Winter Kill 2 - China Invades Australia

by Gene Skellig

  He had tried to convince his daughter, Agness Yao, and her husband, Sunny Yao, to come with them, but they had declined. Australia was where their heart was now, and they were so deeply involved in helping rebuild relations between the Anglo-Irish-Scotch Australians and the ethnic Chinese Australians who had fought alongside their white comrades to throw off the Chinese invaders. But in the larger civilian population, the six million survivors out of the original twenty five million Australians when the war had started, there was a great deal of hostility against all things Chinese.

  This antagonism would have resulted in a bloodbath of recriminations and ‘pay-back’, were it not for the support that Sunny Yao had cultivated from the military, amongst whom Sunny was legendary for his contribution to the counter-intelligence and psychological warfare contribution he made during the war. He was a hero, as much for his effectiveness as an Allied spy as for the story of his courage and suffering, his will to survive after having been carved up by Major Fang, the war criminal whose testimony had put the nail in the coffin of so many PLA superior officers.

  Ultimately, Sunny had decided to become a politician, to stand up for the Chinese Australians, the Brown Pandas, and to commit his life to healing the wounds that the uninvited Chinese invaders had caused in the expatriate Chinese community. He saw it as the culmination of his efforts during the war – making peace between Occidental and Oriental.

  Agness’s father, Major Blakely, had suggested that maybe his wife, Tannis, might want to stay on in Australia with Agness and Sunny while Major Blakely went on the long trip back to the United States. After all, he knew, he would return to the Asia Pacific theatre, and to the ongoing war, so having his wife safely tucked away in Australia seemed to Blakely to be a good idea. But Tannis decided to go to America with her husband, hoping to track down their extended family: her brother in law, Warrant Officer Matt Blakely, who had been serving at the Mount Weather Emergency Operations Centre in West Virginia; the MacInnes’s and so many other family and friends whom Tannis wanted, and in a sense, needed, closure about. They’ll probably all have headed for the Upton’s, in Altoona. That’s where I would have gone, she had thought, they’ll be so surprised to see me. I miss mom and dad so much. I have to know what happened.

  Saying goodbye to Agness was the hardest part, of course. Not only because they were so close as a family, but also because of how much the world had changed, and they knew it. There would be no long-distance telephone calls, no ‘Skype’ video calls, no e-mails, no intercontinental commercial flights, not even letters. Once MV Thor Insuvi pulled out of the port of Adelaide, they would most likely never see each other again.

  It dawned on Tannis that this was how it must have been a century before, and throughout the ages, when the world was larger, before the interconnectedness of the modern age; before the madness of the globalized economy. A romantic age, when life was lived with humility and thrift; when farewell truly was goodbye, and when each day was greeted with grace and gratitude. Much like how it has become again, she thought with a sense of nostalgia and hope.

  The End

  ABOUT THE AUTHOR

  Gene has served as both a civilian and a military pilot from 1988 to 2012. He has studied an eclectic range of subjects, and has a degree in Philosophy from UBC in his home town of Vancouver. Father of four, Gene has taken up writing books as his retirement activity. Gene is also a founding member of Flea Circus Books Inc. To find out more about Gene, explore his page through Flea Circus Books. www.fleacircusbooks.com

  Check out these other Gene Skellig books:

  $3.50 off Winter Kill – War With China Has Already Begun: www.createspace.com/3537111 enter code PAC6SETA

  $2.50 off Homestay – A Japanese Girl’s Romantic ESL Adventure In Vancouver, Canada: www.createspace.com/ 3715916 enter code 9JGPMV3B

  Lost Child (Volume One) - Anguish in the Nantahala http://www.amazon.com/dp/B007IK2MBA

  Lost Child (Volume Two) - Retribution in the Nantahala http://www.amazon.com/dp/B0089Y0PEA