by J. F. Holmes
“OK, let’s go over this one more time. Nipper, Barton, you’re lead pair. Then me and Johnson, followed by Rheam and Burrill, then O’Neill and Chartier. Five hundred meters of separation between pairs, and DON’T let civilians get close to you. Can’t violate the three-person rule; you know an orbital or a drone will nail you. Shoot them if you have to to keep them away; we’re not losing any people out of kindness.”
There were nods and grunts of agreement; this close to the major Invy base at West Point, patrols were sure to be fairly common.
“Route is as follows,” he continued, drawing in the dirt with a stick. “52 down to Newburgh, then cut through the ruins of the city, and follow Route 9W. Once we hit the hills, off road through Storm King State Park, till we reach an overwatch point on the West Point Invy garrison. Long weapons will come from the cache in Cornwall at Hudson. IF we get the chance to make the hit, we stand the chance to get instantly hammered. Exfil will be individual or team, RP is Viking if we get split up. Questions?”
Corporal Burrill leaned over and spit out some dip, then said, “Why ain’t we coming in from the south, through Harriman or over Bear Mountain?”
Staff Sergeant O’Neill, her red hair hidden up under a NY Yankees ball cap, answered him. “Heavy Invy traffic between the base and the NYC Invy towns. That’s why we’re going to sneak through the ruins of Newburgh.”
“I’ve been there,” chimed in Rheam. He was one of the team snipers, and sometimes he actually took his mind off watching windage and calculating ballistics. “That was a rough town before the war, and I don’t think it’s gotten any better. No Main Force unit there.”
“Nope,” agreed Alexander. “Too close to the base. We should be OK, though. Lots of cover.”
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“We were going to take a shot at a Greenie that was meeting with the Invy to set up another town, Carlyle’s his name. He was expected down from Scranton in a caravan; if we could get close enough in there passing over the hill. Rheam was going to try to hit him with a directed radiation beamer, give him a lethal dose to his head.”
Agostine shook his head. He hated some of the stuff that R & D came up with and wanted them to try. Yeah, the beam was directional, like a laser, but the Invy sensors could probably pick up any radiation that bounced off hard objects, just like reflected laser light. And you had to hold it on target for almost a second to deliver a high enough dose, which was an eternity in combat. The entire idea was that the radiation would cause cancer, and it wouldn’t be traceable to any enemy action.
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The walk down from the hills took two days, skirting the water-filled craters that lay across the rail and highway junctions. At one point, they passed the rusting remains of a battery of 105mm howitzers, scattered about like toys, their barrels and trails bent and twisted from the heat of plasma guns, the trucks that towed them burnt to the ground. Close to the ruined guns, the shattered, burned tail rotor of an Apache helicopter still stood mixed with the remains of an Invy Armored Personnel Carrier. As each pair passed the wreckage of the battle, they offered a silent salute to the fallen men and women, but they dared not touch the bones in their rotting uniforms.
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“I’m never going to get used to it, Nick. Yeah, there are billions of skeletons around the world, but those were our guys, you know?” He did know, but he let her talk, just squeezed her hand. “I was fifteen, and in JROTC when they hit us, so I wasn’t IN, you know, but I was part of it, and I wanted to fight.”
“You are fighting,” he said, but he knew what she meant. He had been in Pakistan on occupation duty after the Subcontinent Nuke War, and he remembered the mad rush to bring the troops back home, and then the following two years of training to go underground. That year of waiting, after the first strikes, before they ventured back out…
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The ambush hit them after Nipper and Barton had passed the silent remains of an office building at dusk, right in the heart of downtown Newburgh. An arrow caught Barton high up in the shoulder, from behind, spinning him around. It was followed by more arrows, and a rush of figures in the dusk, charging at them with a blood curdling howl, ignoring the pistol shots.
If they had all been armed with rifles, or even one belt fed weapon, it would have been over in a minute, but they weren’t. The trap closed in as Alexander and Johnson rushed forward, and a separate ambush of screaming savages enveloped Burrill and Rheam
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“Burrill was done; when you have to shoot to eat, it kind of makes you an expert, and they were using compound bows with razor heads on them. Rheam took cover, and then we came at a run, trying to break the ambush, but there were just too many of them.” She closed her eyes, thinking for a minute, then said, “For Christ’s sake, they were like a horde of barbarians. They chopped Rheam to pieces, but he went down swinging.”
“Brit, they’ve been growing up in the ruins for ten years. They ARE barbarians.”
“I know, but there were ones that were younger than that, throwing pieces of concrete, firing arrows. I shot half a dozen of them. They were KIDS, Nick!” she exclaimed, tears running down her face.
“They wanted your gear and your weapons. You know that. Continue on with your report.”
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By the time O’Neill and Chartier had closed from the rear, it was almost over. As each pair had come up, they had been hit from all sides by arrows, sling stones, and occasional gunfire. She saw Alexander fall, swarmed by bodies covered in cast-off clothing and rags, carrying clubs.
On the other side of the ambush, Specialist Nipper was carrying his teammate across his shoulders, covered in blood, headed south. Between O’Neill and Nipper stood Johnny Johnson, surrounded by a ring of desperate people, many of them malnourished, with wild, knotted hair. His pistol was in both hands, and even as they closed with him, he fired, knocking down two more, but the rest closed, cutting off his yell of anger abruptly.
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“We bailed, Nick. Me and Chartier. The mission was a bust and it was our own people that took us down. We barely made it out; that’s when I got hit in the face. Don’t know by what.”
“You live to fight another day, Brit. What happened to Chartier?” he asked, trying to keep her focused.
She laughed a bitter laugh. “Broke her leg on the way back, greenstick, only a day’s walk from here. Stepped into an open manhole that was covered with brush. We went to ground, and I tried to treat her, but hell, SHE was our medic, not me. I’m just a combat lifesaver, with shit for equipment. Blood poisoning set in, and I tried to amputate, but I guess I didn’t do a good enough job cauterizing the artery. She bled out while I tried to cut the bone.”
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O’Neill heard her friend screaming through the belt that was in her mouth, even as she worked feverishly to cut through with the bone saw from the medic kit. She dropped it, her hands slippery with blood, and fumbled around on the floor for the saw, blood from the reopened artery splashing her face, blinding her one good eye. By the time she found the it, the spurts had turned into a dribble, then just a slow leak.
Confused, because there had been a tourniquet on the leg, she wiped her face off and saw that the medic had untwisted it herself, letting the blood flow out. In the end, she knew why. Who would want to live in this damned world with one leg? Or die screaming in agony as the poison raced through her veins?
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“We did find Nipper and Barton, on the road outside of town. I don’t know how he made it that far carrying Barton, because he had three arrows in his own back. They were both dead.”
“Nips was a tough bastard. Well, i
t’s going to happen to all of us, eventually. Anything else to add?”
She sat up on the bed, grabbed his hand, and pulled him closer to her. He started to pull back, but she snaked her other arm around his neck and kissed him hungrily, putting all her grief and loneliness into it. He tried to fight it, but quickly gave up, and kissed her back.
“Brit …” he said, when they came up for air, “We can’t, or more like, I won’t. Not till we win. If we do, it’s you and me and some brats in a farm house someplace.”
“And if we don’t?” she asked.
“Then we die together, in battle. I promise.”
She looked at him sadly, and said, “I don’t want to die, Nick. I want to live and be happy and spend my life with you.”
He was helpless in the face of her passion, and when she kissed him again, he surrendered to it.
Chapter 23
CEF Regional HQ, Honshu, Japan
Though the room was deep underground, there was a bit of opulence to the furnishings. Major Takara Ikeda knew that the Empress hated the trappings of state, but it was necessary, in his mind. As both the ‘divine’ and political head of what remained of the Japanese nation, a little bit of pomp couldn’t hurt to remind people of who she was, and, more importantly, what she represented.
So when she entered the room, he took a knee, as did everyone except the two bodyguards that flanked her. Although Empress Kiyomi wore a beautiful blue silk kimono, the two following her carried submachine guns and wore the latest in high tech ballistic armor and communications equipment. They turned and walked out at a word from her; this was her high council, and there was no danger.
“Cut the bullshit,” she said, in flawless modern Japanese, and Ikeda hid a small smile. Before being elevated to the throne, Captain Kiyomi Ichijou had been a fighter pilot, and a damn good one, scoring seven kills in the Spratly War, at age twenty-two, flying with the call sign, ‘Jiko’, or ‘Accident’. He knew it was a joke, since nothing she did was by accident.
Around him were gathered the senior members of the Japanese CEF forces, and as he stood, the Major looked around. He feared the bullets of a Power Point slide far more than the ones that came out of a gun, and he had to take a deep breath.
The Empress nodded to Ikeda as she took her seat at the head of the long conference table, and the others sat down after her. He took that as an indication to begin, and he said to the young sergeant sitting behind him, “Please start the presentation.”
In the next few minutes, he covered the operation that had resulted in the capture of the Invy Dragon, giving the briefing in dry, clinical tones. The old men who sat around the table kept their faces stonily impassive, except for General Nakura. He alone had argued passionately against the mission, claiming that it would stir up the Invy in reprisal. As the Major talked, Nakura let a more and more unpleasant look creep across his face, a complete breach of protocol. The other, lower ranking staff officers around him cast their eyes downward, rather than become caught in the staring contest that erupted between the Empress and the General.
Ikeda concluded with, “That is the end of my presentation, but I will answer any questions.”
As she opened her mouth, the Empress was cut off by an angry bark from the General. “You had this thing captured, and you just turned it over to the Americans? What if the Invy learn of our role in this? THEY WILL LAY WASTE TO OUR WHOLE NATION AGAIN!” he shouted, slamming his fist down on the table.
The entire room froze, except for the heavily breathing Nakura, and the steely eyed Empress. This confrontation had been coming for quite a while, but usually these things were handled in private. The General must have thought that he had the support of enough of the remaining military to be so bold.
“General Nakura, I appreciate your concern, but I have already heard your reasoning, and I, along with the council, have rejected it.”
He seemed to grow even angrier at the dismissal, and shot back angrily, “I do not recognize your authority, CAPTAIN.” The disdain in his voice was evident. Ichijou’s appointment to the throne, just before the invasion, had been both cheered and protested, with many calling it archaic and unnecessary for Modern Japan. Her assumption of control of the government in the wake of the wholesale destruction of their civilization had caused just as much controversy, but the survivors had been too stunned to do anything but accept her leadership. She had even called for a vote, runners going from Invy town to Invy town, secretly asking if she should continue as head of civilian government, such as it was. Her leadership of the military, as Empress, she did not allow to be questioned.
Now, when they’d had some semblance of peace for nine years, many were loath to rock the boat, as the Americans said. Nakura was the leader of their party, and it had finally come out into the open. Ichijou closed her eyes and sighed, a sad, exasperated exhale.
“I had hoped it wouldn’t come to this, General. I looked up to you in the Spratly War, we all did, but this is a different war. Had you called for more aggressive action, I could have forgiven you for insulting my judgement.”
“Forgiven me!” he choked out. “You forget yourself, Captain!” he said, refusing to use her honorific of Empress, even though she was, by blood, heir to the throne. “That is to be expected of a woman who does not know her place!”
“General, I will give you one chance to apologize. Then you may go to the surface and commit Seppuku, in the traditional way.”
Face bulging outward, the General started to yell at her again, and there was a single CRACK! He sat backward in his seat, a red hole in one side of his head, the aide next to him splattered with bits of blood, brain matter and bone. The Empress hadn’t flinched, and Ikeda holstered his own smoking gun.
“Forgive me,” he said to her, and knelt, “but I could not allow him to speak to you that way. He was dishonoring our country.”
“Oh, get up, Takara. I counted on you, as always. Now, on to Red Dawn. Very appropriate, is it not?”
“Yes, I suppose it is,” he answered. Two enlisted soldiers came into the room and removed the General’s body. Ichijou told the aide to sit for a while, to think about his former boss. She knew that he also had been an advocate of the ‘accommodation’ party, and she wanted the lesson to sink in.
“Just so everyone understands,” the Empress told the remaining dozen men and women in the room, “Japan will die before we accept slavery. We have waited, and we will strike, and we will burn if necessary. We have been defeated before, and arisen to become a great power, and we will do so again.”
She sat back down, kimono rustling, and addressed Ikeda. “Now, Major, tell them what you told me of Red Dawn.” Her dark eyes seemed to bore into him, and he felt a stirring in his heart that had disappeared eleven years ago. She was the Empress, yes, but she was a woman, as well.
“On H-hour, to be determined, CEF submarines, gathering off Okinawa, will launch eighty surface to space missiles, armed with nuclear warheads, in an attempt to destroy one of the four orbital stations. Additional submarines will, with laser fire from the North Atlantic, will attempt to blind another. In conjunction with that attempt, CEF forces in North America, Japan and England will attack specified Invy spaceports with the intention of seizing as many assault shuttles as possible, and conducting boarding attacks on the remaining three orbitals, with the intent to seize control or destroy them.”
There was dead silence in the room, then the Empress spoke. “In addition to attacking and seizing a shuttle, our contribution to this plan is to provide air cover to the submarines as they launch, since the operation will take at least ten minutes. We will intercept and block Invy fighters from Cam Rahm Bay over the East China Sea, giving the submarines the time they need to complete their end of the mission. Our priority until then is to assemble as many pilots and working planes as we can. Major Ikeda, the scouts will handle getting any fighter qualified personnel as necessary back to their bases. Colonel Shimata,” she said to her G4, “yours will be a supr
eme effort to get those fighters ready. We will be outclassed and out maneuvered, so numbers will count. I expect at least a dozen. Do you understand?”
The man nodded, then thought better of it and smiled, answering with an enthusiastic, “Hai, Empress!”
She stood and walked over to the map of Japan that hung on the wall. “At the same time this is happening, you will strike at the Invy garrison here on Honshu. All Main Force units will start planning for Operation Ryū today. Do I make myself clear?”
They responded with vigor, caught up in her confidence. Major Ikeda, though, had noticed her change in the use of the word “we” to “you” when speaking of the different missions.
“Empress,” he spoke hesitantly, “you cannot.”
She knew exactly what he was referring to, and arched an eyebrow at him. “I can, Major, and I will. Captain Jiko will be far more useful to Japan in the air, than a closeted Empress Ichijou, hiding underground, will she not?” She smiled at him, a personal, bitter smile, then turned and walked out of the briefing room.
Chapter 24
The road to Raven Rock wound far through the hills of Northern Pennsylvania, climbing up and down hills and making its way through depopulated valleys. This area had been hit hard by the starvation and break down of civilization, and the Invy rule had left little but small homesteads.
They passed other travelers, some walking and some on horses, and spent the hours talking. By the fourth day, they had gone from Colonel and General to Rachel and David, and she had finally come to respect the man. He still grieved over his sister and nephew, but like most of the survivors of this hell world, he had a very hard skin that scabbed over quickly. She knew it was still there, but pushed way down deep. There would be a reckoning someday, she knew. There always was.
“You’ve been pretty isolated up on your farm,” Singh said as their horses grazed in an overgrown state park. “What do you want to know about the state of the world?”
