Homefront: Portal Wars III

by Jay Allan

  “Of course I’m scared. I’m only human like you. But I have less to lose. I am old, my life lies mostly behind me. My friends from youth, my loved ones…they are gone already. It is easier for me to think only of duty, of striking a blow against those who would see mankind in bondage forever. You are still young, my friend, with the promise of a life yet ahead of you, as I was when I first heard shots fired in anger.”

  Stan Wickes had been a Marine, and a combat veteran. He’d fought in the Pacific War, when the U.S. and its Japanese allies battled against the Russian-backed Chinese Hegemony. It was the last major war the nations of Earth had fought among themselves…and it had fizzled out before it became a true world war. But it lasted long enough for Wickes to see combat, and to learn what it was like to watch friends die.

  He’d been young then, with a girlfriend back home and a family sending him letters every day. He had certainly felt fear then, wave after wave of panic, pushing at him to run, to flee for his life, forsake his comrades, and hide in the jungle. He’d resisted it, and he’d done his duty, but years later it had all faded a bit in memory. He recalled the basics, of course, but the feeling of that primal fear, and the strength he’d somehow managed to summon to resist it…it all felt a bit unreal almost fifty years later.

  “Do you think we have a chance, Stan? I mean a real chance?” Jones’ voice had none of its usual confidence and strength.

  Wickes paused. He knew the answer to that question. Without some external event, the Resistance was likely to fail. He’d almost counseled caution, but then he realized that whatever small chance there was, it was the best they were likely to get. UNGov’s internal security was relentless, and the Resistance had grown weaker, not stronger over the past forty years. He’d seen friends disappear…and waited for days and weeks after, his stomach clenched, his back soaked with sweat, to see if his colleagues had given the interrogators some clue, some bit of trivial information that led them to him.

  He’d been about to tell Carson not to send the communique, to wait for another day, another opportunity. But then he realized that day would, more than likely, never come…certainly not while he still lived. He hesitated, but then he told himself that even a small chance was better than none at all, and he remembered life before UNGov’s takeover, when men and women, at least in some nations, could speak more or less freely, without fear of undue prosecution. It was more like a dream now, fading slowly in the old man’s mind. But it still remained, and while it did, Wickes would do anything for the slightest chance to bring those days back, to know when he died that Jones and Bell, and the others, would taste liberty in their own lives, as he once had.

  “Yes, Carson…we have a chance. A good one as long as we stay focused and do what we must.” He felt a twinge of guilt. He knew he was lying to his friend, or at least twisting the truth beyond recognition. He’d always believed anyone going into battle deserved honesty, but he also knew that whatever chance they had could be lost if there was no hope. And he wouldn’t let that happen, no matter what it took.

  He looked over at Jones, flipping a coin mentally to decide if he’d been convincing enough. “Let’s go, Carson,” he said. “We don’t have a lot of time. The other cells will all commence operations at midnight, GMT. And we’ve got to be ready.”

  And you’ll be better off if you’re busy…right up until the balloon goes up.

  * * *

  The UNGov Building in New York was an impressive structure, a skyscraper dating from another time, when America had been a true superpower…the superpower. That golden age of dominance had been long past even before UNGov seized worldwide dominance, and it had been a greatly weakened America that had yielded its sovereignty to the Geneva government. Now, New York was a backwater, a city mostly fallen into poverty and despair. It was still home to millions, though its great media and financial industries were mostly gone, both functions having long ago moved to European capitals closer to UN Headquarters in Geneva. Indeed, New York had once been the home of the original United Nations itself, the precursor institution to UNGov, though the fading metropolis had lost that distinction twenty years before the first Portal was discovered.

  The city still retained much of its population, though most of those of means had long ago fled and now there were only teeming masses, workers employed in low-paying government-owned industries or those on relief, barely feeding themselves on the modest benefits they received. Crime was rampant, and people rarely left their homes, huddling instead in fear when they didn’t have to be out for work or to buy food. They lived in mostly crumbling apartment buildings, slowly deteriorating without maintenance, and the surrounding infrastructure had fallen almost into ruin as what little funding the government allocated had been stolen and misdirected by those with influence. It was an urban hell, sucked dry of its resources and left to rot, one of many that dotted UNGov’s Earth.

  Despite the rhetoric and the speeches about the war, about programs to alleviate the suffering of poor citizens around the world, UNGov was at its heart an institution run for itself, to benefit those who held its highest positions. From the top to the bottom it was riddled with greedy, grasping bureaucrats, seeking only to ensure their own comfort and to claw their way to more power. It was a toxic culture, the ultimate manifestation of the ills of the governments that had come before. The people, in all their wallowing, downtrodden misery, were at best a necessary evil in the eyes of those living in the perverse luxury of Geneva.

  The rebel groups around the globe, operating in the shadows for forty years, knew that, but they spent most of their time avoiding detection, seeking to survive as the security forces of totalitarianism hunted down so many of their comrades. There was little doubt millions of others understood the evil of their government as well, though fear kept them quiet. It wasn’t spoken of, certainly not in public, but most people had seen someone—a friend, an acquaintance, a neighbor—dragged away in the night for ‘reeducation.’ Few ever returned.

  It was understandable. Even those with the courage to speak out were stopped by the futility of it all. It was bravery, perhaps, to risk one’s life to strike a blow for freedom, but to die for nothing, to throw oneself on a sword in an act of utter futility? Even the greatest stalwart lost heart when facing such a reality.

  But the revolutionaries would be silent no more. They would cower in fear no more. They had planned for forty years, passed the torch from those who remembered freedom to a generation that had never tasted it. They had paid a steady price in blood, as thousands of their numbers were interrogated and executed. But that was over now. Tonight they would strike a blow for freedom. And once begun, their war would not stop, not while a single one of them still drew breath.

  “The guards are dead.” Bell looked around as he walked toward Carson Jones. There was an eerie satisfaction in his voice that suggested he’d enjoyed killing the two sentries. UNGov’s internal security forces were far from gentle, and most of the members of the Resistance harbored deep resentments. But Bell was a UNGov employee himself, one highly ranked enough to avoid the worst abuses of the enforcers. But he had his own reasons for hating UNGov, and though he’d kept them to himself, they were as potent as those of anyone else in the Resistance. More so even, and a fire burned inside him, pulling from the darkest part of his mind a savage burning hatred. There was nothing Devon Bell wouldn’t do to destroy UNGov. Nothing.

  “Good.” Jones gestured with his hand, urging Bell to hurry, to duck into the alley along with the rest of the team. “Okay,” he said, turning toward the men and women stacked up behind him in the narrow passageway. “It’s time. In…” He glanced down at the old, scuffed watch on his wrist. “…six minutes, we will strike our first blow. At the same time, all around the world, our brothers and sisters will be doing the same. In London, Paris, Tokyo, Moscow, Hong Kong, Nairobi…everywhere. We have been hunted like animals, our comrades have been captured and killed…but now we strike back with the fury of righteousness. A
nd once this begins, it will not—it cannot—end. From this moment, we hide no more. No, by God, we fight. Every moment, with every gram of strength that remains to us. The future of mankind rides with us, the dying spark of liberty is in our hands. Go, now, each of you. You all know what to do…and though many of us will die, and perhaps none of us shall meet again, never forget that you are all heroes, and with you goes the best that mankind can be.”

  There were perhaps twenty men and women in that alley, and as one they thrust their fists into the air, suppressing the wild shouts they all wanted to scream. Jones knew they were afraid, as he himself was. But he had faith in these people, a firm belief they would do what they must. Whatever chance they—all the rebels worldwide—had, they would give it their best. He tried to push away the doubt, the sober assessments of UNGov’s resources, of the brutal intensity of the internal security agents. Hopelessness would serve nothing, and now was the time to believe…and to think of nothing but victory.

  And something is going on, something out of the ordinary…if UNGov has another problem, if they are distracted enough, perhaps we have a chance…

  “Go,” he repeated, waving his hands. “There is no time. We have less than four minutes.”

  The revolutionaries began to disperse, sneaking away through the maze of alleys and small back streets. They slipped into old buildings, down into abandoned cellars, into the crumbling tunnels of the old subway system. Jones ran too, with Bell right behind. They looked out into the street, and seeing nothing they raced across, ducking into a small service road. They stopped about twenty meters down in, right in front of a gray-haired man in a worn olive-green coat.

  “Captain,” Jones said, “you shouldn’t be here. We have to get away.”

  “Not yet, Carson,” Wickes said, an almost hypnotic sound to his voice. “After forty years we strike at last…this is the first shot of the war to come. I will stay and see it before I leave. I will stay here for all my comrades who are gone, who didn’t live to see this day for themselves.”

  Bell sighed. “Carson, we don’t have time for this…if we get caught here it just weakens the rebellion. We have to go…get into hiding and prepare for the next blow.” Bell respected the old Marine, but he didn’t share the almost limitless adoration his comrade did. He knew Jones’ father had been in the service too, another Marine, though one who’d died years before. The elder Jones had been wounded in action before the UNGov takeover, and when the new government downgraded the medical ratings of the old veterans, his health steadily deteriorated. He’d been dead for more than twenty years now.

  Bell understood his friend’s attitude toward Wickes, but in his mind all things were subordinate to destroying UNGov. There was no place for sentiment, no room for pointless gestures. He stripped the veneer away and saw their goal as he knew it truly was. To destroy UNGov, to kill its people, to grind it into the dust of history, without mercy, without pity. He was ready to do that, but he sometimes doubted his comrades were committed enough to become what they would have to become. Monsters savage enough to destroy another monster.

  The images in his head fueled his hatred, the face of a woman, young pretty. Lydia had been his lover, though she’d always insisted they keep the relationship a secret. He found out why a year later. She had been a member of the Resistance, one whose luck eventually failed her. As far as Bell had known, she just disappeared, and it took him almost a year to discover what had happened to her, how she had died on the concrete floor of an interrogation room in such torment as he could hardly imagine. He died that day, at least every part of him that was human. All that remained was a shadowy revenant, living only for vengeance.

  “Just a minute more, Devon,” Carson said, humoring the old man as Bell knew he would. He opened his mouth, ready to argue, but he stopped himself. It was pointless. And if he had to stay here he might as well watch too. He turned and looked down the long alley out into the street. It wasn’t much of a view, but if they were any closer they’d almost certainly be injured by the debris or picked up almost immediately by the UNGov response teams. Bell didn’t like the delay, but he was still pretty sure they could get away after the blast, unless they got closer.

  “Twenty seconds,” Jones said softly.

  Bell’s eyes shifted, falling on the old Marine for a moment. Wickes was a bit more prone to fits of remembrance and nostalgia, but Bell admired the old man nevertheless. He knew Wickes had his own grievances against UNGov. Earth’s masters had treated the veterans of the old nation states shamefully, refusing to honor any of the promises they’d been made. And for years, the internal security teams had focused heavily on the retired soldiers and Marines as suspects, imprisoning them for the slightest signs of resistance.

  Yes, we all have our reasons for revenge, the fire that drives us…that will allow us to do what we must, whatever it takes. Bell’s thoughts drifted, back to a blue sky, a sunny day…and a woman with auburn hair, wild, blowing in the breeze.

  Then the ground shook and the sound of the explosion pulled him back to reality. He looked out, just before he and his companions were engulfed by a massive cloud of dust…and in the distance, he heard the rumbling sound of the great building coming down. He was still looking, but his sight was blocked by the dust clouds. He coughed and rasped for air, and then he felt a tug on his arm. It was Captain Wickes, grabbing his sleeve and pulling him back, down into a large cellar door…closing it.

  He followed, gasping at the air, still heavy with debris, but breathable once the door was closed. Then he felt Wickes pulling again, leading him down into the old subway station…and to the long-abandoned tunnel that would lead them to safety. Or whatever passed for safety for a group of rebels, outnumbered and on the run.

  Part Two

  A World at War

  Chapter 8

  Jake Taylor’s First Words as He Stepped from the Portal onto Earth:

  I have returned. After eighteen years, I have returned. And I wield the bloody sword of vengeance against the wicked.

  John MacArthur gripped the airship’s controls tightly, his eyes locked on the scanning display. He was looking at a small dot, a UNGov flyer, one that was heading directly for the AOL’s positions. MacArthur was the army’s overall air commander, and he knew he had no place in the cockpit of a single Dragonfire attack craft. But one ship was all he had, all the army had…at least until the engineers managed to reassemble more. It had been somewhat of a miracle that they’d managed to get even one bird up in less than two days. The Dragonfire was a fiendishly complex piece of machinery, and it had to be completely disassembled to get it through the Portal. But Taylor had urged his technicians on, imploring them to get him some air power as soon as possible. And they’d responded by doing virtually the impossible. By all accounts the second ship would be airborne tomorrow, and another half dozen a day after that.

  But tomorrow isn’t the problem, MacArthur thought, staring at the icon on his scanner. The army had been in an uproar when he’d transited through the Portal, with rumors of some spy who’d managed to get off a transmission to UNGov, warning them of the AOL’s arrival. MacArthur was a colonel, part of the army’s command structure and privy to the most confidential information. He knew very well the rumors were far more than that. Though various versions of the story were circulating, it was true that a UNGov operative had snuck away from the advance guard…and managed to send a brief signal before he’d been caught and killed. He’d only had his field com, and it was unlikely there had been anyone in range to receive the fleeting transmission. But Jake Taylor was not a man to take unnecessary chances. The army had been ordered to accelerate the pace of the transit, and the whole thing had turned into an example of barely managed chaos.

  For two days the army had labored day and night, units moving into defensive positions, widely-separated from each other as a precaution against nuclear attack. The soldiers had dug and cut trees and erected heavy weapons, as even more of their comrades streamed throu
gh the Portal. And for every moment of those two days, MacArthur and the other senior officers had waited each minute, expecting an enemy strike that hadn’t come. Until now.

  One flyer wasn’t a strike, not exactly. But it was enough to confirm to UNGov that the AOL was here. MacArthur was jamming the airwaves with every watt of power he could spare, but he knew that didn’t matter. Even if he shot the thing down before it could get off a signal, its failure to return would be its own message. And his jamming would cut off the bird’s homing signal back to base…which meant UNGov already knew something was wrong.

  He moved his arm, angling the throttle and bringing the airship around on a direct course for the enemy bird. “Arm air-to-air missiles,” he snapped. “And I want all defensive systems on full.” He knew he had a crack crew, a one-time assembly of airship commanders gathered for this mission, the most experienced personnel he had. Still, he believed in seeing to every detail himself.

  “All defensive systems active and under AI control, sir.” A short pause. “Air-to-air missiles one and two armed and ready to launch.”

  MacArthur stared at the display, watching the crosshairs move slowly together as the ship’s AI worked on acquiring a target lock.

  That ship’s got a good pilot, he thought grimly. I hope all their crews Earthside aren’t that good.

  He nudged the thrust again, trying to improve the ship’s position, help the AI get a lock. Then he heard the familiar whine…the lock signal. Fire, he thought to himself as he depressed the trigger, feeling the ship buck slightly as it released the ordnance.

  “Reload,” he said, angling the throttle again, closing the distance. He had two missiles in the air, but he was going to fire two more. He had to get that ship.