The Fall of Night

Chapter Twenty-Eight: Standing Alone

London, England

“I’m very glad to hear from you, General,” Ambassador Sir John Kevin O'Brien said, through the secure link-up from London. His face, old and dignified enough to fit a traditional lordly image, was lined with worry. “How bad is it?”

Langford briefly recited the military situation in Britain itself. “Given time, we could pull the country back together, stamp on the trouble-makers, and hold elections,” he said. “The question is simple; will we have that time?”

Sir John looked worried. He had been Britain’s Ambassador to Washington for several years, after committing the ultimate sin of disagreeing with the Prime Minister and his own Party in public. He couldn’t be sacked for that, but the Powers-that-Were hadn’t considered Washington an important post; they’d given him the role of Ambassador to America. Sir John was popular in Washington, but even he couldn’t hide the torrent of anti-American abuse coming from Brussels, or smooth over some of the issues regarding terrorists in Europe.

“I’ve been talking to the President,” he said finally. “The Yanks have agreed to provide us with some of their up-to-date intelligence, mainly from satellites; this blindsided them as well and President Kirkpatrick is taking it very seriously. At the same time, for political reasons, there is very little that they can do to support us openly; the military situation is grim.”

Langford rubbed his eyes. He had managed to snatch two hours sleep last night; the strain was starting to wear him down. “They’re not going to get involved?” He asked. “What about their bases in Poland?”

Sir John shook his head. “The Russians rolled out the red carpet for Major Fletcher and his men, even after they somehow disintegrated their computers,” he said. “They’re already on a flight to Turkey with a great deal of free vodka. The Yanks are heavily committed in the Middle East and Korea; the only military move they have made is to send the 101^st Airborne Division to Iceland, at the express request of the Government. The Russians have been claiming that the entire situation is purely defensive…”

“Bollocks,” Langford snapped.

“…And that the European Union started it,” Sir John continued. “The main problem is that Europe is not particularly popular in the States these days; the average Joe Sixpack on the street thinks that Europe is a host for terrorists and Eurabia is just around the corner. The Americans are still considering the matter, but it looks as if the President may want to intervene, but she won’t get any support from Congress or the Senate.”

He sighed. “The other countries that might have been able to help have their own problems or aren’t interested,” he said. He was now de facto Foreign Minister; Langford wondered if it was the first step towards a government-in-exile. “The Turks… well, we asked them to honour their old NATO commitments towards securing and closing the Dardanelles, but they told us that it was an internal European matter and they weren’t going to interfere. If the chaos in the Balkans gets worse, General, they may intervene, but they’re… more than a little mad at us — at Europe, I mean. The Russians have apparently offered them everything from economic support to military assistance and even some territory in Central Asia; for the moment, they’re staying out of it.

“Israel said pretty much the same, except they included a little gloating about the Palestinian problem,” Sir John continued. “David — that’s President David bar Elias — told us that it was our problem and we had to deal with it ourselves. Even if they had agreed to support us, they would have problems helping… and in any case, they’re the best friends of the Turks. Canada condemned the Russians in no uncertain terms, but they don’t have much of a military, while both Australia and New Zealand are on the other side of the world…”

“So, in other words,” Langford said carefully, “we’re on our own?”

“Some things may change,” Sir John said. “The fall of Warsaw galvanised Polish opinion in the United States; the same goes for the various Baltic States and even Denmark. The American President has promised that she will try to free up resources to help us with everything short of direct American armed involvement, but that will be tricky; they’re rather committed at the moment.”

“So you said,” Langford said. The intelligence alone would be more than merely helpful, but he was far too aware that the British Army had taken a battering, the Royal Navy had lost far too many ships… and the Royal Air Force had been almost wiped out. The RAF had claimed that they would need 200 modern fighters to cover the United Kingdom Air Defence Region; they had around nineteen fighters currently active, and more that it might be possible to repair in time. “Please keep pressing at them.”

Sir John held up a hand. “General, I am aware of the issues, but… I would like permission to return to Britain,” he said. “My place is with you.”

Langford shook his head. “I understand,” he said, “but we need you there. If worst comes to worst, we will need you there to serve as Prime Minister of a government-in-exile. Whatever happens, I won’t leave Britain.”

Sir John looked resentful, but he nodded. “One other point,” he said. “What have you told the people?”

Langford sighed. It was something that he had been trying to avoid considering. “I’ll have to make a broadcast tonight,” he said. “It’s been a day; there’s a lot of frightened people out there.”

“Yes,” Sir John said. “I’m one of them.”

The connection broke.

Langford sat down and yawned. He had hoped, more than he had dared admit, that there would be a cabinet minister out there, someone who had survived and could take the role of Prime Minister. If Sir John had been in the line of succession, he would have had him back in Britain so fast that he would have had jetlag for years, but he wasn’t and he was far more important over in America. He had also hoped that the Americans would have helped — even the Russians would have hesitated before firing on American ships and aircraft since the Americans had become a lot more assertive in the world — but he hadn’t expected much. There wasn’t much that could be spared.

There was a quiet tap on the door. “General?”

“Come in,” Langford said, recognising the voice. Sara pushed the door open and entered the room, looking disgustingly fresh and cheerful. Langford almost laughed tiredly; just for a moment, homicidal thoughts had crossed his mind. When it was all over — if it was ever over — he would go on leave and sleep for a week. “What can I do for you?”

“The Major has asked me to tell you that the analysts have finished going through the data we received from the Americans,” Sara said. “They’re ready to brief you now.”

Langford nodded and allowed her to lead him into the briefing room. Major Erica Yuppie, Lieutenant Aaron Sargon and Captain Michael Casey were already there, their faces grim. Even as Sara brought them their coffee and tea, Langford realised that it had been bad news; the American satellites could penetrate the fog of war surrounding Europe. They would now know the truth; he prayed that they would be ready for it.

“Well, General; it doesn’t look good,” Erica said. Even her spirit seemed quelled by what they had discovered. “As you are aware from the garbled messages we have been receiving, Europe has been invaded by the Russian Federation. Prior to now, we had no clear information, but plenty of rumours; now we know just how bad it is.” Her hand tapped the map. “It’s disastrous.”

Casey took control of the display. “The Americans noted that the Russian ASAT satellites engaged the European satellites as soon as the invasion actually began, cutting our communications and orbital reconnaissance capabilities right out of existence. All thirty-seven European military satellites are gone; NASA tracked them as either falling out of space or heading into decaying orbits, scattering debris everywhere. Regardless of the exact details, none of the satellites are functioning… but the American satellites are unaffected. The story they tell is terrifying.

“At roughly the same time as we suffered the missile attack, our units in Poland and the other European units — and Polish units deployed from their bases — came under massive attack, mainly through commando assaults and missile bombardments,” he continued. The map of Europe was starting to look as if it had been developing measles as the attack fanned out. “The vast majority of attacks were actually successful; the handful of survivors in the border regions were rapidly wiped out or captured by the Russians as they surged across the border. The general breakdown in communications meant that units that should have mobilised at once to counter the threat often knew nothing about it until they were under attack themselves and therefore unable to deploy. The Americans note that many units fought bravely, but were overwhelmed by superior firepower; the Russians smashed through them and moved onwards.”

He paused for breath; the map expanded outwards to show Europe. “Missile attacks were launched against almost every country in Europe — Switzerland was the only major exception — and they were far too successful. Following, there were riots and revolutions, even small insurgencies, in dozens of places across France, Spain and Germany, as well as the Netherlands and Denmark. You will remember that various figures in the intelligence services were warning that real trouble was brewing, and were ignored by the governments. These insurgences have caused great loss of life and have, worse, tied down various military units that should be engaging the Russian forces.

“The matter was made worse by Algeria, which launched an attack on the Standing Force in the Mediterranean Sea,” he said. “The Standing Force was more or less completely devastated by the attack, which we believe was actually carried out by Russian pilots, and only a handful of ships escaped to head to Gibraltar. The Rock itself came under heavy shelling from Morocco — the Moroccan Government has also taken the opportunity to recover Ceuta and Melilla, and we believe that Peñón de Vélez de la Gomera will also fall — and our ships were lucky to escape into the Atlantic. They’ve headed for Britain, including some other European ships, and we will give them what support we can.

“Algeria, in the meantime, has declared war on France and is sending troop transports over to France,” he concluded. “The French are fighting back savagely, but they have been shattered into individual units and the Algerians are trying hard to pour more petrol on the fire. As the French get their act together — if they do — the Algerians will have far less success, but we believe that the real threat is from Russia.”

He sat down, breathing hard. “The latest reports were that Warsaw had fallen and Denmark was on the verge of falling,” Erica said, tiredly. Langford made a mental note to remind her to get some sleep afterwards. “With the Russian positions all through the west of Poland and Denmark, we expect that Germany will quickly be invaded and what remains of the German forces driven back. We have been unable to make contact with the German authorities; the only European authorities we have heard from are the Dutch, who put their Royal Family on a boat and sent them here. From vague reports, Norway is also threatened with invasion; the Finns have been hit as well, but so far the Russians don’t seem to have pushed into Finnish territory. The victory will be won or lost in Europe.”

Langford shook his head slowly. He was familiar with vast battle plans, most of which were drawn up by amateurs and ‘clever’ — i.e. they would fail as soon as someone actually tried them in real life. Hitler’s grand plan for the invasion of Russia had run into problems almost as soon as it had begun… and yet it had come far too close to success for comfort. The American plan for the invasion of Iraq had worked fine, as far as it went, but even that had run into problems… and as for some of the lunatic plans people came up with to interfere in the Chinese Civil War…

“I see,” he said finally. The sheer scale of the Russian attack was terrifying. “What do you believe will happen next?”

It was Lieutenant Aaron Sargon who answered. “The Russians have secured the Baltic States almost without a fight,” he said. “They captured thousands of tons of shipping there and they’re pressing it into service, just as they are pressing into service thousands of civilian aircraft. That will complicate their logistics to some degree — they will have captured fuel, but there is no way to know just how much — but as they bring more of their own men into the battle, they will have the transport to land them in Denmark and work their way into Germany from two sides, or work their way around the coast to the Netherlands, Belgium and France.”

He scowled. “It would be a perfect target for submarines or aircraft if we could deploy them up there,” he said. “The Russian navy has moved several sub-hunters into the area and is deploying the transport convoys with some really heavy escorts. As for aircraft, they have deployed mobile air-search radars everywhere, and you can bet that they’ll be backed up by the latest ZSU missile launchers. With so much of our AWACS capability, even with the French…”

Langford held up a hand. “The French?”

Erica blinked. “You were sent an email about it,” she said. “A French AWACS landed in Dover; scared the shit out of the airport crew as they thought that it was Russian and it couldn’t get in contact with anyone on the ground. We barely saw it from the air before it came in to land; the radar network is shattered.” She smiled. “And there’s this plucky little French Lieutenant, barely twenty years old if he’s a day, trying to do his duty and give us all the records from his plane before he collapsed.”

She allowed her smile to fade. “We put them all to bed and dug up a reserve crew for the aircraft,” she said. “The French boy wants to talk to someone in authority as soon as possible.”

“I’ll see him,” Langford said. “Now…”

Sargon nodded. “We don’t have the capability anymore, if we ever did, to launch an air attack into the teeth of those defences,” he said. “A single stealth Eurofighter Tempest might get in there, but the damage it could do would be limited, and we have only one tanker left to support it; no ELINT aircraft any longer. We may get more aircraft coming out of Europe, but at the current state of play, I doubt it.”

He looked at the map. “I believe that the Russians will push into Germany as soon as they can,” he said. “That won’t be more than a few days at most. Once that happens, the remains of the defences will crumble and our units there will be trapped.”

Langford stroked his chin. “You do not believe that it can be held?”

“The Germans have been scattered, just like the Poles and the French and… well, us, except we don’t have more than a few dozen commandos running around on our soil to worry about,” Sargon said. “There’s no longer any coordination; I am certain that the German soldiers will fight, but they won’t be able to hold a defence line for long in the face of Russian firepower. As you know, all of the European militaries operate on a ‘just-in-time’ basis when it comes to supplies; the Russians hit the three main supply depots on the continent. The Americans say that the explosions set off the nuclear watching sensors.

“Bottom line, sir; they’re going to run out of ammunition,” he concluded. “I have no doubt that the Russians will push them before they can even begin to get production lines set up; as you know, ammunition production for the larger and more powerful weapons was always on a scanty basis. One of the factories for the Knife antitank missile, for example, is now behind enemy lines in Poland. It will take weeks, if we are lucky, to expand production and by then…”

“The Russians could be eating cheese and drinking Chateau Picard in Paris,” Langford said. “Can’t we hit their supply lines?”

Sargon shook his head. “With what? We don’t have the assets or the bases to launch such attacks from British soil… and with the situation on the ground becoming so nightmarish, we don’t have bases on the continent any more either. I believe that the only option we have is to recall all of our remaining units on European soil and attempt to get them to Britain before the Russians crush them.”

Langford eyed them. “You’re advocating that we abandon our allies,” he said. It was so hard to think, so hard to grasp; his head was hurting and he wanted to sleep desperately. “We made commitments…”

Erica spoke sharply. “General… with all due respect, that no longer matters,” she said. “EUROFOR HQ is gone; the Americans think that Islamic rioters destroyed the building after the missiles hit. The united command system is down and there is no hope of getting it back up again. There may be still vast assets on the ground, in theory, but we cannot get them to work together any longer; in reality, there are merely pockets of resistance in a swarm of panicking humanity.”

She took a breath. “Europe has fallen already,” she said. “It’s only a matter of time before the Russians move onwards and complete the task. If we don’t get those men and their equipment back as quickly as we can, whatever it takes, we will lose them, permanently.”