by Billy Roper
General Hampton stood at parade rest, as he normally did. “I’m with you, Mr. President. They could sit offshore and shell Huckleberry and his crazies straight to heaven, or wherever they’re in such an all-fired hurry to get off to. That’d be worth a few tankers of the black and sticky stuff, for sure.” Scott paused for a moment. “Too bad the Atlantic fleet joined the 7th and 3rd after the U.N. coalition got atomized. We could sure use them, about now.” he stated the obvious.
“Yep, that we could, Gen eral, that we could. We also could use a few of those ICBMS the New Americans have so many of, but if you wish in one hand and spit in the other, guess which one gets filled the quickest?” Perry joked, grimly. He liked to play the cowboy, like most Texicans who didn’t know one end of a horse from the other.
Scott looked into the far corner of the room, where the single-starred Republic of Texas flag stood. “Well, as long as everybody, the Mexicans and the New Dispensationalists and the Mormons and the New ‘Mericans THINK we have nukes, that’s a deterrent, too. We’ll bluff them. Our scientists at the nuclear science center at A & M say we are real close, sir. REAL close. Until then, we’ll just ‘fake it until we make it’.”
President Bellefont thought for a minute. “I agree. And that’s EXACTLY why you will make sure that those Biblethumping Luddites don’t bring their “Jesus loves the little children” songfest within sight of Bryan. Are we clear, General?”
“Crystal, Sir. The junction at Navasota i s our final fallback position. The Rangers will not fail you.” Scott promised him. At ease in his mind over the Eastern Front, Perry’s mind shifted West.
“Fine, fine. Next item of business: anything of note seen on the border patrol overflights along I10?”…
Hear that lonesome whippoorwill…
Premier Ming, First Citizen of the Party Central Committee of the People’s Republic of California, hated having Englishspeakers call him ‘Chairman’. It sounded too much like a capitalist slur. That’s why he made all of his subjects, even Americanized traitorous expatriates like Harry Lee, call him ‘Premier’. Just like Jiang, back home. After a period of exile and waffling, Lee had proven useful in whipping the Americanized Chinese into shape as laborers and breeders for Ming’s ruling class of soldiers. The 5,100 strong survivors of the People’s Humanitarian Expeditionary Peacekeeping Forces in North America, augmented by a remnant from Hawaii’s garrison, were firmly on top.
They made sure that Premier Jiang, leader of The People’s Republic of Shenyang in what used to be Northern China, knew how well they were doing. That made it more likely that he would send reinforcements, or, better yet, transport home, when he was able. Right now he and his People’s Republic of Shenyang survived at the pleasure of the Russians who’d defeated them. Jiang acknowledged that Ming was the undisputed ruler of the Chinese in California now, having killed off or outmaneuvered all of his superiors. They spoke via shortwave once per week. How long either of them could hold on, though, was a different story.
With their eighteenth century manual farming methods, Ming had learned to eke out a subsistence agricultural living from the fertile soils of the Central Valley. That required a return to feudalism, but Ming preferred to think of it as pure agrarian Maoism. Peas and beans and other vegetables had replaced most of the citrus crops, but nobody starved to death, these days. Unless he wanted them to.
Almost no Whites, Latinos, or blacks remained, from Bakersfield to Sacramento. It had been a close thing. At their lowest ebb, the Chinese peacekeepers had nearly been pushed backed into the Bay. The arrival of the Hawaiian garrison, and most of all the mobilization of all of the Chinese-Americans, had flipped the script. They had expanded to a sustainable area, and could ‘hold their mud’, as the Americans said, Ming thought. Their realm’s capitol remained in San Francisco, where Ming’s compound centered on The Presidio. The Mormons had them boxed in on the South and East, and the New American-armed guerrilla terrorists came at them constantly from the North. But Central California was firmly his domain. His serfs, his harems, his soldiers, from the mountains to the sea.
He did not know how content his men were with their plight. Like him, they didn’t have much choice in the matter. Unable to go home, several years and thousands of miles away from their families, they had been forced to build a new life here. It wasn’t so bad to be a warlord, though. Not when there were twenty Chinese-American women for every one of his soldiers. And, he kept a personal harem of round-eyed women of different hair colors. A couple of them had come up from the south when the Mexicans had taken over Hollywood. One had been on a soap opera, and the other played in a movie about cars that turned into robots. Ming liked to parade the former movie and t.v. stars in front of his men.
“So,” Ming asked Harry Lee, “How solidly are the American naval powers under the orders from St. Louis? Do they tell them what to do directly, or are they equals, or rivals?” He eyed Lee suspiciously. Ming was like a time-bomb without the courtesy to tick. He could go off at any time.
Harry seemed unbothered by the contempt in Ming’s voice. “There was a moment, when the Atlantic fleet sailed all the way around to join the 7th and 3rd fleets, when Admiral Woods might have been questioned, when his leadership might have been overruled. But, sorry to say, Chair…., err, Premier Ming, that moment has long since passed. Woods has made sure that all of them have joined the Unified Command. They have even changed the flag they fly, to the starless one of New America.”
“Ah, they are bringing Washington and Oregon into their Republic as Territories, so they can get the Seattle-Tacoma gateway ready once again to accept major shipping. Then, what?” Ming asked Lee, already fearing the answer from the older man.
“Then, Comrade Premier, they will bring th e 7th fleet from Anchorage permanently to Seattle. The 3rd fleet can keep watch over the North Atlantic for them well enough just in case the Russians get hungry to take Alaska back.” The Chinese had learned to distrust and hate the Russians all over again, since they had taken thousands of miles of Chinese soil and turned the whole island of Hainan into a glow in the dark space ornament, four years ago.
“After which, the 3rd fleet will be in Anchorage, the 7th fleet will be in Seattle to harass us, and we know why they are working day and night to dredge out the navigation channels in the lower Williamette and Columbia Rivers,” Ming reminded his vassal. Sometimes he felt like he was dealing with infants.
“Yes, meaning the American 4th fleet, and t he Task Forces that used to be the 2nd Fleet, making up what is left of their Atlantic fleets, they are going to be put in Portland. Or even closer. Their submarines will be able to sink every ship we have in the San Francisco Bay.” Lee realized, thinking out loud. “Perhaps we should move our ships out of the Bay, and into open water, to disperse them…”
“It is not for you to presume to decide our military strategy. You are a civilian. Your position is… still tenuous enough!” Ming snapped. He gripped the arms of his red velvet throne with pale knuckles. The comfort women kneeling chained to each leg of the chair cringed at his anger. “Besides, what do you think the American fleets on loan to the Australians, the fifth and sixth fleets, what do you think they will do when two or three more ports are opened up here for them? Hey? On their own West Coast? With no People’s Navy in between them and their home?” Ming’s voice rose, shrilly. “ Now that they have shipped all of the Asians out of Australia and New Zealand and forced the Indonesians and Malaysians to surrender? They will come home, and they will come for us. We must be ready.” Ming stood up and pointed dramatically at the Americanized man. “You must prepare the serfs for war!”
Harry Lee shrugged in dismay. He was too old and too tired to go back into hiding again. His family was gone. He had nothing left to lose. He would have to stand and fight. “Yes, Premier. We will begin training the agricultural workers today. They will be ready.”
Ming nodded, waving Lee away. He breathed deeply, then took a drink from the flask inside his robe. He next had
to accept an audience with an emissary from Deseret about a few hundred Chinese survivors the Mexicans had never gotten around to either killing or sending North when they’d held Los Angeles. Now they were the Mormon’s headache. They wanted to make them his. The Premier had already decided that he would push for concessions from them around Lompoc, in case there was any equipment worth salvaging in the ruins of Vandenberg Air Force Base. No matter what, he would take the refugees, though. After all, they were his people. They would be more men for cannon fodder, and more girls for the breeding pens. Ming looked at the two women at his feet. His current stock were nearing their expiration date.
The Premier of the People’s Republic of China in N orth America emptied the flask. It had been a gift from Admiral Liu, the man he had killed to gain this position. The man had been like a father to him. As a second child, Ming had been raised in a state orphanage, so he never knew the difference. Harry Lee reminded him too much of Liu. Well, everyone outlived their usefulness, sooner or later. Lee had already used up eight of his nine lives.
Chapter Two
"...And God proclaims as a first principle to the rulers, and above all else, that there is nothing which they should so anxiously guard, or of which they are to be such good guardians, as of the purity of the race. They should observe what elements mingle in their offspring; for if the son of a golden or silver parent has an admixture of brass and iron, then nature orders a transposition of ranks, and the eye of the ruler must not be pitiful toward the child because he has to descend in the scale and become a husbandman or artisan, just as there may be sons of artisans who having an admixture of gold or silver in them are raised to honor, and become guardians or auxiliaries. For an oracle says that when a man of brass or iron guards the State, it will be destroyed...."
-Plato, The State, Book 3
When the night winds softly blow…
Carolyn was worried. H ope wasn’t doing well in her first year at the Art Institute. After only four years of being her mom and watching the teenager become a young woman, the move to Chicago had seemed abrupt. Having a new baby girl of their own had kept her and John distracted a bit from Hope, the last two years, she knew. Carolyn wasn’t yet thirty, and despite being over a decade younger than her husband, she wanted to have a couple of kids, at least, to replace the girls he had lost in the flu epidemic during the first year after Cinco Day. And then, going back to work as the Speaker’s Press Secretary, and leaving little Cindy with Brenda had been tough. Oh, John’s secretary had kids of her own and was as good a nanny as she was at answering the phone and typing letters, but it just wasn’t the same. Carolyn felt guilty over that. She felt guilty for going back to work, no matter how much John needed her to keep the media wolves at bay. She felt guilty for not giving Hope as much attention towards the end as she had given her the first two years. And, she felt guilty for feeling guilty, because it all just had to be done. Life got in the way of what you wanted to do, and how you wanted it to be, sometimes.
Chicago had grown back fast once the Atlantic trade through the Great Lakes opened up, and wheat and corn from throughout the Midwest began to flow out in container ships that returned with German tractors and trucks and cars that Detroit, just getting their production lines going well again, wasn’t able to compete with, yet. Not in quantity, at least. The occasional container of French wine or cheese or clothes in the latest European fashion signaled that there was already a new upper class elite in ‘The Windy City’ to enjoy those luxuries, once again. Places like the Art Institute reopened, and Hope had been eager to sign up for the second year of new students. Her transcript from the Grand Center Arts Academy had been better than mediocre, but it was who her adoptive father was that had gotten her into the Art Institute. Hope knew that, too, and resented it, as many nineteen year olds would.
At first it was just poor grades. Then absenteeism, reluctantly reported by her Secret Service minders. Eventually she learned to slip them and hang out with a crowd that, incredibly, still wanted to be Bohemian hippies and stoners, after all that had happened within their short lifetimes. John and Carolyn couldn’t understand her complete abandonment of the values and beliefs they had tried to teach Hope. For four years, she had gone to the Church of True Israel with them every Sunday. She had been surrounded by the best minds on the continent. She had been given every advantage. She had been taught the truth, and shown the difference between right and wrong. Hope knew better. John had flown up in his Iroquois helicopter and made a spectacle of talking to her about it in front of her friends to embarrass her and make her seem uncool to them, but it had the opposite effect. The so-called friends tried harder than ever to drag her down, knowing who she was, after that. One of the guards found pot in her room, then she was arrested for vandalism. She was caught spray painting an anarchist ‘A’ on the veteran’s memorial. In the old days, that would have gotten her a fine. These days, the sentence was ten lashes, in public. Once again, because she was the daughter of the Speaker of the House, the sentence was suspended. Carolyn had wanted to pull her out of school and bring her home. John flew up again and had what he thought was a heart to heart talk with her. By the time he got back home, one of her guards was calling, saying that she had slipped out, again, and they were looking for her. She turned up three days later, coming off a high.
John put her into rehab, and arranged it with her professors so she could continue to do her course work for the two week period. Things had seemed fine for a while, after that. She hadn’t been in trouble in a month. The fact that several of her friends had mysteriously been ‘mugged’ and beaten within inches of their lives while she was under her doctor’s care might have had something to do with that. Kip had given specific orders that none of them were to be killed, this time. It was a hard call for him to make. One of the unspoken secrets of ‘The Warehouse’ was that Hope had developed a serious teenaged crush on the Chief of Staff. Kip had to examine his own motives before confirming the order to rough up the hippies and give them a stern warning. None of them had come around Hope, since.
Jason Roberts was very concerned and upset to hear this news. The Congressman from North Arkansas, and lawyer for the Klan organization which controlled a tier of several Counties in the Ozarks, had helped rescue Hope from a life as a fugitive refugee, years ago. He hated to see her come to this. As they finished up the dessert that their local grocery delivery driver Charles had brought over as a special treat, they changed the subject to lighter things.
Randall, the flamboyant rocker Representative from the new state of South Michigan, eyed his plate in mock apprehension. “I don’t know, it’s kinda green. I don’t eat much green. Just stuff that eats green.” He joked. Barbara, his tall red-haired wife, sat very close to him, happy to have some ‘adult time’ with her husband, since their kids were old enough to watch themselves.
“Well, take a nap! Anyway, Sweetheart, you don’t always have to eat at the top of the food chain. Sometimes you can eat from the bottom.” Barbara remarked. “I thought you’d eat anything that wouldn’t eat you first, and give some things a run for their money.” Carolyn, who had once been nearly a vegetarian, hardly blushed at the old joke. John and Jason hid their smiles by taking bites of the cool dessert.
“Ha! Take a nap, yourself, beautiful.” Randall answered. “ I may not want to eat grass, until the grass has a chance to eat me back, but anything willing to chew its cud to fill my belly is alright by me. The enemy of my lawn is my friend.”
“Man, there’s nothing li ke a good Montana steak and Idaho baked potato, but Key Lime pie! Real Key Lime pie! It’s been a long time since I tasted anything citrus!” Kip, the youngest of the group and the only single man present, exclaimed.
“Charles said that it ‘fell off the back of’ a truck carrying a special delivery from Lambert Field for the French Embassy” John confirmed. “So, we have the Front Nationale to thank for this tart and sweet goodness, huh? Thank you, Prime Minister Madame Le Pen!”
; “And also for getting t he Republic of Quebec to help guard our shipping through the St. Lawrence Seaway, both ways.” Randall added. All of them knew how important that partnership was to their Trans-Atlantic trade.
“It’s good, but I wish the Swedish Democratic Party would s hip over some buttery pastry, next. I’d kill for a Kringle!” Carolyn cooed. Jason set down his fork and looked at her strangely.
“I didn’t know that we had a Swedish ambassador, yet?” he asked. Carolyn turned a deep red and looked like she’d been caught in a major gaffe on the job. The tiny blonde had let her hair grow out to her shoulders in curls, but still looked like a teenaged elf.
“No, we don’t, but they need to send one, soon!” she muttered in a barely audible tone. Toddler Cindy stood at her leg, leaning against her, reaching up for the pie on the table with both hands. She couldn’t even see it, but she heard them talking about it.
“Soon! Soon!” she repeated. Everyone laughed at the tow -headed little doll. It washed away some of the worry about Hope.
After the dishes were cleared away by Glenn, one of John’s elite guards doing double duty as a busboy while an unseen guard played cook in the lounge’s kitchen, the men went upstairs to the private library. Barbara and Carolyn stayed downstairs to visit with Brenda and help put Cindy to bed. They had had enough political talk for one evening.