April

by Mackey Chandler

  "I don't think it will matter." Jon said. "Because I don't think they're ready to surrender. But it might help show we are restrained and bring some more countries to officially recognize us, if we show how we are dealing with them. Anybody have any contrary ideas? Speak up."

  No one did, so he turned and regarded Adzusa. "We have been bombarding North America and North American ships and bases all over the world, with a weapon of which we don't intend to disclose the details to you, or anyone. Their anti-ballistic missile sites and virtually the entire aerospace industry and production and storage for nuclear weapons, are damaged beyond any quick repair. The bases known to us to launch and retrieve shuttles or space planes, such as the Cape, Vandenberg, Edwards, Elgin and Groom Lake are non-functional. NA Space Command is gone and several hundred military aircraft all over the world. Quite a few of the ICBM sites also, but we cut off yesterday a bit short, to give them time to ponder where things stand."

  "We are going to give them a chance to surrender before picking back up. We could hit all the power plants and electric grids and data backbones if we wanted and millions of people would die in the coming winter. We could destroy their military centers with armor and other surface weapons. We could finish off all the minor escorts for the carriers we hit too. But we figure stripping them so badly would leave them wide open, to someone like China coming in and taking the Continent over."

  "So, if they refuse peace, next we are going to bust many of their important bridges, clean up the remaining missiles and start striking various well loved public monuments, which have powerful emotional value, before we are forced to hurt more civilians. Part of the reason for the change in tactics, is because they are trying to down play what's been done in the news outlets. We have identified what we think is a deep command bunker, we're going to hit too. Do you want to witness our surrender request and report it?

  "Yes, please. But all this you say you've destroyed - how can we verify this? We hear much confusion out of North America right now, especially with the earthquake in San Diego." She stopped suddenly, scanning their faces and got a startled expression on her face. "Did you do that? Did you do something so violent it seemed an earthquake ?"

  "It was a accident," Nam-Kah assured her. "We used our weapons too close to some fault lines and it was an unintended consequence - my personal error really. I had data I should have seen would predict this. We'll try not to do it again." She looked quite embarrassed.

  "You'll try not to do it again?" Do you hear yourself? She asked indignantly. "Can you picture what an earthquake does to an area? Have any of you ever been down there in one?"

  "Yes." Nam-Kah assured her. "I've been in an earthquake, quite a big one actually. And I can assure you we realize it can be similar in destruction to a nuclear bomb. However you saw on the video we sent your boss, how the North Americans just tried to hit us with two nuclear bombs. They fully intended to kill every man, woman and child here, including you! So don't get high and mighty with us about weapons of mass destruction. We're trying to soften our blows and the USNA is out to murder us all with no restraint."

  Adzusa nodded slowly, visibly but reluctantly absorbing the idea. She shook her head, either in wonder or as if to clear it. "Silly me, I was going to say much of the world will not believe you have hurt them so badly and suggest you release some video of the actual strikes. Now I find you are embarrassed at possessing power I never dreamed of. The other I'll report for you. If I did try to report this new thing, I can assure you nobody would believe it."

  "We couldn't prove it even if we wanted it made public," Nam-Kah assured her. "To prove it would require using the weapon systematically on faulted and faultless areas and seeing what the seismic response is. I don't think that's a very good idea."

  "That is a good idea about the video though," April countered. "Let's give her the record of hitting Kwajalein and what else?" she inquired of the whole crew.

  "The carrier group in the Indian ocean, with the submersible and Aegis cruisers," Allen suggested, getting a nod of approval all around. "It will lay a groundwork of credibility."

  Adzusa was given the appropriate files and set her pad up to record the conference they'd try to hold. She made very sure she was not on camera herself for the call.

  Jon wasn't sure who to call. He did a web search for - Pentagon contact - and found a site for pentagon.af.mil. When he looked at the contact info there was an address for an executive secretariat, but when he clicked on it he got an access forbidden screen. This was not the sort of thing he could just leave in a e-mail. What kind of an office didn't have video conferencing anymore? Did they expect him to use smoke signals? There was a voice only number, so he tried calling it, although he was determined to see whoever he talked to. The number yielded a voice mail system, not even a decent AI. It had an endless number of options, none of which suited what he needed. By waiting at the end he would get an operator. When the line was finally answered by a live person, it had taken seven minutes.

  "Hello this is Jon Davis, director of the militia at Home. I'd like to speak with someone with authority to hear a surrender request, on behalf of the United States of North America.

  The operator said, "I am connecting you with our expert response program. Please repeat your key word and if you need to modify your request, press the pound key."

  "Wait, wait, please, I don't wish to speak to a computer system..."

  A slow, carefully enunciated artificial voice said, "Computer system management is divided into systems operations and procurement. If you wish to speak about currently active management press one. If you are a vendor or wish information about supplying computer services or hardware, please press two."

  "How the hell do you make spex act like a pound key, on a frigging obsolete telephone handset?" Jon wanted to know. In the background, the expert system was telling him how to sign up for career upgrade training and call work at home support.

  "Disconnect," he said in frustration. "Anybody have any ideas?" he asked.

  "How about the infamous Homeland Security?" April suggested. "They have a snoop on every block. Surely if you call them up with a tip they will want to talk."

  "I don't think so," Jon told her, relating for them his last unpleasant conversation with the head of the Department.

  "Who can you call who will at least know who we are, without having it explained?" Jeff wondered. "Who have we dealt with before who has a clue what's happening?"

  Jon smiled. "I don't think anybody at Earthside Traffic Control will forget who we are, after the little speech Easy gave them from ISSII." He called their own local traffic control and got their address. "It's not the usual people and set up," the fellow warned him.

  "Oh? Why is that?" Jon wondered.

  "It used to be set up in Cheyenne Mountain. Now it's run out of Houston," the fellow told him, not making any guesses why. Jon didn't waste time now to discuss it.

  "Thanks. I'll keep it in mind, talking to them."

  Jon punched in the address and got a normal video hookup like he was used to, showing a fellow leaning his elbows on a key console, with spex and a boom mic in front of his mouth. He was in civilian clothing - a short sleeved plain white shirt with no tie and some pens and a scale in the pocket.

  "Houston Control, this is Jon Davis on Home, calling as head of our local militia. We need to speak with somebody who is in the command structure for the USNA military and discuss a mutual problem. Do you have an address, or can you connect us to such a person or agency?"

  "I can forward you to a liaison we have with Space Command." He looked real seriously at Jon. "Do you have a traffic matter you are reporting? We'd appreciate any heads up on traffic, instead of waiting for them to send a notice back to us."

  "No, we wanted to speak with them about a matter of surrender, up their chain of command. If it's unsuccessful any traffic it generates will be a military strike and won't be requesting clearance. We just didn't know who else to go through on th
is matter."

  "I guess I don't understand. My understanding is Mitsubishi 3 is supposed to be embargoed. If you surrender won't you be accepting traffic instructions again?"

  "What are they telling you?" Jon asked him. "Haven't you noticed there is no traffic lifting anywhere from North America?"

  "Sure we have. They told us everything is grounded but military and all we have to coordinate with is any foreign traffic. Space Command will handle all military traffic during the embargo. We talk to the foreign traffic and Space Command gives us back the clearance agreement and works all the radar and data to keep the military traffic secret. We relay instructions to our traffic, so it remains under civilian control. Other countries don't like taking traffic instructions from military."

  Jon shook his head unbelieving. "They're scamming you, keeping the data, because there is no military traffic to keep secret. We busted up the assembly buildings and shot up everything that could lift. The Cape, Edwards, all the space capable sites are wrecked. You can't even build a space plane now. Cheyenne Mountain isn't directing anything, because we bombarded it off the map. We're not calling to surrender. We took a little break and are giving them a chance to surrender, before we resume pounding the snot out of them from orbit again. I bet they aren't telling you that on the news, are they?"

  The controller was looking at him goggle eyed. Opened his mouth, then thought better of it and didn't say anything more. It was probably too dangerous politically. He just leaned forward and punched something on his board, with a scared look on his face. He probably knew more now, than he wanted to know. Security might make things awkward for him. The screen switched to a man at a darker room, with a work uniform and heavy spex. His name above the pocket said Bennigan and he had some military emblems on Jon didn't recognize. He was in the sort of a high backed, padded, powered chair, that makes a long shift sitting bearable and they could see a number of bright squares reflected in his spex, from the screens he was monitoring.

  "Are you recording?" Jon asked first.

  "Always. What's your call about?"

  "I'm Jon Davis, Militia Director and spokesperson for the nation of Home. We wish to announce if we don't receive an acceptance of surrender, at the number I'm calling from in the next hour, we are going to resume a campaign of bombardment against the USNA worldwide. We are asking you to pass the message up the chain of command, for their review.

  "You're saying you want us to surrender?" he asked, incredulous.

  "That's correct. I don't expect you personally have the authority to surrender. Just pass it up the line please."

  "To even dignify it, by passing it forward, would leave me accused of aiding the enemy, cowardice and destroy my career. I'm not about to do it."

  "Up to you Bennigan. If a government or an officer has no ability to consider a surrender, you have to consider the alternative."

  "And what is that?" he asked, with visible distaste.

  "Death," explained Jon and disconnected.

  "You do have a way with a word," Jeff quipped.

  "You have no way to send your message to the top, to someone who could really consider it, do you?" Adzusa finally realized.

  "No. You start to understand. It's a matter of will. They assume we won't or can't hurt them badly enough, to cause them to surrender. Their own people are trained it's suicide to even suggest it, because there is no honest dialogue possible down there anymore. So it's a psychological contest. Do we have the stomach to slaughter them without reserve, or will it be so repulsive we'll die ourselves, rather than carry the burden of their deaths?"

  "And what is the answer? Can you live with it?" she asked.

  "We begged for peace. If they want death and war, I'll give them their fill," he vowed.

  "Call Dave's boys down, the ships are going back out," Jon told Allen.

  Chapter 35

  April checked the schedule to put out and found she had time for a normal meal before she had to show up. The cafeteria was busy with more people than usual. But the selection of food was quite limited. No fresh fruit, orange juice, or eggs and there was coffee, but it was weak and the serving line had a little hand lettered sign which asked - "Please only take what you'll eat - we don't know when we'll have deliveries again."

  When she took her tray to a table, Doris stood up from a group at another table and made her way to her. April saw Theo, Margaret, the reporter Adzusa and a few others she didn't know at the other table. She had a moment of panic, wondering what Doris would say to her. But Doris didn't say anything at first. She simply put both arms around April and hugged her close. The natural thing to do and a relief, was to hug her back.

  "Please, don't sit off alone. Come over and talk to us. You look scared like I'm going to bite you. No need of that," she said, a hurt look on her face. "I'm not like my father."

  "No, I know that," April was quick to say, "I have nothing against you at all. I like you just fine, but I've been scared you might not care to see me. After all, my father shot yours and I killed your father's friend. I had no choice, but it can't make it any easier for you."

  "No. It makes it much worse for me, that he was in your apartment trying to hurt your dad. It's no better than if he were shot robbing a bank or something. He would have told you all sorts of complicated reasons he had to be doing it, for the glory of the State, or to help those on the side of the Lord. But the truth is he was doing it because he was a hateful man, who wanted everyone on Home to be under his thumb, just like he had to control his own family. I'm ashamed of what he did to you, not angry. Now come on, sit with us." She insisted, picking up April's tray to carry over to their table and just made her come.

  * * *

  The sample pix of NA being bombarded and the recording of Bennigan at Space Command refusing to pass their call to surrender, Adzusa had sent to Genji Akira. It went out in their web cast for their news service and in the daily paper. A lot of papers and sites worldwide had picked up new subscriptions to their column in the last day. It was even being translated into a few more languages.

  * * *

  Bennigan looked up from his console not long after, to find two tough security types arresting him. He was bewildered. He just could not comprehend it didn't matter what he would have done. He would have been as condemned for passing the message on, as for refusing it. It was a lose - lose proposition.

  * * *

  Martin Crain was seven hours into his work day. Tired and sucking down some coffee to carry him to the end. A little more than another hour and he's drop his road train of three trailers at a routing yard in St. Louis and get a room. He was almost to the Mississippi bridge, when a East St. Louis cop car and an Illinois State Trooper both passed him going flat out. They didn't have their lights on, but traffic was light and the two left lanes mostly open.

  His dashboard display worked for GPS, but the satellite based traffic warning system, had been down for a weeks. His eyes flicked up to it anyway, out of habit. The traffic coming the other way was about the same as his side, so that was a good sign. He thought he'd get past whatever the cops were responding to, until he went another mile and saw the backup. There were about two dozen road trains and big rigs stopped in the two right lanes. A handful of private cars could be seen in the third lane, about two hundred meters ahead, right at the near edge of the bridge. He flipped on his flashers and braked to a stop in the second lane.

  Martin shut his engine off quickly to conserve fuel. He waited until two more trucks were stopped behind him, so he knew nobody would be plowing into his stopped rig and locked his cab and walked forward to see what was wrong.

  The Illinois State trooper was parked across the left lanes and the city cop across the right. There was some kind of pounding coming from the river, like a jack hammer but slower. When he got all the way to the front, the cops had reflective tape draped from the center divider to their cars in turn and to the last reflector on the shoulder, before the bridge abutment itself.

  T
he drivers were four deep around the city cop and he couldn't even get close, so he asked a fellow driver hanging back if he knew what was going on.

  "Somebody is tearing up the delta tower, from which the cables hang on this side of the river. I'm from the second rig there in the right lane. When I stopped you could see the concrete dust drifting out from under the bridge deck."

  Martin looked around. There were no aircraft in sight and no sounds like a gun firing. It didn't make any sense.

  "If it's serious, why aren't they blocking off the bridge from the Missouri side?"

  "Damned if I know," the other driver told him. "The cops said they called them over there. I guess that's why they call it the 'Show Me' state."

  Just then the constant crack, crack, crack, was drowned out by a long shriek of tortured steel tearing. The near tower fell, thankfully away from them, falling straight along the highway. The cables sang like giant guitar strings, then tore out of the nearby foundations and whipped high in the air following the tower. The deck of the bridge was smashed down into the water, out well past the center of the river. The rigs like Martin's, still filling the eastbound lanes, crushed like toys. Water from the river fell all around them, like a sudden heavy rain. The delta tower on the opposite bank was pulled toward them briefly, in seeming slow motion and then rebounded and fell on the Missouri approaches, the same direction the near tower had fallen.

  When all the noise finally died down Martin looked at the other driver standing mouth still hanging open and staring in horror.

  "Well, I guess that showed them," he agreed.

  * * *

  In Europe the first traces of radiation release from the busted weapon facilities and missile fields of North America were reaching the Continent on the winds. A lot of the destroyed North American missiles had cooked off their propellant, burning in their silos and spewing a fountain of flame, which carried the plutonium debris of shattered warheads far up into the sky like a huge Roman candle. Farming and aqua culture were faced with contamination, from isotopes which would not decay to acceptable levels in a normal lifespan.