Conquistadors!, page 9
He went on before anyone could muster an objection. “We’ll stall for time,” he said, “and pretend we arrived by accident while we lay the groundwork for our first offensive. Their militaries are advanced enough to be dangerous, true, but their computer and communications networks are hopelessly vulnerable. They know we are here, yet they don’t understand the scale of the threat we pose. We take our time, then strike.”
“The deception will not last,” Ruddigore said. “We attacked their town.”
“It won’t matter,” James said. It was difficult to tell if Sally’s assessment of the local rulers was accurate. The internet provided so many different points of view that the intelligence staff had rated it completely misleading, arguing that half the public thought the President was the greatest and the other half thought he was the worst. They seemed to switch sides depending on just who was in power ... something was fine if it was done by their guy, but unthinkably awful if the other did it. “We have enough firepower to secure the bridgehead even if they engage us at once.”
He keyed his console, sending the captains the first operational plan. It was workable, he thought, although there were risks. America wasn’t quite as big as Russia – the first major offensive during the Second Global War had bogged down in the Russian mud – but it was dangerously big, even for them. The idea of occupying vast tracts of land was just absurd, at least until reinforcements arrived. And the locals were quite heavily armed ... any sane government, he thought, would have disarmed the civilians long ago. It would pose an unexpected challenge.
“They have numbers, but those numbers will be worthless if they cannot bring them to bear against us,” he said. “We’ll cut them up, isolate them from each other, and leave them to die on the vine, showing our power to prospective clients. Those who side with us will be welcome. Those who do otherwise will be dealt with, in time.”
He paused. “We are committed. We were committed from the moment we arrived in this world. We cannot afford to sit here and wait for reinforcements, nor can we attempt to open communications with such degenerates. We must proceed to secure this world, and all it has to offer, for the Protectorate. There is no other choice.”
And for us, he added, silently. The captains stood to gain immensely, if they took the world together. None would overlook the advantages to their careers, if they won. If. No, James told himself, they were not going to lose. The enemy might be dangerously advanced, and there were worse threats in this timeline than a soldier accidentally shooting himself in the foot, but they weren’t gods. Or equals. If we win, we stand to gain more than just a world.
The pause grew, and lengthened. No one spoke. James suspected that meant his opponents figured they wouldn’t win, if the matter came to a formal vote. The ballot was supposed to be secret, but ... there were ways around that, particularly if the commander won by a sizable majority. His opponents might speak out, to get their opposition on the record, yet ... why bother? James would lead them to victory, in which case they’d look like idiots, or a defeat so devastating their opinions wouldn’t matter. They’d certainly never have the chance to protest his decisions to the Council. The locals would kill them well before reinforcements arrived.
“We proceed,” James said, firmly. “Take your stations and wait.”
He closed the conference, watching with a thin smile as the holoimages blinked out. The risk of open opposition had been low, but not low enough for his peace of mind. He dared not become complacent and yet, his enemies had just lost their best chance to displace him. The war was about to begin, and the PEF would be committed ... as if it wasn’t already. James privately suspected the deception wouldn’t last that long, that the enemy would only pretend to believe him long enough to get troops in place to crush the invaders. It was what he would do.
Stuart cleared his throat. “They’re going to be trouble, aren’t they?”
James hid his amusement. The captains held Stuart in contempt ... unfairly, in a way, but it was impossible for him to miss it. Just because he’d never held a proper combat command ... bastards. James had served long enough to know a competent logistics officer could make the difference between victory and inglorious defeat ...
“They’ll do their jobs,” he said, instead. The real fighting would start soon ... and then there’d be no more time for councils of war. Anyone who tried to unseat him then would be in deep trouble, no matter who’d backed their careers. “Are our logistics units in place?”
“The ones we have,” Stuart said. “Sir, with all due respect, we don’t have the transports for a full-scale offensive.”
James grimaced. The inner council might have wanted to put limits on his ambitions – but they’d also damaged his chances of winning a war against a near-peer power. An understandable mistake, yet one that would cost him ... the transports were tough, true, but if he started losing them the war might be lost with them. In theory, the hovertanks could drive around the entire planet; in practice, it was rarely that easy. The PEF might find themselves dominating the area under their guns, and nowhere else.
“See what the locals have to offer,” James ordered. The unemployment rate was terrifyingly high, for reasons he didn’t fully understand, but ... hopefully the lack of other options would make the locals desperate for employment. “And offer to pay good wages.”
Stuart looked doubtful. “What do we have to offer, even if we pay them in our currency?”
The trade goods aren’t as useful here, James reflected. The locals already had sharp knives and they’d laugh at bows and arrows. We’ll have to see what we can offer.
“Food and drink, if nothing else, and medical care,” he said. “A healthy population is a useful population.”
He smiled as they headed back to the command centre. The drones were orbiting further away now, putting together a more comprehensive assessment of local military power and capabilities. There was a major military base not too far away, he noted, just under three hundred miles from here ... how long would it take the locals to reinforce the base and surround the castle? The PEF could have done it very quickly, even deploying from a garrison on the other side of the world. The locals? There was no way to be sure.
His lips twisted as he scanned the next set of reports. The locals had so many problems, half of which could have been solved by the application of common sense. The remainder were a little harder, yet they could be fixed ... if they worked at it. Quite how the locals had managed to screw up their own world so badly was beyond him, but it would work in his favour ...
“Send the signal,” he ordered. “And repeat until we get a response.”
He leaned back in his chair. It was quite possible the locals wouldn’t believe a word of it – he wouldn’t – but it would buy time and that was all he needed. The enemy system was wide open ... the public databases easy to access, the government and military computer nets a little harder. He allowed himself a smile. They’d hardened their systems enough to draw attention, but not enough to keep his hackers out. They might have been better off leaving the systems unprotected. The intelligence staff were having problems telling local fiction from reality. If so much of the data hadn’t been utterly unrealistic, such as spacecraft designs, they’d be having fits.
We have all the time we need, he told himself. The troops were already deploying, securing a line around the town. Some locals had escaped, but none knew anything particularly important ... or anything the local government couldn’t work out for itself. Thankfully, the enemy hadn’t launched an immediate nuclear strike. The prospect had worried him from the moment he’d realised the threat was more than just theoretical. And if they give us more time ...
Chapter Nine: Washington DC, North America, Timeline F (OTL)
There were times, in all honesty, when Vice President Felix Hernandez wondered if the United States deserved to survive.
The political establishment was screwed up beyond all recognition. The broken promises of the Obama and Trump years, the manifold failures of both parties after those controversial presidents had been and gone, the endless and unstoppable rise of unaccountable Federal power – and subsequent apathy towards the government, the loss of faith in the media and tech companies and just about everything else ... Felix knew, without false modesty, that he could have at least tried to turn the country around, but the party grandees had denied him his chance to run for office. He wouldn’t even have been taken on as a running mate if the party hadn’t been trying desperately to win the Hispanic vote, something they didn’t have the slightest idea how to do. It was too late in the day to pretend a non-white VP would make a difference. The Hispanics, like everyone else, wanted their politicians to actually help.
He sighed inwardly as he was shown into the situation room under the White House. The only thing that qualified President Hamlin for office was that he’d never managed to alienate anyone, a remarkable feat in the modern era – to be fair – but he had a complete lack of everything else he needed to be an effective leader, from a grasp of the problems facing modern America to a willingness to make enemies fixing those problems. He was a kindly old man, and there wasn’t a whiff of scandal around him, but it wasn’t enough. The country was coming apart at the seams and the President was doing nothing, rather than at least trying to glue the mess back together.
But then, trying would unite Washington against him, Felix thought, coldly. They’ll never willingly give up a scrap of power, even if doing so would save them from the rope.
He accepted a cup of coffee from a young intern, then waited for the rest of the cabinet to join them. The last few hours had been chaotic, even by Washington’s standards. He’d been rushed to Air Force Two, then rushed back to a bunker on the edge of the city, and then finally rushed to the White House. No one had seemed to know what was going on, where the President was, or what had happened to the nuclear codes. Felix would never admit it, at least outside the privacy of his own head, but he’d been terrified. His imagination had filled in the blanks, suggesting everything from a military coup to foreign invasion or even a mass uprising. The latter wouldn’t have surprised him. Felix made an effort to stay in touch with the public mind and he was all too aware that the vast majority loathed the federal government even as they depended upon it. If the Chinese nuked Washington, a sizable percentage of Americans would cheer.
President Hamlin called the table to order, then nodded to the Secretary of Homeland Security, Robin Carter. Felix straightened. The secretary wasn’t a bad choice, even though it had been one hell of a political battle to convince Congress to confirm him in his role. The man was no military or intelligence officer, but he was smart enough to understand his own limitations and stick within them. That was almost unique in Washington.
Carter took a breath, then spoke with the tone of a man who feared – who knew – he would not be believed. “At roughly 0100hrs, there was a major energy surge in Texas. This surge had much in common with a nuclear-generated electromagnetic pulse, and did immense damage to both local electronics and orbiting satellites, although preliminary assessments indicate it was not actually an EMP. It triggered the nuclear warning protocols, however, and various procedures to protect the command chain were put into operation. It was a very chaotic situation.”
You don’t say, Felix thought.
“The preliminary assumption was that terrorists had detonated a small nuclear weapon and alerts were issued based on that,” Carter continued. “The lack of secondary strikes seemed to confirm that theory, so orbiting satellites that had been unaffected were vectored into orbits that would take them over the blast zone, while emergency services were put on alert to deal with the aftermath. The first crack in this assumption came when a spy satellite took images of the blast ... the supposed blast. What it saw was ...”
He tapped his remote. The big screen came online, displaying a ...
Felix blinked. “What the hell is that?”
“We’re not sure,” Carter said. “But it appears to be some kind of alien spacecraft or installation.”
“What?” Felix wondered, for a moment, if it was a demented prank. It wasn’t the first time someone had tried to fool him, or lure him into saying something unfortunate that would be held against him from now until the end of time ... yet another reason, he supposed, that Washington was so fucked up. “Aliens?”
“The object appeared in Flint, Texas,” Carter continued. “It appears to have crushed at least half the town. And ... it is huge, easily large enough to serve as a military base.”
Felix sucked in his breath. The alien structure – if it was alien – reminded him of a strange cross between an Aztec temple and Autobot City. There were no recognisable weapons, as far as he could see, but the blisters on the metal could easily be weapons ... if it truly was alien, their weapons might look harmless to human eyes. If ... he wanted to believe it really was a prank, or something devised to test their emergency procedures, yet ... it was too realistic. The room seemed to grow colder as the truth dawned on them. Whatever it was, it was real.
“There was a team of Pentagon researchers nearby, some of whom escaped,” Carter said. “A handful of local civilians also made it out, hurrying to the nearest town. Their original stories were not believed – they reported tanks in the streets, and men in silver armour – but we’ve heard the same thing from too many people, as well as spotted tanks from orbit. We ... the stories are true. An alien structure has landed in Texas.”
Felix leaned forwards. “How did it manage to arrive without being spotted?”
“We’re uncertain as yet,” Carter said. “The preliminary analysis is confusing. The energy surge appears to have originated within the town ... our first assumption was that the surge was intended to hide their arrival, but they passed through our orbital fence without being noticed. Or ... one analyst thinks they made an FTL jump into our atmosphere and that triggered the pulse. We simply don’t know.”
“But they did take a town,” the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff said, flatly. “That isn’t a friendly act.”
“We don’t know what we’re dealing with,” the Secretary of State countered. “What is it?”
Felix stared at the images for a long cold moment. “An invasion.”
President Hamlin looked surprised. “An invasion?”
“An invasion,” Felix replied. “Neil Armstrong didn’t take a main battle tank when he flew to the moon. You don’t bring tanks unless you’re expecting to fight at the far end.”
“Unless they’re not tanks,” the Secretary of State pointed out. “How many civilians would know an infantry fighting vehicle from a main battle tank?”
“A town like that would normally have a great many vets,” Felix said. He’d been born and raised in Texas himself, although in Austin rather than a small town. “They’d know the difference.”
“I thought they were also armed to the teeth,” the Secretary of State said. “Didn’t they resist the invaders? If it is an invasion.”
Felix didn’t bother to hide his annoyance. The Secretary of State had very little sympathy for Texans, or anyone else who was unlikely to vote for him when he made his bid for the presidency. It was a mistake, Felix knew, but pointing it out was pointless. The people who shaped party policy thought the Texans could be written off, along with nearly everyone else who didn’t agree with their view of the world. They were lucky their rivals were making the same mistake. But that wouldn’t last.
“The invasion started in the middle of the night, completely without warning,” Felix said, sharply. “There was no time to organise resistance.”
He looked at the President. “We need to nuke them. Now.”
President Hamlin blanched. He wasn't a decisive man by nature, and he was prone to dithering even when a decision – even a wrong decision – had to be made quickly, and this was easily the worst problem he’d ever faced. Felix cursed the party elders as he leaned forward, marshalling his arguments as best he could. The President of the United States was not a dictator, and even the strongest Presidents sought some degree of consensus, but there were times when action had to be taken immediately. Felix dreaded to think what would happen if the Russians, completely without warning, launched a full-scale counterforce nuclear strike. They might win.
“They arrived out of nowhere, passing through an electronic fence that was supposed to be capable of tracking anything,” Felix said. He’d seen the promises ... and the budget. If he had a say, heads were going to roll afterwards. “They then attacked a town, deploying an armoured force. That is not a friendly act. We need to nuke them. Now.”
“We can’t deploy nuclear weapons on our own soil,” the Secretary of State said. “We don’t even know what we’re facing.”
“They acted in a hostile manner,” Felix said. “They are not friendly.”
He gritted his teeth as the principals argued back and forth, President Hamlin saying nothing. Some agreed and wanted to strike the invaders at once; others were more cautious, unwilling to launch a nuclear strike without a clear threat, or raising concerns about radiation or international treaties that were, Felix thought, terrifyingly misplaced. Striking an enemy force that had arrived in America and opened fire was hardly a treaty violation ... if any nuclear treaty had any force these days. There was a long list of countries working desperately to produce their own nukes and delivery systems, now American guarantees had proven worthless. They didn’t give a shit about treaties when their own survival was at stake.
“We should be careful,” the president said. “We don’t know what we’re dealing with here ...”
The door opened. The President looked up. Felix followed his gaze, eyes narrowing as he spotted the junior officer. The poor kid looked terrified. He’d probably had orders to bring any new developments to the cabinet at once, yet he was interrupting some of the most powerful men in the world. His career could be killed with a single word from one of them ... it wouldn’t be the first time.
