Invasion: New York (Invasion America) (27 page)

Opening his eyes, Stan smiled sadly. He missed Bill. They’d had long talks together, usually while fishing or while riding up the interstate together to go hunting. Bill had made some cogent arguments.

Ultimately, what was the origin of evil? Was it relative as they taught in the universities? Was one man’s evil another man’s good, just depending on his point of view? That was too philosophical for Stan, and he didn’t buy it, not after Bill had explained it. If evil was relative, did that mean Hitler’s burning of the Jews wasn’t absolute evil? If evil changed depending on what fifty-one percent of a people said it was at any one moment, than people could argue that Hitler had been right for his time and place. Who were we to judge them right or wrong?

No. Stan couldn’t accept that. He believed what Bill had told him long ago. There was evil because there was good. God created everything and it had been good, at least according to the Good Book. The Bible taught evil had an origin, a starting point, and that was when the Devil had rebelled against God. The Devil had brought the rebellion to Earth by tempting Adam and Eve. Because evil had a starting point, good had a starting point, an ultimate source. Therefore, one could say this or that was absolutely evil all the time. Therefore, one could say that Hitler had been evil to burn the Jews, and that was Truth with a capital “T”.

Stan shook his head. What would his fellow passengers think if they knew what he was debating with himself? The point for Stan was this: instead of blaming God for evil, he would blame the Devil and Stan would blame himself. That meant Stan could also blame the Militia Detention Center people. And against them, he could use some help.

Therefore, Stan closed his eyes and silently asked God to be with his boy.

“And help me get him back,” Stan muttered.

He exhaled, opened his eyes and stared at the passing cornfields. America the bountiful: this was the reason China, Brazil and the German Dominion attacked. They wanted to feed their people off America’s plenty.

We have to stop them. But do we have enough muscle?

It was a good question. Time would tell.

What’s happening to you, Jake, and where are you?

NIAGARA PENINSULA, ONTARIO

Jake threw himself into a depression in the ground, with his chest striking a half-buried stone with a point. It hurt like a son of a bitch, the edged point digging into the flesh over his heart. He clenched his teeth to keep from yelling. He wore the old Army coat, old baggy pants and worn boots. He had an intact helmet, and that surprised him. He clutched an M16, carried extra magazines and even had a few ancient grenades. In other words, he was inadequately armed to destroy Sigrids and GD drone tanks.

Charlie thudded beside him, grunting painfully. At the same instant, enemy artillery shells landed with explosive and deadly force all around them.

Jake tried to make love to the earth, thrusting himself as low as he could go. He ate damp moss and felt wet dirt clods pelt against his back.

Charlie shouted, and Jake had no idea how, but he sensed the kid would get up and bolt. Risking dismemberment by flying shrapnel, Jake lunged up and grabbed Charlie’s leg. He dragged the kid down. Charlie sobbed with fear and kicked at him with his free foot. Jake endured the blows on the top of his helmet. Then he surged up Charlie’s body and bear-hugged him.

“Stay down, you fool!” Jake shouted. “You have to wait out an artillery barrage.”

More shells slammed around them, upon the trees and the mossy open glade. The attack was terrorizing, lung busting and full of screaming metal. But the Earth was a big place. So even though artillery was the king of battle, and the great infantry killer, even massed artillery seldom killed everyone in a selected patch of ground.

Twenty minutes after the first shell landed, the GD bombardment stopped.

Jake looked up. Tress had become shredded stumps or ghostly spikes. The glade looked as if giant farmers had plowed it up and dotted it with moonscape craters. Yet now that an eerie silence had descended, other heads poked up, big human gophers with muddy helmets.

The first spoken words came from behind the penal militiamen. It was the amplified shouts of the MDG Sergeants driving them like slave masters.

“Let’s go!” Sergeant Franks roared through his amplifier. “We don’t have all day. Keep heading west. No malingering or you’ll be shot.”

The few medics rushed to help those they could.

Jake dragged himself to his feet. Maybe a quarter of the penal company did likewise. The other three-quarters were dead, dying or too crippled to do anything but scream or stare at the clouds. A medic already pushed a needle into one screaming, middle-aged man with bloody stumps for legs. Those in good shape would have helped, but the sergeants had already drummed into their heads that during a US attack, penal troops kept moving forward no matter what.

Jake and Charlie walked back several yards to collect their main weapon. They hauled an old TOW missile platform with two wheels. Instead of mules, they pulled it. How it had survived the shelling, Jake had no idea. He was the TOW shooter, because he’d actually fired one of these before.

All along the half-destroyed woods, the company advanced toward Hamilton. There were other companies and battalions moving parallel with them on either side and out of sight. They were reinforcements sent to break through the GD encirclement around the Canadians and Americans holding out in the city.

The bulk of the US reinforcements came from two Army Groups. The first 100,000 soldiers came from New York Command, peeled away from the men facing GD Army Group B north of Lake Ontario. Another 100,000 was on its way from New England Command. They had faced GD Army Group C in Quebec. The present advance to contact came from the US Fifth Army, the XXIII Militia Corps, of which they were part.

Corporal Lee pointed in a new direction. He was the only other member of their squad who had survived the bombardment. Lee was a huge Chinese-American. Jake didn’t know what Lee had done wrong to be sent here. Probably it was simply a matter of being the wrong ethnicity. The Chinese had invaded America, and it seemed to have made most Chinese-Americans suspect by the rest. The man had thick wrists and he was strong. Lee didn’t talk much, but he never complained and he never tried to boss them because he was the corporal.

Jake glanced back. One could easily tell the penal militiamen from the MDGs. The guards wore body armor, making them bulky like gorillas, and they had cool-looking submachine guns. The MDGs also stayed in the rear under the lieutenant’s command. They had one task: to make sure the penal militiamen fought to the death. Cowardice had one reward: a bullet in the back or the back of the head. Only when the last penal militiaman died could the sergeants retreat to safety, but not a moment before.

“Enemy tanks!” shouted a militiaman walking point.

Everyone froze, including Jake.

The shouting militiaman stood near large rocks embedded in the ground. Beyond were more trees, hiding the enemy.

“They told us the GD tanks were miles from here,” Charlie complained.

Jake laughed sourly, and he looked right and left. “There,” he said. He grabbed the TOW hitch, nodded at Lee, and the two men rushed to a boulder sixty feet away, with the platform bouncing behind them.

Many of the militiamen had already gone to their bellies. Three turned tail and sprinted east for safety, heading back for the medics caring for the badly wounded. MDG submachine guns chattered, and the three sprinters belly flopped onto the damp Earth, dead.

About one hundred yards to the rear, Sergeant Franks shouted through his amplifier, “Take out the tanks! That is an order.”

“They killed them,” Charlie whispered. He hunkered low by Jake and Lee. “The detention guards just murdered those three men.”

“Where have you been the last week?” Jake asked. “They’ve been murdering us since training camp.”

“I thought boot camp was supposed to last six weeks at least,” Charlie said.

“For American citizens,” Jake said. “Not for dirty dogs like you and me.”

Lee tapped Jake on the shoulder and pointed west.

Jake cocked his head. From beyond the boulder, he heard squealing treads. The things sounded as if they moved fast, and they were coming out of the shadowy woods.

Then an enemy UAV roared low overhead with crooked wings like an old time Stuka. The thing was like a tin can, an armored ground-attack UAV. The troops had taken to calling it a Razorback. The Razorback’s machine guns opened up. Dirt fountained up like it did in the movies. A group of militiamen standing around like dorks died, falling like bowling pins. Others hit the ground, crawling away.

With his back against the boulder, Jake looked up at the thing. It turned in a tight curve. The Razorback launched a missile, and the air-to-ground rocket zoomed fast, hit and exploded against a TOW tube. The team manning the TOW blew apart into bloody bits, smacking against the wet earth.

Beside him, Charlie groaned in terror.

The Razorback began firing its machine guns again. Meanwhile, the enemy light tanks or Sigrids seemed to sprint for them.

“Damnit,” Jake said. “We need some Blowdarts.” He raised his M16, tucking the butt against his shoulder. It was a pitiful weapon to use against a ground-attack UAV.

Jake led the Razorback as if he was duck hunting, and he depressed the trigger, firing three-round bursts. Lee lifted his grenade launcher, and launched a grenade.

“Down!” Jake shouted.

The grenade sailed up and exploded, and it rained shrapnel on fellow militiamen.

Jake heard Sergeant Franks bellow something. Maybe the man thought they’d turned their weapons on their tormentors: the MDGs. That was one thing about being a penal militiaman: you were only supposed to fire your weapons in the direction of the enemy, never behind you.

Oblivious to everything, Lee raised his grenade launcher again. Jake jumped up and pulled the barrel down.

“No,” he told Lee. “Fire at the Sigrids. Don’t fire at the Razorback flying over us.”

Lee stared at him, and he nodded.

The Razorback turned tightly again. The thing was going to singlehandedly destroy the company. Jake glanced at the detention sergeants. He saw them slithering away, maybe even retreating. Did they figure the company was as good as dead?

Bastards, they’re all bastards. I can’t believe this war
.

“Charlie!” Jake shouted. “You’d better get up and aim at the plane. Fire when I fire.”

Charlie scrambled to his feet, and he tucked the butt of his M16 just as Jake did his.

“It’s coming straight at us!” Charlie shouted.

“Yeah,” Jake said. “I see it.” He figured this was as good a way to die as any other. He aimed, and he fired off an entire magazine. Beside him, Charlie did the same thing.

A spark erupted on the Razorback, and it quit firing just as its machine gun bullets fountained near them. Had it run out of ammo? That was the likely explanation.

“I hit it!” Charlie shouted.

Before Jake could confirm that, the Razorback passed overhead, roaring toward the woods. This time it didn’t turn around, nor did they hear it crash. Instead, it slowly droned away.

“Tanks!” a militiaman screamed.

“They’re almost on top of us!” Charlie shouted. “Listen.”

Jake didn’t need anyone to tell him to listen. He heard them. He scanned back, but didn’t see any sign of the MDGs. That meant they were on their own. What was the best thing to do with these untrained civilians? There was no way what was left of the company were going to destroy tanks, not destroy them and survive.

“Go!” Jake shouted at Charlie and Lee. “Follow me!” He sprinted for a stand of bushes to his left. He kept hold of his M16, and the air burned down his lungs at he lifted his boots. He dove, thudded onto wet ground and put his head down as he wriggled into a thick stand of bushes. A moment later, Charlie wriggled through with him and then in came Lee.

They lay on the ground, peering through the bushes, and they witnessed seven Sigrids murder the rest of the penal company. Each tracked vehicles boasted a tri-barreled machine gun, a Gatling gun that blazed fire. Militiamen ran everywhere. Militiamen crawled and sobbed. The science fiction war-robots clanked fast and blew men apart one by one.

When it was over, the squat vehicles spun on their treads, searching for more. Jake dreaded the robots’ ability to sense behind the bushes. Did the things have heat sensors? He didn’t know. His mouth tasted like defeat. Jake knew bitter hatred then. He’d fight the enemy the right way if the Militia gave him weapons that could destroy machines like that, and give them training. But to send them to the front in a penal unit without support or leadership… A red haze of anger seethed through Jake. This was BS. This was murder pure and simple.

Finally, the Sigrids headed back the way they had come, leaving the dead company for the crows and wild dogs.

The three surviving militiamen in the bushes waited until they could no longer hear the squealing treads.

“Now what do we do?” Charlie asked.

Jake had been thinking about that. The MDGs would be back soon, or it seemed possible they would be. The three of them would have to write up a report and needed pertinent facts.