The Fall of Night

by Christopher Nuttall

President Joan Kirkpatrick was slight, but carried herself with immense dignity and gravitas; her long red hair was curled up neatly into a teacher’s bun and perched on her head, her eyes were both smiling and thoughtful at the same time. She looked like everyone’s favourite teacher; she was around forty years old, and looked around fifty. It had been six months since Luong had seen her in the flesh and the change worried him; she had grown older, with grey hairs appearing in her bun.

  “Welcome back to the United States,” the President said, without further ado. She was a Republican, but that meant less these days; she had also expected to sail comfortably into her second term in office before the Russians had launched their war. “I’m very relieved to see that you made it out safely when so many others didn’t have a chance.”

  “Thank you, Madam President,” Luong said. The President had been married and then had become a widow; her husband had died on the Kennedy when it had gone down near Iran. There was no questioning her determination to fight the war to the bitter end. “I’m glad to be here.”

  The President briefly introduced the other men in the room, and then motioned for Luong to begin his story, which he did as quickly as he could. He outlined the warnings, such as they were, the chaos that had enveloped London, and the news that the Russians had invaded Poland and then Denmark. He explained what had happened to Colonel Seth Fanaroff, who was being debriefed at the Pentagon, and how badly EUROFOR had been hurt by the Russians.

  “I don’t understand how they’re moving so quickly,” General McDowell said. The President’s Chief of Staff was a former tank driver himself. “We had problems in Iraq and Iran because we ran out of fuel.”

  “They captured stocks, apparently, and pressed drivers into service,” Luong said. “There will be places that have hardly felt the touch of the Russian boot yet, but…it’s amazing how far you can move if no one is trying to slow you down.”

  McDowell scowled. “What I want to know is how the hell they – and we – missed it?” He snapped. “They had a massive build up and no one even fucking – begging your pardon, madam – noticed!”

  CIA looked uncomfortable. “We did notice,” he admitted. “We didn’t realise that the Russians had their eye on all of Europe; we thought, from the information that we were getting from Russia, that they were posturing to ensure that they had a favourable deal from the Ukraine when the country finally managed to solve its problems. They did it before, and at least three other times; the Poles just ended up being treated as the nation of boys who called wolf.”

  McDowell looked unconvinced. “And our spy satellites?”

  “The Russians don’t have satellites as good as ours, but they do have a very good idea of what works and what doesn’t,” CIA said. “They hid the sheer scale of the build up from us; by the time we had a handle on it, it was too late. Our human intelligence sources were either lied to or have been turned; there is no other explanation.”

  “Morons,” McDowell muttered. “You couldn’t anticipate my fist if it was right in front of your face.”

  Luong shook his head slowly. They both had good points; Intelligence was often about guessing from incomplete information, rather than knowing every last detail before it was too late. Dictator-led regimes were very good at security; it was quite possible that the spies had been sending information they believed to be true, rather than simply being Russian double-agents. There was no way to know; heads would be rolling back at Langley for that failure.

  “These points can be addressed later,” the President said, tapping the table for quiet. It fell very quickly. “The important question is simple; what do we do about it?”

  Luong took a long breath. “The British have formally asked for our help, along with the Irish,” he said. He spoke rapidly and well, covering all of the issues; the British needed help now. “They’re short on everything,” he said, finally. “If they don’t get help soon, they will almost certainly fall when the Russians come over the Channel.”

  “I wouldn’t bet on that,” McDowell said. “We looked at the problem back during the bad old days of the Cold War. It’s not like crossing a river.”

  “The British are certain that the Russians have the capability,” Luong said sharply. “In a week, or however long it takes the Russians to get organised, they will launch the Second Battle of Britain; the difference being that they will almost certainly succeed in forcing the RAF to expend its remaining aircraft and units, while grinding away at the Royal Navy with bombers and missiles. There will be nowhere for the British to hide; they don’t have the SHORAD assets needed to cover all of their bases, or indeed their cities. It will take time, but time is on the side of the Russians…

  “Once they have air cover, they will move in using the transports we have tracked them moving down the coast,” he continued. “Unless the British get very lucky, they will gain a foothold on British soil and expand their foothold towards London. Once that happens, it’s just a matter of time before Britain falls.”

  There was a long pause.

  The President broke it. “Opinions?”

  “I have never pretended to be a politician,” McDowell said. “I understand that civilian control of the military is supposed to be absolute. However, it is my duty to bring certain points to the President’s attention.”

  “Go on,” the President said.

  “At the moment, we have heavily committed in Korea, and in fact we have two additional divisions heading there to reinforce III Corps after the losses they took in the battle for Seoul,” McDowell said. “If we can hold on, we can break the North Korean Army once and for all, and this time, we won’t have to worry about Chinese intervention in the north. Kang may go nuts and try to use his nukes, but with the FIELD GREEN system in place, that is no longer the threat it once was… I must stress, however, that the forces in Korea have been in a war zone for a month and they are faltering; they need reinforcements, not the removal of more of their units.

  “At the same time, we have a number of units heavily committed across the Middle East, fighting a low-intensity war against various rag-headed factions,” McDowell continued. The President scowled; as a woman, she was regarded with scorn and outright hatred by the more lunatic of the factions, some of whom had pronounced her a transvestite because they couldn’t understand how she wielded the power of a man. “The game-play is basically simple; where we are strong, there is peace, where we are weak…

  “Oh, we’re making progress,” he admitted, “we’re helping our allies to build up their own forces and in around ten more years, we might even win the war in the Middle East. The sad thing is that the Russians may have done us a favour; their invasion and how they treat known terrorists means that they have done what the European Union refused to do, cut off the funding for the terror factions. The end of the war is finally in sight…”

  “At the cost of thousands of European lives,” Luong said softly. “Democratic states; democracy, the political movement that we are trying to encourage…lost forever in Europe under the Russians.”

  McDowell held up a hand. “If I may finish?” Luong scowled, but nodded grimly, privately promising himself that he would fight tooth and nail. “The main rapid reaction force here in the States was the Airborne unit, which we dispatched post-haste to Iceland at their request. We have a handful of National Guard units that are assisting the border patrols and units in Cuba that are holding the island down while the Cuban exiles make good little Americans of them. The long and short of the matter, Madam President, is that the most we can spare is a handful of units, none of which can be moved over to Britain in time to be useful.”

  He sighed. “We had plans drawn up for a rapid reinforcing of American soldiers in Europe during the Cold War,” he concluded. “They included supplies that were pre-positioned in Britain and Germany; these days, we don’t have anything in Britain that can be used beyond a handful of isolated airfields the British kept in mothballs and have reactivated for their current predica
ment. It would take weeks to move a serious force into Britain, months, if not years, if you want to reverse the conquest of Europe. It can’t be done.”

  The President looked up at him. “There’s nothing that we can do?”

  “We can send the British some of our supplies – I understand that Canada is doing that already; problem is they don’t have a serious army or serious stockpiles – and we can take in refugees if the British want to try to evacuate some of their population,” McDowell said. “We have the Clinton sailing near Peru; we can move her down to the Falklands and cover the islands, ensuring that the British don’t get knifed in the back by Argentina, therefore allowing the British to withdraw their task force quicker. We can continue to supply them with intelligence and perhaps even transfer a handful of aircraft to them, but…I think that that would be scraping the barrel.”

  The President glanced at her assistant. “Stephanie, I want to see the Argentinean Ambassador and read him the riot act as quickly as possible,” she said. “Right after this meeting, if possible; tell him that it’s urgent. Are there any other considerations…?”

  “Only that an intervention in Europe, even for Ireland, would be politically disastrous,” Ambassador Eugene Lockwood said. He had been the Ambassador to France and had been lucky enough to be in America before the war had begun, sending insurgents to attack the embassy and butcher all the staff. Luong didn’t like him much; Lockwood had ambitions of becoming President himself one day. “The heat on the Hill makes that clear; senators and congressmen are hearing things like thousands upon thousands of Americans died in two world wars…to make the world safe for the French to take cheap shots at us. They go into their cafes, eat Freedom Fries, and remember how the French and the European Union ensured that American blood would be shed in the Middle East.”

  He glared around the room. “The trade wars, the economic conflicts, the loss of Britain as a dependable ally…all was caused by the European Union,” he snapped. “The General claims that the Russians may have cut off the terrorists; their very public offer to hand over whoever we wanted from Europe has been cheered on the streets. The average Joe and Jane Public would like nothing more than to see Brussels reminded of just how bad the world can be; a few years sucking Russian cock will do that for them. Why waste American lives on helping them when the Russians will collapse in a few years anyway?”

  Luong stared at him. “Because they might end up as a threat to us?”

  “How can they?” Lockwood asked. “They are going to have to spend years bringing Europe into their empire, and there will be resistance; hell, we can even encourage it for them. After the Europeans start resisting, it won’t be long before the Russian Federation – the New Russian Empire – collapses under its own weight.”

  “I have made a decision,” the President said. Luong saw her taut face and knew that the news was not going to be good. “General, I want you to see to sending the British as much in the way of supplies as we can, and accepting refugees as well. Have the NRO continue to send them intelligence, including the latest communications intercepts; they have to know everything.”

  CIA opened his mouth; the President glared at him, and he closed it again. “We will do as much as we can for them,” she said. “Once we end the war in the Middle East, perhaps then there will be a chance to settle scores with Russia, and repay our debt to the British. Andrew…”

  “I understand,” Luong said. It was real-politic at its shameless worst. “I just wish there was a better way.”

  Chapter Forty-Four: Waiting

  “My mother said violence never solves anything.” “So?” Mr. Dubois looked at her bleakly. “I'm sure the city fathers of Carthage would be glad to know that.”

  Robert A. Heinlein

  Near Dover, United Kingdom

  It was the waiting that was the worst part.

  Two weeks had passed since the Russians had chased the remains of EUROFOR off the continent and into Britain, two long hard nervous weeks. Colonel – he had been promoted for some reason - Stuart Robinson watched as the men under his command prepared part of the defence line, and scowled; the work wasn’t going quickly. He had heard, during a brief promotion ceremony, that the remains of the high command had also been worried; if the Russians had managed to force a landing on British soil right after Ostend fell, they might well have defeated the British in a single campaign. Robinson might almost have welcomed the battle; the brief interlude with Hazel had only reminded him of how much danger the entire country was facing…and how weak the defences were. The noise of jet fighters, almost every day, reminded those who tried to forget; the Russians were upping the pressure every day.

  Dover itself had been completely evacuated – including one very irate landlady who had complained incessantly about stains on the bed – and the city-port was carefully being turned into a strongpoint. The planning had been limited, there just hadn’t been the time or equipment; there were accidents, some of them fatal, almost every day. Soldiers were everywhere, seeming to swarm across the land in infinite numbers, but Robinson knew better; there were barely five thousand soldiers committed to defending Dover and the surrounding area, while the remaining tanks and artillery were held in reserve. It had worried him; Russian satellites had doubtless probed all of the British defences from orbit, and they might try to land somewhere else, perhaps along the south coast, or even north towards Ipswich. Dover seemed the logical target, but the Russians might well know that too; all they had to do was land elsewhere and they would have valuable time to get established before the British forces could react.

  “We have submarines in those waters,” Major-General Langford had said, when he had seen the General and broached the issue with him. “I know the Russian commander; he’ll try to keep the variables down to the lowest possible level, and landing elsewhere will mean exposing his forces for longer.”

  Robinson had accepted the argument, reluctantly; he still needed more supplies. Several of the soldiers had taken to burning photographs of Princess Diana in effigy; they needed landmines and they had almost none. The Americans had shipped over a few hundred mines and they had been carefully emplaced on some of the possible landing zones, but there were nowhere near enough. If there had been a stockpile maintained by the British…but no, the campaigns to ban the weapons had resulted in only a handful of mines being kept, all of which had been lost in the opening days of the war. They needed weapons, they needed SAM missile launchers; only the fact that they would have never managed to save one of the CADS from Germany had saved him from facing a court martial over losing it. Intelligence suggested that Generalmajor Günter Mühlenkampf had met the death he craved…and failed to slow the Russians down for more than a few moments.

  “There are more deserters from the Citizen Force, lad,” Sergeant Ronald Inglehart said, interrupting his thoughts. Robinson would never be a Colonel to Inglehart; they had shared too much together. The Citizen Force, conscripted from the young unemployed, were nervous about their chances when the shooting started; they were neither armed nor trained to use weapons. They’d broken out a store of the dreaded and loathed SA80 automatic rifle…but even those old weapons weren’t enough to arm every trained soldier who needed armed, let alone louts taken off the streets. The Russians might well regard them as illegal combatants…and so many of them deserted. “Shall I round up some redcaps to find them all?”

  Robinson nodded. They had had the unarmed soldiers preparing trenches and earthworks; given enough time, they could have made the entire area impenetrable. He didn’t think that they would have the time; even with the weapons that the Americans had supplied, the Russians still raided the ground forces as well, causing soldiers to scatter as Russian bombers and fighters shot up irreplaceable equipment before the RAF could beat them off. He wasn't blind to the implications; if the Russians were hammering his force, and their forces were resting and ready to move, they would have yet another advantage.

  “Get them back to work,”
he said, knowing that they would be lucky if they found half of the deserters. Some of them would have vanished into London’s teeming suburbs, or Maidstone, or any of a hundred smaller towns and villages in the countryside. They could lose themselves there until close of play, whatever happened; some civilians might even help them. Not everyone thought that the survival of Britain was worth conscription. “Don’t take too long over it, however; we don’t have time to waste.”

  He stared into the distance, his mind’s eye filling in details; hidden weapon emplacements, hidden bunkers and trenches, the telephone system right out of the Second World War that bound it all together without radiating a single betraying emission. The entire system had been linked into Britain’s Internet system; they could download information from the AWACS and use it to plan the defence. The AWACS themselves orbited to the north, out of range of the Russians; the American-supplied tankers floated, waiting for pilots who needed to refuel.

  The Russians had learned once that attacking the tankers was an easy way to degrade and diminish the RAF. They would press the attack again until they brought down the other aircraft as well, and then they would land with full control of the skies. Military history explained in quite some detail what happened to units in such conditions; they got pounded to scrap before they even reached the battle. It just didn’t seem fair…