EMP Retaliation (Dark New World, Book 6) - An EMP Survival Story

by J. J. Holden

  The radio squawked and Frank heard Michael order two rounds fired, along with coordinates. The way Michael had explained it, the artillery pieces had automatic fire systems. They figured out where the titanium guns themselves were, via GPS, and the target coordinates were just typed in or transmitted to the gun. It would then adjusted itself to fire with accuracy.

  After the order went out, Frank counted seconds, just out of curiosity. Eleven seconds later, two gigantic fireballs erupted where the Strykers had been, raising small mushroom clouds of dirt, smoke, and flame. Frank was stunned. That was what artillery did? He felt a chill of raw fear, and his scrotum tightened in primate reflex. Did the enemy have these damn things? He prayed they didn’t. Whatever the case, he was not going to stop moving once the battle began. Clearly, a stationary target was a freaking dead target. And he decided he hated artillery, even if it was on his side. Those things freaked out the primordial lizard-part of his brain…

  Michael came through the radio once again, bringing Frank back to reality. “Second battalion, secure the bridge. India company will provide vehicle support.”

  Frank was grateful that Michael wasn’t talking like a Marine. Although most of the units present were Taggart’s loaned Army battalions, not everyone understood the lingo even among them. Most weren’t regular army, having been discharged, and Frank and his people had no military experience. He keyed his radio. “India One Actual, roger that,” he replied, and gunned his engine.

  Second battalion, composed of fighters from other Clanholds, advanced.

  Frank led the dozen battlecars in a broad sweep to the southwest, to the right of the bridge. He hoped to sweep back toward it and arrive just as the infantry did. He was damn eager to see what his car’s newly mounted Mk-19 grenade launcher could do. When he finally got close to the river, he turned left to drive back north toward the bridge. He arrived about thirty seconds before his infantry did, so he pulled to a halt before he got in their way. A peppering of enemy small arms rounds hit his unit, but nothing intense, and it was pretty far away. Nothing the battlecar armor couldn’t handle, at least, not yet.

  Frank shouted up to his gunner, “Hey, what’s the range on that?”

  “Michael said to try to hold fire until they were at least within a mile.”

  “A mile? Well, damn, I think this qualifies,” Frank replied. “Let’s have some fun before the real battle starts.”

  “I hear and I obey, oh master,” the gunner said, laughing. A moment later, there was a loud thud-thud-thud from the Mk-19, each about a second apart. Not much of a “grenade machinegun,” he thought to himself. That was what Michael had called it.

  Frank could see the rounds arc high through the air; the big grenades struck a couple seconds later. Boom-boom-boom, came a string of explosions, and he could feel the concussion thumping in his chest even at this range. Where they had struck, at least a dozen of Houle’s soldiers had simply disappeared from view in clouds of smoke, dirt, and fire. As that cleared, blowing away, Frank could see nothing moving within a dozen yards of the impact points.

  “That’s… also frightening,” he said, stunned. “This is what soldiers train to face off against? Holy shit, man.”

  Above, the gunner grunted in agreement. Frank glanced at him and saw the man stood staring at the carnage, mouth wide open in shock.

  The Clanhold fighters then streamed across the bridge, pouring heavy fire at anything that moved. In a minute, the shooting petered out and silence swept the field.

  On the radio, Michael said, “India company, cross the objective and secure the AOI. Second battalion, provide defensive cover for the cars. Stay spread out! All other units, advance in order.”

  Frank acknowledged and then drove to the bridge. As he crossed over it, he saw the mangled, shredded meatbags that had once been human beings. The “mark nineteen” scared him almost as much as the artillery—at least until he drew close to where the emplaced enemy Strykers had been. Now there were only two shallow, broad craters, inside of which stood twisted metal that looked a lot like abstract sculptures, burning. Thick plumes of black smoke rose from the unrecognizable wreckage. Frank changed his mind about how scary the Mk-19 was compared to those M777 artillery pieces.

  Twenty minutes later, the entire unit was across the bridge and marching onward toward the Gap.

  * * *

  Jaz grinned and wrapped Nestor in a hug. “I can’t believe you made it out,” she said. The last time she had seen him, he was pedaling his way toward the enemy, buying her, Choony, and the refugees time to escape Johnstown. Once she and Choony had rejoined the refugee group after fleeing the Mountain troops, their journey had been slow-going. Apparently, Nestor’s guerrilla force, after untangling from the rear guard action, had headed east to catch up with them. “And you survived with so many people? That’s amazing.”

  Nestor grinned back and released her from the embrace. “We lost a lot of people, but we took a bunch of fleeing Free Republic fighters under our wing. They had ditched their gear to get away alive, earlier, but then we intercepted a train that was loaded like Santa’s sled with goodies. Enough to rearm almost the whole group, and resupply quite nicely.”

  Choony stepped up to shake Nestor’s hand. Jaz noted that he showed none of the jealousy signs she would have seen from damn near any other man if “his woman” had hugged some other dude. Choony said, “Fantastic news. That means the Mountain’s soldiers must be running low on ammo and supplies? I would imagine.”

  Nestor nodded. “Every small Mountain group we’ve attacked since then was almost out of ammo. Good for fighting against, not so good for looting afterward. They gave us little in the way of salvage.”

  Jaz ran her hands through her hair—which, she assumed, must look like a rat’s nest by now—and thought about the implications of that. “Nestor, we might have a window of opportunity to drive the Mountain out of this region. Free the Free Republic… again.”

  Nestor shrugged. “That’s the plan. Almost their whole force has been hedged up between us and Harrisburg. Can’t go north due to the ’vader cantonment, can’t go south because my Night Ghosts are stomping around out there, and can’t go west because FreeRep is rising up against them. Johnstown might have been decimated, but they caused heavy casualties to the Mountain’s regiment rallying there. I hear it was total chaos, the worst kind of fighting you can imagine, but that when the smoke cleared, the Mountain wasn’t the one left standing. Johnstown might be punch-drunk from that fight, but they’re gathering up survivors and arming them with salvaged U.S. Army gear and weapons.”

  Choony said, “Then our personal reality is that an enemy army stands between us and home, and threatens Harrisburg directly. If they take that city again, they can resupply by river and divide the Confederation from our Free Republic allies. Or flee unmolested downriver.”

  Nestor clenched his jaw, nodding. “It’s a desperate situation. Harrisburg is holding on for now, but half of Liz Town’s forces are on this side of the river. They can’t reinforce Harrisburg.”

  That wasn’t exactly news to Jaz, but it bore careful thought. Tentatively, she said, “I suppose we’ll have to hit the Mountain’s army from behind. Go all-in to smash them between us and Harrisburg. If we’re lucky we can wipe them out.”

  Nestor laughed, and his eyes seemed to sparkle with excitement. “That or they’ll defeat us piecemeal. Well then, I suppose we should get started. Care to join the Night Ghosts for the fight? I’ll make you honorary members, and even teach you our secret handshake and stuff.”

  “Damn straight. Fighting alone is stupid. We’d totally like to join your peeps for a minute. As long as Choony can come with me, I’m good. But you owe me a secret handshake.”

  Nestor shrugged. “Absolutely. I know that you two are a package deal. Besides, though he may not be the one shooting people, Choony is fearless and you fight better with him at your side.”

  Jaz smirked. Nestor didn’t know about Choony saving her life twi
ce now, but she wasn’t going to tell anyone. That was up to Choony to say something, if he wanted to. “Okay. Time for the shooting and the stabby stuff. When do we leave?”

  “Twenty minutes, if you’re ready. I only need time to get things organized, then we’ll go.”

  Choony nodded. “Certainly. Take twenty-five minutes, if you need it.” He kept a straight face, but Nestor laughed, catching the joke. Jaz was surprised—usually she was the only one who could say for sure when Choon Choon was joking.

  Jaz jumped up and down once. “Okay, dude. Second Harrisburg begins in twenty mikes, and then we totally bounce out,” she said, thinking that if they won, she’d be able to go home again. Man, she missed Clanholme right now… The open road no longer held the appeal it used to.

  * * *

  The Gap rose up before him, and Frank eyed the wall nervously. It wasn’t merely the simple-but-effective rubble walls that most settlements were building these days. It was bound by sturdy horse-wire fencing and strengthened with rebar throughout. Near the gates, the walls were faced with sheet metal, some of it corrugated from cut-up cargo containers. The wall was incomplete, but large parts were almost finished. Worse, scouts had reported four more vehicles positioned somewhere in all that mass of defenses. From the descriptions, Michael had said they were probably Oshkosh “M-ATVs,” which were replacements for the older Humvee. They had more armor, great against the Afghanistan IEDs they were designed to deal with. The Oshkosh had a machine gun and some sort of anti-tank missile system that one of the soldiers had called a “toe-two.”

  As the Second battalion infantry approached the wall, scattered small arms fire began, sounding like faint popcorn noises from Frank’s distant position. Then mortar rounds from within the Gap arced over the wall and began to land among the attackers. Thankfully, Michael had ordered them to deploy widely scattered—Houle’s troops couldn’t kill a lot of their infantry at once that way, but it also meant that the Clanners couldn’t concentrate much fire on any one point.

  Michael’s voice came over the radio, sounding much clearer than before. Frank glanced at the radio unit and saw it was coming through on his direct command channel. “All unit leaders, keep the op tempo slow and steady. I want as few casualties as possible. Get our mortar company to pour rounds down on those M-ATVs. We probably won’t knock them out, but we might mess up their weapons systems, and we can keep them blind.”

  Soon, Clan mortars were returning fire. Frank shook his head at the scene. It was like the infantry on both sides were only there to keep the other infantry from advancing while the bigger guns did the killing. He imagined the terror his people must be feeling. Houle’s too, though.

  After ten minutes of continual barrage, Michael came over the radio again. “First battalion, deploy our drones. Find the damn mortar batteries in there, and get me some coordinates.”

  Frank saw small white things flying just above ground level, zooming toward town—the drones the Clan had in storage ever since crushing the ’vaders in a massive battle in a rock quarry long ago.

  The drones flew up to the wall and then rose vertically, popping up and over. Soon, he knew, they’d be taking pictures of the targets and transmitting them, and the pictures would have GPS coordinates.

  The radio chattered chaotically for several minutes, and then Frank saw the drones returning to their pilot squads in the field ahead of him. Fewer came out than had gone in, but that didn’t matter…

  Boom… The whole damn town was lit up with blindingly bright flashes of light, each of which was soon followed by small mushroom clouds. Frank grinned as Clan artillery did its thing. Enemy mortar fire petered out to virtually nothing.

  Michael ordered the infantry to charge, and they did. A dozen fell right away, but the rest kept pushing forward. Frank double-checked his woodgas canister, as this would be the right time to change it out if needed, but it was still smoking away merrily.

  “India company, advance zero-seven-two and engage. Let’s get those Mk-19s into the mix, Frank.”

  “Roger,” Frank said into his mic and gunned the engine. His truck dug its rear wheels into the soft dirt for a second before it gained any speed; the thing was a pig to get moving, but once going, it had the momentum and the cattle prow to smash aside most anything in its path.

  The battlecars kept in a lopsided V formation, swerving left when they were close enough to the wall to get accurate direct fire. All through the vehicle company, the large 40mm grenades flew, streaking into the wall—the Mk-19 was a grenade machinegun, its raw power showed clearly all along the wall’s crest as he drove parallel. To Frank, it looked as though the ugly wall had grown a beautiful hedge of orange and yellow fire-blossoms all along its length, and the gate fortifications were hammered hard.

  He glanced to the rear and saw that Clan infantry had charged toward the resulting smoke and dust; it blocked the enemy’s view, and the first Clanners had reached the wall without heavy losses. Like ants, they went up and over, more and more piling onto the wall as the battlecar company veered away. Frank circled away from the action again to await further orders.

  Those orders never came, however. Once the Clan and Taggart’s loaned troops were over the wall, there was little use for Frank and his cars, and there was little for him to do but wait for the inevitable end.

  The Gap fell shortly after.

  * * *

  In the bunker, Ethan received information throughout the day about the progress of fighting, both at the Gap to the south and in the Free Republic to the west. The Gap fell after hours of fighting, though the Clan took heavy losses in intense, house-to-house action. The town was a wreck, but the Mountain’s units there had been overwhelmed and destroyed.

  To the west, meanwhile, the combined Mountain-Empire forces had been shattered by the Liz Town troops in Harrisburg and the Night Ghosts and other forces behind them. As a result of that action, the Confederation now had a small supply of real, working vehicles, ranging from M2 and M3 Bradleys—light tanks, basically—to a dozen Strykers and a couple dozen humvees. They also salvaged a dozen Oshkoshes, which apparently were bigger, badder humvees with armor and TOW-2 missile launchers. Not many, but enough to threaten the Mountain’s real tanks if they actually sent some into battle.

  The army’s survivors fled in all directions, scattered in small groups that were being hunted down without mercy. The Free Republic was currently celebrating their regained freedom by slaughtering those Empire and Mountain troops, often gruesomely.

  Ethan, however, celebrated the victory by hacking into one of his remaining satellites and looking over recent image files, in between receiving and passing on various reports coming in by radio. Searching those images was how he killed time, usually, and had often had productive results.

  His celebration was short-lived. On the images, he saw a large body of troops gathered within a broad area just southwest of Pennsylvania, flying American flags on some of the vehicles. In one of the images, he caught sight of what could only be jet fighters… That made those Houle’s forces. The Confederation had defeated a force much smaller than what he was looking at, and Ethan realized that what they had faced so far were advance units, not the vanguard. There was even an entire company of M1 Abrams, judging by their silhouettes. A boatload of Strykers. A ton of Bradleys, Oshkoshes, and other light vehicles. A force that size must have drained every fuel resource between Colorado Springs and Pennsylvania just to get there. That meant Houle’s troops were on a one-way trip. They were coming to Confederation territory to stay, and they’d either win or they’d die…

  Ethan closed the depressing image window and turned in his swivel chair to put his elbows on the desk. He rested his chin in his hands, and decided it was time to consider his hack into NORAD. How could he use that to his advantage? He’d only have one shot at making it matter because as soon as he hacked in, they’d quickly learn that Dark Ryder hadn’t “retired” after all, and then all bets would definitely be off. He smirked, realizi
ng that he had been right—leaving to “retire” would have had zero effect on an invasion this size, which must have been in the planning stages for quite a while.

  No brilliant plan came to mind, however, so he refocused on the tedious radio comms.

  Later that night, as the rest of the Confederation celebrated their victory, Ethan tossed and turned with doubt and fear twisting in his guts like snakes. Let them celebrate for tonight, he decided—he’d tell Cassy and Frank the terrible truth in the morning.

  - 18 -

  1000 HOURS - ZERO DAY +387

  FRANK STEPPED UP to the makeshift podium atop Harrisburg’s rubble walls, facing the bridge. He was dirty and tired, but when word of an impending riot reached him, he had to divert. Otherwise it would have been Carl up there, and he remembered the body count the last time Carl had talked to these people. They probably remembered, too. And Cassy couldn’t be the one to do it, because she had promised them land and safety if they defeated the Mountain. As far as the mob was concerned, they had done their part.

  On the bridgehead below stood the mob’s three self-elected spokespeople. The tall and short man from before, and a woman who looked plenty capable of handling herself. Frank was lowered down on a loop of rope, since he couldn’t use a ladder very well. He eyed them carefully for a moment, evaluating the trio. He decided that being direct would be the best approach with this trio. “Thanks for coming over to talk to us. It’s important that we work this out to everyone’s satisfaction. We’re on the same side, after all.”

  The two men nodded, Frank noticed, but the woman stood with arms crossed and eyes narrowed. The short man said, “Agreed. I tried to resolve it peacefully last time, but it didn’t work out that way. This time, my friend here has agreed to try it my way. I don’t know who whats-her-name is, but she decided she’s important enough to be here.”