“I don’t know that I’d paint such a gloomy picture as that,” General Alan said. “Len Zelazny is running the show over there. You know he has a few tricks left.”
“Yes, Zelazny is a hard-charging Marine general,” Max said. “I appreciate that and I feel secure he’s using my—the Militia battalions there to good effect.”
“Zelazny is a gifted general and a cunning battlefield tactician,” Alan said. “He has a plan, a scheme. I can assure you of that.”
“Whatever it is,” Max said, pointing at the big screen. “It isn’t working.”
General Alan glanced at the images up on the screen. He must have seen what Anna did: an American Bradley blowing up, taking a dozen soldiers with it.
“In fact,” Max said. “It’s looking more and more like a bloodbath. What was Zelazny thinking by launching an attack? Do you have any idea as to his objective?”
“Yes,” Alan said quietly. “I don’t think you’re going to like it, but it is clever. Mr. President, with your permission…”
David nodded.
The Chairman of the Joint Chiefs gave them a brief rundown of Zelazny’s plan as heard by Paul Kavanagh. The Chairman added the wrinkle that could possibly make the assault worth it later.
“I can see what you’re hoping for,” Max said. “But in truth this is worse than I thought. Zelazny is spending lives like ammunition, all with the off chance of getting a few elite soldiers into the GD rear lines. Mr. President, I can’t help but thinking that after hearing this—”
“We can’t go nuclear,” the President said. “We have an obligation to the world. I know that’s what you’re going to suggest—nukes—but it cannot be done in this place and not at this time.”
“Begging your pardon, sir,” Max said. “What about the world’s obligation to America? Three huge power blocs have invaded our soil. I say that it’s time to take off the gloves and hit them as hard as we can in the face. Let’s drop these bastards in their tracks.”
The President massaged his forehead. He picked up a water glass, and Anna could see the slightest tremor in his hand. First sipping water, the President pushed his lips against each other, and he faced Max Harold.
“Punching our enemies in the face is one thing,” the President said. “That would be a nuclear strike against their homelands. That’s beyond our delivery capabilities, at present. You’re talking about using a hammer to smash a fly on our nose.”
A few grim chuckles arose from several of those present.
“Sir,” Max said. “This is no laughing matter.”
David scowled.
“I know you realize that, sir,” Max said. “We have some key GD units fixed in place and far enough away from our main troop concentrations. I suggest that if General Zelazny plans to sacrifice his troops, why not use them as bait. Saturate bomb the GD formations around Toronto. Pulverize them, Mr. President. Annihilate these GD invaders and then unleash the main force in New England against Montreal and cut their supply base.”
The President stared across the large circular table at Max. “Is this a serious suggestion?” he finally asked.
“I am not in the habit of giving frivolous suggestions, sir,” Max said.
Anna stared at David, willing him to look at her. Max had gone too far. The President should sack him on the spot. No one should speak to David that way in front of others.
The President broke the eye contact first, and he rubbed his forehead. “I will not be party to using nuclear weapons against American troops, certainly not using the troops as a goat in a tiger hunt. Nor do I plan to win this war with nuclear weapons on land. I will not do it, Director.”
“I’m sorry to hear you say that, sir.”
“I’m open to other suggestions. Chairman,” David asked Alan. “What about the THOR missiles? Could we use those here?”
“Uh, sir…I’m afraid not, Mr. President,” Alan said.
“THOR missiles,” Max asked. “What are those? I don’t believe I’ve heard of them.”
“Do we have any missiles of
any
type that we can use to aid General Zelazny?” the President asked Alan.
“There are a carefully built up number—”
“How many,” the President asked, “and of what type?”
“Twenty conventionally-armed medium-range ballistic missiles, sir,” Alan said. “But given what we’ve seen of the GD antiair cover, I think at best only half would break through to land and explode.”
“You’re serious?” Max asked. “At best only half will touch down?”
“That’s right,” Alan said. “Touch down. I’m not even talking about hitting their targets.”
Max faced the President, “Sir, a nuclear airburst might render the GD antiair equipment useless. Then all our missiles would hit.”
The large room fell silent. One by one, every member present looked at Max and then at the President.
“I don’t want to hear any more about nuclear strikes,” the President said. “And I do not want to repeat myself, Director. Have I made myself clear?”
Max glanced at several faces. Finally, he nodded, saying, “Yes, Mr. President. I understand.”
“I hope you do,” the President said. “Continue with the briefing,” he told the major. “Don’t leave anything out, no matter how depressing or grim.”
The major glanced at the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs—Alan tugged his left earlobe like a baseball manager giving a signal—before she continued speaking.
This is awful
, Anna thought.
The GD is slaughtering our soldiers, and for what? The Marine general is throwing his men away on a crazy notion. How is any of this going to help David?
TORONTO, ONTARIO
Paul Kavanagh crawled through city rubble, with Romo behind him. It was a nightmare, and nothing was going to get better anytime soon. Artillery thundered in the darkness, creating vast explosions on the horizon. Then flashes came from all around. Shells of all shapes and sizes landed around them. The ordnance crashed into buildings, against the ground and reworked the already pulverized rubble, throwing up tall geysers. The bigger ones shook the ground like quakes and they rained shrapnel everywhere like a November blizzard.
The worst—
From behind Paul, Romo whistled between his teeth. Paul barely heard the sound, but he heeded the warning, attempting to press his body into the concrete. Closing his eyes, Paul remembered to open his mouth. It was to keep his ears pressurized from the nearest blasts. Seconds ticked by before it happened. Somebody—the Germans likely—had dropped a fuel-air bomb. It went off, and it felt as if a sun had gone nova, lighting existence and sucking air like a mythological titan. It caused a rising shriek.
Titanic sound waves from the blast came on like giant hammers. They washed over Paul, shaking him so it felt as if the bones vibrated in his body.
He would have liked to use the high-tech equipment of last winter. They still had the equipment in the arsenals, and he could have donned it for this battle, but not against the tricky Krauts. That meant his side didn’t launch any tiny recon drones to go and find out what the enemy were doing. It also meant Paul didn’t have a HUD visor, computer battle processors and any targeting aids for his weapons. He and Romo had gone primitive because the Germans were masters at triangulating enemy electronic gear and killing the recipients.
He and Romo had body armor, of course, wore regular helmets and carried assault rifles, grenades and had knives, a one-time cypher pad just in case and medical kits. Fighting this way was like closing your eyes compared to how they’d been doing it against the Chinese. No doubt the enemy had infrared scanners and night vision. Yeah, he had night vision, too, but he hadn’t turned it on yet.
Soon he would.
Thinking of that, Paul opened his eyes. The distant flashes continued, as did the pounding, the ground shaking and the wrecks of buildings crumbling some more. Somewhere out there a soldier screamed in agony.
While drawing a deep breath, Paul eased up to his hands and knees and started crawling again. He looked back. Romo still lay on the ground, with his arms covering his head.
Paul whistled. He had to do it twice. Finally, the Mexican Apache looked up. Romo seemed drugged, but his friend eased up to his hands and knees and crawled after him.
To their left, a tank’s cannon belched. A tongue of flame stabbed outward. The wall of a building exploded. A moment later, the entire edifice collapsed.
Paul must have been imagining it, because it sounded as if he heard yelling and then long loud cries of “Medic! We need a medic here!”
Had the enemy AIs exactly calculated that? Had a Kaiser brought down the building on its hiding American occupants?
“They’re devils,” Romo said.
Paul’s mouth twitched with distaste. He wondered if this is what it had felt like being an Iraqi in the early twenty-first century. America had gone conquering in those days. They had been the ones with the wonder weapons. They had slaughtered any enemy soldiers foolish enough to fight them face to face.
How the mighty have fallen
.
Well, America didn’t have time for IEDs and a guerilla war fought against conquerors. They would defend the old-fashioned way, by sending out their soldiers to fight like knights. The trouble was, the Germans hadn’t sent out any knights of their own, but wizard constructs, empty suits of armor that fought harder and longer than a man could, and without the vulnerable spots.
“Wait a minute,” Paul said. He listened. The ground shook, but not from shells this time. Enemy tanks clanked, and antipersonnel robots no doubt followed close behind.
“Get up!” Paul hissed. “Follow me.”
He didn’t wait to hear Romo’s answer. Paul rose to his feet and he ran crouched over, clutching his rifle. He panted, and his heavy body armor slowed him down. His foot came down on an uneven piece of rubble. The stuff shifted, but Paul had tied his boots tightly, and the leather braced his ankle enough so it didn’t twist and cripple him. If he became a gimp out here, it would all be over. There were no rescue helos coming to get them this time. The Germans had better radar than even the Chinese possessed.
The Germans are techno-wizards
, Paul thought. His ankle held, but it put extra pressure on his knee. Fortunately, the knee didn’t buckle, but a twinge of pain speared there and sweat popped onto his forehead.
The rubble and broken buildings loomed bigger here than they actually were. The flashes of lightning lit up the cityscape, producing crazy shadows.
Paul strained his eyes. It felt as if they were bugging outward. Should he dare the night vision? With a dry swallow, he went down in a controlled manner so as not to injure himself. Paul crawled and wriggled under a slab of reinforced concrete. It was a dangerous cave to use, as it might shift and crush him at any time.
A second later, Romo shoved in beside him.
The two LRSU men stared out of their tiny cave. Fifty feet away, a Kaiser hunter-killer appeared on an otherwise deserted street. The squat thing clanked, and Paul watched it twist a girder as it
creaked
, flattening the metal with a tread. Meanwhile, the turret rotated and 25mm autocannons swiveled as if in anticipation of American shots.
A worse horror, at least in an infantryman’s world, followed the HK. These were small vehicles with treads, about the size of an old-fashioned Harley Davidson motorcycle. The US had started the revolution with SWORDS machines. These things—panzer-grenadiers—boasted a tri-barrel 12.7mm heavy machine gun. Paul had seen one several days ago destroy a platoon of US grunts. It had been like watching a meat grinder at work.
As Paul stared out of the low dark cave, he spied the latest GD drone chopper. It hung there in the darkness, illuminated by artillery flashes, looking like a giant wasp with its grotesque shape. In that moment, time seemed to stand still for Paul. It was surreal, eerie and it brought back an old, old memory.
Yeah, he had been in his basement as an eight-year-old, he believed. His dad had been sitting on the sofa with him. They’d watched a cheesy 1980s movie named
Terminator
. Paul had loved it. He remembered the robotic hunter-killers firing at humans in an old beat-up car. The poor humans had used a .50 caliber against the thing. With a laser, the machine had nailed the humans, exploding the car. Above the battle, there had appeared a flying hunter-killer, stabbing the night with its beam.
The movie had played haunting music. Paul had never forgotten the movie or its grim future. Now, as a grown man of forty-two, thirty-four years later, he was playing out that future in Toronto.
The GD had built hunter-killers, and they were destroying…well, not humanity, just the United States of America.
Paul watched the robots clank past. From time to time, the tri-barrels rotated on the panzer-grenadiers and the tank’s cannon roared.
With his right shoulder, Romo nudged Paul.
Paul swiveled his head. Americans back there fired several Javelins and hammered the robots with machine gun bullets. To Paul’s delight, a Javelin missile struck and exploded one of the Sigrid panzer-grenadiers. In response, the other Sigrids blasted the humans, annihilating them in swift seconds of carnage.
“It’s bad,” Paul said. “But look at that. They nailed one. The GD isn’t invincible.”
Romo seemed to collapse as his chest hit the ground. Troubled, Paul lowered himself beside his friend.