Burning Skies (Book 1): The Fall

by Ford, Devon C.

  As her faculties slowly returned, the sugar in the food being absorbed into her bloodstream, they filled her in on the events of the last few hours. She listened in silence, glancing between the two of them as they picked up the story from their own perspectives, until the events caught up to where they were now: tucked away from the main streets of Newark having caught a short sleep.

  “We’ll find a pharmacy or something,” Cal reassured her, “first priority.”

  But the first priority was now escaping. Muted crumping noises battled against the barely perceptible changes in air pressure, but the flashes of light on the eastern horizon was unmistakable. Cal instinctively looked up, sensing more than thinking that the explosions were falling from the sky rather than detonating at ground level, but he could see or hear no planes. As New York city on the far side of the distant river was ravaged first, the bombs then fell on the western side of the Hudson, and began dropping closer to them.

  “Time to go,” Jake said, throwing himself behind the wheel and gunning the engine, “and let’s just hope there’s no more nukes coming.”

  THE SYSTEMATIC APPROACH

  Saturday 10:30 p.m. Local Time, Beijing

  The dark-suited woman had taken a small break, swiping a keycard into the unmarked suite of secure offices in the building one floor up from the command center. She had showered, put on the same dark suit and pale blue blouse this time. Now that she smelled and felt clean, she took two more of the stimulant tablets she had been surviving on for two days and washed them down with water.

  Walking out of the frosted glass doors she refused to wait for the elevator for a single floor and took the stairs. Whether it was quicker or not was irrelevant; she was not the kind of woman who could stand still. She strode straight back into the secure command center, bypassing the security station entirely as though they weren’t even there, and walked unchallenged onto the floor. She glanced around, saw that the old man had taken himself away, and asked for a report on what she had missed. The supervisor looked nervous, mostly because he had little to report seeing as she’d only been gone for about forty minutes.

  “Bombing is underway,” he told her, trying to stick to the bare facts in case he annoyed her. “We are getting reports of successes for military camps, airfields, naval bases, infrastructure, emergency response …” He trailed away, not sure what else she wanted to hear.

  She said nothing but lit another cigarette without taking her eyes off him.

  “Good,” she said finally, putting the lighter back into a jacket pocket, “when will the second wave be ready?”

  He swallowed, checking the information on his tablet even though he knew the answer. “Bombers are returning now, they should be refitted and refueled and back in the air in less than three hours.”

  She turned to regard him coldly. She knew as well as he did that the inescapable laws of physics were just that: inescapable. Both of them knew that there was no way to get more planes in the air any faster, nor could anyone issue an order for an ICBM launch as the Americans had already proven their anti-ballistic weapons shield was more than operational. Their prototype nuclear submarine was sailing south in the Atlantic to take on more missiles, then it would be back to prowl the eastern seaboard. It was there primarily to prevent any other countries coming to the aid of the Americans, and their backup was already steaming toward them to complete the underwater shield.

  Their carrier group, on the other side of the continent, was steaming eastwards to close the distance and increase their ‘play’ time. The net was pulling tight, the rest of the world still had no idea that they were responsible, and within twelve hours they would have boots on the ground other than their insurgency teams.

  Every target which could offer them resistance, every military base which could slow the advance of their invasion, was being systematically destroyed state by state, and the population was being driven from the big cities on the coast where the survivors could be corralled, catalogued, and put to work.

  The ministry had done their shady work, and had successfully puppeted the rogue Americans into taking out the leadership with the ability to counter-launch nuclear missiles, and with the president and the vice president both in the White House when it was obliterated by nuclear fire, their enemy had nobody available with the authority to order any such strike, even if they knew who to launch against.

  Saturday 10:40 a.m. - Highway 64, Outside Charlestown

  Speaker of the house, Madeline Tanner, sat in the back of the lead Chevy Tahoe as it sped east. Her secret service detail of five men and one woman drove fast, nose to tail, with their lights flashing. Weaving through the sparse traffic like an angry black snake, the radio in the front seat barked to life and prompted them to slow.

  “What’s going on?” Madeline asked as she leaned her head through. She wasn’t used to riding in the lead car, as they normally held her securely in the middle car with protection front and rear. The head of her team, Drew Briar, a former US Marine with more than enough experience of vehicle convoy ambushes, liked to mix it up and keep any potential threat guessing as to which car she was in. Leaning back to shout over the road noise, he answered her whilst keeping his eyes on the road. “We need to get off the highway, ma’am,” he told her, “got reports of aerial bombardments and need you away from population centers.”

  Madeline sat back, wishing now that she had read the Secret Service protocols for keeping their principles safe.

  “We paint by numbers,” he called behind his shoulder again, “we need to get you secured and see what we’re dealing with.”

  Madeline nodded, not realizing she had forgotten to answer him out loud. She had been born into a life of politics, although she had never once regretted it. Working on her father’s campaign for Governorship of their home state even before she had started school, she had loved the life and had always shown a talent for it. Her rise to the Senate via state Governor was, for her and everyone who knew her, an inevitability.

  A short term as majority whip led to a fortuitous placement when the last speaker retired, and Madeline found herself appointed by the house. The president and the VP had both come up the political ranks with her, had both served in the Senate with her, and she considered both to be something nearing friends. Learning that both were now dead, and that the Capitol was annihilated by a nuclear strike, had turned her world upside down.

  It was fortuitous timing again that had saved her from sharing their fate, as she had left her office at a dead run not forty-eight hours before when her sister had called to say that their mom had suffered a stroke. Drew, implacable as ever, had called for three cars to be ready and taken two thirds of her entire detail. There was little chance of calling up a chopper for the journey, instead he had led the convoy as he did now only with sirens blaring and local law enforcement standing by to escort them. In the end, she had been too late to see her mother before she passed, but she stayed to console her sister who had been with her until the very end. She was glad that her mom had passed, for the simple reason that she would never know their beloved country now lay a third in ruins, with worse yet to come.

  So now she sat back, shot a glance at her terrified head of staff who had insisted on accompanying her, and trusted her security detail to do what they did best. They were getting her off the highway, and after that god only knew what would happen.

  Saturday 10:59 a.m. - Greenbrier Mountain, WV

  “Gardner, Dillon,” came the low voice in Troy’s earpiece. He had taken his turn on stag relieving Miller and Jackson—two Marines with as dizzying a skillset as the rest of his team—and was sat still in line of sight with their quietest member. Although usually paired on missions with Chalky, he would not let both of their nominal commanders be away from the command center at the same time.

  “Yeah,” he said into his mic, “what’s up?” Radio discipline was for the grunts.

  “Incoming message via secure satellite server,” Dillon told him. “I
’ll need to decrypt it first.”

  Troy, his interest more than piqued, cast a look over to Ghost. He had heard the same transmission, everyone on their secure squad net had heard it, so Ghost simply nodded to say that he was good until someone else came to take over Troy’s duties. Ghost’s real name was Clay, and he had left law enforcement and the LAPD SWAT team behind to join the 101st Airborne, but much else about the man was a mystery. He could glide in and out of rooms without people knowing he was there, which had quickly earned him the nickname. Normally Troy would need to know a lot more about a man before he stayed on the team, as personalities clashed horribly sometimes, but Ghost was not a man to upset people, and his insane infiltration skills and ability to defeat locks was a major pull. He had stayed, and he was happy being the silent partner in the team. That wasn’t to say that quiet was his default setting in combat, and his uncanny skill at skydiving was testimony to his bravery.

  “Bones, Gardner,” he said into his mic again as he stood and made for the bunker entrance.

  “On my way,” came the response, needing no answer. It left a feeling of satisfaction in Troy’s chest that his team were just as switched-on as ever, despite the shit storm they were all now in.

  Bones, real name Andy Bonham, was the team’s only SEAL; a fact which he was never allowed to forget. The majority were marines, albeit from different specialisms to give their team the vast array of skills needed as a collective, and both Troy and Chalky were Rangers through and through, but their resident SEAL was alone in his discipline. As the team medic, medic being a technical term as he was so highly qualified and experienced that in just about every country in the world he would be called a doctor, he had been introduced as their new sawbones, and the nickname had stuck from day one. Whether he had a nickname already was a fact not featuring on the relevance scale, but he had demonstrated his ability not only to diagnose and undertake emergency field surgery to save the life of a marine injured by an explosion on their last tour, but he had done so under sparse cover and whilst being the subject of a half-dozen interested Taliban, each showering him with gifts of incoming 7.62. He had completed the surgery in record time—record time for a surgeon in a hospital—closed off the bleeding arteries and stitched the guy back up. He then pulled the guy’s camera from the pouch on his webbing, snapped them a blood-soaked selfie as the injured man raised a shaky thumb and cracked a grin through the pain, then went on to assist in eliminating the enemy threat. Troy suspected that the man’s heart beat maybe two or three times a minute, because he never once seemed under pressure.

  The two men passed in the entrance, exchanging a nod as they squeezed in to make the necessary space for two big men in full war gear, and Troy carried on to the command center where Dillon was showing a woman with dark hair how to reprogram their radios. Dropping his multitasking with Gina, the young pilot who always seemed to be pissed at Troy, he tore off the sheet of paper which had been decrypted and was just finishing rolling off the old-fashioned printer. Without reading it first, he handed it to Troy who calibrated the appropriate arm length to read the small print; he still refused to admit that reading glasses were an enemy looming over the near horizon. Troy read in silence before lowering the paper and hitting his radio transmit button.

  “Everyone to the briefing room,” he called simply. Knowing that the sentries posted outside would assume that this didn’t include them, he added, “Bones and Ghost too.” He glanced at Gina. “Round up the rest of the Night Stalkers,” he instructed, prompting a smile of pride at his use of her unit’s special moniker. He looked to Dillon, “Get the Apache crews?” Dillon nodded, and Troy was left alone looking at the report again.

  “Command elements are still active in Alaska,” Troy told the assembled and extended team, all crammed into the small room. “Anti-Ballistic Missile site is still active but bombing and nukes have crippled the military and law enforcement. We have no carriers stateside, and just about every base has been hit.” He paused, not relishing giving the information he was about to repeat. “That includes Fort Campbell. Anyone still on base as of 0900 is gone.” He let that hang, hoping that they all got the subtext that they were likely the only intact unit to escape the base.

  He scanned for reactions in the room. His operators all wore stony expressions; no weakness broke through their exteriors but the pilots all reacted. They weren’t top tier operators, but they were experienced and disciplined enough not to shout out pointless questions.

  “And now for the bad news,” Troy said, earning a few raised eyebrows from his team. “D.C. is gone so we currently have no Commander in Chief. Also,” he said, telling them that shit did indeed get worse, “Alaska is tracking a serious amount of incoming. Likely an invasion force.” That did spark a question, and it came from Air Force Colonel Simon. Troy looked at the man, seeing his slightly pale but intense face wearing a mask of thinly veiled murder. “NorKs?” he asked.

  “Unknown at this time,” Troy said, suspecting that the North Koreans would have an interest in any attack on the US, “but attacks have also come from the east coast so we don’t know who our enemy is yet, and we have to be prepared that it’s not just one enemy”—he cut the speculation off there—“that may or may not be something which hits our radar soon, but first we have a mission,” he told them, seeing trepidation overtaken by eagerness on more than the nine faces he expected it from.

  HEADING OUT WEST

  Saturday, 12:18 p.m. - Highway 78, Near Clinton

  The three occupants of the truck were exhausted but tried not to let it affect them. They switched drivers often as none of them had slept for almost two days and even then, the excitement had prevented that sleep from being a full recharge. Now they were fleeing, heading inland as fast as they could.

  After the initial attacks and the chaos which had spread across Manhattan, things had started to happen which weren’t in their game plan. Leland Puller, in breach of all protocol, had used the burner cell to call the number which had given him the command to begin, but as he expected it was dead. He destroyed the SIM card and broke the phone in half, allowing some if his frustrations to pour out in the small act of destruction. After it was clear that the bombs and fires weren’t anything to do with any plan they had been read in on, they still stayed put believing that it was an OpSec issue; there were other Movement soldiers in play in the city that they didn’t know about. That notion was abandoned as soon as the news reports showed nuclear attacks on both east and west coasts.

  Committed to the cause or not, that shit he just wasn’t down with.

  He decided it was time to leave, leave everything, but they were trapped in the maelstrom they had helped create. Two of the Movement soldiers stuck to him like glue, both former marines and inexorably drawn back to the command of something—someone—they felt comfortable following. Leland hefted his AR15, strapped in, and set off into the streets with his two marines trying to match his pace. The sight of three armed men skulking along in the shadows raised sufficient suspicion to earn a challenge from a pair of NYPD cops, and the ensuing gun fight was brief but bloody. The heavier caliber of their weapons, combined with the far superior rate of fire and the sheer element of surprise when they opened up left the two cops dead, and they ran before they attracted more attention that required a ballistic response.

  Even though the echoes of peak physical fitness still sounded quietly in their heads, neither had maintained themselves to a standard to match Leland’s and he found himself facing the choice to rest them or leave them behind. Kicking in the side door of a small store he rested them for a few hours before they became liabilities. In the pre-dawn he woke them, setting a slower pace on the short distance to the river to find a way across.

  It may not have been the decent thing to do, but forcing their way onto an already overloaded NYPD patrol boat and making most of the passenger get off to stay in the chaos of the city was the only way they could guarantee their escape. The uniformed man they disarmed an
d held at gunpoint whilst he drove them to the far side of the Hudson River cried the entire time it took to cross, and he clearly expected them to kill him as his look of shock was almost funny when they simply walked away. The man turned his boat and gunned it toward Manhattan, hoping that his family and friends were still waiting for him.

  As Leland and his two ageing former marines walked away from the pier they all ducked instinctively as the first bombs fell in the very spot they had, until recently, occupied. They exchanged looks of horrified misunderstanding.

  “Definitely not us,” Leland said turning away and stepping out into the street directly in the path of an oncoming truck. He raised his rifle and seeing no response from the driver, put a single round into the windshield three feet to the guys right side. The truck slowed and stopped, the door of the cab opened, and a man got out to fall over at the side of the road. Scrambling to his feet, he ran.

  “This is us,” he said, lowering his rifle but keeping it in the low ready position. Climbing inside the big cab and squeezing the three of them along the bench seat, they set their collective sights west and stopped for nothing.

  Now, miles clear of the heavily populated areas and thinking themselves lucky that they weren’t caught in the bombing, they were suffering the onset of exhaustion and had to stop.

  “What’s the plan then, Gunny?” the passenger on the right asked Leland. He knew little about either of them, but had heard him called Cobb by the other. He looked across at them after killing the engine and rubbed his eyes.