The First Protectors: A Novel

by Godinez Victor

  The dirty, battered head streaked through the air, then pierced the water and sank. It burbled down, the eyes blinked one last time, and then it exploded. The detonation sent a small mushroom cloud of water up into the air, killing a few fish, maybe, but well away from any people.

  Now it was over.

  Ben sank down to the ground. He looked down at his arms and legs, a dozen minor scratches and deep cuts already healing before the blood on his mangled flight suit was even dry.

  Then he remembered. With a thought, he reopened his radio link.

  “General Rickert, you there? Come in.”

  For a moment, silence.

  “Ben, you still alive? Thank God.”

  “General, did the defense grid catch the other drone?”

  Silence again.

  “Yes.”

  “But?”

  “We lost Saint Petersburg.”

  “What? What do you mean we lost Saint Petersburg?”

  “We’re sending a team to pick you up.”

  14

  “No, dammit, there’s no time! You have to let this one go and take out the other ship. It’s still armed. Ben, are you there? Ben?!”

  Rickert squeezed the console in front of him. The massive monitors in the command center in Cape Canaveral had been blinking madly when tracking the initial wave of frenzied attackers, but now the action was distilled down to the last three ships: the two invaders and one defender. Rickert understood why Ben wouldn’t, couldn’t, disengage, but he also hated it. There was no time.

  “Do we have a target? Where is this thing headed?”

  The technicians didn’t even look up, punching through simulations on their computer screens.

  “We’re running multiple potential tracks, sir,” one of the radar techs finally said. “Could be anywhere from northern Europe to Siberia. Our satellite defense grid is weakest over that area and looks like the drones finally figured it out.”

  Rickert knew instantly that Russia was the target. It was their greatest point of vulnerability, in more ways than one. Gretchenko had warned them that Russia would be destabilized, and the headlines proved him right almost daily. Hardline communist and nationalist elements were agitating and conspiring. They were sending swarms of angry youths out into the streets to protest that this was all an American plot to undermine and overthrow Russia. Often, the protests turned to riots and looting, and the aging generals were happy with this, too. Old men moving young men like pawns, sacrificing them as they saw fit. Russia had always been a fertile field for conspiracy theories. Now the crackpot theories seemed indistinguishable from the truth. If the President of the United States could go on television and warn of an alien invasion, who was to say what was theory and what was fact? No tale was too outlandish to be dismissed as myth or madness anymore. So the agitators had seen an opening to power and were determined to squeeze through, even if their country burned behind them win the process. Rickert had seen the plans. Russia’s manufacturing industry was critical to building the bulwark against the mrill. If the Russian government fell and was replaced by a more belligerent regime, the whole world would suffer.

  A two-front war with Russia turned the tide of World War II. I wonder if it will do the same with World War III?

  The team managing the fire control systems for the orbital satellites frantically plowed through calculations.

  “Can we shoot it down ourselves?” Rickert asked. The cluster of colonels and lieutenants looked ashen and tired. One finally spoke up (Glen Cameron, Rickert remembered through the panicked fog clouding his mind).

  “We’ll try, sir, but our targeting computers are like molasses compared to the systems embedded in Lt. Shepherd. Our best hope is to strafe the approach vector and hope for a lucky shot.”

  Rickert wiped his forehead with the back of his hand as fear wriggled in his gut like a furry caterpillar.

  “Fine, open it up. Everything we’ve got, both airborne and ground-based.”

  It would be damn funny if a plain old iron-and-gunpowder antiaircraft gun brought down the last alien drone, but at this point Rickert didn’t care if a slingshot provided the killing blow. He opened a live video link on his tablet with General Sergey Parchomenko, head of the Russian Ministry of Defense, currently located in a bunker in Kazakhstan. The position was a military rank, but Parchomenko was a politician, having risen through the bureaucracy over nearly thirty years in office. He reported directly to the Russian president and oversaw the country’s entire military machine. Rickert dreaded the conversation he was about to have, although all the leaders of the world had been briefed on its possibility. Over the video link he could see Parchomenko struggling to contain his despair. Still, he’s doing a damn better job than I would in his shoes.

  “General, I’m sure you can see on your screens the same data I’m seeing. The last drone is heading your way and looks to be approaching . . .” A tech handed Rickert a scribble on a slip of paper. “. . . Saint Petersburg. We’re linking our targeting data with your systems, although we’re having a much tougher time tracking the bogies without Lt. Shepherd’s internal computers. We . . .”

  Parchomenko cut him off. “Thank you, General. We’re receiving your data. I must go.” The video and audio feed stayed open, though, and the activity level in the background turned to a frenzy.

  The caterpillar in Rickert’s stomach begin to spin a cocoon.

  On the screen, the icons for the remaining orbital weapons were blinking as they fired, their high-energy beams carving through the night, unable to keep up with the zigzagging drone. The streams of energy stabbed and jabbed at the machine like a man trying to catch a housefly with chopsticks. Who knew what kind of destruction they were causing on the ground below?

  “General,” Rickert yelled, louder than he’d intended. “The ship is coming in range of your surface-to-air systems.”

  No response.

  “General?!”

  Nearly 7,000 miles away, in a bunker that smelled of both ancient and fresh cigarettes, the Russian politician wished very much he had become a baker like his mother had wished. The family business. This business was much nastier.

  “I know, dammit,” Parchomenko growled, as the American general’s pleading voice squeaked from the speakers on the handheld computer. He had regarded that machine as nearly magical just a few months ago, a piece of technical wizardry. That seemed likes ages now.

  He took a drag on his cigarette to calm his nerves. The smoke drifted through the air, slipping through the throng of yelling, running soldiers. Military discipline was breaking down, close to a complete collapse. Who knew how much longer orders would be obeyed? A lot of things were about to fall apart. He had the data feed from the Americans, but knew it to be unreliable. The drone flitted on and off the display, skipping through radar detection. Parchomenko knew the approximate area the drone was in, but not precise coordinates. His soldiers would have to simply dump ordnance into that corner of the sky and hope for the best. Spray and pray, as the saying went. Kazakhstan was more than a thousand miles from Saint Petersburg, but Parchomenko was sweating nonetheless. He knew the stakes as well as the Americans did. What’s more, his parents lived in Saint Petersburg and had refused to relocate to the countryside, even as Parchomenko had pleaded with them, begged them to abandon the city. All population centers would be targets. But they would not leave their home. Stubborn fools.

  “Do you have the location? Then fire, damn you! Fire everything,” Parchomenko growled at his control team.

  They moved without looking up, some barking orders into their headsets while others activated computer-controlled defense systems outside the ancient city. The fixed defense systems were mostly missile batteries, as they had largely replaced machine guns over the last few decades due to their longer range and tracking capabilities. That very technology made them less useful now. It was nearly impossible to track the drone in the minute or so they had before it dropped its cargo, and the missiles simply would
not fire without a lock. Traditional antiaircraft machine-gun fire were actually a better option for this scenario. Pull the trigger and off the slugs went. Dumb though the shells might be, at least they had a chance at a lucky shot.

  The best weapon in the Russian arsenal for such a job wasn’t on Russian soil. The Admiral Kuznetsov aircraft carrier, parked in the Baltic Sea just off the coast of the city, bristled with surface-to-air defense systems. Admiral of the Fleet Dmitri Tokmakov was stationed on the Kuznetsov, overseeing the entire Russian navy, depleted and rusty as it had become over the last thirty years. The Kuznetsov was the centerpiece of the Russian fleet, and it made sense for Tokmakov to be onboard during this engagement. Parchomenko suspected the ship would be a tomb for Tokmakov and the nearly 1,700 crew members. Nevertheless, the primary plan must be followed before the contingency plan was put into effect.

  Parchomenko toggled through several live video feeds from the deck of the Kuznetsov, tuning in just in time to see the various weapons systems swivel to the west and tilt up to the sky. The most powerful was the Kashtan weapon system, a hulking 34,000-pound device outfitted with a pair of six-barrel, 30-mm rotary cannons. A single Kashtan could pour 9,000 rounds per minute into the sky, each slug traveling at roughly 2,800 feet per second. A wall of supersonic death. The Kuznetsov had eight Kashtan systems. Each combat module was linked to the command module, which tracked and identified airborne targets. But the guns could also be fired manually, without requiring an electronic target lock in case of damage to the radar system. It was one of the most lethal short-range weapons on the planet, and under any other circumstances, would have made the Kuznetsov just about untouchable by any airborne attacker. Against the alien drone, however, Parchomenko had no idea what to expect.

  The last of the combat modules rumbled into place and they all opened fire. Even just coming through the speakers in the central command room in Kazakhstan the sound was deafening, a thunderous drum roll. Parchomenko couldn’t imagine the cacophony aboard the ship. He glanced down at the radar screen. The drone disappeared from the screen for a moment, then reappeared to the east, still on a direct course for Saint Petersburg. The guns on the Kuznetsov struggled to adjust to the glimmering signal, belching out tracer rounds.

  Three kilometers out.

  Two kilometers.

  The drone would launch its main weapon in just seconds.

  The control room in the Kazakh bunker had finally gone quiet, all the staff huddled around the monitors, last-ditch orders and reports clutched in sweaty hands. On a frenzied hunch, Parchomenko tapped out a new command for one of the Kashtan emplacements, swiveling it southwest a few degrees and ordering it to fire into seemingly empty airspace. At the same moment, the drone vanished again. The radar was empty for an agonizing instant. Then the ship blipped back in at the very spot Parchomenko had filled with hundreds of thousands of rounds. On the video screen, a massive fireball erupted over the ocean as the shells found their mark.

  “Yes!” Parchomenko screamed as the room erupted around him in cheers.

  Then out of the cloud of smoke and fire streaked a tiny tongue of silver, so small as to be almost imperceptible, even on the high definition displays, a device no bigger than, say, a samovar of tea. Parchomenko felt his smile freeze on his face, like wet concrete poured into an industrial furnace.

  The guns of the Kuznetsov opened up again, but the projectile was already past the warship, hurtling toward the city. The device burst in midair, several hundred feet directly over the dome of Saint Isaac’s Cathedral.

  “Did we hit it?” one of the crewmembers in the bunker yelled with near hysteria. “Did we hit it?”

  No chance. Parchomenko knew what was happening, even without seeing the gray cloud that had blossomed and was now spreading and enveloping the golden dome and the surrounding areas.

  He slumped into his chair and stared up at the screen. He felt more tired than he ever had in his entire life. An exhaustion no sleep could cure. The cameras and monitors, oblivious to despair, kept recording and displaying. The Russian could not look away, and the signal was so clear it was like he was perched on a roof of the ancient city. The electronics could not protect them, only torment them. A helpful gust of wind grabbed a corner of the gray cloud and dragged it toward Nevsky Avenue, the vital heart of the city. As the dust settled onto the church and ancient buildings, Parchomenko reached for a secure phone with a trembling hand.

  Click. “Voice identification required.”

  “Sergey Parchomenko, 197–23.”

  “Please wait.”

  The dome seemed to be melting. The spectacular gold sheath was being eaten. Where the clouds caressed the sparkling metal, they left behind only the underlying stone, like meat dropped in corrosive acid. Now the stone was being gently but quickly dismantled, too. Each atom was repurposed, reconstructed, into more machines. An army of zombie soldiers biting and converting its helpless adversary. The city was consuming itself.

  “Identification confirmed. Proceed.”

  “Directive 258.”

  “Authorization code required.”

  “MTL-7041.”

  “Hold for presidential verification.”

  The cloud had also settled onto the apartments and shops lining the famed Nevsky area, which had served as the backdrop for Dostoevsky’s Crime and Punishment. Fancy bakeries and Western clothing stores lined the streets, coffee shops and cell phone stores. The bewildered pedestrians and disorganized soldiers and policemen stared up at the dark swarm, not certain what it was or how to respond. A tendril of the nanocloud curled around a segment of building housing a Burger King and a bank, which crumbled and slammed into a small group of onlookers. The bloodshed finally woke the people from their gaping wonder, and they stampeded in every direction.

  None escaped.

  Gray death swooped down on the shoulders of the whistling wind and cut a path through the screaming hordes. Every person touched by the maelstrom howled in agony for a brief moment before bursting in a cloud of gray machinery. Cars, shops, groceries, newspapers, and families were all devoured and transformed in moments.

  “Verification denied.”

  “Goddammit, motherfucker! Emergency interrupt.”

  “Hold.”

  Entire sections of the city were now disintegrating, the tiny machines subtly directing micro currents of air into a tornado of destruction. The whirling dervish sucked in buildings, helicopters, buses, everything. Expanding outward, the surging storm left only bare, scraped earth behind.

  “This is President . . .”

  “Shut up, you imbecile. You must authorize the launch now. We have only a few minutes, seconds maybe, to contain this disaster. Everything depends on this. Do you hear me, you feeble communist cocksucker?”

  “Now, General, I think . . .”

  “No, you do not think! Are you watching this? Do you see? Now, dammit, now!”

  “I, I . . . but this will be the end of us, General. Everything will fall.”

  “Of course it will! If we see each other again, it will be at the firing squad. But this must be done, or the whole world is eaten and shit out. Now do it!”

  Click.

  Parchomenko leaned back in his chair, but his body did not relax. He stared at the monitors showing Saint Petersburg. What was left of it, anyway. It was no longer recognizable as a place where prosperous, modern Russians could live.

  It looked like a giant, gaping skull attached to a flopping body that did not yet realize it was dead. A swirling, pulsing tornado had consumed most of the city and was expanding outward at an impossible rate. A caravan of cars was trying to flee on one of the highways, Parchomenko saw, barreling around and in some cases over pedestrians running on the same road. The wind was faster than all of them. It cut the vehicles open, metal and blood spraying for a moment before being digested and repurposed into more machines to consume the next group. The enemy was advancing relentlessly in all directions, a march that would have been the envy of N
apoleon or Hitler. Parchomenko calculated they had perhaps two minutes to contain the swarm before it spread beyond all control. He saw the red blinking phone on the control panel, the United States president calling. To hell with him. What was there to say? Parchomenko’s gaze bounced back and forth between the monitor and his computer. His computer screen still said “Verification denied.” He ticked off the seconds in his head, counting down to the end of the world—or at least this piece of it. If Russia didn’t deal with this, Parchomenko knew the Americans, British, and French would. They would have no choice.

  His hand drifted down almost of its own volition to the old Makarov pistol he’d taken to carrying on his hip since the alien attack had been revealed. It seemed an ostentation, a bit of costume drama at which his aides with actual battlefield experience rolled their eyes when they thought the boss wasn’t looking. But Parchomenko had never been sentimental. There were difficult elements now wandering the streets at night in Russia, bands of bewildered, suspicious, terrified people. A strange frenzy had settled over the country, a barely contained panic.

  He feared many of his fellow citizens had simply gone mad. The official statistics were massaged for public consumption, but everyone knew the murder rate had exploded. Dawn always brought fresh bodies now, like driftwood abandoned by the tide. The Makarov was protection. And escape. Parchomenko rested his hand on the smooth leather strap pulled over the butt of the gun, securing it in place.

  “Verification confirmed,” the robot intoned. “Fire Dome initiated.”

  Even without cameras, Parchomenko knew the chain of events those words had set in motion. He could almost see it in his head, clearer even than the images on the screens. Nearly a thousand miles from Saint Petersburg, in the North Sea off the coast of Norway, the Russian submarine Alexander Nevsky launched two Bulava missiles, ballistic nuclear projectiles each carrying six 150-kiloton warheads. The missiles appeared on one of the screens as white blips. Parchomenko watched on the screen as the two projectiles arced up to the edge of space, peaked, and began their descent.