Invasion

by Chris James

  “Back-blast is going to be the least of our problems. Look at the speed these bastards are coming in at,” Crimble noted.

  Pip grunted her agreement, hefted the Stiletto onto her shoulder, and took aim.

  Chapter 3

  04.43 Sunday 19 February 2062

  TRAINEE NURSE SERENA RIZZI gripped her brother Max and shouted over the relentless din of chaos: “You have to get out of Rome.”

  “No,” he yelled back, “I must go back and take our mother to safety.”

  “Look at it,” she answered, waving one arm at the dark red and orange flames flashing and passing inside palls of billowing black smoke. Explosions rang out a symphony ranging from the deep rush of collapsing masonry to the sharp reports of splitting metal.

  “We must stop them,” Max cried. “This is not fair!”

  Serena’s heart cracked a little more at her younger brother’s plaintive grievance. Her fingers dug further into his bony shoulders and she said: “It does not matter what is ‘fair’. Mother can hardly walk. You cannot—”

  “But someone must help her—”

  “No one can help. If you try, you will become another victim—” She pulled him out of the way as a wailing ambulance raced along the street, swerving to avoid debris and bystanders. Injustice burned inside Serena, but she knew she had to reach the hospital and help them there. “Come with me, you will be able to do some good,” she urged.

  “No,” he shouted, shrugging her hands from his shoulders and backing off. “That would be only fighting the symptoms, not the cause. But first I will get our mother out from the building and to safety. Goodbye, dear sister.”

  She watched him turn around and run towards the apartment block whose residents included their elderly mother. Earlier, she’d told him and their mother that the hospital needed her, and insisted he take mother to the building’s basement as management had been reinforcing it since the first attack on Rome the previous week. But instead, Max had panicked and chased after her, accosting her in the street amid the increasing violence.

  Now, with foreboding she watched him hurry to the small apartment block which sat in a nest of such blocks close to the Viale Marconi main arterial route. Then, she sensed rather than saw a line of small black dots descend out of the mass of flying devices above them, down into the neighbourhood, among the apartment blocks. Serena stared transfixed as puffs of smoke blew out from the corners of each building. The three or four floors of each unit concertinaed down in the manner of a demolition rather than destruction.

  Among the numerous people on the street, she saw her younger brother recoil and stagger back as smoke and dust engulfed him for a moment. A strong breeze passed over her and she felt that it carried her mother’s spirit. The smoke billowed upwards in the fiery gloaming and her soul reeled at the relentlessness of the attack. Serena realised that tonight meant something greater than the attack a week earlier. Now, the aggression appeared more methodical, better planned, and she wondered if anyone in Rome would be left to see the dawn.

  Max covered the last few metres to her and shrieked: “Did you see that? Did you see what they did? They just killed—murdered—our mother! Did you see?”

  Serena felt her lower jaw tremble and her eyes well, but she readied herself and said: “We must help defend the city. Come with me to the hospital, now.”

  Tears ran down her brother’s smoke-blackened cheeks and he shook his head in rejection. “No,” he said between breaths. “Last night, Lorenzo told me he had found a flaw in their software. He thinks he can stop their machines. I will go and help him.”

  Serena’s shoulders fell. She’d heard Max talk about Lorenzo before. “Do you know where he is?”

  “Yes, I think so, but I can’t reach him now. Nothing works.”

  She said: “Please come with me, Max.”

  Her brother shook his head again, turned and left to find his own way through the chaos. Serena headed for the hospital, only half-expecting it to be standing when she arrived. The two-kilometre walk became a worsening struggle against the hellish turmoil. She imagined all of the dead and injured in the buildings as the Caliphate’s ACAs streaked from the sky to inflict such precise demolition, but she knew the hospital was the only place she might be able to help.

  She increased her pace to a fast jog and felt a surge of gratitude for the Caliphate’s attack the previous week, for not only had she survived through a miracle, but the GenoFluid pack had completely repaired her smashed legs, and as she ran she felt new strength in her stride. A sudden and loud collision in the air above her made her veer off the pathway and towards a building from which bright flames lit the surroundings. She looked up and gasped when flashes as bright as lightning burst overhead in quick succession. No thunder accompanied them, only a sound of blunt metal shearing, like a fork dragged across a china plate.

  The flaming remains of machines crashed to the ground around her; heavy, deadening impacts that thudded into the pavement and tarmac and made the ground tremble. She remained immobile in the open as these pieces of metal rained down. Presently, the deluge eased and a voice in her head told her she’d been lucky again not to be hit. At once, she knew luck had nothing to do with it: she had been spared for a higher purpose, only she did not yet know exactly what her true role might be.

  She continued, now obliged to navigate a waking nightmare of heat and fire, of burning debris and distant screams and shrieks that might have been caused by metal or injured people. The air reeked of pungent smoke and burning plastic and metal.

  She passed one fallen ACA and stopped on hearing a strange clicking sound coming from within it. She stared in curiosity and recognised the mangled form of one of the Caliphate’s ACAs, the one she had read about, which held fifty of the autonomous mobile bombs which everyone called ragni. The device looked like a vast ball of metal twice her height, despite a portion of it buried in the ground. Parts of it burned and hissed, while the clicking sound grew more frantic, as though some aspect of its super-artificial intelligence wanted to broadcast that it protested the damage it had suffered. Serena wondered when her curiosity should become concern, but the clicking sound had a hypnotic quality. The jointed, metallic leg of a Spider shot out from the wreck, gripped, and then tapped urgently on the tarmac, like a trapped animal trying to free itself. This strange noise brought Serena back to her senses and she fled.

  Two minutes later, she arrived at the south wing of the hospital. Exterior lights floodlit a scene of hundreds of victims from both genders and all age groups. She hurried through row after uneven row of haggard survivors. A harassed-looking young doctor in a blood-stained white jacket told her to go to the main reception. As she made her way past more injured people, she wondered if there could be enough GenoFluid packs in all of Italy to treat everyone. But at the back of her mind, a more pressing concern arose: why had the hospital not been destroyed?

  She reached the crowded reception area, steering past an old man sweeping glass from smashed windows. She found herself in front of a soldier, focused hazel eyes staring at her from under heavy, black eyebrows.

  “What?” he demanded.

  “I’m a nurse, I’ve come to help,” she said, deciding to omit the ‘trainee’ part of her job title.

  He nodded to the rear and said: “There might be some GenoFluid packs left in the storerooms, but you will be lucky to get there and back.”

  “Why?”

  “We are due to evacuate soon.”

  “What?” Serena said, aghast. “Who’s in charge?” she asked, looking around the area but only seeing bloodied casualties and military personnel.

  “The Major, but he’s coordinating our defences.”

  Serena voiced her concerns: “Why has this hospital not been hit? There seem to be more than enough of their flying bombs.”

  “They probably plan to use it when they inva—” he broke off and Serena saw his eye twitch. He said: “That’s it, time to move. All troops, close in on the enemy transpo
rt’s approach.” He glanced down at Serena and said: “There are evac craft in the grounds at the rear. If you want to survive beyond this night, you had better get on one.”

  “But what about all of the injured?” she asked him as he left her.

  “If they cannot get to a transport, there is nothing to be done,” he answered as he left her.

  Serena stared at the soldier’s back as he jogged through the entrance, and she realised that nothing would persuade her to get on any kind of transport, not with the sky full of those evil machines.

  Distant cries of “Evacuate!” pierced the sounds of battle. Serena looked around her, nonplussed at the prospect of so many casualties being left to the mercy of the Caliphate, while a more detached part of her mind noted the increased activity and running soldiers.

  A sudden increase in light and noise outside the building caught her attention. With equal measures of caution and curiosity, she moved to the damaged entrance and crouched down on broken glass. Either side of her lay inert bodies on stretchers, partially covered by GenoFluid packs whose displays blinked red in warning of their patient’s impending expiration. Torn between events outside and the victims around her, before Serena could investigate the nearest case to see how she might help, urgent shouting and a sense of panic came from outside the hospital. She looked up and the source of the brighter light revealed itself as a vast aircraft, larger than anything she’d ever seen. White lights shot beams out to illuminate the darkness at all angles as it hovered above the broad, debris-strewn street. Its short, stubby wings seemed to taunt the laws of aerodynamics and Serena struggled to see how the huge transport could remain airborne.

  She gasped as a handful of missiles streaked out from the darkened surroundings and exploded against the transport’s shielding, which gave off a transparent green flash. The huge aircraft itself did not move. Then, in counterattack more punishing explosions erupted on the ground, hurting her ears and shaking the building. Serena realised that the soldier she’d spoken to a moment earlier was probably dead. She gripped the remnants of the doorframe and sobbed. All around her, GenoFluid packs beeped in urgency as patients died from their injuries.

  The vast Caliphate air transport came down to land with a menacing grace that stopped the breath in Serena’s throat. Common sense insisted she would shortly be a victim and she felt oddly comforted that she would be reunited with her mother so soon. But then her memory reminded her that she’d been spared the previous week for a more important purpose, not merely to die now, at the hands of whatever creatures would shortly emerge from the aircraft.

  Stumbling over bodies, her shoes crunching on broken glass, she backed away from the hospital entrance, no longer noticing the dead and dying around her, seized by a new terror. Slits of darkness appeared on the outside of the enemy air transport as doors retracted, and the first Caliphate warriors to set foot in Rome leapt out.

  Chapter 4

  05.54 Sunday 19 February

  MAJOR KATE FUS stared in dismay at the screens in front of her as they detailed the enemy forces’ relentless advance. She insisted: “Bolek, for the sake of the Lord tell me you are instructing those units to fall back asap.”

  “Yes,” the Polish Army’s super AI replied in a tone of mild indifference.

  “Good. Well, no urgency, then,” Kate responded with irony, her amber eyes tracking the data on the displays in front of her. “Zoom in on the eastern flank. Enlarge Troop Foxtrot’s location. Report.”

  One of the images in front of her grew to show digital representations of a section of the troops under her command as their transports retreated in the face of the Caliphate’s onslaught. The super-AI said: “Enemy ACAs are approaching more quickly than the NATO transports can retreat. The probability of Troop Foxtrot successfully escaping enemy forces continues to fall.”

  “But if they can make it to Haskovo, will the BSLs there not slow the enemy down?”

  “The Bulgarian supply base at Haskovo is equipped with two Battlefield Support Pulsars which, at current estimates, will be obliged to defend the base against three-to-four-hundred Blackswan ACAs.”

  Kate frowned and said: “You could have simply given me the probability.”

  “The base’s complete destruction is a certainty.”

  “And how long will it take enemy forces to get here?” she asked, aware that the mobile command vehicle in which she sat currently rested in the foothills around Bulgaria’s second city, Plovdiv, less than sixty kilometres to the northwest of Haskovo.

  “You will need to commence retreating in approximately twelve minutes.”

  “There is nothing approximate about the number twelve; that is in fact quite precise.”

  The super-AI did not respond to her pedantic observation. Kate scanned the displays and felt the panic claw at the back of her throat again. She still could not make sense of the storm that had erupted. Her decision ten years ago to choose a career in the Polish Army had a certain inevitability, coming as she did from a martial family. Her father had glowed with pride when she was commissioned as an officer in the summer of 2053. Kate had expected little more than the usual NATO war games and gradual promotion as the old soldiers at the top retired. All levels of every European country’s army regarded a real shooting war as highly unlikely. For years, NATO’s simulations revolved around Russia wanting to reclaim its lost Soviet Empire, or a rehash of the Arctic drama in the late 2040s, when Russia, China and NATO had come close to open conflict when the natural resources under the rapidly thawing icecap became easily accessible.

  In any case, if a war did break out, everyone expected it to be fought between the machines. Now, Kate’s mind had to accept that a new, unsuspected enemy had erupted on Europe’s southern borders and proceeded to trample over what little defence NATO could offer.

  An unexpected shift in the image in front of her brought her back to the moment. She queried: “Why is that transport slowing down?”

  The super-AI appeared to ignore her question and said: “Troop Foxtrot is continuing to be outrun—”

  “No,” she broke in, “Troop Sierra. One of the transports is slowing.” She heard the faint trace of panic in her voice.

  “The transport reports that it has to take evasive action due to falling debris from ACA combat above it.”

  “The enemy is literally on top of them.”

  Kate ran her index finger along the lip above her cleft palate, a habit she’d had in stressful situations since childhood. Her sense of impotence grew. Like so many other officers in the NATO armies, she was a commander who did not command in any meaningful sense of the word. Most people outside the military did not fully comprehend the extent to which the super AI took almost all of the tactical decisions. The armed forces of most European nations still adhered to traditions that, in some countries, were centuries old. But in truth, for a mid-level commander such as her, there remained little to do apart from watch events unfold.

  A new male voice crackled into the mobile command vehicle and demanded: “All units on the approach to Plovdiv prepare to retreat. Confirm.”

  Kate jolted; again, this order did not require human intervention. Nevertheless, she answered: “Sector zero-three, confirmed.”

  She caught her breath when a blip representing one of the Troop Foxtrot transports flashed and disappeared. “What was that?” she asked.

  “NATO autonomous aircraft HU329–006 has been destroyed by enemy fire.”

  “What?” Kate said in astonishment. “Why? Why did you let that happen?”

  “Enemy forces are overwhelming the battle space. Priority is to minimise casualties with the available defensive resources.”

  “What?”

  “Ensuring the safety of those closest to reaching safety is the priority given the current battle situation.”

  “But—but,” Kate stammered, appalled that the super AI was now deciding who among the troops under her command should live and die. “We need reinforcements,” she managed
to mutter. She recalled distant memories of seminars on the ethics of hypothetical military situations that might require such decisions, but she never thought they would actually happen, let alone immediately at the beginning of a conflict.

  The super AI announced: “The minimal reinforcements available are too far from the battle space to affect the outcome, and will in any case be reassigned in less than three minutes, when a sufficient number of NATO troops will have been killed to make such reassignment tactically prudent. In addition, it is certain that the SkyWatcher battle management satellites will be destroyed in less than two minutes. When that happens, there is further certainty that enemy jamming will render continued retreat the only tactical option.”

  Kate tried to recall any training or simulation or war-game that had covered a scenario where NATO forces were so completely outnumbered and outgunned, and could not. She shook her head in dismay, heaved a deep breath, and stabbed a comms panel below the screens. She tried to sound as authoritative as she could when she spoke: “Attention, all troops. You are free to disable the super AI and take control of your transports.”

  There came an immediate rebuke: “What the hell do you think you’re doing, Major?”

  Kate’s focus increased. However much turmoil she felt inside, she would be damned if her commanding officer would sense it. She answered: “General Pakla, our defences are insufficient and reinforcements too limited. I am already losing troops—”

  “You and every other front in this damned invasion.”

  “I do not believe we should rely on the super AI after everything it missed in the last two weeks—”

  “That’s not your decision, Major.”

  “Those Hungarian soldiers on their transports are dying, Sir, and I believe they are better suited to decide how they should die more than the super AI.”

  “Our super AI is operating to maximise efficiency and minimise casualties. Your insubordination is noted, Major.”