Apocalyptic Visions Super Boxset

by James Hunt

  The port office had turned from a customs checkpoint to a forward operating base. There were clusters of shipless captains and commanders from the army and militia guarding the city’s rear for any Chinese that may have made landfall either north or south of the city. Sydney’s port officer, Danny Gimley, had become the unofficial hub for any and all military news. He was surrounded by men, all trying to get a glimpse at the most alarming evidence of their enemy’s superior tech in warfare.

  Fifty years ago, the piece of tech next to Danny would have been an afterthought, commonplace in the world with more modern equipment. But after the Great War, what technological feats that had allowed civilization to advance in leaps and bounds that existed were blown away. Within minutes, billions were dead, entire cities leveled, once great countries suddenly cast back into the Stone Age.

  The fact that the Chinese had radio capabilities gave them a strategic advantage, communicating their war strategies and defenses in real time. They no longer had to wait for the slow pace of horse and ship. And in a war like this, time was just as important as sword and rifle.

  “We’ve received word from our scouts that Brisbane has been taken.” The words left Danny’s mouth with a loss of breath, and the commanders and captains around him lowered their dirt-caked faces, the news sinking their shoulders. “We’ve also learned that Perth has been taken in the west.”

  Lance kept to the back of the room and cursed under his breath. With Brisbane to the north, Perth in the west, and the blockade to the east, it wouldn’t be long before the Chinese closed in on Sydney. They were surrounded.

  One of the commanders spoke up. “It won’t be long before the bulk of the Chinese army marches here.” A large map of the country was posted on the wall next to Danny’s desk, and the commander pressed a dirty, chubby finger against the city of Perth. “We have units stationed here that have been ordered to pull back. Until the bulk of our fleet returns from its journey in Brazil, we need to consolidate our resources.”

  “Retreating is an odd form of consolidation.” Every head in the room shifted to the back, where Lance leaned up against the doorframe. His blue eyes examined the mixed faces looking back at him. The variety of emotions ranged from fear to disgust. Not everyone was appreciative of his contributions.

  “You’re an experienced naval captain, Lance,” Danny said. “But the commander has just as many years of experience fighting on land. He led our charges on the islands against the Chinese during the Island Wars.” The rest of the room grunted in agreement.

  “It’s been three days.” Lance stepped forward, the men in the room keeping their distance. “It’s at least a week’s journey from Lima on the west coast of the South Americas, and your fleet left the day the Chinese had attacked. We’re barely holding the line in the harbor, and even if we don’t lose any more ships or men, we’re running out of ammunition.” Lance pointed out to the battle still waging on. “The Chinese have provision shipments coming from the north, but with the blockade we have nothing. We won’t last another three days if this keeps up, and we need to accept the fact that the Brazilians are working with the Chinese, so the fleet you’re hoping to come and save you may already be destroyed.”

  “Preposterous!” The commander slammed his fist into the table, rattling Danny’s desk. “The Brazilians may have money, but they don’t have the power to destroy our fleet. We’re not as weak as you propose, Captain Mars.” Spit dribbled down the commander’s bearded chin. The bits of grey that time had etched in his hair were dirtied with grime. “We know your family helped us in the Island Wars, but we are not some nation of weaklings that require your country’s aid whenever there is conflict.”

  “This isn’t just Australia.” Lance thrust his jaw forward, and his cheeks reddened. The stress of war creaked his joints as he inched closer to the commander, parting the sea of men that stood in his way. “The map I stole from the Chinese camp in the islands north of here showed a force that stretched to the Okhotsk Sea. That means the Chinese had men and ships in Russian territory, which tells me they’re working together.”

  The room tittered but with a sense of caution. None of them wanted it to be true. If it was more than just the Chinese then there hadn’t been a war of this scale in nearly fifty years. A moment in history soldiers would sooner skip than have repeated.

  “Captain Mars.” Danny rested his hand on Lance’s shoulder, his words soft but firm. “Could I have a word?” Danny eased Lance out of the room, the tempers on the verge of bursting the structure in flames. Even out of earshot of the others, Danny kept his voice low. “Lance, look, you know there isn’t a man in that room that doesn’t appreciate what you’ve done to help us, but we’re getting desperate here. The city is in shambles, and we don’t have a lot of options.”

  “And you seem content on giving the best options to the Chinese!” Lance attempted to keep his voice down but did a poor job of it. “We need to contain the Chinese on the coasts. You cannot afford to give up ground. Not when the uncertainty of whether the fleet is going to make it here or not is so high.”

  Lines of worry imprinted on Danny’s face. “Christ, Lance, if the Brazilians are helping the Chinese, then even if our fleet does show up, I don’t know if we’ll be able to outlast them.”

  Lance nodded, his eyes squinting in the rising sun. “The Brazilians have the resources and engineers to build whatever the Chinese need, and it’s no secret President Ruiz has been eyeing your ports with envy. He’s not the type of man to let go of a lust once he’s put his mind to it.” Greed was a powerful motive.

  The heat burned Lance’s face and the back of his neck. His skin was more leather than flesh after the years at sea. While his eyes still expressed the exuberance of youth, the aged wrinkles of time were catching up with his hard life of sailing.

  “Captain!” Canice sprinted to them, skidding to a halt on the splintered docks and sending up a spray of wood chips. She doubled over, her hands on her knees, trying to catch her breath. She pointed behind her. “The left flank’s broken. We need to plug the hole.”

  Danny was screaming something at him as he and Canice made their way back to the Sani, but over the increased thunder in the harbor and the pounding in his chest, Lance couldn’t hear him. The Chinese had drawn blood, and the sharks were on their way to feast.

  “Tie off the lines! Man the cannons!” Lance barked the orders, his crew storing what supplies they managed to restock. Canice followed Lance to the helm, where he thrust the engines forward. “Did we get all of the wounded and dead off the ship?”

  “Yes, but we weren’t able to finish loading the provisions. I had the men load the ammunition first though. Although if you put enough seasoning on the lead I’m sure we could choke it down.”

  The vessel the Chinese sunk was now aflame, sailors jumping from the sinking ship. The enemy advanced on the now gaping hole in their defense, and once they broke through, there wouldn’t be any way to stem the damage. “Load the forward guns, and tell the engine room to stow the coal; we might need the rest of it to get out of here in a hurry.”

  With the Sani back in the action, only one ship remained in reserve at the docks to offer relief. The ships were on their last leg. The line wouldn’t hold much longer.

  The enemy warships closed in on the open gap as Lance approached and lined up the front cannons. “Fire!” Two sixty-five-pound lead balls exploded from the Sani’s bow, trailed by lines of smoke that wafted over the deck and crew.

  The relentless strikes kept the Chinese at bay as Lance maneuvered the Sani into the now sunken vessel’s post. The roar over the water and the constant drum of cannons was deafening. Lance idled the engines, and they slowly slid into place next to the other battled vessels, plugging the leaking hole.

  Vibrations rippled through the Sani with every blast of its cannons and every direct hit by the Chinese. Between the cannonade, the shrieks and screams of men could be heard across the dozens of ship decks in the bay.


  Even with their bones shattered and snapped against the heavy lead hurled toward them, the men willed themselves forward. Cannons were loaded. Guns were fired. Orders were followed. And the machine of war continued to churn forward.

  “Captain!” Canice gestured to three gunner ships skimming the edge of the harbor, using their shipwrecked brethren as their guide out of the shallows.

  “Port side strong!” Lance turned the wheel, thrusting the accelerator forward and churning the steam boilers in the engine room below. Puffs of black smoke rose from the columns on board as Lance took chase, leaving a temporary hole in their link of armored ships. The three Chinese vessels were at full steam, cutting through the shallows at dangerous speeds, and continued their assault from their own portside cannons.

  Lance measured the distance between the three boats. In an effort to pass quickly the ships had clustered together, less than twenty yards separating the stern of one ship to the bow of the next. All Lance had to do was slow the lead ship, and the rest would buckle.

  The Sani’s bow broke through the calm waters, pushing aside the debris of ships and limbs of men from its path. Lance kept the angle on his pursuit, forcing the Chinese vessel to either take the barrage of his cannons or chance running aground and joining his comrades in the rocky shallows. The Chinese ships were built top heavy, the bulk of their armor at the top half of their hulls, making their turns jerky, sporadic.

  A cannonball blasted across the Sani’s deck, crunching the wooden boards under the sheer force, taking two legs, an arm, and a head from four separate men along with it. Lance’s arms trembled from the blows. The boilers rattled, and his engine supervisor burst into the wheelhouse, soaked in sweat and black as soot from head to toe, save for the whites of his eyes.

  “Captain, the engines aren’t going to hold at this speed.” The coal dust was so thick around his face that when he spoke, puffs of the fine black dust burst with each syllable. “We’re only running on two thirds of our boilers; what’s left are too strained.”

  Lance kept his hand on the throttle. The engines offered a foreboding jolt that reverberated all the way to the ship’s deck. The bulk of their portside cannons were almost in range of the lead Chinese ship. Just a little farther.

  “Captain!” The engine supervisor thrust his face in front of Lance’s, blocking the captain’s vision. “She’s not going to last much longer.”

  Lance shoulder checked the engine supervisor out of his way. “She’ll hold.” She’d been through worse before. It wasn’t the first time the odds had been stacked against them, and if the Chinese had their way it wouldn’t be the last. “Release the emergency valves; that’ll handle the remaining pressure.”

  “Captain, if we do that—”

  “That’s an order!” Lance turned on the crewman, and the sailor slowly backed down.

  “Yes, sir.” The engine supervisor hurried away, leaving a trail of black prints in his wake. The Sani gave a whine. Lance knew the man was right, but now wasn’t the time to believe it. It wasn’t just the ship that was ready to break down; it was the crew as well. Lance saw it in their eyes.

  The lack of supplies, the long hours, the constant noise of cannons and screams, the blood, the lead, the smell, the pain—all of it was reaching a crescendo. The adrenaline of war had subsided and was replaced with the hazy fog of exhaustion.

  The cannons fired again, the Sani’s roar shaking the doubts from Lance’s mind. Even though she was tired, she wasn’t dead, and Lance knew their end wasn’t today.

  Lance checked the angle of their approach and saw the lead Chinese vessel had slowed in anticipation of his attack, causing the trailing ships to nearly touch. The cannons were in position, and Lance pointed to Canice to echo the orders. “Fire away!”

  “Fire!” Canice roared, her voice cut off by the thunder of twenty cannons thrusting hundreds of pounds of lead toward the vanguard Chinese ship. And just as Lance had suspected the ship would react, it maneuvered sharply, cutting too hard and close to the shallows, where it stuttered, and the short space between the two ships in its wake didn’t leave enough time for them to avoid collision.

  The three ships wrecked along the edge of the harbor, and the Sani, the very ship that had felt the fatigue of war, and its crew exhausted, clamored in defiance. Fists thrust into the air, men pounded their chests, and the beat of war ravaged on.

  Lance was not done. His ship and crew weren’t finished. They’d fight until their last breath, and they made damn sure their enemy knew they planned on breathing for a very long time.

  Chapter 2

  Dawn broke over the mountain peaks. The warm air mixed with the cool of the ocean and cast a blue haze over the shoreline, a morning routine that citizens along the northwest coast of the Americas had grown used to. The Pacific Ocean lapped against the ancient rocks that had far outlasted the crumbling cities and towns of old.

  The ruins, as citizens called them, were nothing more than worn lumps of concrete and wood, decayed far past the means of usefulness. The once towering structures had been replaced by one-story cabins, fashioned with logs and wood, as their pioneer ancestors had done hundreds of years before.

  Dean Mars enjoyed walking through the ruins of the old cities. It reminded him of the cost of war, and the price was high. It’d become a ritual for him ever since his first battle during the Island Wars against the Chinese. Although then, he walked through the structures with his father, and now with his dad long dead, he walked alone. Even if his brothers were here, he knew that they’d refuse to accompany him. None of them shared the same appreciation of the ruins as he had.

  As the second youngest of four boys, Dean had learned at a very young age the importance of words, and it was a skill that had served him well. His mother pushed him to learn as much as he could, so that one day he could trade his sword and pistol for a pen and paper. He held onto that, knowing that would one day be the future for his people, for his country. But for now, Dean was equally as thankful to his father for teaching him how to fight.

  Dean’s green eyes glanced north, through the haze of the morning fog and over the dilapidated structures of the ruins. Somewhere in the great wilderness of the north and the vast tundra beyond, an army was slowly marching its way south, coming for the very lands Dean and his family had fought so hard to protect. His fingers clutched two pendulums hanging from his neck, both identical silver encased spheres, but one stained with blood.

  The ground underneath his feet was an odd mixture of earth and ash. The bombs that were dropped here long ago had left a scar on the earth that many of the scholars believed would never heal. The dirt felt silky and grainy against his skin as he sifted it through his fingers. Finally, he wiped his hand along his pant leg and made his way back to his horse.

  The mare whinnied at Dean’s arrival and gave a light stomp. He patted the horse with his clean hand. “Enjoy the quiet.” Dean looked back to the landscape and the shoreline, the light sound of the ocean the only noise the morning offered. “It won’t be like this for much longer.” Dean mounted the steed and turned east toward his town. Here, the dead required no attention, and it was time to return to the land of the living.

  Despite the early-morning hour, the town was busy. The words of war had echoed throughout his entire region, and his people knew what was coming. While the past year of peace was a welcome reprieve, the way his people reacted so quickly to the call of battle made Dean believe that none of them ever truly thought war was done. And for that, he felt as though he failed them.

  “Governor!”

  Dean pulled up the reins, nearly trampling Hawthorne, who slid in the mud to get his attention. “Professor, can I help you?”

  The old man had the wrinkled face of a prune, and what hair was left on his head was white as clouds. His arms were spilling with books and papers, and his lips trembled slightly, his words eager to leave his lips. “I needed to speak with you, again, about the symbols from the raiders.”

  The
horse offered a grunt to the professor’s words then stomped a hoof in defiance of being slowed in her pace. Dean brushed the animal’s mane in an attempt to calm her. “We’ve already discovered who means to do us harm, Professor. Both the Russians and the Chinese have banded together.”

  “Yes, but the significance—”

  “Governor.” General Monaghan stepped between the professor and the horse. “Your unit is ready for departure, and we’ve received word from the wasteland clans; the chiefs will hear you speak.”

  “Thank you, Jake.” The general gave a light bow then departed. The streets were becoming increasingly busy, and while Dean valued the word of the old professor, the meaning of symbols was over. “Professor, while I’m sure whatever you found has a historical significance, I no longer have the time to give you.”

  Hawthorne took a quick step forward, his feet smacking into the thick, traveled mud. “Governor, please, it’ll only take a moment.”

  Both Dean and the horse offered a sigh. “I need to go and visit my family before my departure. Meet me by the mounted unit in an hour, and you will have your moment.” Before the professor could butt in another word, Dean spurred the horse and trotted past.

  Nearly everyone Dean saw that morning offered a word as he rode by... most of them words of encouragement and strength, some of worry, and a few of disgust and discontent. But such was the life of an elected official. Dean recognized all of his people’s rights, even though not everyone may have recognized his.

  The sentries stationed at his home gave a nod and took his horse. “Make sure you give her water, and I want her re-shoed before the journey east.” Dirt and mud fell from his boots as he made his way up the steps of the porch. He stopped before he made it to the door and ran his hand along the smooth wood of one of the bannisters. Dean’s home was the only two-story building in the town, and the only reason that was possible was because his brother had helped build it. A surge of grief and rage rushed through him at Fred’s memory.