by G. R. Carter
The Founder of the Republic shared their pain. Not in the way politicians used to share pain, with tears on command and a “thought and prayers” statement tailored via focus group. Alex Hamilton was here on-site, sleeping in his Valkyrie. Despite the aches and pains of past wounds, he would show them just how important their task was. That he was willing to die for his people.
Over the last week, he’d led his men out of their Westgate fortress and through the ruins of East St. Louis, sweeping the Caliphate away in front of them. He’d been right about the hordes – almost immediately after the Silver Shields left Westgate, the siege of Beardstown had been lifted. Lori’s surviving troopers were mopping up anything that remained. Father Steve had sent word that a newly crowned Boar King had pledged his loyalty to the Republic, promising to bring all his tribes to join Alex in the final battle for the White City.
It was going to be quite the affair: from all over the area crazed jijis were streaming in to participate in their own battle of Armageddon. The chance to martyr themselves in a final fight against the one Caliphate scribes called Alexander the Terrible.
“Still no sign of movement, Founder Hamilton.” Alex nodded his reply to the man without truly acknowledging him. His attendant was a Tier Two, a reservist only called to service because of losses taken by the Shield. He still loved them all, of course. They were his people, and Tier Twos were sacrificing just as much as the Shield of the Okaw troopers – maybe more, since they were farmers and tradesmen responsible for keeping the day-to-day operations of the Republic moving.
The human price so far was horrific, a dagger to the Republic’s future. Heirs to many of the great Fortress Farms had perished, dead in the ruins or making their way back to the heart of the Republic for treatment of vicious wounds only witnessed in the most desperate of combat. Young warriors’ burning desire for adventure, stoked by Alex’s call for holy war against invaders, bled out with every hard-won mile and wrecked building they reclaimed from the Caliphate. Only hardened veterans remained.
Eating your seed corn, the original Founder of the Republic – his father – would call it. Every farmer who died here in the cold was a crop not planted in the warmth of spring. War begat waste, waste opened the gate to hunger. Yet all men and women of the Republic were farmers, and all were ultimately warriors. They were engaged in a war to the death with those who would never let them live in peace. To win, even the youngest of Red Hawks would meet their enemy with lead and steel.
Perimeter, Alex, look away from the buildings, he reminded himself. He tried to separate the emotion, to evaluate the strategic situation dispassionately. Good luck with that, he scolded.
Why hadn’t he given the order for Lancer to commence yet? He’d planned it for months, alienated a good portion of his inner circle to prepare a weapon so many found reprehensible and barbaric. He knew there was little chance he’d be able to take the White City with conventional arms. Each drop of blood spent to reach this point had been set the stage for the final act. If he didn’t set it in motion now, what was the point?
Every jiji who wanted safety against the weather and the Republic bunched around the walls of the White City, with shelter and probably enough food to last a prolonged winter. To crack the outer shell and take the city itself would be a horrific price in men, likely a price the Republic would be unable to pay and still survive in the long term.
Was he really waiting on the Boar King’s reinforcements to arrive? Or was it something else? Perhaps he knew how history would judge him for this campaign. So easy for an academic to condemn from the safety of a warm office generations from now. Perhaps he feared that Sam was right, that he was damaging his very soul by condemning so many others to terrible deaths. Perhaps the Creator could never forgive him for such an act. Or maybe it was Sam himself that delayed Alex’s decision; once Lancer was carried out, Sam would be flying west to search for their sister Essie. The gnawing suspicion he’d never see his brother again plagued him.
Dread nearly overwhelmed him; the kind of dread that seeps into every thought, controls emotions, clouds decisions. The kind of dread that leads to uncertainty and second-guessing; an uncertainty that leads to fear. Not fear of physical danger or suffering hardship, but the wavering concern that he might be wrong, that his judgment had gone askew. It was a fear most cancerous to a leader, especially in times of war.
He had the Caliphate right where he wanted. Yet still he waited to give the final order.
Alex wrestled with his swirling thoughts. He rubbed his good eye and adjusted the patch over his ruined one. Then he pulled the collar of his duster up a little further, a force of habit trying to get any comfort from the biting cold.
“Won’t do any good, son,” a deep voice announced. Alex recognized the tone and allowed himself a little smile as Bishop Douglas Hart patted his shoulder.
“I’d heard you were here,” the Founder said with a pursed smile. His tone turned more sinister when he said, “We should light that city on fire. That would keep us a warm awhile.”
Bishop Hart measured him for a moment, then decided not to care if Alex was kidding or not. “Don’t guess we can do that,” the large bearded man finally replied. “Since we don’t have hardly enough fuel to keep your Valkyries running.”
A smile appeared through whiskers holding tiny ice crystals. “These winters, they’re getting longer and colder, right? No doubt about it. I think you should plan your holy wars a little better, young man. At least if you want old religious fanatics to join along,” Bishop Hart said as solemnly as he could without busting up.
Alex joined him in the laugh, never considering how irreverent such humor might be. Bishop Hart had remained steadfast through the darkest of days, disappearing from Alex’s side only long enough to keep a handle on the Unified Church, growing like a vine throughout their land.
“Yeah well, I’m glad you’re here, I just wish your cohort would show up. I could really use his help.”
“The Boar King…Father Steve…will be here, Alex. He gave his word, and he’ll be here with all the men he can afford to muster. Do you know what you’ll do with them when they get here?”
Alex shook his head. There was never a reason to lie to Hart, and it didn’t work anyhow. There was nothing mystical about the man if you knew him; he just had a really good way of detecting dishonesty. Phil Hamilton would have called it a “BS detector.”
“I’m really unsure right now, Bishop,” Alex admitted. He’d stopped calling him Doug a few years back; the formal title somehow felt more natural at this point in their lives. “Maybe I should have used everything I had to keep the jijis from getting into ARK.”
“But your instincts told you to wait,” Hart said, half-questioning. The big man stroked his beard, shaking loose the tiny icicles. He continued, “Your instincts are usually correct, son.”
Alex interrupted him with a finger pointing to his eyepatch, but Hart continued. “Just because people get killed and things get broken doesn’t mean you weren’t right. I’ve seen firsthand what the jijis do, the destruction that gets left behind. If they will not be converted, they must be killed.”
Alex sighed and looked away. “Then what makes us different from them?” he asked.
Hart wrapped a clamp-like hand around Alex’s arm. Even with the layers, the grip still stung a little. “Because we didn’t go to their homes and rape their women. We didn’t burn their farms or cut the throats of their little ones,” he growled. “Now if that’s not enough to be fighting for, perhaps you should give the Founder’s Chair to someone else, right?”
Alex met his elder’s gaze. He could see the fire in the holy man’s soul. “I’ve never backed down from a fight and you know it. I’ve got the wounds, inside and out, to prove it.”
“That’s the past. Congratulations, you were a hero. Now, what will you do tomorrow? I think you’ve earned the right to retire to your beloved Aronia Point. I’m sure you and Bek will be happy there, at least until the hord
e come knocking at your door. Why don’t you hand the Chair to someone else, then you can go daydream all you like, right?”
Alex was stunned – he wasn’t used to having his courage challenged. Doug Hart was not a man to pull punches, but he was clearly looking for a fight.
“Excuse me, Bishop,” Alex said sarcastically. “While you run around playing pope I’m figuring out a way to keep our whole world from burning down!”
“Looks like you did a great job of that,” Hart nodded with mock sincerity. “Which part of our world isn’t burning? ARK is gone. Our western lands are decimated from the jijis’ squatting. Beardstown would have fallen without the Boar King. You’ve exhausted your best units letting our enemies escape. Vincennes is barely hanging on, and only because Eric Olsen is pouring in all of Grand Shawnee’s resources to hold off the Eastern Caliphate…let’s see, am I missing anything?”
“You’re missing the part where you can kiss my ass, old man!” Alex screamed. “Why don’t you do some good for once and dial up God, see if you can get us some help? I’m tired of Him sitting this out and making us do everything ourselves!” His chest was heaving, his good eye trying to water but failing to in the cold. Alex could hear his heart pounding in his ears.
Fists clenched, he stared at a man who had served as a mentor since before his father fell in battle. Now that mentor had turned on him, and he’d never felt more alone.
Alex’s rage was met by a serenity that settled on Hart’s face. The older man grabbed him and threw his arms around him. At first Alex resisted, but then settled in to the bear hug, feeling ridiculous but relieved as he laid his head on the broad shoulder.
“I knew it,” Hart whispered in his ear. “I knew you were mad at Him.”
“Mad at who?” Alex asked as he pulled himself away and tried to wipe his eye.
“Mad at God, mad at your father. You want both of them standing right here beside you, telling you what to do next. You’re mad at them because you think they’ve abandoned you.”
“Well, I don’t see them here, do you?” Alex admitted as a small tear escaped the freeze.
“Yes. Yes, I do. I see them both right here in front of me. Only you’re not as handsome as either one.”
Alex tried to smile. “You’re trying to say I’m them?”
Hart replied calmly. “In a way. They’ve given you all the knowledge you need to make the right decisions. But never forget, a bad decision is better than no decision. You cannot be paralyzed waiting for someone to tell you the exact right answer. That will never come, right?”
“Gordon Steinbrink used to teach us that,” Alex agreed, thinking of the man who had tutored him in military history. “That no grand plan ever survived contact with the enemy.”
“I think he stole that from George Patton, but yeah, something like that.”
“Did you have to torture me to get me to see that? You really had me going!” Alex smiled.
The harsh look on Hart’s face returned. “I meant every word, Alex. If you can’t take this, you’ve got to get out now. I mean it, son. Go home, grow your crops, enjoy your children. You’ve served honorably. No one could ask any more of you. But if you don’t get your confidence back – and I mean right now – you’re going to get us all killed.”
Uncomfortable silence fell and only the wind made noise for a while. Alex realized his aide was still standing beside them, try as he might to be invisible.
He finally remembered his name. “Palmer, get word to my brother to execute Project Lancer as soon as humanly possible. Tell him to let me know when it will commence. And cable Martin Fredericks to join us here, soonest best. You’ll find him helping Eric Olsen on the eastern front. Tell him it’s urgent, that I would only pull him away if I truly needed his help.”
“Of course, Founder Hamilton. I’ll leave immediately,” Palmer said and then gladly jogged away.
“Do I have to guess?” Hart asked hopefully.
“It’s time, Bishop…” Alex paused and looked back at the towering walls surrounding the ruins of the White City. The sun caught an edge of what still remained of the Gateway Arch and reflected light at them. “It’s time we finish what they started.”
Without another word, the Founder spun on one heel and walked smartly across the crunching grass and snow. He was already yelling for his Shield commanders to join him in a large command tent attached to the rear of his Valkyrie. The tail of his duster swirled the snow behind him, leaving tiny tornadoes in his wake.
Bishop Hart stood and watched the young man. Not so young anymore, he reminded himself.
A smirk would have been visible to those who knew him. Challenging powerful men with volatile tempers was dangerous, but ultimately necessary. He’d rattled the Founder’s cage, just to see if the alpha wolf inside could be stirred. The Founder was still in the game, and with him, they had a chance for victory.
Chapter Twenty-Four
The Skies Above the Mississippi River
Near the White City (Present Day St. Louis)
Sam checked his gauges again. He’d lost track of how many times he’d done it since taking off from the old Springfield Air National Guard base.
His eyes went back to the windscreen. Envy gnawed at him as he watched the taillight blinking on a Raptor cruising a half a mile ahead while he was stuck trying to coax a lumbering giant through the frigid air. The beast strained under the weight of a full fuel load and its payload resting in the back. Thinking about the contents made him even more nervous.
Reflexively he checked the gauges again. Still good, so back to the windscreen went his eyes.
A small part of him kept waiting for a silver flash to streak across his line of sight. Every night since the air battle over Vincennes he’d seen the plane that had killed several of his pilots and had nearly killed him. Someday, he hoped, it would disappear. It was silly to worry anyway; they were headed west, not east.
He looked over at his copilot, silhouetted in the dim green lights of the cockpit. She noticed him looking, then smiled and gave a big thumbs-up. The vigor of youth is wasted on the young, he thought, then chastised himself for being an old man at such a young age.
“How far until Independence?” she shouted, too loud, over the cockpit radio. He could hear her without it.
He smiled back at her. “We’ve got a very important stop before we make that part of the journey.”
She simply nodded, letting her attention drift back to the mesmerizing wall of instruments and gauges monitoring the health of a C–130. Constant surveillance was needed for an airframe that was a half-century old and desperately trying to overcome the laws of physics to stay aloft.
The first leg of the trip was a short one. The tiny air group – five Raptors and the only three C–130s in the Red Hawk arsenal – could cover the ground in only about an hour.
Another scan of the gauges, another glance outside. Through the windscreen, he finally recognized his destination.
*****
Maxwell was feverishly coding. The room was dark except for his wind-up lamp and the blinking glow of the servers…and of course, the screen of Grapevine’s terminal.
I’ve been abandoned for the last time, he assured himself. Everything he’d been told by Demetrius, everything he’d believed all these years was a scam, a total fraud. Well, if Continuity of Government wasn’t going to let his Profile live on in Grapevine, he’d force his way on. If they tried to throw him off, they’d be wiped off, too. He’d bring the whole network down on their heads. If he couldn’t have immortality, no one would have immortality.
Years of neglect by the government, by Julia Ruff and her dirt-sucking minions at Old Main, had taken their toll on his esteem. Then stints with the Red Hawks and the humiliation of the Diamantes…none of that compared to being a stooge for Demetrius and Aguilar. They’d never give him a good word with the Cogs.
Both were long gone now. They’d left him to die in this city along with his own dreams of wealth and power. Al
l it took was a setback in Beardstown and the arrival of Alex Hamilton’s tanks on the other side of the river, and Aguilar had split for Memphis with most of Maxwell’s best-trained Peacekeepers.
All Maxwell had left now was a giant but frightened Caliphate jihadist army. An army that believed Alexander the Terrible had been sent by their god to persecute them. He wasn’t sure how many were camped here. Tens of thousands, he supposed. Enough to easily overwhelm the Red Hawks, but frightened out of their wits by the scourge of god. They feared Alexander’s wrath much more than they feared Maxwell’s.
His fingers were a flash on the keys. Line after scripted line flowed from his brain to his fingers, then onto the screen. The architecture was beautiful, brilliant in every way. Ignorant amateurs would call it a virus, some would call it a trojan; the masters of the computer age would call it art. The concept had always been in his head, ever since the day he’d been introduced to Continuity. But he’d never let his heart truly follow the heresy his mind begged for. I way for his brilliance to finally be acknowledged.
Apparently, it was every man for himself in Continuity. He intended to make sure that if necessary, it would only be one Profile left standing.
*****
Campfires for what seemed like miles lit up the ground below. All up and down the western bank of the river, tiny dots of yellow looked like a map of the constellations below instead of above Sam’s C–130. By now, those on the ground would hear engines echoing off the buildings. A C–130 was a loud beast, made more so by the modifications needed to operate them with the fuel and tools available to their crews.
He tried not to think about the captives in those tents; the slaves ripped from their homes wishing for someone to come and save them from this hellish fate. It will all be over soon, he assured himself.
Sam led his little squadron down along the river, ice floes shimmering in the clear moonlight. The city’s skyline was to their right, and as they cleared the last of the tall buildings he banked right, moving over the southern batch of campfires. He kept banking, trying to figure out where the greatest concentration of jijis were, calculating where the greatest impact would be for his payload.
