INVASION USA (Book 1) - The End of Modern Civilization

by T I WADE

  Preston got out and they walked up to the Pilatus. Both engines were running and Preston gave Sally the sign to kill all engines by moving his right hand flat across his throat. It wasn’t usual procedure to switch off engines before letting them warm up, but Sally responded. As the engines came to a stop, she opened the rear door to let them in. That wasn’t necessary, however, as Preston immediately asked her what was working.

  “Engines are fine as you just saw. Radios are original and they both switched on. Radar is dead, and both GPSs and all the more modern directional equipment other than the standard stuff is dead. All original instrument still works, Preston—altitude, compass, radios,” she answered.

  “I assume that your electrical ignition switches, starter switches, and fuel pumps are all original—what, 1970s?” asked Preston. Sally nodded. “So anything that is modern or post-1980s equipment, or added as modifications doesn’t work. It must have something to do with electronic breakdowns or sabotage,” stated Preston. “Let’s get the hangar open and check out the aircraft inside.”

  “Sally, take Jennifer and start up those babies you came in on,” ordered the general. “I want to see if anything U.S. Air Force is operational. Those two nearly original C-130s might be the only operational aircraft the Air Force has right now. Preston,” continued the General. “Your radio in the lounge works and you can talk to some guy near Edwards Air Force base, which is 3,000 plus miles away, but I can’t talk to the Pilatus from my aircraft over my radio, which is a matter of 20 yards away. Why?”

  “Good question, Pete,” responded Preston. “My ham radio is 40 years old, original, and doesn’t have any upgrades. The set Will Smart is talking to us on is the same model. I used to have two, but I gave my additional unit to young Ben for his 10th birthday. Also, my nearest antenna is on my forest ranger fire tower over there, and the height is 59 feet. That antenna connects me to my second antenna 24 miles away atop a cell phone tower. I installed it at a height of 250 feet and included a solar-panel backup and battery. There is no way that my system can ever go down, unless a battery fails. It doesn’t take much power to receive and re-transmit. I assume that the cell phone towers are down, but the dozen or so antennae I installed across the U.S. are still operating. It seems that what is down is the whole electricity grid.” Preston stopped and watched for Pete’s response. Seeing nothing but rapt attention, Preston continued. “Will has a generator at his house, and so do his neighbors. I have a generator, and so does Joe. We all have power and all the antennae atop the towers that relay our messages are on solar backup. Buck has the same set as me, and so does Carlos in Salt Lake City. I installed couple of antennae specifically to talk to Buck in New York and nearly a dozen across the country to California. The setup took me six months of work. Does that answer your question?” The General nodded.

  “So, apart from an area around Will’s house and this airfield, we don’t have a clue what’s going on around the country?” Pete asked. Preston nodded.

  “Then it’s time we did some flying around here and find out,” suggested Pete. As he said it, the massive engines of both the C-130s turned over and were quiet again, the girls obviously not wanting to fully start them up. “At least we have two aircraft. I need to speak to Detective Smart and see if he can do me a favor,” announced the General, walking back towards the house.

  Pete got back on the radio to California again while Preston and the rest wrestled with the large hangar doors to try to open them. Once they were in, they checked the instruments in the four aircraft and turned them over once without starting them. They all worked.

  “David wants to go back to his place and see what’s up,” stated Joe to Preston. “We will take the jeep and check out the roads.”

  “You’d better take some protection,” suggested Preston. “A couple of those hunting rifles you gave your sons and a shotgun might be a good idea. We don’t know what’s out there and it’s a pretty good chance that the cops won’t pull you over for carrying loaded weapons if their cruisers don’t work.” Joe nodded.

  “We’ll be careful. I’ll take a couple of my boys, arm us to the teeth, and report back in a couple of hours,” Joe replied, and he and David drove off.

  Preston suddenly wanted to check something out. He ran over to his fuel station and tried to turn on the pumps. All five electric pump motors that brought the fuel from the underground tanks to the surface were new and thus they were all dead.

  “Motors,” he thought aloud. “I need old motors, or even one old motor, and then hitch them up to one of the tanks to pump. I know the smaller generator has enough power to pump the fuel up, and we will need to manually move it and connect it from one tank to the other when we need to pump the different fuels. Buck will know how to make this modification.”

  He went and found Buck, who relished the idea of being the first one in America to beat the system imposed on them. It took Buck only a minute before he reported back to Preston.

  “You did what?” Preston responded. “You jumped my system?”

  “It was simple,” laughed Buck. “If the electronics are not working, it doesn’t mean the motor isn’t. The pump was ready to pump, but need an electronic impulse to turn on. I just by-passed the electrics, the same way anybody would steal a car. I by-passed the electrical brains of your system.”

  “Genius,” replied Preston, slapping Buck on the back. “We must remember that, because I assume that there are more problems like these out there. If the electrical brains of simple mechanical motors of all types are dead, then we can by-pass them by jumping them.”

  “Correct, unless the electronic brains actually run the whole system, like a vehicle, or an aircraft with a computerized fuel-management system,” answered Buck. “That is why your old truck works, but all vehicles since around 1985 won’t work because they are not natural mechanically-run engines anymore. Their engines run on computerized controls, and if those are kaput, then the vehicle can never be repaired.”

  “Unbelievable,” replied Preston. “My old Ford is now faster and worth more money than every new Ferrari or Lamborghini worldwide—if this is a worldwide problem. But, the million dollar question is, how did whomever or whatever manage to destroy, or make inactive, every electronic part in the United States at the same time—we must assume around midnight Eastern time last night? The LED timer that I use for the exact amount of time my sprays are on to tell me how much I’m using in the crop sprayer was still lit up. It doesn’t turn off. It was still lit, but the time was showing 12:03 am last night.”

  “That is the question nobody can answer,” Buck replied. “My only thought is that it was a flare-up from the sun that fried everything. But that shouldn’t work around the world at the same time, and at midnight East Coast time, we were on the opposite side of the planet from the sun. A sun flare should have fried electronics in Australia, but not here, or not so perfectly that all five of your fuel pumps don’t work. I want to take one of them apart and try to figure out what caused the outage.”

  “I suggest you do it now,” replied Preston. “I’m going to see what the general wants to do. I’m sure he’s pretty worried.” Preston left

  Buck at the fuel tank control system and went in search of Pete Allen. He found him in the house with Maggie, talking to Will Smart.

  “Will, what I want you to do for me,” Preston heard Pete say into the microphone as he walked in, “is to drive to Edwards, which is what—eight to ten miles from you?”

  “Thirty-four miles,” said Maggie to Pete.

  “Sorry, Will, Maggie says 34 miles. I want you get to Edwards and tell the gate that you are working on my orders and that you need to see Colonel Makowich immediately. I want a report on what’s operational at the base. If he has no communications, then tell him to go back with you to your house. They must have some sort of vehicle working…”

  “The older the better,” interrupted Preston.

  “Hold on, Will,” stated the general. Preston showed h
im how to leave the microphone on so that Will could hear both of them and continued. “The problem Buck and I found was engine-management systems. Any engine operated by a computerized, or any other type of electronic system, is dead—kaput. My truck and your truck work the old way without any electronic aids, right Will?”

  “Yes, my truck has a massive carburetor I have to get tuned every so often,” replied Will.

  “Will, Pete here, I you to order the colonel to bring everything he can out of mothballs—jeeps, radios like this one, even check the oldest aircraft and helicopters he has, because Buck and I reckon that anything older than around 1985 and unmodified with newer electronics will work. That means that our entire Air Force has been terminated by whatever attacked us?” Pete looked at Preston, his face going completely white.

  “We might have the new U.S. Air Force right here,” stated Preston seriously. “Plus whatever you guys can bring out of museums and mothballs.”

  “Very little,” the general replied. “I must get down to Seymour Johnson and Pope Field immediately. Will, go to Edwards and bring the colonel back to this radio, or at least set up a relay station with military radios so that we can converse, or take the radio to him. If the colonel wants more proof, tell him that his wife’s name is Mary and that he has three sons—William, Jonathan, and Little Sam who is six. Tell him that my incoming code for my aircraft is ‘Allen Key.’ That will get you in. Let’s meet back here in three hours at 11:00 hours on the dot. Also tell the colonel to give you something better than police pistols, and take your police badges for identification. The base’s security is going to be pretty edgy, and Will, tell him everything you heard Preston explain a minute ago.”

  Will had nothing better to do, plus it would give him a reason to venture out into the area and see what was up. He told the general that he would take his partner Mike as a bodyguard and that they would both travel armed. The general reminded him to hand in the guns at the gate to avoid any security problems.

  General Allen thanked Maggie and left the room, asking Preston to follow him. He was now all business, and walked up to Sally and Jennifer, now in pilot overalls and prepping the two C-130s for flight.

  “Captain Powers, I am going with you to Seymour Johnson. Captain Watkins, I want you to go to Pope Field and get a ‘Sitrep’ (Situation Report) from the base commander. I need to know what can fly and whether he has communications. How much fuel do you both have?”

  “One hour plus reserves,” they both said together.

  “Preston, how much jet fuel do you have here in case they cannot refuel and need to return?”

  “Forty-six hundred gallons,” Preston answered.

  “Not much,” was the response. “Captain Watkins, you have enough to get from Fort Bragg back to Seymour Johnson. I want a full Sitrep. You have 90 minutes to get into Pope, get my Sitrep and then get over to Seymour Johnson. If you can refuel there, get it fuelled up since you will be going straight on to Andrews. Also, get a copilot and engineer aboard—anybody you know or anybody you can commandeer. Tell the base commander that speed is of the essence—I told you so. Organize an emergency field operations tent, a field hospital tent, at least two field accommodation tents and any working radios. I also want some fire power. Get the Camp Lejeune commander on the radio, if you can get into communications. I want a full report on what he has in his armories that works, and any vehicles he can supply. Now get going. Our aircraft radios should work between our two aircraft on the ground, and if they do and you have any questions, I’ll have someone here manning the radio. Now get ‘Tom’ out of here.”

  “Yes, Sir,” she saluted and ran to the C-130.

  “Preston, I want you and Carlos to get into the air. I don’t care what you fly, but I would like a report on the surrounding area around Raleigh-Durham and a situation report on RDU International Airport. I’m looking for fuel, safety, and if need be what we can commandeer in terms of other aircraft. What we learn from the condition of Raleigh-Durham International could be much the same as any other commercial airport. If we have no fuel, we are in trouble. I assume we need Buck to go along and hotwire the gas tanks, or whatever he has to do to get fuel out of something.”

  “I would recommend the Huey,” Carlos said to Buck as Jennifer started up her first engine and the group ran back to the hangar to be able to talk. The General ordered Sally to get the other C-130 warmed up and ready for takeoff.

  “She should get her off in about 2,500 feet. She is very light, so it might even be 2,200 feet,” stated the General, still wanting to talk, but also wanting to view the takeoff. There was no wind, and the windsock was completely still. Jennifer turned left and the C-130 cruised down to the northern end where there was a bigger area to turn around, left the asphalt, and created a small dust storm as she turned right on the end of the asphalt. She sat there for a minute warming her four massive engines as Sally’s first engine turned over.

  Jennifer pushed her four throttles much of the way forward and Preston’s lights blew over and the bushes and trees starting waving in the high wind behind the aircraft as she released the brakes and the large aircraft lunged forward. She quickly pushed her throttles to full power as she started moving, and the old aircraft leapt forward like a racehorse out of the starting gates. She passed the hangar, with everyone holding their ears, and sprayed dust and dirt as she moved faster and faster. Her front wheel came off the ground, and she became airborne with about 500 feet of runway to spare, rising quickly and pulling up her wheels and turning slightly towards Fort Bragg—30 miles to the south—as she rose over the trees at the end of the clearing.

  “I reckon she took 2,300 feet,” said General Allen. “I think they can get in and out of here with full fuel and about a 50% load weight. Coming in heavy will be a problem more than getting out. They are strong old birds and will do whatever we want them to do.”

  “How many aircraft do you think the Air Force still has flying that are older than 1985?” asked Carlos.

  “Not many,” replied the General. “a couple of old fighters, zero bombers, maybe a couple of old helicopters, several fuel tankers— but they will be useless with all their modern instrumentation—and maybe a another dozen of these older C-130s in much the same condition as these two birds, completely decommissioned and all their ultra-modern electronics removed. Tom and Jerry are as original as when they were purchased, apart from their extra armaments and added fuel drop-tanks, which haven’t been removed yet, thank God. There is an old F-4 phantom at Hill, and I know of two more that are ready to fly if you guys are correct about the electronic side of flying. Is your Huey refueled, Buck?”

  “No, but she has enough for about 40 minutes flying time, plus reserves. That’ll be enough to do a 20-minute sweep of the area and 20 minutes to return here from RDU. We can refuel when we get back.”

  General Allen suggested that Buck, Preston, and Carlos go in the Huey, and take some sort of protection. Preston had a shotgun and a hunting rifle in the house and headed off to get them while Buck went out to start Baby Huey.

  By this time, Sally was waiting for the general on the runway in front of the apron. He ran over to the open side door, and Sally closed the door behind him. She took off the same way Jennifer had done five minutes earlier.

  Ten minutes later, Baby Huey rose into the air with the three men aboard and Carlos acting as copilot. Preston had volunteered to take the job as side-gunner. He tried to sit on the side with the door open, but it was too cold, and he closed the door a couple of minutes after take-off.

  The girls left with Michael and Grandpa Roebels having a cold breakfast and deep in discussion, discussing the electrical problems facing them. They were the real experts in the field of aviation electronics, older and more experienced than the younger men around them.

  Everybody reckoned that they were pretty safe on the ranch— after all, they had Oliver as a guard dog and Joe would have re-locked the front gate when he left earlier.

  It was wei
rd at first, to see no moving vehicles on the streets. Baby Huey and her crew flew low at first trying to get Air Traffic Control on the radio. There were no voices on the radios apart from theirs. Preston asked Buck to set the second radio to the farm’s frequency, and Martie returned a call saying that the reception was perfect and that she and her father would be monitoring the radio.

  They were civilians and didn’t know the frequency the Air Force would be using if they had anything working at all, and Carlos was sure that the general was communicating between his two aircraft on some other frequency. Baby Huey had a small storm radar called a storm scope and a Garmin GPS, but both were dead. All the other instruments worked, though, and they looked out of the windows on both sides to the ground below. Preston was sitting on the right side and when he saw objects glittering in the lake water to their south, he told Buck to bring her around to inspect. They swept around and found the broken pieces of a downed aircraft. There were thousands of small pieces floating in the still water, including several bodies and part of a tail that had Southwest colors visible on the largest piece.

  “She must have gone in hard by the size of those small pieces,” observed Buck as they swept over the water a second time looking for any survivors and then headed in the direction of Raleigh. They were quiet for several minutes flying over Apex, Cary, and then Morrisville near the airport. Not one vehicle moved. There were thousands everywhere, many burnt out or still on fire. Then the radio tuned into the farm’s frequency lit up.

  “Flying helicopter, this is Joe and David. Is that you, Buck? We can’t see you but we can hear your rotors. You sound about three miles to the west and north of us.”

  “Hi Joe,” stated Buck. “I have Preston and Carlos with me. Direct us in and we’ll come overhead. Are you guys all right? Is there enough room to land, over?”