“The what?” I said and then realized how stupid I both sounded and looked. “Oh.” I finished, pretty lamely.
“Yeah. Honestly, I dunno how far you got in Delta by letting your dick drive your actions,” she laughed, but it was a nervous laugh, the ones that come after what could have been an incredibly dangerous situation.
“My dick?” I asked. “Ah, I get it. Not chasing a piece of ass, but dick measuring games. Yeah, well, I’m really starting to hate those assholes.”
“Me too, but try to think with your big head, and not the little one,” and she smiled.
“Ms. O'Neill, if I let my little brain do all the talking, things would have been different last night.”
She laughed and said, “I’ll take that as a compliment. Now, we’ve got work to do and a war to fight.”
Chapter 37
We did have a war to fight, and I carefully thought about our first action. We waited a few days, doing recon and gathering information, building networks and planning. Now we were back in Brooklyn, by the ramps to the bridge at 04:30, an hour or so before early summer dawn. Signs in English said that anyone stepping onto the battlefield would be taken as slaves for Lord Tavan. The dead were still there, the human ones anyway, and they smelled to high heaven in the summer heat. Swollen bodies bursting from ripped uniforms, corpses with their eyes being pecked out by crows. There’s no glory to death, ever, though how you meet it will echo forever. Every one of these men and women should have praises sung for longer than the Spartans.
Where the female Elf mage had fallen was a statue, silver and shining in the pre-dawn, a perfect replication of her. Instead of the armor clad warrior I had killed, though, she was in a simple dress, wand in one hand and a butterfly alight on an outstretched finger. Her smile was achingly beautiful, an expression of happiness and joy that seemed far more real than the blood stained body I had left there. For a moment, staring at it through binoculars, I actually grieved for her, looking like a young woman who was in love with life, and I wondered what had driven her to this stupid war. Maybe love of her father, loyalty to her house, tradition, I dunno. I would have liked to have met her under different circumstances, hell maybe take her on a hike through the Blue Ridge Mountains, show her how beautiful our world could be. Not now, though, not ever.
“With all due respect, Sir, you’re outta your goddamn mind.” Beside me, Hollis was also using her binos, studying the East Tower. An hour after dawn we expected a dragon to show up, sitting there watching the coming and going of the city. In front of the tower the roadbed had been shattered by Lord Tavan’s’ blast or earthquake or whatever it was, but the twin suspension cables were still anchored and holding up pieces of the road.
“I’ve been told that before, you know.” I had, too.
She
grunted and said, “Well if enough people tell you that, might be they’s on to something.”
“Could be,” I agreed, shifting my gaze to one of the cables that ran up the middle. Some of the pedestrian bridge was still intact, at least until where it intersected the rising supports. “Nothing to do but to do it, though.”
“Just leave them up there, Dave.” There was concern in her voice, and her using my first name was unusual for her despite the familiarity that Special Forces often assumed. “You’re going to risk your life over a couple of pieces of cloth.”
She was right, of course. I was taking a dangerous risk, for what? “Pieces of cloth have won more victories than many a general, Aida.” I also used her first name to indicate how serious I was taking this. “I have perfect confidence that you and Master Sergeant Clark can carry out an insurgency as well as I could. Matter of fact, when this gets done, I’m going to recommend you for a direct commission. You can both be Big God Damned Heroes!”
“Oh the hell you are. Go on, go up there and break your fool neck!” She said it with a grin, though. As much as she may think me an idiot, like all Special Forces soldiers she enjoyed a challenge.
“Clear,” came Master Sergeant Clarks’ voice over the radio. The jamming had stopped, at least locally, yesterday, and there were now FM stations transmitting music and propaganda all over the dial. I doubt anyone was listening in on our encrypted team radios, but we kept it short anyway.
“Nothing to do but to do it,” I said and started out into the predawn twilight. I could have gone earlier in full darkness but twilight was always better. Your movement tended to blend into the background as the observer’s eye actually overcompensated for the lighter sky. Passing the statue, I saw that it actually glowed with a pale light. She really was beautiful, and I contrasted that with the bloody corpse of my memories. Well, only the dead know the end of war.
Clark nodded as I went past, hiding in the remains of a burnt out Humvee. He, at least, agreed with me and what I was about to do. The South Africans had a long military tradition stretching back through both the Dutch and British, and he had served in the South African Special Forces Brigade before emigrating to America back in early 2000’s. He knew his shit and knew what motivated people.
The decking itself of the walkway was shaky, and I had to move carefully. Getting across them to where the support cables were wasn't easy in the twilight, but as I got higher, I put on a set of NVGs. There was no way I was going up those things without being able to see what I was doing. There were guide wires, but about halfway up was a sort of gate designed to prevent people from going further. I guess someone from the Bridge and Tunnel Authority had a key, but so did I. I took the big bolt cutters off my back and, being careful to make sure I was in a solid position, used them to snap through the lock. It was hard, but I’m a fairly strong guy and the lock was a bit rusted. Then it was a matter of continuing up the cable along the steps set every few feet. It was tricky, though, with only one guide wire to hold onto, and got harder as the cable arched up to almost vertical. One slip and I’d either hit what remained of the roadbed or drop all the way to the river. Almost three hundred feet down I’d be moving at more than a hundred miles per hour when I hit the water. That would be a very short insurgency. The heavy pack on my back didn’t help, either, and thank God it wasn’t winter. The line of commo wire that unspooled out from the frame on my pack only added to the weight.
“FREEZE!” came Hollis' voice in my ear, and I did. Clark was watching close; she was looking far. “Dragon leaving the heliport.” I turned my head slightly and watched as a huge beast climbed high into the sky, circled several times and then headed east. It had been two weeks since the Invasion and I heard that the Elves were starting to build estates out by the Hamptons. That was one of our next targets, and I had already been in touch with a veteran’s cell out on Long Island. The key to an insurgency is to never let them feel safe.
“Clear.” called Hollis, and I resumed my upward climb, faster now that the sky was lightning in the east. The last steps were almost vertical and it was a struggle to get my ass and the pack over the top and onto the deck of the tower, covering me with sweat. I ran to the flagpole and set the pack down, hurriedly cutting the ropes that held the tattered American flag and the burned and holed 69th Regimental Colors. I removed the box in the pack and carefully stuffed the flags in. Then I clipped a new, larger Gadsden Flag on the pole and set the box at its base, tilted up at a thirty degree angle, pointed in the general direction of where the dragon landed each day. next a two hundred foot climbing rope around the base of the flagpole, a tug to make sure it was still secure. Last the commo wire, hooking it up to the two leads on the box. Dawn lit the top of the buildings at the other end of the bridge and reflected light washed over me.
“Inbound!” said Hollis, with urgency. No shit, I put an old brown sheet over the box to make it less obvious, turned and hauled ass. The climbing rope was secured to my waist by a carabiner in case I missed a step and fell. I’ve seen a twisted ankle kill more than one person in a fight but we were up against a clock.
“MOVE IT, FATASS!” I heard Clark yell, then “COVER!” and, as my feet hit the deck, I whipped out a poncho and pulled it over me, hearing the great rush of wings. Like Frodo and Sam at the gates of Mordor, I lay there, peaking out at the dragon that swept up from the river and landed on the top of the tower. The wind from his wings unfurled the flag and the rider expertly held it at a hover, staring at the strange emblem. It was actually kind of an epic picture, and the dragon really was a beautiful creature, a shiny metallic red gold with an armored figure sitting astride the long neck, lit by a thousand rising suns reflected off the remaining windows in Manhattan.
“Land, you stupid shit,” I muttered, and the creature did, the rider expertly sliding off the saddle and walking towards the base of the flagpole. I don’t know if it was the two way radio in my hand keying the receiver in the box or the electrical charge from the detonator that Clark held, but it blew just as the rider pulled the sheet off.
An explosively formed penetrator is a jet of plasma that is created by focusing the force of explosives onto a sheet of metal, copper being best. That turns into a jet of plasma that can, depending on size, cut through the armor of a main battle tank. The one we had built into the IED had them pointed in a forty five degree spread, and all three went off with one tremendous CRACK that shook the bridge and wreathed it in smoke. When the wind blew it away there was no sign of the rider and half the carcass of the dragon was slowly falling, red gold scales trailing smoke.
Welcome to insurgency, bitches. The yellow and green of the Gadsden flag flapped in the wind, the snake seeming to twist and dance. A grim smile settled on my face and we hauled ass out of there. On my way past the statue I stopped and slapped a sticker of Captain America’s shield on her upturned hand. I had wanted to put it on her face, but somehow it seemed wrong.
Chapter 38
What is and isn't justified by military necessity is, naturally, open to interpretation. One of the key concepts, though, is the law of proportionality. A military attack that results in civilian casualties - 'collateral damage' - is acceptable as long as the military benefits outweigh the price that is paid by humanity.
~Sebastian Junger
We hit them hard later that day, and God save my soul, the civilians paid a severe price for it. The thing to do though wasn’t for us to cause civilian casualties, it was to get the Elves to do it, and yeah, we spent American lives. It was a dirty war, and I’m probably going to hell for it, but I agreed with Patton. A short bloody victory leads to less casualties in the long run. Plus, well remember that scene from the old “Red Dawn” movie? What justified our actions? Because we lived there.
Our first action was an ambush of a food convoy on the Long Island Expressway. There was traffic, people returning to their jobs as the Elven propaganda machine worked hard to ‘normalize’ things. Ration cards for gas, which seemed to appear
like magic in a large number of gas stations. Hell, it probably WAS magic. There seemed to be a lot of low level elven magic users who weren't trained for combat, merely ran around and made their society work. This time instead of meade or wild boar meat they were converting water into gasoline and bread. I had to wonder how things would shake out when car parts started wearing out, oil furnaces broke in the winter, whatever. Technological life didn’t seem to be the Elves strong suit.
“Lead truck, then the cargo van.” I said the man kneeling at the window overlooking the highway. “Remember, go for the wheels so it jackknifes and blocks as many lanes as possible.”
The Serb growled at me, “I was doing this in Bosnia when you were sucking your mother’s tit, boy. Why not the five ton with the Orcs? Kill the black bastards.”
“I was bottle fed,” I replied. “I didn’t suck on my first tit until I was fifteen. And we want to kill Elves, not orcs. Some of them have some sympathy for us. Think of it as going for the officers. You are Vasily Zaitsev with an RPG.”
He laughed but continued to follow the lead 18 wheeler in the convoy with the open sights of his RPG-7. I know the Russian manufactured rocket launcher gets a lot of shit from Western soldiers, but they were cheap and in the right hands, deadly. To his right was a young kid, scared shitless, holding three reloads. After the van the targets were any other trucks carrying supplies.
Yeah, I wanted the Elves dead over the orcs, but I was also doing another thing that I was going to hell for. We were in an abandoned building overlooking the highway in the middle of Queens, but all around us were tenements filled by immigrants and the permanent poor. We hadn’t given them any notice and the wrath of the invaders were going to fall in their heads. I wanted the orcs caught in the middle, hated by our population and their masters wondering why they weren’t targeted. So be it if civilians paid a high price; the more who died now, the less who would die later.
