by Ryan Hyatt
Specialist David Kim touched down in Tehran on Monday, one day following the memorial service for his deceased aunt and uncle. The feet of his Mama’s Boy Eleven touched down firmly in Imam Khomeini Square, located in the heart of the capital. Kim’s final destination was Shahr Park, a few blocks southwest, but first there was cleaning up to do, as the captain called it, tuned in from his mountain precipice thirty miles away. To make Shahr Park secure for America and its allies, Kim’s first task was to remove rogue elements from surrounding neighborhoods and fortify routes to and from the park. So, Kim began the awe-inspiring business of introducing himself to the community.
The earth trembled as the feet of Mama’s Boy Eleven landed on the ground of the square. Its arms and chest flexed, and the three-hundred-foot-tall American monster bellowed a deafening roar. Close to the feet of the landed sentinel was a toppled fire truck, which ACE informed Kim had been smashed through an adjacent five-story commercial building the day prior. The fire truck was left a smoldering ruin, its occupants long gone, part of an emergency response which, in a city under siege, ended with another emergency.
On one side of the fire truck a group of looters passed Telenets, home computers and other gadgets to each other through a busted window of an electronics store. On the other side of the fire truck a man in a business suit dragged a kicking and screaming woman toward an alleyway. The towering hulk reached for the fire truck, lifted it and ripped it in half, with as much strain as a person might use to tear a shoe box.
The looters dropped the stolen electronic wares and fled. The aspiring rapist let go of his victim and disappeared into the alley by himself. Still, the woman didn’t seem very relieved. The captain, watching the exchange through a vid-feed, was familiar with the expression on her face. He’d seen it a lot lately. She looked as if an alien spaceship had just arrived from another planet and was about to eat her.
“YOU’RE SAFE NOW,” Kim said, which Daddy’s Girl translated into Persian that echoed from the Liberator’s loudspeakers. “TELL YOUR FAMILY AND FRIENDS THE AMERICANS ARE HERE TO STAY. ANYONE WHO WISHES TO JOIN THE CAUSE OF FREEDOM IS WELCOME TO MEET AT SHAHR PARK. LIKEWISE, ANYONE WHO INTERFERES WITH OUR MISSION WILL MEET THEIR FATE.”
The captain watched as the terrified woman scrambled to her feet, nodded and ran away.
“Nice job,” he said to Kim. “Now get to work.”
Kim did. He started with the torn fire truck. He flung its pieces into nearby street corners, blocking off those routes into and out of the square. In the past few days of fighting, so many Iranians left the capital in such haste that many abandoned their cars. Mama’s Boy Eleven proceeded to pick them up and stack them like bricks around the dismembered fire truck. When there were no more cars available, Kim turned his attention to adjacent buildings for material needed.
Using his Liberator’s infrared scanners, he searched for warm bodies inside. Most contained frightened Iranians hiding from him, but he did find one abandoned office. His Mama’s Boy pummeled the rooftop and caused large tracts of concrete to fall to the ground. He used the debris to finish his barricades.
“Keep at it,” the captain said. “I’ll check in later to see how you’re holding up.”
“Thanks,” Kim said, and nothing further was mentioned about barricades, or the Marine’s lost aunt and uncle.
By the time Kim was finished, all incoming traffic into Imam Khomeini Square was forced south through one main corridor, Bab Hamayoon. In turn, Bab Hamayoon came to a T-intersection with Soor e Esrafil, which funneled five hundred troops and Iranian green allies to and from the eastern checkpoints created for Shahr Park.
Similar efforts to restrict access to American encampments were underway throughout Tehran, thanks mostly to Sergeant John Huxley and Lieutenant Omar Mustafa, two Eagle Scouts also under the captain’s supervision. In fact, the Liberators’ efforts around the capital went unchallenged until Monday afternoon, when the Iranian military began a counteroffensive to contest their nation’s conquest. A series of tank and artillery formations concentrated along major boulevards, which had been shielded by civilians the day before, broke into smaller units to engage the angels of death.
Mustafa’s Mama’s Boy Nine was among the first to draw fire as he prepared for the arrival of one thousand troops to be stationed at Laleh Park, northwest of Shahr Park. Following the Marine terrorist attacks, he no longer had reservations about invading an Islamic homeland. Although no one close to him was killed, enough of his comrades lost loved ones that he considered he was doing fellow Muslims a favor by ridding Iran of its leadership.
As Mustafa worked to fortify the area around Laleh Park, he was awed by the beautiful mosque domes rounding out Tehran’s skyline. He wished in his mind for a democratic government to quickly form in Iran that would return the nation to its previous Persian glory, or at least ensure the land’s exotic architecture and vast cultural legacy wasn’t destroyed.
“LET’S RETURN TO THAT THOUGHT LATER,” Daddy’s Girl said moments before artillery rained on surrounding rooftops. “RIGHT NOW, YOU ARE UNDER ATTACK.”
Some debris slammed into Mama’s Boy Nine and cluttered the shield. Within minutes it would dissolve. Meanwhile, Mustafa piloted half-blindly as he was unable to see clearly from the cockpit.
Talk to me, he thought to his co-pilot in mind-link mode.
“OP-346-358 ARE RESPONSIBLE FOR THE SHELLING,” Daddy’s Girl said.
Mustafa barely distinguished the flashing red letters and numbers in the right corner of his shield.
Clear of civilians?
“AFFIRMATIVE,” Daddy’s Girl said. “THEY ARE RELOADING. DAMAGE POTENTIAL EXISTS. EVASIVE ACTION ADVISED.”
Get air, Mustafa thought, and his Liberator leaped over a building in front of it, hovered over rooftops and veered north toward its targets.
Ask my parents if I can crash the party, Mustafa thought, and he waited for a confirmation or refusal from Command.
“NOBODY’S ANSWERING.”
Trouble. Patch me to Ray Gun.
Mustafa noticed a group of civilians below hoarding fruits and vegetables from the back of a pickup truck. They took cover at the sight of his Liberator.
“I’m here,” the captain said.
“What can you tell me?” Mustafa said.
“Your parents are no longer home. I repeat: Your parents are no longer home. I’m on the road right now, making sure your brothers are safe. Do you read me?”
“Affirmative.”
“For now, you’re on your own. Act your age, Mama’s Boy.”
“Yes, sir!” Mustafa said, but he continued to wonder what prevented communication with the Turkey base.
Mama’s Boy Nine hovered toward the enemy cluster at the broad crossroads of Hakim and Kordestan highways. It sustained hits from machine gun fire as it landed on and crushed two artillery pieces.
Machete me, Mustafa thought, and he reached behind his back.
The right hand of Mama’s Boy Nine withdrew a rear wing, gripped the tip, and swung it forward like a giant battle ax. The wing glowed a burning red upon contact with the Liberator’s hand, superheated by the ship’s nuclear fuel cell. With hatchet in hand, the Lib sliced through dozens of artillery turrets like sticks of butter.
“INCOMING,” Daddy’s Girl said.
On the left corner of his shield, approaching east from Hakim Highway, Mustafa noticed the flashing red letters and numbers of a tank formation, OP-359-363. He made a kicking motion inside the cockpit, and his Lib knocked an artillery gun toward the tanks as if it were a soccer ball. The artillery gun exploded among the barrage of incoming tank fire and shielded the Lib from any harm.
Let’s ride.
Mama’s Boy Nine transformed into vehicular mode and bridged the gap between it and the tanks at harrowing speed. It fired from its forward-facing shoulders five rockets. Each hit their targets. By the time Mustafa met the cluster seconds later, they were a flaming heap of scrap metal, and he skidded his vehicle over
the burning junk and commanded it to return to sentinel mode.
The standing juggernaut flexed its arms and chest and let out a steel-scraping scream. Daddy’s Girl identified numerous threats in the area, spreading north and south, tanks and mobile artillery scattering behind buildings like fleeing bugs.
At that moment Mustafa was joined by Huxley, who just finished fending off a larger attack of the same general formation further east. The sergeant was in charge of preparing huge Pardisan Park for two thousand troops, the most to be concentrated at any site in Iran, and he didn’t take it lightly.
“Let’s kill us some towel heads!” Huxley said to Mustafa.
“They’re not towel heads, you idiot,” Mustafa said. “‘Towel heads’ are Arabs, Sunnis Muslims. Our foes here are Shia Muslims, a big difference, if you know your history.”
“Whoever they are, they killed my Granddaddy while he was on the crapper, so they can expect a few holes in their heads.”
“Well, then, I guess you ought to call them bullet heads!”
“Now you’re talking, Camel Jockey!” Huxley said. “I knew there were testicles and a sense of humor in you somewhere.”
CHAPTER 5
American leadership declared mission accomplished for major operations in Iran on Monday night. Lasting little more than a day, the conquest of Iran became the fastest of a nation in history, outpacing Hitler’s 1939 blitzkrieg of Poland by nearly a month and the 2003 U.S. invasion of Iraq by a month and two weeks. The designation of victory, however, didn’t mean American military action in Iran was complete. It merely meant the invasion was successful in that American leaders had acquired the oil they sought.
After the mourning, Marines arrived and all three Liberator squads were near maximum strength. Operation Park Walk shifted from an offensive to defensive stance. Only three dozen Marines were killed during the invasion, a few dozen more injured. The United States suffered less than one hundred casualties altogether, compared to unknown losses on the Iranian side. Estimates varied from the hundreds to thousands for civilians, while ACE provided a more specific number for soldiers. According to its calculations, 85,320 Iranian military personnel were killed while serving in combat against the Liberators, and there were at least as many casualties, although these admittedly were difficult for even an advanced artificially-intelligent computer system to quantify.
The most significant blow to the Americans was to its command center. From the outset of hostilities, the Iranians launched a total of eleven ballistic missiles. They targeted the American headquarters outside Istanbul, Turkey, as well as Israel’s major cities. Of these, three missiles were armed with nuclear warheads, and ten of eleven were intercepted and destroyed by Liberators before reaching their targets. However, one conventional warhead penetrated American air defenses and destroyed much of the Turkey base.
Fortunately for the United States, the base’s capability for reloading the Liberators remained intact, and the site continued to be used. Otherwise, the campaign might have been short-lived. Unfortunately for the Americans, a dozen staffers, including some high-ranking officers, were killed by the missile.
This fact was largely overlooked by the American press in the wake of the declared victory, thanks to high-profile footage of the Liberators in action. These images were posted by Iranian citizens on BoobTube and flooded billions of Telenets worldwide. Regardless of one’s loyalties, the outlandish destruction depicted by the super soldiers as they demolished countless artillery, tanks and war planes seemed to captivate a whole generation of viewers who witnessed it.
The Colonel appeared on a New York morning show on Tuesday to talk about his nation’s new weapon. The captain, who made a point of following military-related news, tuned in to the broadcast from his Albourz precipice.
“How has this weapon changed the nature of warfare?” the host asked.
“Liberator has made conventional fighting in the nuclear age relevant and in vogue once again,” the Colonel said. “In this era of widespread terrorism, with minerals and resources becoming scarcer by the day, Liberator can juggle the multiple needs modern Western militaries face. With its unsurpassed mobility, strength and adaptability on the battlefield, it all but guarantees victory, saving a vast amount of time, money and men and women. The Iran invasion cost us one day, one hundred casualties and $70 billion to clench. While these numbers are significant, frankly, they are chump change compared to the toll traditional methods would have required.”
The captain tuned to other news channels. The Israeli government was so impressed with what it saw it pledged to purchase five Liberators from Rocket & Gamble to help settle a water dispute with war-ravaged Syria. Even France, proud of its pacifist spirit, offered to buy some Liberators to police its adversaries in North Africa. Each day the list of nations on favorable terms with the United States hoping to acquire the new super soldier grew longer.
None of this was of much surprise to Ray. More interesting to him was a small but vocal group of activists from California. The anti-war antics underway by the Eco-Socialists in the Golden State had been garnering national media attention since operations in Iran began, and the captain reviewed a related broadcast.
Contrary to the Colonel’s perspective, the Eco-Socialists believed military action to secure more fossil fuels was in itself a vast waste of time, money and life. They claimed the desire to engage in global conflicts over limited natural resources would prove to be America’s downfall, and they cast a dark forecast for the nation’s future if it failed to positively adapt to the world’s changing energy paradigm. The United States had enough resources to prosper at home, the Eco-Socialists said, but only sweeping reforms that emphasized sustainable technological development would make America a great world leader again. The captain thought their sentiments were well stated by Joe Graciowski, a prominent figure in the entertainment industry who led one of the San Francisco-based actions.
A news clip of Graciowski and his fellow organizers showed them gathered around a windy, rocky jetty near the Golden Gate Bridge, reporters’ microphones pushed against their lips. They were there to celebrate a new project just approved by the city’s art council called the Statue of Responsibility. The activists pointed to an adult-sized model of the proposed attraction situated behind them, which soon would stand as tall and majestic as the Statue of Liberty, which it parodied. Unlike its East Coast counterpart, the Statue of Responsibility was to feature a balding white male wearing a business suit, cradling a bottle of booze in one hand, dangling car keys with the other, staring out aimlessly at the Pacific.
“The bottle of booze represents freedom, and the car keys the need to use it wisely,” Graciowski said. “The idea is that we are drunk on our freedom, and we will use it to drive ourselves off a cliff into the ocean, if we are not careful. The Statue of Responsibility will be erected and last as long as the occupation of Iran does.”
“Isn’t what you’re proposing…a little ridiculous?” one reporter asked.
“Only as ridiculous as building a giant monster to invade a foreign country to take its oil,” Graciowski said. “You would think a nation that has the ability to create such a monster would also have the ability to figure out how it didn’t need dirty fossil fuels in the first place. Every time we fill our gas tanks we are paying the oil industry to continue controlling our energy policy. We have become dependent on oil to get us to and from work, buy groceries, get our kids to soccer practice. It’s a form of taxation, pure and simple. I’m not sure about you, but I pay enough taxes already. I want new fuels and cheaper and better ways to live.”
The captain tuned out. He felt betrayed, stabbed in the heart, as if the doubts he harbored about himself and his mission were as much a part of him as his blood and guts, and they just spilled forth, plainly visible. It was as if his career, with its ups and downs, its wounds and its medals, his faith in the goodness and rightness of his country, verged on becoming a farce. The Statue of Responsibility would see
to that. Ray Salvatore was just another clueless asshole wrecking the world. His life was a cruel joke, and all he had with certainty, or of value, was his daughter.
The captain’s heart raced. His hands trembled. He received a call from another Liberator pilot.
“Are you all right?” Kim asked.
“I am now,” the captain said.
Just like that, the treachery the captain felt began to dissipate. Ray wasn’t alone or naïve, he reminded himself. Americans were still decent, starting with his team.
“Glad to hear it,” Kim said. “Your blood pressure skyrocketed, thought you might have had a heart attack.”
“No, just scanning the headlines,” the captain said. “Perhaps I have a tendency to overreact to the awful things people say and do.”
“Yes, you do,” Kim said. “Listen, I’m sorry I complained about you. The Colonel put me up to it. He said it was important I speak on the record, but I’m not sure why.”
“Neither am I, but at this point, nothing surprises me…”
“I’m leaving the military,” Kim said. “After this tour, I’m finished. I’ve had it. I’m done.”
“Really? Last week you were fixated on revenge.”
“I was, but now that I’m here, I realize this isn’t my fight,” Kim said. “I took over the responsibility of raising my brother and sister after our parents were killed in New York. My aunt and uncle helped, but it was mostly me. They were too poor and old to do much. I joined the Marines because I was angry and wanted to serve, of course, but also because it was the easiest way for me to support my family without an education. Now that I find myself in this strange land, doing this strange job, I realize there’s no reason for me to be here. My fight is elsewhere. The people I love most are already gone, and those who are left still need me. Not tomorrow or in a few years, but as soon as possible. My brother’s and sister’s world has turned upside down, first with the murder of our parents, then with the murder of our aunt and uncle. I need to get back to them. There’s no one else but me to look after them anymore.”