by Jeff Carlson
They spent two days in a long, green valley cut into the mountains by a good-sized creek that had brie†y become a colossal †ood. Nearer to ground zero, most of the snowpack had been vaporized, but at this distance the snow immediately slumped away as water and slush, increasing the landslides caused by the quake. Their jeeps rocked and crashed through banks of gravel, muck, and driftwood. They broke one of their four shovels digging a way through. They also encountered three groups of survivors. This valley faced north and had escaped the worst of the damage. Many of the aspen and spruce were still standing and the water ran clear — and there was nothing in this place to attract the air war, only wilderness.
Finally they made it up through the Ute Pass, where Highway 9 arrowed south toward Interstate 70. On this high point, the blast wave had lifted cars by the thousands, overturning the old metal shapes. The road was a mess of broken glass and odd drifts of rust and paint †akes, and Captain Park took them back north instead of following the highway toward Leadville. He refused to move deeper into the blast zone. Ruth’s few protests were soft-spoken and confused.
Ruth was haggard beneath her sunburn. She worked nights with her AFM and tried to nap in the day when they were on the move, but it must have been like sleeping on the back of an elephant. The jeeps bumped and seesawed on the rocky earth, stopping and starting as the Rangers jumped down to push wrecks or boulders out of the way. She was exhausted. She carried that goddamn stone everywhere.
She thought she’d failed. Two of the refugee groups they’d met in the valley had been clean. They’d infected those people themselves. Yes, she’d given them the vaccine, but at the cost of tainting them with the ghost, too. We couldn’t have known, Cam told her. Ruth only grimaced and shook her head. They seemed to have lost the trail.
They were running out of time. Open broadcasts out of Grand Lake constantly advised American forces of enemy action, and Chinese armored units had pushed into Colorado.
The Chinese had taken southern California and most of Arizona with relative ease. There was no one to oppose them except the tiny populations on the few peaks east of Los Angeles, who were quickly burned away. The Chinese armies numbered at least a hundred and ‚fty thousand soldiers, pilots, mechanics, and artillery men — and their naval †eets were rushing away for more.
Interstates 40 and 70 became the lifelines of the invasion. At low elevations, the freeways were mostly clear, except where American ‚ghters had destroyed bridges and causeways. Planes from both sides clashed above the desert while, far below, Chinese combat engineers struggled to move their trucks and APCs across every break in the road.
The Chinese armies were also disrupted by hot spots. There had been huge drifts of the plague out of the L.A. basin and it scattered the Chinese reserves, overwhelming the vaccine. At the Arizona border, the Colorado River was also seething with nanotech. U.S. surveillance put the enemy’s casualties in the thousands, and North American Command did their best to channel the invader into these death zones.
The Chinese couldn’t slow down. They also had the bugs and the desert heat to contend with. Their best strategy was that of momentum and speed. They plundered every city and military base within reach and they were brie†y rich for it, squandering fuel and ammunition.
Flagstaff only lasted ‚ve days. While Cam and Ruth were in their quiet valley just west of the Continental Divide, the Chinese effectively claimed Arizona and turned toward the Rockies in full strength.
The Grand Canyon served as a critical defensive line. This deep, ancient gash in the Earth stretched for hundreds of miles through Nevada, Arizona, and Utah, and not a single bridge or dam survived the American strikes. It split the Chinese in two. The enemy could provide air support for themselves across the entire Southwest, but their generals were faced with a decision as far back as Las Vegas, at the mouth of the Canyon, beyond which their armies were no longer able to reach each other.
The Russians helped them in Utah, pounding at the largest American outposts in the mountains east of Salt Lake, but the enemy bogged down there. Interstate 70 ran north from Vegas and stayed tight along another high range for nearly a hundred miles before it squeezed into a series of passes and bent east toward Colorado. The Chinese advance was hit every step of the way.
If they’d tried to charge through, they probably would have succeeded, with heavy losses, but the northern Chinese group didn’t want Utah at their backs as they assaulted Colorado. They appeared to settle in for a long ‚ght.
Their southern force had always been the larger one, however. It was also where they directed all reinforcements. The thrust by their northern army was only to hold Utah in check. Meanwhile, their southern force angled up into Colorado on as many smaller highways as they could access, swarming north and east as the roads curled away from the vast, sprawling bulk of the front side of the Rockies.
Bombers out of Canada, Montana, and Wyoming struck the Russians and the Chinese from behind. Attack choppers out of New Mexico harassed the Chinese in Arizona, but New Mexico was preoccupied as smaller Chinese landings on the coasts of Florida and Texas began to launch their own assaults, picking at the U.S. forces from behind.
Colorado armies still held Grand Junction, which straddled I-70 near the Utah border. The all-important air‚elds in Durango, Telluride, and Montrose had fallen. The Chinese were rapidly securing their grasp on the southern part of the state, and Cam was glad again for the insigni‚cant size of his squad. Every day there were jets close overhead. More frequently, they heard distant planes or saw contrails or bright metal dots.
If they were noticed by an enemy ‚ghter, they would be dead in seconds. There had been reports of the Chinese stra‚ng refugee camps simply to create more chaos, expending ammunition on nonmilitary targets because the survivors †ed for the protection of Army bases, where they made trouble for the soldiers and pilots. Unfortunately, most of the people in this part of Colorado still did not have the vaccine. Grand Lake had †own it to military personnel across the United States and Canada, thoroughly screening those vials of blood plasma for the ghost nanotech. Soldiers everywhere had spread the vaccine to nearby refugees if they could, but Cam’s squad saw no one whatsoever for the next day and a half as they circled west and then south again below the barrier.
Interstate 70 rolled nearly dead-center across the middle of the state. Reaching it was their ‚rst goal. Captain Park planned to join the freeway in the town of Wolcott, jog west, then continue south again on dirt roads and trails as they worked their way back toward elevation. They knew there was a large conglomeration of American infantry and armored units in the area, coordinating with Grand Lake command. West of Leadville, the mountains surrounding the once-famous ski town of Aspen were poised to become a stronghold against the Chinese.
Ruth hoped to ‚nd her answers there. If not, the expedition was wasted. Everything boiled down to whether or not she’d guessed right — but if, for example, Leadville had only tested its nanotech on its troops along its northern border, they’d come all this way for nothing. There would be no perfect vaccine. They would have no explanation for the ghost nanotech and Ruth would be more alone than ever, as the last top scientist in the United States.
She snapped at them and then apologized. She obsessed with her maps even when they hadn’t taken any new samples since the Ute Pass. Cam tried to kiss her that night and Ruth grabbed a handful of his jacket and used her arm like a piston, shoving him back. But ‚rst she pulled him closer and opened her mouth. He was sure of that.
Ruth was a mess, strung out and unsure even of herself. Cam had never felt so clear. He knew he’d been right to come. The Rangers were committed but Ruth needed friends, not only protectors. He regretted adding to the demands on her. There was no time or privacy for them to pursue whatever was happening between them, and she wouldn’t relax until they’d found the remnants of Leadville’s military.
Unfortunately, Wolcott was a swamp. The town sat in a steep channel along the Eag
le River. The quakes and †oods had turned this gorge into a muddy lake. It was June 27th. Their only choice was to turn back and ‚ght around the water to the east, where they stumbled into a hot spot as they winched their jeeps up an embankment. Ballard was distracted, infected in his ear and hands. He caught his sleeve in the winding cable and the winch snapped his elbow before Park shut it down.
Escaping the machine plague had to be their ‚rst priority. Ballard toughed it out, cursing himself, and eventually Deborah and Sergeant Estey reset his joint on a lush mountainside spotted with white and yellow †owers. Cam stared at the little blossoms. This place seemed completely untouched by the vast con†ict of men and machines, and he imagined there were other safe pockets everywhere, even beyond enemy lines.
The thought shouldn’t have made him sad. Angry and sad. If we’d just shared the vaccine, he thought. Had the entire war really hinged on that one decision? Where would the ‚ghting stop? Even if Ruth was successful, even if she developed a perfect vaccine, that didn’t seem like enough of an advantage to push back the Chinese. Cam saw no end to it.
They stayed in the meadow for lunch, bolting down a meal of tinned ham and fresh, bitter roots as distant percussions echoed from the mountains. Artillery ‚re. Cam looked out into the pale blue sky but saw nothing, no smoke, no movement. The war was still hidden down in the west, but it was hurrying closer even as they drove toward the U.S. lines.
Park expected it would be at least another day before they reached the northern edge of the Aspen group. They were only six miles from the nearest secured area, a base on Sylvan Mountain, but they weren’t moving much faster than a person could walk. The terrain was too rough. Park stayed on the radio constantly, trading coordinates with †ank units and requesting information on the Chinese. He could call in air support if needed, if there was time, but until they reached Aspen Valley, ultimately they had no one to rely on except themselves.
On the morning of the 28th that wasn’t enough.
* * * *
The hillside erupted in geysers of ‚re and dirt. Four or ‚ve towering blasts appeared out of nowhere, bracketing the jeeps, hot and bright. Then the explosions seemed to walk together like two drunken giants, stomping through the vehicles and then back again.
One of the jeeps †ipped. Captain Park’s? Ruth’s? In the third jeep, separated from the others by curtains of debris, Cam lost track of the two vehicles ahead of him. He’d gone deaf in the ringing impacts, yet he was aware of rocks and earth clattering against the jeep. The hood twisted up and stopped again, a jagged metal sheet. In the driver’s seat, Wesner twisted sideways as something whipped into his head. Cam was struck in the arm and chest, but the other man shielded him from the worst of it, even when the windshield cracked and imploded. Bits of fender and other shrapnel had rattled through the torn shape of the hood. Wesner took most of that, too.
He was still alive. He pawed feebly at the steering wheel as Cam grabbed the biggest wound on Wesner’s neck, trying to stop the bleeding.
“Get out!” Foshtomi yelled, directly behind Cam in the backseat. She sounded like she was at the bottom of a well and it wasn’t until she bumped past that Cam realized they’d quit moving. His inner ears were in shock. His balance was gone and he swayed as if the ground was an ocean wave when he left the jeep, dragging Wesner behind him.
Foshtomi helped as best she could for ‚fteen staggering yards, screaming with effort. Her cheek was cut and there was blood in her hair, too, but she kept her arm around Wesner’s back.
Cam glimpsed other people to his left, partially eclipsed between smoke and daylight. Friends? Enemy troops? Ruth, he thought. Her name was like a small cool space inside his panic. He slowed down, intending to run in that direction.
Foshtomi tripped him. Foshtomi stamped her boot down on his ankle and the three of them fell behind a bump of granite as the giants pounded the vehicles again. The sound was enormous. Cam jammed his hands over his ears without thinking, uselessly trying to block the hypersonic blows.
The wetness on his palm reminded him of Wesner. He turned to apply pressure to the man’s wounds again, but Craig Wesner was dead, slack-faced with dirt in his eyes.
Foshtomi shouted distantly. “Break!” she cried. “Okay?” She leaned close and Cam watched her mouth as she repeated it. “We run again in the next break!”
“No!” Even his own voice had the faraway quality, and Cam gasped at a stabbing pain in his left side. A broken rib, maybe. “We need to ‚nd Ruth!”
“We can’t help her!”
Cam shook his head and twisted awkwardly to look up, keeping his body †at. He hadn’t seen or heard any planes, but the sky was dark with windswept banners of pulverized dirt and smoke.
“The jeeps!” Foshtomi yelled. “They’re shelling the jeeps, not us! We have to—”
But the giants danced away suddenly, spreading across the hillside. Half a dozen ‚reballs punched into the green earth in what appeared to be random lines, moving southward and down the mountain. Chasing someone? Cam knew from talking with the Rangers that modern warfare could take place over a range of tens of miles. Tanks and cannon were capable of remarkable precision at that distance. Their jeeps had been spotted by a forward observer or a plane or a satellite. Somewhere, Chinese artillerymen were lobbing shells at a target they couldn’t even see, simply obeying a series of coordinates.
There was no way to ‚ght back, other than to radio for help. Foshtomi was right that they needed to get out of the grid, but the Chinese seemed to be hitting the entire mountainside now, mopping up. If they ran, they could just as easily move into the next salvo as move to safety.
Cam wasn’t leaving without Ruth. The thought steadied him and he risked another glance up the hill.
It was the lead jeep that had overturned. One wheel had blown off and the axle was ripped away. There was only one body in the open, a man lying in a dark blotch of †uid. The second jeep, Ruth’s jeep, had crashed into the destroyed vehicle but looked abandoned. She’d gotten clear.
She must have gotten clear, Cam thought. But the giants were coming back again, slower this time. The explosions picked their way along the slope, lifting brush and rock in powerful, bone-shuddering detonations. Cam pressed himself into the earth. Each breath was laced with smoke. Then the impacts were past and he was up and running.
He fell. His balance was still off and he discovered that he needed to stay bent over his left side. The ground was littered with dirt clods and rock, sometimes in large hunks. Then the ground itself jumped. Cam was barely halfway on his feet again. He managed not to collapse onto his bad side. He rolled into a crater and found Estey and Goodrich hunched against the fresh, crumbling earth.
Estey was trying to staunch a wound on Goodrich’s forearm and didn’t see him. Goodrich shouted but Cam only heard his warning tone, not the words. He’d gone less than thirty feet. It felt like another world, especially in the buzzing silence. The artillery had brie†y concentrated here and the hill was a moonscape.
Ruth should have been with them. She rode with Estey, Ballard, Mitchell, and Deborah in the second jeep, but they’d obviously scattered in all directions. Cam wondered what he was going to do if she was uphill of the vehicles.
He kept looking for her across the wasted ground. He fought off Estey’s hand when Estey tried to drag him down. He’d spotted another human shape in the dark, drifting clouds, one running man followed by another. The giants were gone. The sun split through the dust and Cam scrambled out of the crater, only to throw himself down again and claw for his pistol. He’d lost his carbine with the jeep, but Estey still had his weapon and Cam glanced back and screamed, “Look out! Estey!”
There were at least ten human shapes dodging through the haze, far more than the missing part of his group. Their yelling was muf†ed and strange. They were also the wrong color. Cam’s squad wore olive drab, whereas these people dressed in tan camou†age and seemed to be misshapen. Uneven brown rags hung from their heads
and arms, and Cam did not recognize their long ri†es or submachine guns.
He took aim but didn’t ‚re as someone else stood up in another crater in front of him. Deborah. Her blond mane was ‚lthy, but still unique. Cam lifted himself to run to her, sick with fear. He was certain that he would see her gunned down. Then she waved to the approaching troops, and Cam struggled to discern the men’s voices.
“U.S. Marines! U.S. Marines!”
He lowered his pistol and ran to the crater.
* * * *
Ruth embraced him and hurt his ribs and he laughed, breathing in the good, complex smell of unwashed girl. She was alive. She’d escaped with scrapes and bruises and one peppered rash of shrapnel on her hip, where she would need surgery not just to remove the †ecks of metal but also the fabric from her shredded uniform, which had been imbedded into her wounds.
Others hadn’t been so lucky. Park and Wesner were dead and Somerset was critically wounded in the belly and face. Hale, also from the lead jeep, had broken his collarbone and both legs when the vehicle went over. It was only a bizarre miracle that Goodrich was only cut on his arm.
Cam absorbed most of this information through the aching cotton that blocked his ears, but they were all yelling. Most of them had dif‚culty hearing and everyone was wild with adrenaline. They knew the artillery could start again any time.