by John Carrick
Cold California sunlight hit the few remaining sandstone and glass structures. Ground-bound buildings and houses that could not be moved reflected a dull, empty sky. Until as little as a month ago, the sky was filled with hovering structures, but now San Diego stood empty, evacuated.
Only freeway cables remained, hanging flat and lifeless. All the hover-tech high-rises had flown away, north to Angel City, or northeast to Palm Springs and Phoenix. Washington did not want the relocations to become permanent, even if the destruction of the ground based structures in San Diego proved unavoidable. The concept of surrendering San Diego was unacceptable. The Republic would rather see the remainder of the city razed than to let it fall into enemy hands.
Despite the fact that the enemy was armed with little more than light-arms and ethanol driven vehicles, once the Christians marched in, the consensus in Washington would be to dump bulk munitions, destroying the South American People's Army of Christ the Redeemer, as well as the cities of San Diego and Tijuana.
General Cruthers advocated dropping the big one and being done with it.
His superiors strongly disagreed, arguing that the radioactive fall-out would endanger the entire coastline.
General Cruthers didn't care much for California, but his superiors made themselves clear that even a three-day carpet-bombing campaign was preferable to a nuclear event on national soil.
The General had been hearing good things about the cyber-tank project, and he was excited about its delivery in just a few hours. Today was New Years Eve, and if the intelligence estimates were correct, the Socialist People's Army would be massing at the border by sunset, crosses, guns and flags held high, prayers on their lips.
It was always the same, the faithful came and died by the thousands, and San Diego would succumb to it's bloody fate as so many smaller cities already had. The socialists would not retreat, and another rotting cavity would be created on the Republic's southern border.
The General longed to be able to stop them without destroying a hundred stories of steel and glass. He held no concern for human life. In fact, San Diego was already lost.
No one had stayed. No one was going back anytime soon.
The only thing left was to punish the enemy for their forward momentum. That was enough for him. That was all he needed to feel victorious.
The cyber-tanks were his best hope for that victory.
Two hundred miles north and seventy miles west of the coast, a twelve layer military testing facility hovered above the ocean. The unit's anti-gravity drives maintained a comfortable ten thousand feet above the water, nothing but ocean and sky in every direction, as far as the eye could see.
Three prowlers circled the facility at a ten-mile radius. Their weapons systems were always hot, ready to fire on any errant vehicles that might enter their perimeter.
Each layer of the facility was composed of several floors, with an array of hover-disks, working in unison to maintain equilibrium. The twelve levels were arranged in a stacked formation, several miles square. Each deck featured a unique environment, desert, forest or swampland. The levels grew in square footage as one went upward.
The top level stretched ten miles square and featured a rich urban environment, several blocks of seven to ten story buildings. The tests at this facility employed live ammunition and many areas had been reduced to heaps of rubble and twisted steel. While others were clearly in a state of construction, being rebuilt for the umpteenth time.
In the east, the sun touched the distant horizon. The early desert air felt clean and crisp against the Doctor's face. For the past week, he'd been in a state of panic. Finally, all the last minute details were complete, and the project was ready for delivery.
The transport landed on the upper receiving dock, and the personnel disembarked. Major General Cruthers, followed by his colleagues, was glowing with excitement. After brief introductions, Dr. Fox led the gentlemen to the storage hangar.
The cyber-tanks sat connected to various cables, power and fluids snaking along the floor to ports and pumps. The hangar smelled of industrial chemicals, gun oil and fuel. The tanks themselves were dark masses of armor plate with wicked looking tracks and munitions delivery systems protruding from several angles. Extra ammo drums were mounted on the rear fenders. Belt-fed twelve-barrel machine guns were mounted to the front. Running perfectly, they glided over rough and rocky ground smoother than ice on glass, four diesel engines powered the heavy-duty treads, top speed - two hundred kilometers an hour.
Dr. Fox led the inspection team up to one of the forward units. He pointed out the shielded sensor array, the triple redundant communications drives, overlapping armor plates and other external features before touching on the internal functions of the unit.
Colonel Thompson, standing next to General Cruthers, raised his hand. "Are these units autonomous or do they require rear-echelon support?”
"Both and neither. They house organic operators, wired to the control systems, and they also maintain constant communication with command and control agents, here at the facility.”
"You're saying there are people in there? A soldier, an operator?”
"An experienced soldier, battle tested veterans. They have some of the best reaction times we've ever seen...”
"But isn't that illegal?" the colonel interrupted.
General Cruthers rolled his eyes. "Thompson, do you want to be part of this unit or can I just transfer your ass back to Washington?”
"Sir, it's just...”
"We're trying to win a war here, Colonel.”
"Sir, direct weapon-to-brain wiring systems have been illegal for over seventy years. The political ramifications could be...”
"It's illegal for citizens, Thompson. We can't be expected to fight a war with fucko's back in Washington making all the rules.”
Cruthers turned back to Dr. Fox. "Please continue, Doctor."
Later that afternoon, as he was escorted from the facility, Dr. Fox had an awful feeling about the impending skirmish. He had tried to impress upon the General and his staff that the bio-tanks should never be taken above level six when facing civilians. The higher levels were reserved for more advanced enemies. The Christian socialists could hardly be called an organized enemy. Their defense and offense were one and the same, a human wave of men, women, and children: healthy and young, old and sick. Their attack came in the form of a protest march. They all came.
Fox felt sick to his stomach knowing that Cruthers and staff would be commanding the base-side operators. Fox knew that Matthews and his team weren’t likely to play along. Unfortunately, they were no longer under his jurisdiction. The operators were contracted as part of the project deliverables and now accountable to the military authorities responsible for the project.
Dr. Fox suspected Cruthers intended to take the mechanized war machines to their highest level, ten, reserved for training only, one mech against another. At that level, the machines would drive over infants, relishing in the squishy sounds from beneath their treads.
Fox was suddenly awash in fear, regret, and shame. He contemplated demanding the pilot turn the vehicle around but didn't. He knew the captain would not change the flight path. If he went back and opposed Cruthers now, it would be career suicide. They would call it treason. Now there was little Fox could do besides get himself shot.
A ripple went through the crowd; it was time. The barbecues were hastily put out, and the caravan prepared to press north. Small arms were given a quick field cleaning and oiled. Ammunition was passed around and loaded into clips. Children and old folks packed into cars, alongside sand bags and ammunition crates.
The faithful fell silent for a final blessing. They crossed themselves, kissed their rosaries and plastic glow-in-the-dark statues of Jesus, (which were passed around and placed on the dashboards of the cars). They waited while the audio up front was sorted out, excusing the whispered joke or interruption to pass the tequila bottle.
Father Ricardo raised the micropho
ne. "En el nombre del Padre, y del Hijo, y del Espiritu Santo.” He made the sign of the cross over the crowd, holding a crucifix in his hand, which he kissed, the microphone held low, in his left.
The people made the sign of the cross, each in their own way, in their own time.
“Brothers and sisters, we are gathered here this evening to celebrate freedom and community in the Lord. This is the birth of a new age. Tomorrow the sun will rise on another city, freed from greed and tyranny. Once these were our lands, but for 500 years, the liars and hypocrites from across the sea have stolen our birthrights.
"Yes, I say hypocrites, though many profess to be members of the faith. They were once People of the Lord, but they have fallen. For the Lord says that one cannot serve two masters, and they are the servants of gold.
“They erect borders and issue citizenship cards of different status. That is not truth. For are we not all children of the one true God? What is a citizen? It's just a word, an idea. It's an idea that is used to separate the children of God. Used to put one person's worth above another's. We are not different, American or Mexican, European or Asian, African, Columbian or Canadian; we are all children of the Lord. So we must be - brothers and sisters.
"Show me a border in the earth. It does not exist. The Lord did not create borders. He created mountains, rivers and oceans, which some men miscall borders, but they are only mountains, rivers and oceans.
“We serve truth. For only the truth can set you free. I am the way, the truth, and the life. Serve the poorest among you, so that he may know the Lord's tender loving care.
"When We, The People Of The Word, arrived here in this place, our Lord struck the enemy with fear and made him take flight. He does not stand and face us. He does not want to hear the Word of God. He knows we come in the name of Justice, Liberty, and Equality.
“There is not made, the missile that can kill an ideal. Our enemy once worshipped these same ideals, and they know how powerful they are, but they have grown corrupt and criminal in their twilight years. The Lord has raised us up and put us in this place that we might spread his word among them.
“Our Heavenly Father has done his part. He has shown us the road we must travel. It is up to us to follow it. Let's bring the light to those who are lost, trapped in darkness. Lord, though the way before us may be full of peril, give us courage to press forward and return to these, our ancestral lands. I bless you in the name of our Lord, Jesus Christ. En el nombre del Padre, y del Hijo, y del Espiritu Santo. Amen.”
The blessing over, celebratory beers were cracked and the People’s Army fired up competing mariachi music from rival sound systems.
In the failing light, torches, flashlights, and vehicle-mounted flood lights burst to life. The engines of the faithful were put in low gear and the army surged forward, crossing the imaginary border from Mexico into the United States, with high-pitched screams, and bursts of automatic gunfire punctuating the auspicious nature of the event.
Shaped like an elbow, the coastline of San Diego is dotted with hills, climbing from and returning to the Pacific Ocean. The People's Army had a twelve-mile march to the center of the downtown area. The first few miles were littered with mines: a cratered, barren stretch of barbed wire, collapsed trenches and half-buried corpses. The Immigration Customs Enforcement Agency had declared the land a free-fire zone decades ago. Both sides fired mortars into it anytime someone tried to cross.
The Christian Communist Army made slow progress, as everything in their path was consumed. Stretches of barbed wire were rolled up and secured to vehicles. Metal barricades were cut with high-powered torches and used like railroad ties to repair the path ahead. From the sand bagged backs of rolling pickup trucks, the People’s Army fired homemade mortars across the no-mans land, detonating the waiting mines and blowing holes in the longer stretches of barbed wire.
The battle had just begun, but already the city had been given up for dead. Only the inevitable desiccation of the metropolitan corpse remained - the smashing of street-level windows and burning of storefronts. San Diego had no power or water flowing through her veins, no foodstuffs were delivered to her markets. Not one floating residence or business structure adorned her skyline. Anything that could be carried out during the evacuations had been taken long ago.
The marines had built their barricades on the southern wall of the city. Teams of sharp shooters occupied every room with a view and platoons held strategic locations along every major route. But all combined, they numbered under twenty thousand. The People's Army had swollen to several million strong.
The marines were required to stop the enemy at all costs, but against millions, they knew they could hardly even slow them down. Before long, the remaining soldiers heard the first of the proximity mines go off.
The Christians ran vehicles into the minefields at high speed. The mines were set to be triggered by foot traffic, so a single vehicle could take out several, providing it didn't crash into a collapsed tunnel, crater, or any of the dozens of other likewise destroyed remains of its ancestors.
The marines heard the mines begin, and the call went out over the radio for all soldiers to retreat to bravo positions as air strikes were expected to begin any minute. The young soldiers retreated and waited, but the air strikes never came.
At the Centaur Facility General Cruthers argued with the high command about the launch orders. He wanted to activate half the arsenal, but couldn't get Washington to commit that level of support. Besides, there were only a dozen control stations and a dozen operators, restricting the initial run to only a dozen units, launched one at a time. The General's demand to allow the tanks run unsupervised had ended the debate. Cruthers roundly cursed Washington as a bunch of rear echelon cowards, and only managed to get seven tanks off the ground.
The first cyber-tank unit crashed into the no man's land opposite the Soldiers of Christ. The People stopped in their advance and regarded the impact site.
They had watched it come whistling in and expected a massive explosion. The impact was immense, huge clouds of dirt and debris billowed upward, but there was no explosion.
Several shots were fired at the vehicle, the bullets screaming away as they bounced and tumbled from the armored surface.
The unit offered no response.
Despite their fear of the blackish metallic vehicle, the men crept forward. It took several minutes for the rag tag band of resistance fighters to surround the vehicle, but eventually, they did.
They inspected its government-assigned markings, meaningless combinations of letters and numbers. One drunken soldier leaned up close against a tinted window. " Oye, hay un tipo aqui."
The crowd jumped back as the engines inside the tank ignited. Before they could move away, barrels rose from the machine's hide, and it lurched forward. The courageous men closest to it were crushed under the sharp treads.
Hundreds were mowed down by the fire-belching machine guns, blasting hot shrapnel into the Soldiers of Christ.
The next two units landed closer to the northern side of the border, and had to drive forward to meet the enemy.
The following four came to earth behind the southern border, chewing up God's People from behind.
There was no escape. There was no mercy, and by dawn, there was no more conflict in San Diego.
A shootout in the operations lab prevented more than seven launches. When ordered to set the tanks to level ten, the lead operator, Matthews, objected and found himself in a heated argument with the soldiers. One of them accused him of being a traitor and struck him. Matthews drew his weapon and two soldiers shot him a dozen times.
Matthew's comrades, including Geoffrey Fox, drew their weapons and had themselves a wild-west shootout with the soldiers, right there in the control room. Wielding small arms, the operators shot at the soldiers who, sporting assault rifles, opened fire on everything, killin
g the operators, each other, and utterly destroying the machinery.
The Generals, watching the satellite feeds in the officer's command center, weren't present in the operations lab and failed to either prevent the massacre or be caught up in it. And to be fair, they didn't much care.
The tanks were free to destroy everything that moved along the forward battle area; a job they executed with ruthless and brutal efficiency.
One young operator, who'd stepped out to use the washroom, managed to escape. Tasha hijacked a maintenance vehicle and slipped from the facility with a shipping convoy.
The patrols overhead ignored her, distracted by the news from the research station. By the time the generals realized a possible witness was at large, Tasha had long since vanished.
Reading about the political fallout, Ashley had recognized her photo. She remembered the chaos that followed her Father's delivery of the tanks. The war in San Diego was over, but the method used to accomplish the victory had left the Republic sick to its stomach.
Much of the blame had fallen on Fox's shoulders for designing the tanks. He was called a Monster and a War Criminal. He was accused of being some hideous mixture of Hitler, Stalin, Genghis Khan and John Robert Oppenheimer.
The in-house security video of the control room shoot-out was somehow leaked to the press, and the truth of the soldiers’ actions, as well as the loss of Andrew’s brother Geoffrey, silenced the interest in seeing Fox take the fall for the debacle.
Ashley read, a short time later, a new task was presented to Dr. Fox… Project Epsilon.
Table of Contents
Prologue – Bleeding Metal
Chapter 1 – Rivendell Academy
