by Eric Keller
Beyond All War
Eric Keller
© Copyright Eric Keller 2019
Black Rose Writing | Texas
© 2019 by Eric Keller
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system or transmitted in any form or by any means without the prior written permission of the publishers, except by a reviewer who may quote brief passages in a review to be printed in a newspaper, magazine or journal.
The final approval for this literary material is granted by the author.
First digital version
All characters appearing in this work are fictitious. Any resemblance to real persons, living or dead, is purely coincidental.
Print ISBN: 978-1-68433-309-7
PUBLISHED BY BLACK ROSE WRITING
www.blackrosewriting.com
Print edition produced in the United States of America
Thank you so much for checking out one of our Sci-Fi novels.
If you enjoy our book, please check out our recommended title for your next great read!
People of Metal by Robert Snyder
The well-intentioned leaders of China and the U.S. form a grand partnership to create human robots for every human vocation in every country in the world. The human robots proliferate, economic output soars, and the entire world prospers. It’s a new Golden Age. But there are unintended consequences—consequences that will place biological humanity on a road to extinction. Ultimately, it will fall to the human robots themselves to rescue biological humanity and restore its civilization.
Thanks Eunju.
Table of Contents
Title Page
Copyright
Recommended Reading
Dedication
PART ONE
CHAPTER ONE
CHAPTER TWO
CHAPTER THREE
CHAPTER FOUR
CHAPTER FIVE
PART TWO
CHAPTER SIX
CHAPTER SEVEN
CHAPTER EIGHT
CHAPTER NINE
CHAPTER TEN
CHAPTER ELEVEN
CHAPTER TWELVE
CHAPTER THIRTEEN
CHAPTER FOURTEEN
CHAPTER FIFTEEN
CHAPTER SIXTEEN
CHAPTER SEVENTEEN
CHAPTER EIGHTEEN
PART THREE
CHAPTER NINETEEN
CHAPTER TWENTY
CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE
CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO
CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE
CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR
CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE
CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX
PART FOUR
CHAPTER TWENTY-Seven
CHAPTER TWENTY-Eight
CHAPTER TWENTY-Nine
CHAPTER THIRTY
CHAPTER THIRTY-One
CHAPTER THIRTY-Two
CHAPTER THIRTY-Three
CHAPTER THIRTY-Four
CHAPTER THIRTY-Five
CHAPTER THIRTY-Six
CHAPTER THIRTY-Seven
CHAPTER THIRTY-Eight
CHAPTER Thirty-Nine
NOTE FROM THE AUTHOR
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
BRW Info
PART ONE
CHAPTER ONE
FEBRUARY 4, 2036
DAY ONE
The lights of civilization disappeared behind them, an escape never felt so constrictive. Instinctively, Morreign relaxed her foot allowing the speeding truck to slow slightly. Only blackness existed beyond the cone of their headlights. The frozen highway slick. Sheets of crystallized snow blowing sideways. They were away. No point risking a crash now.
Paul bent between the seats, trying to entertain the boys in the back who were upset by the impromptu, late night road trip. Checking the rear-view mirror, she saw the lights behind them. Another truck with children traveling through the storm-filled night. The weighty reality of what they were doing pressed down on her even harder.
Not long ago, this plan seemed fanciful. Merely a far-fetched imagined precaution in case the worse happened. Now, fleeing through the darkness, fear filled her as they lived out the ridiculous plan. Unknowns flooded over her. Would they have enough to eat? Would they be able to stay warm? How long would this last? What if someone got sick?
She opened her mouth to explain to Paul that she wanted to turn around, that she was wrong, that she wanted to head back to their apartment, to their home. The orange light of fire suddenly filled the back window followed by the sound of intense, continuous thunder.
Startled, Morreign jolted the wheel. The truck fishtailed. Instincts created by a lifetime of driving on ice took over and, despite a yell escaping from her throat, she calmly let the tires find their own way before carefully inching the truck back straight.
The boys were crying. Their terrier puppy, Rufus, yapped pointlessly from his kennel. Paul tried to calm the kids, but worry tinged his voice as he called over the seat to her, “Leo still back there?”
She checked the mirror, saw the headlights and said, “Yeah, they’re there.”
“What the hell was that?”
Morreign took a deep breath to keep her voice from wavering and then said, “Bomb. A massive bombing of some sort. Hit the airbase I think.”
Paul gave up on placating the kids and turned back in his seat, whispering, “Really?”
“I think so. I mean, what else could it be?”
Paul muttered to himself, “All of this is real. You were right Mo. It’s actually happening.”
Morreign risked taking her eyes off the road she and glanced over at her husband, “We got away though, we’re ok, we’ll be ok.”
“Son of a … Jesus Christ. That blast was huge, what can be left? Who can be left? And, Thule, I mean, the whole outpost, that’s gotta be targeted next -”
Morreign interrupted, “We can’t worry about that now, we need to deal with what we can deal with.”
A pause before, out of the darkness and over the crying children, Paul, sounding more composed, said, “You’re right. Keep us on the road and we’ll figure it out.”
As her husband returned his attention to their sons, Morreign returned all of her frayed focus on the black highway.
. . .
He felt the gentle shoving but rolled away. She said, “Hale, wake up. Something’s happened, I’ve got to get back to the base right away. Get up. I can drop you off on my way.”
He could not remember the woman’s name. The bed was soft, he was buried beneath a plush duvet, and the pillow smelled pleasantly of lavender. A throbbing filled his head, his stomach ached. A lifetime of drinking informed him that standing up now would only make these conditions worse. He pulled the blanket tighter around him and said, “No way, it’s freezing out there. Nice and warm here, come back to bed.”
Anger filled the woman’s voice as she said, “Seriously, I’m not kidding around. We need to go right now.”
Hale rolled over to look a
t her. She was hurriedly getting dressed and, even in the dim light, he could tell she felt as hungover as he did. The polite thing would be to get out of the stranger’s apartment as requested but the idea of venturing out into the frigid night to return to the miserable one bedroom housing unit he shared with two other men was highly unpalatable.
He raised up on one elbow. “Leave me a key. I’ll lock up when I go and slide it under the door.”
Distractedly she said, “I’m not leaving you alone in my place, I barely know you.”
Fine sleeping with a stranger but leaving that stranger by himself in her apartment was unacceptable. He did not care about the moral or logical merits of her view, a good night’s sleep was a rarity for him, so he pushed, “Really? You think I’m going to steal something?”
“No, of course not, it’s a privacy thing.”
Privacy seemed an odd concern to have at this point, but he knew arguing the issue would not work. He said, “I won’t look around, I’m only going to sleep.”
She sighed, unable or unwilling to hide her annoyance. She moved out of the room, calling back, “Fine, I don’t have time for this. The key’s in the drawer by the fridge.”
Burying himself back in the freshly laundered linens, Hale reveled in the warmth. His apartment was military housing provided for oil workers which he shared with two truck drivers from Newfoundland who apparently did not need sleep. They worked seven days a week and still partied full throttle all night, every night. Eight hours of quiet, uninterrupted sleep would do Hale a world of good. He gratefully closed his eyes.
. . .
The voice coming through the helicopter’s headphones carried hardly controlled fear. “The airbase… the airbase, the entire outpost of Thule is…, well, sir, it’s all on fire, sir. We’ll need to find another LZ.”
Colonel Gill turned to Jack Harrison and asked bluntly but with deep worry, “Is there a bunker?”
Harrison wanted to hit the arrogant fool. The Colonel did not even know if there was an emergency bunker at the base he commanded. The helicopter dropped suddenly and then lurched hard to the side in the turbulence of the winter storm as a massive explosion sounded nearby. Looking out the window, Harrison could see flames disappearing in and out of blackness as smoke engulfed them.
He used his professional soldier voice as he responded to his commander, “Sir, there’s an alternate entrance three hundred meters northwest of the end of the main runway that will take us to the underground facility. As long as the tunnel is not damaged, we can get access.”
The Colonel merely stared out the window at the nothingness, apparently confused about what to do next. For months now, Harrison was certain a disaster such as this was imminent. In the last five years, the world order changed drastically, however, those in charge seemed unable to grasp this fact.
Sea levels began to rise decades ago, but the process occurred gradually allowing richer nations time to react with aggressive engineering projects. Poorer, low-lying areas did not fare so well, but the developed world remained largely unaffected and maintained a general ignorance regarding the scope of the pending crisis. However, when a massive sheet of ice covering half of Greenland sloughed into the ocean, the catastrophe waiting in the wilful blind spot of humanity struck immediately and indiscriminately.
Harrison, with his high school education, did not completely understand the science but reports generally indicated the balance ordering the world’s oceans was thrown off, changing the way water and air currents traveled the globe which caused extremes in weather to become more extreme. If a place, such as the Sahara, was normally hot, it became even hotter while if a place, such as Alaska, was normally cold, it became even colder. In Northern Alberta, this meant the normal winter season of five months stretched to over seven and average temperatures plummeted from twenty below to forty below. Crops failed, commodity prices skyrocketed, stock markets collapsed, panicked revolts erupted. The global disarray needed leadership from somewhere.
However, Europe was entangled in nationalistic uprisings, busy fighting against refugees and immigrants while their true enemies mobilized. The United States, the world’s last superpower spent decades being ruled by men more familiar with celebrity than governing and their current President spent more energy telling people he was right rather than smartly addressing the calamity. As a result of the chaos, nations withdrew from trade agreements and alliances to become isolated and confrontational. Before long this lack of cooperation and leadership, coupled with the overwhelming suffering and disarray led to a cascading outbreak of escalating conflicts.
Behind the relatively minor skirmishes, the dictatorial powers were able to take action while democracies bickered internally. With no meaningful trade, controlling the planet’s resources had become more and more valuable. The shortage reached a crisis point when, Saudi Arabia, tired of anti-Islam rhetoric coming from the West, decided it would rather turn isolationist and shut down its production rather than provide oil to machines of hatred. Russia easily expanded its borders, taking back over those satellite states with oil which were formerly of the Soviet Union. China acted next and militarized Venezuela. Eventually, these actions compelled the Americans to acquire Mexico as a protectorate before anyone else could take over their offshore oil rights. This lead to insurrection and domestic terrorism as the diplomacy was mishandled by the celebrity Presidency making it seem the action was wholly motivated by racism.
It seemed obvious to Harrison that Western Canada remained the last jewel, the most precious. And, with the US in turmoil, its military stretched by fighting in Mexico and protecting its own territory, its neighbor to the North lost its normal blanket of protection, making it a hittable target. Tonight, someone was taking their shot. Harrison figured it was China opting to destroy the facilities out from under the Americans.
Before the Colonel could make a decision the pilot’s shaken voice came through the headphones, “We lost radio contact, we need to find an LZ immediately, or I think-”
An explosion erupted below them, tossing the aircraft. Alarms blared in the cabin as the helicopter began to spin across the sky. Harrison heard the Colonel scream as they plummeted to the earth.
. . .
Trying to sound calm, Morreign said, “I think we better get off the highway.”
Even in the dim light coming off the dashboard, Morreign could see Paul’s eyes had grown wide and wild. “What? Off the highway? We need to get away as fast as possible.”
She nodded toward the back seat, silently imploring her husband not to frighten the boys any more than they already were before quietly saying, “The attack is coming quicker and heavier than I predicted. A lot quicker and heavier. I’m worried they might take out the highway.”
Paul shook his head and said, “And the US is going to have to retaliate.”
She sighed and said, “Right. Probably already are. I think all the diplomacy and strategy is done with, now they’ll both only want to destroy everything.”
“I guess we should be glad there’s no nuclear weapons left.”
A treaty entered into in 2024 led to the dismantling of all nuclear armaments. Morreign said, “I suppose, but there’s still plenty of missiles and bombers left.”
They drove in silence for a heartbeat or two, both contemplating the massive warheads likely screaming down from far over their heads. Morreign reiterated, “We need to get off the highway.”
“Ok.”
Paul opened the console and pulled out his tablet. A couple of swipes and he said, “Alright, I’ve got a route. Assuming we’re lucky and the roads aren’t completely snowed in.”
“Better find a couple of extra routes, I don’t think our luck is running too strong.”
Paul
glanced at the rear view mirror as he said, “Our luck is running a lot stronger than all those people back there.”
Pushing the gas pedal down, she responded softly, “We can’t think about that now. We’ll think about it, but we can’t think about it now.”
. . .
Standing naked in a stranger’s cramped living room, Hale witnessed Armageddon playing out before him, splayed across the wide window. Rolling waves of flames overtook the buildings as fire seemed to spew out of everything as the steady roar of the explosions pushed in against the thick glass.
For years, wars and disasters filled the news, but it always seemed distant to Hale. He worked, paid his bills, drank beer, worked some more. What happened in Nigeria or Venezuela or Mexico did not concern him. However, ignorant bliss no longer appeared to be an option.
He knew he should be contemplating all the death and destruction, all the pain and suffering being inflicted on the people of Thule right before him but his mind did not work like that. He needed to deal with what he could deal with and ignore all else.
The apartment building he stood in was new, still under construction with only a handful of units occupied, built on the distant outskirts of the outpost to house upper management of the military staff. The bombing seemed to be ignoring it for now, but there was no way of knowing if that would continue. As a residential area, it would not be a priority, but that did not mean the enemy would not flatten it once all the military targets were gone.
Down below, he saw two trucks rush out of the parking garage and tear off into the smoke. Fleeing. Fleeing might be the best option. No vehicle though. The woman surely took hers. He might be able to find one to steal or find someone else in the building to go with.
As he pondered this idea, an especially massive explosion sent a fountain of liquid fire into the night sky. Hale stepped back from the intense heat smashing into the window as a cascade of burning rubble crashed down. He let out a long, soft curse to himself, “Damn…”