Burning Skies (Book 2): Fallout

by Druga, Jacqueline

  En route to Holly River he witnessed the invasion first hand. Watched them drop from the sky. Gus knew at that second, he was no good captured or killed. He wasn’t scared. He cursed them as they arrived. How dare they. It was his country.

  The problem was the country was down, the military scattered, government in disarray.

  They were sitting ducks.

  He couldn’t just sit by, no one could. He knew eventually he’d be a part of the fight to take the country back, but he couldn’t do that alone. So many had invaded, a strategy was needed. He veered off the main roads to take the longer back roads to Holly River, out of sight and safe. He would use that driving time to think of a plan. Gus was good like that. As his tires spun on his journey south, so did his mind.

  Chapter Four

  White Sulphur Springs, WV

  Radiation wasn’t as low as Troy wanted it to be, but it had diminished enough that he told Madeline she could take a walk around the grounds, at least for a half an hour.

  She needed the air. The exterior posh resort was so beautiful and untouched by the horrors of war, Madeline found herself in bouts of denial.

  Was it real?

  She, as president, was in limbo and felt as if she had to do something, but there was nothing she could do. Troy had sent out scouting teams over the previous few days and after an initial radio check, they heard nothing.

  The soldiers and civilians that went out to scavenge weapons and food had returned, but those who went out directly to the areas infected by the foreign invaders were nowhere to be found.

  “How many now?” Madeline asked Troy as they walked.

  “There were fifty-three soldiers, we’ve sent out twenty to scout. We cannot send out anymore.”

  “We can’t reclaim our country with so little.”

  “Chances are, the ones that invaded are taking prisoners, gathering those who can be a threat. We connected to the satellites and have some communication with the UK. Our best bet now is having them gather the troops stationed overseas. We do have a fighting chance.”

  “Organization is key.”

  Troy nodded. “Yes, it is. We need intel, we need to know where exactly they landed, where they are setting up the base of operations. All that is vital in setting up a counter attack. Unfortunately, we are now on the defensive.”

  “I can’t do this.”

  “You don’t really have a choice now, do you?”

  As if chilled, Madeline clutched her own arms and rubbed them while shaking her head.

  “We should go back in now,” Troy suggested. “It’s been long—”

  “Captain!” a voice called from the distance.

  Both Madeline and Troy turned to the sound of the voice. It came from a solider positioned on the roof.

  “We have one returning,” he announced. “Main drive.”

  Troy spun toward the tree-lined driveway.

  One lone soldier made his way toward them. Troy rushed to him and Madeline followed behind.

  “Captain,” the soldier said, his voice tired and breath filled.

  “Where are the others?” Troy asked.

  “They sent me back, my team did. I had to stay off the roads,” he replied. “They are firing on everyone who is armed, taking civilians. That’s in Charleston and outlining areas. Seems like they’re searching, too. We spoke to people traveling south, they came from Morgantown, they are saying it’s all high population areas.”

  “This isn’t a high population area,” said Madeline.

  Troy shook his head. “No, but we’re close to D.C. and any political evacuation would be in this area. That’s who they’re searching for.”

  “Me,” Madeline said.

  “Probably.” Troy turned back to the soldier. “How many did you see? Has to be a lot.”

  The soldier pursed his lips nervously before answering. “Like you said, Captain, this is a low population area. I would estimate thousands. I can’t imagine what it is elsewhere.”

  “Oh, dear God,” Madeline gasped, her hand shooting to her mouth. Her fingers trailed down across her lips and she glanced up to Troy. “What was that you were saying about having a fighting chance?”

  The Kremlin, Russia

  He sat.

  In a slight lean, legs crossed, the president sat before his office window staring out. He had been that way for a while, just staring. Watching what he could as time passed quickly. His intelligence was all over the place.

  When news reached him about first round of attacks on the United States, he was told it was homegrown domestic terrorists. A movement named Free America that would cause not only disruption but the takeover of the government. He himself had dealt with such rebels before. The almighty and righteous United States of America was finally experiencing what other countries had experienced. The United States preached, and possibly the rebels were always there, but never did they cause such an uproar.

  The arrival of that news brought a sense of ‘I told you so’ and the president refrained from calling the leader of the United States.

  Let them work it out.

  Then the bombs fell.

  They’re nuking their own soil? The thought bewildered the president, it was drastic.

  Still … let them work it out. Allow the dust to settle and spearhead a humanitarian effort. He couldn’t imagine the chaos the United States would be under. After all, three cities were hit during 911 and it brought the US to a grinding halt. He could only imagine what ten nuclear warheads would do.

  Then more intelligence poured in.

  They came from submarines. Some were intercepted. Fingers were pointed at Russia and he denied responsibility.

  Finally, the news of those responsible was startling. Without provocation The People’s Republic of China declared war on the United States. Their sneak attack came simultaneously and under the guise of the Rebel initiative. Even giving their campaign a similar name: Liberate America.

  The Russian president needed to know what was going on. It was a matter of world safety.

  The problem was, China went dark. They didn’t deny or boast. No news came from China, no chatter, even the internet was down. Deliberately, they had been taken back to the stone age.

  The attack on the United States, the silence of China … not only was there chaos in the States, it was spreading like wildfire, like a disease with no cure.

  At least three days after the bombs, the veil was lifted. Not only did China go back online, all of their news outlets were reporting the massive victory and how the people in the United States were cheering in the streets.

  It didn’t make sense. None of it. They crippled the United States with diversions of nuclear weapons on mainly populated areas, then during the radio blackout, they invaded.

  Now, news of unrest in his own country came to his desk and as he stared out the window, the Russian president, with a heavy heart, had some tough decisions to make.

  He would take his time in choosing what course of action he would or would not take.

  The cost was too steep if he made the wrong decision.

  Chapter Five

  Office of the Prime Minister, England

  Prime Minister Adriene Winslet was once likened by the press to Margaret Thatcher. It was an American media station and she took it with a grain of salt. Americans always likened every British female politician to Thatcher, just like those in the UK likened every conservative American president to Ronald Reagan.

  Winslet wasn’t as staunch or iron clad on things like Thatcher was. In fact, more times than not, she was pretty passive, and wished at this moment in time she could channel Margaret Thatcher because the situation needed it.

  It boiled down to the good of an ally or the good of the country, because under the current situation, it posed more of a threat to help the United States than it did a benefit.

  In fact, her own country was in turmoil, much as every other industrialized nation.

  The stock markets crashed, and it
had been a week since any imports arrived from overseas.

  There was no word on that.

  Shops, despite warning from the government, were price gouging as shelves increasingly grew empty. Half the population cried out for the government to do something—feed your people—while the other half sought violence.

  Riots were an everyday occurrence and the military had been deployed to the streets with a strict, sun up to sun down ordinance.

  It wasn’t working. The workforce for essential services was running about forty percent; people just didn’t go to work. Mass transportation had come to a halt, and within a week of the American bombings, nine terrorist attacks within London claimed a thousand lives.

  Everything was falling apart.

  She had citizens in the United States and hadn’t heard from any of them. Winslet was within her right to go and retrieve her people but she, like many other leaders, didn’t have a clue what was happening there.

  The last the People’s Republic of China said was to defend their presence as humanitarian. They declined any further comment and balked at the threats made to them by Russia.

  If indeed China had settled in America and claimed it, they controlled a good portion of the world’s food supply.

  They’d have the upper hand. No amount of threats was going to make a dent, not when the world needed that food.

  The only positive to it all was there had not been word of a surrender. Though that didn’t mean much. Winslet hadn’t heard from the president in days. That frightened her because the president wasn’t elected as leader, she was in a sense drafted because of her position in congress.

  Before it all, Winslet never liked her, thought she had a big mouth, was always in the news for spouting off. But when things went down, Winslet believed that the president’s ‘big mouth’ would be an asset.

  Suddenly the mouthy woman grew quiet and timid.

  Who was Winslet kidding, every leader in the world had.

  They just didn’t know what to do.

  Perhaps collectively as leaders a solution could be devised. Winslet prepared for the emergency summit called by Russia.

  Hopefully, heads together, something would be done.

  Should they? Should anyone get involved?

  Any confrontation could, and more than likely would, cause global catastrophe

  The bottom line was Winslet didn’t have to get involved in order for her country to be destroyed. She watched it unfold out of her Downing Street window. It was going to happen either way. It was just a matter of picking the path of least destruction.

  Type 920 Hospital Ship, Pacific Ocean

  There were six of them in that conference room all sitting around the table, all military leaders, and General Liu was one of them. They sat in silence, none of them speaking. The general knew what that was; there was a level of trust that was missing, and no one wanted to say anything for fear of repercussion. Hours from making landfall, they were brought together for the same purpose: to be informed of the mission and what would happen next.

  General Liu knew what they were waiting for, or rather who. On the table were two pitchers of water and glasses, and before each of them was a folder with a region number on it. The United States had been divided into six different regions, similar to the nine that FEMA had. General Liu hadn’t opened his folder yet to look at the map. Because of his negative interactions with Fen, he was rather certain his region would be that of the north east. An area where cities like Boston, New York, Pittsburgh, Philadelphia, and Washington D.C. were. He figured he would be given the virtual wasteland.

  The number four was large on the front of his folder and he opened it to look. He was surprised to see that his area was in the state of Texas, and included portions of a few of the surrounding states. The one area of the United States where only a single nuclear weapon had fallen. The population in that area was dense. After thinking about it, it made sense. General Liu was more a man of the people and related well to the population.

  The door opened, and all six men around the conference table stood when Fen walked in the room. She wasn’t alone like on the deck; she was accompanied by two armed guards dressed in suits. Probably an intimidation tactic. General Liu noticed that she’d taken his advice and dressed differently. She wore a fitted skirt and white blouse, with her hair pulled tightly back into a bun as she presented a stern expression.

  “Please be seated,” she said. “Ten nuclear weapons were successfully detonated over American soil. There were more but they had been intercepted. The weapons were detonated over military and densely populated areas and strategically placed to cause chaos. We, gentlemen, will be there to pick up the scattered and the lost. The first two phases of the plan have finished. At least one city in each of your areas was affected by the bombs. Part of the mission now is to go in, aid the sick and injured, bury the dead, and help those who are displaced. Gain trust with community leaders and be a presence. A strong presence. We take prisoners of those who are resistant and violent. All US soldiers in uniform are to be imprisoned within the affected areas. Once the radiation in those areas has reached a safe level, the process of cleaning will commence.”

  Another general raised his hand. “So, I am to assume we have received a surrender?”

  “No.” She shook her head. “We are currently still looking for the individual serving as president.”

  “Do we know who they are and if there is one?”

  “We are following intel regarding access to classified communications systems. We have not blocked that for this reason. So we can track the acting president.”

  “You haven’t found him. Then why are we moving this deeply into planning?” he asked. “Without a surrender there’s a possibility that this war will continue. That it is not over.”

  “It’s just a matter of time. A very short period of time,” she said. “The surrender is coming. Confidence is high. How can it not?” She then paused to look around the table before continuing. “I have spoken of the areas of destruction. There are three hundred million people in the United States of America. We estimate current casualties are in excess of eight million. Estimated injuries are in the tens of millions. The majority of the country and their countrymen are still standing and physically unaffected. And we now enter into what I like to call the complacent phase.”

  And that is? General Liu thought.

  Fen continued, “Right now, in various areas of the country, the infrastructure is healing. Phone and cell service has been restored, limited, restricted, and monitored internet, comparable to our own, access to banks and credit and of course, the television. Although we control what they see, they have been given a sense of normalcy. When Americans do not hear the news twenty-four-seven, they forget. They are easily satisfied when they are complacent. It may seem silly, but keep them occupied, distracted, and at some level of normalcy and they will fall in line.”

  “So, what you are saying …” General Liu said. “If an uprising or rebellion begins, we are hoping that those who are complacent will say, it’s better having this than none.”

  “In a sense.” Fen nodded. “But there is more to this. We need to make them want us there through need. Welcome us. Be grateful for our presence.”

  It wasn’t supposed to happen, but General Liu stifled a laugh. It came out more like a cough.

  “Problem?” Fen asked.

  Liu took a deep breath, tapping his hand on the folder. “We invaded their country …”

  “They don’t know that.”

  “What?”

  “Not all. Most are under the impression that domestic terrorists did this. That was the last news most people heard. Our presence could be taken as our attempt to control.”

  “Don’t be too sure of that,” General Liu said.

  “I’m not, but I am sure of the next part of my plan. The part that will make them need us and be grateful we are here.”

  “And that is?” General Liu asked.

&n
bsp; Presenting a smug expression, Fen then pressed her lips together in a brief closed-mouth smile. “You’ll find out very shortly.”

  Ohio River, Hanlen, WV

  The scent of the river carried up to Cal’s nose and hit him hard, the odor was all consuming. It reeked of garbage and fish, and it took everything Cal had not to vomit into the water. He didn’t know, though, if the river was really that bad or if his current heightened sense of smell was making it seem that way.

  Out of the four of them, Cal was doing the best, but none of them were really well. He supposed had they not run out of water, they’d be better.

  Dehydration had set in.

  Louise had taken the last of her insulin and was so weak and lethargic, Cal doubted she’d make it through the day.

  When the realization hit them that they were experiencing radiation sickness, they were angry.

  What were they thinking?

  That thought was verbalized amongst them all.

  “We should have known,” Jake said. “I’m pissed because we should have known. It was a nuclear bomb, of course there’d be radiation. We should have known to find shelter, at least the first day or two.”

  “We did have shelter,” Ricky added. “My store. But we were so concerned with leaving, going away from the bombs, we didn’t think.” He looked at Cal. “Your poor girlfriend, man.”

  Cal reached over and gently ran his hand down Louise’s back. It wasn’t that they were a couple, they had potential to be, they started to be, then everything went to hell.

  Louise was a bright spot during a really dark time for Cal. She brought a spark of life back to him when he felt dead inside. He wanted badly to give her that feeling, life, spark, hope … but he couldn’t, nothing could.

  She was really sick. She not only clung to the side of the boat, she clung to her life.

  They were all at a loss as they floated in what would be an open coffin down the wide Ohio River.