The Tsunami

by Marshall Miller

  “Fundamentally, terrorist conflicts are about breaking the will of the enemy. To do this, one does not need to kill all of the enemy’s personnel or destroy all of its resources. One simply has to destroy the idea that ultimate victory is possible. Victory or defeat then, boils down to a question of psychology.”

  ― Andrew Silke, Terrorism: All That Matters

  ATLANTA, CATTLE COUNTRY

  While Fuzz had been finding Abigail, the populace of Atlanta was trying respond to violence, death, and terror.

  Just two weeks from the nuke attack on the Key West area, and after the broadcast about the attack and the genetic/reproductive modifications, the Tschaaa Lord realized that Malcolm Carter had convinced most of Cattle Country to stop sending meat for slaughter. The Terror began the next day.

  What appeared to be a standard robotic supply dirigible slowly made its way across the Atlanta Skyline. As per normal routine, it automatically slowed over the center of what was left of the city. The large supply container on its bottom opened its bay doors. This time, instead of disgorging food, booze, dope, some clothes, toilet paper and the like, large cylindrical glass containers fell from the airship. They shattered when they hit the ground or building roofs. Chlorine gas and fumes quickly filled the air.

  Malcolm Carter, Mayor of Atlanta and leader of the Revolt, had managed to find or construct underground shelters for the majority of the inhabitants of Atlanta.

  However, most were not gas proof. People soon found out the deadly effects of breathing chlorine gas. The ones caught above ground soon began to succumb, coughed, choked, their lungs seared from the chlorine gas. Then the gas began to seep into the shelters where panic and chaos ensued.

  Malcolm, outfitted with a gas mask, observed the tableau from a ground floor office he had set up above his shelter. People ran, screamed, some fired shots in the air from the occasional firearm. “Goddamn idiots. Shooting and running does no one any good.”

  The center of the city was hardest hit, fumes wafting up and down streets, into basements, and into sewers. Those people hiding in underground locations were affected to various degrees, depending on the amount of gas that seeped in. The rate of serious injury and death was high.

  Surprisingly, not a single casualty was harvested. No harvester robs showed, no Falcons swooped down to grab ahold of the dead or wounded. It was as if the Tschaaa said, “You humans in Atlanta are not even worth feeding to the lowest of the low. You are worth nothing.”

  Malcolm had tried to foresee this, tried to obtain as many gas masks, oxygen tanks as possible. But they had been very short in supply. He managed to obtain enough to outfit some response forces. Now, twenty-four hours after the gassing, with bodies beginning to swell and decay, Malcolm sent them his team to organize cleanup details to dispose of the corpses, and locate any injured that could be saved.

  The teams were out some three hours, stacked the dead into a large pile for disposal. The plan was to burn them, telling the people that they bodies may be infected with a disease. This story might not be necessary, as there was no real area available for burial, the previous cemeteries having been destroyed or abandoned.

  Some two thousand people of color had died outright, their lungs so damaged they had suffocated to death. Some had survived with damaged lungs and eyes. A number of these survivors would eventually die from diseases that attacked the injured areas. Initial counts showed some ten thousand residents were injured moderately or seriously.

  Malcolm watched one group from his street level headquarters when the Falcons showed up. Everyone felt the signature generated electrical field, then the first ship arrived. Two others quickly followed. Before Malcolm could even shout a warning, the group of six men were seized by the metal tentacles emanating from the alien craft. Lifted up above the streets, they were eviscerated, torn asunder, their blood forming a red rain that wet the streets below.

  Limbs and internal organs were scattered about, the robocops piloting the Falcons making no attempt to harvest anything. The dispatch of the six humans accomplished, they turned their attention to a building down the street from where Malcolm was concealed. Using their mechanical limbs and energy beams, they razed the building, floor by floor, in a matter of moments. After the craft reached street level, they tore into the subfloors with surgical precision.

  Their efforts were rewarded as some dozen men, women and children were discovered hiding in the subfloors and basement. One by one they were grabbed by the searching mechanical tentacles, lifted high above the street, and slaughtered. At the last second, one child about six years old was saved, set back down on the street among the butchered remains of the other humans. The Falcons accelerated and were gone.

  Malcolm swore, then dashed out on the street to where the young child was standing, in shock. He grabbed her up in his muscular arms, then sprinted back to his hiding place. He calmed the child down, eventually handing her over to Red, his female assistant. Malcolm had come to depend on her more and more. She had a knack at getting things done.

  Joe, the large, former NFL lineman came back from his foray into the streets and saw the results of the Falcon’s visit.

  “This is bad, Boss. They usually do not waste meat like this.”

  “No shit.” Malcolm snapped. Joe shut up, knowing the pressure Malcolm was under.

  The Mayor took a deep breath. “Sorry I snapped at you, Joe. I knew the Squids were bloody minded and cold, but this. I have word that all the larger cities, Montgomery, Huntsville, Jackson, Birmingham, have all been hit with gas. The dead were just left to rot. Now, it looks like they are coming back with Falcons to make a point. What that point is I am still trying to figure out.”

  “I think they are trying to split us up, Boss. They’re hoping someone will give in, one of the Mayors, or some other group, start sending people to them again.”

  Malcolm rubbed his jaw. “That could be it, Joe. But, we’ll just have to try and hold on here, and hope the others do too. If we give up already, it will have been for fucking nothing.”

  Nothing else happened for a week. The people of Atlanta were terrified, but Malcolm somehow kept them from panicking and turning on each other. The biggest fear Malcolm had, short of the Squids flattening them with a huge space rock, was that the residents of Atlanta take out their fear and anger on their fellow citizens. They might even seize people and turn them over to the Squids themselves in an attempt to placate them, strike a separate deal.

  Then disaster struck again. Falcons appeared over the city, the electrical field they generated the only warning. They dropped dozens of glass containers, which burst on the pavement in the center of the city. This time, it was mustard gas. Malcolm wondered if the Tschaaa Lord had been reading books on World War I and decided to adopt the relatively cheap terror tactics of gas warfare.

  Mustard gas caused horrible burns externally as well as internally. It seeped into hiding spots, the wind blowing it down streets and alleys. People of all ages were soon screaming and dying. Once again, none of the Falcons attempted any harvesting, they only dumped their deadly cargo and then left. Malcolm had tried to use some ground to air weapons he had set up, but Falcons hadn’t stayed around long enough for any response.

  Within twenty-four hours, there were some three thousand additional dead, thousands more horribly burned. Things began to fall apart.

  People of color from the various groups turned on each other, fighting over food, medical supplies and non-contaminated shelter. The remnants of the mustard gas stuck around in the low areas, being heavier than normal air. Someone would stumble into a small quantity, kick it up into the general environment, then would run screaming as the gas burned them.

  There was not enough medical aid to handle all of the casualties, their moans and screams sounding like the damned souls of Dante’s inferno. Malcolm finally organized a large number of his supporters, armed them, and passed through the streets trying to restore order. Many residents were beaten, stabbed, or shot as
they resisted Malcolm’s forces.

  Joe contacted Malcolm on one of the forays about a mile from his headquarters office. “Boss, they did it.”

  “Did what, Joe?”

  “A group grabbed some East Indians and Filipinos, tied and gagged them, threw them in some cars they got running. They headed out an hour ago, en route to Savannah. Someone said it was a peace offering to the Squids, taking fresh dark meat to the processing plants in Savannah.”

  Malcolm swore and cursed. “Goddamn those fucking idiots! That’s what the Squids want, to split us apart.”

  He leaned up against an abandoned car. “I just didn’t have enough time to get everyone organized, and ready. Who would have thought those fucking Krakens would strike back when they did. Another month I would have been ready for this.” Malcolm picked up a nearby empty glass bottle and smashed against the nearby building. He stood still for a moment, thinking.

  “All right, Joe, our public address systems are pretty well trashed. We need to organize some small groups to spread the word. We have to stick together, and get ready for the next attack. No more hiding in basements. It’s fight or die, probably both. But at least if we die, we die free, not being cut up like a chicken for Sunday dinner.”

  “Joe, round up the trained men and women. We’ll issue the heavy weapons we have, set them up for another visit by the Falcons and whatever comes with them. I thought the Tschaaa would hesitate a bit after they found out we weren’t going to provide anymore fresh meat to them, that they would attempt to talk with us through some of their lackeys rather than massacre us right away, and waste all this prime rib. I thought wrong. His Lordship survived that nuke and already has planned a retaliation on anyone who resists them. It seems we are easier to hit than the Unoccupied States.”

  Joe smiled. “Well, Boss, at least things won’t be boring.”

  Malcolm laughed. “No, Joe. It is definitely going to be a hot time in the old town tonight.”

  About a week later, the New Battle of Atlanta began in earnest.

  CHAPTER 7

  BATTLE OF ATLANTA, PHASE ONE

  The first hint that a new phase in the Tschaaa response had begun was a sonic boom that shattered the surviving windows in the downtown area. Two Deltas broke the sound barrier at building level, actually causing a couple of weakened building walls to collapse. Luckily, no one was near enough to be injured. Unfortunately, that was the last of the ‘luck’ Malcolm and his people would have this day.

  After the sonic booms, as people of color who dared to come out of the relative safety of their hiding places were scurrying for safety, a harvester ark landed on the remains of a flattened building. Within minutes, harvesting robots, now modified to be battlerobs, streamed out of the large cargo and processing craft. They soon demonstrated their new deadliness.

  Malcolm had organized six-person armed response squads with the weapons they had on hand. Many were homemade weapons constructed on the advice provided by surviving engineers, teachers, scientists, and soldiers. Homemade could be very efficient under the right circumstances. A rocket launcher made from a salvaged piece of reinforced pipe was moved into position as the first battlerobs came traveling down Martin Luther International Blvd. on their six wheels. Looking like overgrown ATVs, the large eye-shaped globe extending from the central body of the vehicle began to shift and turn on the former human harvesting machine.

  “Careful, wait until they’re in range,” the African-American leader of the team told his personnel as they set up the launcher. Slowly, one of the battlerobs trundled down the center of the avenue, its globe turning from side to side, searching for humans.

  Fifty yards out, the gunner fired the rocket launcher. The rocket streaked toward the target, striking the side of the battlerob’s globe. The warhead was a black powder shaped charge, so the explosion was rather low order, but had enough oomph to stove-in a portion of the side. The battlerob rolled to a stop as the globe began to throw off sparks and smoke. Finally, the ammunition of the human-built machine gun in the globe began to burn and cook off. The vehicle stopped and burned as plastic parts caught on fire. Within another minute, a second battlerob rolled up near the burning one.

  “Hurry up and reload,” The team leader instructed his people. They slowly slid the rocket into the tube, making sure no unburnt rocket propulsion material was left to set off the new rocket. Black powder could easily be set off if one was not careful with sources of heat and flame.

  As they tried to complete the reload, the second battlerob began to fire the machine gun in its globe. Normally as a harvester rob, the globe would contain a large high intensity light to blind its prey to aid in capture. Now, the recognizable thump-thump-thump of a fifty caliber heavy machine gun was heard. The battlerob had somehow located the attackers at the corner of a former office building and was punching holes through the brick and cement. Two of the team members, including the team leader, fell dead. The four remaining humans ran, leaving the rocket launcher behind. Falling cement and masonry clobbered a fleeing woman in the head, knocking her to the ground. Her skull partially crushed, she died from internal bleeding of the brain within a half hour. No one was around to notice.

  Similar scenes repeated themselves around the greater downtown area of Atlanta. The armed response squads fought as best they could with the weapons they had. By early afternoon, they had knocked out some twenty battlerobs, at the expense of some two hundred dead, and an equal number injured. Not a single body was harvested. The general populace huddled in their hiding places, petrified.

  As a battlerob slowly wheeled down a wide street in the Downtown Atlanta area, the street sign long since gone, Malcolm crouched alongside Sahas Singh, a Sikh from a long heritage of soldiers. Singh had his traditional long hair wrapped up in his turban, his handlebar moustache long and waxed. He was sighting in the fifty caliber bolt action rifle on the approaching battlerob from the second floor window of the damaged office building.

  “Got it, Sahas?”

  “Yes, Mayor. Let us see what this rifle will do against that machine.” He drew a breath, let it out, pulling the trigger at the end of his exhale. The rifle boomed, the fifty slug punching through the front of the wheeled robot’s chassis. The battlerob jerked, stopped, and began to smoke and spark. The fifty caliber slug had done a good job of destroying its innards.

  The Sikh started cursing as he tried to work the bolt for a follow-up shot. “The shell casing has split. The weapon is jammed.”

  “Time to move,” Malcolm stated. The large Sikh scrambled to his feet and grabbed the large rifle. The two men ran down the stairs as fast as they could, into the basement. They had managed to dig a hole and make a passageway into the nearby sewer tunnels. As they exited, they heard machine gun rounds impacting the floors above. A following battlerob had determined from where the shot had originated and was trying to eliminate the threat.

  With speed borne from practice, the two men made it to a ladder at a manhole on a parallel street. They climbed up, checked for the enemy, then out, replacing the manhole cover as quietly as possible. Then, dodging and hiding until they made it to Malcolm’s basement level headquarters in a former hotel.

  Big Joe was waiting for his boss in the office. Malcolm came in and plunked down on an old sofa. Sahas walked over to a workbench that had been set up along one wall and began working to clear the broken shell from the rifle.

  “Well, Joe, one less robot. What’re the updates on the situation?”

  Joe paused for a moment. “Do you want the bad, the worse, or maybe some good news?”

  Malcolm snorted. “Hell, might as well start with the bad news first. Lay it on me.”

  Joe sighed before continuing. “We got word by the ham radio. Montgomery just gave up. Jackson, Huntsville, Birmingham are basket cases, with no organized resistance; in fact, no organization apparently left at all. A few hundred people made a break north of Huntsville through a gate, and killed the trash guarding the barrier fence. Lost so
me bodies, not sure how many made it into Tennessee. Of course, Mobile, being a port, went down under about a thousand Squid the first week.”

  Malcolm swore. “Shit! People are folding like cheap suits. If I had about a month more time before those crazy bastards tried to nuke the head Squid, I would have had all the major population centers under some form of centralized control. As it is, the Mayors and other leaders went along with me because they did not want to be seen as supporting the Squids. Now, they can say they gave it the old college try, then start harvesting their bros again, probably starting with the injured and wounded.”

  Malcolm walked over to a battered desk and took a bottle of whiskey from the bottom drawer. He found a couple of glasses, poured a shot for himself and one for Joe. He knew Sahas did not drink alcohol.

  “Well. What’s the worse news?”

  “Well, Boss, we knew the Church of Kraken has put soldiers in the field at some of the cities I just mentioned. That may have sped up their collapse. We just got word that there are groups of Krakens on all four sides of Atlanta.They have military style weapons, as well as support from battlerobs, those new soldier class beings, and some air support. Word is that in the other cities, they moved building to building, including the sewer drains, killing or rounding up all people of color. Now it’s our turn.”

  Malcolm threw his shot back, then poured himself another. “Joe, my friend, we are about to be the current example of the Warsaw ghetto in World War II. But then, the Jews thought the Russians were coming to help, and the Allies air dropped some weapons into the ghetto. We have neither option from what I can see.”

  Joe frowned. “You don’t think the Unoccupied States will help?”

  Malcolm laughed. “We managed to get them word of what we were doing, and have gotten exactly a four word reply—‘Will try to help’. Since then, nothing.” He took another swig of his drink. “I realize we caught them by surprise. They didn’t think any of us are in any position to resist. But, they didn’t exactly warn us about what they were going to do. I think they are glad the Squids are hitting us first, thanks to our refusal to supply any more dark meat. Now, they are circling the wagons.”