Apocalypse Austin

by David VanDyke

  “I’m still waiting to hear what this is all about.”

  Herschel’s eyes flicked toward the bartender on the other side of the room before speaking. “Texas is my home. Grew up there. Spent my whole life there. Buried my wife there and sent my boys to college there – and they graduated. Now they’re joining up with the Texas State Guard and think they’re gonna be heroes. That’s the sort of dumbass talk that gets a lot of people killed, you know what I mean?”

  “I do, indeed. I hate heroes. Go on.”

  “Well, what if there was another way? What if we could end this war before it truly got started? With no fighting and a minimal amount of bloodshed.”

  Skull shook his head. “Texas won’t be able to reason with a Unionist-dominated United States. Especially one in the midst of hysterical paranoia over the Eden virus. They’ll have to either surrender or fight; there’s no other way with fanatics.”

  “I respectfully disagree,” said the man, with a knowing smile.

  Skull sat back in his chair before slowly sipping his delicious freshly ground coffee. “So for the third or fourth time: how about you tell me what exactly it is you’re supposed to build.”

  Herschel leaned forward and his voice dropped a few decibels. “Three words. Transient. Electromagnetic. Disturbance.” He sat back nodding with a wide grin on his face. “Believe it.”

  “What?”

  “You might know it better as electromagnetic pulse. EMP.”

  “Like in a nuclear explosion?”

  “Yes, and no. A nuclear detonation creates an EMP pulse as a side effect of the release of energy, but there are non-nuclear EMPs. Hell, a lightning strike is nothing more than a highly localized EMP.”

  “So you’re saying you can cause an EMP? Destroy the U.S. military’s ability to communicate or something?”

  “No, not just the military,” Herschel leaned in again. “Everything. This conflict is about the public’s will to fight...or to be more accurate, their willingness to support a fight. How long do you think the American people will have to go without electricity or airline travel or cell phones before they say ‘Uncle’? How long without internet or cable television or their cars that run on computer chips? They’ll demand peace to get these things back.”

  “What you’re talking about is terrorism, even if it’s mostly nonlethal.”

  “This isn’t terrorism, it’s war, and the U.S. struck first.”

  “But you were already planning to do this before they attacked.”

  Herschel sat back. “I didn’t take you for the type of man to quibble about such things.”

  “For moral reasons? Not. But for practical reasons? Attacking civilian infrastructure never works. It just hardens their resolve. Bombing London and firebombing Dresden. Lockerbie. 9/11. Drone strikes that miss the terrorists and wipe out weddings.”

  “Hiroshima and Nagasaki broke the Japanese will.”

  “You need to study your history better, Mr. Herschel. The Japanese people and the military were ready to fight to the death. It was the Emperor who declared they surrender. That gave everyone a face-saving reason to give up. After all, the Emperor was a god on Earth. Can’t argue with divine edict.”

  Herschel shrugged in exasperation. “Then think of it as an enormous disruption of their ability to prosecute the war.”

  “Okay.” Skull looked at the man skeptically. “I’ve heard tall tales of non-nuclear EMP bombs my entire life. Sorry, but I’ve never known of one actually working outside of a laboratory.”

  “Mine works,” Herschel said solemnly. “I’ve tested it.”

  “In the field? In a town? A big city?”

  “Field, yes. City, no, but the principles are the same. And the electrical grid’s conductivity will balance out any shielding the buildings provide, so size doesn’t matter much.”

  “Coming from Texas, I can’t believe you just said that, pops. Size always matters.”

  Herschel sighed. “This will work, believe me. You’ll see, soon, as soon as the battle for Texas starts.”

  “You made some for them?”

  “Yup. For military use.”

  Skull looked at the ceiling for a moment, and then back at the man in front of him. “So what’s the plan exactly?”

  The older man tapped a single finger on the worn table for emphasis. “We go to every major city along the eastern seaboard. In each, there’s a contact to help us. I’ll build a device from locally available materials and leave it in the hands of the contact. Then we move on to the next city and repeat the process.”

  “And then you set off all these things at once?”

  “Heavens no,” cried Herschel. “I want minimal bloodshed. Cars and trains will crash, planes will fall out of the sky if they’re low enough, older pacemakers and hospital devices will stop. The intent is to apply leverage to get the Americans to let us be. We’ll likely have to set off at least two or three to show them what we can do. The rest will serve as long-term insurance.”

  “The rest will eventually be found. They’ll figure out what the materials were, who bought them, and so on. Basic detective stuff, on a massive scale, with the entire populace behind them. Then they’ll have the technology themselves.”

  “True,” answered Herschel, “but I can’t sit idly by based on what someone else might do down the road. I have the ability to save lives, maybe even my children’s lives, and I have to take it. I have to protect my family.”

  As do I, thought Skull, remembering the images of his nieces that Vergone had shown him. “We’re going to need to get you some new identification documents and background story. And I want that list of contacts. As you mentioned earlier, I’m a man who believes in due diligence.”

  “The only list is in my head,” Herschel answered, tapping his temple. “It’s better that you don’t know them all.”

  “I’ll need at least the first two. One for the initial job, and one to contact in case the shit hits the fan.”

  “Fair enough. Memorize this and destroy it.” Herschel scribbled in a notebook and tore off a piece of paper, handing it to Skull.

  Skull took a couple of minutes to do exactly that, excusing himself to use the restroom and flush the paper down the toilet. After he sat down again, he drummed his fingers slowly on the table, thinking. Vergone was going to shit a brick when he told him about this. Maybe he could use the info to regain some leverage over the FBI man.

  Maybe he could find a way out of his trap.

  “All right,” Skull said finally. “Where do we start?”

  “The Sunshine State,” said Herschel cheerfully. “Miami.”

  Chapter 13

  President of Texas Tucker stared into the sober faces of the men and women gathered in the hastily designated War Room. Many of them seemed to be in shock; others were angry and wanted to strike back. He himself was filled with sorrow that it had come to this. He’d wanted to avoid bloodshed, or at least put it off as long as possible.

  But now, the Americans had forced his hand.

  “Sir, the press conference starts in less than fifteen minutes,” said Timothy Branch, his chief of staff. “We need to prepare your response.”

  “I don’t need to prepare,” said Tucker. “I don’t have to spin anything or play damage control. I just need to talk to them, tell them the truth, and mourn with them. I also need to allow them to accept the destruction of any illusion that this is going to be easy.”

  “Nevertheless, sir, in my experience it is best to speak publicly from a position of calm dispassion.”

  “Not in this case. What is the final death toll?”

  “One hundred and twenty-eight so far,” said Branch. “Most died at Periman, but one family’s home was crushed by an F-18 we shot down over Corpus Christi.”

  “It could have been a lot worse,” General McAllister said. “And they’ve tipped their hand. We know they’re resolved to try to bring us back in by force. That makes things much simpler.”

  Tuck
er looked around the room. “I tend to agree with General McAllister, but I want to hear if anyone disagrees. Does anyone see a possibility of negotiating a settlement with the United States?”

  Faces looked back at him somberly, and several heads shook. No one spoke up.

  “Okay, then,” Tucker said turning to the general. “If we’re going to do this, we better get busy. I believe we need to do what we can to hit back at them. Hard and fast. Send a message not only to the U.S., but to the world, that we can’t be bullied. But nothing that will get us bogged down.”

  “How?” asked Branch.

  Tucker turned to General McAllister with raised eyebrows.

  “We have some options we’ve been exploring. We might be able to send the message you intend, while also crippling the blockade, at least for a time.”

  Clearly, the general didn’t want to go into detail in this meeting, so Tucker nodded. “Put together a plan and brief me this afternoon.”

  General McAllister held his gaze. “It will come at a cost. There may be severe American casualties. Far more than we suffered due to their attacks. It may not meet the guidelines of proportional response.”

  “Screw proportional response,” said a staffer from the back. “My daughter was killed near Periman. She left my two-year-old grandson an orphan. Explain proportional response to him, general.” Shouts and other noises of support swept through the room.

  Tucker stood, holding up his hands for quiet. “That’s enough of that. We’re not fighting for revenge. We’re fighting for our freedom, and to protect millions of innocent people being sent to concentration camps.” He then turned to the general. “Proportional response has to take a back seat to military and political effectiveness. Either we fight for what’s ours with everything we have, or we might as well give up.”

  “Everything we have?” McAllister asked softly.

  Tucker shook his head, almost imperceptibly. Now was not the time or place to talk about the ultimate option. Not while tempers were running so hot.

  The Texas President closed his eyes and pictured the scenes from those burned-out facilities, huge plumes of oily smoke rising into the sky and spreading across Texas for all to see. He then visualized men, women and children tortured and starving in the camps. They would have these places in Texas if the U.S. had its way.

  Opening his eyes, he said, “Expect orders later today. We’ll show them we’re serious. How much it will cost. How much it’s going to hurt.”

  ***

  A persistent buzzer drew everyone’s attention to the USS Mount Whitney’s common operating picture screen in its large, well equipped fleet command center. From here, Admiral Harvey Lagen controlled the entire Atlantic Fleet, but his attention was naturally focused on the Washington and her carrier battle group.

  “Sir,” an ensign said, pointing at the contacts blinking on the screen, “I’m detecting multiple bogies inbound toward the fleet, on the deck, forty nautical miles range. They’re really low.”

  “Missiles?” asked the admiral, tension in his voice.

  “Negative, sir. Too slow.”

  “What do you mean too slow?”

  The ensign shook his head. “Two hundred fifty knots. Too slow to be fighters either, too fast for helicopters.”

  “What are they then?”

  “Maybe…propeller airplanes?”

  No one else in the room offered a hypothesis, everyone staring intently at their own screens. Some tapped at keyboards, undoubtedly running datanet searches, trying to match the bogies.

  “Doesn’t matter what they are,” the admiral said. “Raise the fleet alert status. Condition Zebra on every ship within five hundred miles. Tell the Washington to turn away and go to flank speed. Also, inform Captain Wilson.” Wilson was his flag captain, in charge of the Whitney’s operations so Lagen could control his fleet.

  Within a minute, the Mount Whitney was at battle stations.

  “Tell the Washington’s CAG to go take a look,” the admiral ordered. “We need to know what we’re dealing with here.”

  “They’ve already diverted a two-ship of Lightnings and launched Ready Five,” said the air liaison officer. “And they’re bringing up more birds.”

  After two tense minutes the communications officer called out. “Sir, the Lightnings have visual.”

  “Good, what have we got?”

  The man listened intently for several long seconds.

  “Well?” said the admiral testily.

  “They appear to be drones,” the man answered. “Reaper UAVs.”

  UAVs could carry missiles, the admiral realized. “Tell them to engage. Weapons free, now.”

  The air liaison passed the word, and then said, “They’re engaging, but it’s going to be tricky, sir. They’ll have to come down from thirty thousand feet, and bogies are on the deck. With no jet engines for their heat-seekers to lock onto, they’ll have to engage with radar AMRAAMs from low attitude to avoid the targets getting lost in the wave clutter.”

  “Dammit,” said the admiral. “Tell battle group to put everybody they can between those Reapers and the Washington.”

  “They may not be able to get them before the Reapers fire their missiles. Also, each ship’s counter-missile system will be fully active, and having F-35s flying around within that umbrella trying to engage targets will endanger us and them.”

  The admiral growled, “We’ll have to risk it. Better to lose a pilot or two than a ship.”

  They watched as the F-35s dove to the deck, rolling in behind the Reapers. Missiles leaped from the fighters, and the drones began to evade and release chaff. One enemy disappeared, but the rest flew serenely onward as the anti-air weapons missed or plunged into the waves.

  Within thirty seconds, the admiral began to hear the deep bass hum of CIWS Gatling guns engaging targets topside, sounding like a god ripping enormous sheets of cloth in the heavens.

  “Three Reapers down. Four. Five.” said the weapons officer watching his screen and the little red blips approaching the fleet. “Four more down, looks like they’re –”

  The room went completely black for a moment, and then the battery lights came on.

  “What the hell just happened?” asked the admiral.

  “All systems dead, sir,” said someone. “We got nothing.”

  A senior chief turned on the flashlight he kept at his belt. “Sir, perhaps we should go up to the bridge.”

  “Right. Ensign, go see if the ship’s ops center is any better off.”

  The admiral and the senior chief made it by flashlight and battery lighting to the bridge. There, the flag captain and his executive officer stood by as a rating tried to get the signal lamp working.

  “What do we have?” the admiral asked.

  The captain shook his head. “Not sure, sir. All our systems just went dead when that last UAV got close to us. We have no power, steering, commo, anything.” He pointed at the other ships around them. “Looks like they’re all dead in the water too.”

  “How?” asked the admiral.

  “A powerful EMP is the only thing that makes sense,” said the XO. “All electronics were instantly fried.”

  “EMP? But there was no nuclear blast.”

  The XO shrugged. “I know, sir. Maybe they have a new weapon or something.”

  “Our ships are supposed to be built to withstand EMPs.”

  “Right,” said the flag captain, “but we weren’t prepared for a nuclear event. There was no indication of a nuclear threat. We’ve got the backup systems, but it will take about twenty minutes to get those on line.

  “Sir?” said a warning voice from the front of the bridge. There, a lieutenant stood gazing at the western horizon with an oversized pair of binoculars.

  “What is it, son?” asked the admiral, unconsciously stepping on the captain’s prerogative.

  “I see planes, sir, coming in low,” the man said. “F-16s, I think. Lots of them.”

  “Oh, dear Lord,” said the admiral
in horror. “We’re sitting ducks. We can’t fight back, or even maneuver.”

  The senior chief grabbed the admiral by the elbow. “Admiral, come with me.”

  “What the hell are we supposed to do?” asked the lieutenant with the binoculars.

  The senior chief looked at the captain as he paused in the door. “I suggest you prepare to abandon ship.”

  ***

  “Five degree down bubble on all planes, make turns for ten knots,” Commander Henrich J. Absen, XO of the attack submarine USS Houston – and he was well aware of the irony of the name – ordered as soon as he heard the warning of inbound bogies. “And make your depth…as low as we can go and still keep water under the keel.” They couldn’t descend too deep in the shallow Gulf of Mexico, but he hoped it was low enough that a plane couldn’t spot them in the water from high above.

  Unlike the surface ships, submarines had no air defense systems, and their best protection from planes and missiles was under the surface of the water.

  “Want me to inform the captain?” asked a petty officer.

  “No,” Absen answered. “The doc just got him sedated enough that he can sleep. Leave him alone for now.” The captain and two dozen of the 129-man crew were severely dehydrated from vomiting and diarrhea brought on by a bout of stomach flu that had swept through the confined quarters of the submarine. In peacetime, they might have headed to port and let another boat take the Houston’s place.

  Not now, though. Today, she was Absen’s boat.

  “Sir, we’ve lost signal,” said the communications officer.

  “Explain.”

  “The radio is fine,” the man said, “but it looks like the shortwave antenna’s been fried. Saw that happen once in the Indian Ocean when it was struck by lightning. We still have longwave, of course.” The longwave antenna was a mile-long cable that could be trailed behind the boat, but it was only used for slow, long-range coded communications with massive installations ashore.

  “It’s supposed to be clear skies up there,” said the Chief of the Boat, or COB.