Arisen, Book Eight - Empire of the Dead

by Michael Stephen Fuchs

  ARISEN

  Hope Never Dies.

  First published 2014 by Glynn James & Michael Stephen Fuchs

  London, UK

  Copyright © Glynn James & Michael Stephen Fuchs

  The right of Glynn James & Michael Stephen Fuchs to be identified as the authors of this work has been asserted by them in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988.

  This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are the product of the authors’ imaginations or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.

  All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in or introduced into a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form, or by any other means (electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise) without the prior written permission of the authors. Any person who does any unauthorised act in relation to this publication may be liable to criminal prosecution and civil claims for damages.

  About the Authors

  GLYNN JAMES, born in Wellingborough, England in 1972, is a bestselling author of dark sci-fi novels. He has an obsession with anything to do with zombies, Cthulhu mythos, and post-apocalyptic and dystopian fiction and films, all of which began when he started reading HP Lovecraft and Richard Matheson’s I Am Legend back when he was eight years old. In addition to co-authoring the bestselling ARISEN books (over 100,000 copies sold), he is the author of the bestselling DIARY OF THE DISPLACED series. More info on his writing and projects can be found at www.glynnjames.co.uk.

  About the Authors

  MICHAEL STEPHEN FUCHS, in addition to co-authoring the bestselling ARISEN series (over 100,000 copies sold), wrote the bestselling prequel ARISEN : GENESIS. He is also author of the D-BOYS series of high-concept, high-tech special-operations military adventure novels, which include D-BOYS, COUNTER-ASSAULT, and CLOSE QUARTERS BATTLE (coming in 2015); as well as the acclaimed existential cyberthrillers THE MANUSCRIPT and PANDORA’S SISTERS, both published worldwide by Macmillan in hardback, paperback and all e-book formats (and in translation). He lives in London and at www.michaelstephenfuchs.com, and blogs at www.michaelfuchs.org/razorsedge.

  ARISEN

  BOOK EIGHT

  EMPIRE OF THE DEAD

  GLYNN JAMES &

  MICHAEL STEPHEN FUCHS

  “Beyond this place of wrath and tears

  Looms but the horror of the shade,

  And yet the menace of the years

  Finds, and shall find, me unafraid.”

  – William Ernest Henley,

  “Invictus”

  “Victory at all costs, victory in spite of all terror, victory however long and hard the road may be; for without victory, there is no survival.”

  – Sir Winston Churchill

  Damn, Dude

  SAS Saldanha - Main Warehouse

  Marines shouting and screaming – some panicked, others operating effectively, some wounded and hollering, rolling on the deck in pain and fear… the wicked snap of hundreds of incoming supersonic rounds, cutting the air over their heads, peppering the crates they sheltered behind like heavy hail, flecking off ceramic body armor plates… the smell of cordite, sulfur, and black powder, the metallic taste of blood in the air, and in the mouth… chaos and confusion, the impossibility of hearing bellowed orders, of understanding what was going on, of controlling the outcome of events, or even of positively impacting their situation… the terror of being enveloped, overrun, and wiped out – the imminence of approaching death… doom and defeat, terror and despair.

  The death rattle of hope.

  The MARSOC Marines, led by Juice, had been in this furious and wretchedly uneven firefight with the absurdly skilled and vicious Spetsnaz operators, in the South African naval depot warehouse, for what had seemed like a lifetime, but was in reality only a few minutes. In that time, the nine-man team had taken four casualties – the status of three of whom was unknown, because they were still lying out in the no-man’s land between the two sides. And, now, as the battle raged toward its bloody climax, it was looking very much like they were all soon going to be casualties.

  But, then… Juice pressed the switch – the one on his rapidly and radically reconfigured FOFID transponder.

  And all of this chaos and threat and peril stopped dead, all in the same fraction of an instant – as the entire world out beyond the Marines erupted in rippling orange fireballs, billowing black smoke, blasting columns of flame, spraying debris, violence, crushing force, and pummeling noise. It was as if the entire world was exploding.

  And as the overpressure of multiple chained explosions threatened to rupture Juice’s eardrums (again)… and as the detonation of all those Spetsnaz-emplaced IEDs, all going up at once, sucked the very oxygen from his lungs… and as thousands of ball bearings and deadly bits of shrapnel – not to mention bits of Russians, and their weapons and gear – all scythed the air over his head like a detonating supernova…

  Juice had himself a second to reflect here.

  He thought about that long dark night of the soul he had experienced in his cabin two nights ago – when he’d wondered if he had the strength to keep going, to keep on not giving up all over again, even when not giving up had failed a thousand times over. And when it seemed he was just running out the clock – his own, and humanity’s, all of them simply waiting for death.

  And what he realized now was…

  He was feeling a hell of a lot better.

  Maybe he’d had to stand with faith just one more time. Or maybe this would be when it all came together for them. Maybe the end of all this horror and struggle, some kind of actual victory, or even salvation, was really now possible – right around the next corner, or just out past the horizon.

  And maybe if he reached down, just one more time, they would all break through, to the other side. To victory. To some kind of peace.

  He had no idea if any of this was actually true.

  But he decided he was going to choose to believe it.

  Because he knew it was always what you chose to do right now that mattered.

  And you always had a choice.

  * * *

  Somehow, Juice now heard a voice shouting at him. It was Marine Sergeant Lovell, still in the position to his immediate right. If Juice could hear a human voice, then the explosions must have finally died down.

  What he thought he heard was: “DAMN, dude…!”

  Juice merely nodded. Lovell had that about right.

  He also belatedly noticed that the incoming fire from the Russians had completely ceased. There were still outgoing rounds, but even those were few in number and ticking down.

  Five seconds earlier, when Juice had turned his Friend-or-Foe ID transponder back on, it had instantly flooded the local EM spectrum with radio waves – on the frequency he had picked up from the Russians’ last radio-triggered IED detonation, as well as on 10 kilohertz to either side of it, just to play it safe. And the transponder had sent a series of digital messages that were nearly identical to the one Juice had picked up on his scanner, differing only in a single index number – one for each IED.

  These invisible signals had simultaneously detonated every radio-controlled device the Russians had emplaced – probably anywhere within a two-square-mile radius, actually.

  It had definitely detonated the ones in and around the open central area of the warehouse. Which was also the exact area the Russians had advanced into, chasing the “retreating” Marines. Right where Juice had wanted them – and right where he had lured them.

  One of Juice’s personal
mantras had always been: Fight smarter, not harder. That was what had saved them today. It was all that had saved them.

  Now he heard a little incoming fire ramping back up. It sounded like suppressing fire on the part of Spetsnaz. In fact, it sounded precisely like that PKP machine gun he’d spotted earlier, going cyclic now and laying down a base of fire, probably to cover the survivors and wounded as they withdrew.

  Needless to say, Spetsnaz were deadly serious operators, highly trained and brutally experienced. Their unit cohesion and combat effectiveness weren’t going to fall apart just because most or all of them had been wounded or killed. No, they would still be operating.

  And they would still be dangerous.

  Faintly, under the noise of the machine gun, Juice could also make out traces of shouted Russian:

  “Vytesnyat’! Idi, idi…!”

  “Punkt sbora odin!”

  Once again, his Russian was good enough to know they were doing what he’d been doing with the Marines a minute earlier: bailing, getting the fuck out, advancing to the rear…

  He hadn’t really expected to get all of them. But he’d evidently gotten enough of them – enough to devastate their force, disrupt their assault, and avert the lethal danger to his own team.

  And he’d take that.

  * * *

  Now Juice knew he’d be expected to go and get their fallen Marines back. Their brothers had waited long enough. He keyed his mic.

  “Sweep forward, marching fire. On me.”

  He moved out, not looking back to see if the others were following.

  When they reached and secured that main center area, it was nothing more or less than a charnel house. Long streaks of black soot, charring, and blast damage radiated in all directions – across the floor, along the sides of crates and pallets, even way up on the high ceiling. These intermingled with even bigger streaks of dark red blood and viscera… unidentifiable bits of meat, bones sticking through skin… swatches of burnt and bloodied uniform, destroyed weapons and gear.

  Total carnage.

  And lying there in all that carnage was Corporal Raible, and beside him Lance Corporal Jenkins. Keeping an eye and a half on the room and the tactical situation, Juice knelt down and checked for pulses. Raible still had one, though it was weak, irregular, and fluttery.

  He was still circling the drain.

  But now they could at least try to reel him back.

  Needing no direction, Lovell and another Marine started combat-lifesaver medicine on Raible – airway management, stopping the hemorrhaging, and getting a jab in his arm and a bag of plasma pumping into him. Other Marines produced a compact fold-out litter from their assault packs.

  While they did this, Juice went and found Lawton – the one he had sacrificed to save the rest of them. The young man he had knowingly sent to his death. And it was as he had feared, had known in his bones: the kid was KIA.

  And Juice knew this part was going to be very hard.

  He raised his voice enough to be heard locally. “We’re not taking Jenkins or Lawton. Not now. We don’t have the numbers.”

  This produced the exact looks he anticipated – mean ones. But the Marines were also professional enough to know he was right. It took four men to realistically carry a man in combat gear on a stretcher over any distance – and all four of them became combat ineffective for the duration. This eight-man team had already left one WIA back at the last rally point: O’Bannon, the Marine who’d been shot in the face, been quickly patched up, and was now doing self-care. In addition to him, they also had two KIAs and a litter-urgent WIA here.

  That left a total of five men on their feet, including Juice.

  But the Marines still weren’t thrilled about leaving other Marines behind, even dead ones.

  So Juice played his last card. “We secure this warehouse… and we own this warehouse. We’ll be back for them.” The others didn’t like it, but they couldn’t deny that it wouldn’t matter to Jenkins and Lawton when they got out of there. Raible was a whole other matter, and seconds counted – because he didn’t have many left. Those who remained knew they had to focus on getting him out.

  Juice pointed to the man squeezing plasma into Raible. “You stay. Try to consolidate a CCP here.” He looked up. “The rest of us go.” He got up and hefted his rifle.

  Lovell grabbed him. “Hey, Sarge, you’re bleeding.” He had noticed the bullet wound in Juice’s upper arm. “Let me wrap that up.”

  “Later,” Juice said, moving forward and out – and once again not looking back.

  He knew the team would definitely be following him now.

  * * *

  As he rounded the next corner, Juice spotted a more or less intact Spetsnaz guy, lying face down on the deck, in a large and spreading pool of his own blood. Before he could stop him, one of the Marines came around the opposite corner and rolled the body over.

  “Do not— ah, fuck,” Juice said, and instead just grabbed the Marine by the scruff of his neck (the collar of his plate-carrier) and heaved him away and down to the floor. In the same motion, he threw himself to the deck beside him, face down and boots up, while shouting, “Grenade!”

  The grenade that rolled out from under the dead guy had a short fuze, but one just long enough. The blast assaulted Juice and the Marine with scorching heat and pummeling overpressure, but left them basically unhurt.

  Only it turned out the dead guy wasn’t dead.

  As Juice was dragging himself back to his feet, the Russian, having been helpfully rolled over, now shot him in the thigh with a handgun, which had also been concealed under his body. Even before reacting, Juice thought: Jesus fucking Christ – they stuck a live grenade under a WOUNDED guy…?

  You really couldn’t make this shit up.

  He fell onto his back and rapid-fired his rifle through his knees. The Russian’s blast-scorched head ruptured like a watermelon and he collapsed again. Juice could now see he had already been grievously wounded by an IED blast. Which was presumably why his buddies had left him behind – as a human IED.

  Jesus Christ…

  SGT Lovell appeared over Juice’s prone form, blocking out the overhead light. “Okay, I’m wrapping that up,” he said. “Don’t move.” Juice nodded and stayed put – for two reasons. One, he’d been shot in the thigh, way too close to his femoral artery. It may even have nicked it, which meant he had a big problem, and a ticking clock. Two, he had to brief his team.

  He keyed his mic and spoke over the squad net.

  “All Biltong elements, be fucking advised: these dudes are more dangerous dying or dead. Do not relax. Remain vigilant, maintain posture, and sweep forward…”

  He paused to grunt in pain as Lovell worked on his leg, as well as to draw a breath, before concluding.

  “…Everyone on me.”

  Haunted by the Dead

  USS John F. Kennedy - Bridge

  Commander Drake, acting commander of the John F. Kennedy strike group, staggered back onto the bridge, feeling lucky to have survived his close encounter with Lieutenant Campbell down in their Combat Information Center (CIC). It had been a no-holds-barred death-match between the two of them, over whether they should send out a combat search and rescue mission (CSAR) to retrieve their shot-down F-35 pilot floating on the surface of the south Atlantic.

  Drake actually felt lucky to still be on his feet at all. As he wobbled to his station, all eyes on him, he could actually hear his headache still pounding, and he felt both light-headed and vaguely nauseated. He’d been suffering from symptoms like these, and shrugging them off or fighting through them, ever since a grenade had exploded ten feet from his head, in the aborted attempt to assassinate the British scientists on the Kennedy’s flight deck.

  Squinting now against the sunlight coming in the front and starboard screens – light sensitivity seemed to be another symptom – Drake found he could hear, and now see, the CSAR bird, an MH-60 Seahawk helicopter, lift off from the flight deck, put its nose down, and blas
t off across the sky, as if being called out to fight a three-alarm fire.

  Truly a bat out of hell – or straight into it.

  As the noise faded, Drake heard the outside hatch fly open and then slam shut. Looking up and over, he saw a stocky man walk in wearing MARPAT camo fatigues, a side arm, and a Marine Corps cap pulled low over his eyes.

  When the man looked up, Drake instantly recognized him as… Gunny Blane.

  Drake stopped in his tracks.

  What in God’s name…

  It couldn’t be. Gunny Blane had died in the flight deck battle, leading the Marines while Fick was still in the air, bringing Alpha home. Gunny Blane was gone. Everyone had told him so. Hell, they’d symbolically dumped him in the sea in that committal ceremony.

  Drake’s mouth opened and started to work, but nothing came out. Finally, he managed, “Gunny…?”

  “Yeah, what? Sir?” the Marine replied. More light hit his face as he looked up from under his hat.

  It was Fick.

  Drake shook his head and tried to erase the expression of bafflement from his face. “Nothing… Master Gunny. Nothing.” Jesus Christ, he thought. The dizziness and fogginess and nausea – all the physical symptoms he’d been trying to shrug off – those were one thing… but now did he have to worry that his mind was going on him?

  My mind – or just my brain? he wondered, as he dropped himself down heavily at his station.

  Drake knew the brain was essentially hardware, a physical system – and, in his case, one that had taken a hell of a knock in that grenade blast. Doc Walker wouldn’t let him forget that fact, even if he hadn’t had time for all the treatment and monitoring she’d tried to force on him.

  But, on the other hand, the mind was essentially software, a very complex ghost in the machine, and subject to more abstract pressures – the kinds Freud had talked about. And the shock of their two F-35s and pilots being shot out of the air by the Russians’ unexpectedly long-range missiles – and the crushing weight of responsibility for that, the fact that it was Drake’s bad call that had caused it…