The Warriors' Ends- Soldiers of the Apocalypse

by Keith T Jenkins

  “Incoming!” is the shout from the radarscopes in America and Israel. The President has committed to a plan. “Four fighters, from four sources!” hears Culver.

  “Heat up the Tomahawks, Tommy,” says Mike.

  “On it, ma’am.” Tommy turns suddenly, rushing to his chair, rolling at near running speed to his personal desk, bringing up an old graphic interface from long ago, looking like a game of 3D Missile Command, but much more menacing. A few keys on the board, and clicks of the mouse for him, but from the outside, people in the camp can see the tops of the mountains to the north and south, rise up, and open like a flower blooming, to show a rack of twenty large missiles in each. Tommy clicks a little more, using a mouse and a trackball, sets targets and asks, “Fire, ma’am?”

  “Fire!” she shouts.

  Tommy gently presses his “enter” key, but from topside, the view is both joyous and terrifying, as two missiles from each of the arrays, one a few seconds after the first on each, flashes away, leaving a streamer of white smoke, vectored off in four separate directions. The rockets take off over the horizons from the outside view, but on Tommy’s screen, he can see their paths, their targets, and the results of the meeting of them all. Tommy anticipates the result, firing another wave before the first has reached its destination. He is right to do so, because, each of the TF-37 Wolverines deploy countermeasures, specifically, high-density flares, which attract the first wave of missiles from their targets, detonating them without endangering the jets. The second wave of missiles arrive with a terrifyingly different result. The impacts of those missiles happens about mid-ship on each of the fighters, but the pilots have had the wisdom to punch out, moments before impact, launching their pods a couple thousand feet away from the explosions.

  In Israel, the general effect is the same, though the cause is from Stingers on trucks. There are Mig 54 Putins, flying in at almost Mach II, but advance warning goes a long way, as does the ability to send five missiles sequentially after the same targets. Four planes fly in, twenty missiles are launched, there is a little duck and cover maneuvering done, but in the end, one of the missiles in each group of five gets one of the planes, and the other missiles drop into the crowds of enemy below. Win – win!

  The next wave flies in from the south, out of Egypt, targeting the civilian populations, but the Iron Dome almost does its job well. The stationary defenses in each of the cities destroys the attacking birds, but their missiles get through. Israel has been putting up with this kind of crap for generations. One of the jets attacks from the East, targeting a rocket array on the coast, but when it is shot down, the engines are hit with light-weight TOW missiles, starting the craft blazing, as it flies headlong into Gaza, as a downtown shooting star. Dozens will die and hundreds will be injured, but none of it will matter in a just little while.

  Back in the US, the vehicle pilots are running out of things to drive, having gone through nearly a hundred fifty limos, buses, trucks, personnel carriers, and SWAT wagons. Sylvia agreed that Carlos had gotten to ten first, even though she did more damage and destroyed more cars. Still, a bet is a bet, and Carlos is going to be one happy man tonight. At one point, it had been considered that the attack might be stopped by someone blocking their hack. But the models used were so various, and the damage so swift, that the first effect was to immobilize the ability to stop them. The people who would have figured it out were all too busy on other things.

  “We have radio command intercept, ma’am,” says one of the techs to Mike, who reads the incoming.

  The US is done attempting to destroy the hilltop with rockets and jets, having decided that it would be a job to do in an up close and personal way. The 101st and 82nd Airborne, as well as the 173rd Air Assault Command have been tasked with the mission of cleaning the hill. In four hours’ time, there are hostiles on the surrounding hilltops, just five miles from home. Altogether, there are over 1500 battle-hardened troops, with another 800 would-be special forces trainees. These are not raw recruits!

  Mark comes in from outside, having seen the rockets launch, and asks Mike, “Where the hell did you get those?” He looks around, realizing that no one in the room is taken by surprise. “Did you rob an Army post?”

  “Almost,” says Mike. “Seven years ago, in northwest Texas, there was an Air Force Base, about to be decommissioned. Dyess Air Force Base had some serious next level shit, and we found it abandoned after the first Disappearance. The whole damn airbase, ghosted. The Commissary was empty, as was the armoury. But all the other stuff was just where they had left it.”

  “Holy shit, Mike! You are not going to believe this!” says the current nerd at the surveillance control station, so Mike comes across the floor in a hurry.

  “What do you got, Mac?”

  “I’m watching every major city and even some minor places, and there is a worldwide uprising. Some of them started right after our fight began, and some have been building every minute since.”

  “What are we talking about, Mac? How big can it be?”

  “Well, when our vehicles started attacking everyone, trying to destroy as much of the Empire’s grip as we could, others started taking up the call to charge.” Mac looks at Mike saying, “The terrorists are being terrorized!”

  “How the hell did that happen?” asks Mike.

  “I guess they saw that there was a fight on and wanted in. Some of them may have been preparing for a long time – just like us – waiting for the day it could be worth it.”

  Mike hollers out over her shoulder, “Get me Lundt!” Others echo her words ‘til they get outside, and in a few seconds Lundt comes in, followed by the entourage that usually accompanies him and Mark.

  Stepping up on one of the desks, Mike addresses the room, “Boys and girls, we now have a first class war on our hands! Mac tells me that there are many others in all the major cities and more, attacking the enemy. The enemy is the ‘legitimate’ governments and a whole damn world of Islam. It’s time to take off the gloves and go for the kill.” Looking to Schwarz and Lundt, she asks, “Any thoughts boys?”

  “I believe it was said by Thomas Jefferson,” says Schwarz, “that ‘the tree of liberty must be refreshed from time to time with the blood of patriots and of tyrants.’ Let’s water that tree, people.” Turning to satellite control, he asks, “What’s going on in Israel?”

  “Well sir, they have control of the Megiddo Valley for now, but there are two hundred million troops on the floor. That’s over thirty times their national population, sir. There’s no way they can stand up to that force.”

  “You are right, but remember who fought for Joshua and Moses, and now He can use us as well.” Turning again, “Boot! Can you bring the rain?”

  “Rain already coming!” says Boot.

  “Can you make it bigger?”

  “Sure!” says Boot. “I bring clouds in the north, drive it cold. But it’ll take an hour or two for go.”

  “Well, soak it all down. Then when the ground is wet, can you boil the mud?”

  “Gotta wait, but burning good mud makes hard ground.” Boot meant that cooking the mud may just make a ceramic surface. “Boot can shoot whatever you say, Marky Mark.”

  In Chechnya the city is burning, Moscow is under attack from every corner. People see the attack cars and follow them with garden tools. Though the enemy has pistols and automatic weapons, the peasants have pitchforks, tractors, diesel rigs, and certainty, fueled by vodka and rage. There is a righteous anger working across the globe, as if there had never been any anger before. This is new. This is terrifying.

  In Paris, every mosque is ablaze. Armored limos have been overturned, fuel cells ruptured, and the people inside are baking to death. The seats of government have been burning for half an hour, and thousands of hijabs and burqas are strewn on the streets, hoping to not be discovered as belonging to enemy combatants. Women are out of their ceremonial garb, hiding their faces and undergarments in shame and fear, as men run with uncovered heads, often sh
irtless, sometimes without shoes, hoping to pass as part of the people. They are not part of the people though. They are part of the terror that has been a public nightmare for so long. Some are being beaten to death, usually after they run out of gas or ammo.

  London is another mess, having lost the aristocracy and Parliament to the mullahs a while back. The PM is now a sycophant of the Ayatollah, but given the state of his Empire, he has opted to take an early train to the virgins by putting a .40 caliber hole in his temple. Buckingham Palace, and every other seat of power, is burning down or blowing up. Fuel trucks are used as destruction delivery systems, and the drivers aren’t too concerned about getting out of the trucks before detonation. The general rationale of the drivers, and most of the combatants is, “If the world is this far gone, who wants to live here. Let’s just burn the damn place down.” At least, that is what one of the pirate news wagons is broadcasting by giant speakers. He drives through the streets shouting that and, “Death to the Ayatollah, and death to his toads.” Following an explosion on the edge of Parliament, Big Ben falls, crumbling into the Thames.

  Tokyo is a different sort of problem because those people are seriously tech-savvy. Although there is some rioting and general mayhem, there are some radical groups who have discovered that, in some of the more towering parts of the city, they can bring the towers to the ground. There are chemical compounds which, when injected into water cause explosions. So, they encapsulate those compounds in large gel-caps, sometimes hundreds of them, and feed them into the chiller tanks for the air conditioning systems. The chillers are giant tanks of water with cooling tubes passing through them, and the cooled water is carried throughout the buildings, even as high as a hundred floors, where radiators distribute their heating or cooling effects. Today, none of those effects will be felt, because the buildings are coming down. Sixty pounds of gel-caps will take about twenty or thirty minutes to explode. Even if the gel-caps dissolve unevenly, the first one detonating will cause the others to break open, and . . .

  At a given moment, a broadcast text reaches out to thousands of people working in Tokyo, who will all take a lunch break at the same time, and thousands of them will meet in the center of the soon-to-be conflagration for a prayer meeting. The basements of the towers begin to blow out, causing the towers to topple into one another. As the moments pass, the center of the city becomes a field of rubble, scattered over the face of the earth, not even a pile by common definition, while sloshing waters move windows and furnishings. The prayers continue as the waves of bricks and steel, stone, aluminum, and porcelain pour over those praying. A news broadcast watched via the CCTV systems, and when done, they reported singing.

  In Washington DC, they didn’t even bother with the White House, for a little while. The military of the surrounding area has turned direction to attack the Pentagon. The automated defense systems come online, shooting at crowds of footmen, then launching small rockets at the attacking forces. But the attackers are so numerous that the supply of rockets is soon spent. The mini-guns whir, but no bullets come. There is a solid parade of large vehicles from Fort Meade and more, all moving at slow speeds, since there is no resistance to avoid, at least no large-scale resistance. There are soldiers on the ground with sidearms and rifles, but the big guns on the rooftops and turrets . . . those are done. The primary entrances to the great five-sided nuthouse have long been hardened targets, unreachable by attack vehicles. But today, the vehicles are little more than a distraction. Today, the distraction is just to keep those inside from fleeing with impunity.

  Ninety minutes past, refueling tankers launched from Westover Air Base, full of fuel and ready for war. Before that could happen, disgruntled soldiers and airmen who saw an opportunity to disrupt the powerflow from the Russians, disabled every radar installation within a hundred miles of DC. Some are disabled by on hand actions, while others are destroyed by vehicles or weapons. The point is that DC and the surrounds are completely blind, from a technological perspective.

  Dulles Airport suffers a massive attack, including their radar arrays, when an armored limo being rented by an Arab dignitary, runs amuck. It flits about, launching weapons at aircraft, igniting wings, shooting down a control tower, shooting landing gear from under large craft, then firing on the radar arrays, before driving under a 727, causing the forward gear to collapse, dropping the enormous plane on top of the car. Thanks and huge props go out to Sylvia!

  Hundreds of citizens figure this out and pack their planes, headed for Canada or Mexico. There are rumors of safe places in both, but those rumors won’t matter in a short while. The fact is that the whole world is going to hell in a heartbeat, and the only way to avoid it is to not be in this world.

  Launched from Westover are two KC-10 Extenders and one KC-767A, refueling vehicles, fully fueled, ready to deliver their payloads. But today, their cargo won’t be applied to aircraft that need to go farther than they can without a boost. No, today, those planes are going to be imminent weapons of freedom, in hopes of getting the grip of Russian – and unwittingly the grip of the Ayatollah – off the neck of the American People. At least, that is the hope. Flying at 30,000 feet, each of the planes has a target, and once that target is in sight, they set the path and punch out. Each of these magnificent planes has the ability to launch the entire cockpit from the craft in an emergency.

  Once the first plane – a KC-767A gets over Carlisle, Pennsylvania, it drops from formation, descending straight down on the US Army War College, and the crew punches out, landing halfway between the target and the Pennsylvania Turnpike. The War College is an emergency backup command center for the Armed Forces of the US, in the event the Pentagon becomes invalid.

  Speaking of the Pentagon, a KC-10 drops out above the Pentagon, and sets the stick for a straight flight from directly above the central courtyard of the Pentagon. Punching out from that great altitude, the crew finds their pod landing on the steps of the Lincoln Memorial. Their extreme vertical descent caused the pod to travel extra far, in lateral terms, getting it across the river. When the plane hits the courtyard of the Pentagon, 55,000 gallons of fuel hammers into the ground, igniting, and exploding, blasting the central ring of the building through the next two, and soaking the surrounds for over a hundred yards in fuel and flames.

  The final target is the CIA headquarters in Langley, Virginia. When a fully loaded KC-10 impacts there, it punches right through the building to the earth, detonating everything for a quarter mile, including all buildings in the primary complex, and hundreds of the personal vehicles in the parking lots.

  The neck of the dragon is broken, or at least that is what the perpetrators hope. The CIA and the Pentagon have been the tools of Russia, and everyone knew this, but they did not know that Russia, in itself, is a tool. There are still many loyal to the Ayatollah who are working in the “neck” and will try to keep things afloat, even to advance the agenda of their master, that servant of hell. There are thousands of them, embedded in government, even at the highest levels, almost like the Deep State operatives after 2016, but for only slightly more nefarious reasons. These are people by whom the Ayatollah Rashid is thought to be a direct link between them and Allah.

  The President has ordered the taking of the hilltop and a few hours later, the Pentagon explodes, the CIA is gone, and the primary backup operations for the military has disappeared. In other attacks, the power at all of the news agencies has been destroyed – even FOX! PBS is all that is left, and they have been on a pre-recorded rebroadcast for decades, fully automated. Burt and Ernie are still bringing in the bucks, so to speak.

  Realizing that the forces on the hilltop are fighting against the Russians, Harrison considers an attempt to make friends with them, saying, “If they are against the Russians, couldn’t it be in our favor to enlist their help in getting the heel off our back?”

  “Mr. President,” says Walid, “these people are creating havoc all over the world with their broadcasts, and who knows what else. They cannot be
our allies.”

  “Still,” he glances at Walid, examining his gaze, “isn’t the enemy of my enemy my friend?”

  “The prince who said that, sir,” Walid reminds him, “was killed by one of his ‘friends’ who had been the enemy of his enemy.”

  “How did they do it?”

  “I do not care how they do it! I care that they do it, and it must be stopped. Besides, Mr. President, we have no idea who they are and what else they may do or want.”

  “I think we should at least try to talk with them,” says Harrison, grabbing his phone. He contacts Homeland Security Director Donna Manger, saying, “Is there any way to communicate with the people on that hilltop, designation ‘Angry Parrot’?”

  “Well, sir,” says Manger, “We could try a reverse hack, channeling a Skype back to you, Mr. President.” She glances around to see who is available and reports, “We just enlisted this one young man who seems to be able to get into anything, even the CIA and the FBI. Gimme your Skype name.”

  The President fulfills that request and the Director is gone. Then Harrison pops up his personal laptop, opens his Skype program user interface, and waits. There is a little back and forth with Walid on the matter, but President Harrison seems resolved. In about fifteen minutes, the President’s phone rings and it is Director Manger again. At this moment, Walid takes the opportunity to make a call of his own.

  “Mr. President, my young helper says that he has hacked your account and given clearance for you to receive calls from your daughter, Tzaramyndel, and that a call should be coming to you in a few minutes.”