The Hasten the Day Trilogy

by Billy Roper

  Less than an hour later, Freeport came into sight, and the Marines directed the infantry into position on the amphibious craft as F-22s roared by to strafe the beach. Taneisha was leading the defense of the island herself. Ray Ray listened over the radio as his Queen screamed for reinforcements over the noise of nearby artillery rounds coming in. For the thousandth time, he wished he had some air cover, some missiles, or even a proper navy to protect his woman and his home with. Instead, he didn’t have a single plane. Rev. Clearly mopped sweat from his flushed forehead and walked out of the room. Ray Ray called after him, to ask where he was going, but the heavy preacher didn’t answer. The former New African General, and King of the largest surviving black population left alive, had to let him go. He had other things to worry about.

  The New American supercarrier air wing had seen the mass of pirate ships before they sailed and motored around the West End tip of the Grand Bahama island, and a squadron peeled off away from their coverage of the impending beach assault to engage. The new targets looked to be close to two hundred medium sized craft, and only the larger ships in front appeared to be armed. Because of the sheer numbers, though, they enveloped the Northernmost few amphibious landing craft. Small arms fire began along the flank of the assault force. As Jack, along with the rest of his squad, craned his head to see what was going on to his left, Sgt. Chittum yelled for them to direct their attention forward, towards Bahama Princess Beach. They were minutes away from hitting the sand. The standard bearer nest to him, holding the Starless Stripes, knew that he was expected to be the first one on the beach. Jack wouldn’t have said it, but he didn’t envy the kid.

  Third fleet’ s F-22s tore up the rear of the mass of pirate ships they could hit without threatening their own ships or personnel. The Vicky Weaver’s guns fired just over the heads of the assault troops to their NorthEast, directly into Ray Ray’s mid-ranked forces. Some of the black warriors close in had begun doing what pirates have always done, throwing grappling hooks and boarding their enemies. Hand to hand combat began between ships. Two landing craft were lost before a New American Cruiser, the Kinsman Redeemer, rammed straight through the line of attacking boats, firing from above and both sides into them. The NAS Blooddrop destroyer followed her in, adding her big guns to the noise and smoke and fire engulfing the pirates.

  When the remaining pirate ships broke and retreated far enough away from the assault ships, the air wing bombed and strafed most of them into driftwood and oil slicks. Ray Ray cursed as he listened to it all unfold. He ordered the surviving ships to Freeport, to stop the attack at the beach. He promised Taneisha that help was on its way. She cried and begged him, all at once.

  Rev. Clealry pulled his 9 mm and forced his Faithful guards to start the engines of his motor yacht. He would ride out like a warrior, like a champion, to martyr himself for the Lord. They pulled away from the dock, and headed North.

  Even with the losses from the attack on their flank, over 2,500 screaming young men jumped into the surf and waded ashore, while a designated marksman from every platoon stayed behind in the amphibious crafts to deliver accurate 30.06 fire into the defenders on the beach. The covering fire was effective, but more than a few New American troops fell into the water to never rise again. The former New African refugees cleared swaths of the invasion force with beach-emplaced machine gun positions. It was a screaming blur. An amphibious craft pulling up beside Jack blew up as an RPG hit the opening tailgate. The concussion knocked him down to his knees, but Sgt. Chittum was right beside him, pulling him up out of the surf and handing him his rifle. It had dangled from his singlepoint sling, but felt better in his hands. His left ear and nose were bleeding, the crimson trickling down to his collar under his Kevlar. He couldn’t hear anything from that side.

  The Second Lieutenant looked around for his squad. One of the privates was laying facedown nearby, with a red halo spreading around him in the water like a grisly snow angel. The rest were helping each other up. His new glasses, replaced just before they shipped out, were spattered with spray. Corporal Stehl was dragging along a private bleeding from a scalp wound. The flag lay half floating in the surf, where it had been dropped. Poor kid. All around them other units were moving forward into the shallower water. Jack didn’t want to be left behind. Reaching down, he pulled up the flag by its solid blue edge, and raised it up out of the water. Flapping the cloth free of itself, the teen waved it above his head. Jack waded forward awkwardly, hoarsely screaming “On me! Follow me, you Harolding cowards! Let’s go on vacation!”

  Queen Taneisha rolled her hand, telling the last machine gun crew in their elevated position to keep firing until the incoming troops were too close for the barrel to be lowered to reach. Xanadu and East Palm Beaches to the East were being overrun. She had lost contact with Silver Point Beach, but based on the noise of firing now coming from behind her to her left, it didn’t sound good. They were out of RPGs. The surviving ships were having to go all the way back around the island to come to her rescue, and it didn’t look like they would be able to get there in time. Her grown kids had already retreated to the docks behind the airport, to catch a ride out when they came by. Taneisha would stay. She had already told Ray Ray goodbye, in her own way. The last black Queen waved her dwindling guards back to the road.

  Most of the other units had been pinned down on the beach, or were crawling for cover. In a very self-conscious way, Jack McNabb knew that moments like this were defining. When he stepped from wet sand onto dry sand, waving the flag madly, he neither noticed nor counted the difference. Sgt. Chittum put his hand on the junior officer’s back as he ducked low, preparing to guide him belly first onto the sand. Shaking his head, Jack yelled “Come On! They’re falling back! “Come On!”. Because of the noise of battle, only those within a few feet of his unit could hear him, but everyone on the beach watched in awe as the tall teenager ran forward a few steps hunched over, then raised up to his full height. The black defenders targeted him as they retreated, in their anger. One bullet hit the stock of his M-3006 as others spat up white sand around him. Jack was unfazed. He waved for them all to get up, and follow him. Chittum screamed and led his squad forward. Other noncoms, not to be outdone, raced them to McNabb. Turning around to face the channel, he led them at a run across Dundee Bay Drive, over the front defensive line. The junior officer had to stop and kneel to strap the short flag pole to his backpack, so his hands could both be free.

  A wiry black man in cut off shorts pointed a shotgun at him before falling back in a spray of blood from a well placed round. This far forward, the covering fire from the amphibious craft was ineffective, so that must have been one of his own guys saving him. The covering marksmen were now moving forward as reinforcements, a second wave to take Ocean Hill Boulevard on their flank. All of the defenders he passed were down. Some were still moving, but the last ranks finished them off. To his left, one dark as the night crawled down off a truck bed and tried to surrender. It didn’t work. All around him, a slaughter was going on.

  Taneisha formed a second line along Sunrise Highway, once Pinta Avenue was overrun. A wedge of White soldiers crashed up the gentle slope of the back nine of the Emerald golf course, using the open ground to move forward quickly where the defenders had no cover or concealment. Any time she massed enough of her people together for a counterattack, the F-22s would come in and blow them to lifeless chunks. That had happened three times, already. They were losing heart. Sheer desperation made the former Louisiana fish market girl try again. The ships should be close enough to get her kids onboard, by now. She just had to buy them a little more time. Just a little bit longer.

  Sgt. Chittum crouched in the burnt out doorway of an ancient Burger King, next to a roundabout intersection, chewing his superior officer out for such a stupid, reckless, crazy, misguided act of bravery. Jack just smiled. He had never taken to the habit, but now would be a good time to vape, he thought. His adrenaline buzz was fading, so he had to either do something else quick, or h
old their position here and take a seat. Across the road, the busted out windows of the Royal Islander hotel had been boarded up with stacked palm tree logs, their waving fronds still attached, like a surreal sideways dream. From the top of the log barricade, weak return fire continued. Jack had an idea. He ordered Chittum to go with him, and the rest of the squad to stay put. They had lost Corporal Stehl in the Country Club parking lot. He had gone down in a terrifyingly brutal moment of hand to hand combat with three black women who had sprung from behind a derelict car to hack at them with machetes, as he took point. The rest of the squad finished off the women with close range 30.06 blasts, but there had been nothing they could do for the Corporal.

  He had just described to a disbelieving Chittum his plan to run across the road and use the gas station to move up behind the defenders in the hotel when the front of the building dissolved in a gout of orange fire. The current generation Banshee attack helicopters were coming into play, now that they could distinguish friend from foe. Along the front, the advance slowed, then stopped. None of the commanders wanted to be a casualty of so-called ‘friendly fire’ because they got mixed up with the bad guys. In minutes, the surviving defenders had turned and ran. The New American advance were ordered to hold their positions. With the added safety margin between them, the big guns of the ship to shore artillery opened up again, augmenting the hell being unleashed by the Banshees.

  Taneisha’s heart sank as she saw her front lines collapsing in front of her, but even worse was the tearing sound in the sky that meant jet engines were overpassing the island. The remaining pirate ships were being targeted, now. She didn’t know if her children were on them yet, or waiting to escape. It didn’t matter, any more. None of them were getting off this island. As her panicked royal subjects ran past her towards the other side of the town, Taneisha dropped to her knees in the dirty street and held her arms out to them. “Where are you going? Where are you going?”, she cried. The broiling sun eased up for a moment as a shadow passed between her and it. The Queen looked up, into the blur of nothingness. The bombs fell, and so did the New Africans.

  The New American carrier air wing didn’t let a single pirate ship escape. After the ship to shore bombardment and aerial bombing, a few hundred blacks staggered, concussed and deafened and bleeding, from the smoke filled rubble. “Hands Up, Don’t Shoot!”, “Hands Up, Don’t Shoot!, I can’t breathe, I can’t breathe!” they cried, pitifully. Jack, like most of the young men on the island that day, had never seen so many blacks before. From a purely anthropological perspective, it was very fascinating. This was one of the largest remaining concentrations of a nearly extinct subspecies. They obviously had been reduced to a helpless and harmless remnant. Jack fished his personal tablet out of his pack, and filmed a few seconds of video of the surrendering blacks, for posterity. Carefully returning his tablet to its’ pocket, he closed the pack. Jack gave Sgt. Chittum the signal. In the moment before the rifles opened fire, he realized that all of the other unit commanders along the line had been watching him, waiting to follow his lead. What a way to end the day.

  It took the rest of the week to take care of their casualties and make sure that no defenders had survived. The New American forces had lost one hundred and eighty-nine dead, and tree hundred and twenty four wounded. By their estimation, including the pirate fleet, nearly seven thousand enemy were dead. There were no enemy survivors. Ten days later, they had cleared Great and Little Abaco islands, and Spanish Wells and Eleuthera Island. The pirate outpost in Havana had surrendered to the Texicans, and Key West had been taken by storm after an aerial strike. A large motor yacht had tried to ram the N.A.S. Vicky Weaver just off of Great Harbour Cay, but no other enemies were in sight. The yacht had been sunk before it came within hailing distance, in a silly act of suicidal impotence. While the Texicans occupied Havana, the Third fleet tightened the noose around Nassau.

  Ray Ray knew that his wife, his Queen, and their children must be dead. His home was gone. Nassau was in chaos, as everyone with a boat tried to flee before the expected bombardment or troop landing occurred. The few Church of the New Dispensation Faithful left had held a quick meeting and declared Rev. Clearly their second Saint, after Rev. Ike Huckleberry. Now they were stuck in a pointless debate over who should take over the congregation. As if it mattered. They were useless as feathers on a fish. Ray Ray considered trying to get down to Jamaica, and make a new start there. He just didn’t know how he would even try, though. He told his guards to get out while they could, and he didn’t have to tell them twice. In the end, he dithered around and got stoned and was still sitting on the couch watching old Chris Rock videos when the offshore bombardment began.

  By the end of the month, Speaker Balderson and President Hampton had held a historic meeting in Texarkana, at the border between the two countries of New America and the Republic of Texas. Scott couldn’t help but think of another meeting he had, so long ago, in this place, with Randall’s predecessor. That was something the world could never know about, but he would never forget. The two leaders and their advisors and generals mutually agreed that Cancun and Cuba would go to Texas, and the Bahamas would go to New America. While the historic document was being signed, Jack was sitting on a beach in Florida, telling a young nurse war stories and showing off his new combat service medal and medal of valor.

  “The men have been given twenty four hours, First Lieutenant.” Sgt. Chittum said, grinning, as he gave a sketchy half salute from the second story balcony above. A barbecue smoked beside him. Jack knew better than to ask where it, or the meat on it, had come from.

  “As you were, Staff Sergeant.” Jack called out, before returning his attention to the starstruck girl. He had lost his glasses again, but she looked better without them. “As you were.”

  Chapter Six

  “I have a dream that we can have one day, once again, a beautiful land. I have a dream that we can have a land of our own kind, in which the enemies of our people will cease to exist within our borders. I have a dream that one day, White people will be proud of themselves once again. When one day the value of race will be universally recognized, as it must be. When one day, it will be taught to keep your race pure, to ennoble and advance your race is the highest good in this world. I have dream that this current order will fall upon itself in misery, and the enemies of our people will be legally tried and convicted for their crimes. Those white people who have betrayed the interests of White people will be tried for treason, legally, through the process but will pay for their crimes. I have a dream in which the White House will one day become White once again, and not beige, and not black, and not putrid-colored green. I have a dream that we can have a land that we are proud of once again and not simply have platitudes to the American flag without having any kind of real basis behind it worthy of pride. I have a dream that one day, once again, we can be safe and secure in our homes, when one day our home will be our castle, once again, and nobody would ever dare even think about entering our home, to deprive us of what is rightfully ours.”

  -Matt Hale

  “Oblah di, Oblah dah, life goes on, ah, la-la-lalah, life goes on…”

  Many of the European dignitaries present at the Continental trade summit normally wouldn’t speak to one another. They were in the same room in Berlin on the same day to discuss how the new loosening of exports from and imports to the Republic of Texas might affect them individually, and collectively. After coffee from the Argentine protectorates, the German Chancellor spoke first, making her point.

  “I trust that we all enjoyed our New World beverages. Now, let’s talk about what Texas and its territories can give us, and what we can give them.” Gerta wanted them all to understand from the start that Greater Germany would promote increased trade with its’ Texican ally.

  The Czar’s liver -spotted representative sighed heavily, stirring more sugar into his cup. “Russia is concerned that a flood of Texas oil will chop the legs out from under not just our petroleum industry, but o
thers as well.” He gave a raised eyebrow at the British trade delegate, whose country counted their North Sea crude among their top exports. Most of the other nations represented: France, Greece, Ireland, Scotland, Portugal, Catalonia, Northern Italy, and lesser powers, were there as a diplomatic nicety. The three major players with an interest in Texican exports were England, the Russian Empire, and Greater Germany. Other European nations would only be customers, representing percentages of market share for the petroleum producers.

  “It is true that those of us who are less politically motivated by existing alliances are more openminded about the potential negative effects of this new development.” The younger British man mentioned. “Perhaps it is time for a fresh outlook.”

  “If you think that my age or my party’s long -standing association with the Republic of Texas makes this conference illegitimate, you may feel free to leave now, and just let your Russian friend speak for you.” Gerta seethed.

  Raising his hand to forestall an argument, the French Premier’s man broke in. “If I may, we do not import oil so much as refine it from the our own North African possessions, of course. We, and our colonial territories there and in North America, consume most of what we produce. Yes, we may sell a bit of surplus here and there, to some of you, as one neighbor to another, but we never have been, or want to be, as prolific an oil exporting nation as Russia, or as dependent on it as England.” He gave a Gallic smirk at both of them. “This give us some objectivity, oui?”

  The others waited for him to continue. With calls from even within the governing NPD increasing for her step down due to her age, Gerta was still stinging from the British implication that she was too old to govern, and stared icily at man from across the table. The Golden Dawn representative spoke up.

  “With our facilities in Syria and Iraq, we are in a similar position, also,” the darker - complexioned woman added. “We produce enough for ourselves, and little more.”