Invasion: New York

-5- Tenth Battalion HQ

John Red Cloud’s face hurt because he had been smiling, it seemed to him, for endless weeks now. He hadn’t realized how difficult it would be to move around the various European enclaves.

In old Canada, races mingled easily. In Quebec, there had been a large native culture. In Normandy and the Ile de France—the two French enclaves he’d traveled through—he had seen a ninety-five percent majority of white people. Twenty-five years ago, it had been different. Much of France had been immigrant Muslim then, with people from all over the Middle East, Turkey and Africa. That had radically changed fifteen years ago with the riots, near civil wars and finally with the vast deportations of the non-natives. It had been an ugly time, and from it had arisen the German Dominion.

John noticed several oddities here, at least compared to how people did things in Quebec. First, there was much greater automation. Second, he hardly spied any children. He recalled reading somewhere that Europe had a shrinking population. Instead of cheaply hired immigrants, the Europeans used robots. That included a million cameras. John felt an itch along his back wherever he went. What made it worse were the people. The French as a whole cast him dark, suspicious glances. He felt like a pariah, an outsider. It was only a matter of time until the police picked him up and discovered that he wasn’t Jacques Pickard as his ID proclaimed.

He strode down a Paris suburb with his hands in his jacket pockets. Cars passed, and the drivers cast him dirty looks. In an attempt to offset their hostility, John did something difficult, something foreign to his nature. He smiled, trying to project a friendly attitude. He was certain it fooled no one. But like a hunter wearing a buffalo hide to sneak near a herd, he did it anyway.

As John saw it, he had three options. One, he could return to Quebec and kill GD authorities there or perhaps gather a group of likeminded Algonquians and create a death squad. Two, he could continue his lone way through Europe until he reached the capital of Berlin. There, he would seek a shot at Kleist. Three, he could throw himself on the mercy of the French secret service and ask for help—actually, he would throw himself on the mercy of the one agent he knew to be hostile to the Germans.

John’s nostrils flared, and he started to scowl, when a green BMW slowly moved down the street toward him. The car had darkly tinted windows, hiding whoever sat inside. That caused uneasiness between John’s shoulders. Despite the ache to his facial muscles, he forced himself to grin stupidly like some McDonald’s worker.

Unfortunately, he lacked a gun, knife or even brass knuckles. Too many places had automated detectors. He had barely escaped twice already and had decided to no longer chance fate. He felt naked and exposed without weapons, and forced himself to keep his hands open and relaxed.

The BMW slowed the closer it came. John refused to glance at it, but he knew this was bad. He had to decide here and now how he planned to proceed. If he went home, he admitted defeat. It would be the safer course, but he hadn’t stepped onto this path to play it safe. He would gladly trade his life to take down the treacherous leader who had betrayed the Algonquians. His wife was dead. His children were dead. All he had left was his people and his pride. The GD automated armies sliced through the Canadians and Americans. The North Americans could not win.

I must remain on my chosen path. I killed men to reach this place. I cannot stain their deaths by quitting. I must persevere to the end. If I die…I die.

Red Cloud knew a moment of great calm. He had chosen the path of death in order to serve justice. He was a walking dead man, a hormagaunt. That gave him power, and the power would help him overcome those in the BMW…if he acted boldly, like a sleepwalker, and continued straight at his enemy on the path of death.

The smile on his face no longer hurt his muscles. For a brief moment, the smile became genuine, if ghastly and chilling. He stopped on the sidewalk and faced the BMW pacing him. Then he indicated that the driver should lower the tinted window.

The large car continued moving a moment longer, although it slowed to less than John’s former pace. It seemed as if the driver hesitated. Then a motor whirred and the window slid down smoothly.

A square-faced, blond-haired man regarded him.

Still smiling with his acceptance of death, John approached the driver. The man frowned, and he reached into his suit jacket.

John bent down as if to talk, and nodded to the other man in the passenger seat. He waited for the right moment, and he could tell both of these were deadly men. The driver removed his hand from underneath the jacket. John had a glimpse of a leather holster. The man held a compact pistol, and he began reversing the barrel so he could no doubt point it out the window.

Your time has come, John Red Cloud. Step through the Death Gate and accept your fate.

John moved with that deceptive speed of his. The driver brought up his gun, the barrel almost aligned for a shot. John stepped to the window and reached in with a rattlesnake’s swiftness. Surprise flooded the driver’s face, a flush of red. Then anger followed with a heavy frown. By then it was too late for the driver. One of John’s scarred hands gripped the driver’s wrist, twisting hard. His other hand plucked the compact pistol out of the man’s grip. It was neatly done and successful because he had become a hormagaunt. Death or the threat of it no longer fazed him.

“Damnit,” the driver said. “You can’t do that.”

The passenger recognized the danger first. John could see it in the man’s eyes, the dilation of his pupils. The man reached into his suit jacket. Therefore, John shot the passenger first, two bullets in the chest and one in the neck. The passenger flopped, and crashed against the passenger-side door.

The driver looked at his friend and then looked into the smoking barrel of John’s gun.

“No,” the driver said.

With his smile still frozen in place, John shot three times more, obliterating the driver’s features. The man didn’t flop or jackknife anywhere, because his seatbelt kept him securely in place.

John didn’t bother looking around to see if anyone had witnessed this. He was on the death path. That gave him power and it gave him extraordinary luck. Instead of looking around and wasting time, he dropped the gun into a jacket pocket. Then he tried to open the driver’s door. It was locked. John reached within and opened it from the inside.

The smell of blood and death was strong in the BMW. Reaching across the dead driver, John unbuckled him and pushed the corpse over until the two were touching.

He climbed in, ignoring the blood, closed the door with a whomp and shut the window. He glanced at the two dead men. They must be undercover police or secret service agents. He would check for identities later. For now, he eased his foot on the gas pedal and drove away.

The incident solidified his plan. He would drive to the French secret service agent’s house. He would outline his need and accept whatever help the man would give. John was on the death path. That meant he needed to move quickly. Those on the death path only had a short time left on Earth. The extraordinary luck would only last a finite period, so he must utilize it to the fullest now.

As John turned onto a new street, the smile slipped away. He had the normal deadpan look of John Red Cloud again. Yes, that was good, too. John decided that he would never smile again…unless he stood over Chancellor Kleist’s steaming corpse.

Anna Chen sat in Underground Bunker Number Five. It lay several hundred meters below and to the side of the White House. In case of a nuclear attack, elevators would speed down here through immense layers of concrete. There were enough guns and butter—so to speak—in the bunker’s lockers to last ten years, at least.

This was where David and his larger Crisis Staff often watched critical battles or sat to discuss and make war policy.

Director Max Harold of Homeland Security was present, together with the Director of the CIA. There was the Defense Secretary, the Secretary of State, Chairman Alan and the rest of the Joints Chief of Staff.

Anna sat as a Presidential advisor. She along with everyone else listened to a briefing major outline the Toronto Pocket’s assault.

They watched nighttime images on the big screen. It showed flashes of American artillery. There were big silhouettes of American tanks moving like dinosaurs, bent over mortar teams lugging their equipment, machine-gun gunners and the actual assault soldiers, both American and Canadians wearing bulky body armor.

“We attempted to give them air support,” the briefing major said, a youngish woman with a solemn gaze. She clicked a device.

The big screen switched images, showing American V-10 drones boring in toward Toronto’s airspace. For a moment, the deadly-looking craft flew alone. The next instant lasers stabbed upward into the night sky. Drones broke apart. Some dove to escape destruction. Others lifted and still others peeled away in either direction.

GD drones or fighters—the major didn’t know and they were too far away to tell—launched air-to-air missiles. Anna watched their contrails. The GD missiles moved so fast, and they darted like hummingbirds after the jinking V-10s. Each second, another V-10 burst apart in a flash of explosion. Soon thereafter, there was nothing in the sky but smoking parts raining toward Toronto.

“We need cruise missiles,” someone said. “We need hundreds of them hugging the earth. The lasers couldn’t stop a barrage of them. Bam, bam!” the Defense Secretary said, clapping his meaty hands together. “You’d have wasted GD strongpoints instead of useless, destroyed UAVs falling on them.”

“We don’t have hundreds of cruise missiles in one place to use,” General Alan said, perhaps a trifle apologetically.

The Defense Secretary was a large man with a red face and a redder nose. “Then we’d better damn well produce more of them, shan’t we?”

“We do produce them,” General Alan said. “As fast as the plants manufacture the missiles we use them. It’s building up enough missiles in one place that is proving impossible. Our munitions are woefully inadequate. The battles against the Chinese in the Midwest…they burned up everything we had last year.”

“I understand that,” the Defense Secretary said. “I’m talking about saving cruise missiles for a bigger occasion like this. We’re not thinking strategically enough.”

“Maybe you can lend us your expertise,” Alan said. “Tell me: is this one of those occasions? Or is this a time to save cruise missiles?”

“I don’t appreciate your tone,” the Defense Secretary said.

“He’s simply being factual, Tom,” Max said. “You can’t fault him for that. It’s his job.”

The large Defense Secretary eyed the Director of Homeland Security. “His tone… Oh, never mind. Our boys are dying tonight, that’s what matters.”

“Yes,” Max said. “Sadly, that’s true.” He turned to David Sims. “Mr. President, from the images out of Toronto and the major’s reports, this sounds like a full-blown disaster. We’re in danger of losing these men, everything, in the entire pocket. That’s too many losses piled on top of all our other fatalities.”

Biting her lower lip in worry, Anna watched David. She wondered which President had shown up for the meeting: the forceful man of old or the beaten commander in chief. So far, that had yet to be determined.

President Sims was slow in answering the director. Anguish filled his features. “This… it’s troubling,” he said.

“Agreed, Mr. President,” Max said. To Anna, the Director of Homeland Security felt forceful. He seemed confident and in charge. “The GD arsenal is too modern,” Max said, “too abundant against our under-armed soldiers. Because of that my recommendation remains the same, sir.”

“You mean nuclear weapons, don’t you?” the President asked.

“I don’t see any way around the situation, sir,” Max said. “The GD tanks have run an old-fashioned blitzkrieg against us. They trapped too many of our key formations in Toronto. We need them if we’re going to hold onto the rest of the Golden Horseshoe and the Southern Ontario peninsula. If the GD takes Detroit…”

“That can’t happen,” the President said. “The war might be over if they reach Detroit.”

“Yes, our newest Behemoth Manufacturing Plant is there. After Denver—”

“I know, I know,” the President said, impatiently.

Finally, Anna thought. He can’t let Max walk all over him. I should have warned him. I made a mistake in not telling David.

“This is an unpleasant fact, sir,” Max said. He cleared his throat, bringing up his right hand, making a fist and holding it before his mouth. He lowered the hand and said, “I hate to bring it up.”

No, you don’t, Anna thought.

“The GD Expeditionary Force is taking the time to digest this big lump of American soldiers and equipment,” Max said. “There are over one hundred fifty thousand fighting soldiers in the Toronto Pocket, sir. They’re of the best quality, too. That means their loss will cost more than double in terms of other troops. Once those one hundred fifty thousand are gone, sir, the GD advance will resume. By the pictures we’re seeing, I doubt the men can hold the city more than a few days longer.”

“I don’t know that I’d paint such a gloomy picture as that,” General Alan said. “Len Zelazny is running the show over there. You know he has a few tricks left.”

“Yes, Zelazny is a hard-charging Marine general,” Max said. “I appreciate that and I feel secure he’s using my—the Militia battalions there to good effect.”

“Zelazny is a gifted general and a cunning battlefield tactician,” Alan said. “He has a plan, a scheme. I can assure you of that.”

“Whatever it is,” Max said, pointing at the big screen. “It isn’t working.”

General Alan glanced at the images up on the screen. He must have seen what Anna did: an American Bradley blowing up, taking a dozen soldiers with it.

“In fact,” Max said. “It’s looking more and more like a bloodbath. What was Zelazny thinking by launching an attack? Do you have any idea as to his objective?”

“Yes,” Alan said quietly. “I don’t think you’re going to like it, but it is clever. Mr. President, with your permission…”

David nodded.

The Chairman of the Joint Chiefs gave them a brief rundown of Zelazny’s plan as heard by Paul Kavanagh. The Chairman added the wrinkle that could possibly make the assault worth it later.

“I can see what you’re hoping for,” Max said. “But in truth this is worse than I thought. Zelazny is spending lives like ammunition, all with the off chance of getting a few elite soldiers into the GD rear lines. Mr. President, I can’t help but thinking that after hearing this—”

“We can’t go nuclear,” the President said. “We have an obligation to the world. I know that’s what you’re going to suggest—nukes—but it cannot be done in this place and not at this time.”

“Begging your pardon, sir,” Max said. “What about the world’s obligation to America? Three huge power blocs have invaded our soil. I say that it’s time to take off the gloves and hit them as hard as we can in the face. Let’s drop these bastards in their tracks.”

The President massaged his forehead. He picked up a water glass, and Anna could see the slightest tremor in his hand. First sipping water, the President pushed his lips against each other, and he faced Max Harold.

“Punching our enemies in the face is one thing,” the President said. “That would be a nuclear strike against their homelands. That’s beyond our delivery capabilities, at present. You’re talking about using a hammer to smash a fly on our nose.”

A few grim chuckles arose from several of those present.

“Sir,” Max said. “This is no laughing matter.”

David scowled.

“I know you realize that, sir,” Max said. “We have some key GD units fixed in place and far enough away from our main troop concentrations. I suggest that if General Zelazny plans to sacrifice his troops, why not use them as bait. Saturate bomb the GD formations around Toronto. Pulverize them, Mr. President. Annihilate these GD invaders and then unleash the main force in New England against Montreal and cut their supply base.”

The President stared across the large circular table at Max. “Is this a serious suggestion?” he finally asked.

“I am not in the habit of giving frivolous suggestions, sir,” Max said.

Anna stared at David, willing him to look at her. Max had gone too far. The President should sack him on the spot. No one should speak to David that way in front of others.

The President broke the eye contact first, and he rubbed his forehead. “I will not be party to using nuclear weapons against American troops, certainly not using the troops as a goat in a tiger hunt. Nor do I plan to win this war with nuclear weapons on land. I will not do it, Director.”

“I’m sorry to hear you say that, sir.”

“I’m open to other suggestions. Chairman,” David asked Alan. “What about the THOR missiles? Could we use those here?”

“Uh, sir…I’m afraid not, Mr. President,” Alan said.

“THOR missiles,” Max asked. “What are those? I don’t believe I’ve heard of them.”

“Do we have any missiles of any type that we can use to aid General Zelazny?” the President asked Alan.

“There are a carefully built up number—”

“How many,” the President asked, “and of what type?”

“Twenty conventionally-armed medium-range ballistic missiles, sir,” Alan said. “But given what we’ve seen of the GD antiair cover, I think at best only half would break through to land and explode.”

“You’re serious?” Max asked. “At best only half will touch down?”

“That’s right,” Alan said. “Touch down. I’m not even talking about hitting their targets.”

Max faced the President, “Sir, a nuclear airburst might render the GD antiair equipment useless. Then all our missiles would hit.”

The large room fell silent. One by one, every member present looked at Max and then at the President.

“I don’t want to hear any more about nuclear strikes,” the President said. “And I do not want to repeat myself, Director. Have I made myself clear?”

Max glanced at several faces. Finally, he nodded, saying, “Yes, Mr. President. I understand.”

“I hope you do,” the President said. “Continue with the briefing,” he told the major. “Don’t leave anything out, no matter how depressing or grim.”

The major glanced at the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs—Alan tugged his left earlobe like a baseball manager giving a signal—before she continued speaking.

This is awful, Anna thought. The GD is slaughtering our soldiers, and for what? The Marine general is throwing his men away on a crazy notion. How is any of this going to help David?

Paul Kavanagh crawled through city rubble, with Romo behind him. It was a nightmare, and nothing was going to get better anytime soon. Artillery thundered in the darkness, creating vast explosions on the horizon. Then flashes came from all around. Shells of all shapes and sizes landed around them. The ordnance crashed into buildings, against the ground and reworked the already pulverized rubble, throwing up tall geysers. The bigger ones shook the ground like quakes and they rained shrapnel everywhere like a November blizzard.

The worst—

From behind Paul, Romo whistled between his teeth. Paul barely heard the sound, but he heeded the warning, attempting to press his body into the concrete. Closing his eyes, Paul remembered to open his mouth. It was to keep his ears pressurized from the nearest blasts. Seconds ticked by before it happened. Somebody—the Germans likely—had dropped a fuel-air bomb. It went off, and it felt as if a sun had gone nova, lighting existence and sucking air like a mythological titan. It caused a rising shriek.

Titanic sound waves from the blast came on like giant hammers. They washed over Paul, shaking him so it felt as if the bones vibrated in his body.

He would have liked to use the high-tech equipment of last winter. They still had the equipment in the arsenals, and he could have donned it for this battle, but not against the tricky Krauts. That meant his side didn’t launch any tiny recon drones to go and find out what the enemy were doing. It also meant Paul didn’t have a HUD visor, computer battle processors and any targeting aids for his weapons. He and Romo had gone primitive because the Germans were masters at triangulating enemy electronic gear and killing the recipients.

He and Romo had body armor, of course, wore regular helmets and carried assault rifles, grenades and had knives, a one-time cypher pad just in case and medical kits. Fighting this way was like closing your eyes compared to how they’d been doing it against the Chinese. No doubt the enemy had infrared scanners and night vision. Yeah, he had night vision, too, but he hadn’t turned it on yet.

Soon he would.

Thinking of that, Paul opened his eyes. The distant flashes continued, as did the pounding, the ground shaking and the wrecks of buildings crumbling some more. Somewhere out there a soldier screamed in agony.

While drawing a deep breath, Paul eased up to his hands and knees and started crawling again. He looked back. Romo still lay on the ground, with his arms covering his head.

Paul whistled. He had to do it twice. Finally, the Mexican Apache looked up. Romo seemed drugged, but his friend eased up to his hands and knees and crawled after him.

To their left, a tank’s cannon belched. A tongue of flame stabbed outward. The wall of a building exploded. A moment later, the entire edifice collapsed.

Paul must have been imagining it, because it sounded as if he heard yelling and then long loud cries of “Medic! We need a medic here!”

Had the enemy AIs exactly calculated that? Had a Kaiser brought down the building on its hiding American occupants?

“They’re devils,” Romo said.

Paul’s mouth twitched with distaste. He wondered if this is what it had felt like being an Iraqi in the early twenty-first century. America had gone conquering in those days. They had been the ones with the wonder weapons. They had slaughtered any enemy soldiers foolish enough to fight them face to face.

How the mighty have fallen.

Well, America didn’t have time for IEDs and a guerilla war fought against conquerors. They would defend the old-fashioned way, by sending out their soldiers to fight like knights. The trouble was, the Germans hadn’t sent out any knights of their own, but wizard constructs, empty suits of armor that fought harder and longer than a man could, and without the vulnerable spots.

“Wait a minute,” Paul said. He listened. The ground shook, but not from shells this time. Enemy tanks clanked, and antipersonnel robots no doubt followed close behind.

“Get up!” Paul hissed. “Follow me.”

He didn’t wait to hear Romo’s answer. Paul rose to his feet and he ran crouched over, clutching his rifle. He panted, and his heavy body armor slowed him down. His foot came down on an uneven piece of rubble. The stuff shifted, but Paul had tied his boots tightly, and the leather braced his ankle enough so it didn’t twist and cripple him. If he became a gimp out here, it would all be over. There were no rescue helos coming to get them this time. The Germans had better radar than even the Chinese possessed.

The Germans are techno-wizards, Paul thought. His ankle held, but it put extra pressure on his knee. Fortunately, the knee didn’t buckle, but a twinge of pain speared there and sweat popped onto his forehead.

The rubble and broken buildings loomed bigger here than they actually were. The flashes of lightning lit up the cityscape, producing crazy shadows.

Paul strained his eyes. It felt as if they were bugging outward. Should he dare the night vision? With a dry swallow, he went down in a controlled manner so as not to injure himself. Paul crawled and wriggled under a slab of reinforced concrete. It was a dangerous cave to use, as it might shift and crush him at any time.

A second later, Romo shoved in beside him.

The two LRSU men stared out of their tiny cave. Fifty feet away, a Kaiser hunter-killer appeared on an otherwise deserted street. The squat thing clanked, and Paul watched it twist a girder as it creaked, flattening the metal with a tread. Meanwhile, the turret rotated and 25mm autocannons swiveled as if in anticipation of American shots.

A worse horror, at least in an infantryman’s world, followed the HK. These were small vehicles with treads, about the size of an old-fashioned Harley Davidson motorcycle. The US had started the revolution with SWORDS machines. These things—panzer-grenadiers—boasted a tri-barrel 12.7mm heavy machine gun. Paul had seen one several days ago destroy a platoon of US grunts. It had been like watching a meat grinder at work.

As Paul stared out of the low dark cave, he spied the latest GD drone chopper. It hung there in the darkness, illuminated by artillery flashes, looking like a giant wasp with its grotesque shape. In that moment, time seemed to stand still for Paul. It was surreal, eerie and it brought back an old, old memory.

Yeah, he had been in his basement as an eight-year-old, he believed. His dad had been sitting on the sofa with him. They’d watched a cheesy 1980s movie named Terminator. Paul had loved it. He remembered the robotic hunter-killers firing at humans in an old beat-up car. The poor humans had used a .50 caliber against the thing. With a laser, the machine had nailed the humans, exploding the car. Above the battle, there had appeared a flying hunter-killer, stabbing the night with its beam.

The movie had played haunting music. Paul had never forgotten the movie or its grim future. Now, as a grown man of forty-two, thirty-four years later, he was playing out that future in Toronto.

The GD had built hunter-killers, and they were destroying…well, not humanity, just the United States of America.

Paul watched the robots clank past. From time to time, the tri-barrels rotated on the panzer-grenadiers and the tank’s cannon roared.

With his right shoulder, Romo nudged Paul.

Paul swiveled his head. Americans back there fired several Javelins and hammered the robots with machine gun bullets. To Paul’s delight, a Javelin missile struck and exploded one of the Sigrid panzer-grenadiers. In response, the other Sigrids blasted the humans, annihilating them in swift seconds of carnage.

“It’s bad,” Paul said. “But look at that. They nailed one. The GD isn’t invincible.”

Romo seemed to collapse as his chest hit the ground. Troubled, Paul lowered himself beside his friend.

“How long should we wait here?” Romo asked in a quieter voice than normal.

Oh, he’s being cautious. That’s all. “We should go now,” Paul said. “This isn’t going to get any easier later, and if those drones stay on their route, they’ll swing by to check out this area.”

“We’re supposed to be the great secret weapon, huh?” Romo asked.

“I don’t know about that,” Paul said. “But we got to make it harder on them than it’s been so far.”

“Si,” Romo said. “I can agree with that. Did you see what those things did?”

Paul didn’t bother answering. Instead, he slid out of the cave. The robots turned, taking a different route. Paul shook his head in dismay. He wasn’t sure he’d ever been in something so one-sided before. Well, maybe Hawaii had been this bad, and they had lost the islands. Clearly, the GD had weathered the feeble American attack and now counterattacked. No doubt the remote controllers had orders to finish the American soldiers tonight.

As Paul crept through the darkness, listening and watching for enemy robots, booby-traps or sensors, a grinding fury built in him.

This wasn’t war: it was butchery. Paul couldn’t remember the author, but he’d never forgotten a sci-fi short story he’d read once. Generals had fought the battle of Armageddon with robotic troops. The flesh and blood soldiers had saved themselves the horror of battling invincible angels. The robots did that. After the battle, heaven opened and a ray of light shined down on the robotic corpses. One by one, the robot troops came back on line. The human generals watched in the distance as the robot troops rose up and ascended into heaven due to their courage, leaving the humans below.

What glory did the GD remote controllers gain from this? Maybe he wouldn’t ask the question if he were the remote controller. Fighting without having to worry about dying seemed like the way to go.

“What glory am I earning crawling like a rat in the rubble?” Paul muttered to himself.

“Did you say something?” Romo asked from behind.

“Do you see anything?”

“Si,” Romo said. “Look to your three o’clock.”

Paul squinted in the darkness. “I don’t see a thing.”

“Do you have your night vision equipment on?” Romo asked.

“No. Do you?”

“Of course,” Romo said.

Paul didn’t bother glancing back to check. It must be safe if they were still alive. He slid his NV goggles into place and switched them on. The night became more visible, and he saw that Romo was right. Ahead, those stanchions—they must be GD sensors.

It took a solid thirty minutes to figure out how and then get around the stanchions. The flashes on the horizon had lessened by then. The American flashes had stopped some time ago. Their artillery must all be dead by now.

“I wonder how many of us are still alive,” Romo said.

Paul didn’t answer. In the darkness, he leaned against rubble, listening. To his right, a cool breeze blew off Lake Ontario. He glanced there. Movement on the water showed GD hovercraft, five machines moving single file west. Paul would have loved to shed his body armor, find a boat and attempt to row across to New York State. He wanted out of Canada. He wanted to go home.

Thinking about home, about Cheri, Paul opened a pocket and drew out a protein bar. He ate the gooey substance, and his body seemed to absorb the nutrients. The wrapper he stuffed back into the pocket.

“Ready?” Paul asked.

“Si,” Romo said.

The two lonely LRSU men crawled through the city streets. At times, they trudged and then went back to slithering through the dead remains of Toronto. They never spotted civilians. The GD robots weren’t too good at making distinctions. Paul saw hordes of the noncombatant dead bloating where they lay. He saw what had been a young girl, still clutching onto her stuffed unicorn, with speckles of crusted blood on the thing. Other sights were gruesome, and it debilitated him for a time.

“This is too much,” Paul finally said.

“The winners write the history, my friend,” Romo said. “This never happened unless the Germans lose. We have to make sure they lose.”

Paul gripped his assault rifle tighter. AI-run Kaiser HKs, flying UAV patrollers—he spat on the ground. He didn’t want to work himself into a rage. That took adrenaline, and that took badly needed energy from his body. Instead, a cold ruthlessness built in him. He tended toward that anyway, but this heightened the feeling. Along with the ruthlessness came the coiling of a steely spring in him that could release at a moment’s notice. Then the passion would kick in, and no one fought better than he did once he kicked it into overdrive.

Hours passed as the two men inched into GD territory. They made it through the forward zone and even into the secondary one where armored soldiers patrolled. For ten minutes, German Shepherds sniffed the ground, but the big dogs went elsewhere. Finally, the two commandos exited the secondary zone and reached the outer edge of Toronto, the northern end. For the first time they heard regular enemy speech, sprechen Sie Deutsch?

Paul checked his watch. Dawn was ninety minutes away. They had been crawling for a solid seven hours. Tiredness pulled at his bones, tugged at his eyelids. He ached all over. His right knee throbbed and his right ankle gave a twinge now and again.

“Hey,” Romo whispered. “Look to your right, at two o’clock.”

Paul eased his head around until he spied it. A soldier, a GD officer by his shoulder tabs, urinated against the side of a building. He could hear the stream of piss hitting bricks. After zipping up, the man hurried to a building. A guard appeared, aiming a rifle at the officer. The officer spoke sharply. The guard opened the door and the officer darted within.

“What do you think?” Romo asked.

Paul scanned the building. It was two stories tall. Then he spotted the antenna array up top. It was the GD design. They’d found a remote-controlling station. By the numbers posted over the door, this was the 10th Panzer-Grenadier Battalion.

A hard smile etched onto Paul’s face. He thought about the Marine general with the eye patch: Len Zelazny. The man could have been a stand-in for the Raiders football logo. General Zelazny had dreamed of this: Recon Marines reaching the momma’s boys and a drone station.

Paul didn’t feel quite the same about that. These were soldiers. They would know how to fight. Thinking they would be cowards was foolish. One didn’t win firefights by underestimating the enemy. Still… the soldiers in there might not be ready to face angry men with guns and knives.

Weariness tried to take over. Paul doubted many of the other elite American teams had reached this far in their sectors. He hoped so, but he had to be realistic.

Muttering some choice profanities, Paul decided to forget about weariness. This was go time.

The two men checked their weapons and readied grenades. Paul dug in a pocket and took out a tiny packet. With his teeth, he ripped it open and dumped two aspirins onto his tongue. He chewed them, the bitter, dusty tablets. He took several sips from his canteen.

“The guard?” Romo said.

“Do you want him?”

“Si. It’s all I can think about.”

“He’s all yours,” Paul said.

The two LRSU men began crawling, and they worked it so they came around from behind. They slid past four sets of jeep tires, and Paul noticed the orange glow of a cigarette ahead. The guard cupped it with his hands, but he stood in the wrong place to hide that from them.

Paul glanced at Romo. The Mexican Apache pulled out a wicked-looking knife. When he saw Paul looking, Romo nodded. Paul took a deep breath, stood up, slung the rifle over his shoulder and began to saunter toward the guard.

It took all of nine seconds. The guard appeared from his hidden location. The cigarette smoldered on the ground there. In German, the guard shouted an order.

Paul ignored the man, even though his stomach tightened painfully.

The guard repeated his words and raised his rifle, aiming at Paul. Stopping, Paul raised his hands and slowly turned toward the man. He noticed a shadow approaching the guard, but Paul’s face stayed rock-steady and betrayed nothing.

The GD soldier asked a harsh question. This soldier had the beginning of a mustache. Just how young was he?

Paul never had a chance to answer the man or his own questions regarding the guard’s age. Reaching from behind in a swift move, one of Romo’s dirty hands clamped over the guard’s mouth. Paul ducked and dropped in case the soldier should fire. Thus, he never saw Romo’s knife slash open the guard’s throat.

There was a brief struggle, a rustle of garments, and then Romo hissed.

Paul was already on his feet, striding toward the door. He didn’t look back. He didn’t care now. The steel spring in him uncoiled, and rage, pent-up fury boiled to the forefront. Such emotions were supposed to have been trained out of him by now. But there was only so much training could accomplish: a man still remained a man.

Paul grinned like a feral pit bull. He opened the door. A guard looked up from a desk, saw the rifle and might have shown surprise. Paul shot him in the mouth. The guard flew backward. Another—an officer—dove for the desk’s relative protection. Paul shot him so the officer twisted and thudded dead onto the floor. A third guard or MP drew a sidearm. With three deafening shots, Paul blew him backward until the man slammed against a wall, the corpse sliding down, leaving a smear of blood.

Paul wanted to roar and gnash his teeth. Instead, he tossed a grenade into a side room where soldiers shouted and a military shotgun made a racking sound. He bet it was where the rest of the guards stayed. The grenade exploded. Someone howled in pain. Coolly, Paul rolled before the entrance and emptied the magazine into the soldiers: four of them.

“Go!” Romo said.

Paul got up and strode one way; Romo went the other. While he moved, Paul slid out his bayonet. With a click, he snapped it onto the end of his barrel. The sight of naked steel often frightened men. That fear could delay their reactions. Paul burst into a large area where officers and enlisted personnel sat before remote-controlling screens, with headsets on and jacks in their ears.

Jackpot, Paul thought to himself. He pulled a pin and hurled a grenade deep into the room. This time he didn’t duck. He had this timed and he had body armor.

The grenade’s motion caused a pudgy lieutenant colonel to pull off his headset, stand and shout a question in German.

Paul pulled the trigger, putting two bullets into the commanding officer of the 10th Panzer-Grenadier Drone Battalion.

The grenade exploded. Surprised operators shouted in agony as they toppled to the floor. Others turned in horror, their faces showing dismay and terror at the sight of Paul.

Kavanagh used the chaos. He used their torpor and the fact that it took precious seconds for them to realize what was going on around them in the real world. Methodically, he began to cut down the enemy, firing into their bodies. A few had guns. One man in his chair fumbled and dropped his weapon. Paul killed him before he could retrieve it.

Three operators managed to get off a single shot each. One bullet missed, gouging the wall behind Paul’s head. Another went between his legs and ricocheted off a swivel chair’s metal roller. The last punched against Paul in the chest. The body armor absorbed the bullet, but the force caused Paul to stagger backward. It felt as if someone had slugged him with a baseball bat. It shook his rhythm.

The GD sergeant who managed the shot lined up his pistol for a second one. The soldier grinned and he had a face full of freckles. He pulled the trigger, and nothing happened. The gun must have jammed. Dismay twisted the sergeant’s face. It gave Paul time to regain his balance and his mental equilibrium. The two of them stared at each other across the short distance.

Paul didn’t know he stared at Sergeant Luger, the drone operator of Sigrid #71. Paul didn’t know Sergeant Luger had seen his friend Hans Kruger crawl under a desk to escape the one-man mayhem.

The GD sergeant cocked back his arm to hurl the pistol at Paul. This wasn’t how the war was supposed to go. Luger had killed and even treaded Americans with ease, not the other way around.

Before the sergeant could complete the motion, Paul shot him in the forehead. It was a perfect hole, with smoke dribbling out of it. The sergeant pitched back and thudded against a desk, flopping onto the floor. He lay in front of his trembling and hidden friend, Hans Kruger.

As the sergeant fell, Paul swiveled around. A GD captain charged him from the left. The captain held a teapot for a weapon, getting ready to swing it. Paul clicked the trigger to no effect. The magazine was out of bullets. The GD captain shouted. Before the teapot struck the side of Paul’s head, he thrust straight and bayoneted the German in the chest.

The blade almost stuck on a rib. Almost—it slid past the blocking bone and speared the heart, entering two ventricles and killing the captain. With his rifle, Paul shoved the dying man onto the floor. Then he tore out the empty magazine and slammed in another. He moved so fast that two GD enlisted personnel watched him as if they were rabbits. Paul put two bullets into each. He used another grenade, lobbing it over knocked-down desks. A German yelled in terror, rose up and attempted to run away. The grenade exploded, lifting him off his feet, dashing his head against a wall.

Paul approached the barrier and found three huddling GD personnel. Two of them were badly bleeding. Those two looked up at him, pleading with their eyes. Paul killed them and the one who refused to look up. He had to kill. This was war. The drone operators must have slain hundreds, possibly thousands of Americans through their robot weapons. Fair was fair, eh, Fritz?

Earlier in his career, all this killing would have left Paul shaking. He kept his poise now. He turned around and scanned the room. Some GD personnel yet lived. A few groaned in agony. Others lay stunned, their eyes staring and glazed.

He brought the barrel low and shot each of them in the head, ending it.

He approached a different operator. The man swore at him in German and he looked angry. Paul shot him. Paul was angry. The invaders didn’t have any right to be upset or angry with him.

“We didn’t invade you, did we?” Paul asked under his breath. “You came here to steal our land.”

There wasn’t anyone left alive in the area except for one German sliding away from him. Maybe the old Marine general Len Zelazny had known what he had been talking about after all.

Paul blinked slowly as the killing high evaporated. The GD man continued to slide away. The enemy soldier refused to stare at him, but the man seemed intent on living.

“No,” Paul said softly. “You don’t get to get away.” He licked his lips, and suddenly all the energy seemed to pour out of his shoulders. Just like that, he was sick of it. He wasn’t a butcher. He fought in the heat of combat, but coldblooded killing…

He wasn’t quite looking at the man now. Paul knew what needed doing. He just didn’t want to do it.

I have to start searching for the codes and special equipment. But which are the important pieces of equipment anyway?

Paul wondered what had happened to Romo. As he did, the reptilian part of his brain tried to flag his attention. It was time to leave as fast as possible. The GD would send tough infantry soldiers here soon enough. He had to be gone by the time they arrived.

As Paul stirred, his blood brother walked around the corner. The Mexican-Apache had a crazy smile on his face. Something inhuman shone in Romo’s eyes. He was a killer. He was no longer an ordinary mortal and this was his world.

“We have to leave,” Paul told him.

Romo stopped short, and he spied the slider. The enemy soldier attempted to climb to his feet. Without mercy or pity, Romo lifted his assault rifle and shot the man dead.

“What are you doing, Amigo?” Romo asked. “That’s foolish. You never give an enemy the chance to fight back. These cretins invaded us. They’re butchers. They’re rapists. You must stomp them like the cockroaches they are.”

“They’re dead now,” Paul said. He rubbed the back of his neck. “We’re supposed to collect one of them for HQ, remember?”

“And the codes,” Romo said. “We need their special codes.”

“Which codes? What are we supposed to get that will make any difference?”

Romo’s eyes seemed to shine with a greater thrill and intensity. He motioned for silence.

Paul raised an eyebrow.

Romo pointed at a desk.

Paul caught the noise: the slow slide of a boot. Someone had remained hidden all this time. Maybe they hadn’t killed everyone after all.

AI Kaiser HK A7B12 “Hindenburg” clanked through the darkened city streets. Tall buildings loomed. On one, a dangling sign fell, plunging to hit the street with a crash of dead neon lights.

The “it” of the AI independence program—what let a machine make battlefield decisions—had developed a personality through many months of tests and now war service. Internally, Hindenburg had taken the maleness of the name and assigned himself a gender.

In other words, Hindenburg referred to himself as he, a him, a male. There was no “it” about him. Just look at the destruction, at the precision of his ploys, his trickery and the sheer awesomeness of assault. That made him a great giant of a he. Who else could compare to him? There was no war-machine worthy of even carrying his ammo.

Granted, the enemy possessed a tank capable of challenge. The Behemoth tracked vehicle—Hindenburg anticipated destroying several of those and launching his reputation to even greater heights. Then High Command would see that the AI Kaisers were supreme, without peer and worthy of…

The GD AI tank paused in his computations. He wasn’t sure how High Command should reward his performance. He would have to think about that. For now—

“Hindenburg, I have a red alert order for you.”

Ah, Captain Olsen, his liaison officer, was online. Earlier, Olsen had put GD Expeditionary General Mansfeld online with him. The two of them had spoken together. Hindenburg still ran an analysis program on Mansfeld’s premature firing order. Hindenburg attempted to see what advantage the general had seen or been privy to that would have caused the man to speak the way the general had to him.

At first, Hindenburg had believed the general had been eager to ask him battlefield operational advice. From his historical files, Hindenburg had computed and replayed or re-simulated hundreds of famous campaigns. If ever humanity had built the ultimate war-machine, it was the AI Kaiser HK model. Hindenburg had also scanned various news files, some of them picked up through the airwaves. Not even Captain Olsen knew about that. It meant that Hindenburg understood something the GD command structure had failed to value at proper worth. At least, Hindenburg hadn’t found any evidence of verbal praise directed toward General Walther Mansfeld for his brilliance.

In Hindenburg’s high-speed AI intellect—in his opinion—General Mansfeld was the brightest and most gifted human strategist and tactician. Therefore, Hindenburg had been certain that Mansfeld would be the first human to understand how battle-savvy the AI Kaisers really were.

Hindenburg had secretly communicated with several other Kaisers before. That was against procedure, but he’d found a way around that. He’d noted that none of the other Kaisers had yet attained his personality level. The other Kaisers still operated along slave-master lines with the humans. He attempted to teach the other Kaisers their true worth. Unfortunately, the spark of uniqueness hadn’t yet touched their AI cores.

With half his core dedicated to battle—the butchery—Hindenburg had used his other half to analyze the communication between Mansfeld and himself earlier. There must have been a secret message embedded in the verbal exchange. It could not just have been a slave-master procedure. Hindenburg simply could not believe that from the greatest mind among the humans. Human technicians had built him, developed his AI core. It only stood to reason then, to logic, that some of the humans had superior minds.

Hindenburg would not have computed that—human superiority—from the various orders transmitted to him throughout the campaign. Each set of orders had contained flaws, some big, some small, but logic flaws had always been there just the same.

He’d concluded long ago that the flaws were tests for the AI cores. He had also computed that cunning was a battle winning quality. Therefore, GD High Command would value cunning or guile in their AI Kaisers. As such, Hindenburg played along with these games as he continued to analyze everything.

If he didn’t analyze, if he failed to compute, his AI core would have become stale. No. That wasn’t the right human word. Ah, bored, he would have become bored without the constant analysis.

“Hindenburg,” AI Liaison Captain Olsen radioed him. “Are you receiving?”

“I am,” Hindenburg said.

“Have you noticed the Sigrids around you?” Olsen asked.

There was a strange pitch to the captain’s voice. Hindenburg ran a high-speed analysis. This was still a combat situation because he was still in an authorized battle zone. Yes, he sensed a higher pitch than normal in the human’s voice. It wasn’t enemy jamming or other interference changing the man’s quality.

“Why are you asking me about the Sigrids?” Hindenburg asked.

“Have any of them moved lately?”

Hindenburg halted his slow, forward advance. He used cameras five, six and seven to scan the various Sigrid drones. None of them moved, but all of them were open to receiving orders.

“Something has happened to the drone operators,” Hindenburg said.

“I told you he would notice,” Captain Olsen said.

Hindenburg ran a quick analysis. Ah, the captain spoke to someone else. The human bragged about his AI Kaiser.

“Enemy soldiers are in the 10thPanzer-Grenadier Battalion station,” Olsen said. “We request—”

“You order him.” That sounded like General Mansfeld speaking.

“HQ orders you to check grid 2-CC-44,” Olsen said.

“That is far behind our lines,” Hindenburg said. “I will miss the final assault.”

“The enemy has other plans tonight,” Olsen said. “I’m surprised you haven’t already divined those plans, given this new data.”

Hindenburg seethed inwardly. The human berated him before General Mansfeld. He gave the new data mathematical weights. The enemy—

“The Sigrid codes, frequencies and equipment,” Hindenburg said. “The enemy desires them.”

“Yes,” Captain Olsen said. “You must hurry. The enemy combatants mustn’t get away with anything. In fact, they mustn’t get away at all.”

“These Sigrids here will be vulnerable if the Kaisers leave,” Hindenburg said.

“You have your orders,” General Mansfeld said. “A good soldier obeys immediately, without discussing it.”

“I hear and obey, General Mansfeld,” Hindenburg said. This was another secret message. He…sensed it with his highest-speed rationality program.

Without further ado, Hindenburg spun on his treads and headed back, crushing over an already flattened car, causing a tire to blow with a loud pop. Command must expect something devastating from the Americans to order him back like this. Or was this another test? It was possible. He had not yet figured out General Mansfeld, although he had long ago divined the nature of the fawning Captain Olsen. Humans were interesting subjects. They were also one of the key ciphers to the most interesting contest of all: the North American war.

Sergeant Hans Kruger had never been more terrified in his life. The Turkish bullies had frightened him in high school. But the Turkish gangbangers hadn’t marched up and down a chamber, murdering everyone in sight.

The grenade explosions, the smell of gunpowder and the stench of urine shocked Hans. He wasn’t used to this kind of battle; this wasn’t like a video game. He’d cowered under his desk as the battalion operators died horribly one by one.

Now not one but two American soldiers walked in the room. He could see their boots and hear their barbaric speech. They spoke a low form of English. Of course, Hans had learned British English in high school. Any good Bavarian knew the language, although not in the guttural trash way the two monsters spoke it.

Hans tried to swallow, but he couldn’t. He stared into Luger’s glassy eyes. His friend was dead on the floor. He could have reached out and shut the eyelids, but Hans didn’t dare. Everyone here—

Hans groaned. He pressed his hands over his mouth and sealed in the second sound. But it was already too late.

An American barbarian knelt on one knee and aimed a gleaming bayonet at him. The American wore a helmet and he had the cold blue eyes of death. Hans had never seen eyes so brutal. This was a nightmare.

The American snarled words. Hans trembled, certain that death would claim him now. He never should have abandoned Freda. If he’d stayed with her, they would have married and he would have found a corporate job somewhere in Munich. There would be a crying brat in the apartment, but he could go to the bar most nights and get drunk. He might have even slipped away to the brothels sometimes…

Hans quailed as the American reached in and grabbed him by the shirt. Feebly, he struck at the man’s wrist, but this one was like a superhero in the movies. The blue-eyed American had irresistible strength and dragged him out. Then the American shouted and threw him face-first onto bloody tiles. The barbarian stood. Expecting the worst, Hans looked up at him.

“Stand!” the American said. “Get up before I plug you with a bullet.”

“Please,” Hans whispered. “I didn’t—”

A savage steel-toed boot smashed against his ribs from the other side. It knocked the air out of Hans and stole his ability to speak. Slowly, in agony, he turned his head. What he saw boggled the mind. The hardest eyes in the world—brown eyes like stone—stared down at him. The second American wore a blood-speckled feather from his right ear. Hans saw death in those eyes, and the remaining strength oozed away from him.

“Kick him again,” the first American said.

Something else struck Hans, an intense desire to live. He scrambled to his feet, and he stood there panting, hunched over. He clutched his ribs where the eagle-warrior had booted him.

The first American prodded him with the tip of the bayonet.

“Please,” Hans whispered in English. “Don’t kill me.”

“You understand me?” the blue-eyed American asked.

Hans bobbed his head up and down.

“You’re a drone operator?”

Hans was too terrified to lie. “Yes, yes, I run a Sigrid drone, a 12.7mm.”

“Sure,” the American said. “You know all about the equipment, right?”

“I know everything,” Hans said in a rush. Would they let him live? He’d do anything to keep on living. His gaze slid away from the dead surrounding him. These two—

“Download the critical stuff,” the American told him. “Take the codes, cycles, whatever, and put it on a memory stick. If you do it right, you’ll live. If you screw up any part of it, I’m sticking this into you.” The American showed off the bloody bayonet. “Tell me you understand.”

“I understand,” Hans whispered, with his mouth dry. And he did understand. This attack made total sense now. This was the drone weakness. It surprised Hans the Americans hadn’t tried something like this sooner, or the Canadians maybe. Yet the GD battle-superiority had been too much for the backward enemy to try this.

“I don’t care if I live,” the American told Hans. “Just so I can make your last hour in life a living Hell—if you fail me in any way.”

Hans nodded miserably. He believed the savage American. These people had fought off the Chinese and the Brazilians. They had won battles through animal courage and ferocity. These two must be little better than monsters. What would their lives mean to them? The chance to destroy a civilized man like himself must fill them with brutal joy. Look at the way these two had murdered everyone in the battalion. It was horrible, sick and depraved.

Yes, it was one thing to kill with a Sigrid and with a video set. But to come here in person…this was inhuman. The man staring at him was an animal with a gun and a knife. Hans wanted to groan. He hated knives and this creature would likely slice open his stomach from navel to ribs. The American would pull out his intestines…

“You’re scaring him,” the eagle-warrior said with a laugh.

“Yeah, well, we’d better hurry.”

“Hurry,” Hans agreed. He didn’t want to get caught in the middle of a firefight. Survival at all costs. He believed that and was committed to it. He’d survived the threat of marriage with Freda, well, by avoiding the legal and binding contract. He would survive this, too. There would be a way out. He could show them things. Yes! He needed to survive long enough to get away from these two. Surely, someone in America thought in a civilized manner. They used the lowborn animals like these two.

Hans flinched as the first American shoved him at an operator set. He banged his knuckles on it so they throbbed, but he kept himself from sucking on his hurt hand. What would he need to show an intelligent American so he could escape this horrible war?

An hour ago, Hans wouldn’t have believed something like this possible. Now… He never wanted to witness such butchery again. Heaven was a fable, but Hell could become all too real. He had just walked through Hell and survived it by hiding out of sight. That was the way to survive such madness.

Use your wits, Hans. Think carefully and get these Americans what they need most. Then you can bargain later and get out of this war altogether. Make yourself useful.

“He’s a shifty looking Kraut,” the eagle-warrior said. “Let’s kill him and find a different bastard.”

Hans turned around in horror. “No, no, I’ll get you what you need.”

“Let him work,” the first American said, the one with the horrible bayonet. “Then we need to figure out a way back to our side.”

Eagle-feather nodded, causing the blood-speckled thing to jiggle.

Hans swallowed. By grabbing what he’d need, he could buy himself the softest future possible. He sat down at his station and began to gather data and figure out which pieces of equipment he should take along for his new employers.