Fall of the Cities

by Vance Huxley

  Angus had no intention of letting the enemy recover. “Charge! Don’t let them get to the chopper!” The Reivers, mostly recruits used to the bloody hand to hand in the cities, bounded forward screaming war cries while loosing off the rest of their clips. Machetes glittered in the sun, these men and women had never even trained with a bayonet. None worried about casualties, not after gang wars, soaking up what a few Italian soldiers threw at them before being targeted by snipers. A fewsoldiers ran towards the cover of the wreck to make a stand, but none survived long enough. Angus’s snipers killed any soldier who didn’t stay behind cover, and then the wild-eyed, ragged mob struck.

  Angus wasn’t using a machete, nor was he intent on killing. He made his way through the frantic melee, using his bayonet and rifle butt only if necessary, heading for the helicopter. So far, it hadn’t burned, but it only needed one smart Italian or Greek to realise what a prize it was. He snapped a shot at a man with a grenade, hoping he hadn’t pulled the pin yet. Closer to the wreck Angus saw a thin trickle of smoke, and movement inside. He fired at the movement, a quick burst, and headed for the smoke. The ex-soldier mashed the smouldering mess of wires with his boot, grinding it into the turf, then turned at a cheer. The Reivers were celebrating and had started looting the bodies, taunting each other about how well they’d done.

  “Leave those. Just make sure they’re dead. Get the machine guns and ammunition clear of this wreck. Quickly, I can smell smoke.” The young men and women stopped looting and rushed to get the heavy weaponry. Angus thumbed his radio. “The shop is open.” He headed for the cockpit, hoping the liaison officer’s radio and codes had survived.

  Five minutes later the dull thud of fuel igniting announced the end of the looting. The last three running away from thealready burningChinook were smouldering or actually beginning to burn, but they didn’t drop their prizes. Willing hands slapped out the flames or poured water on their clothes. By now the group of unarmed men and women who had been hiding nearby were loading quads, horses and ponies with the pick of the weaponry and ammunition. “Time to go!” A man on a quad held up a radio and pointed east. “An Apache has just been pulled off an attack and it’s coming this way. We’ve got two minutes, tops, to be off this hillside.” He gunned the engine, bouncing up the slope with four machine guns and boxes of ammo strapped to the vehicle. Behind him the remaining Reivers snatched what they could and ran.

  Most of the Reivers were over the crest by the time the attack helicopter came up the valley and circled the tall plume of smoke. The pilot saw the fleeing attackers, but he had his orders. Four helicopters had been shot down in the last hour, all along the front, so he wasn’t to chase anyone. He stayed high, watching a scattering of targets spreading out and then disappearing into the gulleys and valleys seaming the hillsides. None of the targets were big enough to warrant using a missile, the largest being electric quad bikes. An hour later two lorries full of soldiers, with two jets circling high above, came for the bodies and any weapons the Reivers had missed.

  *

  A week later, despite their recent success in downing helicopters, the nervous groups surrounding two small radar sets deep in the Highlands weren’t entirely sure Angus’s latest idea would work. The fifty partly-trained volunteers at the head of each of two valleys, laid flat in shallow trenches and almost covered in turf, weren’t all that confident either and they were uncomfortable as well. Nearly a month had passed since the attacks that had scoured the Reiver caves, killing men, women and children. Hopefully the government would think the Reivers were getting a little bit careless while moving about at night. With luck, they’d also think the Reivers could only target helicopters, so they’d have no hesitation over sending a jet. The bait had been dangled for four days now, but nothing had happened and confidence was waning.

  “One, three-ten, four, one.” In one of the valleys every man or woman on that wavelength tensed, then tried to relax or scrambled to get set. The turf erupted as figures carrying automatic weapons ran frantically across the end of the valley. The string of figures told them how many aircraft, one, the bearing, not quite the best approach which was why the gunners were running, four hundred feet high above the ground so low-level, and one minute away. Around the radar, the group picked up their weapons. Their particular response wouldn’t work against low level so they’d throw a few bullets and hope to hit the missile.

  Almost a minute later a small rocket, a firework, rose from the top of the pass above the valley to show where the plane would appear. The running figures laid on their backs and pointed their weapons upwards while a voice began to chant “five, four, three, two, one, f….” The scream of jet engines, and the cacophony as fifty automatics and machine guns fired until their clips and belts were empty, drowned the last word. The Bruce had taken serious weaponry from the front line to give this his best shot.

  The French pilot knew he’d been picked up, but by a general, low-powered sweep rather than targeting radar so his threat detectors stayed silent. He’d seen the firework, but didn’t think the rockets used against helicopters would be quick enough to catch him. In any case, he’d been given strict instructions. The English controllers had told the last pilot who’d broken off an attack run, if it happened again he was of no further use. His family would be sent to live in Inverness.

  The pilot gritted his teeth as he cleared the ridge, eyes firmly on his sights as he locked the missile on the cave mouth and launched. His plane bucked and he fought to turn it, wondering what had happened because there’d been no explosions. Even as his missile streaked home and the cave mouth gushed flame, bullets punched holes or starred his windscreen. He looked for the attacking aircraft, butdidn’t live long enough to realise why his instruments weren’t picking anything up. Pain tore through his leg, something in the fly-by-wire system failed, and the sleek war machine became a flying brick doing what flying bricks did best. As it struck the valley floor and bounced, pieces flying in all directions, dumbstruck men and women rose to their feet to stare.

  “It worked.” The man watched as the tumbling wreck exploded into a fireball. “It worked!” A cheer swept across the hillside and the fifty men and women began to run down the hill. “Check all the wreckage. We want every bullet, anything useful you can find.”

  The group around the radar at the other end of the valley raised their heads, looking at the flames still gushing from the cave. “I’m a believer. I’ve heard stories, that the Vietnamese did that to stop American planes, but never believed it. It still doesn’t seem right, firing straight up without aiming. You’d think the bullets would be too spread out, that not enough would hit.” The man pointed at the pilot’s pyre. “That takes some arguing with.”

  “Angus said it probably wouldn’t work, that it might just frighten them off. We might have got lucky and nailed the plane, but thatstill isn’t good enough. If that had been a real refuge, they’d all be dead.” Maeve tore her eyes from the cave, looking back towards the plume of smoke up the valley. “That’s too high a price to pay for one plane.”

  A man placed a hand on her shoulder. “You heard what Angus said. We can’t stop them, we just want to force them to launch from a distance.” He patted the radar set, taken from a fishing boat. “Then this will take care of it.” He ignored the muttered “we hope” from behind him, and hoped Maeve hadn’t heard.

  Regardless of what happened in the valleys, the enemy pilots were about to have a few rough days. Now the method had worked once, Angus and Bruce would set up something similar near the front lines. The first few should be easy, especially if this pilot hadn’t warned the others, because the government forces had reverted to low-level runs with jets. Losing a few warplanes on top of eight helicopters should stop the close air support coming in quite as close.

  *

  Three days later, it wasn’t a radio call that alerted the defenders waiting near another cave. “Got one. Up high, and a plane not a drone. It’s not messing about, coming in on a straight
attack run.” Around the speaker anxious hands gripped small boxes and fingers hesitated over buttons. Two people took out their cigarette lighters and held them above the ends of a dozen fuses. For long minutes the radar operator hunched over his screen, completely engrossed, searching for that one small new return, the bomb. At the other end of this valley the gunners in their shallow trenches stayed under the turf. If this attack failed, the jet might still try a low-level run.

  “He’s launched!” Around the cave entrance levers were pulled and buttons pressed. Inside the entrance to the cave a strange, wobbly shape began to grow. An old hot-air balloon, sealed as well as they could, was being inflated as fast as possible using nitrogen. With luck, it would snuff some of the fire. Other, smaller balloons headed upwards, some trailing smoke, some trailing wires and others hauling small wire cages. Another hot-air balloon, filled with hydrogen, wobbled into the air quicker than the others because men had started inflating it at the first warning.

  The radar operator counted down towards the estimated impact time. As the numbers dropped, air rifles popped some of the smaller balloons, filling the air above the cave entrance with smoke that included iron and any other metallic filings they could find. Nobody could be sure what would spoil the bomb’s targeting, but some of the mixture might. Likewise, the wires below some balloons, and between some, might have no effect even if the bomb hit them, but maybe they would. Frantic searching had come up with optimal figures for when a thermobaric bomb should discharge its load, and releasingor igniting the cloud early should reduce the impact. At least the plane hadn’t dropped one of those pallet things from directly overhead.

  The numbers chanted by the radar operator dropped further as more small balloons rose, while the hydrogen-filled version wobbled on a tether, waiting. A billowing, fireproof mass almost filled the cave entrance, but nobody expected it to take much of a blast. Instead, nets full of rocks fell from the hillside above the cave. Their cables, looped around pulleys, yanked up the door laid flat under the dirt outside the entrance. The collection of welded bar and beams, plated with whatever the constructors could carry this far, covered the opening. Itwouldn’t stop a missile, or make a proper seal, but it might reduce the amount of fuel that got inside. As numbers fell lower, men and women raised automatic weapons. The guns were desperately needed at the front, but first these bombs had to be stopped.

  The radar operator passed zero, supposedly the moment the bomb would release the fuel cloud.Lighters were applied to fuses, then moments later the next, then the next. Flights of ordinary fireworks rose into the air and burst into globes of coloured sparks. Every gunner opened fire into the air above and to the front of the cave,hopefully firing through the fuel cloud. Hundreds of supersonic fireflies hurled upward, because every weapon had been loaded with tracers. They might ignite the fuel early, they might damage the bomb, they might not have any effect. More fireworks exploded, spitting waves of coloured sparks across the sky and hopefully the expanding fuel cloud.

  The cages below some smaller balloons were burning fiercely now, phosphorus hot, again hoping to ignite the payload or interfere with aiming. An explosion and a ball of flame wasn’t failure. The hydrogen balloon created a crude thermobaric bomb all by itself. Hopefully it would serve two purposes, a back-blast to divert the real bomb or the fuel cloud,and it might burn off some of the fuel cloud. Smaller balloons and some of the smoke and rockets disappeared in the blast, but they’d already done their work or failed.

  Nobody would ever be sure if anythingaffected the attack, or if the bomb operated perfectly. Even in the worst case, the wires and smoke in the sky, and the other balloon inside the entrance, might have helped dissipate the explosion. Flame bloomed and the area around the cave disappeared in a fireball. The ground slapped everyone, hard, some people falling over or being blown down.

  As the smoke lifted and began to drift, all eyes turned to the cave and the scorched surroundings,all except the radar operator. “Drone! Just above the hills, watching.”

  “Can we get it?”

  “Nobody near enough, but next time we’ll know.” The radar operator kept watch on the plane flying out of range, while the rest watched the flames around the cave die down. As soon as possible the cables were released and the remnants of the door fell away, letting two men in firefighting equipment inside. Nobody needed the report, the men came out waving their arms above their heads and one did his best to dance in the clumsy suit. The wall, built out of sight inside, had held. There’d been nobody in this cave, but the wall and as much as possible of the defence would be duplicated at the real targets.

  One woman in particular wore a savage smile as she reported over a radio transmitter. This transmitter reached right across the Highlands, telling all the other caves to duplicate the system. They couldn’t, not entirely, but the bloody government listeners wouldn’t know that. She glanced over towards the drone and added that the decoy system had worked, they’dfooled the bastards into attacking empty rock. She didn’t mention the ship radars. If the Reivers could nail a few drones, the bastards would find it harder to pinpoint a real target.

  * *

  Cabal:

  Safe from bothReiversandthe gangs in the cities, the Cabal were getting all the messages and weren’t at all pleased. Owen, the chairman, rapped his gavel to stop the chatter. “I understand how unhappy you all are, and I share your frustration. Joshua, Faraz, why is this rabble in Scotland still causing so much trouble? I thought you had them on the run.”

  “Don’t blame me.” Faraz scowled. “The RAF is excluded from the area so the refugee air power can kill women and children without causing any ripples. I am working through four sets of liaison officers, English, French, German and Spanish, and that’s not always helping because some of the aircraft and troops are Italian and Greek. They are all asking how the hell this rabble could have anti-aircraft weaponry.” He gestured to the wall screen and used the control to click through several pictures of wreckage. “Eight helicopters and three jets were shot down within days, and another helicopter and two jets are missing but might have been mechanical faults. Two of the helicopters were Apaches, and we were short of those to start with.”

  “They haven’t got real SAMs, surface to air missiles.” Joshua, the man in Army uniform, grimaced. “Despite that, someone has come up with an effective strategy against low level attacks.” He changed the picture to a tube with crude fins resting against two rails, pointing skywards. “The sugar rocket, a straight copy of the ones used by Hamas against Israel for two generations at least.” The next picture looked more like a firework display. “We aren’t sure how many they threw up in a volley, but after all the food convoys they’ve captured, the Reivers have plenty of sugar and bleach.”

  “How on earth did they hit a plane?” Several heads nodded to agree with Ivy, because that didn’t seem possible.

  “They didn’t.” Joshua explained how even one bit of shrapnel in the wrong place would be fatal for a modern, fly-by-wire aircraft. He explained about the wall of bullets, and how they worked just like a wall of exploding rockets. The questions kept coming, even when Joshua showed how the Reivers had sucked the planes onto the right attack runs. None of those present were happy with the solution, launching from further away rather than low-level runs.Even the helicopters would stay higher and fly faster.Joshua and Faraz had already issued warnings about careful scouting before following retreating Reivers.

  Faraz had to confess the RAF didn’t have many standoff weapons, and couldn’t get replacements. The stockpiles would be needed for London, or when the Cabal finally reconquered Europe. Some of the survivors in Europe might have genuine SAMs. The clearly unhappy RAF man glanced at Owen. “You won’t even let us use RAF stocks of dumb bombs, or relatively dumb rockets. That leaves us with what the Europeans brought, which wasn’t much. We’ve started manufacturingthe sort of rockets used in the Second World War, barely any better than the Reiver version.”

  “We used t
oo many at the beginning, against mobs and ships, and we haven’t the facilities or personnel to replace the fancier weaponry, not yet. Any chance of buying some elsewhere?” Owen turned to Boris. “From our colleagues in America or Russia?”

  “Most of the armed forces there are either fighting internal uprisings or confined to defending areas around their bases or barracks. They aren’t exactly under control, just enough to stop them interfering.” Boris looked apologetic. “We daren’t give them a hint this was planned, especially the international scope of the operation. Selling off their munitions would make the wrong people curious. The Cabal in South America are still pushing north, and will need everything they have to deal with Central America.”

  “Youshould use your planes to keep the Reivers from the eastern coast, from the convoys and farms. The soldiers can deal with them in the mountains.” Vanna used the controls to show an armoured vehicle, a personnel carrier, slewed across a road. Smoke still seeped from a hole in the side, the open doors and the turret hatch. “Somehow they appear to have armour piercing weapons as well?”

  “Yes and no. I warned you these are soldiers, or at least their leaders are. That might have been a shaped charge, but not from a missile so they’d have to get close enough to place it. Your contractors on the lorries have machine guns to stop them, so destroying that vehicle had to have cost the attackers.” Joshua glanced at Faraz in wry acceptance of what they both knew. “The deaths bought the Reivers the machine guns and ammunition from the lorries. At least they couldn’t dismantle the heavy weapons from the armoured vehicle but they took the ammunition. All the weaponry captured with the convoys is the reason the fighters in the mountains can throw up a wall of bullets against aircraft, or our troops.”