by Peter Smith
Kellen pulled up his tactical view. The relief force had arrived. Several hundred allied forces were now in the area. Marine artillery was now destroying the rear of the Russian force, creating a barrier of death that if their enemy tried to cross would cost them dearly. The artillery was now slowly starting to roll forward, toward the Marine line, intending to force the Russians toward the better equipped Marines and their Spire allies.
A squad of the newly arrived Marines rushed to his location, “General, are you okay?” A Sergeant asked him. Their hands were already pulling him to his feet.
He waved them away and pointed to Dyer and YT, “Take care of them.”
“Sir, we need to get you out of here,” The Sergeant stated.
Kellen watched as the newcomers pulled YT and Dyer to their feet, both men beginning to regain consciousness, “No.” Kellen said, extending his hand toward one of the magazine pouches on the Sergeant’s armor. His fingers curling inward to motion that he wanted a spare magazine.
“Sir, Colonel Williams orders were clear.”
“Sergeant Kenkel, unless ranks suddenly changed in the last few minutes I’m sure I’m in charge.”
The man stood there, uncomfortable with the situation. Kellen looked at both Dyer and his subordinate. Both men were standing on their own but looked like hell, “You two still in this?”
Dyer nodded his head and smacked YT on the back, “You?”
YT spit on the ground, “I think I pissed myself.”
Dyer laughed, “That’s not a no.”
YT nodded his head, “Yeah, fuck it, I got some payback to give those bastards.”
“What are your orders general?” The Sergeant said as he removed a magazine from his pouch and handed it to his commander.
Kellen turned toward the enemy, his Marines streaming past, “Advance.” He commanded.
16
Maria Patterson
New York Spire
Her thumb was bleeding. She pulled it from her mouth, cursing as she did. She folded it toward her palm and pressed the tip of her middle finger into the self-inflicted wound, staunching the flow of blood.
The satellite data was devastating. Hundreds of members of Kellen’s combined army were dead, over ten thousand of Trotsky’s forces had paid the price necessary to achieve that level of success. The city of Berlin was in flames and the small villages between the Trotsky border and the German Spire capital city were now securely in his hands. She could only imagine what sort of reprisals the people that lived in those small towns would suffer if he was forced to withdraw his army. Would he take out the frustration of his loss against the innocents that lived there, regardless of the outcome of the war.
Her forces had amassed in Croatia and Sweden, prepared to deliver a two font engagement the moment she gave the order. They had been ready to go for an hour, having reached a force strength that couldn’t be challenged by either alliance, even if they both joined temporarily to fight her. But she had stayed her hand. Kellen’s combined force, with the London and Berlin Spires had appeared to have gained the upper hand.
Tobor and the rest of her AI advisory systems now placed Trotsky’s withdrawal from Berlin as a near certainty. Shy of some otherworldly intervention, Trotsky’s forces were being routed, and that wasn’t going to stop until Kellen’s logistics lines couldn’t support any further drive East.
Which meant that both sides would regroup. The swift victory that they both had desired had failed. Now the world was looking at protracted and bloody war, not just in Europe, but the South Pacific, Middle East and Africa. Trotsky’s alliance partners in Cairo and Mumbai had so far been able to keep from committing man power directly to the conflict. Instead, appeasing Trotsky with greater access to their networks of mines and manufacturing facilities. But she knew, deep within her bones, that the next step would be to divide the attention of Kellen and his friendly spires.
The Mumbai Spire of India would have to commit its naval and ground forces to invade Australia and seizing territory from the Sydney Spire. That island community was much like Mumbai and Cairo. But instead of serving Trotsky, they had agreed to provide Kellen’s alliance with access to their nation’s raw materials and a haven for weapons manufacturing.
While she allowed for Kellen and his survivors to live in the Americas she had made it clear that they weren’t welcome to prepare for war here. So he had split the difference, growing a civilian population where he knew Trotsky couldn’t touch them while striking a deal with a similarly cultured region of the world for the other services he needed.
Cairo would launch a ground invasion of Africa, striking at the many mining operations that the European spires were conducing on the continent in a return to their colonial roots. They would also use their naval assets to harass the coasts of the Naples Spire in Italy, up into the Paris Spire’s Riviera region, down into Madrid’s water and all the way up to London.
The war would spread and the death toll would rise both in civilian deaths and those of the soldiers that were little more than conscripts having to choose between starvation or service. She stared at the strategic map that hovered before her. She could stop it all.
She could prevent the deaths of millions that were to come, but to do so she would have to end lives herself. She was directly tracking Kellen via satellite right now. His armor had been compromised at some point, so visual observations were now possible and the constant flow of heavily encrypted communications into and out of his location drew her attention directly to where he was.
Trotsky had finally left Kauai and flown directly to the vast expanse of the Siberian tundra. She lost him in dense cloud cover, so he had either put down at a hidden base or was doing his best to avoid detection by staying airborne and flying close to the ground to confuse her radar. No matter what though, her AI would find him soon and at that moment she would have to make a choice.
She feared that when she found him, she would have to make a permanent decision that would affect both men. She was further concerned that she would be more effective at her aim than either of them had been.
Her attention was drawn back to Berlin, back to another issue she was avoiding. Sean hadn’t contacted her in hours, neither had her father-in-law. A small knock on the door broke her focus, “Come in.” She whispered, knowing that the room’s AI would open the door.
Her mother stepped into the space. For a second Maria wondered if she had, through shared concern, attracted her mother here. Maria’s husband was out there somewhere, but her mother’s new love was too, “Any news?”
“They’re winning…” Maria said, letting her voice trail off.
A slight weight appeared to visibly leave her mother’s shoulders. It wasn’t the information she wanted to have, but it was positive, at least for their family. It meant that both of the men that mattered most to them had a better chance of coming home in one piece. They still had no idea if either of them was alive or unharmed, but if Trotsky’s mad dash to Berlin had been successful, then it would have been far less likely.
Her mom stepped up and sat on the edge of the desk, taking in the holographic display that Maria permitted her to view, “They know that it isn’t going to end today.”
Maria wasn’t entirely sure if her mother was questioning the wisdom of those that were in charge of the cluster fuck that was central Europe, or if she was confirming what she knew about the lot of them and their ability to read a situation.
Maria looked at her mother, fear suddenly gripping her, “I am not my father.”
Her mother sighed and shifted closer to her, “No, thankfully you aren’t.”
Maria pushed her chair back a centimeter, “But if he were here, none of this would happen, there would be peace, he would have stopped all of this.”
Her mom nodded, thinking Maria’s statement over, “He would have killed them all, every one of them, down to the children, and he would have reasoned it all away as a sacrifice for the greater good of humanity. Is that
what you think is needed right now?”
Maria didn’t know what to say. She knew her mother was right, that her logical was infallible. He had literally done that same thing time and time again. It was that conclusion that had led her to end his tyranny when no one else could. She hung her head, “I worry though, that this world needs people who can do dark things mom, who can make the hard decision. I don’t know if that’s me.”
“The world needs leaders who think exactly like that, Maria. Who question their choices, who doubt their decisions but yes, it also needs men and women who can make the hard choices knowing what the consequences will be for everyone, including themselves.”
Maria looked away, her eyes probing the top of her table for some unseen imperfection that she could pick at, “Mom, why didn’t you keep control after father died?”
It was a question she had wanted her mother to answer since the very second Tobor had lifted her from the glass-covered floor of her father’s sanctum. She had looked at the nicked and scratched face of the older woman, her eyes beseeching her to request control of the empire. But mother didn’t five years ago, and she had never once shown a desire to do so since.
Now it was her mother’s turn to fidget with the surface of the desk, “Because,” She started. A smile, lacking all sincerity and with eyes that were too heavy for someone whom appeared so young, focused on Maria, “Because, I’m too much like your father, the moment I decide that my family mattered more than everyone else’s, that was the moment that I began to change into him. As much as I hate what he did, I would have seen it through to its end.”
Maria processed her mother’s admission. She had always known that her mother would do whatever was necessary to protect her family. Learning she would have continued with her father’s plans if it meant that Maria would be safe only made sense. That her mother had chosen to step away from the power to do so spoke volumes about how she was a better person than her ex-husband.
What worried Maria was that there was a deep and powerful desire within her to follow in the footsteps of her parents. It wouldn’t take much, she knew, for her to complete his machinations and that scared the hell out of her.
“What makes you think I won’t become more like him?”
“Because you made a choice that I couldn’t.” Her mother said, her voice and focus distant, as if she were watching Maria fling herself and her father from the top of the Spire for some uncountable time.
And there it was. Maria had been willing to sacrifice everything to protect those she had never even met, many of whom who would have gladly seen her dead alongside her father. She took a deep breath, letting it out slowly to give herself the time she needed to process the weight of this conversation, “How do I become the leader you think I should be. How do I straddle the line between someone who questions their actions but can ultimately take them, even if they can’t find a perfect solution?”
Her mother looked back at the display, “I’ll let you know once I figure that out for myself, right now I just want our family back and for all of this to stop.”
Maria nodded, letting the silence between them stretch for a second, “Alex with Toby?”
Her mother nodded, “Yes.”
“Does he understand what’s happening?”
“He processed what you told him, that Grandpa and Papa had to fight bad men, but I don’t think he comprehends the permanence of what that could mean.”
“Thank God.” Maria said, “He needs to be a kid, at least for a little while longer.”
Her mother’s hand stretched forward and rested upon hers, “Do you need me to help more, to take on more of the burden?”
Her eyes were sincere, so was her tone of voice, and Maria knew that if she asked, her mother would step up and help. But she couldn’t put that upon the woman. No one else should have to bear the weight of these types of decisions and the consequences that came from them. Not after the admission she had just made about why the power made her uncomfortable. But Maria also understood that if she outright refused her mother would likely insist, out of a sense of obligation to free her daughter from pain, so she chose a different tactic.
“I’ll let you know when it gets to be too much.” Maria said, hoping that her smile didn’t feel as false as the words did in her mouth.
Her mother was about to speak when an urgent video connection request filled the display. For a second her heart leapt into her throat. It ached at the possibility that Sean had finally been able to get away long enough to send a message, letting her know that he was alive. But a fraction of a second later and she read the caller ID, it was Nathan.
She pulled her hand from her mother’s and swiped it through the air, accepting the call. Nathan’s face appeared before the two of them, anxiety tugging at the corners of his eyes, his brow sprinkled with sweat as the image bounced around. He was running, “Nathan?”
“Maria, where are you?” He asked, fighting to speak in between breaths.
“New York, where are you, that doesn’t look like the assembly building in Kauai?”
The image bounced far more violently now and a second later the view shifted to that of the inside of an aircraft cabin, “I rerouted to Dubai before heading there.”
“What’s in Dubai?” She asked as he fell into a seat, gasping for air.
He wiped the sweat from his eyes, “My job.” He shook his head, taking down a gulp of air as he did, “It doesn’t matter, what matter is that Trotsky has no intention of letting go of Berlin.”
Maria looked back at the strategic map and the real time intelligence of unit movements, loss rates and estimated capabilities. She looked back at Nathan’s video, “He’d have more luck stopping a hurricane by pissing into it.”
She watched as her mother placed her face in her hands at Maria’s use of a such a colorful metaphor. She’d let her mother know later that it was Williams who had taught her about it. Nathan leaned in close to the camera, which was likely within a holder on his wrists. Why he wasn’t using the virtual call system in his contacts, she wasn’t sure. Maybe the security at the Dubai Spire was prohibiting their use these days. She couldn’t be sure, she hadn’t been invited there in years.
“Maria, I overheard a representative of the Cairo Spire speaking to Rashid, that Trotsky was preparing for the use of WMD on Berlin.”
Maria’s heart stopped. Her world tunneled into a slim slice of color enveloped in black. Nathan said nothing, merely looking at her as she processed this new information.
Her mother was the first to speak, “Trotsky likely still has access to all the plutonium of the Russian Empire prior to the fall, I don’t think we neutralized it all in the last war and it hasn’t been long enough for it to break down.”
Mother’s tone was clinical but her skin was pale white, having lost all the color that usually gave her a healthy glow.
Nathan nodded his head, “That’s my assessment.”
“He’s lost his mind.” Was what Maria finally managed to say.
Nathan didn’t disagree, “He’s consumed a lot of resources from his allies and lost more forces than he likely thought possible in trying to take Berlin. He’s weak and his allies patience for him isn’t infinite. He needs to be the top dog and show how far he’s willing to go to win.”
Maria took Nathan’s psychological assessment of Trotsky as if it were a hundred percent truth. If anyone understood the warning signs for that personality, it was Nathaniel Chen. After all, he’d been raised by the walking embodiment of them for most of his life.
“Get somewhere safe Nathan, we’re on it.”
He nodded, “Already am, and Maria, it’s happening soon. I’m not the only one leaving this little coffee date early, I saw Rashid packing his entire family onto three transports as I was getting here.”
“The Dubai Spire is worried the fighting could spread there?” Her mother asked.
“The Russians aren’t the only ones with nukes, if Trotsky can’t get Warin and Dawson i
n short order, they’ll respond. Dubai hasn’t exactly been an enemy of Trotsky and his allies in Egypt and India.” Nathan replied.
Leave it to humanity to still risk nuclear annihilation even after the world had already ended. Her stomach was tying itself into knots and her palms felt like she had plunged them into a bowl of ice water. She needed to get in front of this, to feel some control, “We have to handle this Nathan, thank you for the warning.”
He hesitated, “Sean in Berlin?”
Now it was Maria’s turn, “Yes.”
“I hope Alex gets to see his father again soon.”
Maria nodded, grateful, “So do I”.
Nathan’s face disappeared and Maria immediately replaced it with her command screen. Seconds flew by as she ordered the empire’s vast military might to strike at every single one of the Russian Spire’s mobile ICBM launchers that were currently being tracked. She knew that they hadn’t detected them all, Trotsky likely had several hidden in underground facilities through his Russian empire. Given that it expanded beyond even the borders of the old Soviet Union, that was a massive amount of space to monitor.
Still, she was confident that she could destroy enough of the launchers to make it possible for her regional interceptors in Europe and Asia to shoot down most if not all the missiles that might make it into the air. Then it might be possible for Kellen’s alliance to pick off the few stragglers that made it through.
It wasn’t a perfect plan, but given the time that she had available to her, it was the only plan she had that came with a chance of success. In less than a minute, assets she maintained throughout the arctic were launching to penetrate deep into Russia’s northern regions. Many carried long-range cruise missiles that would extend their lethal range. They were staggered, based on the distance to their targets, to arrive at the same time.
Some of her air elements were already ripping off their runways, others were waiting for deployment. In an hour, no matter what, she would be at war with Trotsky but hopefully, the world wouldn’t have any more memorials to nuclear annihilation.