by Billy Roper
Tommy still had to get used to thinking of himself as being in the ‘New American’, rather than the ‘United States’, armed forces. Over the harbor the flag that flew looked almost the same, except it lacked any stars at all in the blue field in the upper left corner. The old flag had been called ‘The Stars and Stripes’ or ‘Old Glory’. Because of that empty blue field and the ongoing process of expansion and reconsolidation, the New American flag was often called ‘Unfinished Business’ or just the ‘Starless Stripes’. At least, that’s what Rick said the sailors called it, under their breath. Tommy was stuck to the radio set, gathering information, twelve hours a day. ‘Light duty’ posts had extended shifts. ‘Lucky me’, he thought. He’d gained twenty pounds in the year he’d been posted in Oregon, first in Astoria, and now here.
He and Rick were both in their late twenties, but the few local girls only went for the officers, anyway. Might as well not bother trying, and stay out of the rain. Tommy’d had a girlfriend, back home, before he’d enlisted. The last letter from her came just before the mutinies by black and Hispanic enlisted had erupted. He wondered, sometimes, if she had survived. Probably not. She’d been in college at the time. In Miami. Actually, Tommy thought about her, more than he did his family. Sometimes he daydreamed about blasting his way through the New African tribes and the Cuban Army and into South Florida, to find his folks and rescue her. Mostly, though, he just tried to think about the future. Rick’s family had been in Denver. He figured they had probably bought it when the argument over chain of command between Omaha and Colorado Springs went nuclear. It had really given Rick some satisfaction that they had been able to even up that score, eventually.
After all the friends he had lost in the racial mutinies before the Pacific bases had been locked down and abandoned, it had given Tommy some satisfaction when they’d had some visitors at the gate, last week. The ragged and dirty looking White woman, with her black boyfriend and three mulatto kids, had been begging for food and water. Just standing there looking helpless, in the rain. A group of Marines and sailors had gathered around the gate, out of curiosity. They’d promised to help her out, in exchange for some information. Through questioning the filthy and worn-out female, it was discovered that the blended family had walked all the way from Portland, where they had hidden for most of the last five years. Apparently they had, as she put it, “salvaged and dumpster dived” to survive, since the collapse. Now, they had heard that multiracial families were welcome down in Houston, at the Church of the New Dispensation’s mercy. Rick had scooted five unboxed MRE entrees under the fence, then rolled five bottles of water to her. The five refugees planned to walk all the way across the continent, to get there. Considering how well they had learned to hide from the authorities so far, up until now, Tommy thought that they just might make it. He kind of hoped that they did, and that maybe if there were any other mixed-race families left in hiding, they would get the same idea, too.
Tommy took the few minutes while the BBC North America station beeped off the time to consider requesting a weekend leave in town. He could do some shopping, and go to church, one thing he missed when he was on odd rotations. Maybe he COULD meet a local girl. Hopefully none of them would be the kind of idiot who falsely claimed to be descended from an Indian princess. Those kind of morons were rare these days, after the genocide of so many Whites by ‘First People’s Armies’ in the Dakotas and Oklahoma. Blonde haired, blue eyed Indian wannabes. Tommy hated those stupid, ‘love everybody’ girls. That Becky, in Anchorage, had been nice, but then she had cheated on him, then gotten pregnant and didn’t know if it was his, for sure. He was hurt, and he couldn’t quit the navy, and she had refused to marry him, despite his pleading with her that it was the right thing to do. ‘That’s what happens when you try to man up’, he fumed angrily, remembering her last goodbye. Tommy wondered if his kid was talking, yet. If it was his kid. Probably so, but it would never know his name to speak it. He wasn’t wired like Rick, who could love’em and leave’em. Tommy had always been a serial monogamist. He wouldn’t make it as a Mormon, for sure, he thought ruefully. He was too one on one, though he guessed you couldn’t call it jealousy when all of the women were for one guy, instead of being unattached and willynilly. Come to think of it…
His consideration of polygamy was interrupted by the top of the hour chime. The BBC North America broadcast began with a few seconds of “God Save The Queen”, followed by a station identification and brief summary of the day’s top news stories. First, something for the former Canadians:
“The Governors of the Republic of New America states of Alberta, Saskatchewan, and Manitoba held a joint declaration in Calgary today, welcoming British Columbia into New America as an official Territory…Speaker of the House of the New American Congress John McNabb joked to reporters that, quote, ‘now, Alaska won’t feel so lonely, up there by itself’, unquote…the mainly depopulated town of Whitehorse, in the Northwest Territory, has been secured by New American forces working to repair five years’ weather damage to the Alaskan highway before snow sets in to stay for the winter…”
“In the New American capital of St. Louis, a list of nominees for a new Executive Cabinet was announced today. The nominees will be questioned during Congressional hearings slated to begin in two weeks’ time in the Old Courthouse…”
“The British Ambassador to the Republic of Texas expressed alarm at reports of religious discrimination against Catholics in Houston, the disputed city at the center of a struggle between the Church of the New Dispensation splinter group, and secular authorities there…”
“United Na tions recovery operations in the Northeastern region of the former United States have successfully evacuated several dozen multinational peacekeepers who had attempted to establish an aid station in Portland, Maine, after they came under repeated attacks by insurgents there. No permanent U.N. presence in the region has been possible since the destruction of U.N. headquarters in New York four years ago. The former U.N. headquarters site is still considered to be too radioactive to reoccupy…”
“With the s upport of elements of the French Foreign Legion, Republic de Quebecois peacekeeping forces have solidified their occupation of southern Ontario, from Sudbury to the ruins of Toronto and Lake Ontario this week. New American negotiators have offered to cede to Quebec the northernmost borders of the former New York state, from Highway 11 north, to give Quebec unfettered control over the St. Lawrence Seaway, in exchange for unlimited and open-ended access to transAtlantic trade through that channel…”
“Inte r-tribal conflict flared again last month in New Africa, as rival gangs fought for water rights at the Ross R. Barnett Reservoir just north of Jackson, Mississippi. According to a report from the St. Louis Post Dispatch, this most recent conflict is unrelated to the sporadic mass human sacrifices being carried out in Columbus, Georgia, by the military regime ruling Fort Benning. The New African ruler, King Escalade X, refused to comment on either report, except to blame inequalities and violence in New Africa on four centuries of institutional racism…”
“Australian authorities report that a second fishing vessel carrying military weapons has been intercepted in the Indian Ocean, on the way to rendezvous with an escort from the American 6th fleet under joint Australian and New American command. The New American government issued a statement that they reserved the right to aid any kindred people under genocidal attack, alluding to the Orange Free State in southern Africa. St. Louis granted diplomatic recognition to the Orange Free State on Monday.”
‘Well, there it is’, thought Tommy. He definitely needed to forward this up to command HQ, but it looked like their operation was no longer ‘top secret’. From now on, it was going to be ‘full speed, ahead!’.
As he prepared his report to his superiors about the announcement, Tommy left the radio on as background noise. Highlights from the most recent speech by the New American Speaker were repeated from the previous day’s broadcast. The familiar voice boomed out…�
��"We seek a paradigm shift in our values, a revolutionary worldview in our people, and a fundamental change in the form and focus of our governing bodies”……"the guiding principle of the State should be that what is good for the race is good, and what is bad for the race is bad”… “to reach out to our people and awaken them to the dangers which threaten our very existence."
Tommy was determined to pitch in and do the best he could.
If I leave here tomorrow, would you still remember me?
The eightwheeled Ratel ‘Badger’ Infantry Fighting Vehicle rocked from side to side, the tires nearly coming up off the ground. It was an obscenely heavy armored personnel carrier, holding the extra weight of Pieter Du Toit and two other Afrikaners, George Krieger and Samuel Van Reinsburg, as well as the Chinese missiles filling the crew compartment. Unfortunately, the wheel wells were just high enough for a dozen skinny kaffirs to get their shoulders under on a side. Pieter had worked the crowd with the 7.62 mm coaxial machine gun until they had gotten too close for the barrel to depress. George kept working the gears, pushing the mass of humanity forwards, then dragging them backwards, to try and break free. The attackers poked and slashed at the tires with knives and machetes, but it did them no good, so far. Sam still had the top hatch open, lobbing grenades overhand in an arc up and out with his good right arm. His left was badly burned from the shoulder to the elbow. It puffed smoked after Pieter had patted it out with his shirt before climbing up top to take over the gun. The smell of burned flesh was sickening.
Rag-covered stick figures climbed halfway up the front snout of the vehicle. An explosion on one side as a grenade landed among them cleared a space which was almost instantly filled with more rail-thin bodies. Pieter had no idea how many of them were out there. He’d been a rancher before half the Whites in ZA had moved in on his range as refugees. Using the method he’d learned from his dad to count cows, he estimated them to be over eighty. Maybe as many as a hundred of the screaming dirties.
It was nearly two hundred miles each way from Orange Free State territory to Durban, where they had met the Australians. From the harbor they had been able to see the tops of several large ships in the distance to the Northeast, off of South Beach. It had been a rush to get the crates stacked in the back and buttoned up, so they hadn’t had a long time to think about it. The Orangers had to get in and out fast, because the sound of their engine and the presence of the boat was already drawing a hungry and mean-looking crowd. When Pieter raised an eyebrow and asked one of the ‘fishermen’ if they were his, with a wave in the big ships’ direction, all he’d gotten in reply was a “Just you wait, mate!” and a laugh.
With little dawdling, they were on their way again in less than five minutes. George drove up Che Guevera Road so fast that the black scarecrows had to scatter out of their way. Sam didn’t have to open fire from the topside until they’d made it up M13 to the Pinetown exit, where two derelict buses had been pushed in their way to block the road. A hail of rocks bounced harmlessly off the side of their armored hide. With a fancy fishtail and swerve, George got them around the obstructions while Sam kept the kaffir’s heads down with a spray of lead.
Knowing that the route they’d taken on the way in would be crowded with ‘South African Defense Force’ mobs armed with machetes and homemade spears to try to hack them to pieces as they came back, George next took the R103 exit to the Old Main Road. This was their fourth trip back and forth, taking a different way each time. George, barely old enough to drink himself, had been a beer delivery truck driver in Durban before the government had declared all White land titles forfeit and all White private property nationalized. He knew the street layouts like he knew the angles of his girlfriend’s face. That was right well.
It looked like every vehicle from the Toyota dealership had been piled across the Old Main Road just before the lanes split. They probably had. George cursed expressively, slamming on the brakes and turning towards the left…straight towards a horde pouring out of the Mbazwana Housing Project, right at them. Sam opened fire as they reversed, with Pieter holding on and turning his strawberry blonde head in every direction, looking for a way out or around the cars and trucks. The front ranks of the ravenous city dwellers fell as the bullets mowed them down. Some of them made it to the mass of metal and glass. George did a scraping 180 degree turn, allowing Sam to rake his fire in a circle at the crowds now coming at them from all sides. With the momentary breathing room that offered, Pieter was about to suggest that they head through the Citrus Growers Association parking lot to the open field beyond, when the first Molotov cocktail hit the windscreen. It rolled off the snout to spread flame onto the road harmlessly. The second firebomb was better thrown, and hit the side, spraying burning petrol over Sam. He yelled and dropped down into the crew compartment, beating at his arm. Then the crowd closed in for the kill.
Pieter had a detached moment to marvel that someone in that herd had been disciplined enough to save the fuel to make the gasoline bombs for so long. To their credit, the ambush had been welllaid. Of course, that wouldn’t be much comfort to his wife and their four children, when he didn’t come home tonight. He reached up and pulled down the hatch, locking it. They’d have to work at it, to get in, at least. Another Molotov hit the roof and broke apart. Already hot in South Africa’s early summer, the temperature in the Ratel grew even higher. Over the sounds of Sam’s cursing at his arm and George cursing that he did NOT want to burn to death and the rising squeal of the engine, Pieter heard a distant whine. Scooting forward to look out the armored front windshield through the arms of climbing monkeys, he saw a cluster of silver streaks bearing down on them. At first he thought that the kaffirs had upgraded from molotovs to missiles like the ones behind him in the back. Then they grew larger and began disgorging smaller rays of light towards him. Pieter sat back and closed his eyes in a silent prayer for his soul to be accepted by God, as he waited for death.
The NAS Port Royal cruiser and the destroyers Porter and Carney hovered around the massive Dwight D. Eisenhower aircraft carrier. They shadowed the NAS (New American Ship) Taylor frigate and the NAS Mount Whitney command ship, with Vice Admiral Davidson on board to direct the landing of a 1,900 strong Marine Expeditionary Unit from Task Force 62, following Task Force 61’s Amphibious Assault Group. The amphibious ships nosed ahead of the Eisenhower group as a squadron of nine FA-18/E Super Hornets sprang off the deck to turn West and hunt for anything big enough to be worth killing.
Lt. Matthew Ball was glad to be up one more time. He hummed an old Irish drinking song cheerily to himself. It had been nearly a year since his last non-training flight, over Jakarta when the Indonesian ragheads had started to feel froggy again. The last four days on the way over, as they had been briefed on their mission parameters while their aircraft were prepped, he’d been anxious. Even before that, in the two weeks they’d been given notice to start packing their gear, Campbell and Irwin Barracks had been as tense as a kicked over anthill. He hadn’t accumulated much in the way of personal property in the four years that his carrier wing had been stationed at Perth, just a few boxes of books and a guitar he’d learned to play during the down time. He gave most of the books to a Royal Australian Special Air Service Sergeant he owed 200 AUD to in poker losses. The guitar he wanted to keep, but just didn’t have room for in his locker. All over Western Australia, American Naval personnel and Marines were giving away a half decade of accrued possessions to their longtime local hosts and spending money like…well, like drunken sailors did. Goodbyes were being said, and toasts being made. It was high time to fly.
The rumor mill had it that they were finally going home. Or, close enough. To the states, anyway. Things had changed a lot, back in the world. At the officer’s club in South Perth, Matt had learned that Vice Admirals Davidson and Bryant had placed the 5th and 6th fleets, chomping at the bit under joint Australian command, under the control of Admiral Robert Woods, and the 7th fleet. Woods was formally a part of the Republic of New America’s �
��Unified Command’. That meant that Davidson and Bryant were, too. Since things flowed downhill, Matt figured he was, along with them. That was fine by him. They all had watched on Sky News and the Australian Broadcasting Company as America continued to break up. It had been past the point of no return before they had been confined to base in Italy. Then they had to work their way through the Med and the Suez to onload as many personnel as they could evac from the Middle Eastern theatre, before ending up in Australia for the duration.
Helpless to do anything from halfway around the world, and with the Chinese Navy between them and home, they had no standing orders once the nonWhite personnel had been discharged, many of them literally. All of them had friends and family being raped and murdered, or starving and dying, somewhere on the other side of the globe, in places they had grown up in. You couldn’t get past it. You couldn’t get around it. You couldn’t put it behind you. It was there, in the back of your head, like a coiled snake.
Who they blamed depended on where they were from, Matt noted. Sailors and Marines from the Southwest blamed the Mexicans. That is, except for those from central California, who blamed the Chinese. Those from the Southeast blamed the blacks. Working in the fields on the fleet-wide SelfSustenance Program farms they’d established north of the city in the Moore River Nature Reserve, he talked to a lot of enlisted from outside his air wing. The Marines were the most eager to get back in the fight. All of them were more than ready to get some back, though. Except for in a couple of places like southern Michigan, the Muslims hadn’t done much damage to their homeland, but it had felt good to kick the Indonesians and Malaysians back down the ladder a couple of rungs. Even more satisfying was putting a couple of Chinese cruisers and their support ships at the bottom of the ocean. They’d caught them anchored off Christmas Island, obviously trying to get as far away from the atomic oven of Sanya as possible. It didn’t work out too well for them.