The Fall of Night

by Christopher Nuttall

  Langford nodded and allowed her to lead him into the briefing room. Major Erica Yuppie, Lieutenant Aaron Sargon and Captain Michael Casey were already there, their faces grim. Even as Sara brought them their coffee and tea, Langford realised that it had been bad news; the American satellites could penetrate the fog of war surrounding Europe. They would now know the truth; he prayed that they would be ready for it.

  “Well, General; it doesn’t look good,” Erica said. Even her spirit seemed quelled by what they had discovered. “As you are aware from the garbled messages we have been receiving, Europe has been invaded by the Russian Federation. Prior to now, we had no clear information, but plenty of rumours; now we know just how bad it is.” Her hand tapped the map. “It’s disastrous.”

  Casey took control of the display. “The Americans noted that the Russian ASAT satellites engaged the European satellites as soon as the invasion actually began, cutting our communications and orbital reconnaissance capabilities right out of existence. All thirty-seven European military satellites are gone; NASA tracked them as either falling out of space or heading into decaying orbits, scattering debris everywhere. Regardless of the exact details, none of the satellites are functioning…but the American satellites are unaffected. The story they tell is terrifying.

  “At roughly the same time as we suffered the missile attack, our units in Poland and the other European units – and Polish units deployed from their bases – came under massive attack, mainly through commando assaults and missile bombardments,” he continued. The map of Europe was starting to look as if it had been developing measles as the attack fanned out. “The vast majority of attacks were actually successful; the handful of survivors in the border regions were rapidly wiped out or captured by the Russians as they surged across the border. The general breakdown in communications meant that units that should have mobilised at once to counter the threat often knew nothing about it until they were under attack themselves and therefore unable to deploy. The Americans note that many units fought bravely, but were overwhelmed by superior firepower; the Russians smashed through them and moved onwards.”

  He paused for breath; the map expanded outwards to show Europe. “Missile attacks were launched against almost every country in Europe – Switzerland was the only major exception – and they were far too successful. Following, there were riots and revolutions, even small insurgencies, in dozens of places across France, Spain and Germany, as well as the Netherlands and Denmark. You will remember that various figures in the intelligence services were warning that real trouble was brewing, and were ignored by the governments. These insurgences have caused great loss of life and have, worse, tied down various military units that should be engaging the Russian forces.

  “The matter was made worse by Algeria, which launched an attack on the Standing Force in the Mediterranean Sea,” he said. “The Standing Force was more or less completely devastated by the attack, which we believe was actually carried out by Russian pilots, and only a handful of ships escaped to head to Gibraltar. The Rock itself came under heavy shelling from Morocco – the Moroccan Government has also taken the opportunity to recover Ceuta and Melilla, and we believe that Peñón de Vélez de la Gomera will also fall – and our ships were lucky to escape into the Atlantic. They’ve headed for Britain, including some other European ships, and we will give them what support we can.

  “Algeria, in the meantime, has declared war on France and is sending troop transports over to France,” he concluded. “The French are fighting back savagely, but they have been shattered into individual units and the Algerians are trying hard to pour more petrol on the fire. As the French get their act together – if they do – the Algerians will have far less success, but we believe that the real threat is from Russia.”

  He sat down, breathing hard. “The latest reports were that Warsaw had fallen and Denmark was on the verge of falling,” Erica said, tiredly. Langford made a mental note to remind her to get some sleep afterwards. “With the Russian positions all through the west of Poland and Denmark, we expect that Germany will quickly be invaded and what remains of the German forces driven back. We have been unable to make contact with the German authorities; the only European authorities we have heard from are the Dutch, who put their Royal Family on a boat and sent them here. From vague reports, Norway is also threatened with invasion; the Finns have been hit as well, but so far the Russians don’t seem to have pushed into Finnish territory. The victory will be won or lost in Europe.”

  Langford shook his head slowly. He was familiar with vast battle plans, most of which were drawn up by amateurs and ‘clever’ – i.e. they would fail as soon as someone actually tried them in real life. Hitler’s grand plan for the invasion of Russia had run into problems almost as soon as it had begun…and yet it had come far too close to success for comfort. The American plan for the invasion of Iraq had worked fine, as far as it went, but even that had run into problems…and as for some of the lunatic plans people came up with to interfere in the Chinese Civil War…

  “I see,” he said finally. The sheer scale of the Russian attack was terrifying. “What do you believe will happen next?”

  It was Lieutenant Aaron Sargon who answered. “The Russians have secured the Baltic States almost without a fight,” he said. “They captured thousands of tons of shipping there and they’re pressing it into service, just as they are pressing into service thousands of civilian aircraft. That will complicate their logistics to some degree – they will have captured fuel, but there is no way to know just how much – but as they bring more of their own men into the battle, they will have the transport to land them in Denmark and work their way into Germany from two sides, or work their way around the coast to the Netherlands, Belgium and France.”

  He scowled. “It would be a perfect target for submarines or aircraft if we could deploy them up there,” he said. “The Russian navy has moved several sub-hunters into the area and is deploying the transport convoys with some really heavy escorts. As for aircraft, they have deployed mobile air-search radars everywhere, and you can bet that they’ll be backed up by the latest ZSU missile launchers. With so much of our AWACS capability, even with the French…”

  Langford held up a hand. “The French?”

  Erica blinked. “You were sent an email about it,” she said. “A French AWACS landed in Dover; scared the shit out of the airport crew as they thought that it was Russian and it couldn’t get in contact with anyone on the ground. We barely saw it from the air before it came in to land; the radar network is shattered.” She smiled. “And there’s this plucky little French Lieutenant, barely twenty years old if he’s a day, trying to do his duty and give us all the records from his plane before he collapsed.”

  She allowed her smile to fade. “We put them all to bed and dug up a reserve crew for the aircraft,” she said. “The French boy wants to talk to someone in authority as soon as possible.”

  “I’ll see him,” Langford said. “Now…”

  Sargon nodded. “We don’t have the capability anymore, if we ever did, to launch an air attack into the teeth of those defences,” he said. “A single stealth Eurofighter Tempest might get in there, but the damage it could do would be limited, and we have only one tanker left to support it; no ELINT aircraft any longer. We may get more aircraft coming out of Europe, but at the current state of play, I doubt it.”

  He looked at the map. “I believe that the Russians will push into Germany as soon as they can,” he said. “That won’t be more than a few days at most. Once that happens, the remains of the defences will crumble and our units there will be trapped.”

  Langford stroked his chin. “You do not believe that it can be held?”

  “The Germans have been scattered, just like the Poles and the French and…well, us, except we don’t have more than a few dozen commandos running around on our soil to worry about,” Sargon said. “There’s no longer any coordination; I am certain that the German soldiers will fight, but they won’t
be able to hold a defence line for long in the face of Russian firepower. As you know, all of the European militaries operate on a ‘just-in-time’ basis when it comes to supplies; the Russians hit the three main supply depots on the continent. The Americans say that the explosions set off the nuclear watching sensors.

  “Bottom line, sir; they’re going to run out of ammunition,” he concluded. “I have no doubt that the Russians will push them before they can even begin to get production lines set up; as you know, ammunition production for the larger and more powerful weapons was always on a scanty basis. One of the factories for the Knife antitank missile, for example, is now behind enemy lines in Poland. It will take weeks, if we are lucky, to expand production and by then…”

  “The Russians could be eating cheese and drinking Chateau Picard in Paris,” Langford said. “Can’t we hit their supply lines?”

  Sargon shook his head. “With what? We don’t have the assets or the bases to launch such attacks from British soil…and with the situation on the ground becoming so nightmarish, we don’t have bases on the continent any more either. I believe that the only option we have is to recall all of our remaining units on European soil and attempt to get them to Britain before the Russians crush them.”

  Langford eyed them. “You’re advocating that we abandon our allies,” he said. It was so hard to think, so hard to grasp; his head was hurting and he wanted to sleep desperately. “We made commitments…”

  Erica spoke sharply. “General…with all due respect, that no longer matters,” she said. “EUROFOR HQ is gone; the Americans think that Islamic rioters destroyed the building after the missiles hit. The united command system is down and there is no hope of getting it back up again. There may be still vast assets on the ground, in theory, but we cannot get them to work together any longer; in reality, there are merely pockets of resistance in a swarm of panicking humanity.”

  She took a breath. “Europe has fallen already,” she said. “It’s only a matter of time before the Russians move onwards and complete the task. If we don’t get those men and their equipment back as quickly as we can, whatever it takes, we will lose them, permanently.”

  Chapter Twenty-Nine: Reds Under The Bed

  I have here in my hand a list of 205 names that were known to the Secretary of State as being members of the Communist Party and who, nevertheless, are still working and shaping policy in the State Department.

  Joseph McCarthy

  Edinburgh, United Kingdom

  Hazel had spent the evening in a state of near-terror.

  Morningside was normally one of the quietest places in Edinburgh. Where there were places where street fetes and parties were the norm, Morningside operated on the basis of quiet-is-best. Hazel was barely old enough to remember the millennium celebrations at the turn of the century; her husband had been a toddler at the time. Now…now Morningside seemed to be caught in the middle of a nightmare; there were alarms, bangs and shouts going on all over the place…and the sky was burning. Every time she peered towards the centre of the city, she could see smoke rising from the crash site and…

  She had been sick, repeatedly, as soon as she had entered the house. Her husband had told her something about emergencies and she hadn’t been a military wife for so long without learning something herself, but chaos and gunfights on the streets of Edinburgh were something new and terrifying. She’d been able to have a brief word with her neighbour, who’d told her that there had been an explosion in Colinton, near the barracks, and she’d almost fainted before realising that Stuart was safe in Poland. She was almost grateful; he would have been spared the chaos on the streets.

  The television had failed along with the power. Stuart had given her a small military-issue field radio; one not for transmitting, but receiving; an emergency model that had been popular for a few years after Oakland. The British Government had designated a channel as the Emergency Broadcast Channel, with the advice that people should listen to it as soon as an emergency happened, but every time she’d tried to use it, it had failed. There had been literally nothing on the airwaves; she wasn’t even certain if anyone was in control. There were no policemen patrolling, no soldiers with guns; the civilian population seemed to have been completely abandoned. It reminded her far too much of the Dies the Fire film that she’d watched back when she was dating Stuart Robinson, with the civilians abandoned to whatever fate the gods decreed for them.

  The night had passed slowly. There were places in Edinburgh that were rough and violent and she allowed herself to hope that the police and soldiers were dealing with them. Perhaps Morningside was peaceful enough to prevent them from having to make a major deployment, or perhaps…she refused to think about the other possibilities. Her father had been out of town for the day; he was probably worried sick about her, but there would be no way to get back to Edinburgh.

  Hazel had paced and paced. The news she had received had made her day, literally, but now she was worried; what happened if she died, in Edinburgh, alone and unnoticed. The government-issue booklet on preparing for emergencies, generally considered to be useless even as toilet paper, had been no help. Stay in your homes unless you are in immediate danger, it warned. Help will come to you.

  It had been hours since the air crash and no help had come.

  Once again, she picked up her mobile phone in-between dozing fitfully through the night. It was recording no signal, no sign at all that there was anyone else out there. The landline telephone had gone completely as well; she had attempted to fire up the Internet-attached computer and remembered, moments later, that there was a power cut. The battery-operated laptop, connected to the telephone line, failed to connect to the British datanet.

  Morning dawned, and with it, footsteps and voices upstairs. Her heart had started to race – Stuart had warned her that when the Police were gone, the looters came out to play – and she had started to head for Stuart’s gun cabinet before realising that it was only the two lodgers, returning home. She was relieved; Stuart had told her the combination to the gun cabinet, but had warned her never to touch the weapons unless it was absolutely desperate. They’d all heard tales of political correctness gone mad, from the driver who had had too much to drink before an accident, and had taken someone to the hospital only to be charged with drunk driving, to the farmer who took pot-shots at thieves, only to be charged with manslaughter.

  These days, being a Good Samaritan would only land a person in jail. It wasn’t worth the risk; something important had died in British culture when that landmark case was fought, won and lost. No one would come to help someone screaming for help any more, nor would they even call the police; it just wasn’t the world her father had been born into. The Britain that had stood alone against Hitler was no more.

  She opened the door to the back stairwell and walked up quickly. She was more concerned about the two Russians than she was prepared to admit; they were both strangers to the city and the influx of Slavic refugees had not been warmly welcomed by the Scottish public. She would have bet that there was a lot of violence going on; whatever the lying cheating politicians in the Scottish Parliament had claimed about immigrants being useful for the economy, she knew that there weren’t enough jobs for the British, let alone foreigners. She opened the door and peeked into the living room; both men had their backs to her. She coughed…

  …And then she saw what they were assembling on the table. It was dark and shiny, glittering metal; it was a weapon of some kind, a genuine military weapon. There was none of the simple workmanlike design of the shotgun, or even of the revolver; the weapon looked intimidating beyond belief. The two men jumped as she coughed, spinning around; Sergey Ossetia grabbed up a pistol from the table and pointed it at her, moving faster than she would have believed possible.

  Her mouth fell open. No words emerged.

  Rashid Ustinov moved forwards like lightning. Before she could react, he caught her and swung her around, pushing her against the wall. She opened her mouth again
to scream and he pushed his hand against her throat, preventing her from breathing in more than a little air. Ossetia snapped something in Russian – she couldn’t understand it at all – and Ustinov snapped something back, then pulled her away from the wall and pushed her over the table, far too close to the strange weapon. Strong hands caught hers and pulled them behind her – she couldn’t even gasp in pain – and then tape was wrapped around her wrists, securing her hands behind her. A moment later, her legs were taped together as well and Ustinov lowered her gently to the floor.

  Hazel fought for breath as two sets of cold blue eyes stared down at her. She was terrifyingly aware of her own vulnerability, her own weakness; they could kill her at any moment and she couldn’t even crawl away. She opened and closed her mouth, feeling silly even as she tried to regain control of her body; she wanted to scream, but she didn’t dare.

  She asked a question instead. “Who are you?”

  ***

  Ustinov stared down at the blonde woman and felt…conflicted. The rush of power he had felt as he had forced her into submission – never mind that she wouldn’t have posed a real threat to him and his training anyway – had manifested in a wave of lust and desire. He knew that he could indulge it without compromising the mission more than it had already been compromised, but he refused to give in to that desire. His father…