Conquistadors!, page 7
“So it would seem,” he said. “How does it even work?”
“We’re still assessing the background details,” Abigail said. “Their internet has a great deal of information, but a lot of their own historical studies are driven by ideology rather than a dispassionate attempt to understand what really happened. I think – and I could be wrong – that most of their empires were deeply racist and refused to assimilate the locals in any way, treating them as nothing more than inferiors. They didn’t like it, and eventually they tore down the empires.”
“That’s insane,” James said. How did anyone hope to keep an empire without convincing the conquered people that their lives were better under their new rulers? The Protectorate had it down to a fine art, skimming off the best of the best and assimilating them. “How do they even cope?”
“Poorly.” Abigail met his eyes. “This nation, the United States, has spent the last fifteen years in the economic and political doldrums. It has lost a pair of wars, battled a virus and is currently brutally divided against itself. It has immense power, compared to the rest of the world, but it seems very poor at utilising it. The nearest competitors, Russia and China, have problems of their own. Others ... it’s hard to say. Too much of what we’re reading is ideologically slanted. The two sides hate each other so badly it is impossible for them to study their opponents calmly and reasonably.”
“Keep working on it,” James said. “Do they pose any immediate threat to us?”
“It depends.” Abigail studied her display. “Their best option is to try to nuke us. Ballistic missiles will be easy to detect and shoot down, cruise missiles may prove more of a danger ... they could also try to smuggle the nukes into the town and detonate them there. If they choose not to risk an immediate confrontation, it will take them several days to mass troops to challenge us. Probably. I have to remind you that the data may not be reliable.”
“It rarely is,” James said. “Transfer all the political data to my console.”
“Yes, sir.”
“And focus on assessing the enemy government,” James added. “I want to know who and what we’re dealing with.”
“Yes, sir.” Abigail hesitated, noticeably. “There are two other points you need to know.”
James met her eyes. “Go on.”
“First, they will know we’ve arrived,” Abigail said. “The energy flux didn’t take out all their electronics. Rumours are going wild on their internet. I suspect several people made it out of the town before we sealed it off, or were close enough to see what was happening without being close enough for us to capture. It is just a matter of time before their central government gets the word, if they haven’t already.”
“Understood,” James said, swallowing his irritation. He’d already worked that out. “And the other?”
“They have the concept of alternate timelines and dimensions,” Abigail said, flatly. “They’ve got the theory, and a surprisingly high number of fictional stories based on crosstime travel. No practical tech yet, as far as we can tell, but they’re not going to have problems wrapping their heads around our arrival. They may also realise we’re cut off from home.”
“I see,” James said, evenly. “Keep me informed.”
He turned and headed back to the command chamber, his mind racing. There’d been no threat to the invaders in the previous crosstime conquests, certainly nothing that might destroy their base before reinforcements could arrive. Knights in armour and legionaries with bows, swords and spears could beat their weapons against the castle from First Contact till Doomsday, if they wished, and the castle wouldn’t suffer for it. Here ... the castle was heavily armoured, designed to stand up to a nuke, but that had never really been tested. If the locals were prepared to rain nuclear missiles on them, or send troops to carry backpack nukes into the town, they might just win. There would be no reinforcements arriving in time to make a difference ...
... And yet, the prize was worth almost any risk.
A technologically sophisticated world was a world of limitless opportunities for the man who brought it to heel. The locals wouldn’t think technology was magic, a gift from the gods; they wouldn’t have to be retrained out of their primitive superstitions and into modern mindsets before they could be put to work. He had no idea why the town was so primitive, or why the country’s rulers allowed their population to live in such conditions, but their loss was his gain. And a world so heavily divided amongst itself, on racial and national lines, was a world that could be manipulated. Their disunity would let him play the nations against each other, weakening them so he could take control. And by the time reinforcements arrived ...
He scowled, inwardly, as he took his chair. There was more than one reason to hurry. The other half of the town had been rotated into the Spanish Wildlands, the population already rounded up and subjected to interrogation. The Inner Council would know soon, if they didn’t already, just what James had found. If they didn’t speed up their efforts to send a second invasion force, he’d eat his rank badges.
These people are just advanced enough to be useful, but not enough to be dangerous, he told himself firmly. And we can use them.
He leaned back in his chair and watched the live feed from the drones. A handful of locals were on the streets now, staring numbly at the patrolling footmen. They were strange to his eyes – some morbidly obese, some dangerously thin; he shuddered in disgust as he saw a young woman wearing an outfit that left almost nothing to the imagination – and yet, they represented potential. A great deal of potential, for him and for his allies ... and even for the locals themselves. James would save them from themselves and use them to build a client base that would take him to the very highest levels and beyond.
His terminal bleeped. “Sir, one of the locals would like to speak with you.”
James smiled. It had begun.
***
“Take me to your leader,” Sally said.
She kept all trace of hilarity from her voice as she studied the newcomers carefully. She’d spent enough time in a multicultural environment to know people from different countries – even different states – tended to think differently, no matter what the academics insisted, and what one culture considered outrageous could easily be considered perfectly fine by another, and she had no idea how these people thought. She would have preferred to spend some time studying them, but the risk of someone else making the first move was far too high. There were dozens, perhaps hundreds, of desperate men and women in the town, and few would hesitate to try to curry favour with the newcomers. She had to go first, or risk being left out.
The newcomer studied her thoughtfully for a long second. Sally looked back evenly, hoping to hell it was the right thing to do. There were cultures that thought making eye contact a challenge, not a sign of sincerity, and others that expected women to refrain from talking to men, certainly not without an invitation. Sally hadn’t seen any women amongst the newcomers, although their armour made it hard to be sure. There was plenty of room, she thought, to hide a pair of breasts.
“Come,” the newcomer said, finally.
Sally allowed herself a moment of relief as she followed the man through the gate and up to the towering fortress, an alien structure that simply hadn’t been there a few hours ago. The man’s voice was oddly-accented, the tone reminding her of a British exchange student she’d met, but not close enough for her to be sure they were British. Australian? She vaguely recalled that Australia had been colonised by the British, yet ... did they have a similar accent? She pushed the thought out of her mind as she followed her guide through a network of corridors, feeling a twinge of relief as she spotted a handful of women. They wore uniforms ... she hoped that was a good sign. Her escort slowed as they neared a pair of doors, which opened to reveal a small office. It was reassuringly mundane. A desk, a pair of chairs, a device she guessed was a computer terminal ... and a single man, rising to his feet.
“Good morning,” he said. His accent was very much like her guide’s, but stronger. Sally couldn’t help feeling charmed. “You wished to speak with me?”
Sally studied him for a long moment. It was hard to place his age; she would have said he was in his late thirties, but there was something oddly timeless about his appearance that suggested he might be older. His short dark hair was cropped close to his scalp, reminding her of Luke Evans ... she wondered, suddenly, if that might be a bad omen. She’d only seen Evans in one movie and he’d played the villain, although the idea of the actor being as bad as the character he played was just stupid. There was something oddly determined about him, a sense he would let nothing get in his way ... she felt an odd little tingle, which she ruthlessly suppressed. The man was attractive, true, but she had to secure her place first. She'd gambled ... and she didn’t know, not yet, if she’d won or lost.
“I am Sally, Sally Luanne,” Sally said. She kept her tone and words formal, suspecting it was how the newcomers preferred it. “May I ask to whom I am speaking?”
“I am Captain-General James Montrose, Commander of the 6th Expeditionary Division and Governor-General of this world,” the man said. There was no hint of bragging in his tone. He might not be the governor-general yet, in anything but name, yet she couldn’t help thinking he was well on the way. “I am here to bring this world into the Protectorate.”
Sally blinked in surprise at hearing it stated so bluntly. She’d guessed the newcomers were invaders – their actions were very far from friendly – but still ... she schooled her face into a mask, all too aware she was committed. There was no way out now.
“I understand,” she said. “I am here to offer you my services.”
Montrose smiled. Sally felt another tingle.
“You are welcome,” he said. If he held her in contempt, he didn’t show it. “We have many questions for you.”
Chapter Seven: Wolfe Airfield, Texas, North America, Timeline F (OTL)
“The skies are clear,” Alice said.
Colin shook himself out of a rough doze. They’d driven for nearly an hour, the sheriff driving as if the devil himself was after them, then had a long argument about precisely where they should go. Sheriff Boone had wanted to head straight to the nearest town, or military base, but Colin had argued they needed to get the word out as quickly as possible and that meant heading for a hardened Federal airfield, the same place they’d used to land their trucks before driving to Flint. The airfield wasn’t precisely a secret – there was no way to hide it – but few realised the operation was a front for the FBI. If luck was with them, the EMP wouldn’t have reached so far ...
He glanced up, then shrugged. Dawn had broken, but that was meaningless. If their enemy had modern drones, or something akin to them, they’d have no trouble tracking the patrol car from high overhead and blowing it away with a missile. Or something. The radio refused to work – the EMP had killed it – and they had no way to know what was happening behind them, or even in front of them. The invaders – the sheriff’s story left no room for doubt they were invaders – might be marching towards Austin, or Washington, even as they drove to the airfield. God alone knew how fast they could move.
Ice tingled down his spine as they turned off the main road and headed up to the airfield. The compound looked abandoned, as if the owners couldn’t be bothered to maintain it, although anyone who looked closely would note the runway was in good condition and the hangars larger than any half-abandoned airfield could reasonably need. FEMA had flown relief supplies through the airfield, the last time the agency had needed to deploy in a hurry; Colin suspected that that, if nothing else, should have tipped the locals off that there was more to the airfield than met the eye. But then, there hadn’t been many other choices. He sucked in his breath as the car slowed, the guard stepping out of his hut to meet them. There were other, less obvious, security precautions too.
“He knows something,” Boone observed. “Look at him.”
Colin couldn’t disagree. The guard looked sloppy, another aspect of the web of deception around the airfield, but ... right now, he also looked jumpy. He held his rifle as if he expected to be attacked at any moment, which might be very close to the truth. Colin had no idea how fast the invaders could move, or how much they knew about their landing zone, but the airfield might be on their list of targets. They’d already overwhelmed at least one town. Why not a civilian airfield?
“Sir,” the guard said. He really was jumpy, his eyes flickering from face to face. “I’m going to have to see some ID.”
Colin dug into his pocket and produced his Pentagon ID. “We need to report in,” he said, as the guard studied it carefully. “Is the communications network online?”
“Yes, but contact is intermittent,” the guard said. “What the fuck is going on?”
“Alien invaders,” Boone said. “They’ve already wiped out a small town.”
“Can you show my people to the barracks?” Colin asked before the guard could think twice about letting them in. Boone was exhausted, surviving on coffee and energy drinks. Colin had come very close to suggesting he take a nap and let one of the others drive. “I’ll go straight to the communications centre.”
The guard nodded – it looked as if he hadn’t believed Boone, which was lucky – and opened the gate. Boone drove inside, looking around with interest as he parked outside the control tower. The walls looked faded under the hot sun, Colin knew, but the interior was surprisingly modern. He felt himself stagger as he stumbled out of the car and headed inside, leaving the others with the guard as he made his way to the communications centre. It was a fancy word for a room with a handful of laptops, linked to the laser satellite network and the government landlines, but it would suffice. Radios could be jammed. The hardened landline should be a great deal harder to take out.
Should, Colin thought. The network was designed to stand up to an all-out nuclear attack, but the planners had always worried the Russians or Chinese knew enough to target their weapons to take it down. We don’t know for sure.
He tapped his code into the console and waited, muttering a prayer to a god he’d never truly believed in. The EMP couldn’t have spread that far, he was sure, but it would have been very noticeable. It could – would – have taken out a bunch of satellites, including a number of foreign assets. God alone knew how the Russians or Chinese would react, if they’d lost a bunch of very expensive satellites over Texas. They might jump to all sorts of conclusions, from a terrorist nuke to a secret weapons test to a deliberate attempt to blind their satellites before launching a major attack. Colin had taken part in a drill, once, in which they’d played out the government’s options if someone took out a number of satellites without warning ... the results hadn’t been encouraging. He didn’t want to think about the darker possibilities, but ...
“Colin,” a voice said. “What the fuck happened?”
Colin swallowed, hard. Admiral Leone was his direct superior, the current head of the Exotic Tech Division. A tough no-nonsense officer ... Colin suddenly found himself speechless, unsure how best to report. The EMP was real – of course it was – but everything else? His superior might not believe his report, or assume he was making it at gunpoint, or ...
“Colin?”
“Admiral, the country has been invaded,” Colin said. He knew his words made no sense, not to someone in Washington, DC. Who would invade the middle of Texas? There were contingency plans for Russian or Chinese landings along the coast – Seattle was a particular favourite, for some reason – but most of them were little more plausible than Independence Day. Red Dawn was a great movie, yet ... “An enemy invasion force has landed in Flint.”
There was a long pause. Colin wondered if the admiral was too stunned to speak. The report was insane ... and yet, the EMP had been very real. Perhaps the admiral was calling for a psychologist, or hastily dialling the guards to check the airfield was secure, or ... he told himself there’d been time for other satellites to get into position to peer down at Flint. They’d see the alien thing or get shot down ... either way, they’d prove his case.
“Explain,” the admiral ordered, finally.
Colin forced himself to go through the whole story, from the first energy pulse to their desperate flight. The admiral listened silently, not even to ask a single question. Colin couldn’t tell if the man believed him or not, but it hardly mattered. They’d see the truth soon enough. And then ...
“I want you back here,” the admiral said. “Do you have a jet at the airfield?”
“There should be,” Colin said. The heavy transport they’d used to move their trucks had been retasked elsewhere, after delivering the team, but there was meant to be a small aircraft and pilot on standby at all times. “We should be able to get to Washington ...”
“Be very careful,” the admiral said. “Civilian air traffic has been grounded, for the moment, and you might be noticed. Tell the pilot to stay low until you are well clear of the danger zone.”
“Yes, sir,” Colin said, choosing not to point out no one had any idea of just how big the danger zone was. An alien invader with energy weapons could presumably pick off anything within sensor range ... and that might be pretty damn far. “And Sheriff Boone?”
The admiral paused. “The military is rushing to put together some kind of response, probably run out of Fort Cavazos,” he said. “Everything is a little crazy right now – the National Guard has been called up, but it will be quite some time before they’re in place to do much of anything. Half the people involved think we’ve been nuked ... it’ll be sorted out, given time, yet ...”
He broke off. Colin guessed he’d been woken in a hurry and ... if the officers really did think the country had been nuked, half the military and government would be moving around, playing a demented shell game to keep the enemy from guessing where they were. The President should be on Air Force One, Colin recalled, but it was possible the Secret Service had overruled it. The Presidential aircraft was supposed to be immune to EMP. Supposed being the operative word.
