Original Work To Win or Lose it All (Conquistadors III)

Chapter Eighteen: Washington DC, USA, Timeline F (OTL)

“That was a targeted assassination,” Felix said, coldly. “How did they find him?”

Albert Atherton, the current Director of the FBI, hesitated visibly. He knew Felix didn’t like him, that Felix had advocated for his termination when President Hamlin entered the White House, that – with the country at war – Felix had far more options for getting rid of a director who spent more time playing politics than tracking down Russian spies than ever before. The nasty part of Felix’s mind argued that he should take advantage of the disaster to reassigned Atherton somewhere else, for the good of the country; the more logical side of his mind pointed out that the disaster hadn’t been Atherton’s fault. The lines between governmental agencies were blurrier than ever before, with foreign intelligence no longer foreign, but it hadn’t been the FBI that was responsible for the VP’s security. It had been the Secret Service.

A flicker of grief shot through him, mingled with guilt. Vice President Antony Hazelwood had been chosen for two things; his political connections, which would make him an asset to any President, and his political experience. They had been acquaintances more than friends, and under normal circumstances Felix would have thought twice about offering him the top job, but in the end he’d made the decision to trust Hazelwood. And in doing so, he’d marked the man for death. The bunker had been taken out in a single targeted strike. There was no way in hell that was a coincidence.

“We don’t know,” Atherton admitted. “It shouldn’t have been possible.”

“They must have an agent in Washington,” Felix snapped. Someone had ratted out the plan to attack New York ... that someone, in hindsight, might have helped target Hamlin too. “How did the bastard even know where to find the fucking bunker?”

Atherton shook his head. “We don’t know.”

“Of course not.” Felix caught himself with an effort. “What do you think happened?”

“The bunker was completely off the books,” Atherton said. “The farmhouse was purchased through a ... ah, very loyal family. There was no connection to either the government or the military at all. The construction was carefully concealed, everyone involved knowing nothing more than they needed to know. There was no link between Washington and the bunker ... they must have tracked one of the couriers. It’s the only way.”

Unless someone did enter the information into a database somewhere and the bastards found it, Felix thought. Human error accounted for more security breaches than genuine malice, he’d discovered over the years; all it took was one person slipping up and using a simple password to expose a whole database to prying eyes. They went through our fucking firewalls as if they didn’t exist.

“And the courier might not even know he’d been tracked,” Felix muttered. There were men – and a handful of women, surprisingly enough – in Pakistan and Afghanistan who’d served the Taliban and Bin Laden as motorbike couriers, unaware they’d been noted and their every movement was being tracked by unseen eyes. A handful had led American SF units to high-value targets, without knowing it. There’d been no attempt to capture or kill the unwitting spies afterwards. Better to leave them alive and allow paranoia to weaken the terrorists as much as any targeted seize or kill mission. “We might draw a total blank.”

“Yes, Mr President,” Atherton said.

Felix met his eyes. “I want you to run through everything,” he said. “Assume the couriers are, at worst, unwitting dupes, but go through everything and see what you can turn up. Check what remains of the bunker’s security systems too, see if there was a leak on their end. If someone made a phone call, or something equally stupid ...”

“We can try, but most records will have been destroyed,” Atherton said. “I ...”

“I don’t want excuses,” Felix snapped. He calmed himself a moment later. “Sorry, but we do need answers.”

“I understand,” Atherton said. “With your permission, Mr President, I’ll get right on it.”

Felix dismissed him with a nod, cursing under his breath as the older man left the office. The bastard was too old, too set in his ways, too used to playing bureaucratic musical chairs where the objective was to avoid the blame rather than solve the problem. The FBI really needed an experienced field agent to take the helm, perhaps one with a secretary who could handle the bureaucracy while the new director concentrated on what was really important. Scully would make a good director ... he allowed himself to contemplate the image of Director Dana Scully for a long moment, then shook his head. The exact how and why of the targeted strike was a minor matter, compared with the task of making sure it didn’t happen again. Security protocols, already dangerously tight, would have to be tightened again.

And Antony is dead, Felix thought. Fuck!

It would have been a political nightmare under almost any circumstances, he knew, but now ... the normally carefully-delineated line of succession was a shambles. There had been a very real risk of something happening to Felix and Hazelwood, the designated successor, being so badly out of touch that he simply had no idea he was suddenly the President. Normal protocols for keeping everyone informed could no longer be relied upon, not when CNN was insisting he’d died several times already and FOX informing its audience that he and a hundred other politicians had been caught in bed with both live boys and dead girls. The fact that neither broadcaster had said anything of the sort, and that the broadcasts were nothing more than deepfakes, was immaterial. A report of his death was not automatically going to be believed. How could it?

He cursed, again. He’d have to appoint a new VP and quickly – if he could find someone who wanted the job. And the line of succession would need to be reassessed, with measures taken to ensure the next President actually knew he was President ...

There was a knock at the door. “Yes?”

General Grey stepped into the office, looking tired. “Mr President?”

“Come in,” Felix said, nodding to the chair. “Did you get an update from NORAD?”

“I’m afraid so,” General Grey said. “The flyer that carried out the attack escaped detection completely until it dropped the bomb, by which point it was too late. A lone anti-aircraft battery reported engaging a target in Mississippi, but we don’t know if it was the strike flyer in question and it isn’t clear if they hit anything. It could have been another damn decoy.”

Felix nodded, sourly. It had surprised him, in the days after 9/11, to realise the military didn’t monitor airspace over CONUS as much as he’d thought. The hijacked airliners had turned off their IFF transponders and effectively vanished, at least until they’d slammed into the Twin Towers. The network had been expanded since then, with every aircraft in the region tracked and monitored by both civil and military authorities, but it wasn’t designed to cope with flyers a hundred years ahead of anything America could deploy. The enemy craft were astonishingly fast as well as practically invisible. The pilot had made it in and out effortlessly.

And they’re fond of getting us to waste our missiles on decoys too, he thought. Bastards.

He glanced at Grey. “Do you want to be Vice President?”

Grey raised his eyebrows. “Mr President?”

Felix shook his head. It was a tasteless joke. Grey would make a good wartime president, Felix was sure, but right now he was needed at the Pentagon. “Forget it,” he said. “What’s the latest from Washington? And Texas?”

Grey leaned forward. “At last report, the Protectorate expelled nearly two hundred thousand men, women and children from New York. The process seems to be operating in fits and starts, but ... they do seem to be determined to cut down on useless mouths as much as possible ...”

“While forcing us to take care of them,” Felix said. “Can we?”

“FEMA already had a capable network of refugee camps in the region,” Grey said, “but feeding so many is a hellish nightmare. Some don’t have ID ... our ID, I mean. It makes it hard to confirm names, let alone anything else. It’s quite possible some are criminals or spies ... with the databases in such a mess, we don’t have any way to check. We’re trying to move them further east, but ...”

He scowled. “It isn’t going to be easy.”

Felix nodded. America’s community spirit had taken a beating over the last few years, as helping your neighbour had slowly become exposing yourself to legal liabilities; it didn’t help that there were dozens, perhaps hundreds, of horror stories about good sanitarians being abused, raped, or even murdered by the people they were trying to help. Felix had little patience for liberal do-gooders who knew little about what they were doing and cared less – he had fond memories of scolding one particular woman who’d insisted on calling him the first Latinx VP, unaware that Hispanics regarded the word as demeaning at best and insulting at worst – but they didn’t deserve to die. Or be sued for doing the best they could at the time.

“If they have relatives outside the cordon, we can ask them to take the refugees in,” he said, although he knew that would be difficult. “And we can set up camps as a last resort.”

He scowled. The fighting down south was bad enough, but constant drone and missile attacks – both involving captured or locally-produced weapons – was steadily breaking the United States apart. Shipping goods from the east coast to the west was becoming a nightmare, as bridges were destroyed and tunnels collapsed ... one drone swarm had taken out a dozen truckers, seemingly at random. It would be tricky to get the refugees anywhere outside New York even if they found someone willing to house them. Putting them on coaches was asking for trouble.

“Why?” Felix stared down at his hands. “Why are they doing this?”

General Grey shrugged. “Unknown, Mr President,” he said. “They may be cutting down on useless mouths – so far, most of the evicted adults aren’t tradesmen or anything else the Protectorate might find useful. The kids are ... well, kids. Or they may be trying to put more pressure on us. Or both.”

And they have enough of our people left in New York to make nuking it an impossible choice, Felix thought, coldly. Do they realise it?

“They may have shot themselves in the foot,” General Grey added. “We know they take hostages, to make sure their collaborators – willing or not – behave themselves. We also know they are willing to shoot those hostages, if the collaborators don’t. Sending so many potential hostages out of the city strikes me as odd. They might convince their collaborators that they can resist.”

Felix wasn’t so sure. New York had been the economic capital of America for years, although he wasn’t certain if that had still been true even before the invasion. God knew more and more wealthy citizens and businesses had been slowly pulling out of New York, as taxes rose and public safety declined … the invasion could only have made matters worse. It was quite possible the Protectorate had come to realise that the Big Apple was little more than a drain on their resources. There was certainly little in the occupied zone worth the effort of keeping it.

“Might,” he said, slowly. Would the collaborators resist? Would it make a difference if they did? It was difficult to believe there was a single collaborator who could do immense damage to the invaders. “We’ll see, I guess.”

He rubbed his forehead. “And Texas?”

“The battle continues, Mr President,” General Grey told him. “There won’t be a quick resolution.”

“Yes,” Felix said. “But the more we bleed them, the better.”

He mentally contemplated the map. The engagement was shaping up into something akin to Stalingrad, a battle that really should be wound down before it consumed too much and left a once-invincible army on the verge of total defeat, but the attackers were reluctant – for reasons of pride and prestige – to do anything other than keep funnelling men and material into the combat zone. The engagement was being fought over a wide area – some places saw intense fighting, others seemed surprisingly untouched – and no matter how many tactical victories the Protectorate won they couldn’t defeat their enemies before they slipped away. The casualty rate was terrifying and yet ...

We could win this, he thought. The briefings painted a terrifyingly bloody and yet optimistic picture. The Puritans drove forward, only to find themselves battering their way through trenches or evading a handful of missiles, the latter fired by small teams that engaged the invaders briefly and then vanished again. If we can break them, we might just be able to win the war.

Yeah, his thoughts answered. As long as they don’t break us first.

“They have to have their limits,” he mused.

“Yes, Mr President,” Grey said. “We’ve captured a number of Mexican and Russian personnel, even a handful of Chinese.”

“That’s going to be a diplomatic nightmare,” Felix said. Technically, America wasn’t at war with Russia, China or Mexico. China, at least, could claim American submarines had intervened in the Battle for Taiwan, which seemed to have bogged down to a bloody stalemate ... never mind the first reported Chinese soldiers had landed in Texas well before the Protectorate had dropped a hammer on Taiwan. Russia and Mexico? What was their excuse? “Fuck!”

“We are treating them as legitimate POWs, for the moment,” General Grey pointed out.

“Yeah.” Felix wondered, not for the first time, why he’d ever wanted the top job. The moment word leaked out that Russian and Chinese soldiers had joined the war against America, the country would explode. Everyone from Senator Remington to Joe Sixpack would be demanding war, and who could blame them? If Felix hadn’t been the guy in the hot seat, he’d have been demanding war too. “What are our options for striking back?”

“Not great,” General Grey said. “We pulled most of our deployable forces out of Eastern Europe years ago. What little we left in place got clobbered by the Protectorate. We have more options in the Far East, but anything we send to assist the Taiwanese won’t be here when we need it. Bottom line, we can launch a handful of cruise missile strikes and that’s about it.”

“Fuck,” Felix said. “When did we become so goddamned weak?”

“When an invasion force appeared in Texas,” General Grey said. “The possibility was never seriously considered.”

“No,” Felix agreed. Win or lose, the war would reshape the world forever. “We didn’t really see it coming, did we?”

He cursed Hamlin under his breath. Hamlin had been a good man, in so many ways, but he’d been dangerously unsuited to be President. The arrival of an fucking fortress in the heart of Texas should have been a red alarm ... they certainly didn’t look friendly. What sort of idiot carried out dangerous scientific experiments in the middle of a military base ...? If Hamlin had listened to Felix, if he’d demanded the newcomers open their fortress for inspection or simply launched an immediate nuclear strike ... the world would have been very different. And the United States would not have been brought to the brink of defeat.

We’re locked in a death match now, he thought, bitterly. They’d planned to lure the Protectorate into a trap, but in truth it was a trap for both sides. The United States wouldn’t be able to muster such a large force again, not for several months ... assuming the country didn’t fall apart. He had to admire the sheer bloody-mindedness of their foe. They’d hit on the one strategy that might just work. We can no more back out of the engagement than they can.

“Keep me informed,” he said. “We’re going to have to reshuffle the cabinet once again.”

“We can set up fallback lines of communication,” Grey pointed out. “And as long as we take care, we can avoid another targeted strike.”

“We can try,” Felix said. If something happened to him, who would take charge? There was a legal answer and a practical answer and they might not match. The once-secure command and control network was in tatters and the line of succession was confused ... what would happen, he asked himself, if the wrong person was sworn in? It would be one hell of a legal nightmare. There was a whole legend built up around David Atchison being the President for one day, if he recalled correctly. This would be worse. “But every step we take to avoid a constitutional crisis might risk causing one instead.”

He watched the general go, feeling a twinge of envy. The general didn’t have to worry about picking a new VP – Hazelwood had only been dead for two days and his inbox was already filling with nominees – or the political nightmare that would result if he chose the wrong person. Or if that person was killed too ... he wondered, suddenly, how many people would blame him for the death? Too many, if he was any judge. There were probably deepfakes out on the internet already, snidely suggesting he’d betrayed his VP to appoint someone else to the job. The fact it was untrue hardly mattered. There were people out there who’d want to believe ...

And I wanted this fucking job, he thought, again. The weight of the country was pressing down on him. He was the President ... he might be the last President. What a fool I was.

He closed his eyes for a long moment, then opened them and stood. He was the President. The buck stopped with him. And he had work to do.

And in the end, that was all that mattered.

 

Chapter Nineteen: Front Lines, North Texas, USA, Timeline F (OTL)

“They put the pontoons together very quickly,” Winter muttered, as what remained of the team surveyed the pontoon bridge from a safe distance. “You think they used our stuff to do it?”

“Looks like it,” Callam agreed, surveying the bridges through his binoculars. The original bridge had been knocked down months ago, by one side or the other ... he mentally argued with himself about which side had blown the bridge, weighting up the arguments for and against, then decided it probably didn’t matter. “They certainly didn’t think they needed to bring any pontoon materials of their own.”

He frowned, inwardly. Rivers posed no barrier to tanks that could literally float across the water. He’d seen the Puritans drive their tanks into places he wouldn’t have dared take even a Humvee, let alone an Abrams, giving them a mobility the United States couldn’t match and catching the defenders by surprise time and time again. The downside was that their logistics vehicles didn’t come close to matching the tanks when it came to sheer flexibility, the trucks they’d pressed into service needing highways and interstates as much as any other locally-produced vehicle. Even ATVs had their limits. It puzzled him that the enemy hadn’t brought more hover vehicles – he could easily imagine a hover truck racing from Flint to the front lines without using any roads – but it wasn’t his problem. It was a weakness and he intended to exploit it to the hilt.

Winters grimaced. “How long do we have?”

“I don’t know,” Callam said. The unit had been hammered, then trapped behind enemy lines. He wasn’t sure if the attackers thought they’d wiped out the Americans or if they just didn’t care enough to check. The early hours of any battle were confusing as hell; the attackers needed to punch through the defences and drive as far north as they could, leaving the scattered infantry to be mopped up by follow-up forces. “We’ll have to wait and see.”

Winters gave him a look that was probably intended to be hard. Callam shrugged and turned his attention back to the makeshift bridge, noting the handful of guards and commandeered vehicles. The AN/TWQ-1 Avenger Air Defence System stood out ... he hadn’t known any had been captured, although in the confusion it was hard to be sure what had been destroyed, hidden away, or allowed to fall into enemy hands. There were two, one on each side of the river; both backed up, he noted coldly, by three heavily-armed Humvees and a squad of infantrymen. It was hard to be sure, but he’d bet money on them being new arrivals. Anyone who’d survived the last bout of fighting would be a little more careful so close to the front lines.

“We just need a Warthog to blow the shit out of them,” someone muttered. “Hit them hard, take out the bridges ...”

Callam shook his head. The bridge was too far behind the lines for an air strike to be mounted, assuming the USAF was prepared to take the risk. The Protectorate air defence was very good ... or was it? Avengers were very useful pieces of gear, if the crew knew how to use them properly, but they weren’t as capable as plasma cannons and laser antimissile weapons. If they were deployed so far north, was it a sign the enemy was running short on more modern weapons? Or was he overthinking it. Just because he thought a pilot couldn’t get so close to the pontoon bridges didn’t mean the pilots or the defenders agreed.

And they have to know the bridges are priority targets, he reminded himself, curtly. Better to waste time stationing Avengers here than watch helplessly as the bridges are smashed to rubble.

He kept an eye on his watch as time ticked by, wondering just how long they’d have to wait. There was nothing wrong with the way the enemy organised their logistics – they clearly had a better system than the USMC, which had been the best system in the world until the invaders arrived – but the fighting was taking place across a broad front and their planners would be dealing with multiple different problems simultaneously. There would be something, eventually. All they had to do was wait.

“We should have headed north,” Winters muttered, so quickly only Callam could hear him. “If we don’t report in ...”

Callam kept his thoughts to himself. Sneaking through a combat zone would be tricky even if the enemy didn’t have effectively unlimited ammunition and no qualms about firing on anything that looked even slightly suspicious. The last thing they needed was to be spotted by a drone and blown away, or taken prisoner ... again, in his case. He’d urged Winters to head south instead, in hopes of carrying out their orders to find something to attack ... or, at worst, to sneak around the combat zone and make their way back to the CP. It didn’t help that they had no idea where the CP actually was. Not now.

He let out a breath as he saw the small convoy come into view, nine large lorries escorted by two Humvees and three – no, four – motorbikes. The Humvees looked too old and battered to be American ... his lips twitched, sourly, as he recalled a CO who’d been obsessed with uniforms and vehicles instead of preparing his men for war. Somehow, he doubted the Protectorate had the same problem. A drone flew over the position, languidly orbiting the trucks ... a local design, thankfully. It’d be a great deal easier to hit when the shooting started.

“Hit them when they’re on the bridge,” he ordered. “Jim, you take out the drone the moment I give the command. Don’t give it any time to signal an alert.”

He smiled, coldly. “And then get ready to run.”

The trucks moved closer, spreading out as they prepared to cross the pontoons. The drivers didn’t hesitate as they neared the makeshift structure, suggesting they’d done it before ... Callam recalled feeling a twinge of nervousness, the first time he’d driven across a pontoon bridge. These drivers ... he gritted his teeth. They were willing collaborators or forced conscripts and he didn’t have time to sort the innocent from the guilty. He prayed they were collaborators, perhaps Mexicans hired to do the jobs Americans wouldn’t ... he smiled in dark amusement, then told himself sharply it wasn’t really funny. There was no shortage of willing American collaborators too.

He mentally counted down the last few seconds as the drivers drove their trucks onto the bridge, then snapped a single command. “Fire!”

The shooting broke out instantly. Two antitank missiles sliced into the trucks, setting off a chain of explosions ... they had to be carrying ammo or fuel. A third struck an Avenger before the crew could react, the explosion blowing their bodies into the river. Jim fired at the same moment, the bullet striking the drone and shattering it. Pieces of debris flew in all directions.

Callam opened fire, sweeping his rifle from target to target. The enemy soldiers weren’t well trained, he noted; it took several seconds for them even to start hitting the ground. Experienced men would have opened fire at once; they might not have a clear idea of where their enemies were lurking, but they might hit someone through sheer luck or simply distract them from taking aim. The pontoons started to crumble, the pieces of prefabricated material breaking up and falling into the water. They were designed to be easy to repair, for obvious reasons, but even if they repaired them as quickly as any USMC engineer the bridges would still be out of commission for an hour or two. The Humvees were coming around, their machine guns hurling bullets towards his position. He snapped off a shot at the gunner, and had the satisfaction of seeing the man fall to the ground, then ducked as more bullets passed overhead. The enemy had been caught with their pants down, but now they were starting to rally.

And the drone might well have been signalling home when we killed it, he mused. It was a dangerous policy, normally, but he was fairly sure the Protectorate didn’t much care about its allies. The convoy, on the other hand ... he shrugged. There was no way to know. If they saw the signal cut off, they probably know to assume the worst.

“I think we’ve outstayed our welcome,” he said, keeping his voice deliberately calm. The men had been blooded now, but it would be a long time before they saw as much as his old unit. “Move out as planned.”

He took one last look at the shattered convoy – five trucks burning merrily, a sixth slowly slipping off the crumbling bridge and into the river – and then hurried away. They’d scattered a number of makeshift traps behind them, improvised weapons that had served the dual purpose of keeping the men busy and making life difficult for anyone who chose to give chase. Would they? He would, if he were in their shoes, but would they see it that way? He didn’t know.

Winters grinned, rather savagely. “How badly did we hurt them?”

“Badly,” Callam said. It was a pinprick and they both knew it, but ... if nothing else, the enemy would have to recalibrate their logistics until they could rebuild the bridge. They’d probably wonder if the guards had been asleep too ... or if the guards had been compromised in some way. “It’ll certainly make them a little more careful.”

Behind him, something exploded. A truck? Or one of the IEDs?

He shrugged, again. It didn’t matter.

***

James studied the display with a certain degree of satisfaction.

The battle was shaping up into something hellishly complex, a strange mixture of the Battle for Berlin and the long drawn-out conquest of China, but it was also something winnable. The Americans were putting up one hell of a fight, and they had more resources and manpower at their disposal than the spooks had predicted, yet ... his troops were slowly burning through their lines. Their greater firepower and speed, he told himself firmly, was more than a match for American numbers and defences.

Sally stepped up behind him, her bare breasts pushing into his back. “Is it going well?”

“Yes.” James said, simply. He’d arranged for them to share a chamber in the FOB. It wasn’t as comfortable as his quarters in Castle Treathwick, but it was close enough to the front lines for him to get a real feel for the engagement. The icons on the display were so impersonal it was easy to forget each one represented a real unit, made up of real people. “Your lines are crumbling.”

Another icon flashed up in front of him. An insurgent attack had taken out a pontoon bridge ... that was irritating. He cursed his superiors under his breath, damning them for hampering his logistics. A few hundred proper trucks and heavy transports and he’d be able to land a full-sized army in Washington or any other target he cared to name. Essex’s demented stunt might even have worked, if he’d had the logistics to back up the troops he'd sent into the cauldron ...

“Not my lines,” Sally said, wrapping her arms around him. “I chose to join you.”

“Of course you did,” James agreed. He meant it. Sally had been smart enough to realise that the Protectorate was going to win right from the start, smart enough to make herself useful. “And so will the rest of your people, in time.”

His terminal bleeped. He tapped it. “Yes?”

“The American Government just announced the death of Vice President Hazelwood,” Captain (Intelligence) Abigail Hatter said. “They appear to be trying to turn him into a martyr.”

“Of course,” James said. He paced the room, impatiently. “What else can they do?”

He glanced at Sally, then shrugged. James had no idea how anyone could appoint a weak man like Hamlin to the Presidency – the man had been an utter fool as well as a weakling – but his successor had been busily turning the dead man into a rallying cry. In hindsight, Essex really had fucked up by launching the raid that had ultimately –accidentally - killed Hamlin. They’d done the Americans a vast favour and President Hernandez had not been slow to take full advantage of it. Shame, really. Hernandez seemed to have nerve as well as a backbone. If James had met him under other circumstances, they might have been friends as well as rivals.

“It’s not clear how many believe it,” Abigail added. “My team are sowing disinformation now.”

“Keep me informed,” James said. “Did we get any better intelligence from the captives?”

“No, sir,” Abigail said. “Their commanders seem to have been careful to make sure they only know what they need to.”

“Smart thinking,” James said. “We’ll just have to find out the hard way.”

He tapped his terminal, then turned to Sally. She was sitting on the bed, arms folded under her breasts. James took a moment to enjoy the sight, then leaned forward. It was time to make war, not love.

“You heard that,” he said. “Who do you think will take Hazelwood’s place?”

Sally hesitated, visibly. James had told her, when they’d started working together, that she was neither to lie to him nor guess when she didn’t know the answer. Better not to know than to know something that wasn’t true. She crossed her legs, her body language suggesting she was unsure. James hoped she wouldn’t try to mislead him, accidentally or not. She would be difficult to replace.

“I don’t know,” she admitted, finally. “There is a line of succession, but” – her lips twisted – “the President is supposed to choose the Vice President. They’re normally picked for political reasons, because they bring in votes ... that might have changed, now the country has gone to war.”

James cocked an eyebrow. “In which way?”

Sally took a moment to organise her thoughts. “The President needs to command support from as many political factions as possible,” she said. “If he chooses the right VP, he can command support from factions that might not back the President directly but will back him indirectly by backing the VP. Vance, Harris, Pence, Biden ... pretty much every VP over the last hundred years, with the possible exception of Harris, was picked because they’d be an asset to the President. It was generally believed the President would complete his term and the VP would never have to actually become President.”

“Really.” James didn’t pretend to understand the American system, but a political elite consisting largely of gentocrats would be thinned by natural causes even if they weren’t assassinated by crosstime invaders. Or terrorists. A terrorist organisation only needed to be lucky once; counterterrorism officers needed to be lucky all the time.”It seems President Hamlin got very lucky. His successor has a working brain.”

“Yes,” Sally agreed.

James frowned. “Why didn’t Hernandez run for President himself?”

Sally looked embarrassed, the flush spreading down from her cheeks to her breasts. “I ... the system isn’t designed to pick ideal presidents,” she said. “It’s designed to pick ideal presidential candidates. And those candidates have to meet the requirements of the elite, rather than the people electing them. Hernandez was too rough and crude for many of the party elite ...”

“Charming.” James shook his head. “Did Hernandez intend to let Hamlin get killed?”

He contemplated the problem for a long moment. How much did Hernandez know? If he’d been plotting to remove Hamlin, might he have known it would convince Essex to strike first ... killing Hamlin while leaving Hernandez’s hands clean? It was rare for Protectorate politicians to resort to outright assassination – that was considered cheating – and it seemed to be even rarer for Americans, but ... the country was at war. Anything was justified if it brought the nation one day closer to victory ... he shook his head. That was paranoia and nothing more. Hernandez would not have tolerated Catherine Lacy’s presence in Washington if he had the slightest idea she was there.

“We’ll keep up the pressure, eventually convincing your government to surrender,” he said, finally. The offensive was costly, but he had a near-unlimited supply of Latin American volunteers and no qualms about feeding them into the meatgrinder. “And then we will see.”

He studied the display for a long moment, wishing he could be back on the front line himself. It had been too long since he’d commanded a unit in actual combat ... that was something that would be used against him, if they opened the gate without beating the enemy once and for all. But he couldn’t risk himself ... he felt a twinge of sympathy for Hernandez, for all that they were blood rivals. James didn’t have a clear successor either. It was funny how something he’d planned to be a strength could easily turn into a weakness, if the cards fell the wrong way. He wondered, idly, if Hernandez felt the same way.

Sally grunted as he rolled her over and mounted her from behind, her hands gripping the bed as he slipped inside her, dominated her. It was raw animal passion and yet also cold calculation ... he thrust deep into her, enjoying her sudden loss of control in every sense of the word. It was ...

The terminal bleeped. Sally swore out loud, ramming her buttocks into his thighs. “Don’t stop.”

James ignored her, reaching for the terminal and stabbing the keys. “What?”

“Sir,” Abigail said. James felt a surge of pure anger. He was going to murder her. He was going to wrap his hands around her neck and squeeze. He was going to demote her. He was ... no. If she’d called him, it had to be important. “There’s been an incident.”

 

Chapter Twenty: Front Lines, North Texas, USA, Timeline F (OTL)

Serzhánt Vladimir Tsokov hated America.

It wasn’t just that he’d seen too many comrades killed in Ukraine by weapons supplied by the Americans and Europeans, although that was a large part of it. It wasn’t just the simple fact that the handful of Americans he’d met in Russia had been overbearing, condescending or some combination of the two, even though it hadn’t been an experience to leave him with warm and friendly feelings towards their countrymen. It was their combination of arrogant self-righteousness and whining that got to him, their willingness to delude themselves about the true nature of the world and the wealth and security they enjoyed that allowed them to get away with it. Even in the occupied zone, with large swathes of their country under enemy occupation, they showed an attitude that would probably get them killed in Russia and with far less cause. They didn't know how lucky they were and it showed.

He gripped his rifle tightly as the convoy drove into the small town, keeping a wary eye out for troublemakers. Some Americans had protested in the streets against the occupation – a concept that had made him laugh, when he’d first heard about it – and others had knuckled under or fled, but a sizable number had become insurgents. In theory, Texas was completely occupied from one end of the state to the other; in practice, the state was so large that there were entire districts that had never seen an invader, plenty of room for an insurgency to take route and prepare to harass the Protectorate and their allies. The Americans were very well armed too and it showed. Vladimir had lost four friends over the last two weeks, all to snipers and other cowards who didn’t dare show their faces to the drones. Damn them.

The town looked wealthy and prosperous, although the shops were boarded up and there were few people on the streets. The cars had been moved aside long ago, clearing the roads for military convoys; it looked, although he couldn’t be sure, as though large sections of the population had been moved out too. It was hard to be sure. The entire region was supposed to be in an economic decline, from what he’d gathered from the briefing notes, but the locals looked richer and happier than their Russian counterparts. The nameless town didn’t have the sullen despondency of his hometown, somewhere so ground down by years of national misrule that crime seemed a better option than anything else ... even the military. Vladimir himself would never have joined up if he hadn’t been caught and offered a flat choice between joining the military, and the war in Ukraine, or going to jail. The military had seemed the better option, at least at first. He’d known, from the very first engagement he’d seen, that he’d made a mistake.

He rolled his eyes as he saw a string of American suburban homes, all neatly spread out. They looked weirdly familiar, although he wasn’t sure why. Perhaps something from an American TV show ... he shook his head, dismissing the thought. The Americans had plenty of room to build and they moaned about it, clearly never having seen the Russian apartments that housed several generations of the same family in an extremely confined space. Vladimir had grown up under the shadow of a drunkard father who had beaten his children whenever they annoyed him; there’d been no privacy, no safety, nothing the Americans took for granted. The man had drunk himself into an early grave and none of his five kids had bothered to mourn. Vladimir’s younger sister had even ...

The explosion caught him by surprise, the vehicle skidding to a halt to allow the squad to jump out and take cover. The Americans had planned it well, he noted coldly; they’d hit the lead vehicle in the convoy, killing the commanding officer and bringing the convoy to a dead stop in what was almost certainly a kill zone. He’d seen it before, time and time again, until the Ukrainians had done the Russians an immense favour by killing the officers daft enough to drive right into a series of obvious traps. His eyes swept the streets as he snapped orders, expecting to hear gunshots within seconds ... he was surprised the Americans weren’t shooting already. There was no way in hell the Protectorate had managed to confiscate all the guns. The silly-looking American buildings were now potential threats ...

Nothing happened. His mind raced. The Americans wouldn’t have just emplaced an IED and run, would they? Had their plan misfired? The Ukrainians had been fond of hitting both ends of a convoy, then systematically wiping out the rest of the vehicles before the troops could rally and cut their way out of the trap. The Americans hadn’t learnt those lessons yet ... he saw something move in one of the houses and snapped commands, unhooking a stun grenade from his belt and hurling it through a window. The grenade was nowhere near as advanced as the ones he’d seen the Protectorate use, stun grenades that actually stunned, but the explosion should be enough to give the target a very bad day. It would certainly disorientate them long enough for the troops to catch or kill them.

He led the way forward, charging the house. The windows could be used as makeshift murder holes ... up close, it was clear the building had seen better days. Vladimir spat in disgust and kicked the door hard, rolling his eyes as the lock shattered and revealed a hallway leading into a living room combined with a kitchen. The chamber had been shattered by the stun grenade, a wounded woman lying on the floor ... Vladimir glanced at the wounds, then stepped past the silly bitch and swept the rest of the lower floor. He’d seen too many wounded men to have much sympathy for the American, nor any faith she’d survive long enough to get medical attention. It wasn’t as if he was going to help her.

The stair leading upstairs was an obvious chokepoint. Vladimir motioned for two of his men to follow him as he hurried up, expecting a shot at any moment. There was none. He wasn’t reassured as he heard someone moving in front of him. There was a bedroom ... he kicked down the door and hurried inside, just in time to see a teenage girl scrambling out the window. She had to be desperate, part of his mind noted; he didn’t know if she could make it down safely, he had no idea what might catch her fall, but his men were already surrounding the house. He grabbed her leg, pulled her back inside and slammed her to the floor. She screamed ... he slapped the back of her head, then caught her hands, pulled them behind her back and secured them with a plastic tie. The American girl kept struggling until he rammed a knee into her back, pinning her firmly to the ground. Vladimir snorted in disgust. His sister would have put up a much better fight. She’d always been a vicious little bitch and he had the scars to prove it. This girl was just contemptible.

But she was a girl. And it had been a long time.

The girl screamed again as he hefted her off the ground and marched her downstairs. Two more prisoners were already there, a young boy and girl. His men were already lining up, ready to take turns ... Vladimir snapped orders as he ripped the girl’s clothes away, her breasts bobbling out in front of him, then threw her over the sofa, lowered his pants and thrust into her. His men hooted and hollered. It wasn’t the first time they’d had their fun with a female captive, lining up to take turns fucking her ... after seeing so many good men die, in Ukraine, raping their women was almost a holy duty. The officers claimed to disapprove and promised harsh punishments for anyone caught in the act, but little was ever done. Vladimir knew the truth. The officers simply didn’t care. Besides, it wasn’t uncommon for an officer to have a female secretary who spent more time on her knees than behind a desk ...

The boy screamed and shouted, trying to break free. His captor clouted him with a rifle butt, sending him to the floor. The girl was surrounded by other men ... Vladimir smiled as he heard more shouts and screams from outside. The Americans who hadn’t fled before the ambush were learning the error of their ways now, the Russians driven by anger at the ambush as much as anything else. They were going to suffer. Oh yes, they were going to suffer. The girls would pay the price for their fathers’ crimes.

He smiled, again, as he shot his load. The girl was lying still now, blanking out ... Vladimir shrugged and stepped aside, allowing the next man to take his place. The girl could pretend it wasn’t happening all she liked, if she retained enough intelligence to do anything of the sort. It didn’t matter. His men would have their fun and then they would return to the war, leaving dozens of broken lives behind. Who was going to stop them?

His lips twisted. No one.

***

Sergeant (Sepoy) Miguel Ruiz felt a twinge of alarm as the four captured Humvees drove into the nameless American town. The squad had been pulled out of the front lines, with instructions to rest and recuperate before returning to the fight, and it had been a surprise to suddenly receive orders to head to the nearest town and deal with ... something. There had been something oddly mealy-mouthed about the orders, strikingly out of character for the Protectorate. He’d wondered, as they’d passed lines of Americans fleeing the town, if the communications network had been hacked. The Protectorate had hacked the American network and turned it against them, why would the Americans not try to find a way to do it in return?

“Fuck,” Tessa muttered.

Miguel swallowed, hard, as he saw the scene in front of him. A convoy had been halted in the middle of an American street, the lead vehicle a burned out ruin ... he cursed, again, as he saw the Russian troops. They’d lost all control, some ransacking and looting American home and others ... he felt sick, despite himself, as he saw the row of American girls bent over to be fucked, time and time again. He wasn’t unused to horror – he’d grown up in a place where a girl’s male relatives were all that stood between her and a brutal rape – but this ... this was an atrocity. It was so far against the rules, as they’d been hammered into his head, that they might as well have been in China. Or Russia.

His eyes swept from side to side. A number of American men had been shot, execution-style ... one was a child who couldn’t possibly be any older than Santiago. Others had been zip-tied to lampposts and mailboxes and forced to watch. A girl who looked the same age as Mariana was being raped ... it crossed his mind, as he stared in horror, that she might even be younger. The Russian holding her down turned and smirked at Miguel, wordlessly inviting him to take a turn ... Miguel didn’t think. He levelled his rifle and shot the man through the head. The girl screamed and fainted. Miguel didn’t blame her. He’d seen the aftermath of rape before, back home, and this was a hundred times worse. The poor girl was never going to be the same again.

Miguel keyed his loudspeaker. “RUSSIANS, DROP YOUR WEAPONS AND GET YOUR HANDS IN THE AIR,” he snapped. He wasn’t sure if it was the right thing to do or not, his training hadn’t covered such a large atrocity, but he was damned if he wasn’t trying to do something about the nightmare. The girl on the ground looked even younger, now she was unconscious. “IF YOU DO NOT, YOU WILL BE SHOT. THERE WILL BE NO FURTHER WARNINGS!”

The Russians stared at him. Some had been drinking, never mind that alcohol and any sort of drugs were expressly forbidden in combat zones. Others looked too angry to care ... Miguel wondered, numbly, what the hell had driven them to such extremes. It looked like a gang massacre back home, when drug cartels would fight over trade routes into the United States, but worse. Far worse. A man started babbling, waving a pistol in the air, and Miguel shot him down without hesitation. The rest of the Russians finally started obeying orders, raising their hands. They’d been luckier than they knew, Miguel reflected coldly. If the Americans had planned their ambush a little better, the Russians would likely have been slaughtered effortlessly.

Not that it matters, he mused, as his men dismounted and started to cuff the Russians with their own cuffs. The Protectorate took a dim view of such things. The Russians were likely to be hanged without much in the way of due process, the innocent along with the guilty. There didn’t seem to be any innocents here ... he shook his head. Anyone inclined to object would likely keep their mouths shut, for fear of their comrades. They’ll all be dead before this week is through.

He tapped his radio, updating his superiors, then started to search the area. Tessa joined him as they walked into the first house, the interior looking like a war zone. A dead middle-aged woman lay in a pool of her own blood, a young boy beside her ... Miguel had no idea what the bastards had done to wound the woman so severely, but it had clearly killed her. And then they’d positioned her son so it looked like he was breastfeeding ... Miguel turned away, swallowing hard to keep from throwing up, then wished he hadn’t as he saw the girl lying over the sofa. Blood was falling from between her legs and pooling on the ground ...

Tessa vomited. Miguel felt his gorge rise and hastily looked away. The girl was ... was she alive? He forced himself to check and breathed a sigh of relief as he realised she was alive, although ... God alone knew what kind of life she was going to have now. How many men had raped her ...? Hell, how old was she? He told himself not to be stupid a moment later. It didn’t matter if she was eight or eighteen or eighty. Her treatment was so far outside the laws of war, as the Protectorate understood them, that the rapists would be lucky if they weren’t tortured before being hung. In public. To discourage anyone who might be thinking about doing it themselves.

“Get her to a medic,” Miguel ordered, not trusting himself to say anything else. The girl needed medical attention. “And quickly.”

Tessa nodded, half-carrying the naked girl out of the house. Miguel shuddered and looked around again. It was a cosy little place, a perfect little home ... he saw a handful of pictures on the wall, each one speaking of a family life that had been brutally shattered by the atrocity. He had no idea what had happened to the man of the house – he looked neat and trim in the pictures; it seemed he was part of his children’s lives – but ... he turned away, forcing his legs to take him outside the house. The streets were crowded now, reinforcements arriving at a steady pace. The Russians were being marched into a prisoner transport ... he cursed under his breath as he saw the Americans watching them, their faces cold and hard. Any hopes of winning hearts and minds had died, in a single bloody afternoon. Miguel had no idea what the Russians had been thinking, but it hardly mattered. All that mattered was that the Protectorate might just have lost the war.

“Fuck,” he muttered.

Tessa rejoined him, her face grim. “The medics took samples,” she said. “They’ll find the bastards who did it to her.”

Miguel shrugged, taking a packet of cigarettes from his pouch and holding it out to her in a silent offer. She shook her head. Miguel took and lit one for himself, taking a long drag as he surveyed the scene. The reinforcements were sweeping the area, trying to make sure they caught every last Russian and took note of every American ... it probably didn’t matter. The entire Russian squad would likely be hanged, too late. There was no way to keep word from spreading, no way to prevent the news from slipping across the occupied zone ... there was no shortage of rumours about atrocities, of course, but there was something visceral about this rumour that would give it legs, even if the other stories were seemingly worse. And who knew what would happen then?

Tess leaned closer to him, her lips brushing against his ear. “Did we do the right thing?”

“Don’t say that too loudly,” Miguel said, keeping his voice level. If someone heard Tessa and tried to arrest her for sedition ... he had no idea if anyone was listening to them, but it was far from impossible. A combination of tiny mikes and AIs a hundred years ahead of anything his timeline possessed ensured the Protectorate could keep an eye on its sepoys without making it obvious. Or wasting too much time and resources. “Not here.”

Tessa gave him a sharp look, then nodded. Miguel kept his thoughts to himself. He owed the Estados Unidos nothing, certainly not loyalty ... hell, the atrocity was nothing compared to the atrocities American-backed governments had inflicted on their own people. And yet ...

And my family are hostages, he reminded himself. Desertion was punished by death ... they wouldn't just hang him, but his entire family. He had no desire to test if they were bluffing or not. There’s no way out.

He took a final drag on his cigarette. Fuck.

 

Chapter Twenty-One: Castle Treathwick, Texas, Timeline F (OTL)

It was a fundamental truth of war, James knew, that it was gruesome.

Anyone who thought otherwise was a fool. It was impossible for war to be anything but gruesome, when the gloves were taken off and violence – controlled violence – swept over the lands. Soldiers, insurgents and terrorists died, or were so badly wounded that death would be a mercy; civilians, male or female, could be swept up in the fighting and killed, their fate barely noticed by either side ... if it were noticed at all. Civilian deaths were unfortunate, particularly when they weren’t being used as human shields or serving as de facto military auxiliaries, but also little more than a fact of life. James regretted the countless Americans who’d died in the opening days of the war, yet he wouldn’t waste time bemoaning their deaths. Anyone who thought those deaths could have been avoided had no business passing judgement on military affairs.

And yet, the Russian atrocity was different.

The PEF was the most tightly-disciplined army in modern history. Even the vaunted United States Marine Corps, enemies the PEF had come to respect, lacked the combination of strict discipline on the battlefield and indulgence behind the lines that gave the PEF its unique character. It was rare, vanishingly unknown, for his men to commit a genuine atrocity – at least by their standards – and when they did it was harshly punished. James had signed Rifleman Michael Quigley’s death warrant with a smile, after two of his captains had reviewed the sentence and dismissed the appeal, and he’d even made time to watch the hanging, not out of any prurient interest but to make it clear that the decision hadn’t been made casually. But the Russians clearly had different ideas. A whole squad going mad was something new ...

He took a breath, then turned to face his assembled staff. “Report.”

Essex looked grim. As James’s second, he was technically in command of the military police ... a role that should have made him astonishingly, and often unfairly, unpopular with the rank and file. It was normally little more than a formality, as far as the PEF were concerned. The handful of men who did come to the attention of the dreaded military police, at least for reasons more serious than drunkenness while off duty, tended to thoroughly deserve it. No one had sworn vendetta for Quigley and no one ever would. The asshole had been thoroughly loathed by the rest of his platoon even before he’d decided to rape an underage girl. A child!

“We’ve interrogated the Russians, the American witnesses, the sepoys and reinforcements ... as well as downloading footage from the drones, local cameras and other sources,” Essex said. “As near as we can tell, the convoy was halted by a lone IED. The Russians then ransacked nearly twenty homes, killing seventy-two Americans and raping at least seventeen girls, from eight to twenty-five ...”

Abigail cleared her throat. “At least?”

“There’s some evidence to suggest two girls got away when the sepoys arrived,” Essex admitted. “We don’t have a solid ID on them. They may not exist at all.”

“It doesn’t matter,” Abigail growled. “Seventeen or nineteen, the crime’s the same.”

James nodded. “Do they have any excuse?”

“The Russians claim they came under fire from the surrounding houses,” Essex said. “Drone footage suggests otherwise. There’s no suggestion anyone actually fired on the convoy after the IED detonated. We did find some unregistered weapons in the houses, when we searched them, but none were fired. All the evidence indicates the IED was a once-off and whoever emplaced it didn’t intend to hit the Russians while they were down.”

“Right.” James took a breath. “No excuses.”

He stared at the display for a long moment. He’d seen the mangled remains of humans caught in the middle of a war before, bodies seemingly unharmed contrasting oddly with bodies that were practically unrecognisable, but the images on the display shocked even him. The girls had been so brutally raped they might not be able to have children in future, assuming they wanted anything to do with men after they’d been gang-raped ... it was the banal assembly-line horror that shocked him, as much as anything else. It had been a strange mixture of raw fury and cold calculation ...

“Right,” he said, again. He wouldn’t have cared, even for a second, if American civilians had been killed in the middle of a firefight. Such things happened, in war. But this was a calculated atrocity that would make the Russians the Protectorate had fought and beaten in the Second Global War recoil in horror. “Does the American government know?”

“Not yet, as far as we can tell,” Abigail said. “But that will change soon.”

James scowled. There was no way to lock down the entire occupied zone. Word would spread from place to place, eventually slipping all the way back to Washington. The story would be believed ... why not? Even if the American government doubted it, the story would still make a good rallying cry. Why not make use of it first and worry about the truth afterwards?

“We need to ask fast,” he said. “What do we do about it?”

“Hang them,” Essex said, bluntly. “This was not an accident. This was deliberate. They knew the laws of war, our laws, and chose to defy them. Hang them now, dump the bodies in unmarked graves, make it clear to the rest of the sepoys that there will not be any repeats. I see no other choice.”

“We could always hand them over to the Americans instead,” Abigail pointed out. “Let them deal with the Russians.”

“They’re our sepoys,” Captain (Infantry) Tobias Hawkweed pointed out. “We owe them ...”

“Technically, they’re allied troops,” Essex countered. “And even so, they have still broken the laws of war.”

“Ours, not theirs,” Hawkweed said. “Russian troops do not have a reputation for behaving themselves.”

James rubbed his forehead. Hawkweed had a point, damn him. The Russians had committed hundreds of atrocities in the Ukraine, many confirmed by international observers and neutral powers. Bad habits were difficult to break, particularly on merciless battlefields ... in hindsight, perhaps it would have been wiser to break up the Russian units and scatter the men amongst the sepoy units. But Russia wasn’t a client state. He could only push them to a certain point and no further.

“You are suggesting we let them get away with it?” Abigail’s voice could have cut titanium. “Really?”

“No,” Hawkweed said. “But there are political implications here that simply don’t exist back home.”

And if we’d managed to get Orion into orbit, we could have hammered the Americans flat without needing the Russians, James thought, bitterly. But it didn’t work out that way.

“We owe them nothing,” Abigail said. “They chose to commit mass rape and slaughter.”

She tapped the table, meaningfully. “It’s not easy to get a good idea of what the Americans are thinking. They were losing their freedom of speech even before we arrived, growing too used to censoring themselves. But I think it is fairly clear this atrocity is going to harden hearts and turn minds against us. That town was peaceful. The IED was the sole incident since we drove through and took control, months ago. It sure as hell won’t be peaceful now.”

“So what?” Hawkweed waved his hand, dismissively. “If they rise against us, we’ll crush them.”

Abigail glowered at him. “When we embarked on this conquest, we offered the Americans a carrot and a stick. The Americans who joined up with us, willingly, or even those who simply chose not to fight ... we offered them everything from cheap power and guaranteed employment to safety and security. The Americans who fought were offered nothing more than a quick death and an unmarked grave. Carrot and stick. That is how you win hearts and minds.

“But now, the Americans have been taught that bending the knee to us does not guarantee safety and security. They weren’t struck by missiles or bombed by aircraft; they were raped, injured or murdered ... all by men under our control!”

“But not one of our units,” Hawkweed argued.

“There’s an old fable,” Abigail said. “Once upon a time, a particularly stupid Chinese autocrat decreed that everything, from minor offences such as being late for work to serious crimes like high treason and armed rebellion, were to be punished by death. And then some workmen discovered they were late ... and decided they might as well rebel, because they were already dead. And that was the end of that particular Chinese dynasty.”

She took a breath. “If the Americans think they’re going to be raped and murdered even if they are as cooperative as we might wish,” she added sharply, “why the hell should they not resist? What do they have to lose?”

“Nothing,” Essex said.

“And yet, can we afford a break with the Russians now?” Hawkweed looked from face to face. “The battle is not yet over.”

James eyed him, sourly. Hawkweed was raising a legitimate concern ... and yet, was he raising it for legitimate reasons? A infantry officer would be an powerful challenger, James knew; they commanded respect even from those who disliked them personally. No matter the outcome, Hawkweed’s status would be boosted in the event of an open challenge. And that meant ...

His mind raced, considering possibilities. Hanging the Russians was the simplest solution – he could make sure the Americans saw the footage, to at least try to defuse some of their anger. The victims could watch the hangings and know there was justice ... not that it would bring the dead back or erase memories of brutal rape. But would it cause a diplomatic crisis? He ground his teeth in frustration. The timing was disastrous, so much so he wondered if the Russians were playing both ends against the middle. Did they think they could somehow convince the Americans they were on their side? It sounded absurd and yet ... he’d seen all sorts of crazy ideas that had been seriously proposed, even if they’d never gotten any further.

Or do they intend to use it as an excuse to ditch us? The thought hung in his mind. Or to extort more concessions from us?

He scowled. The Russians really weren’t a client state. They had to know they were risking everything in dickering with the Protectorate. If the whole affair was part of a plan, or something they could use to demand more concessions, or even pull out of the alliance and blame its failure on the Protectorate ...

“We need to act now,” Essex said. “It is only a matter of time until word reaches Washington.”

“Assuming it is believed,” Hawkweed said.

“It will be,” Abigail said. “It’s too tawdry to be a lie.”

James understood her logic. The internet was boiling with claims and counterclaims about atrocities committed by the Protectorate, the United States Government, Right-Wing Nuts, Left-Wing Nuts, Religious Nuts and every other usual suspect, most made up of whole cloth and distributed by everyone who had an axe to grind. They tended to be extreme – apparently, the United States Government had nuked Wyoming – and therefore hard to believe. But a simple incident like gang-rape and murder? It was a great deal easier to believe.

And everyone who does would be right, of course, James reflected. He was used to taking quick decisions and standing by them, but this was a little more consequential than calling in a missile strike dangerously close to his men. Why did this have to happen now?

“We’ll hang them,” he said. There was no point in trying to sort through the prisoners to see if any hadn’t fired a shot, let alone raped their captives. The whole unit needed to be punished. “We’ll do it quickly, then communicate with both the American and Russian governments. It’ll make us look bad, but ...”

He shrugged, expressively. The Americans were already their enemies. The Russians ... well, they could put up and shut up, or they could cause trouble. If the latter ... once he’d crushed and absorbed America, he could put the Russians firmly in their place. And he would. If half the reports from Russia were true, the Russian people would be far better off under the Protectorate than their current government. He wouldn’t send millions to die for worthless patches of ground.

“Make it clear to the sepoys that this is not to be repeated,” he added, firmly. “We do not want it to happen again.”

And he hoped to hell, as he dismissed the senior officers, that it wouldn’t.

***

Sally had thought herself used to horror.

That was a laugh, she reflected, as she followed Montrose out of the fortress. She’d seen homeless people begging on the streets, watched drug addicts struggle to get their next fix ... like many American girls, she’d known there were people she needed to be wary of – even if it wasn’t politically correct to say so – and she’d been all too aware she could be raped, even murdered, if she went to the wrong part of town or let the wrong person into her home. And she’d seen horrors on the nightly news ...

She felt sick, almost drunk, even though she hadn’t touched a drop. The images she’d seen had been appalling, atrocities so vile they’d horrify a serial rapist or even ... she’d seen some pornographic horrors that had shocked her, even when they’d been clearly faked, but these atrocities had been real. She didn’t know what to make of it. On one hand, the atrocities had been committed by the Russians; on the other, the Russians wouldn’t have been anywhere near the scene of the crime if the Protectorate hadn’t brought them to America. They wouldn’t have had the chance ...

Montrose kept walking, seeming not to notice the gathered crowd. American civilians and Russian sepoys, the latter looking torn between anger and sullen fear. A handful of young girls looked shell-shocked ...it took Sally a moment to realise they were some of the rape victims. The others were too badly wounded to be allowed out of their beds, despite the very best medical treatment the Protectorate could offer. Sally had had some rough sex in her time, and the less said about a drunken encounter the better, but never anything that had left bruises on her body and tears inside her vagina and anus ... she felt sick, again, and forced herself to hang back. It was too much and yet she couldn’t force herself to look away.

The square had once been called Stonewall Square, after Stonewall Jackson, but now it was called Tyburn Square. Sally recalled trying to protest, when she’d been young and foolish, and arguing the town shouldn’t have anything named after a Confederate hero. The old men had called her a social justice warrior and convinced everyone to ignore her ... she wondered, now, what they thought about the new name. It hadn’t meant anything to her, at first, but to the Protectorate it represented justice. The wooden scaffolding in the centre of the square was designed for mass hanging. There were already nine Russians – hands bound behind their backs, nooses around their necks – waiting to die. She had no idea what had happened to the rest of them. Probably waiting their turn too.

Montrose spoke, his amplified voice booming over the square. “Yesterday, these men murdered and raped, and did so in our name,” he said. “There is no doubt of their guilt. Today, we pass judgement on them. For their crimes, they are sentenced to death. The sentence will be enacted immediately.”

Sally swallowed. The scene would be broadcast right around the world, she knew, but it would have the greatest impact here. Would it be enough to stop an uprising? Or would it provoke the Russians to break the alliance? Or ...

Montrose gave the signal. The trapdoors dropped. A rush of ... something ... ran through the crowd as the Russians died, slowly and painfully. Deliberately or not, the knots seemed designed to choke them to death instead of snapping their necks. The men tried to struggle, pointlessly. They died one by one ... the crowd cheering as they met their end. Sally looked away, feeling sick, as the bodies were removed and the remainder brought up to die. It was gruesome and yet ... it had to be done.

She turned and made her way towards the girls, driven by an impulse she couldn’t put into words. The nearest girl was a few years younger than her, barely old enough to drive in Texas, yet her eyes ... she had been pretty once, Sally thought, but now her eyes were the eyes of someone who had seen too much. Sally’s words caught in her throat as the girl stared at her. She knew her ... of course she knew her. Sally’s face was known everywhere as the face of American and Protectorate civilians working together for a better future ...

“I’m sorry,” Sally managed. The words seemed so ... pointless. She’d read the medical reports. The girl who’d gotten off lightly, compared to her friends – and that was a sickening thought, one she cursed herself for even thinking – had still been raped by at least five men. “I will do what I can for you ...”

The girl looked her in the eye and spat. Sally recoiled, too late. The spittle landed on her face and dribbled to the ground, leaving her speechless. The sheer hatred on the girl’s face, even as her minder hurried her away, was terrifying. It was ... it felt as if she’d lost everything, as if every excuse she’d made for herself had been ruthlessly torn away. It was spittle, humiliating and yet harmless ...

It felt like acid. And it burned.

 

Chapter Twenty-Two: Washington DC, USA, Timeline F (OTL)

“This is an outrage,” Senator Remington snapped. “We must take action!”

Felix groaned, inwardly. Remington had had a reputation as a backseat driver even before the war, gathering influence and power with neither position nor responsibility. President Hamlin had taken his opinions seriously, but never appointed Remington to his cabinet ... Felix wondered, in hindsight, if asking Remington to join his makeshift government, assembled under fire, had been a mistake. He had been a part of Felix’s own plot to invoke the 25th and remove President Hamlin, and he was the kind of person better left pissing outside the tent than pissing into it, but still ...

He forced himself to look into the video camera. The tech was almost laughably primitive, the outdated television positioned so poorly that to look into the lens was to suggest he was permanently distracted by something to the left of him. They were lucky, he’d been told, that the invasion had come when it had. A decade or two further down the line and the government would be so wired the enemy would have been able to insert itself into the network and simply take over, no matter how many firewalls and other precautions were worked into the system. Even so, just finding enough old tech to keep the government going was a difficult task. Perhaps it would have been wiser to fall back on even older technology – and decentralisation – rather than a television and camera older than himself. But it was too late now.

“We will take action,” he said, firmly. Far too many problems had metastasised out of control because Washington had been reluctant to take firm action until it was too late, the politicians valuing appearance over reality until reality could no longer be ignored. “What would you suggest we do?”

He knew, even as he spoke, that Remington would have no answer. The bastard might be on the cabinet now, damn him, but he was still the kind of political rectum who insisted on criticising everything without putting forward any ideas of his own. It was a great deal easier than coming up with a makeshift solution and then being blamed for not coming up with anything perfect. Only a man truly separated from the real world could expect perfection ... sadly, Felix reflected, that included most of the Washington elite. They didn’t have to deal with the consequences until it was far too late.

“There must be ways we can punish the Russians,” Remington said. “Declare war?”

Felix bit his lip to keep from saying the first thing that came to mind. The President could not declare war on his own. The rules governing the use of force had become vaguer and vaguer over the last few decades, but openly declaring war was a step too far. Striking Russia wasn’t going to be easy, with or without a formal declaration of war. The American bases in Europe had been denuded of troops and supplies, the European allies unlikely to take action on their own ... there were few options that wouldn’t make matters worse. His staff were looking at ways to harass the Russians, perhaps sinking a number of ships or lending support to Ukraine now the war had started up again, but there wasn’t much that could be done quickly. The public demand for nuclear retaliation was as unrealistic as it was horrific.

He rubbed his forehead, cursing the Protectorate under his breath. Their mindset was just ... bizarre. The whole affair would likely have gone unnoticed if they’d handled it discretely, the reports of an atrocity buried under a tidal wave of horror stories about the federal government committing all sorts of crimes against its own people. It spoke well of the bastards, he reflected sourly, that they had dealt with the Russians decisively. God knew, there had been so-called allies in Iraq and Afghanistan who couldn't have hurt the Americans more if they’d been openly declared enemies, allies who couldn’t be put in front of a wall and shot even though they thoroughly deserved it. He’d seen enough – and knew of worse – to have any truck with the issue of cultural sensitivity. If your culture included raping young boys, your culture deserved to be shoved into the ash heap of history. And if you defended such a culture ...

They just had to tell the world what they did, he thought, bitterly. And now it’s exploded in my face.

He shook his head in disbelief. Had they done it to cause political trouble for him? It was possible and yet ... there was almost a hint of shame in the message that had been sent to him, a crack in the Protectorate’s armour of stubborn self-righteousness. The special intelligence source had confirmed the details of the affair and ... and the Protectorate’s response. It was like dealing with aliens, human aliens. Their culture was so different they could blindside him quite by accident. And they had.

“We will take action,” he said, finally. “But immediate action will be very difficult.”

Someone tapped on the door. “I have a meeting,” he added, before Remington could respond. “I’ll speak to you later. Perhaps you could brainstorm a few practical ideas.”

Remington nodded curtly, then vanished. Felix frowned, inwardly. That was a little out of character for someone who fancied himself a kingmaker, although he’d hardly been the driving force behind the little plot ... he shook his head, dismissing the thought as the door opened to reveal his current secretary, looking slightly groggy. The bunker was on Washington time, of course, but spending so much time underground made it easy to lose track of time. And if the Protectorate ever located them ...

“Mr President,” the young man said. “Director Atherton is here to see you.”

“Show him in,” Felix ordered. The one advantage of the bunker was that he didn’t have to worry about all his meetings being scheduled in advance, so any changes would either irritate someone who’d struggled to get face to face time with the President or tip any observers off that something important was happening. He didn’t know how Hamlin had managed to handle so many visitors without blowing his stack from time to time. “And then hold my calls. Unless it’s something on the red line.”

The young man nodded, then stepped aside to allow Atherton to enter. “Mr President,” he said, as the door closed behind him. “We may have a problem.”

Felix snorted. “Would it be too much to hope you brought me a solution too?”

Atherton took a seat. “As you know, we have been trying to determine just how the Protectorate located the Vice President,” he said. “Despite working with the advantage of hindsight, it is our belief that they didn’t work out his location through hacking our networks, downloading everything and running it through their AIs. There weren’t enough clues to put it together, unless they somehow managed to wipe the data after downloading it.”

“Did they?” Felix wasn’t so sure. AI couldn’t be trusted – sometimes it was scarily accurate, sometimes it messed up so badly it was effectively hallucinating – but the Protectorate was a few decades ahead of the United States. Their AIs might be good enough to avoid colossal fuck-ups such as identifying an innocent women as a criminal and sending her to jail for months before anyone bothered to check she was the criminal ... Felix hoped to hell that everyone involved had been sacked. Failing to check was unforgivable. “Are you sure they didn’t?”

“There’s no trace of any such incursion,” Atherton said. “We’re fairly sure they didn’t.”

Unless the data centre was destroyed afterwards to cover their tracks, Felix thought. The Protectorate largely left data centres alone, because they could be hacked, yet a number had been destroyed. It was tricky to wipe something completely, as countless criminals had discovered the hard way, but physically destroying the data centres would suffice. We may never be sure just when the bunker was discovered.

“Acting on the assumption the Protectorate struck as soon as they located the bunker, we interrogated all the couriers along the chain, as well as searching their homes and basically putting them through a full forensic sweep,” Atherton continued. “We turned up something rather interesting.”

Felix met his eyes, then spoke with heavy sarcasm. “Are you going to get to the point?”

“Yes, Mr President,” Atherton said. “The first courier picked up a woman the night before he set out on his trip. We didn’t find many strange fingerprints in his apartment, when we searched it, but we found a handful. When we ran them through the database they came back as Marilyn Hampton.”

Felix blinked. “The Mayor’s wife?”

“Yes, Mr President,” Atherton said. “She got a DUI ten years ago and her fingerprints were entered into the database. There’s little room for doubt, except Mrs Hampton has an excellent alibi. Frankly, we didn’t have to talk to her at all, let alone take her into custody. She’s been rather clearly placed on the other side of the city, and there are enough witnesses to be fairly sure the alibi is nothing more than the truth. Really, calling it an alibi is unfair to her.”

“Charming,” Felix muttered. He’d met Mrs Hampton once. She was very much the typical political wife, convinced she shared her husband’s title ... not a bad person, he supposed, but not a particularly good one either. The idea of her cruising Washington to pick up young men ... he shook his head. “So who did he pick up?”

“Good question,” Atherton said. “The apartment was heavily monitored. Video footage has quite clearly been tampered with, the image of the young woman simply doesn’t match the description we got from the courier. That’s suspicious in itself, because whoever did it has access to computing power far in excess of anything we have.”

“Suspicious,” Felix repeated. “We have an enemy agent somewhere in the city.”

“Yes, Mr President,” Atherton said. “It looks that way.”

Felix stared at his hands. “How did this agent make the link between the courier and the VP?”

“We don’t know,” Atherton admitted. “The courier didn’t know anything about the package. All he was told was to take it to a certain point and hand it over to the next courier. There’s no easy way to determine just how the second courier was tracked ...”

“Fuck.” Felix looked up. “Did they slip a transponder into the package somehow?”

“It’s possible,” Atherton said. “But the courier didn’t pick up the package until well after parting ways with Mrs Not-Hampton.”

Felix allowed his imagination to run wild. Identify the courier. Keep an eye on him from overhead as he left Washington. Swoop down the moment he was alone, snatch him off the road, slip a transponder into the package, wipe his memory and return him ... could the Protectorate do that? The United States had once sneakily inserted a transponder into someone’s teeth to track down a terrorist leader. Or was it something simpler? Perhaps the agent had followed the courier from a safe distance and then switched to the next once it was clear the package had been passed on ...

He shook his head. “If this agent is here, in Washington, why hasn’t she been noticed?”

“We don’t know,” Atherton said. “It isn’t easy to pass for a member of a foreign culture without a great deal of training and preparation and our target, whoever she really is, could not have been in training until after the invasion began. We may be looking for someone like Sally Luanne, an American who switched sides as soon as she had the chance, or someone so adaptable they don’t make many mistakes. Even under martial law, finding her will be tricky.”

“No kidding,” Felix muttered.

His mode darkened as he considered the odds. Washington had a population of somewhere around 800’000 – or she had, before the war. Thousands of people had left since then ... assuming a total population of 400’000, there would be just too many possible suspects for the enemy agent to be tracked down easily. All they really knew about her was that she was female, which reduced the suspects to a mere 200’000. The FBI would be able to cut that list down sharply, he was sure, but could they do it quickly enough to matter? Hell, the fingerprints she’d left behind were clearly fake. They could catch the real agent and release her without ever knowing who they’d let slip through their fingers.

He looked up. “Does she know she’s been detected?”

“I suspect she must at least assume it,” Atherton said. “The courier left Washington – hours later, the VP is dead. She’d have to be a complete idiot not to suspect we’ll zero in on the courier, nor would she have any reason to assume he wouldn’t tell us everything. Why not? He’s not an enemy agent, just someone who was used ... he didn’t even know what he was doing.”

And he may not have been doing it anyway, Felix mused. We shouldn’t eliminate that possibility just because we think we found a red flag ...

He leaned back in his chair. The whole affair suggested someone who didn’t quite understand how the United States worked. The city might be under martial law, but the FBI wasn’t going to bang up the wife of the city’s mayor just because her fingerprints had been found in a courier’s apartment. Sure, they’d want a few words with the poor woman, but lock her up and throw away the key? It wasn’t going to happen. Was it a deliberate attempt to further the political chaos in Washington? Or was it a simple cultural misunderstanding?

And where was she? Washington was a big city. There was no shortage of places to hide ... hell, she didn’t even need to hide. No one knew what she really looked like and her real fingerprints were completely off the record ... she could walk the streets freely, knowing she was safe as long as she was careful. Or got very unlucky.

“Keep working on it,” he ordered, finally. “If nothing else, we can use the whole affair as an excuse to rearrange everything on short notice. It might make life harder for her.”

“Yes, Mr President,” Atherton said. “And the couriers?”

“Unless you have some reason to think they knew what they were doing, if they were doing it, release them,” Felix said. Official Washington would be looking for scapegoats ... they weren’t going to get a handful of youngsters who’d done nothing more than follow perfectly legal orders. “That is an order, which you may have in writing if you wish.”

Atherton nodded, politely. “Yes, Mr President.”

Felix nodded back, then watched as the older man left the room. Too many problems, each one adding to his stress ... each solution creating new problems, which ... he shook his head as he stood, bracing himself for the forthcoming briefing. The battle was still raging on without a clear winner, both sides locked in a death match they could neither win quickly nor concede. Felix had fought at Fallujah, where the first battle had lasted nearly a month and the second nearly two, but that urban nightmare hadn’t been anything like so hellish. This one ...

We’re too used to short engagements, he mused, bitterly. And that is going to cost us.

***

“DROP THE BOMB! DROP THE BOMB!”

Catherine did her best to ignore the protestors as she made her way through the streets, cursing her superiors under her breath. Montrose was a fighting officer, which meant he cultivated an attitude of forthright and manly behaviour in stark contrast to the underhanded behaviour of the spooks, yet she found it hard to understand why he’d confessed to the atrocity. She had no qualms about hanging the Russians – given their crimes, staking them to the ground and driving a tank over them was hardly an excessive punishment – and yet, openly admitting to the atrocity was mindbogglingly stupid. Better to deal with it privately than give the enemy a free propaganda victory, one that could not work out in anyone’s favour ...

She shook her head and kept walking, ignoring the riot squads hastily forming up. The streets didn’t grow much quieter as she left the protest behind, slowly walking past Gary Simmons’s apartment block. The street had been cordoned off by the FBI, the residents moved out to allow their teams to work ... she cursed under her breath as she noted the sheer number of agents poking and prodding their way through the building. In hindsight, perhaps she should have used a different set of fingerprints. The prospect of causing more chaos in Washington wasn’t worth the risk of exposure.

It had been a mistake not to act quickly, she told herself as she took the long way home, although it had been one she hadn’t been able to avoid. Gary Simmons couldn’t be intercepted outside the city without raising red flags and by the time he’d returned the FBI had already marked him down as a possible suspect. They’d arrested him at once ... Catherine doubted his chances, given what had happened. They might assume he’d been blackmailed into service, or worse, and throw the book at him. If nothing else, they’d certainly ask him questions about the girl he’d picked up before his fateful trip.

His memories are blurred, Catherine thought. The drug she’d slip him was hardly enough to wipe everything, not when it might have rendered him unfit for duty, but a handful of suggestions ensured his memories were unreliable. They know something’s wrong now, yet they can’t trace me.

She kept walking, putting the scene behind her. The plan could go ahead. It had to. Time was no longer on her side ...

And if she failed to pull it off, Montrose and the PEF might be staring defeat in the face.

 

Chapter Twenty-Three: Texas, USA, Timeline F (OTL)

The night wasn’t quiet, as Callam led his squad towards the enemy base.

He could hear the distant battle, explosions and gunfire echoing across the land ... the guns were booming, aircraft flying overhead ... something flashed in the distance, a missile strike or a lucky hit or ... who knew? He wanted to be further north, holding the line against the invaders and launching counterattacks whenever he saw a chance, but instead ... he put the thought out of his mind. There was work to be done. The simple fact the Protectorate had announced the Russian atrocity was all the proof anyone needed that it wasn’t just another horror story. The Russians had to be taught a lesson.

His lips twisted as he surveyed the small outpost. It had been a hamlet once, too small to be of any real importance; now, it was serving as a Russian FOB. The Russians appeared to have been told there was no way they’d be allowed anywhere near the towns again, from what he’d gathered from radio broadcasts, and they didn’t seem to be taking it calmly. Their masters didn’t care. Callam was mildly surprised they hadn’t shot all the Russians. It might have worked out in their favour.

He kept crawling forward, spotting the sentry leaning against the makeshift gate ... the asshole was smoking, the faint light clearly visible in the darkness. They felt secure ... idiots. They weren’t that far from the combat zone and resistance activity had doubled or even tripled over the past few days. Given what they’d done, the Protectorate might even look the other way if the resistance decided to have a go at the Russians. Callam’s lips twitched at the thought. Mighty loyal of them!

His watch vibrated, once. It was time. Moments later, the first set of explosions echoed out in the distance. The missiles and drones carried regular explosives, true, but they also carried makeshift fireworks and other surprises. The banging and crashing would confuse the defenders, if the plan worked, and buy his squad time to get in and out before the enemy realised the fireworks show had been a diversion all along. He picked up speed, getting as close as he could to the sentry before drawing his knife and hurling himself forward. The Russian turned, too late. Callam cut his throat before he could make a sound, catching the body and carefully lowering it to the ground. Up close, the Russian looked an unpleasant customer. It was easy to believe he’d been one of the rapists. The Protectorate claimed they’d hanged them all, but who knew for sure? Rape was an underreported crime and had been so even when the United States was in full control of Texas. Now ... any girl who got raped would fear what’d happen to her, if she reported it.

And the Protectorate would actually hang the rapist, Callam thought, as he motioned for the rest of the team to join him. The Protectorate’s policy of hanging serious criminals was the only thing they’d done that earned his approval, after years of watching crooks be arrested and then given slaps on the wrist by liberal judges. She would be avenged if she did report it.

He inched forward, listening carefully. The compound was surprisingly dark and silent ... it crossed his mind to wonder if they’d been conned. The Protectorate would have little hesitation in sacrificing a lone Russian to bait a trap. He put the thought aside as he glanced into the nearest house, rolling his eyes as he saw the soldiers lying on the floor. They looked bushed, many snoring so loudly it was a miracle the rest could sleep. Callam had seen Americans looking just as zonked, but Americans would have been careful to ensure the compound was better-defended. The Russians had been monumentally careless ...

Or they’re the bait in a trap, Callam reminded himself. We have to hurry.

He unhooked a grenade from his belt and hurled it into the house, snapping orders for his men to follow suit. The grenades exploded, a handful of houses catching fire with remarkable speed ... he gritted his teeth as the stench of burning flesh brushed against his nostrils, the screams battering his ears. He had few qualms about burning the Russians to death, to make them pay for their crimes, but ... a Russian was screaming a name, time and time again. His mother? His girlfriend? Callam didn’t care. The bastard had come to American soil as part of an army of rapists. He deserved everything he got and more besides.

Shots rang out, the defenders on the far side of the compound finally realising they were under attack. Callam snorted as the team took cover and returned fire ... the shooters were far too little and far too late. Had they thought to call in a contact report? It hardly mattered. He snapped commands to his team, directing them to start falling back. There was no point in prolonging the encounter. The Protectorate’s QRF would already be on the way. Assuming, of course, they cared enough to bother.

He threw his remaining grenades, then turned and hurried away into the darkness. He could hear vehicles in the distance, but he couldn’t tell if they were coming towards him or heading away. Something was burning ... he shook his head and kept running, telling himself the Russians deserved everything they got. He had no idea what had happened to the women of Flint, except that bitch Sally Luanne, but ... his imagination offered all kinds of possibilities, none good. They had to be avenged.

Winters met him as they reached the RV point. “The Chinese appear to be taking their time.”

Callam blinked. “The Chinese?”

“The Chinese appear to be handling QRF in this sector, if intercepts are to be believed,” Winters said. “The attack was called in, but the Chinese seem to be reluctant to go on the offensive.”

“Good.” Callam had no idea what the Chinese were thinking and he didn’t really care. It might be prudence – they couldn’t be sure his squad was alone; setting up a trap for the QRF was an old trick – or it might be a complete lack of concern for the Russians ... it didn’t matter. “Let’s go, before they get ordered into the fray.”

Winters nodded, leading the team south. It was risky, but it was the best of a bad set of options. Going north would take them into the front lines, going east or west was dangerously predictable. South was the worst option on paper, which perversely made it the best. Unless the enemy was outthinking him ...

He shook his head. It really didn’t matter. All that mattered was making the Protectorate pay.

***

“This is an outrage,” General Godunov said. “An outrage!”

Daisy kept her thoughts to herself as she trailed behind Essex and the Russian general, a bearded man who could easily have stepped off a movie screen. Her uncle had been very fond of survivalist novels, including one in which the United States had been invaded by a combination of Germany and Belgium, and the nasty part of her mind insisted that Godunov would have fitted right in. He was a rude, crude and thoroughly unpleasant person who’s only redeeming trait loyalty was to the premier. Her uncle would have laughed, she supposed, and then felt vindicated. Perhaps he’d be right too.

“Your men did not have more than a handful of guards,” Essex said, in the tone of a schoolmaster who had had quite enough of a particularly irritating student. The stench of death wafted through the air, bringing home just what the Americans had done. “No proper fortifications, no proper watch. They were careless and paid the price.”

“And hundreds of men are dead or wounded,” Godunov snapped. “I want justice!”

Hundreds, Daisy thought. There’d been fifty men at most in the tiny outpost. The confirmed death toll was thirty-seven, although some men were so badly wounded it was unlikely they’d survive. You can’t even tell a good lie!

Godunov rounded on Essex. “The terrorists came from that town over there,” he added, waving a hand into the distance. “Destroy it!”

Essex raised his eyebrows. “And how do you know they came from that town?”

His tone was sweet. Godunov purpled.

“Terrorists always hide amongst civilians,” he said, sharply. “I would expect an experienced officer to know that!”

Essex showed a flicker of anger. “We will not be destroying towns and murdering innocent civilians without clear proof they aided and sheltered the insurgents,” he said, firmly. “If your men attempt to do so without permission, they will be stopped and hanged. Is that clear?”

Godunov clenched his fists. Daisy waited, half-convinced the Russian was going to take a swing at Essex. Her master had bodyguards, but ... would they be able to gun the Russian down before his punch landed? Or ... what would happen if he somehow killed Essex? It would be the most pro-Protectorate thing he could do and yet the Protectorate would hang him for it. That would be ironic ...

The Russian turned away, just slightly. “I want the Chinese CO hanged!”

“There will be a full investigation,” Essex said. The Chinese had insisted the Americans were too strong to dislodge without reinforcements. They might have been right. The situation had been so confused the Americans had made it clear before it was too late. “If he is found to have failed in his duty, he will be hanged.”

He leaned forward. “Prepare your men to return to the front lines,” he added. “The war is not yet won.”

Godunov glowered. Essex nodded curtly, then turned away. Daisy followed, feeling the Russian's eyes burning into her rear. The Protectorate uniform was about as shapeless as a sack of potatoes, and she’d never taken the time to tighten it in all the wrong places, but the Russian was still ogling her. Bastard. She’d seen the reports from the brothels. The Russians were, collectively, the worst customers the poor women had ...

Essex said nothing until they were back inside his flyer. “Interesting,” he said, as the pilot took the craft into the air. “Rather a breakdown there, don’t you think?”

Daisy frowned. “What do you mean?”

“The Russians failed to take anything more than basic precautions, even though they knew they were in the middle of a war zone,” Essex said. “The Chinese didn’t come to their aid even though they knew it was their duty.”

“I see,” Daisy said. “The Chinese claimed they didn’t know what they were facing ...”

Essex made a rude sound. “The Americans could not have sneaked a light infantry unit across the border without us detecting it,” he said. “The Chinese should have known the Russians couldn’t be facing more than a small band of commandoes or insurgents and moved at once to block the enemy’s line of retreat. Why didn’t they?”

Daisy had no answer. “I don’t know.”

“Nor do I,” Essex said. “I need to report to the Captain-General. You can wait here.”

He stood and left the compartment. Daisy leaned back in her chair and studied the live feed from the battlefield. The Protectorate was very good at tracking its forces, allowing its officers to monitor the situation from a distance ... she wondered, suddenly, if the offices on the ground appreciated the monitoring. Probably not, from what she’d been told. The display flickered and flared, new icons popping up and others dying away ... she had to remind herself, sharply, that each of the icons represented life or death. There were men on the battlefield, men on both sides, who were dying, their lives marked by nothing more than faded icons. It was like watching a computer game, only the game was real ...

She leaned forward, trying to determine who was winning. The battle was surging back and forth, as both sides poured resources into the deadly contest ... it was hard to tell, at least for a novice like herself, which side was coming out on top. The Protectorate was bleeding ... no wonder they’d been so desperate to recruit foreign help, regardless of the price. But the United States was bleeding too.

Essex returned, just as the flyer descended to land on the pad. “The Captain-General will handle the matter,” he said, a hint of dark satisfaction in his tone. “I’m sure it will do wonders for his mood.”

“I’m sure it will too,” Daisy said. She’d have to get better figures from him later, then pass them on to her handler. “What do you think he’ll do?”

“I suspect he’ll pretend to believe the Chinese,” Essex said. “It’ll be a good excuse for doing nothing, which is probably what he’ll want to do anywhere.”

Daisy laughed. “And then what?”

“And then he’ll keep up the pressure, because it’s the only way to save himself,” Essex added. “The only real question is just who’ll break first.”

***

James Montrose knew, without false modesty, that he was a fighting man.

It wasn’t anything to be ashamed of, certainly not in the Protectorate. The Americans and Europeans had practically emasculated their warriors, something that had already been starting to bite before the crosstime invasion had begun, but the Protectorate took a very different view of things. The idea of betraying gallant men, through telling them they couldn't wear their uniforms or believing spurious accusations of war crimes, was just alien to him. It was nice to be right, it really was, but being right was never any guarantee of anything. The Romans had been wrong to destroy Cartage, of course they had, yet ... what did it matter? When the time came, the Romans were strong and the Carthaginians were weak and that was all that mattered.

He scowled at the display, cursing under his breath. The Americans were giving ground, slowly yet steadily, but the cost was terrifyingly high. They were running short of everything from captured enemy missiles – he’d preserved the remaining hypersonics for a real emergency – to drones and foreign manpower. The Russians were acting cagey, ever since the atrocity and the American cruise missile strike on targets within European Russia, and the Chinese had problems of their own. Taiwan had turned into a bloody nightmare and the Chinese economy was on the verge of collapse. Had collapsed, if some of the analysts were correct. The only thing keeping it from going public was a combination of massive financial fraud and a complete crackdown on any negative reports on the local internet.

James clenched his fists in frustration. The war should have been over by now. The Americans should have broken, everyone else should have bent the knee ... instead, his allies were slipping away and his subordinates were demanding, with increasing vigour, that he finish building the new gate. If he brought in reinforcements, he could turn the war around at the cost of his career ...

The terminal bleeped. “Sir,” Abigail reported. “Catherine Lacy is requesting permission to speak with you.”

James nodded. “Put her through.”

“Sir,” Catherine said. She sounded surprisingly American, the upper-class accent close enough to his own to be a disconcerting. Not that it should have surprised him, he reflected. A person with an alien accent would attract attention and in the middle of a war it could prove lethal. “I have finished laying the groundwork for the coup.”

James sucked in his breath. It was a gamble, like everything else he’d done over the past few months. Normally, he would have given the orders without hesitation. Now ...

This is not the time to give up, he told himself, sharply. To win or lose it all.

“We have underestimated the Americans before,” he said, coolly. “Are you sure your plan can succeed?”

“It needs to be carried out in the middle of absolute chaos or it cannot be carried out at all,” Catherine said. She, thankfully, didn’t make any attempt to sugarcoat the situation. “They must not be given any moment to think, let alone establish the legalities of the situation. If we win, we win. If we lose, we lose all our contacts and assets in Washington.”

It isn’t as if the enemy leaders have any doubt we will kill them, if they give us a chance, James reflected. If Essex’s screw-up hadn’t proved that, the VP’s death certainly had. The gamble may be all that stands between us and defeat.

He ground his teeth. Defeat was unthinkable.

“You may proceed,” he said, finally. “I’ll have the assets assigned to the operation.”

“Total secrecy must be maintained, sir,” Catherine said, firmly. “If the enemy gets one hint we’re coming, the whole operation will be worse than useless.”

“Understood.” James doubted anyone would betray that secret to the enemy, but there was no point in taking chances. The captains could complain about being out of the loop afterwards. Hell, they’d probably be glad. If the operation failed, there was no way they could be blamed for it. “I’ll make sure no one knows the full story, at least until the attack is on the way.”

“Thank you,” Catherine said. “I won’t let you down.”

She broke the connection. James sat back in his chair, sweat beading down his back. It was one final gamble, perhaps the greatest of them all. If it worked, he could still achieve his goals; if he lost, it would all be over. He’d be damned forevermore. His court martial would be a formality, if he survived long enough to face a military tribunal. The captains would remove him and his successor might murder him, rather than risk having him acquitted and returned to power. It had happened before, to others who had lost the confidence of their captains. It could happen to him ...

But there was no question of not proceeding. It simply wasn’t in him to give up.

 

Chapter Twenty-Four: Nuclear Shelter (Repurposed), Near Washington, Timeline F (OTL)

Miguel looked up, surprised, as his latest visitor stepped into his suite.

She was roughly the same age as himself, with light brown skin and dark eyes that suggested she might have been born two or three villages away from his own hometown. The suit she wore flattered her without revealing too much skin, or the curves of her body; the smile on her face, soft and warm, made him feel drawn to her even though he knew it was probably little more than a professional attempt to make him feel comfortable. Her existence was proof the United States was very different from the homeworld, for all its flaws. If she had a counterpart back home, that counterpart was probably married off and raising children by now.

“Hi,” he said, feeling the words catch in his throat. One thing he’d never dared ask for was a woman – and he had no idea, in truth, what would happen if he did. The Protectorate’s attitude to such matters was schizophrenic and the United States ... who knew? “What can I do for you?”

“I’m Luz,” the young woman said. She was still calm and businesslike ... it struck him, suddenly, that she might be older than he’d thought. Most young women aged fast, in his hometown, under the twin pressures of childbirth and satisfying their mothers in law. “How are you today?”

“Fine,” Miguel said. The arrival of a new interrogator was probably an attempt to disconcert him. His captors had asked all kinds of questions, and then repeated them time and time again, just to see if they could catch him in a lie. He hadn’t lied, not once, but they could hardly be expected to take him at his word. They knew less about him than he did about them. “I can’t really complain, you know.”

“You can complain,” Luz said, earnestly. “If there’s something wrong with the accommodations, we can try to change them to suit you.”

Miguel had to smile at the wordplay. It was another sign Luz had never grown up in a poor village, where the strong took their frustrations out on the weak and the weak suffered what they must. He recalled the last time he’d returned home, to see the young women endlessly washing their clothes time and time again, under the gimlet eyes of the older women, while the young men drank their lives away. His sisters and his cousins were probably married off by now, unless they’d managed to find a way out. He doubted it. It was always harder for young women to leave the village ...

She’s not afraid of me, he thought, suddenly. That’s yet another sign she’s never known such a life.

“I’ve been in worse places,” he assured her, as he motioned her to a seat. “What do you want to know?”

Luz smiled. “What makes you think I want to know anything?”

“You’re here, in this place,” Miguel said. There were times when it was easy to forget that he was in a bunker, the apartment little more than a stage. This wasn’t one of them. “Why else would you be here?”

“I could be here to check up on you,” Luz said. “Perhaps I’m a doctor, with permission to make sure you’re healthy.”

Miguel cocked his head. “Then wouldn’t you wear a doctor’s garb?”

“Perhaps,” Luz said. “Perhaps not. It depends on what sort of doctor.”

“In the Protectorate, it is a serious crime to pretend to be a doctor if you’re not one,” Miguel said. Sometimes, the Protectorate got something right. He couldn’t disagree with his former superiors on that. “And if you are a doctor, you’re supposed to dress the part.”

“Even on my off-day?” Luz made a show of pouting. “What if I’m in bed? Or with my boyfriend. Am I supposed to keep the uniform on for him?”

Miguel had the feeling he was missing something. He didn’t want to ask and admit ignorance. “I don’t know,” he said. “Are you a doctor?”

“In a manner of speaking,” Luz said. “But that isn’t what I came for.”

She leaned back in her chair, crossing her legs. “Have you been briefed on the ongoing battle?”

“I’ve been given some details,” Miguel said, carefully. The briefing notes, he’d been cautioned, had been out of date. His briefers had been very vague about just how long it had taken to get word from Texas back to Washington DC. Reading between the lines, Miguel suspected several days. “Is it still ongoing?”

“It’s been going on for two weeks now,” Luz said. “It’s odd. There are some parts of the front that are a near-constant battleground, with neither side giving or losing an inch, and other parts almost quiet, until the enemy tanks try to circumvent the defences and hit us in the rear.”

Miguel nodded, slowly. One of his briefers had said something about a smashing frontal attack on the enemy rear and chuckled; his partner had snapped at him, telling him not to be an ass. There was a joke there, Miguel was sure, but he didn’t get it. Breaking through the enemy lines and encircling them, either forcing the enemy troops to surrender or simply annihilating them, was every general’s dream. Cannae had set the standard every military frce strove to match.

“It’s fought out over a wide area,” Miguel said. “I don’t think there’ll be a resolution in a hurry.”

“No,” Luz agreed. “There’s also been an atrocity.”

Miguel listened, carefully, as she outlined what the Russians had done. It was both minor, in the great scheme of things, and horrific. The Protectorate had no qualms about using extreme measures to suppress resistance and win wars, but – to give the bastards due credit – they didn’t set out to commit atrocities for the sheer hell of it. They might shoot prisoners, or put them in the labour camps; they didn’t rape or torture civilians. The Russians, it seemed, did. And the Protectorate had come down on them like a ton of bricks.

“They admitted everything,” Luz said. “Why?”

Miguel studied her for a long moment, feeling an odd sense of disconnection. She was so much like him, right down to the colour of her skin, that it was easy to forget she’d grown up in a very different culture, with very different values. He shuddered to think of what would happen to any girl who walked around in such an outfit, back home; she’d be lucky if her mother didn’t beat her black and blue. It was the older women who were the real enforcers, the ones who kept the young women in line. The idea of a girl carving out her own life was just ... alien ... to them. And Luz, he reflected, was alien to him.

“I don’t understand the problem,” he said, slowly. “The Russians committed a war crime. The Protectorate hanged them. What is the problem?”

“They admitted troops under their command carried out an atrocity,” Luz said. “Why?”

Miguel didn’t understand the question. “The Protectorate ... prides itself on being forthright and honest, sometimes to extremes,” he said, carefully. “They’d want to make it clear that the atrocity was punished, to deter others” – he shook his head – “I don’t understand your point.”

“There’s a lot of horror stories floating around,” Luz said. “Why confirm this one?”

“I suspect they wanted to make a point,” Miguel said. “Our troops did this. We punished them for it. The matter is now closed. So there.”

Luz raised her eyebrows. “So there?”

“The Protectorate sees itself as honest,” Miguel repeated. A sudden flash of bitterness shot through him. “And they see our slimy ways as standing in stark contrast to their own forthright behaviour.”

“In what way?”

Miguel hesitated. It wasn’t that he couldn't explain. It was that he didn’t want to. Admitting weakness wasn’t easy, particularly not to the young woman in front of him ... a living symbol of what his sisters and female cousins could have grown up to be, if they’d been raised in a very different society. Luz had no scars on her face, nothing to suggest anyone had ever threatened to cut her with a knife; the sheer confidence, the certainty she was in no danger, was something utterly alien to him. He could kill her if he wished, snap her neck before the guards charged into the room to save her ... the thought he might had never, he was sure, crossed her mind. Tears prickled at his eyes. He blinked them away savagely. There was no need to burden her with such knowledge.

And yet, he had to give her an answer.

“They are bullies,” he said, finally. “They have no qualms about pushing their client states around to get what they want, when they want it. The clients can’t stand up to them, so they become shifty and deceitful ... which earns them a reputation for wetness that ensures the Protectorate holds them in utter contempt. The Protectorate forces them into such patterns and then looks down on them for it.”

Luz frowned. “Can you give me an example?”

Miguel gritted his teeth. “There were mineral resources in a client state ruled by an Indian tribe,” he said. “I don’t know if they have a counterpart here. The Protectorate wanted them so they told the tribe to leave the lands or else. The tribe backed down and left ... and the Protectorate sneers at them, for cowardly retreating when they could have fought to the death.”

“They had no choice,” Luz said. “Sometimes, you have to sell out for the best terms you can get.”

“Yes,” Miguel agreed. “And then you hate yourself for it, while the person who bullied you into selling out holds you in utter contempt. Never mind you didn't have a chance. Never mind the only two choices were surrender or die. They mock you because they don’t realise what they did to you.”

“People in bad places make bad choices,” Luz said.

“It wasn’t the wrong choice,” Miguel said. “That’s the point.”

He stared down at his hands, wondering what he would do. No. He already knew the answer. If it was him and him alone, fighting to the death would be the only choice. But to lose his family and friends, to watch hopelessly as his brothers and uncles were slaughtered and his sisters marched to the brothels ... their children taken away to be raised in the Protectorate, unaware of their heritage or culture or anything. It would be the end of everything. Surrender was the only realistic choice. And he’d be mocked and scorned for it.

Luz leaned forward, resting her hand on his. “I’m sorry.”

“Don’t be.” Miguel envied her. God, how he envied her. “Just don’t let them win.”

“We are doing our best,” Luz assured him. She took back her hand. Miguel was torn between relief and regret. “I need to ask you a question and the answer has to be truthful. Whatever you say, there will be no punishment.”

Miguel frowned. “I have never lied to you.”

“Yes, but this is a very different question,” Luz said. “There will be no punishment, no change in your circumstances, whatever you say.”

“Got it.” Miguel leaned forward, trying to hide his alarm. He had always known his value to his captors rested solely in what he could tell them about the Protectorate. He’d never dared lie to them; he’d always made it clear when he wasn’t sure of the answer, always drawn a line between what he knew and what he thought. He was fairly sure he wasn’t the only captive either. His answers were probably being cross-checked even as he gave them. “What do you want to know?”

“Could you operate in the occupied zone, if need be?”

Miguel blinked. “I ... I don’t know,” he said, after a moment. “Probably not for very long. Why?”

Luz studied him. “Why not for very long?”

“There’s a very clear procedure for occupying and subduing enemy territory,” Miguel said, slowly. “Everyone within the occupied zone will have been registered, their biometrics noted and logged and filed away in the databases. If someone has an ID card, they’ll be checked against the database; if they don’t, they’ll likely be detained even if there is a perfectly reasonable explanation. And when they check my biometrics, they’ll see my file. They’ll know who I am.”

“Charming,” Luz muttered. “Is it the same back home?”

“More or less,” Miguel said. “You can’t do much without a proper ID card. It’s your bank card as well as everything else. People who sneak into Protectorate territory without one have to keep their heads down, because the moment someone asks for the card it’s over. There’s always rumours about fake ID cards, but I’ve never heard of one working for more than a few days. It’s just not easy to insert false information into the databases.”

“I see,” Luz said. “Would you be willing to take the risk?”

“Perhaps,” Miguel said. “Is this a hypothetical question?”

“It depends,” Luz said. “From what I have been told, there may be a need to send agents and troops deep into occupied territory. Having someone who can pass for a Protectorate soldier would be very helpful.”

“You couldn't,” Miguel said, sharply. “Female footmen are vanishingly rare. Pilots wouldn’t be on the ground, and in any case there’s a reasonable chance that anyone who questions us would know them all by sight. If it was you, you’d have to pose as a clerk or a spook ... probably a clerk. Even so, it would be one hell of a risk.”

Luz coloured, slightly. “Understood,” she said. “I wouldn’t be going in any case. But ...”

She met his eyes. “Would you be willing, if we asked?”

Miguel hesitated. He knew, without false modesty, that he was a brave man. There’d been other options if he’d wanted to immigrate, although few so likely to fast-track his route to citizenship. His earlier words came back to haunt him. He’d been in a bad place and he’d made the best possible choice, which had still been a bad choice by any reasonable standard.

I could stay, he thought. There was no reason he couldn't become an American citizen instead. He’d done enough to earn it, hadn’t he? The war could be over for him ... except the war wasn’t over yet. He knew the Protectorate too well to think they’d offer him any mercy if they won the war. They’d tear his mind apart to extract every last detail, to find out everything he’d told them, and then they’d shoot whatever was left of him for treason. If he went back down to Texas, there was a very real risk of being caught. If I do this, it could get me killed ...

His heart twisted as he recalled his family. His brothers, doomed to lives of idle drunkenness or fighting for the Protectorate that kept their homeland in chains. His sisters, doomed to lives of endless pregnancy and child-rearing, abused by their mothers and husbands and mothers-in-law. His parents, dying of ailments that could be cured if their masters cared enough to try; his people, groaning under a yoke that could never be removed, their culture and heritage slowly decaying into ash. The sheer hopelessness was killing them as surely as anything else. The Protectorate reached for the stars. His people grubbed in the dirt. Their world was over and yet it would never end.

I could help beat them, he told himself. And if I did ...

It was hard to believe the United States could beat the Protectorate on its own ground, but who knew? The Americans were already learning from the invaders, developing newer and better weapons and tactics even as they slowly dismantled pieces of captured technology and figured out how to duplicate them. They were already imagining new uses for them too. Ten years? Twenty years? A hundred years ... the United States would jump ahead, allowing them to invade the Protectorate timeline and liberate his people. Miguel doubted he would live to see it, but his nieces and nephews might. They would get to be free!

Perhaps it was a dream. But it was one worth fighting for.

“If I can, then yes,” he said. “Does that answer your question?”

Luz met his eyes. “Do you switch sides so easily?”

Miguel felt a hot flash of anger. How dare she? He calmed himself a moment later. It was a reasonable question.

“Back home, I had a choice between joining the Protectorate or spending the rest of my life trapped in a living death,” he said, flatly. He would have married some poor girl and taken his frustrations out on her ... God knew, it was a pattern he’d seen dozens of times before. His kids would grow up with a drunkard father and go on to be drunkards too. “The Protectorate was too powerful to challenge. Here ... I at least have a chance. I can make a better choice.”

“Good.” Luz stood, brushing down her suit. Miguel tried not to stare. “You’ll be taken from here shortly, under sedation. You’ll get your briefing there. If you change your mind, let us know before they arrive to collect you. After that, things will get a little tricky.”

Miguel nodded. “I do understand.”

“And you may not see me again,” Luz said. “So ... good luck.”

“Thanks.” Miguel shot her a smile. “Can I see you again?”

She gave him an unreadable look. “It wouldn’t be a good idea, not now,” she said. She had the right to refuse. Of course she did. They weren’t in his homeland, where a young girl’s right to say no was very limited. “But we’ll see what happens after all is said and done.”

Miguel nodded. “Yes,” he agreed. “We’ll see.”

 

Chapter Twenty-Five: FOB Roosevelt, Oklahoma, USA, Timeline F

“Keep your hands where we can see them, please,” a voice said.

Callam shrugged, raising his hands as the soldiers greeted them. It had been a long walk from the conflict zone, after expending much of their remaining supplies setting a handful of booby traps and giving an enemy patrol a very hard time. He didn't blame the patrolling soldiers for being wary, not when the invaders had developed a habit of using captured American supplies and uniforms to gain the advantage of surprise. Bastards. If anyone looked suspicious, the guards would open fire and ask questions later. The hell of it was that they might be right to do so.

“Just got out of hell,” he said, sourly. “How about you.”

The guards ignored him, rushing the team back to the nearest base – where their identities were checked, and Winters ordered to report to his superiors as quickly as possible – and then loading them onto buses for the drive to FOB Roosevelt. The FOB looked a little too large for Callam’s peace of mind, even though it was spread out over a wide area; he’d be astonished if the Protectorate hadn’t marked it down for a missile strike or a commando raid already. There had to be hundreds of men patrolling the surrounding area, tied down as effectively as if the base was already under attack. Perhaps that was why it had been left alone. It was more useful to the enemy if it remained intact.

“Your men can rest in the barracks,” the escorting officer told him. “You have a briefing to attend.”

Callam sighed, inwardly, as he dismissed his men. A briefing ... he wanted a shower, a shave, a fuck and a rest, perhaps not in that order. There had to be a red light district nearby ... he wasn’t sure of the local geography, but red light districts popped up everywhere soldiers were stationed in large numbers. There’d even been some interesting places in Iraq and Afghanistan that shouldn’t have existed at all ... he put that thought out of his head as he followed the officer though a maze of buildings, pausing outside one particular office to have his identity checked, again, before they were allowed to proceed. The interior looked bigger on the inside, as they walked down a long sloping passageway into a mid-sized auditorium. It struck him, suddenly, that it was an underground bunker ...

They passed another set of guards, who searched him thoroughly and ignored him when he asked if they were going to buy him dinner afterwards. Oddly, they left his personal weapon on his belt ... his escort shot him an irritated look, then pointed him into a briefing room that reminded him of his high school gym. A row of seats were resting in front of the map – his lips twisted as he spotted a complete lack of anything more advanced than a paper map and blackboard – a handful of officers either sitting, talking in low voices or reading briefing notes. A table, resting against a wall, was groaning under the weight of water dispensers and trays of food. It was easily the most primitive briefing room he’d seen in his entire career.

Good, he thought. There’s nothing here that can be turned into an unwitting spy.

“Callam,” a new voice said. “It is Callam, isn’t it?”

Callam looked up, barely recognising the speaker. Colin Cozort looked oddly out of place in a set of BDUs, his rank tabs so ill-fitting it was a minor miracle he hadn’t been called out for stolen valour. Callam had no time for assholes who wanted to pretend they’d been Army Rangers, when they hadn’t even managed to make it into the National Guard, but dressing Colin Cozort in a uniform made a certain kind of sense. If he drew attention, the enemy might start wondering if the FOB was more than an assembly point for troops heading back into the battle.

“Long time no see,” he said. “I take it you can’t talk about it?”

“I was in a certain place, at a certain time, doing a certain thing,” Cozort said. They hadn’t liked each other at first – Callam had been the town sheriff, Cozort had been the fed who’d been intruding on his territory – but there were some times you couldn’t share without becoming friends. “But apart from that, there are things I can’t talk about.”

An officer Callam didn’t recognise called for attention. “Gentlemen and ladies, pour yourself some coffee and take some food, then sit down. Smoke them if you’ve got them. We have much to discuss.”

This is going to be bad, Callam thought, as they collected some coffee and found a pair of chairs. The rest of the assembled officers looked like warfighters, their uniforms slightly unkempt to civilian eyes and yet the kind of people who could be depended upon if – when – the shit hit the fan. They all carried personal weapons, a grim reminder the front line was so fluid it could wash over the FOB at any moment. Like ... really bad.

Cozort nudged him. “Is it normal for officers to offer coffee and food?”

“No,” Callam muttered back. It certainly wasn’t in his experience. His eyes flickered from face to face. He didn’t recognise many of the assembled team. “It’s not a good sign.”

The officer called for attention. “For those of you who don’t know me, I am General Gainsborough,” he said. “Welcome to Operation Sherman.”

Callam’s eyes narrowed. Operations tended to be given dramatic and idealistic names, such as Rolling Thunder, or names that gave a little too much away. Operation Iraqi Freedom hadn’t been a secret, right from the start, but still ... Operation Sherman was a little too on the nose for his peace of mind. Even if the name was never repeated outside a secure location, it was a risk the United States didn’t need to take. The enemy’s intelligence service was dangerously good.

“That name is not to be repeated, not until the war is long over and you can all start work on your tell-all books that don’t tell all,” Gainsborough continued. There was no hint of amusement in his tone, no faint awareness he’d said something funny. “You will remain here until everything is concluded, then be dispatched to your units. If for whatever reason you cannot, you will be held in a secure facility until secrecy is no longer a priority. If any of you have a problem with that, you’re in the wrong job.”

He paused, then pointed to the map. “The battle for the front lines is still raging,” he said. “The enemy has hurt us badly – there’s no denying it – but we have been able to keep them from shattering our lines and smashing their way to Washington. The row upon row of defence lines should make it impossible for them to break through, even if they resort to nukes. Or so we believe.”

Callam shivered. He’d seen an eerie storm during Iraqi Freedom that had made him wonder if Saddam had popped a nuke. That wouldn’t have been anything but an unmitigated disaster. The timing had been damn near perfect, with American troops pushing their way through the Karbala Gap and protection being tossed aside in favour of speed ... Saddam hadn’t had nukes, thankfully, but the Protectorate had used something comparable in the Battle of New York. God alone knew how many people had died in the blasts. And the nukes used in the Middle East ...

“From what we have been able to discover through prisoner interrogation and communications intercepts, the enemy commander is unwilling or unable to concede defeat and break off,” Gainsborough continued. “We have made that choice a little harder through ruthless harassment of any unit that tries to pull back, raising the spectre in enemy eyes of a retreat that turns into a rout. It’s hard to be sure, of course, but it looks as if the wear and tear on enemy equipment is taking a toll. They are very definitely running short of supplies.”

“Good,” someone muttered.

Callam nodded, slowly. The Protectorate was tough, no doubt about it. But a retreat under fire was one of the hardest military manoeuvres to pull off successfully and it would be very hard to keep it from turning into utter disaster if the enemy force knew what the hell it was doing. And the United States military did ...

“Quite,” Gainsborough agreed. “Operation Sherman will be our second major offensive against the Protectorate. Our goal will be to cut off and isolate their armies, then either force them to surrender or destroy them. If it is successful, the war will be within shouting distance of being over. Even if it isn’t, the cost of extracting their units from the trap will be devastating.”

Callam exchanged glances with Colin. They’d both been on the ground during the Battle of New York and they knew how quickly the Protectorate could recover, when its back was to the wall. Or the sea, in that case. The hovertanks could float above the waves – he had a sudden mental image of a hovercar driving from New York to London – but the rest of their forces couldn't escape so easily. Even if they threw caution to the winds and fled, abandoning everything they couldn’t load onto the tanks, they’d still be in deep shit. There had to be limits to their manpower and equipment and if they were finally reaching them ...

This is it, he thought. There would be some hard fighting ahead, no doubt about it, but the coming engagement might be the beginning of the end. The Protectorate’s advantages would no longer work in its favour, the vast tracks of land it controlled crumbling away as soon as it became clear it could no longer quash resistance. This could be the end of the war.

An officer held up his hand. “Won’t they see us coming?”

“We’re embarking on a program of coordinated deceptions,” Gainsborough informed him, curtly. “We don’t expect total surprise, not when we’ll be moving large bodies of troops and vehicles into striking position, but we do hope to keep them uncertain of our exact target until it is too late. In any case, their options are very limited. If they let us launch the operation without impediment, their lines crumble; if they move forces to counter us, their northern lines will be gravely weakened, giving us a chance to break them there instead. Whatever they choose, they’ll fucked.”

“Unless they nuke us,” Cozort said. “The unthinkable is now thinkable.”

Gainsborough said nothing for a long moment. “We believe they have a very limited number of plasma weapons remaining,” he said. “To the best of our knowledge, they didn’t capture any of our nukes when they overran Fort Cavazos and any other installation within the occupied zone. Given their technical skill, we don’t doubt they could reactivate any nuke without the right codes, but we don’t think they captured any. Their missile strikes on storage bases further north were not followed up by commando raids.”

You think, Callam thought, coldly. In his experience, people were far too trusting of what was stored in computer databases. The records hadn’t been entirely trustworthy before the invaders arrived and proved they could rewrite the records at will. For all we know, nukes were stored at Fort Cavazos and the enemy is preparing to use them even as we speak.

“The fact they haven’t used them to try to force a breakthrough is indicative,” Gainsborough said finally, speaking in a tone that suggested he wasn’t entirely sure of his own conclusion. “They have to be getting desperate.”

“But using them to punch holes in our lines, which they intend to drive their tanks and infantry through, is asking for trouble,” Callam pointed out. “Sir.”

Gainsborough gave him a sharp look. “Their plasma weapons do not produce radiation,” he said, finally. “If they used them, they wouldn’t be poisoning their own troops.”

“We’ve already seen they have little care for their allies,” another officer said. “They might not care about sending them into a radioactive hellhole.”

“There’s always an element of risk,” Gainsborough snapped. “Our figures may not be correct. They may obtain nukes from their allies, by fair means or foul. Our enemies may decide that whatever’s holding them back from using such weapons is no longer important in the face of our offensive. Or ...”

He shook his head. “We cannot allow ourselves to be paralysed by fear of nuclear war,” he added. “The only other option is surrender. Do any of you want to give up and surrender?”

Callam shook his head. It wasn’t in him to give up. He could have fled Boot Camp at any moment, or left the Corps instead of reenlisting; he could have retired, before the invasion, or allowed himself to be taken into captivity when the crosstime war began. Instead, he’d fought like a madman. His lips twitched. How else?

“No, sir,” an officer said. “What happens if they see through the deception anyway?”

“Like I said, there aren’t many moves they can make,” Gainsborough said. “Whatever they do, we win.”

Unless they pull something else out of their hat, Callam thought, grimly. Who’s to say we know everything they can do?

Gainsborough tapped the map. “Are there any further questions, before I move on to precise details?”

“Just one,” an officer said. “What do we do with POWs?”

A rustle ran through the group. They were all American soldiers, something that united them in the face of everything that would divide them. They were sworn to defend the United States and her people, and watching crosstime invaders stamp their way across their country would have been bad enough even if some of the invaders – and their allies – hadn’t committed atrocities. The guilty might be dead, if the Protectorate was to be believed, but who cared? Any Russians who fell into American hands would have a very hard time indeed.

“You will treat them like all POWs, as carefully as possible,” Gainsborough said. He held up a hand. “I understand, really I do. Those Russians deserved worse than hanging. But we cannot afford to make the enemy soldiers afraid to surrender to us. If they fight to the death, they’ll take far too many of us with them. We will hold them, and those who are judged guilty of war crimes will be punished, but we will not be shooting surrendering prisoners like dogs. Do I make myself clear?”

There was a low mutter of yes sir. Callam hoped they’d listen. He understood the urge for bloody revenge – the Russians would have suffered a fate far worse than hanging if they’d been in his custody – but here it was dangerously counterproductive. He’d seen Iraqi soldiers sobbing and begging when they’d been captured, because they believed the Americans were monsters who put Nazi Germany and Imperial Japan to shame; they’d been astonished and suspicious, then relieved, when their wounds had been treated and they’d spent the rest of the invasion in a POW camp instead of being shot or put to work as grunt labour. If the CPA hadn’t fucked everything up afterwards ...

And let us hope someone doesn’t shoot a Russian out of hand, he thought, tiredly. Some fucker of a human rights lawyer will have a field day, insisting he was a sweet innocent child who was blown away by a treacherous American asshole,

He shook his head. It wouldn’t happen. The America that emerged from the war and the economic crash and the destruction of large parts of the government bureaucracy would be a very different place, when the shooting finally stopped. It would have learnt some hard lessons ... God, he hoped so. Far too many lessons had been forgotten since World War II, even after 9/11 and everything that had followed; this time, he promised himself, he’d do his darnedest to make sure no one forgot this time. He’d run for office, if he survived long enough to make it work ...

“Good,” Gainsborough said. “And now, please pay attention.”

Callam’s eyes narrowed as Gainsborough went through the list of assignments and the tactical plan. It was oddly imprecise, oddly weak ... it puzzled him. The man was speaking in such vague terms, ignoring questions from time to time; the lack of specifics was deeply worrying. The military had been forced to devolve authority as much as possible, after the Protectorate had shown a remarkable talent for breaking the chain of command, and it was just possible they intended to make it clear the officer on the spot would have the freedom to make his own dispositions, but ... Gainsborough could just have said so. The officers and men surrounding him were warfighters, men and a handful of women who’d seen the elephant. They knew the score. And that meant he was being silly. Or ...

A thought crossed his mind. If they were being misled ... he cut down on that thought. Hard. If he was right, it was something that had to be kept on the down low. If he was wrong ... it wouldn't matter. He didn’t dare ask. What he didn’t know he couldn’t be forced to tell and the Protectorate knew him. They wouldn’t be so gentle if he fell into their hands for a second time. He knew it.

“Sergeant Boone, remain behind,” Gainsborough finished. “Everyone else, dismissed.”

“Wait for me?” Callam spoke to Cozort as he stood. “We’ll catch up afterwards.”

“Sure,” Cozort said. Did he suspect? He wasn’t a fool, but he was the least-experienced man in the room. Callam couldn’t ask. “I’ll see you outside.”

Callam watched him go, then turned to Gainsborough. “Sir?”

“You have a special job to do,” Gainsborough said. “You already know all is not as it seems.”

“Yes, sir,” Callam said. “What do you want me to do?”

Gainsborough told him.

 

Chapter Twenty-Six: Washington DC, USA, Timeline F (OTL)

It was a law of nature, Pierre Rahman had discovered long ago, that forbidding something only made it more attractive. Successive governments had learnt, forgotten, re-learnt and forgotten once again the lessons of Prohibition, to the point that the War on Drugs had effectively been won by Drugs. The morality of smuggling narcotics into the United States and distributing them across the country had never really bothered him, not when he’d been given a flat choice between working for the big boss as a smuggler or being brutally beaten to death by the man’s enforcers. An illegal driver couldn’t say no or he’d be deported ... if he wasn’t murdered first. His bosses were unlikely to allow him to walk free if there was a prospect of him confessing all, in return for a pardon.

He couldn’t help sweating as he drove the truck towards the security checkpoint, cursing his bosses for giving him the job and his own weakness for accepting it. He’d driven illegals in and out of Washington before, sometimes extracting his own payment along the way if his cargo happened to include a young or attractive woman, but these illegals were different. They were young men, wearing outfits that suggested they were strangers to America ... not uncommon, he supposed, yet with all the new security measures he feared the worst. He had no doubt about what would happen, if they were caught. He’d be shackled, arrested and probably murdered in a jail cell. His bosses were very well-connected. Or so they’d said.

The truck rumbled as the line slowed, the policemen pulling a handful of trucks out of the line for closer inspection. Washington relied on truckers to bring in enough food to keep the population fed, now that all other forms of transport were dangerously unreliable where they existed at all, and statistically it was impossible to inspect even a tiny fraction of the trucks that passed in and out of the city every day ... but all it took was one moment of bad luck to ruin everything. He’d been stopped and searched before, thankfully on a day when he wasn’t carrying anything illegal. If it happened now ...

He forced himself to wait, trying not to sigh as drivers honked their horns in a pointless protest. The trucks were inching forward now, each vehicle pausing long enough for a policeman to ask for papers and make a final decision. Pierre gritted his teeth as he steered the truck forward, the vehicle shaking slightly as it mounted the giant weighing scale. If it was too heavy, or too light ... he braced himself as a policeman strode up to him, the normal arrogance dulled by the weight of heavy responsibility and a certain degree of fear. The risk of an airstrike was ever-present, the trucks making a very tempting target for any marauding enemy aircraft looking for a cheap yet effective way to hurt the country. The trucks weren’t a real convoy, not in any organised sense, but they were all bunched up together anyway. A single strike could take out dozens of vehicles. His imagination painted a picture of hundreds of trucks exploding like firecrackers, his amongst them. His bosses wouldn’t care. There was never any shortage of people who could take his place.

The cop looked tired, ground down by reality. “Your papers, please?”

Pierre picked the wallet off the dashboard and held it out, careful to move slowly so not to worry the older man. Everyone was jumpy these days. He’d heard stories of FBI teams gunned down after being mistaken for terrorists, or police officers shooting innocent people because their files had been altered, flagging them as dangerous criminals and cop-killers. He had no idea how many of those stories were true – he’d never trusted the media, even before the war – but he didn’t doubt he’d be arrested if the cop figured there was something wrong with him. And then the whole affair would unravel ...

“You’re carrying perishable goods,” the cop said, examining the manifest. The papers were supposed to be perfect, practically ordering the police to let him go without inspection, but who could be sure these days? There were horror stories about trucks being taken apart completely because the cops thought the driver was smuggling something. “Are they still safe to eat?”

Pierre couldn’t tell if the cop was playing dumb, trying to be friendly or poking at the story to see if it would unravel. He played dumb himself. “I don’t know, officer,” he said. “The only thing I was told was that the boxes have to reach the warehouse before the batteries run dry.”

And they won’t be easy to inspect without a major effort, he added, silently. Would the cop make the effort? It would cost him, if he found nothing. Come on, man. Let me go.

The cop examined Pierre’s papers for a long moment, asking a handful of seemingly pointless questions that were very meaningful indeed. He was testing Pierre’s English, his ability to hold a conversation ... a sensible tactic, if one were trying to catch a driver who could neither speak nor read the local lingo. A man who couldn’t was a danger to himself and others ... he’d heard people arguing that it was discrimination, perhaps even racism, but that was just plain stupid. He didn’t want to be on the roads with people who couldn’t understand him. And besides, he spoke English perfectly. Taking drivers who didn’t off the roads meant more work for him.

“Proceed,” the cop said, finally.

Pierre took back his documents, waited for the cop to step back and then restarted the engine, steering the truck back onto the roads. There were soldiers and cops everywhere, the latter swaggering around with MANPADs and the latter trying to steer the trucks along a series of lanes into the city itself. Pierre followed instructions, doing nothing to draw attention to himself, until he was clear of the checkpoint and well on his way to the warehouse. The streets were eerily empty, only a small number of cars and trucks visible. There weren’t many people either.

The warehouse complex was just like countless others he’d serviced over the years, two large warehouses divided by a simple loading bay. Perfectly legal, on paper. There was nothing to draw attention from anyone other than the taxman and even he wouldn’t pay much. The guard checked Pierre’s papers, waved him in without comment, and closed the gate behind him. Pierre didn’t relax until he was inside the loading bay. If anyone knew what was happening, the warehouse was the perfect place to stage an ambush.

A young woman greeted him as he turned off the engine and scrambled out of the cab. “We have coffee in the break room and some food, if you’re interested,” she said. It sounded like a request. He knew it was an order. Her crew would be helping the migrants out of the truck while he was gone, ensuring he knew little he couldn’t be forced to tell. “You can drive off to your next calling point shortly.”

Pierre nodded, tiredly. Some coffee and a snack sounded mighty good right now. His bosses had already arranged for him to be slotted into a slot for taking perfectly legitimate goods out of the city, ensuring he wasn’t around for long. And then ...

“Thanks,” he managed. There didn’t seem to be much of a crew hanging around ... they were probably waiting for him to absent himself. “I’ll see you later.”

***

It was no particular surprise to Catherine that Washington had no shortage of criminals willing to smuggle almost anything in or out of the city. If the Protectorate couldn’t stop smugglers from bringing in everything from narcotics to degenerate porn, in cities it controlled and monitored closely, why would Washington be any better? The city had hundreds of legitimate businessmen who provided all kinds of semi-legal and flatly illegal services to the great and the good, ranging from high-class prostitution to drugs, de facto slaves and crap that made even a hardened operator like herself feel unwell. It hadn’t taken her long to unravel some of the criminal networks and dig up the names of shell companies that served to hide some of the more obscene criminal acts ... it was a nightmare of everything from insider trading to child abuse that, anywhere else, would have earned the harshest of sentences. Catherine was surprised no one had even started to unravel more than the tip of the iceberg, but then ... exposing the crimes of the great and the good had always been a hazardous occupation.

Her lips quirked at the thought as she opened the back of the truck, then the giant freezer unit instead. The criminals she’d contacted were experienced at smuggling men and material into the city, although she was surprised they hadn’t had second thoughts even if she had taken care to provide them with a decent cover story. Crime was one thing, outright treason was quite another ... she supposed it had something to do with the majority of the criminals being as American as herself. They had no loyalty to their adopted country, no reason to think they should put the interests of the state ahead of themselves ... not that Remington was any better.

The freezer opened, revealing the squad. Ten experienced commandos, all deep within enemy territory. They wore civilian garb and carried civilian weapons, their real weapons and equipment stowed within boxes that wouldn’t draw attention. Catherine hoped to hell that was true. She would have preferred a more careful infiltration, with the men inserted one or two at a time, but the need for speed overrode everything else. The news from the front wasn’t very detailed, yet reading between the lines she suspected it wasn’t good. If the Protectorate lost the war ...

“Welcome to Washington,” she said, motioning for the commandos to grab their stuff and clamber out of the truck. They moved with an eerie grace that marked then as soldiers ... that would have to change. Right now, they were just too noticeable. “We have much work to do.”

She briefed them quickly, all the while mentally rehearsing her next moves. The driver would take the vehicle back out of the city ... his drink was already spiked, a slow-release poison genetically engineered to leave traces of alcohol within his system. He’d die in a day, his death written off as just another driver who’d had too much to drink before getting behind the wheel. It was a shame she couldn’t make sure of it herself, or insert a transponder to draw a flyer’s attention, but there was no point in taking chances. Besides, the driver didn’t know that much. Hopefully, there would be no time for any investigators to unravel the plot before it all went to hell ...

“We do,” the leader agreed. He gave her a considering look, commando to infiltrator. “Do you have our target?”

“Not yet,” Catherine said. The target was well-hidden, something she would have found impressive if it hadn’t been so irritating. “But it’s just a matter of time.”

***

Felix finished reading the report, then looked up. “So you found nothing?”

“We have no solid leads, Mr President,” Atherton admitted. The frustration in his voice was artfully concealed. “The description we have is vague to the point of uselessness, even if we assume she wasn’t wearing a disguise. We can change someone’s appearance remarkably, without any sort of permanent modification, and the Protectorate presumably can too. Everything from hair colour to breast size could have been altered in some way, leaving us with clues that may be actively misleading.”

“Like the fingerprints,” Felix mused. That had been foolish, even if the enemy agent assumed the FBI would arrest first and ask obvious questions later. Ruining the relationship between the agency and the city was pointless, particularly when it exposed the enemy agent’s mere existence. They might have questioned her existence if they hadn’t found proof of advanced technology. “Charming.”

“Yes, Mr President,” Atherton said. “We’d like to take additional security precautions. There are lots of targets in Washington, all needing protection ...”

“I know.” Felix rubbed his forehead. He was a target. The VP’s bunker had been taken out and that had been completely off the record. The bunkers under Washington weren’t public, and few outside the inner circle truly understood how extensive they were, but they weren’t complete secrets either. If the Protectorate got a sniff of his position, they’d drop a bomb and to hell with all the innocent civilians who’d be caught in the blast. “We’ll do what we can.”

“I’d also like to take a few more countermeasures,” Atherton added. “If you don’t mind ...”

“Make sure you work with everyone else,” Felix ordered. There were too many agencies in Washington now and a little thing like a war tearing apart half the country could hardly be expected to stop interagency rivalry. Hamlin had appointed too many agency heads for political reasons, rather than practical considerations. “Confusion only helps the enemy.”

“Yes, Mr President,” Atherton said. “I ...”

There was a knock at the door. “Sir,” Felix’s secretary said. “General Grey has arrived.”

“Show him in, then hold my calls,” Felix ordered. “Director, keep me informed.”

Atherton nodded, then stood and left the room. Felix ran his hand through his hair as the door closed behind him, taking a long breath. The federal government needed a wholesale purge of political appointees, and everyone else who’d been promoted on grounds other than merit, but even in the middle of a war his powers to hire and fire were limited. Atherton had powerful friends, friends who could be expected to champion him if the shit hit the fan ...

As long as he chooses the right people to run the investigation, it’ll be fine, Felix told himself. And if he doesn’t, I’ll have all the excuse I need to fire him.

General Grey entered, looking tired. “Anything from the FBI’s side of things?”

“Nothing new,” Felix said. He didn’t blame the general for asking. “The FBI has drawn a blank.”

He leaned back in his chair, feeling tired. Every modern President had entered the office looking reasonably handsome or charismatic and left looking like a wreck. Hamlin had been old when he’d assumed the office, and a genial fool as well, and yet even he had looked worn down by the pressures of the job. In some ways, Felix was luckier than his predecessors. In others, his position was oddly insecure. If Montrose had his way, Felix would be the last President of the United States of America.

“The preparations are well underway,” Grey said. He hadn’t brought a map. Nothing was to be written down. Nothing at all. “As far as we can tell, the enemy hasn’t realised either the deception or the truth.”

Felix cocked his head. “There’s nothing from the special intelligence source?”

“Not yet,” Grey said. They didn’t mention names either. “It’s not that easy to stay in touch.”

Or we’re being fucked with, Felix thought. It was hard enough to predict the behaviour of someone from a marginally different culture, let alone a society as different as the Protectorate. The whole affair could be exactly what it said on the tin or it could be nothing more than the smile on the face of the tiger. We don’t know anything like enough about them.

He steepled his fingers, studying the map pinned to the far wall and using his imagination to fill in the missing pieces. “What do think?”

“I’d be a fool to assume they hadn’t picked up on the deception, at least,” Grey said. “We’re not trying to be detected, but ...”

His words hung in the air. Felix nodded in grim understanding. The trick to a successful deception was to make the enemy work hard to collect the misleading information, without accidentally making it impossible for the enemy to pick up the deception at all. Too easy and they might become suspicious, rendering the deception worse than useless, too hard and the deception might become completely pointless. It would be ironic indeed if the Protectorate picked up on the real threat while missing the deception intended to keep their eye off it.

“Yeah,” Felix said, slowly. “Can we make it work? In time?”

He studied the map for a long moment. The Protectorate was steadily taking America apart, wrecking the infrastructure that bound the country together. Bridges were being downed, railroads and interstates were being hammered ... they hadn’t gone after nuclear power plants, thankfully, but everything else seemed to be fair game. It was difficult enough to supply the war front ... he cursed under his breath. On paper, the United States vastly outnumbered its enemy; in practice, bringing that strength to bear was incredibly difficult. He wasn’t sure the country could keep fighting, if the plan failed. They might have to come to terms with the enemy just to buy time.

General Grey let out a long breath. “I believe so, Mr President,” he said. “There is always an element of risk, but as long as we have surprise on our side ...”

“Yeah.” Felix felt the weight of the country on his shoulders. No President since Lincoln had ever held the fate of the nation in his hands. Even Roosevelt, facing Hitler, had known his country was protected and preserved by two vast oceans. “There is always a risk.”

He sighed, again. He’d wanted the top job. What a fool he’d been.

“Let us hope they pick up on the deception,” he said, finally. There was just no way to be sure. Bush could back away and arguably Obama and Biden had. He couldn’t. “And that it blinds them long enough for the plan to work.”

 

Chapter Twenty-Seven: Castle Treathwick, Texas, Timeline F (OTL)

James Montrose tore his attention away from the display as General Stuart Essex was shown into the office, despite the urge to watch and cheer every realtime update. The advance wasn’t going as fast as he wished, and the Americans were fighting back with a savage intensity that more than made up for their technological inferiority, but he was winning. Their lines were weakening, on the verge of breaking ... proof enough, to him, that he was on the right track. Their desperate attempts to set up an armoured reserve were wasted effort. The only reason he hadn’t struck them already was to lure them into a false sense of security.

“Stuart,” he said, as the door closed behind Essex. “This is something of a surprise.”

“Yes, sir,” Essex said. He looked tired. The stresses and strains of the war were wearing on him. It was a shame, really. Essex was a useful tool, and his work with the sepoys was excellent, but tools were only useful in the hands of a craftsman. They could not be trusted to operate alone. “Thank you for seeing me on such short notice.”

James poured them both coffee, motioning for Essex to take a seat and watch the display. The fighting was still ongoing, an enemy missile launcher opening fire only to be silenced within moments by an airstrike; a trio of enemy armoured vehicles, too puny to be called tanks, reduced to burning meal coffins by a prowling hovertank. The updates noted a sepoy unit being pinned down and, right next to them, a Russian unit being wiped out. The Americans did seem to be singling out the Russians for special attention. Who could blame them?

“You are welcome,” James lied. “What can I do for you?”

“The offensive is unsustainable,” Essex said, bluntly. “We need to concede defeat and fall back.”

James blinked. “We’re winning!”

“We’re losing tens of thousands of sepoys for every mile we gain,” Essex said. His tone was flat, the old energy gone. “The loss rate is simply unsustainable. We’re sending men into combat who barely know which end of the gun to point at the enemy, men who can’t be relied upon to do more than soak up American bullets. The first sepoy units have been shattered, sir, and I suspect the national formations are having second thoughts about working with us.”

“They’re expendable,” James said. “You know it.”

“It’s unwise to tell them that,” Essex said, curtly. “The Russians have already taken one hell of a beating. How many men did they lose over the Atlantic?”

James scowled. Russian state media had spent the last two days insisting an American battleship, with dimensions so unrealistic they could only have been put together by someone who had never been to sea, had shot down ten jumbo jets, crammed with Russian women and children, over the Atlantic Ocean. The truth was a little bit different. An American missile ship had shot down four jumbo jets, carrying Russian troops to America, after the pilots had refused to turn around and go back to the airbase in North Africa. James wasn’t sure why the Americans had bothered to issue a warning. The jets were perfectly legitimate targets.

“Serve them right,” he said. “And we have no choice, but to continue the offensive.”

He tapped the display. “If we win, we break them,” he said. “If we lose, we lose everything.”

“One more victory like that and we are ruined,” Essex misquoted. “We could win the battle and find ourselves completely unable to take advantage of it, while they can just rebuild and resume the fighting when it suits them.”

James ground his teeth. His original plan, to take control of the United States and present it to the Protectorate, had failed ... not that he’d ever admit as much, not to someone who might use it against him. The United States was a degenerate nation, but the raw material of true greatness was there ... all it needed was a strong leader, a firm hand, an uncompromising approach to morality and a willingness to purge the unworthy, rather than allow them to continue to rip and tear at the fabric of society. Now ... he was battering the United States apart, shattering the country he’d once hoped to rule. It would be victory, true, but it wouldn’t be the total victory he’d wanted. And yet it would be victory. His enemies wouldn’t hesitate to draw their knives and plunge them into his back if he achieved anything less ...

“They’ll be broken so completely we can take them apart at will,” he growled. Essex was supposed to be loyal to him. Was someone reaching out to Essex instead? The captains were too busy fighting the war to play politics, but ... someone could be trying to do both. “We cannot stop now.”

“We cannot win a long drawn-out conflict,” Essex said. “And that means ...”

“Stuart, how much have we been through together?” James allowed the question to hang in the air for a long moment, trying to remind his ally of his true loyalties. “A lot, have we not?”

“Yes, sir,” Essex said.

“You have never led troops into battle,” James said. It was a sore spot, but one that had to be pressed. “You have no finger-sense for the ebb and flow of conflict, no awareness of the one decisive moment when everything can be committed to beat the enemy once and for all. You cannot see, as I do, that their morale is breaking. We will keep hammering the Americans until they break.”

Essex’s face reddened. “And if they do manage to launch their armoured counterstroke?”

James nodded to the display. The Americans had done well, very well, in hiding the troops and vehicles they were assembling a safe distance from the battlefield. His drones had been lucky to spot the movements, then slowly put together a picture of just what the Americans were planning. It was a good plan too, smart and logical under the circumstances. If he hadn’t realised what they were doing, it could have ended very badly indeed.

“Let them,” he said. “We’ll tear them to pieces and break their morale in a single blow.”

He allowed his voice to soften, one old campaigner to another. “Trust me,” he said. “I can feel them weakening. The final battle will end with us victorious, once again.”

Essex gave him a sharp look. James ignored it.

“America will break,” he said. “The rest of the world can be swallowed at our leisure. And then we will open the gates.”

And if Catherine’s plan works, James added silently, total victory is just days away.

“It is my duty to point out to you that we may have bitten off more than we can chew,” Essex pointed out. “And now ...”

“We will win,” James said, coldly. “We were committed the moment we entered this dimension.”

It was true, he knew. America just hadn’t been advanced enough to be a significant challenge, certainly not advanced enough to require diplomacy instead of force. Nor had she been so primitive she could be destroyed effortlessly ... she’d been a prize, one he’d reached for ... one he would not lose. Surrender wasn’t an option. Nor for him. And even if some captain did manage to put together a legal coup, the bastard would inherit the crisis and effectively checkmate himself. Who knew what would happen then?

“You promised me command of a sepoy unit,” Essex said. “I want to take command of the next unit, when it leaves the base.”

“Agreed,” James said. It was a small reward, one that would cost him little. “Just remember, they are expendable.”

“And the moment they realise it, they will turn on us,” Essex said, flatly. “The people who work for us, sir; we owe them. It isn’t much of a reward to send them to their deaths.”

James shrugged. Under normal circumstances, Essex would have been right. Abusing people who were willing to work for you was asking for trouble. Nor was there anything to be gained by rubbing salt in the wounds of anyone who had been forced to work for you. It was never easy to predict when a collaborator might be overwhelmed by guilt and try to switch sides a second time ... normally, there was no need to be horrible. But now ...

“Dismissed,” he said, curtly. Perhaps it was time to disperse with Essex’s services. There were quite a few officers who could take his place, hopefully redefining the political situation and buying time for James to win the war before his captains tried to remove them. “Good luck on the battlefield.”

Essex gave him a stiff salute, a sure sign he was displeased. James didn’t care. Essex was a good man, in his way, but the combination of a lack of experience and close ties to James himself made it hard for anyone else to use him. He had literally nowhere else to go. It was a shame he didn’t agree with James’s logic, but it didn’t matter as long as he followed orders. And he had no other choice.

He turned his attention back to the display. The war was still raging ...

And he was going to win.

***

Sally Luanne, Daisy noted as she waited outside the office, was not wearing well.

She was beautiful, in a way that would have impressed Daisy a year or two ago, but her eyes were faded and there was something in her posture that made Daisy wonder if Montrose was beating her. Casual sadism and cruelty didn’t seem to be part of his character, and he’d certainly cracked down hard on the Russians when they’d committed a war crime, but she could name several men who’d been the perfect husbands in public and hellishly abusive in private. Daisy couldn’t see any visible bruises, yet that was meaningless. Cosmetics could be used to hide just about anything, save perhaps for permanent damage.

Sally glowered, her eyes conveying a simple message. What the hell are you looking at?

Daisy looked away, her eyes flickering around the antechamber. She’d hoped to be in the meeting, but the guards had made it clear she had to wait outside. That Sally had been barred too ... that was interesting, although she had no idea what it meant. Was Montrose starting to exclude her? Did he just want to chat with Essex alone? The two men had a rather odd relationship, one that didn’t match any friendship she’d seen in her entire life. Or was something else going on? Who knew?

A dozen questions crossed her mind as Sally returned her attention to the terminal, questions she didn’t dare ask. It would raise eyebrows at the very least and if she were caught ... she swallowed, putting the thought aside as Essex emerged from the office. A shiver ran through her as she saw the expression on his face. She’d never seen anything quite so dark and dangerous before.

“With me,” Essex ordered, curtly.

Daisy nodded, standing and following without a backwards glance. Essex strode through the complex without breaking step, barely noticing anyone else long enough to return salutes and the occasional word of greeting. Daisy would have preferred to look around a little more, to gather what intelligence she could, but it wasn’t an option. The hot air struck her the moment they walked outside, passing ring after ring of improvised defences. The last attack had done a great deal of damage. The PEF had no intention of letting it happen again.

“That’s the gate,” Essex said, as they kept walking. His voice was low, pessimistic. “Take a good look.”

Daisy followed his gaze. She’d expected something akin to the Stargate, a metallic circle, but the gate was more of a rectangular metallic frame. It looked like something she’d seen on a concert stage once, a framework designed to hold lights and loudspeakers ... she shivered, despite the heat, as she saw the air shimmering within the frame. A test cycle or a trick of the light ...? She wasn’t sure and she didn’t dare ask.

She leaned closer to him. “How long ...?”

“Unknown,” Essex said. “Montrose will delay it as long as possible.”

Until he wins, Daisy thought. She didn’t know the first thing about engineering, let alone ... whatever the PEF used for crosstime travel. She couldn’t even begin to estimate how long it would take to finish the job, if Montrose stopped wasting time. Or he knows he’s going to lose whatever he does.

They passed through a metal fence and headed towards a giant warehouse, guarded by armed men in black uniforms. Daisy wondered, numbly, if they were sepoys. It would be insane to rely on sepoys this close to the castle, but the PEF was starting to run short of manpower. She’d seen the casualty figures. It looked as if most of the first batch of sepoys were dead ... she pushed the thought out of her head as Essex exchanged a few words with the guards, then led the way inside. The warehouse was a vast medical centre – there was no way she could call it a hospital – and ...

Her heart twisted. The floor was covered with blankets, providing what little comfort they could for wounded soldiers. There were dozens ... hundreds. Some looked barely injured, with only minor wounds; some looked so badly injured that she feared they’d be spending the rest of their lives in wheelchairs, if they survived the next few days. One young man, little older than herself, was naked, save for bandages wrapped around his groin. His eyes were so far away that she knew he was drugged. She dreaded to think what he’d feel when he recovered and realised he’d been unmanned. It was going to be a nightmare from which he couldn’t wake up.

The sound and smell hit her at the same moment, crying and moaning and grunting in pain mingled with the stench of blood, vomit, piss and medicine. The men were writhing in pain, the nurses – young Americans, much like herself – doing what little they could ... nothing remotely like enough. She had seen veterans before, and she’d heard her uncle cursing the VA in tones he normally reserved for taxmen, government bureaucrats and university professors, but this ... she wanted to be sick. She’d watched and listened as the sepoys were promised everything from high pay and citizenship to a life and a place they could be proud of, yet this ... it was a betrayal. Hundreds of men, crippled beyond all hope of a normal life. And they were the ones that had survived ...

And the battle is still going on, she thought, as Essex walked back outside. His face was unreadable. Did he enjoy the sight before him, she asked herself, or was he as horrified as her? How many more are going to die before the war comes to an end?

She had no answer. And nor, she feared, did anyone else.

***

“They are plotting against me, of course,” Montrose said. “Their timing is appalling.”

Sally said nothing, as she sat on the bed and watched as he studied the display. Her thoughts ran in circles, the suggestion she’d made a mistake competing with the belief a man as driven as Montrose could still pull a victory from the edge of defeat and the simple fact she had nowhere else to go. If she wasn’t the most loathed person in the United States now, she didn’t know who was. The thought of cutting and running struck her as worse than useless, when she forced herself to think about it. She couldn’t take everything she had now with her, she knew nothing she could trade for protection ... hell, she couldn’t imagine the government just letting her go, not when much of the population wanted her punished in a way that would make an Islamic State torturer blanch. And she wasn’t even sure she could get out. How could she?

“Did they send Stuart to me?” Montrose sounded as though he was talking more to himself than to her. “Or is he just their puppet?”

His eyes never left the display. “We will win,” he added. “There’s no alternative.”

“You need to rest,” Sally said, quietly. She removed her shirt and bra, than unzipped her pants and dropped them and her underwear to the ground. Montrose didn’t seem to care if she wore practical underwear or thongs so thin they were practically invisible. He just liked her naked. “Come to bed. I can make you relax.”

“There are thousands of men on the front lines,” Montrose said. There was something odd in his voice. It took her a moment to place it. Guilt. “They’re out there, fighting for me ... for the Protectorate, and I’m here.”

Sally said nothing. Presidents never went on the front lines. Senior officers ... were they ever in any real danger? But Montrose was supposed to lead his men into combat ... how could he, when he needed to direct the overall war? It was such an alien mindset she had trouble grasping it. Montrose was no coward. He had no need to prove himself.

She stood and walked over to Montrose, wrapping her arms around him and pressing her breasts into his back. He was tense, incredibly so. She ran her arms down his sides, enjoying the feel of his muscles, then turned him around, knelt in front of him and started to unzip his pants. He made a strange movement, as if he were going to push her away before thinking better of it, then relaxed slightly. Sally made a mental note to wonder about it later – she’d never met a guy who came close to rejecting oral sex before – before getting to work. It was something she enjoyed doing, with the right man, and besides ... he needed it. So did she…

And if they lost the war, there would be no second chance.

 

Today has been a rough day, again, so I didn’t actually manage to write any chapters.

However, there is something else I meant to discuss.

When I started plotting out this trilogy, I worked out a number of subplots that did not make it into the final draft. Some would require too much establishment, before the shooting actually started, and I felt they would detract from the reader’s experience; others were too divorced from the war or simply too much of a distraction from the overall storyline. I’ve been thinking about turning them into a set of personal essays/interviews/oral histories of the Protectorate War, perhaps entitled the lost tales or something along those lines. These would be stories of policemen and soldiers, government officials and diplomats; basically, fleshing out universe in a manner that could not be done within the confines of the trilogy itself.

Here is the question. Would anyone like to contribute to such a collection/anthology?

I can’t promise vast profits (or indeed any profits at all). I’d like to tell you that it would kick-start your writing career, if that is what you want, but I can’t promise you that either. It might be nothing more than yet another idea that never gets off the ground.

If you’re interested, please drop me an email/personal message and/or discuss it here.

Chris

 

Chapter Twenty-Eight: FOB Grant, New Mexico, USA, Timeline F (OTL)

There were few signs of military activity near the old airfield, Callam noted, as the plane landed to allow them to disembark. The briefing notes hadn’t gone into much detail, but they had made it clear that the troops were under strict orders to conceal their presence as much as possible. No radio, no internet, nothing that might draw a prowling drone’s attention and reveal the forces being carefully positioned near the border. The camouflage netting and other methods of concealment were as low-tech as they came, he’d been assured, and the only means of active communications involved carrier pigeons. Even landlines were verboten.

He hoped it would be enough, as the squad made its way to the bunkers. New Mexico was right next door to Texas and her military installations had been hammered. Holloman Air Force Base and a bunch of others had been clobbered by missiles in the opening hours of the war; El Paso, technically in Texas, had been occupied shortly afterwards, destroying what law and order remained in the south. The entire region was practically lawless now, with drug cartels and terrorists sweeping back and forth while the Protectorate and the United States fought for supremacy. It was quite possible one of the latter had already noticed the build-up and tattled to the Protectorate, and if that were so ...

There’s no way to avoid all risk, he told himself, sardonically. Only a politition could possibly be so foolish.

He paused outside the concealed doors, listening carefully. The night was surprisingly quiet ... he told himself, sharply, that it shouldn’t be a surprise. The base was quite some distance from the nearest enemy outpost, although it was hard to be sure. The Marine Corps had built up a reputation for travelling at breakneck speed through hostile countryside and the Protectorate made the Corps look slow. If they knew the base was being reactivated, if they knew troops were gathering there, they’d send an armoured division or an airstrike to hammer the Americans flat before they knew they were under attack. And yet ...

A shiver ran down his spine. A year ago, the United States military hadn’t had to worry about airstrikes. Even missile strikes hadn’t been as dangerous as they sounded. Now ... the slightest mistake could lead to a bloodbath. It was probably how the underpaid and underarmed Iraqi conscripts had felt, back when the world had made sense. Callam had pitied them then, for all they’d been the defenders of a fascist regime. They’d been in a hopeless position even before the shooting started. The United States was a very different place and yet ... military reality didn’t care who was right or wrong. It was who had the biggest guns that mattered.

The interior of the bunker was old, a faint musk of decay hanging in the air as they jogged down to the underground complex. The briefing room was primitive, a handful of paper maps hanging on the far wall ... no telephones, no projectors, not even a coffee maker. Someone had dragged in a pair of water dispensers, pairing them up with cheap coffee grains and creamer to ensure everyone had something to drink without risking a single electronic peep that might draw enemy attention. A handful of the younger recruits had made fun of the security theatre, back when they’d been pulled out of the line and directed south, but Callam knew better than to treat it as a joke. Being poked and prodded by a security officer on secondment from the TSA was better than being blown away by an enemy missile, because some idiot thought the ban on cellphones didn’t apply to him. There was always someone daft enough to risk everything, just because he wanted to text his girlfriend.

“Sergeant Boone?”

Callam looked up, to see an officer out of uniform. His lips quirked. The man looked as if he didn’t quite know how to wear his civilian garb, something that would likely draw attention if the Protectorate took a careful look at the base. He’d certainly have drawn Callam’s eye back when he’d been a Sheriff in Flint, back when the world had made sense. Looking unsure of himself wasn’t always a sign of criminal behaviour, and it was fundamentally wrong to arrest someone merely for looking suspicious, but ... he put the thought aside. He was here to make war.

“Yes, sir,” Callam said. His rank was a little uncertain right now too. There was probably going to be one hell of a legal fight over his pay, once the world quietened down. Had he ever been formally reactivated? What rank had he held? Like so many others, he’d had a rifle put in his hands and shoved into the lines as the war outran the military’s contingency plans for a full-scale war. “Reporting as ordered.”

“I’m Captain David,” the officer said. “Come with me.”

Callam shrugged and followed the man through a reinforced door and down a series of concrete tunnels. He couldn’t help feeling the base had a horror movie vibe, right down to the dim lighting and faint sounds of a generator in the distance ... he hoped to hell it was properly shielded. If the Protectorate picked up something, anything, they might strike immediately and blow the base to hell. There was nothing to be gained by leaving a possible enemy base alone and they knew it. They certainly didn’t have lawyers paralysing their trigger fingers.

David turned to face him. “You come highly recommended, Sergeant,” he said. “You were on the ground during the first invasion, then you fought the invaders time and time again ... including in New York, when you were captured and managed to escape. It’s part of the reason you were assigned to this operation.”

“Thank you, sir.” Callam felt wary. Being buttered up generally meant he was being tapped for an insanely dangerous mission. “What can I do for you?”

“You’re being assigned to a long-range strike group,” David said. “You’ll be thrusting deep into enemy territory. You will be bending the laws of war.”

Callam leaned forward. “In what way, sir?”

“You’ll be wearing enemy uniforms,” David told him. “Will that be a problem?”

Callam said nothing for a long moment. It had been a long time since he’d even considered the possibility and he was a little vague on the details. Wearing enemy uniforms to sneak around was perfectly legal, using them to attack enemy positions was perfidy. Or something along those lines. He couldn’t recall any case of the Protectorate using American uniforms to get close to their targets ... hell, were there any cases in modern war? The Russians might have done it to the Ukrainians or vice versa ...

We’re at war, against an immensely powerful enemy, he reminded himself. Defeat means the end of the world. We have no choice, but to do all we can to stop them. Even if it means bending the laws of war.

“No, sir,” he said, finally.

“Good.” David held his eyes for a long moment. “You’ll also have a very special person accompanying you.”

Callam felt a hot flash of annoyance. The officer didn’t have to drag it out. “Who?”

“A Protectorate defector,” David said. “You’ll be working very closely with him.”

“... Oh.” Callam sucked in his breath. “Sir, with all due respect, can he be trusted?”

“We believe so,” David said, with all the confidence of a man who wouldn’t be taking any risks himself. Not that that was true, any longer. There was no safe rear area anywhere within the United States. “If he falls into enemy hands, they’ll kill him.”

Callam didn’t doubt it. He had no faith in defectors, even if they were fleeing an evil state for the bright lights and freedoms of America. They betrayed their nation ... why wouldn’t they betray others? And yet, if they happened to return home, they’d likely be put in front of a wall and shot. The defector had to know he was risking everything. A state that thought nothing of hanging criminals with little in the way of due process wouldn’t hesitate to shoot the defector if he fell into their hands.

Unless it’s all a plot, he thought, darkly. Are they setting us up for disaster?

“You will follow his lead, when it comes to interacting with enemy checkpoints and officers,” David said. “If everything goes according to plan, you should pass unnoticed. If not ...”

“Shoot him before they have a chance to capture us?” Callam tried not to show his true feelings. It was bad enough having soldiers moved in and out of his unit without any sort of warning, but an enemy defector ...? Shooting him might be a mercy if they were caught. Or it might keep the defector from betraying them again. “What do you want us to do?”

David told him.

***

Martín Cortés couldn’t help second guessing himself as he sat in the tiny office and waited for the mission to begin. Letting himself be captured was bad enough, by the Protectorate’s standards, but actively helping his captors was treason. They’d shoot him the moment they caught him, if they ran his biometrics against the database; the only reason they’d spare him, to find out what he’d told his captors, was arguably worse. He had no illusions about just how far they’d go to extract information from him, or how little would be left of him after the process was finished. Not, he supposed, that he’d be in any shape to care. His battered and brain-damaged self would be hanged, to make it clear to everyone else that treason never prospered. By that point, it would be something of a relief.

He stared down at his hands, trying to ignore the shaking. Hurry up and wait was a universal military law, he’d noted, and he’d been waiting for what felt like hours. Captain David had told him not to talk to anyone without his presence, or his prior permission, because his accent was a dead giveaway. The last thing they needed was someone mistaking him for an enemy infiltrator and putting a bullet through his head. That would be embarrassing, David had said. Martín didn’t know the man very well, but he’d already come to detest the officer’s sense of humour.

And the longer we wait, the greater the chance someone will spot this base, he reminded himself. He had no idea where they were, but they couldn’t be that far from the occupied zone. The Protectorate had eyes everywhere back home and here ... they’d be doing everything in their power to monitor the occupied zone and the territory around it. They’ll bomb this place the moment they realise it’s there.

The door opened. Martín looked up, schooling his face into a blank expression as two men entered. Captain David he already knew, the other ... the man had grizzled war veteran practically carved into his face. His eyes were sharp, untrusting. His body ... maybe not as muscular as the stereotypical ideal, but he moved with the savage grace of a man who knew how to use what he had and saw no reason to put on silly displays to prove himself. Martín couldn’t help being reminded of his first drill sergeant, a man who had been loved and loathed in equal measure.

“I’m Callam,” the newcomer said. “Callam Boone. Why are you helping us?”

Martín was oddly reassured by the blunt question, even though he had no idea of the politics behind it. The Protectorate put warfighters ahead of everyone else, which meant Callam Boone might outrank David even though David was technically a superior officer. Or did it? For all he knew, David was a warfighter pretending to be a harmless spook ... the Protectorate generally shunned such devious behaviour, but the Americans might disagree. David might be a little too good for his act to be real ... Martín shook his head. It was something he’d just have to handle.

“I had a choice, back home,” he said. “I could earn citizenship by joining up with them or I could stay home and drink myself to death. There were no other options for someone like me” – he shivered; his hometown was both only a few hundred miles away and in another world – “and so I chose the only one that offered some hope. Here ... I have other choices.”

Boone eyed him for a long moment. No fool he, Martín noted coldly. Anyone who had served in the military long enough to have that combination of age and experience had to be very perceptive indeed. Martín had met some recruiting sergeants who looked like buffoons ... it was only on closer acquaintance that he’d realised it was an act, that they were quietly observing reactions and making their decisions based on how the recruits reacted to them. The American was just the same.

“Do you change loyalties so easily?”

Martín hesitated, the question cutting to the quick. Not because he was loyal, but because ... he wasn’t sure how to put it into words. Why should he be loyal? What had the Protectorate done for him? And yet, he’d taken their money and signed up. Did he not owe them loyalty?

“No,” Martín said, finally. A dozen answers ran through his head, each one more unsatisfactory than the last. “I was loyal because I had no other option. I was trapped with only one way out. But now ...”

Boone interrupted. “Do you understand the risks?”

“Yes.” Martín nodded, curtly. “I do.”

“Good.” Boone’s eyes bored into Martín’s for a long moment. “If you betray us, if you do anything to even suggest you’re going to betray us, I will kill you. I don’t trust defectors. Do I make myself clear?”

Martín felt a hot flash of anger. How dare he? The anger vanished as quickly as it had come. Boone couldn’t be blamed for feeling doubtful. Martín had switched sides ...

“Yes,” he said, finally. “I don’t blame you.”

“Good,” Boone said. “Because the real fun is about to begin.”

***

“I have that déjà vu feeling all over again,” Colin said, as the car neared the mock trailer park. “Who was it who said that?”

“I have no idea,” Jeanette Adamson said. “Yogi Bear?”

Colin shrugged. It hadn’t been that long since they’d set up a listening post near Flint to track unexplained high-energy bursts that, in hindsight, had been the Protectorate preparing to shift Castle Treathwick into the United States. Colin had seen the maths, studied the reports prepared by professors groping their way towards an understanding of interuniversal realities and crosstime travel; he knew, all too well, that the only thing saving the world from a far larger invasion was the simple fact the power requirements for any sort of crosstime travel were staggeringly high, daunting even to the Protectorate. Now ... he looked at the trailers, each one concealing a multitude of advanced sensors and military hardware, and shook his head. A year ago, the world had made sense. Now ... it was just crazy.

He put the thought out of his head as the car came to a halt by the nearest mobile home, the guards – pretending to be toughs – inspecting his face carefully before allowing him into the vehicle. There were hundreds of makeshift trailer parks across the state, and the rest of the country, as thousands upon thousands of people fled the occupied zone or the riots ... he had no idea what local laws covered such matters, it wasn’t something he’d ever studied, but they’d clearly gone by the wayside. There were a couple of reports on the net about pushy local bureaucrats harassing refugees and somehow never being seen again ... Colin found it hard to be sorry for them. In times of war, there were times the law needed to be silent.

“Everything is ready, sir,” Specialist Hoskins said. He looked rather less military than Colin himself and Colin knew few would take him for a military man when he was in civilian clothes. Any drill instructor who laid eyes on his protruding stomach would either start laughing or crying. Hoskins could easily have passed for Dennis Nedry. “We got all the command leads laid down, as per instructions.”

Colin nodded. “Any sign of detection?”

Hoskins shook his head. “No ... ah, sir,” he said. He hadn’t been in the military six months ago and there’d been no time to put him through boot camp, even if he’d wanted to go. His skills were too valuable to waste. “If they knew we were here, they’d hit us. Wouldn’t they?”

“I suspect so,” Colin said. A lone flyer could take out every last trailer in a single sweep. He couldn’t think of any good reason for the enemy to leave them alone, if they knew they were there. “Are we on schedule?”

“Yes, sir,” Hoskins said. “We’ll be ready once the balloon goes up.”

He paused. “What’s happening, sir?”

“Don’t ask that question,” Colin said. He didn’t blame Hoskins for asking, but he had no need to know. “What you don’t know you can’t be made to tell.”

“I wouldn’t talk,” Hoskins said.

“They all say that,” Colin pointed out. He’d read the files. The Protectorate had all kinds of ways to extract information from unwilling donors, from direct brain stimulation and drugs to simple old-fashioned torture. “Trust me on this. They’ll make you talk.”

“If they think I’m worth the effort,” Hoskins said.

“You’re in the middle of billions of dollars worth of tech,” Colin said. That would be a dead giveaway, even if the Protectorate hadn’t realised the computer nerd might be more important and knowledgeable than the average grunt. “You’re worth it.”

He shrugged, making a show of checking his watch. Not long to go now.

 

Chapter Twenty-Nine: Front Lines, North Texas, USA, Timeline F (OTL)

“Incoming!”

Sergeant (Sepoy) Miguel Ruiz hit the dirt as a hail of mortar shells crashed down around him, the explosions shaking the ground and throwing pieces of debris everywhere. The town had been reduced to ruins, with both sides throwing more and more men and material into a fight that would end with the victor claiming a pile of rubble and little more. The original population had fled, leaving their defenders to turn the town into a strongpoint that had to be reduced by blood and guts. Reading between the lines, he suspected his superiors were running short of missiles, perhaps even bombs and shells.

He pressed himself lower as more explosions rang out. The American mortar crews were good, slipping in close enough to launch a handful of shells at their targets and then get out again before the counterbattery gunners could get a lock on their positions and return fire, trying to bury the bastards under a wave of shellfire. The counterbattery fire didn’t seem to be as effective as he’d been promised, he noted as he practically made love to the ground; the Americans were either faster than he’d thought or they were scattering more teams across the combat zone, perhaps even deploying point defence weapons of their own. If he’d had any illusions about how revoltingly ingenious the Americans could be, they’d been dispelled over the last two weeks. He’d seen a man caught by an artfully concealed IED, his legs blown to atoms and his groin ... Miguel shuddered. The Protectorate’s medics could do some remarkable things, he’d learnt, but could they restore a man’s manhood? The thought was enough to make him want to crawl backwards and keep crawling backwards until he was back in Mexico.

And he could have bled to death before he even reached the medics, he thought, as the explosions slowly faded away. The only upside of the whole affair was that the American shelling was growing less accurate, although no one had any idea why. What the hell happened to him?

He risked looking around, cursing under his breath. There were piles of rubble everywhere and, beyond them, more houses and stores converted into strongpoints. Some would be manned, others would be defended by automated systems; some, he knew from grim experience, would be rigged to explode, blowing anyone who got caught in the blast straight to hell. A handful had even been left untouched, just to mess with their minds. He wasn’t sure what the Americans were thinking and he didn’t much care. All that mattered was getting through the war and out alive.

Tessa crawled up to him, her helmet slightly dented. “You see the bastards?”

Miguel shook his head. The space around them was oddly quiet, although he could hear distant explosions and gunfire that reminded him the peace wouldn’t last more than a few moments at best. A streak of light flashed overhead, vanishing in the distance; a flash lit the air moments later, followed by a fireball and a thunderous explosion. Someone had just been hit and hit hard ... he hoped it had been a significant target, somewhere that would cripple the enemy’s ability to counterattack. If they could just break the American lines ...

A dull buzzing echoed through the air. Miguel cursed, putting his rifle aside and drawing his shotgun as the drones zoomed into view. They were tiny by his standards, if larger than the drones the Protectorate used to monitor the battlefield, but they were still incredibly dangerous and difficult to hit with rifle fire. He had no idea if they were being controlled remotely, or by their onboard computers, yet it hardly mattered. They could carry weapons themselves or relay targeting data back to enemy gunners ...

He fired, blowing the first three drones out of the air. The last drone picked up speed, shooting over his head and vanishing into the distance. Miguel glanced back, then snapped orders for the squad to move, fast. They were barely in time. The Americans dropped a handful of shells on their former position, so quickly a few seconds earlier would have killed or crippled most of the team.

“Fuck,” Tessa said. Her voice shook. “Is anyone still alive?”

Miguel knew what she meant. Their original team was gone. As far as he knew, they were the only ones left alive. Their second and third teams had been mangled, with the dead and wounded pulled out of the line and replaced by newbies who had even less idea what to do than the Russians or Chinese. The Protectorate had managed to give him some fairly comprehensive training, if focused on infantry tactics rather than anything a little more well-rounded, but the newbies barely knew anything. The Americans weren’t giving them a chance to learn either.

He glanced back, his heart twisting. Thirteen men, two women ... he didn’t know their names, or their faces, or their stories. They looked like children playing dress-up, children wearing their father’s uniforms and convincing themselves they were their fathers ... no. They knew better. They were going to die.

“I don’t know,” he said. There were a few who might have simply been reassigned. “I just don’t know.”

Tessa was shaking. “How long is this going to go on?”

Miguel had no answer. The battle had gone on for weeks ... it felt like years. His world had shrunk to the combat zone. It was hard to believe he’d ever had a wife or children, hard to believe he’d seen them ... that he’d ever see them again. The schedule for rotating fighting units in and out of the front line seemed to have gone by the wayside, as the battle raged on and on with no end in sight. He didn’t blame Tessa for reaching the end of the line. He felt as if he’d reached the end himself.

And yet, there was no way out. Go north, get shot by the Americans. Probably. Tessa very definitely would be shot. She’d been an American citizen. He wasn’t so sure about himself ... but with his family remaining in the occupied zone, they’d likely be shot once the Protectorate realised he’d surrendered. Go south ... he’d be shot for desertion and his family along with him. The only way out was death and walking into enemy fire was suicide, a mortal sin. And even if he did, would the Protectorate keep their promises? Or would they kick his family out the moment they outlived their usefulness?

“I don’t know,” he said. If Tessa sat down now, she would never get up again. “I don’t know ...”

A hovertank raced past them, heading north. Miguel sucked in his breath as its main guns fired, spraying plasma fire over the American buildings. Some exploded, the superheated plasma detonating IEDs and other surprises, some simply caught fire, a handful of American defenders fleeing the strongpoints as they became death traps. The tank kept moving, lasers protecting it as enemy gunners tried to zero in on its position. Miguel felt a flicker of desperate hope as it roared past two explosions, the IEDs detonating a moment too late to do more than scratch the paint, and fell back again. They might just have a chance ...

“Follow me,” he snapped. Tessa would follow ... or she would not. “Now!”

He ran forward, ducking low as the tank retreated. A hail of shells shot over his head and landed somewhere to the north, hopefully catching the retreating Americans and deterring anyone from sending reinforcements. The first building was a ruin, the interior utterly wrecked by the blast; he motioned for his people to stay out even though they’d been ordered to clear all the buildings. The framework was on the verge of total collapse. The second building was a little tougher, a body lying on the ground ... he gritted his teeth as he realised it was an American soldier, dead and gone. He didn’t dare go too close. The Americans had booby-trapped bodies before, just to keep the invaders guessing. If they’d had time to trap this one ...

Sweat prickled on his back as he inched forward, sweeping the building carefully. It had been a store once, but the enemy had stripped out very last personal touch and turned it into a makeshift bunker. The counter had been cleared of everything except the cash register, which looked surprisingly intact. Suspiciously so. Looting was strictly forbidden, and American dollars were worthless in the occupied zone anyway, but it was hard for the younger and poorer soldiers to resist temptation. They’d grown up in poverty so grinding that, in comparison, the average American had lived like a king. The cash register was probably rigged to blow. He keyed his throatmike, calling in a suspected IED, and inched onwards. The disposal team would deal with it.

The air grew thicker as he probed the shop. The walls had been flimsy, but they’d been reinforced; they were lucky, he supposed, that very little could stop a plasma bolt. Two more bodies lay inside a makeshift firing position, one so badly burnt that it was hard to tell if it had been male or female. The poor bastard was lucky he’d died quickly, Miguel reflected. The thought of living with such wounds ...

Something shifted, above him. He barely had a second to react before the roof crumpled, an American dropping though and landing right next to him. Miguel hit out automatically, only to be knocked to the ground. The American landed on top of him, drawing back a fist to hit Miguel in the face. Miguel tried to cover himself ... a shot rang out. The American fell to the side and hit the ground. Tessa had shot him.

“Fuck,” Miguel muttered. The American wore no uniform. A civilian who’d stayed behind, an insurgent, or ... or what? “Fuck me.”

Tessa gave a high-pitched laugh. “You had your chance.”

Miguel snorted. “I’m glad you’re feeling better.”

The advance resumed, slowly. Each building had to be checked and cleared, no matter how badly it had been hammered by the endless fighting. Miguel saw men killed or injured by IEDs, or shot by snipers; a line of enemy troops appeared in the rear, wielding flamethrowers and grenades against unprepared men advancing to the front lines. It was a hellish nightmare ... a fuel tank exploded, sending waves of fire towards the advancing men. Drones emerged from the smoke and flew overhead, some firing and others dropping grenades or makeshift bombs. One carried a flamethrower ... more explosions shook the air, taking out more of the team. He didn’t even know their names ...

Tessa staggered, and fell. Miguel cursed and dropped to his knees beside her, reaching out to search for the wound. Her uniform was stained above her right breast ... he tore the uniform away, trying not to think about what he was doing as he probed her skin. The bullet was resting within her ... he swallowed hard, suddenly, as he tried to recall his brief class on battlefield medicine. Was he supposed to remove the bullet, as he’d seen in countless movies, or was he supposed to leave it in place and wait for a qualified professional to remove it? He took a bandage from his pack, silently thanking himself for making sure he was carrying one, and slapped it into place. The bullet might be hurting her, but taking it out would likely be worse. He had neither the knowledge nor tools to do it properly.

“I knew you wanted to see me naked,” Tessa managed, hoarsely. Her breathing came in fits and starts, the sound getting louder as he patted her down, checking for other wounds. “Why couldn’t you have bought me flowers instead?”

Miguel chuckled, despite himself, and helped her to her feet. “I’m getting you out of here,” he said, stiffly. “Let’s move.”

They stumbled east, all too aware that a single shot could kill them both. The battlefield was getting worse, pockets of silence – or peace – materialising long enough to convince him the fighting was over before the thunder of war swept through the air again. The madness was all consuming ... he saw two bodies, an American and a Russian, locked together in a manner that suggested they’d killed each other. A headless woman lay nearby, her head nowhere to be seen. Miguel tried not to look at her. It was hard to tell which side she’d been on, if she hadn’t been an innocent civilian, and ...

The MPs appeared out of nowhere. “Where do you think you’re going?”

Miguel gritted his teeth. The MPs were about the least popular unit in the army, Protectorate soldiers who rode herd on the sepoys ... they had no sense of humour, he’d been told, and an absolute willingness to use force on anyone who stepped out of line. Even the Protectorate footmen disliked them, with good reason. And that meant ...

He forced himself to speak evenly. “She’s been wounded,” he said. “And I’m taking her back to the medics.”

There was a long chilling pause. Miguel had few illusions about how little the Protectorate cared for its sepoys. They were treated well as long as they were useful and that was about as far as they were prepared to go. Even the offers of future training and careers were centred more around the Protectorate’s needs than the hopes and fears of their servants. Would they decide Tessa was past saving? Or would they send him back into the cauldron while leaving her to die ...?

“Take her, then report to the CO,” the MP ordered, pointing south. “He’ll want to hear your report.”

Miguel doubted it, but he merely nodded and kept stumbling down the road. The FOB had been moved closer and closer to the battlefield, the medical tents positioned far too close to the front lines for his peace of mind. Deliberate calculation, a gamble the Americans wouldn’t fire on tents that housed American wounded ...? He didn’t know. The makeshift prison had expanded too, a chain-link fence housing dozens of American soldiers, surrendered or captured. They looked grim, as they waited for transport further behind the lines. They’d work for their new masters or starve.

The medical tents stank, he noted, as he stumbled up to them. The staff were a strange mixture, mainly Americans but also a number of Mexicans, Cubans, Chinese and a handful of nationalities he didn’t recognise. There was only one Protectorate doctor, a harried-looking man who looked as though he’d gone through the wars and emerged without much, if any, of his sanity remaining. The row upon row of makeshift mattresses were crammed with wounded, some screaming in agony and others too drugged to notice what had happened to them.

“Put her down here,” a doctor said. She was American, her face so tired it looked as if she was about to sleep on the spot. “I’ll check her as soon as possible ...”

“Check her now,” Miguel snapped. “Now!”

Something must have glinted in his eyes, because the doctor hurried to obey. “One bullet, lodged in her flesh,” she said. She worked quickly, carefully removing the bullet as Miguel held Tessa and then patching up the wound. “Did you disinfect?”

Miguel shook his head. “ No, I ...”

“I’ll do what I can,” the doctor told him. Tessa hissed in pain as the doctor sprayed the wound with something that smelt unpleasant, then relaxed as the doctor injected her with a minor sedative. “The wound isn’t that bad, but she will need some time to recover. Enter her details on the database” – she waved a hand towards a collection of laptops, all linked to the central datanet – “and we’ll see what we can do.”

“She’ll live?”

The doctor said nothing for a long moment. “It depends,” she said, numbly. “Hard to be sure, without a proper x-ray machine. There doesn’t appear to be any serious internal damage. The bullet wound was unpleasant, of course, but the bullet doesn’t appear to have been pressing against any nerves or internal organs. As long as the wound doesn’t get infected, it should close up normally.”

Miguel swallowed. “And if it does?”

“It depends,” the doctor admitted, slowly. “Our supplies of antibiotics and suchlike are very limited. If she needs something like that, she may be out of luck. There’s no sign of an infection, as far as I can tell, but it may be too early to spot the signs without proper equipment. And we don’t have that either.”

She looked down. “And this place is a breeding ground for disease.”

Miguel felt sick. The doctors and nurses were doing what they could, but ... there were wounded men everywhere, some still bleeding. He could hear flies buzzing through the air, swarming around the wounded ... his stomach heaved, threatening to disgorge its contents onto the bloodstained sand. He knew it was bad, but this ... he didn’t want to stay and yet he knew he had to. Tessa needed him. The war could take care of itself.

“Thanks,” he said, finally. He needed to report in ... no. He wanted to do something, anything, other than returning to the war. “Is there anything I can do to help?”

“Yes,” the doctor said. She made a shooing motion with one hand. “You can go away and let us work in peace.”

Miguel nodded, taking one last look at Tessa before turning and leaving the tent. The sky was darkening now, the long day finally coming to an end. The distant thunder was fading too ... odd, when both the Americans and the Protectorate had no qualms about fighting at night. Perhaps it was an unspoken truce ...

Or perhaps it was nothing more than a pause in the storm.

 

Chapter Thirty: Western Texas, USA, Timeline F (OTL)

The enemy sensor post looked surprisingly harmless, for something that dominated the region for hundreds of miles around. A cluster of sensor platforms, mounted on vehicles that could be moved easily if the shit hit the fan; a handful of guards, keeping a wary eye on the surrounding countryside. Specialist Cormack Angstrom couldn't decide, as the four-man fireteam inched closer, if the placement was arrogance or a simple faith in the combination of isolation and technology to keep them safe. It wasn’t as if they couldn’t bug out in a hurry, he reminded himself. The vehicles were faster than a AN/TPQ-37 Firefinder radar and more elegant to boot.

His eyes narrowed as he swept the campsite. The sensor nodes positioned around the base were clearly visible, leaving him unsure if the defenders were either complacent or trying to lure any attackers into a trap. The latter struck him as unlikely, but it couldn’t be ruled out. Perhaps it was both. This part of the war front had been relatively quiet for weeks, with neither side making any major moves, and the sensor crews had good reason to think they were relatively safe. It wasn’t as if they were that close to the border or any major town.

He glanced back at his team, half-hidden in the gloom. The suits were supposed to protect them from any prowling drone, ensuring they couldn’t be spotted before the shit hit the fan, but they’d never been properly tested. How could they? The enemy could not be allowed a chance to realise the suits existed, let alone get their hands on a sample so they could devise countermeasures, before it was too late. If they were wrong ... he shivered, despite his training, as he spotted a man leaving one of the vehicles. On paper, the Protectorate didn’t have many troops in the region; in practice, the area was patrolled by armed drones steered by operators who had no qualms about opening fire on anything suspicious. The United States Special Operations Command had spent a great deal of time trying to determine just what would trigger the drones, but there was no apparent consistency. Cormack had a private suspicion it was actually good tradecraft. A predictable pattern was one that could be exploited, which was why Force Recon Marines and others were trained to vary their patterns as much as possible. There was no sign the Protectorate disagreed.

The man kept walking, pausing near a bush. Cormack smiled, despite himself, as he picked up speed. The man was taking a piss! Odd, yet ... it wasn’t as if they were facing aliens. The man started to turn, too late. Cormack rose up behind him and cut his throat, pressing his spare hand to the man’s mouth to keep him from making any sound. The body started to collapse, blood spilling from the gaping wound. Cormack lowered his victim to the ground and turned. They were committed now.

Go, he signalled.

He rapped on the door of the nearest vehicle, hoping to hell the complacency wasn’t an act. It opened a moment later, all the technology in the world powerless against an operator who knew there was no danger of being attacked. Cormack shot him through the head, then hurled a grenade into the vehicle and darted backwards. The explosion wasn’t enough to destroy the entire vehicle – whatever they used for armour, it was good – but it was enough to do real damage. Two more were taken out in quick succession, a third slamming down the hatches and starting to bring its antigravity field online before it was taken out too. Cormack rolled a pair of grenades under the field, hoping it would be enough to take the vehicle out. The driver had good reflexes, yanking his sensor vehicle away and running for his life. Cormack resisted the urge to fire after him. It was pointless. The bastard had already gotten clear.

And is no doubt screaming for help, Cormack reflected. It was hard to get a precise count on just how many troops the enemy had in the area, but they’d react fast. If they had the time. Cormack hadn’t been told more than he needed to know, not officially, yet reading between the lines he was fairly sure the garrison holding El Paso was going to be attacked shortly. If it wasn’t already ... he shook his head. The city’s a minor problem and they know it. The real problem is us opening a gap in their defences.

He took the transmitter from his belt, tapped in a command and placed it on the ground before hurrying off, leaving the campsite in ruins. It went against both training and inclination to leave without searching for actionable intelligence or pieces of enemy technology, but it was quite likely enemy drones were already on the way. The transmitter would go live in five minutes, broadcasting a single code four times ... his superiors would know what had happened, even if the team didn’t make it back to the RV point. The transmitter would be silenced, of course, but it would already be too late.

“You’d think they’d be more on the ball,” Specialist Wilson noted, as the team picked up speed. The air was quiet, but heavy. A storm was on the way. “If they’d had a proper set of guards ...”

Cormack shrugged. There were no hard figures on invader manpower, and he’d been cautioned that everything the spooks had deduced might be dangerously misleading, but there had to be limits. The Protectorate was trying to control an area larger than Iraq and fight a major war at the same time, all the while controlling New York – a city they could only resupply through air transport – and hammering the rest of the country and the world. It was inevitable there would be cracks in their defences, particularly in places that hadn’t seen major action and were defended by second-order forces. Cormack had met too many USAF guards who seemed to believe they’d never be on the frontlines of a major war, that all they’d have to deal with were drunkards and the occasional terrorist. The Protectorate might have the same problem.

But they won’t make the same mistake twice, he reminded himself, sharply. This has got to work.

***

“We just picked up the burst-signal, sir,” the operator said. “The teams have completed their missions.”

Major-General Mathewson refused to allow himself to feel any relief. Not yet. “Have you checked the codes?”

“Yes, sir,” the operator assured him. “They check out.”

Mathewson wasn’t so sure. The Protectorate’s deepfakes were good. No additional fingers, no oddities where AI dreams met reality ... given the right intelligence, they could practically slip their way into his command structure and take control of his forces. The codes had been carefully chosen to be as difficult to figure out as possible, and he’d been assured the Protectorate wouldn’t be able to work out the remainder from the samples they’d collect the moment the teams started transmitting, but it was hard to be sure. If the techs were wrong, his men were about to charge right into the teeth of enemy fire.

“Good,” he said, finally. “Order the drones to commence the offensive.”

“Yes, sir,” the operator said.

“I need a cigarette,” Mathewson muttered. “Inform me if anything changes.”

He stepped outside the command vehicle and out into the night, making sure he was under the canopy before lighting his cigarette. The air was dead and cold, the stars overhead bearing mute witness to troops and vehicles moving into their jump-off positions. There were thousands of men going into the maelstrom now, readying themselves for the final challenge. Mathewson had inspected most of the units over the last few days, both to confirm readiness reports for himself and to look the men in the eye, before he sent them off to war. Some were veterans, calmly preparing themselves for the task ahead; some were new recruits, bracing themselves for their first taste of combat. And far too many were going to die.

There’s no way to avoid it, he told himself. It was true. It didn’t make it any easier. All we can do now is hope, and pray.

***

Colin took a long breath, then tapped the launch command into the drone networks.

It should have been instant, he knew. The signal should have moved, quite literally, at the speed of light. But transmitters that should have been undetectable were now an open invitation to the enemy to come kill them, even transmitters so low-powered it was hard for modern technology to pick up the transmission unless they knew to watch for it. The signal went through the landline to a hidden transmitter, or a laser communicator aligned on an orbiting satellite, where it was relayed to the drones. Colin reminded himself, sharply, not to get too dependent on either one. They would both be on the top of the enemy’s targeting list the moment they realised they were under attack.

“The drones are on the way,” Hoskins said. He leaned back in his chair, then caught himself. “Ah ... sir.”

“Good.” Colin had no time to argue about such minor details. “Order them to start transmitting the moment they cross the border.”

“Yes, sir,” Hoskins said. “Do you think they’ll make it?”

Colin shrugged. Drones were a nightmare, he’d been told, because they could get dangerously close without being hit. His office had done multiple studies on ways to take down drones, from expensive pieces of electronic gear to lasers, shotguns and radar-guided machine guns, but most countermeasures had never been tested in combat. The Protectorate’s plasma weapons might give them an edge, if they managed to get them operational in time. Or they could hack the network itself ...

“We’ll see,” he said. There were drones large enough to pass for fighter jets and drones so tiny he could carry them in one hand, all making their way towards the border. They weren’t making any attempt to hide the onslaught, not after the attacks on the enemy sensor outposts and garrisons. There was no way the enemy wouldn’t realise they were under attack. “Any response?”

“Not as yet, sir,” Hoskins said. “If their entire network is down ...”

Colin shook his head. His office had spent months trying to find a way to take down the enemy network completely, hoping to return to the days when American aircraft roamed the skies with impunity. They’d drawn a blank. The Protectorate had worked so many redundancies into their system that it was unlikely, if not impossible, that it could be taken down by anything less than the physical destruction of every last sensor and communications node. They’d tried to plot out their locations, only to draw another blank. The enemy appeared to have no intention of making it easy on anyone. Bastards.

“They’ll be crossing the border in two minutes,” Hoskins said. “Do you think they’ll be fooled?”

“It doesn’t matter,” Colin said. “They can’t afford to dismiss the threat.”

He braced himself, watching the seconds tick down. Not all the drones would go live, but enough would to give the Protectorate plenty of targets. The silent ones would be the real threat, sweeping the desert for targets and marking them down for long-range missile or airstrikes; a tactic, ironically, that owed much to the Protectorate itself. He wondered, numbly, if word had already reached the enemy base. They could signal at will ...

Here goes nothing, he thought. How long did they have? He didn’t know. They could be reacting already and as long as they’re careful we won’t know until it’s too late.

The timer hit zero. The display lit up as the drones went live, onboard electronic warfare systems broadcasting a dizzying array of signals that made it look as if there were two or three times the number of drones in the air. Others swept the ground with powerful radars, searching for targets ... they’d be the first to go, when the enemy reacted, but if the decoys kept switching position it was just possible they’d survive longer than predicted. Long enough ... he didn’t know. He’d see.

“The drones have gone live,” Hoskins said, as if Colin couldn’t see it for himself. “Push-button war, am I right?”

“And if they locate us, they’ll drop a hammer on our head,” Colin said, with more sharpness than he intended. Hoskins wasn’t a dedicated soldier. A year ago, the idea of him ever being anywhere near the front lines would have been thoroughly absurd. Perhaps it was better to be so detached from his targets, to see the icons on the display as nothing more than elements in a real-time strategy video game rather than real tanks and people. “This could turn real very quickly.”

Yeah, his thoughts pointed out. It’s already real.

***


Tanya Coleman had never really liked living in El Paso, not when the increasingly Hispanic city had been growing increasingly unwelcoming to African-Americans like herself, and she’d been intending to leave as soon as possible before all hell broke loose. The Protectorate had swept over the city with terrifying speed, crushing all resistance in a manner that made it extremely clear that lawlessness would not be tolerated. Tanya might have approved, in a way, if the Protectorate hadn’t killed her younger brother. He’d been caught up in a fight at school – the Protectorate had called it a riot – and been killed when they’d hurled stun grenades into the lunch hall rather than trying to force the rioters out.

She braced herself as the small team took up position, waiting for the enemy patrol to come into view. The Protectorate had forced large numbers of local policemen to work for them, and recruited a bunch of others who saw the Protectorate as their best chance at a better life, and they made sure to maintain as heavy a presence as possible, in hopes of preventing any further riots or insurrection. Tanya didn’t care why they’d joined, in the end. They were traitors, nothing more, and she intended to kill as many as possible before they brought her down.

Sweat prickled on her back as she waited, bracing herself. The city was under a strict curfew and anyone caught outside without permission risked arrest and detention. Tanya didn't doubt it. She’d seen the prisoners cuffed, shackled and put to work clearing the streets, something intended to both help the city recover from the fighting and make the price of disobedience clear to everyone. It wasn’t the only thing they’d done, too. Corporal punishment was back in the schools, the unemployed were assigned jobs and told to report for them or else; Tanya might have approved, if her brother hadn’t been killed. The Protectorate was the enemy and all who served the enemy needed to die.

And we didn’t do it for ourselves, she thought. She had no qualms about executing paedophiles and serial killers – she’d grown up in a decidedly unsafe place, where one could not afford to have any illusions about the world and some of the people who lived in it – but having it done for her felt wrong. It was just another way to exercise control, disguised as compassion for the victims mingled with the final punishment for the perpetrators. There’s a fine line between doing something for someone and doing it to them and they crossed it a long time ago.

The patrol came into view, swaggering along as if they didn’t have a care in the world. Tanya had never trusted the police and now ... her lips quirked as she took aim, picking out a particularly ugly officer as her first target. The swine didn’t seem to be paying any attention to his surroundings, something that didn’t really surprise her. The Protectorate had cracked down so hard on any unrest that the city had been relatively quiet, with only a handful of incidents more serious than petty crime. It helped, she supposed, that they tended to hang serious criminals first and not bother with the trial afterwards.

She smiled, then squeezed the trigger. The gun jerked in her hand as it spat a hail of bullets towards her target, the rest of the team opening fire a moment later. She wasn’t a practiced shooter, and there’d been little time for her teachers to show her more than the basics, but there were so many bullets in the air she had to hit something. She had the satisfaction of watching her target crumple, followed by others; one man turned to run, only to be shot in the back and sent tumbling to the ground. Her lips twisted as she stood and started to run. They’d been warned, in no uncertain terms, not to hang around once the shooting started. The enemy would come after them in force ...

The ground shook. She looked up, just in time to see a fireball rising into the air. One of the other teams had pulled off a strike ... she hadn’t been told much, when she’d been given her orders, but she was fairly sure there were dozens, perhaps hundreds, of teams striking right across the occupied zone. Gunfire rang out a second later, echoing over the city ... more explosions followed, the occupiers and their collaborators taking a beating. She hoped to hell, as she picked up speed, that it would be enough. The Protectorate was terrifyingly effective when it came to tracking people down. It had the entire population registered in its databanks.

No way back now, she thought, as more explosions rang out in the distance. She’d lead the team back to the base, see if there were any more orders. If not, they’d go after targets of opportunity. They’d been committed from the moment they’d joined the resistance. It’s time to fight or die.

 

Chapter Thirty-One: Castle Treathwick/Western Texas, USA, Timeline F (OTL)

James had been sleeping, when his terminal began to sound the alarm.

“Report,” he snapped, slapping the terminal with one hand. Sally stirred beside him, as if the sound hadn’t quite woken her. “What’s happening?”

Captain Jansen sounded alarmed. “We have major enemy movements in the east, sir, and numerous terrorist attacks along the border ...”

James rolled out of bed and grabbed his tunic, pulling it on with practiced ease. “Give me specifics,” he said, forcing his voice to stay calm. The duty officer wouldn’t have woken him if it hadn’t been urgent, which meant it was more than yet another enemy counterattack up north or a random bombing or shooting within the occupied zone. “What’s happening?”

“Sir ...” Jansen caught herself and started again. “We lost four sensor outposts along the border, sir, and there’s a major air raid in process!”

“Right.” James took a breath. “I’m on my way.”

Sally stirred, her bare breasts barely visible in the semi-darkness. “James ...”

“Get dressed and join me,” James ordered, sharply. There was no time to allow himself to be distracted. “We have a major crisis on our hands.”

His mind raced as he made his way to the CIC. The defences in the east had been drawn down sharply, reduced to a number of sepoy divisions backed up by a couple of infantry companies and a light armoured unit. The enemy shouldn’t have been able to work out just how weak the defences actually were in that sector – James had issued orders for the units to patrol constantly, allowing the enemy’s perceptions to fill in the gaps in his actual strength – but ... knowingly or not, they’d hit him where he was weakest. And that meant trouble. The enemy would have a long way to go, if they wanted to hit Flint itself, but he didn’t have much to put in their way.

“Sir,” Jensen said. She was young, someone who hadn’t seen any real action until joining the PEF. “There are hundreds of enemy aircraft inbound.”

“Are there?” James wasn’t so sure. The American aircraft were both dangerously advanced and strikingly primitive, by his standards, but there were hard limits on how many the enemy could deploy even if they were willing to soak up immense casualties. It took at least eight months to build a new fighter, assuming the workers had all the parts on hand, and it was unlikely the Americans had managed to speed up the process to any great extent. “It looks as if they’re throwing more aircraft at us than they’ve got.”

He took his seat, calming himself. The figures the spooks had provided were fuzzy at best, unfortunately, but there were hard limits. The jets on the display could not be real. Drones? Decoys? It wasn’t impossible they’d dispatched both drones and real fighters, in hopes of getting the drop on him. The American F-22 was no match for a flyer, but if the flyer pilot had to isolate the real jets from the drones – a harder task, without the ground-based sensor outposts – the American would have a chance to kill him. And with terrorist attacks right across the eastern region, it was clear this was more than just a desperate attempt to weaken his thrust north.

The display updated, again. The insurgents had come out of the woodwork, attacking police stations and sepoy garrisons ... each attack minor in itself, but pinning down men and material he urgently needed elsewhere. They’d be beaten down, of course, yet until then ... he cursed under his breath. The attack had to be stopped in its tracks and that meant he needed to act fast.

And that means I need hard data, he mused, as Abigail entered the CIC. The sensor outposts were gone. Several drones had been taken down too ... damn it. The Russians and Chinese had granted him access to their spy satellites, but none were in position to observe the battlefield. The attack had been very well timed indeed. And quickly, before I run out of time.

“Deploy one squadron of flyers to probe the combat zone,” he ordered. “They are to avoid contact with enemy aircraft as much as possible; their goal is to collect data and relay it home, not fight it out. Launch two spreads of drones to follow up ... order the sepoys to move forward, into blocking positions, and hold our troops in reserve. Ready two more squadrons of flyers to go on the offensive, once we have solid targets.”

“The flyboys will hate that,” Abigail observed. “They’ll want to go for the kill.”

“It doesn’t matter what they want,” James said, with a flash of anger. The pilots were trained to be as aggressive as possible, true, but he needed intelligence. There would be time to blow arrogant American pilots out of the air later. “Their job is to follow orders.”

His mind raced as he studied the display, thinking hard. The anticipated enemy armoured thrust from the north ... was that a deception or the real threat? Or were both threats real? The map suggested the latter and yet, the Americans knew most of his armoured units were up north. Did they realise how quickly they could move? Or were they hoping James’s armour would be caught on the hop, unable to intervene in either combat zone? It was quite possible they were, if he messed up the timing ...

Sally joined them. “What’s happening?”

“Your countrymen are launching a final desperate attack,” James said, feeling something cold trickle down his spine. The United States was on the verge of breaking. It had to be. This was their final gamble, to win or lose it all. James rather approved, even though the gamble was aimed at him. He’d see if he could recruit whoever came up with the idea afterwards. “And we are going to beat them.”

He leaned back in his chair. He’d had a fright. No doubt about it. But victory was still within his grasp.

All he had to do was wait.

***

Traitors, Sergeant Dale Roscoe thought, as he watched the sepoy base from a safe distance. It looked undermanned, from what he could see, although it was hard to be sure. The airfield had been fenced before the war, but the sepoys had dug trenches and emplaced blast-resistant barriers to protect their base as much as possible, making it difficult for him to get an accurate count. What he could see was bad enough. It looked like a light infantry formation rolling out of the gates, heading east. Fucking blasted traitors.

He gritted his teeth, hoping to hell the timing had worked out as planned. The AN/PEQ-1 Ground Laser Target Designator was supposed to be undetectable, even to Protectorate technology, but no one was quite sure. He’d been ordered not to shine it at any enemy hovertank, just to be certain it didn’t set off alarms before it was too late. That wouldn’t be a problem here, he reflected as he picked the first target and lit it up. As far as he could tell, there were no Protectorate vehicles in the base. The sepoys were driving captured Bradleys and Humvees. He keyed his second transmitter, muttering a silent prayer. The signal should go undetected in the haze of electronic noise bombarding the region, but if the techs were wrong he’d just told the enemy precisely where he was. He eyed the base warily as the enemy convoy picked up speed. If they detected his signal and sent troops to kill him, they’d come out of the base ...

***

Hundreds of miles to the east, the signal was received by the mobile missile launch crews and rapidly verified. As soon as the signal was checked, the missile launchers opened fire, unleashing dozens of missiles into the target box. Some were primitive, little more than US-designed Scuds; others were advanced, capable of launching smaller missiles themselves or scattering cluster munitions over a wide area. Behind them, glide-missiles were launched from orbiting aircraft, wrapped in stealth coating and aimed directly at the invisible laser dot on the lead Bradley. The gliders weren’t very stealthy, but they didn’t need to be. As enemy defences hastily picked out targets, aiming to protect PEF units over their sepoys, the gliders slipped through the point defence and came down hard.

There were no survivors.

***

Captain Angelica Jackson allowed herself a tight smile as she flew her Fairchild Republic A-10 Thunderbolt II – the Warthog, to nearly everyone else – across the border and into the occupied zone. She’d been briefed the enemy defences had been badly degraded, which wasn’t that reassuring when she’d nearly been killed – twice – by enemy handheld weapons; she’d been lucky, she knew all too well, that she hadn’t been flying something a little more modern. An F-22 would have exploded so violently that the pilot would have no chance to escape before it was too late.

The thought mocked her as she flew as low as she dared, keeping an eye out for possible targets. The briefing officers had cautioned her that the plan would likely go out the window the moment the enemy reacted, no matter how many times they’d wargamed the whole scenario, trying to work their way through every possible response. If the enemy did one thing, the Americans would do another ... but what if the enemy did something the United States hadn’t anticipated? It was difficult to predict everything because there was just no way to be sure they understood just what the enemy could – and would – do.

She put the thought aside as she banked to avoid a small town, a fire merrily burning in the early morning light, and kept flying west. The enemy hovertanks didn’t really need to worry about terrain, she’d been told, but their sepoys used captured American vehicles which needed bridges to cross rivers and ravines. There weren’t many routes they could follow if they wanted to block the armoured offensive, unless the enemy was already giving up. She doubted it. The Protectorate didn’t give up easily.

Her aircraft crested a small hill and ... there. A small cluster of armoured vehicles, spearheaded by a pair of Bradleys and backed up by a mobile antiaircraft vehicle she didn’t recognise. It didn’t look Protectorate ... Russian? Chinese? She’d been briefed on the latest developments in enemy military vehicles, back before the real invasion had begun, but she couldn’t recall seeing anything like it. Perhaps it was Mexican ... she shook her head, making a mental note to mention it during her briefing. The gun camera footage might come in handy ... she uncovered her trigger, then jammed her finger down and smirked as her cannon tore through the enemy vehicles, ripping them to pieces. A lone soldier managed to fire a MANPAD at her, the rocket going wide and vanishing somewhere in the distance. She saw others breaking and running, scattering as she swooped around, ready to strafe the convoy again. There was no point. The vehicles had been shredded, half burning brightly ... she thought she saw the ammunition cooking off, although it could be just a trick of the light.

She keyed her transmitter, recording a contact report before sending it and instantly altering course. The compressed message might as well have been a red flare, as far as the Protectorate was concerned. She’d told them where to find and kill her ... she put the thought aside as she turned north, looking for other targets of opportunity. The skies overhead were getting crowded, according to her passive sensors. It wouldn’t be long before the troops were moving too.

It won’t be enough, she thought, numbly. Her boyfriend was dead. God alone knew how many other people she knew, friends and enemies alike, who’d vanished somewhere during the invasion. She wanted to make the Protectorate pay ... no matter what she did, it wouldn’t be enough. But it is a good start.

***

Daisy tried not to scream as someone entered her room, all too aware she wasn’t allowed any privacy. Random inspections were just part of the job, the security officers paying little heed to her status as General Essex’s assistant. Daisy couldn’t tell if it was a flex of some kind – Protectorate politics confused the hell out of her – or if they just enjoyed the idea of searching both her person and her chamber. If they suspected her, surely they’d never have left her alone ...

“The fighting has begun,” General Essex said, quietly. Daisy forced herself to sit upright. “You need to come with me.”

Daisy nodded, gritting her teeth as she stumbled out of bed and splashed water on her face. The nightwear they’d given her was practically Victorian ... the security officers had chewed her out for wearing nothing but panties in bed, something that struck her as absolutely bizarre. Surely, they’d prefer to see her naked ... she shook her head and hurried after him, careful not to say anything out loud. The chamber was monitored too ... she wondered, idly, if they were concerned about Essex not sleeping with her. He was acting out of character now and that might attract attention ...

“The offensive has begun,” Essex said. There was something savage, and terrifying, in his voice. “Montrose pretends high confidence.”

He would, Daisy thought. Montrose had never struck her as someone who’d admit to anything other than confidence. And he might he right.

The thought mocked her. If this went wrong ... they’d both be dead. They were committed ... no, they’d been committed right from the start. And that meant they had to see it through.

Daisy let out a breath, her eyes asking a silent question. Are you ready?

Essex met her eyes, then nodded. I am.

***
“You know,” First Lieutenant Patrick MacDougal said as they confirmed their exact location and prepared to run through the launch sequence, “all jokes aside, I never expected to be launching Tomahawks at the United States.”

Captain Sir John Birmingham was tempted to agree. The special relationship between Britain and America had waxed and waned over the last two decades, mainly waned after it had become clear Britain couldn’t spare any troops for the United States after the real invasion had begun. There was no way to know where the next fortress would arrive, raising the spectre of the Protectorate invading Britain without warning, and even if Britain remained untouched by the Protectorate the racial and religious fighting on Britain's streets was keeping the army pinned down without the Protectorate having to lift a finger. He’d been surprised to receive the orders he had, a few short days ago. Modern British politicians weren’t known for their nerve.

He shrugged. “Orders are orders,” he said. The orders were very clear. HMS Ambush was to fire her Tomahawk missiles at targets within the occupied zone ... the American occupied zone. No nuclear warheads, not this time, but he doubted it would make any difference to anyone caught within the blast. “Insert your key, and turn.”

His heart skipped a beat as he turned his own key. It wasn’t the first time he’d fired missiles into a foreign country, but never an allied one ... and never against someone who could target Britain in return. The Protectorate could – and would, if they ever found out. Had they done the right thing?

Time would tell, he supposed, as the missiles flew. It always did.


***

“Sir,” Jensen said. “We have multiple reports of airstrikes against sepoy units ...”

James let out a low growl. The degraded sensor network was turning into a major problem. It was tricky to isolate the real enemy aircraft from the sensor ghosts, which meant the enemy could strike targets deep inside the occupied zone with impunity. The PEF units were better protected, thankfully, but there just weren’t enough of them to slow the advancing tide. He had to admire the American stunt. It had been perfectly timed to cause maximum pain.

“Deploy additional sensor vehicles,” he ordered. The whole network would have to be put back together again, quickly. “And then ...”

More alarms howled. James cursed as the Americans launched another wave of missiles ... from the north, from the west, even from the east. He’d hoped the Americans had run short of submarine-launched cruise missiles, but it looked as though they’d kept a few in reserve. The figures for just how many they’d had before the invasion had been a little vague too. And the missiles rising from the land were cumbersome and primitive, easy and quick to build and launch with the right tools. Accuracy would be shit, but if they fired enough it would hardly matter. Some would get through, each impact weakening his defences still further.

“Sir,” Jensen said. The alarm in her voice brought James up short. “Enemy commandos have seized bridges and road junctions.”

“A serious attack, then,” James said. Thinking otherwise had been wishful thinking ... the northern attack had to be the division. They would have dropped the bridges if they didn’t need the bridges themselves. Not that it mattered now. The eastern threat had to be stopped or they’d lose the war. And that was unthinkable. “Signal Captain King. The armoured units are to redeploy to the west, the fastest possible route, and prepare to counterattack.”

“Yes, sir.”

James barely heard her. The enemy had made one mistake ... were making one. If they wanted to go on the offensive, and it was their only way to win, they’d have to bring their tanks and aircraft onto a fast-moving mobile battleground, where he and his men would have the advantage. The Americans would hurt him, no doubt about it, but he’d cut them to ribbons and then deal with the insurgents. And then ...

He smiled, savagely. He could still turn the battle around.

And he would.

 

Chapter Thirty-Two: Western Texas, USA, Timeline F (OTL)

Captain (Armour) Jackson King read the message and swore.

There was no point in playing out a losing hand, or continuing to feed scarce resources into a battle that was already lost, but Montrose – damn the man – had been doing just that. The fighting up north had become worse than useless, from the moment the first armoured thrust had run around on the enemy’s defences, and there was no point in letting it play itself out when it would have been relatively easy to break contact, fall back and let the Americans impale themselves on the Protectorate’s defences for a turn. They could hold the line long enough to open the gate, bring in reinforcements and then teach the Americans a lesson they would never forget. But Montrose had prolonged the fighting well past the point of rationality.

He ground his teeth as he studied the display, trying not to curse in front of his men. Montrose had played the political game well. His captains couldn’t remove him as long as the PEF was engaged in open combat and Montrose had made certain the fighting would go on indefinitely. There was no way to act against him, no way even to pull back and hold the line without risking charges of mutiny ... their superiors would likely hang them if they did, no matter the cause. Montrose was proving himself to be a better politician than a general and yet, no politician could alter the facts on the ground by willpower alone. The Americans were pressing in from the west and that meant Flint itself, and Castle Treakwick, was under threat.

And he had his orders.

“Signal Captains Danish and Lambert,” he ordered, curtly. There was one advantage to the growing crisis and that was that the Americans were on the offensive, instead of hiding behind their defences. Their tanks would encounter the might of three armoured regiments in a mobile engagement, where the Protectorate would hold all the cards. “Their regiments are to form up on us and prepare to redeploy west.”

He tapped commands into the display, drawing out a straight line between the northern front and the new eastern front. The enemy might not realise it, not yet, but Cromwell hovertanks could move at terrifying speed. They’d get to the eastern front faster than anything the Americans had in their inventory, ready to stop the enemy in their tracks before they could reach Flint. It wouldn’t even be close.

His operator looked up. “Sir, Captains Danish and Lambert report they’re ready to move.”

Jackson nodded. They’d been lucky, he supposed, that all three armoured regiments had been pulled back to prepare for another charge. It would have been a great deal harder to break contact if they were under fire and the Americans, skilled warriors despite their technological inferiority, wouldn’t have been inclined to let them disengage without a fight. Their communications grid was a wreck, but their officers would probably know what was intended and act accordingly. It was his one piece of good luck in an otherwise disastrous engagement.

“Signal the infantry, order them to hold the line,” Jackson added. Montrose hadn’t ordered them to slow the advance, let alone stop completely, but ... to hell with him. The PEF didn’t have the resources to fight on two fronts, not any longer. There was no point in bleeding the infantry trying to force an opening they lacked the forces to exploit. “We’ll be back shortly.”

And if Montrose wants to countermand me, he added silently, he can damn well put it on the record.

He leaned back in his chair, pulling his headset back down as the hovertanks wheeled around and started heading south-east. The Americans were good, but they couldn’t imagine how quickly the PEF could react. They were restricted to roads and rough terrain, their tanks and armoured vehicles partly dependent on bridges ... his tanks didn’t have that weakness. He told himself that, time and time again, as his regiment picked up speed, the other two spreading out as they roared after him. A handful of contact reports popped up in front of him, more insurgents behind the lines, but he dismissed them with a shrug. The insurgents would need heavier weapons to do more than scratch his tanks and they simply didn’t have enough. It galled him to just ignore the insurgents, but his priorities lay elsewhere. It wasn’t as if they posed a threat. There would be time to deal with them later.

And Montrose too, he told himself. They were mounting a final breakneck charge into the unknown ... it would go down in history, although there was no way to tell – yet – if it would be treated as heroism or a cautionary tale. When this engagement is over, we are going to have words.

He gritted his teeth. Montrose would be removed. He would see to it personally. And history would be his judge.

***

“They’re coming,” Judy Walker breathed.

“Yeah,” Specialist Thomas Zackary said. “Get down and stay down.”

He ignored her protests as he put his decidedly-primitive binoculars to his eyes and peered west. The enemy hovertanks were moving at terrifying speed, racing towards him in a formation that would be a Warthog pilot’s wet dream ... if they didn’t mount enough point defence to make the dream become a nightmare within seconds. He’d seen hovertanks casually shooting shells out of the air, their formations bunched up to provide a tempting target ... he wasn’t sure if it had been deliberate or not, but it hardly mattered. The results had spoken for themselves.

And they won’t be alone either, he reminded himself. The enemy used drones freely, from automated platforms bigger than an F-22 to tiny devices that were difficult to see with the naked eye. The formation would be surrounded by automated servants, watching for threats and primed to respond to anything that even looked dangerous with overwhelming force. If we tried to stop them conventionally, we’d be lucky if we did any damage at all.

He took a breath. The scheme had sounded like madness, when he’d been asked to volunteer, and now ... it felt like suicide. The enemy had behaved as predicted and that meant ...

I’m sorry, he thought. Judy had told him she was terminally ill, that her adult children were safe up north ... it was why she’d joined the insurgency even before the counteroffensive had begun in earnest. She didn’t deserve to die and yet ... she’d volunteered. Thomas couldn’t help admiring her nerve, even though suicide was a mortal sin. Was it still suicide if you gave your life in the defence of others? If things were different ...

Thomas took another breath. The enemy tanks were entering the killzone now. Someone had drawn a line on the map, a straight line between the two fronts, and argued the hovertanks would take that route when they moved to cut off the eastern offensive. Thomas hadn’t been so sure, although the argument had made a certain kind of sense. It had struck him as yet another REMF trying to be clever and failing miserably, because no amount of fancy book-learning could make up for practical experience. But it seemed the REMF wasn’t such a fool after all.

He muttered a quick prayer, then pushed down hard on the detonator. The world went white ...

***

James flinched as the alarms howled, again. “Nuclear detonation! Nuclear detonation!”

“Report,” he said, as calmly as he could. He’d expected at least a handful of the missiles to be nuclear-tipped, although the Americans had expended many of their warheads during the last major engagement. A nuclear strike on Houston or San Antonia would be disastrous and, with everything at stake, the Americans might discard their reluctance to fire on large bodies of their own civilians. “What happened …?”

The display resolved. James froze. The detonation – perhaps more than one – had been in the north ...

“Sir,” Jensen managed. “They nuked the armoured regiments.”

James couldn’t speak. The Americans must have slipped a tactical nuke over the border and ... maybe more than one. It wasn’t impossible, no matter how many drones and sensors he deployed to cover regions he couldn’t afford to garrison properly. Their backpack nukes had been a very real concern from the moment he’d realised the Americans had them, because with proper shielding the Americans might be able to get them close enough to do real damage ... his mind caught up a second later, the full immensity of the disaster dawning on him. Hovertanks were tough, designed to survive modern war, but they’d been far too close to the blasts for anyone’s peace of mind. The vehicles themselves might have survived – he told himself that, desperately – but the crews would likely have been killed. And the drones orbiting the formation had been swatted out of the air ...

Disaster, he thought, numbly. The enemy had outthought him. They’d worked out how he’d react, when he heard about the eastern front, and planned their own actions around him. Three armoured regiments, most of his armour ... effectively gone. The hovertanks certainly couldn’t be recovered and manned in a hurry. Disaster.

Sally cleared her throat. “What ...?”

“Be quiet.” James felt a hot flash of anger that had nothing to do with the disaster unfolding in front of him. The enemy had hurt him, hurt him badly, and it had all been his fault. If he’d acted with a little more restraint ... “Speak when you’re spoken too.”

He heard her make a noise behind him – it sounded like a choked-off sob – and ignored it as he studied the display. The live feed from the drones near the nuclear detonation was gone, of course. The more distant sensors weren’t producing anything useful ... of course not. They were hardened against EMP, as well as several other tricks the enemy didn’t even know existed, but they were too far from the blast zone to do more than offer a vague idea of what was going on. The hovertanks might have been wiped out or they might just have been knocked out of the command datanet ... no. That was wishful thinking. The armoured regiments had taken one hell of a beating. Even in the best-case scenario, they wouldn’t be combat effective for quite some time.

“Deploy flyers and drones,” he ordered. The war couldn’t be over. The war wasn’t over. He still had cards to play. “I want hard intelligence, as quickly as possible.”

“Yes, sir,” Jensen said.

James forced himself to think, coldly and logically. The enemy knew they’d hurt him ... even if they didn’t know how badly. They wouldn’t let up now. He could easily imagine two enemy thrusts, one from the west and one from the north, converging slowly on Flint ... the insurgents, of course, regaining control of the cities and towns as his troops, sepoys and foreign allies were pulled out. And that meant the war was within shouting distance of being lost.

No. It was unthinkable.

He tapped his terminal. “Abigail, order Catherine to strike now,” he said, coldly. One final gamble, all or nothing. “And then deploy the attack package as planned.”

There was a long pause. “Sir, her plans are ...”

“That’s an order,” James snapped. There was no more time for dreary tradecraft. There was no more time to make sure of her targets. There was no more time! “Tell her it’s now or never!”

There was another pause. James braced himself, on the verge of ordering the MPs to arrest the spook and then issuing the order himself. The spooks prided themselves on being clever, on preparing the ground perfectly before taking action ... there was no time. If they could seize control of the American government, they could order the offensive cancelled ... he could still win! He had to. Defeat was unthinkable.

“Yes, sir,” Abigail said. “But I ...”

James cut her off. “You have your orders,” he snarled. “See to it.”

The connection closed. James turned his attention back to the display. The drones were already probing the edge of the nuclear detonation, trying to pick out the remains of the armoured regiments ... he cursed under his breath, low and harsh. Jackson King had been a rival, a potential challenger ... if he’d been killed alone, James would have said all the right things in public and privately gloated. King’s successor wouldn’t have become a threat immediately. But now ... King was dead – or out of contact, part of James’s mind whispered – and his regiment was gone. Two others were gone with him ...

They can’t all be gone, he thought, numbly. They can’t!

Sally caught his eye. “James ...”

James slapped her instinctively, smacking the back of his hand across her face. She stumbled backwards, her eyes going wide with shock. It hadn’t been hard, by his standards, but for someone like her ... someone who lacked a strong male figure to guide her, someone who had grown old without ever growing up, it had to be painful. It had to be ...

“Go back to my quarters and wait there,” he snapped. He’d given her too much leeway, if she was questioning him in public. The military situation was degrading by the second, the political situation reliant on a final desperate gamble ... there was no time. “Go!”

Sally stared at him, her lip wobbling as if she were going to cry, then turned and stumbled off. James dismissed her from his thoughts. If she wanted to act like a child, he’d treat her as one. Children weren’t quite meant to be seen and not heard, not even in the most traditional regions of the Protectorate, but they weren’t taken very seriously. No child had the experience and maturity to deal well with the unexpected, nor the insight to truly understand the world. A child had the excuse, at least, of being a child. Sally was an adult. She should damn well act like one.

James took a long breath. He wanted – he needed – to pull off a victory, no matter how slight, before he risked reopening the gate. He had no doubt the vultures were already circling, plotting how best to knife him in the back despite the ongoing military crisis, and they’d jump as one the moment the gate opened. They’d blame everything on him and his enemies back home would pretend to believe it, no matter how absurd it was. No. It could not be abided. He needed a victory. And yet ...

“Contact the gate crew,” he ordered, reluctantly. “They are to begin the power-up sequence.”

Jensen looked relieved. “Yes, sir.”

James eyed her back as she turned away. A coward? A traitor? His hand itched. He could draw his sidearm and put a bullet through her head ... no. She was no traitor. She was just unprepared for military disaster. It hadn’t happened since ... James wasn’t sure. The Second Global War? Perhaps. Small units ran into trouble all the time, when they bloodied themselves against degenerate states and tribes, but a full-sized army? It hadn’t happened in his lifetime. Given the Protectorate’s superiority, and its willingness to drop KEWs first and ask questions later, it would require a commander who actively wanted to lose.

But there were no orbital weapons platforms here. He was alone.

***

Sally had never been struck.

Corporal punishment might be legal in Texas, but her parents had never spanked her and her teachers had never paddled her. None of her boyfriends had ever hit her ... the idea she could be hit had never quite seemed real to her, not when no one ever had. She had many complaints about her parents and teachers, yet use of force wasn’t amongst them ...

And Montrose had hit her.

It wasn’t just the pain. She’d had worse when she’d twisted her ankle on the playing field. It was the fact it had been cold and deliberate and ... her thoughts ran in circles. He’d struck her. He’d struck her. He’d ...

Ice congealed in her heart. She’d known it was a gamble, right from the start, but ... she’d thought she could win. She’d thought she could make herself useful. And she had. She’d practically created the Manpower Services Commission; she’d rounded up thousands upon thousands of Americans with useful skills, putting them to work for the Protectorate and herself. She’d seen it as both an exercise in empire-building and a way to prove she was worth keeping around, in a way that sharing Montrose’s bed couldn’t match. It had been a dream, a dream of power. And now it had become a nightmare.

He’d hit her. He could do anything to her. It was ... she’d read, once, about a case in which someone had signed a contract allowing the other party to hurt them, part of a silly BSDM game that had turned into a nightmare too. But that hadn’t been real ... not really. They could leave at any moment. She ... she was trapped. There was no one outside the Protectorate who would help her, no one who would do anything but kill her ... if she was lucky. She had more than just a price on her head. If the insurgents caught her, she’d be raped and murdered and ...

And the counteroffensive was finally underway. If Montrose lost ... it would be the end. Her name was a byword for treachery now, her name the new Benedict Arnold. No one would name Arnold when they could name Sally Luanne. Arnold had had reasons, good reasons, to turn on Congress. He might have been remembered as a hero if he’d made it work. What excuse did she have? What excuse would be accepted? Her life was over and ... there was nowhere to go. It was over.

Sally curled up on the bed and wept.

 

Chapter Thirty-Three: Front Lines, North Texas, USA, Timeline F (OTL)

“That’s confirmed, sir,” Sergeant Skinner said, making a note on the map. “We have at least one nuclear detonation.”

Major-General Rishi Singh nodded, wondering just what had happened to the world that a nuclear detonation on American soil had suddenly become commonplace. The United States had used nukes twice, to end the war with Japan, and never again ... until now. There’d been a whole bunch of detonations in the Middle East and a handful down south ... how many nukes were even left? He had no idea, but he feared the worst. The United States might be running out of nuclear warheads.

He took a breath. “Can you confirm they hit the target?”

“No, sir,” Skinner said. “We’ve lost contact with everyone in the target zone. If anyone has eyes on the scene, there’s no way to get in touch with them.”

Rishi nodded, again. The communications network had been crippled. Even the primitive landlines, carefully isolated from anything important, were damaged. There was no way to know what was going on down south, no way to know if the operation was proceeding smoothly ... no way to know just how badly they’d hurt the enemy. Nukes were dangerous, true, yet they weren’t all-destroying. The enemy might not be as badly hurt as he hoped.

But they had been knocked back, hard. The time had come to finish it.

“Send a runner to Group Seventeen,” he ordered. “My compliments to Captain Underwood and he is authorised to fire when ready.”

“Aye, sir,” Skinner said.

“And then pass the word,” Rishi added. “We’re going on the offensive.”

“Aye, sir.”

***

Captain Sergei Underwood allowed himself a tight smile when the runner arrived, gabbling out a message as he’d gasped for breath. He hadn’t thought much of the scheme, when it had first been explained to him, but he had to admit it had worked better than he’d expected. His command might be rough and crude, lacking the flair of a properly-organised military unit, and he dreaded to think what his old drill instructor would say ... yet it didn’t matter. The only thing that mattered was hitting the enemy and that was what he intended to do.

His smile grew wider as he surveyed his command. Thirty-seven trucks, all covered with tarpaulins, all seemingly harmless in a combat zone dominated by tanks, armoured fighting vehicles and even a handful of makeshift radar-guided point defence units. They looked like something out of Iraq, when the insurgents had bolted metal plating to civilian vehicles in a bid to turn them into something that might pass for an armoured truck, but ... they simply didn’t look that dangerous. Perhaps that was why they’d drawn so little fire. He’d lost three vehicles over the last few days, but he’d expected to lose a great deal more.

“Deploy the missiles,” he ordered, sharply. The enemy drones were good. The moment they took the tarpaulins off the trucks, they’d likely recognise the threat and zero in. Time was no longer on their side. “Fire on my command.”

He took a breath, hoping to hell the idea worked. The concept looked good on paper, but they always did. It had taken months of work to build the missile launchers - Katyusha missile launchers; the name had been unavoidable - often building the tools to build the tools before starting work on the launchers themselves, and he knew the program had consumed resources that could have been used more profitably elsewhere. The Katyushas had never been known for accuracy and there were plenty of more modern systems that were. But they were cheap, simple, and fired enough rockets to be fairly certain of hitting something ...

“Fire,” he snapped.

The trucks fired in unison, launching hundreds of makeshift missiles over the American lines and straight into the Protectorate line. They seemed to scream as they flew, the sound striking terror into the hearts of enemy and friend alike. Sergei smirked as the racket grew louder. The enemy tanks might or might not been withdrawn, depriving the Protectorate troops of much of their point defence, but there were so many missiles it would be hard for the enemy to stop them all before they crashed down hard. Other launchers, further back, hurled Scud-like missiles; bigger and heavier, carrying enough explosive to really ruin their day. Sergei had no idea how quickly the enemy could pick out individual missiles and prioritise them for destruction, given just how many missiles there were in the air, but ... they were bound to hit something. The enemy would be rocked back on their heels, so violently it might knock them all the way back to Flint. Or even further.

He didn’t have to snap any further commands. The crews were already starting their engines, hastily moving away before the enemy could return fire. The Protectorate would have no trouble tracing the rockets back to their launchers and blasting them to hell ... speed was their only defence now. The secondary positions had already been prepared, new missile loads laid out, ready to be crammed into the launchers. The original Katyusha had been a pain to reload, from what he’d read; the American designers had managed to streamline the reloading process, cutting it down sharply. His men would be ready to return to the battle in only fifteen minutes. And then they’d kick the invaders out of their country.

***

Captain Tobias Hawkweed cursed out loud as he watched disaster unfold in front of him.

The tanks were gone. The infantry fighting vehicles lacked the heavy point defence lasers they needed to swat down even a handful of the incoming missiles, forcing him to rely on smaller and weaker systems even as his counterbattery units tried to return fire. Standard electronic warfare was completely ineffective ... it took him a moment to realise the missiles were really nothing more than glorified shells, scattered over the battlefield in a manner that might as well be random. They were literally too dumb to fool.

His mind raced as more alerts popped up in front of him. The second barrage was smaller than the first, thankfully, but the missiles were larger. Some heading for the CP and others further behind the lines ... it looked as if one was going to come down right on top of the field hospital. The Americans probably didn’t know it, but ... he breathed a sigh of relief as the missile vanished from the display. And then more alerts came in ...

“Signal the infantry,” he ordered. The sepoys and foreigners were already taking a beating. A number of units had been destroyed or knocked off the command net ... probably destroyed. The survivors, if they had any sense, would be trying to make their way south or preparing to surrender ... if the Americans were in the mood to take prisoners. “They are to withdraw southwards immediately. The sepoys are to hold the line as long as possible.”

“Sir?”

“Do it,” Tobias snapped. It was shameful, a betrayal of allies and servants who had served loyally. There would be no easy recovery, no easy way to convince future allies that the Protectorate would keep it’s word. Their name would be mud. Who would blame potential allies for shying away? “There’s no time to argue!”

He cursed, again. His men would have to run in the open ... which would make them vulnerable to a second missile strike. The missiles couldn’t carry big warheads, according to the minibrains, but they’d still kill anyone unlucky enough to be within the blast radius. How many were already dead? Dozens ... hundreds ...?

The console lit up. James Montrose stared at him. “What are you doing?”

“This position has become untenable, sir,” Tobias said, curtly. Montrose had led them to disaster. “I’m salvaging what I can before it is too late.”

“Hold the line,” Montrose snapped. “The war is not yet over ...”

“There is no line!” Tobias surprised himself by shouting. It was all he could do to speak calmly. “Sir, the line is cracking. They’re hitting us everywhere, pushing us back ... we can’t hold, not strung out as we are. They’ll find a weak spot and hit it with everything they have and we will break! We have to fall back now, while we still can ...”

“Hold the line,” Montrose repeated.

Tobias hesitated. There was a right way and a wrong way to challenge one’s superiors, in the Protectorate, and doing it in the middle of a battle was very definitely wrong. He found it hard to care. The line was crumbling, on the verge of breaking ... if they lost the infantry as well as the tanks, the war would be lost too. He didn’t know how long it would take to open the gate and even if it went off without a hitch, it would take time for reinforcements to get organised. Was there an entire army on the far side, waiting for the gate to open, or had the PEF been written off completely? It wasn’t unthinkable any longer.

“No, sir,” he said. “I am falling back to Line Gamma. And we can hold there for ...”

“Stay in your place,” Montrose snapped. “That’s an order.”

Tobias shook his head. “No, sir,” he said. “Goodbye.”

He tapped the terminal, cutting the connection. “All units are to retreat, as ordered,” he said, curtly. Montrose would have him shot ... would try. If the gate opened, Tobias would be judged by the Protectorate Council; if not, the Americans would likely kill him anyway. He didn’t care. He wanted to get his men out of the nightmare before it was too late. “I say again, all units are to retreat as ordered.”

“Yes, sir.”

***

All along the line, they waited.

American soldiers: some combat lifers; others new to the uniform. The 1st Marine Division rubbed shoulders with the 3rd Infantry Division, the 101st Airborne Division shared space with the 442nd Regimental Combat Team. Some had faced the enemy before, a dozen times over, and knew nothing about the forthcoming operation would be easy; others had never faced danger before and relished the challenge, even though they knew they might not live to see tomorrow. Weapons were checked and rechecked, as missiles and shells pounded the enemy positions; officers braced themselves to lead men into battle while men watched and prayed and silently composed letters to families and friends, letters that might never be delivered.

There had been no official announcement, no suggestion the operation was anything other than a limited counterattack, but the men knew it was something different. Something special. Their country had been invaded, thousands of their comrades killed in the first hopeless battles and hundreds of thousands, perhaps millions, of civilians killed or enslaved or displaced. They wanted to drive the enemy out once and for all, to destroy them so completely the threat could never return. And now ...

The command was given. The Americans surged forward.

And the Protectorate line broke.

***

“They’re coming,” someone shouted. “They’re coming!”

Miguel looked up, sharply. He’d managed to avoid being ordered back to the front through the simple expedient of making himself as useful as possible to the medical staff, but now ... his heart skipped a beat as he saw dozens of hover vehicles heading south, heading away from the battlefield. Men followed, Protectorate men. And that meant ...

He looked north. Smoke was rising ... a lot of smoke. A flash of light lit up the air for a long moment, followed by a fireball and a low rumble of thunder. No, not thunder. He thought he saw an aircraft in the sky for a long moment, before it was gone and ... he shook his head as he stepped into the tent. The camp was far too close to the front lines for comfort and if they were breaking ... what then?

Tessa was sitting up on the mattress as he hurried over to her, her face sweaty and a nasty bandage over her right breast. “What’s happening?”

“They’re coming,” Miguel said. He didn’t know what the Americans would do to them, if they surrendered, but he doubted they’d be gentle. The Russians had poisoned that well pretty damn thoroughly. “We need to move.”

His mind raced as he helped her to her feet, then half-carried her out of the tent. His duty was ... what? He didn’t know. His unit was gone – he was certainly no longer in contact with his superiors – and he had no orders. If there was anyone who could give him orders ... what would they say? Fight to the death? Laughable. He had a rifle and a pistol ... did they expect him to face down the American juggernaut with what little ammunition he had on hand? Did he owe them anything now?

Ice congealed in his heart. Carmen, Mariana, Santiago ... all miles to the south, all unaware of the nightmare bearing down on them. He had to go to them, whatever the risk ... he had to get Tessa out too. She was an American citizen ... perhaps Miguel would be spared, being a Mexican rather than an American, but Tessa was a traitor. If they caught her, they’d kill her. Or lock her up and throw away the key.

He stumbled into the vehicle pool and stopped, dead. There’d been dozens of vehicles yesterday ... now, only a handful remained. The officers were fleeing, leaving the doctors and their patients behind. One was manned, a car that had clearly seen better days. The driver, a wide-eyed sepoy, stared at them. Miguel didn’t have time to talk. He pointed his pistol at the driver and motioned for him to get out. The man staggered out and practically fell to the ground. Miguel nearly shot him anyway. He wasn’t sure why he didn’t. It wasn’t as if they could kill him twice.

“Get in,” he snapped. The driver had left the keys in the ignition. “Hurry.”

He started the engine as more thunder rumbled behind him and drove south, through gates that had been guarded only a few short hours ago and now were completely unmanned. The collapse had happened faster than he’d feared ... what the hell were they thinking, abandoning the wounded? Did they think the Americans would care for them? Or did they think there was no point in trying to evacuate the medical centre?

Tessa was shaking. “What do we do now?”

Miguel hesitated. The car had an inbuilt GPS, but it was useless. The satellite links were down. There was a cellphone ... he turned it off, hoping to hell it would be enough to keep someone from tracking the car. If a roving drone spotted them, they might be blown to hell before they even knew they were under attack. Or a band of insurgents bent on bloody revenge. Or American troops. Or ...

“I have to find my family,” he said. If he kept driving south, he should be able to make his way back to the new town. He didn’t think anyone had taken down the signs. “You ... you need to get the hell out of dodge.”

Tessa laughed, bitterly. “And go where?”

Miguel had no idea. If the Americans captured the Protectorate’s databases, they’d have a complete list of sepoys, semi-willing collaborators and outright traitors. Tessa wasn’t that important, in the grand scheme of things, but there was no reason to think she wouldn’t be hanged. Even if they didn’t ... someone might ask questions, starting with just what she was doing a long way from El Paso. The bullet wound was a dead giveaway she hadn’t been working in the chain gangs, or lying flat on her back in the brothels ...

“You can come with us,” he said. His plan wasn’t very well formed, but he couldn’t think of anything better. Get back to the new city, grab his wife and kids, head south and get across the border before it was sealed off. He still had family in Mexico. They’d hide him ... if he managed to get there. Tessa would be more of a challenge, but it wasn’t insurmountable. She’d hardly be the only black person in Mexico. “Or ... I don’t know.”

He saw the fear in her eyes and winced inwardly. What other choice did she have? Surrender and hope her captors were merciful? Try to pass herself off as a press-ganged worker? Try to make it home and hope no one ever found her file, in the captured database? Or kill herself now and save her countrymen the cost of a rope? A nasty little whisper ran through his mind – it would be better to kill her myself, then let Carman lay eyes on her – only to be dismissed a second later. He’d been through too much with Tessa to turn on her like that. He just couldn’t.

Thunder rumbled, behind him. He gunned the engine. They had to put as much distance as they could between themselves and the Americans, before it was too late. His instructors had told him that the first 24-48 hours of any invasion and occupation were always the most dangerous ... he hadn’t needed the invaders to tell him that. It was something he’d learnt from growing up in a place where gang warfare was epidemic and picking the wrong side, at the wrong time, could lead to death or worse. The irony mocked him. He’d taken his family out to save them from random rape and murder and now ...

“I’ll come with you,” Tessa said, finally. “There’s nowhere else for me?”

Miguel saw something overhead, gone so quickly he might have been able to convince himself, under other circumstances, that he’d imagined it. An aircraft? A drone? Friendly or hostile ...

No. There were no friendlies now. They were alone.

 

Chapter Thirty-Four: Washington DC, USA, Timeline F (OTL)

Catherine swore, out loud.

Washington was a big city. Assuming the President remained within Washington DC, and if she were in charge of his security she would have urged him to go elsewhere and to hell with what the politicians and public thought of it, there were hundreds upon hundreds of possible hiding places, some almost certainly completely off the books. The enemy hadn’t realised just how exposed their systems were, at least at first, and she’d downloaded terabytes of classified information before they’d cracked down hard, but it was still difficult to pick out even a handful of probable hiding places. There were just too many possibilities. The minibrains were hacking and scanning, drawing in data from all over the city, but there was just no way to be sure the data was reliable. The minibrains were incredibly smart, yet garbage in garbage out was a universal rule. If someone had tainted the data flow, the conclusions would be worse than useless.

But orders were orders. She had to act now.

She swore, again, as she jumped to her feet and hurried to Remington’s study. Montrose wasn’t given to panic, which meant the tone of his orders was all the more alarming. The enemy had gone on the offensive and if Montrose was ordering her to act now, instead of laying the final pieces for a violent and yet seamless coup ... they were about to run out of time. The war had to be going badly ... she hesitated, just for a second, outside the office door. She could leave, easily enough. She was a trained infiltrator. She could vanish into the underground, taking advantage of her technology and skills to find a hiding place... perhaps even build a power base she could offer to the next invasion force, when it finally arrived. It would be easy to just walk out and vanish, leaving Remington to his fate. The commando team could bug out too ...

No. She owed Montrose too much to desert him now. And besides, they might still pull it off.

She pushed the door open and scowled. Remington was sitting behind his desk, drinking. He looked terrible, unsurprisingly. She’d had to lay down the law when the commando team arrived, putting him on restriction and locking his staff in the basement. They’d have to be shipped to another world, once the war was over, just to make sure there were no rumours about just what happened when Remington became the President and opened communications with the Protectorate. It was unfortunate, but she found it hard to care. They could have ratted out their master at any moment.

“I need the President’s exact location, now,” she snapped. There was no more time. “Call your allies and find him.”

Remington stared at her. “But I’m not the next in line ...”

“You will be.” Catherine cut him off, ruthlessly. The air and missile strikes were already on their way, one final bombardment ... the remaining hypersonics had been held in reserve for just such a contingency, to wipe out everyone who happened to be on the Presidential line of succession. Remington would become President by default, in the middle of utter chaos. The sheer scale of the disaster would make it harder for anyone to start asking questions until it was far too late. “Call your allies now and find him!”

Remington stared at her for a long moment, then reached for the phone. The landline was supposed to be secure ... in a way, it was. Catherine had to admire the cunning of whoever had designed the system. It was so primitive that trying to use it to hack enemy databases would probably set off alarms right across the city. Whoever had come up with the idea deserved credit, perhaps even a place in the new order. Not like Remington. She watched him dial a number, keeping the disgust off her face. He wouldn’t last long, once the Protectorate was firmly in control. She’d cut his cowardly throat herself and she’d enjoy every last moment of it. He was just ... a degenerate.

And that was all he’d ever be.

***

“I have to speak to the President,” Thaddeus said. “I need to meet with him urgently.”

Sweat prickled down his back as he spoke. He was a Senator and he was on the President’s Cabinet and he was so well-connected that he had friends, allies, clients and informers scattered all over Washington, but there were limits to what he could ask without setting off red alarms. This wasn’t insider training, the kind of thing that caused a stink even though everyone in Washington knew everyone did it; it was something far worse. Thaddeus hadn’t paid that much attention in law school – his family connections had ensured he never had to work for a living – but he recalled enough to mentally list all the crimes he was committing and their penalties. If he stepped over the line ...

But he’d done that long ago, before the invasion. Catherine had him by the balls and she knew it. If the recordings got out ... he’d claim they were deepfakes, of course, but it wouldn’t be that hard to prove they’d been made before the invasion. Hell, it might not even matter. A handful of government officials and elected representatives had been lynched because of deepfakes, none real and yet all very convincing. He might be murdered by a mob convinced he’d done the things he'd done ... or simply told there was no future for him in politics. And he couldn’t face up to what he’d done.

“It’s urgent,” he said. He was grasping for words, trying to put together an argument. “I have to meet with him at once.”

He ran through a handful of contacts, men who might know the secret. None did ... or they were lying, hiding the truth from him. A surge of anger ran through him ... all he’d done for them, when they’d become his clients, and they betrayed him now? It was too much. When he was President ... shame raged through him, tinged with the grim realisation there was no way out. He was doomed to be a puppet, a President whose strings were pulled by a ruthless operator, or hanged for crimes that had seemed so right, once upon a time. He was too weak to live, he realised numbly, and too frightened to die. Catherine wouldn’t kill him. She’d expose him instead. And that would be the end.

“The President will be addressing the nation in two hours,” a client said. He was in the Secret Service, although an administrator rather than a protective agent. “He’ll be making the speech from the government broadcasting centre ...”

Remington barely heard the rest of the man’s words. The relief was so strong it nearly sent him to his knees. He knew where the broadcasting centre was, knew where the President would be ... it would do. It would have to do. The President had to be there ... of course he’d be there. The broadcast had to be live, to make it harder for anyone to tamper with the message, and it couldn’t be made from the bunker because that might reveal its exact location.

“Thank you,” he said, his voice shaking. “I’ll meet the President there.”

He put the phone down and looked at Catherine. “He’ll be at the broadcasting centre in two hours,” he said. “Will that suffice?”

Catherine gave him a long considering look. “Yes,” she said, finally. “It will.”

She started to turn away, then paused. “I suggest you prepare for government,” she added, darkly. “When they come for you, you must go with them at once. Don’t let them secure the house.”

Thaddeus nodded, hating himself. “Yes. Of course.”

***

Catherine turned and hurried down the corridor, her minibrains already factoring the new information into their calculations. The President would be at the broadcasting centre ... Catherine rather doubted it, not when the hypersonics were already heading towards their targets. The enemy communications network might be battered, but there was no way to keep Washington from learning a number of officials had been killed. No close-protection team worthy of the name would let the President go to the broadcasting centre after much of his cabinet, and the line of succession, had been wiped out. They’d take him somewhere else instead.

But he can’t be too far from the broadcasting centre, she mused. The minibrains were still working, querying everything from the power distribution network to motorbike messengers and pre-war pizza delivery orders. Analysis was often nothing more than spotting patterns in the data and minibrains were very good at crunching the numbers, seeing connections few human minds would notice or take seriously. It was just possible they’d pick out a connection. There aren’t many places they can put him ...

A possibility popped up in front of her. An underground complex, partly off the books ... a series of odd little transactions, unremarkable individually yet collectively pointing to the existence of yet another government bunker. Close enough to the White House to serve as a bolthole, far enough to give the President time to escape if the shit hit the fan. It wasn’t a solid possibility, and the data was nowhere near as hard as she would have wished, but there weren’t many other potential targets. If she were wrong ...

She put the thought aside as she entered the dining room, once the heart of Washington's social scene and now a makeshift barracks for a commando team. Ten commandos ... it would have to do. All her careful planning would have to be discarded. It hadn’t survived contact with the enemy. She put the thought out of her mind as she briefed Lieutenant Alistair and his team on the situation. They would just have to cope with the new reality.

“You’re sure the target is there?” Lieutenant Alistair didn’t seem convinced. “You don’t have solid proof ...”

“No,” Catherine agreed. There was no point in arguing when he was right. “But there are few other potential locations, for a President.”

She watched him mull it over, wondering if he’d call the mission off. It was technically within his remit, if he thought the missile was impossible even for a commando team. They lacked any solid data, let alone fire support ... there was no way they could call troops from Texas or New York to back them up. They couldn’t even try to take out the President with a missile strike or nuke the whole city! They had to know the target was dead.

Lieutenant Alistair nodded, slowly. “We’ll move now,” he said. “Will you be accompanying us?”

“No,” Catherine said. “I’ll have to stay and supervise.”

She sighed, inwardly. Officially, she was Remington’s niece ... if a niece the rest of his family would be surprised to know existed. The Secret Service would have to be forced to take her with them, when they arrived to swear Remington in and take him to a secure location. That was going to be tricky. All her contingency plans had been swept away by the sudden crisis. And that meant ...

“Thanks,” Lieutenant Alistair said. She couldn’t tell if he was relieved or annoyed. “With our shield or on it.”

“Make sure you confirm his death,” Catherine said. “And good luck.”

***

“The first reports are in, Mr President,” General Grey said. “The enemy line appears to be breaking.”

Felix let out a sigh of relief. Modern America had little tolerance for military operations that were anything other than short and victorious and cheap. A long drawn-out operation, no matter how successful, would be deemed a failure; the loss of a single life, no matter the cause, would draw criticism even if the overall operation had been spectacularly successful. He didn’t know how Lincoln, Roosevelt and even Johnston had managed to stay in office ... but then, they’d lived and worked in a very different environment. Lincoln had been the greatest American President of all time, in Felix’s opinion, but he wouldn’t have a hope of being elected in the modern era. The skills for being elected were very different from the skills for being a good leader.

He put the thought aside and leaned forward, studying the map. The nuclear detonations were ... he shook his head, wondering just when he’d become so blasé about nuclear detonations on American soil. How many Americans had been caught in the blast? Thousands had fled their homes, true, but thousands remained ... there would be a reckoning after the war, he was sure, as the country came to terms with everything that had happened. Lincoln hadn’t lived to see Reconstruction, to struggle with the problem of rebuilding the country in the wake of a devastating war ... Lincoln hadn’t made many major mistakes, Felix thought, but nominating Andrew Johnston as Vice President had been the worst of them. The man had practically thrown away all the gains of the war, and for what?

“The lead spearheads are pushing towards Flint now,” General Grey said. “The enemy appears to be trying to retreat, with varying levels of success. We’re overrunning sizable numbers of sepoys and foreign troops right now ...”

Felix looked up. “Abandoning them to save their own skins?”

“It looks that way,” General Grey said. “Most of the foreigners are surrendering.”

“Good.” Felix rubbed his forehead. There would have to be a reckoning. Some would have committed war crimes ... they would be hanged. Others were guilty of nothing more than obeying orders. Their countries would have to pay the price for sending them. “Remind the troops to take them into custody, if possible. All of them. We’ll sort the guilty from the innocent after the war.”

“Yes, Mr President,” General Grey said. His tone became a gentle reminder. “We do have contingency plans for dealing with prisoners.”

Felix nodded. “We’ll deal with the sepoys too,” he said. “And the rest of the occupied zone.”

He closed his eyes for a long moment, trying not to think about the enormity of the task ahead. The Protectorate had taken most of Texas and New York, forcing local governments, police forces and countless civilians to collaborate. Some would be outright traitors, others had been forced to serve through threats to their families ... how many, he asked himself, would be murdered by the locals before they could be tried and punished by the courts? Too many. There would be accusations and counteraccusations and ... it would be a horrible ghastly mess. And it was his problem to solve ...

The door burst open. Felix’s hand was halfway to his pistol before realising it was two Secret Service agents. “Mr President, the enemy has launched a series of coordinated decapitation strikes,” the leader snapped. “We have to get you out of here!”

Felix’s mind raced. The bunker was supposed to be secure, although there was no such thing as total safety when he needed to remain in touch with the rest of the government and the military. He could have found a nice safe house and hidden there, at the price of rendering himself totally ineffectual. His position as President would become nothing more than an empty title, if he could neither send orders nor receive reports. And if the war went very badly, he would be dragged out and shot. Saddam Hussein had been reduced to cowering in a hole by the time he’d been caught, and then he’d been hanged ...

“Details,” he said, as the agents hurried him towards the door. There were contingency plans, but ... had they been compromised too? Panic wouldn’t get them anywhere. “What’s happening?”

A third agent, a young woman, joined them. “At least nineteen air and missile strikes on government bases across the country,” she said. She’d been pressed into service as a dispatcher the moment they’d arrived at the bunker ... in hindsight, Felix suspected it was a way to get a third armed agent close to him without making it obvious. “We don’t know how many people were killed, Mr President, but it look bad.”

Felix nodded. His cabinet had been carefully scattered, with only a handful of his people remaining close to the seat of power. If the enemy had somehow tracked them down ... how many had been killed? How many were alive, but out of contact? A stab of guilt shot through him, mingled with irritation. The Protectorate was losing. Was this their final desperate play for victory or was it nothing more than petty spite, a final temper tantrum thrown by a force that knew it had lost and intended to hurt the United States as much as possible before their final defeat? His mind raced, calculating the political situation. How many were dead – or presumed dead? Who would take his place...

A runner ran into the chamber and saluted, his eyes flickering from Felix to Grey and back again as if he wasn’t sure who he should be addressing. “Sir, the enemy hit targets in Washington itself ...”

“This way, Mr President,” the lead agent snapped. Armed marines were flowing into the chamber, weapons at the ready. The Secret Servicemen looked relieved to see them. “We have to move!”

The ground heaved, violently. Felix looked up. A missile strike ... or something more? The strike was too close for comfort, too close to be a coincidence. The enemy had tried to kidnap President Hamlin ... why wouldn’t they try to kidnap him? They could have killed him as effortlessly as they’d killed the others, if they wanted ... which meant they wanted him alive, at least long enough to force him to betray his country. It wasn’t going to happen.

“Give me a rifle,” he snapped. It had been a long time since he’d seen active duty, let alone combat, but there were some things you never forgot. “Now!”

 

Chapter Thirty-Five: Washington DC, USA, Timeline F (OTL)

Remington whimpered.

Catherine ignored him, as the missiles came down. The city hadn’t been attacked for the last few days, as the Protectorate conserved the remainder of their stockpile for the final offensive, and the enemy had relaxed ... just a little. That was going to cost them. The explosions rocking the city would cause panic, all the more so as her messages started to spread through what remained of the enemy communications network, and hopefully make it harder for them to react to the true threat. The last fireball, rising up from a seemingly non-descript location midway between the White House and the Beltway, was the real danger. It would hopefully open the path for the commando team to strike. If it didn’t ...

To win or lose it all, she thought. Montrose’s family motto, one he’d quoted time and time again when he’d been laying the plans for the invasion. Perhaps it had been a mistake to join him ... no. It had been a good idea at the time. If this works, we win; if we lose ... we lose.

Her lips twisted. And the next invasion force will be loaded for bear.

***

Lieutenant Alistair was mildly surprised no one had tried to stop his team, as they commandeered a military truck and drove towards the target. They might be wearing local uniforms and carrying local weapons, as well as local ID cards and a bunch of other pieces of paperwork, but they were a bunch of armed men in what was supposed to be a secure location and surely someone should have asked a few questions before it was too late. There were just too many troops and policemen, from too many different units, for any sort of real security. If he’d been in charge of the city, there would have been mass firings, perhaps even executions. One could do everything right and still lose everything because some idiot decided that following basic security procedures was beneath him.

They’ll have to change a few procedures afterwards, he thought, as the final missile reached its target and exploded. Hopefully, anyone out of the loop would think the missile had malfunctioned. It hadn’t hit anything that made sense, if you didn’t know the bunker was there. It hadn’t blown up a military target nor had it caused vast civilian casualties. If we let them live long enough to change anything ...

The crater lay in front of him, a vast hole exposing tunnels and passageways deep under the ground. Lieutenant Alistair smirked, launching a series of drones into the air and more into the passageways themselves. The minibrains didn’t know where every tunnel was, of course, but they knew enough about the network of hidden bases under the city to make a few very good guesses. If the enemy knew they were under attack, they’d be trying to get the President out of the network as quickly as possible ... difficult, given that the missile strikes would likely have collapsed tunnels outside the Beltway. He told himself to hurry as they dropped down and launched themselves into the tunnels. The enemy didn’t have to know a commando team was inbound to want to get their charge out. It made no difference if the President died through a bullet to the head or a cave in. He’d be dead regardless.

His drones raced forward, relaying data back to him. The rest of the team spread out as they hurried onwards, the tunnel network opening up before them. He’d feared the minibrains had made a mistake – it wouldn’t be the first time they’d hallucinated after someone had fed garbage data into their software – but they’d clearly found something a little bigger than a sewer. If the President was within ...

A pair of uniformed men appeared in front of them, weapons raised. Lieutenant Alistair felt a flash of guilt as he gunned them both down, knowing that they’d been caught off-guard by the uniforms. The shots were meant to be muffled, but the Americans had yet to develop a truly perfect silencer and the odds were good someone had heard the sound. Alarms started to howl a moment later ... shit. That wasn’t a good sign.

“Don’t stop for anything,” he snapped. The drones were relaying more and more data as they fanned out through the network, noting a handful of workers heading to what looked like a blast centre. He’d expected to find more people within the complex, but ... perhaps it wasn’t surprising. The more who knew the secret, the greater the chance of a leak. “Take them all down!”

Another man ran towards him, only to be shot in the chest. Lieutenant Alistair glanced at the corpse, trying to match the face to a name. Nothing. Not the President, not someone important enough to be mentioned in the briefing notes. He shrugged and hurried on, leading the rest of the team further into the network. Time was not on their side. If the President made it clear, they’d expended their remaining missiles for nothing.

***

“We have intruders,” someone snapped, as Felix and Grey were hustled down the corridor. “Coming in from the south!”

Felix thought, fast. He’d been briefed that the two main entrances to the bunker were carefully hidden and secure, designed to keep both casual visitors and terrorists out as long as possible. The contingency plans must have seemed like mindless paranoia at the time – the idea of a terrorist force storming the White House and capturing everything inside the Beltway was the stuff of ridiculous action movies, not real life – but now they seemed like prescience. The entrances should have held against anything less than a bunker-buster ...

“They used the missile to open the tunnels,” someone else said. “Shit!”

Good thinking, Felix acknowledged sourly. The enemy had bypassed the main entrances directly. Worse, deliberately or not, they’d turned them into chokepoints. There could be an entire enemy force sitting on top of the concealed doors, waiting for him to stick his head out so they could grab him. They’ll make it harder for us to coordinate a counterattack too.

“We’re going out through the sewers,” Agent Martin snapped. “This way!”

Felix nodded, keeping his head down as they made their way to the lower levels. There were miles upon miles of sewers under Washington, as well as everything from water pipes to railroad facilities and everything else. The general public was barred from most underground installations, including the federal tunnels that were supposed to be off the books, but the Secret Service regularly used them to move people around the city without being noticed. It was better to get out via the sewers, he told himself, than be caught and killed by the enemy.

Another low rumble ran through the complex. A missile strike? A bomb? Something else ... if the enemy had hit multiple targets across the city, there was a very real chance they’d collapsed a number of tunnels. They were designed to be tough, but could they stand up to a hypersonic missile strike? Felix guessed they were about to find out.

“In here,” Martin said.

Felix did as he was told. The room looked empty, save for a piece of machinery resting against one wall. Martin detailed two Marines to guard the entrance, then walked over to the machine, flipped up a cover and tapped a code into the keypad below. The machinery hummed and opened up, revealing a tunnel leading down into the darkness. There were no lights. Martin took a handful of flashlights from a hidden compartment and handed them round, flicking one on and off. Felix hoped – prayed – the batteries would last long enough for them to reach safety. He had no idea if there were any lights further down, but even if there were there was no guarantee they were still working. The city’s maintenance workers had been overworked and underpaid even before the war had played merry hell with the city’s power grid.

A nasty thought struck him. “Who’s in charge at the Pentagon?”

“General Glover will take command, if I stay out of contact,” General Grey said. “The officers commanding the war fronts will continue to exercise authority. We always knew they might have to operate alone.”

Felix nodded, curtly. The days in which Washington could micromanage military operations – often to their detriment – were over. That lesson had been learned in blood. If the officers on the spot had had the authority to act fast, without asking for orders, perhaps the invasion would have been stopped before much of Texas was overwhelmed and occupied. Or perhaps it wouldn’t have made any real difference. He’d thought he understood the world, when he made his bid for the nomination; he’d thought he knew what America would be facing over the next few decades. Russia, China, Iran, Europe ... known threats, threats that could be quantified and countermeasures devised. And they had.

And then they’d been hit with an outside context problem. And then ...

An explosion, behind him. “Get moving,” Martin snapped. The enemy were right on top of them ... Jesus. How had they gotten so close? Felix wanted to unsling his rifle and return fire, but Martin was already grabbing his arm and pulling him down the tunnel. More explosions followed, flashes of white light that lit up the air and threw the darkened tunnel into stark relief. “Hurry!”

“Don’t stop for anything,” General Grey managed. It had been years since he’d seen combat too. “I ...”

The ground heaved. Felix heard someone scream behind him, the sound cutting off abruptly. Martin kept pulling until they were at the bottom, the tunnel widening suddenly into a chamber that looked like a generator room. Lights flickered on, casting an eerie flickering illumination over the room ... it was big, big enough to hide in ... if there was time. He could hear running footsteps behind them, hurrying down the tunnel ...

“Take cover,” Martin snapped. There were five men left, seven counting Felix and Grey. “Hurry!”

Felix nodded, unslinging his rifle and finding a spot to hide. It wasn’t perfect, but ... he had no idea of the way out and he had no intention of surrendering. Martin shot him a sharp look, clearly on the verge of telling his charge to stay out of the way, then thinking better of it. Martin was the only person who knew the way out. Perversely, that made him more important than the rest of them. Even the President ...

A man appeared at the foot of the tunnel, wearing American BDUs. Felix’s eyes narrowed. He would have pegged the man as a fraud even if the man hadn’t been carrying a very alien device in one hand, just from the way he moved. Not stolen valour, different valour. Felix had worked closely with British and French during the war and their movements were different ... two more enemy troops appeared, advancing carefully. Felix wondered, suddenly, if they could see in the dark. They certainly hadn’t hesitated to head into the poorly lit chamber.

He rested his finger on the trigger, bracing himself. If this was how he died ...

A secret service agent stood and walked towards the troopers. “I’m the President,” he said, concealing one hand behind his back. “I want to surrender.”

Felix realised what was about to happen and ducked, twisting his head as the grenades detonated. The three troopers died in the blast ... two more hurled grenades down into the chamber, exploding with a flash of blinding white light. The shock gave Felix a headache ... he gritted his teeth as the remaining marines opened fire, shooting down two more troopers before they were blown away. Another explosion ... Felix raised his rifle and saw a trooper heading right towards him. The man recognised him. A fraction of a second’s hesitation ... too late. Felix put four rounds though his chest and watched him fall, the weird device dropping to the floor beside him. It looked like ...

“Don’t touch that,” Martin said. He was wounded, but alive. Grey looked unhurt. “If there are others ...”

“There’s no more banging and crashing from upstairs,” Felix said. How many men had the enemy smuggled into Washington? He doubted it could be more than twenty at most and even that was pushing it. “If we ...”

“Stay here.” Martin’s tone brooked no argument. “I’ll be back in a moment.”

“Been too long,” Grey managed, as they waited. “After New York ... fuck. I should have expected it.”

“It’s been a while,” Felix agreed. Ten years since he’d left the Corps. He really should have spent more time exercising ... he grinned, despite himself. Surely the President could order a Drill Instructor to spend an hour or two barking orders at him ... that would put the cat amongst the politicians. But where would he find the time? “How did they find this place?”

He looked at the bodies for a long moment. Good men and women, killed in the line of duty ... killed protecting him. They deserved better. And yet, what could he give them? Posthumous medals might comfort their families, perhaps, but they wouldn’t bring the dead back to life.

Martin returned, looking grim. “The upper levels are secure,” he said. “We’re arranging transport out of here now. But ... we have a problem.”

“We do?” Felix was in no mood for pussy-footing around. “What now?”

“Shortly before the attack began, a report was received ... Senator Remington was asking where to find you,” Martin said. “He was trying to pin down your exact location. That can’t be a coincidence.”

Felix saw red. Remington? The man was a louse, true, but a traitor? He stood to lose everything and gain much ... why betray the country? And yet, he knew there were spies in Washington. If someone had managed to turn Remington into an assert ... he had to be stopped. Fast. All of a sudden, everything made sense. If Felix had been killed, along with all the others, Remington would become President by default ...

“Arrest him,” he snarled. “Now.”

“Yes, Mr President,” Martin said.

***

Catherine swore, again, as she saw the enemy massing outside the gates.

Policemen and FBI, soldiers and marines, guardsmen and militiamen ... it looked if someone had decided to throw everything they had at Remington’s mansion to make certain he had absolutely no chance of escape. It certainly wasn’t the escort she’d expected, the handful of officials coming to inform Remington he was the new President and take him to the Presidential bunker. If she’d had any doubt about it, the fact they were taking up positions to storm the building would have cured her of him. The commando assault had clearly failed.

She glanced at Remington, briefly considering the pros and cons of snapping his neck. He didn’t know much about her, certainly nothing the Americans couldn’t deduce for themselves, and there was no way he could wriggle out of a well-deserved fate. The data she’d drop onto the internet would make sure of that. The satisfaction of finally ridding herself of his disgusting presence was something, but his trial would certainly cause the American government no end of problems. Her file would see to that too.

“Stay here,” she said. “I’ll be back for you shortly.”

That was a lie, but it would hopefully keep him paralysed as she left the room and hurried down to the back door. The assault team was deploying with a ponderous inevitability, sorting out command headaches as they got into position ... slow and steady, yet clearly not prepared for violence. She briefly considered disposing of the staff – they were smarter than their boss, although the bar was practically on the floor – then decided it wasn’t worth the effort. Instead, she triggered the defences she’d rigged over the past few months. Smoke bombs, retch gas, sonic weapons, nerve-jammer pulses, automated guns, firecrackers and other surprises ... the enemy stumbled backwards, their line staggering under the sudden onslaught. The smoke grew worse, blinding to anyone without the right implants. Someone was barking orders, trying to restore order ... it was already too late. Catherine grabbed her emergency bag, loaded the last set of orders into the local computer network, jumped over the rear wall and ran. In the confusion, her passage was unnoticed.

They’ll recover, she thought. The gas wouldn’t linger; the devices would run out of power. They were already programmed to self-destruct, one final distraction to keep the enemy busy long enough for her to get clear. And then they’ll take Remington and discover, too late, that they missed me.

She kept running until she was well clear of the scene, then found a place to hide long enough to change her clothes and remove her wig before continuing. The enemy would lock down the city, once they realised she’d escaped, but they’d have problems keeping it locked down indefinitely. Catherine had drawn up all kinds of contingency plans, from hiding out long enough to be picked up by a flyer to making it south herself, using stolen money and goods to bribe or barter with the locals. Her ID cards weren’t forgeries. They really had been produced by the government. The government just didn’t know it.

And where now?

The question hung in her mind, as she headed out of the city. Her duty was to Montrose, but ... Montrose was a busted flush. The media was untrustworthy, of course, yet ... she’d picked up enough to know the war was lost. They’d taken their final gamble and it had failed. By the time she made it back to Texas, everything would be over. All she could do was get herself killed, for nothing.

For the first time in far too long, Catherine had no idea what to do next.

 

Chapter Thirty-Six: Front Lines, North Texas, USA, Timeline F (OTL)

“Sir,” Sergeant Skinner said. “The enemy line has cracked in multiple places.”

Major-General Rishi Singh refused to exult. Not yet. The battle was on the verge of becoming a fast-moving fluid engagement, a form that favoured the enemy more than the United States. If the Protectorate hadn’t lost as many hovertanks as he thought, and there were still no hard figures on how many vehicles had been caught in the blast and rendered hors de combat, they could still inflict enormous casualties before the United States managed to exterminate them. He was confident of victory now, but the battle was far from over. The enemy might still find a way to turn it around.

“Order the recon units to begin the advance, as planned,” he said. He would have preferred to move quickly, with main battle tanks tearing through the enemy lines and infantrymen following up to capture or destroy what remained of the enemy defences, but enemy antitank weapons and drones could and would turn such a thrust into an expensive disaster. Better to push forward slowly, mopping up the enemy along the way, then risk losing everything to a valiant yet ultimately futile charge. “And remind the follow-up units that prisoners are to be taken where possible.”

“Yes, sir,” Skinner said.

Rishi nodded, then turned back to study the map. The lack of realtime data made it hard to be sure of anything, but it certainly looked as though the retreat was turning into a rout. His drones were gaining air superiority, if not supremacy; the enemy countermeasures were no longer in evidence. He wondered, idly, just what contingency plans the Protectorate had for dealing with the crisis, if they’d even considered the possibility. There were still hundreds of miles between the front lines and their fortress, offering plenty of time and space for small teams to delay and distrupt his advance. Would they be able to win enough time to turn the battle around? He doubted it, but there was just no way to be sure.

“Signal from the west, sir,” Skinner said. “The enemy lines are crumbling there too.”

“Good,” Rishi said. “Keep me informed.”

He smiled as his staff updated the map. Only an idiot fought a war on two fronts if there was any other choice ... and the Protectorate no longer had that choice. They were caught in a vice, unable to stop one thrust without being crushed by the other. If they still had enough hovertanks, they might be able to chew up one thrust enough to buy time to deal with the other, but ... he put the thought aside. Right now, he had to tighten the grip around their neck before they came up with something outside the box. And then the war would be over once and for all.

***

Miguel drove south-west, without a clear idea of where he was going.

The whole state appeared to be going crazy. Hundreds of cars, trucks and other vehicles were on the roads, heading south as if they thought they could find safety or asylum in Mexico. Other towns and villages appeared to be occupied by resistance fighters, who hurled a few rounds at anyone who got too close, or simply abandoned so completely there was no one to stop him refuelling the car at a gas station and taking some food from behind the counter. He couldn’t help feeling guilty, all too aware the owner might have hidden from him and his uniform ... he wondered, numbly, if he should find a change before they ran into one side or the other. The Protectorate might shoot them for desertion; the Americans might hang them for treason. Or perhaps a band of resistance fighters might string them up without bothering to ask any questions. There were just too many possibilities, none of them good.

Things flickered overhead, hypersonic missiles or drones or aircraft ... American or Protectorate, he couldn't tell and he didn’t care. The sound of distant explosions grew louder for a long chilling moment, followed by the rattle of helicopter blades ... he looked around nervously, half-expecting to see an Apache attack helicopter swooping towards him, but there was nothing to be seen. He wanted to find a side road, a road that might pass unnoticed although the Americans probably knew the terrain far better than himself, but he didn’t know where to begin looking. Going to ground wasn’t an option, not if he wanted to get back to his family. He wondered, numbly, how many others on the road had the same idea.

The traffic slowed suddenly as they neared a midsized town, armed troopers inspecting the vehicles and either turning them around or ordering them into the town. Miguel cursed under his breath as he saw the uniforms, Protectorate sepoys and Russian soldiers. There was no way to turn around without being spotted and no way to escape without being shot ... an IFV rested at the edge of the town, plasma cannons and machine guns constantly searching for targets. He had no illusions about how much protection the car would offer if the IFV opened fire. He’d seen them tear through American Abrams tanks as though they were made of paper.

“Let me do the talking,” he muttered. Their uniforms alone marked them as sepoys. Their only hope was to convince the newcomers that they weren’t deserters. A pair of bodies were already hanging from trees outside the town ... deserters, rapists, murderers, drunkards, degenerates? It hardly mattered. “Just play along if they ask you any questions.”

A pair of troopers came up to them, red MP armbands clearly visible. Miguel spoke before they could say a word. “Thank god,” he said, lying through his teeth. “I’ve been looking for you ever since I was ordered to drive to the fallback positions.”

The two MPs exchanged glances. “Get out of the car and report to the captain,” one said, his eyes never leaving Miguel. “He’ll decide what to do with you.”

Miguel nodded, keeping his face under tight control. There was no way out ... they scrambled out of the car and staggered towards the town, keeping their eyes open. American civilians were digging trenches and building barricades, while Protectorate sepoys and their allies hastily prepared for the coming engagement. Drones buzzed overhead, one drawing his eye towards a crude structure that concealed a tank; others headed north-east, trying to glean some idea of enemy movements. Officers barked orders, their tones so hard Miguel knew they knew the war was nearly over. It was hard to tell if their men agreed.

The Russians have nowhere to go, Miguel thought. The Americans won’t let them go home safely, not after everything they did ...

Captain Ellensburg spoke with the dull tone of a man who was losing faith in everything, including himself. “Why are you here?”

“We were ordered to head south-west, to the defence lines,” Miguel said. “The medical camp was on the verge of falling to the enemy.”

And hopefully will have fallen by now, his thoughts added. If Ellensburg checked with the camp’s staff, Miguel’s story would fall apart with terrifying speed and they’d both be shot. The Americans won’t kill the wounded ... right?

Ellensburg eyed them both for a long moment, then shrugged. “You can both go into the personnel pool,” he said, curtly. “We have orders to delay the enemy as long as possible before falling back further east.”

Miguel hesitated. “Sir, Tessa is wounded and ...”

“You can both go into the pool or you can both be shot.” Ellensburg sounded too tired to be nasty, too tired to care about anything but carrying out his orders as best as he could. “Take your pick.”

“We’ll join the pool,” Tessa said. “I can still carry a gun.”

“Good girl,” Ellensburg said. “Report to Sergeant Bosanko. He’ll keep you straight.”

Miguel cursed his luck, under his breath, as they made their way to the sergeant and found themselves assigned to a combat post. They should have tried to circumvent the town ... he would have, if he’d known what lay in wait. Now ... they were digging foxholes and hastily brushing up on how to fire antitank and antiaircraft missiles, with no way out that didn’t end with a bullet in the back or a noose around their necks. The Russians swaggered around, pointing weapons at press-ganged Americans and staring at young women with hungry expressions ... Miguel swallowed hard as he saw a girl who couldn’t have been any older than his daughter. He wouldn’t give much for her fate, if the MPs pulled out. There was a very nasty vibe in the air.

Tessa leaned forward, the sweat clearly visible on her brow. “You think we have a chance?”

Miguel shook his head. The defence line might stop armed gangsters or resistance fighters – someone had fired a few rounds at the line, an hour or two ago, and vanished before anyone could go after him – but it wouldn’t last long against an infantry or armoured force that knew what the hell it was doing. The Americans could shell the town into rubble and then take control of what little was left, without needing to put their lives at risk. He wondered if they knew there were civilians in the town ... it was quite possible they didn’t. The Protectorate rarely set out to use human shields, not deliberately. The Americans might assume the civilians had been ordered out long ago.

Sergeant Bosanko swaggered past, his face split by an insane smile. “The Americans are pushing down the road,” he announced, as the squad did their best to come to attention. “The next people you see, coming from that direction, I want you to kill.”

Miguel felt cold, despite the heat, as he peered north. Fewer and fewer cars had passed through the checkpoints, something he should have noticed earlier. The handful of remaining vehicles had been ordered away, with the abandoned cars driven into position and turned into part of the barricades ... barricades, Miguel was sure, that could be smashed aside by a single tank. He thought he saw aircraft high overhead, drones heading towards the front lines, but it was hard to be sure. Exhaustion was gnawing at his mind, making it harder to think. They might well be about to die ... his manhood stiffened, a reaction no less embarrassing for being common. Tessa had tried to sleep with him before ... would she do it now? If he asked ...

No, he thought, savagely. Tessa was a friend as well as a comrade. And Miguel was a married man. I won’t betray my wife!

Are you sure? His thoughts mocked him. You will die here. You will never see your wife again. And your masters will not even notice your deaths.

“Thanks,” Tessa said, quietly. She looked as if she were on the verge of collapse. “For everything ...”

Something screamed. Miguel threw himself to the ground, instinctively, as the first rockets fell on the town. The explosions followed, a series of thunderclaps that shook the air and battered his ears. A second series followed, flames licking up ... it took him a second to realise the cars were catching fire, explosions shaking the barricades and sending them crashing to the ground. Someone opened fire, machine guns and rifles chattering away ... Miguel wasn’t sure what, if anything, they were shooting at. The flames were spreading rapidly, making it hard to look north-east. There could be an entire tank division out there and they wouldn’t have a clue. A second salvo of rockets howled through the air, the sound chilling him to the bone even before they hit their targets. Shells followed, shattering the defences with icy precision. The battle had barely started and it was already on the verge of being lost.

“Hold your ground,” the sergeant bellowed. He was standing up, firing madly as the Americans finally came into view. “Hold your ground!”

Miguel aimed at an American as he darted from cover to cover and fired. The American seemed unhurt ... Miguel couldn’t tell if his body armour had taken the hit or if the shot had simply missed. Others followed, advancing with speed and determination; behind him, he heard more shells crashing down, each one exploding violently enough to send pieces of shrapnel flying through the air. The Americans were going to destroy the town in order to save it! He fired again and again, trying to conserve ammo as much as possible. He had no idea how much was left in the town, but he doubted there’d ever be a chance to resupply ...

“Keep shooting,” the sergeant yelled. He seemed to have gone insane. “Keep ...”

A bullet cracked through his head, sending him tumbling to the ground. Miguel cursed, then caught Tessa’s arm and dragged her back. Running in the open was risky, but the Americans were smashing through the barricades, pushing harder and harder as they scented a final victory. More explosions blasted out behind him as they ran further into the town, burning buildings casting an eerie flickering light ... Miguel wondered, suddenly, if he’d died and gone to hell. He’d never been very religious ...perhaps God was punishing him. Or ...

They took cover behind a building, gasping for breath. Someone screamed ... Miguel looked to see the girl from earlier, pinned to a wall by a grunting Russian. The man was fumbling with his fly, trying to keep the girl trapped while getting his manhood out ... Miguel shot him through the head, no longer caring about anything but escape. The girl really was the same age as his daughter ... she stared at him for a long moment, then collapsed to the ground in a dead faint. Miguel swallowed, then shook his head and hurried onwards. Hopefully she’d be fine, when the Americans took the town. They’d get the civilians out before their home burned to the ground.

“Over here!”

Miguel hurried forward, cursing under his breath as he saw the foxhole. It was pathetic by the standards of the first set of defences, let alone what the Americans had thrown up to block the Protectorate’s offensive, and the three sepoys inside looked utterly terrified. Miguel looked from face to face, as the shooting grew louder, and knew it was the end of the line. The three men – boys, really – were doomed. They didn’t look white, but that was meaningless. There were plenty of Hispanic-Americans who’d been born and bred north of the Rio Grande. If they were Americans, like Tessa, there was a very good chance they’d be hanged. Or worse.

And yet, there was no longer any point in trying to resist.

His mind raced. What was behind them? The sergeant had insisted that anyone who tried to flee would be shot. Miguel hadn’t doubted him. If the MPs were behind the defences, there was no way out. Perhaps the Americans had already killed them ... he could hear explosions to the south, followed by yet more gunfire. The Americans might be surrounding the town or the stored ammunition might be cooking off or ... he didn’t know. There was no way out.

“Stay down,” he ordered, quietly. The decision felt inevitable – and wrong. “Put down your guns and stay down.”

He put his own rifle at the bottom of the foxhole and placed the pistol on top of it, then stood and raised his hands as the other three knelt down. The Americans were coming ... they mustn’t see him as a threat. If they did ... no one would notice, or care, that he’d been trying to surrender. His story would come to an end in the middle of a burning nameless town ... he hoped and prayed Carmen would be fine, that she’d find someone else and ... his heart twisted at the thought. Would she mourn? Would his kids mourn ...?

An American appeared out of the smoke, his rifle pointed at Miguel’s chest. Miguel froze, bracing himself. “There are five of us,” he said. He tried not to sound as though he was pleading. “We all want to surrender.”

“Call them out,” the American ordered.

Miguel hesitated, then obeyed. The American beckoned others forward. Miguel offered no resistance as their hands were bound behind their backs with plastic ties, then their uniforms searched and everything removed before they were marched north. A handful of other prisoners joined them ... no Russians. The American civilians were also bound, something that struck him as odd, but kept apart from the sepoys and foreign troops. Perhaps the Americans were concerned a number of sepoys had cast their uniforms aside and were pretending to be civilians. It hardly mattered, not to him.

The march felt like a walk of shame, as they walked past American civilians and militiamen who looked ready to lynch them on the spot. Miguel heard Tessa whimper behind them as the shouting grew louder, their guards looking ready to draw their weapons to protect them ... he wondered, suddenly, if they’d even bother. Why put their lives at risk for traitors? Or even foreigners who’d fought against the United States? The absence of any Russian POWs was a worrying sign ...

“If you behave yourselves, we will treat you in accordance with the laws of war,” their escort said, as they reached the makeshift prison camp. It was nothing more than a fence guarded by armed men, with no water or food or medical supplies. Miguel hoped to hell more was coming soon. Tessa needed medical attention and the rest of them needed something to eat and drink before they starved to death. “If not, you will be shot on the spot.”

He affected a bad German accent. “For you, the war is over.”

Miguel nodded, curtly. It truly was.