Dux Bellorum (Future History of America Book 3) (9 page)

"I think we got them all
," replied Jonesy.
 

Riggs grimaced.
 
He was pretty sure, too.
 
Air superiority had been costly to achieve though.
 
Roosevelt
had beached itself against the Manhattan shore within sight of the Statue of Liberty.
 
She made a hell of a mess, too—knocked down two coastal buildings.
 
Her fighters swarmed overhead, dispatching the Russians with reckless abandon.
 
Half of Hammer flight had taken a swim and the other squadrons fared little better.
 
Riggs' own flight lost three more pilots.
 
He was down to six combat effective F-35Cs.

Those six fighters now combed the ground out ahead of the army, looking for the remnants of the rebel army, fleeing south.
 
Peace treaty be damned,
he thought,
those bastards started this mess and even invited the Russians to play.
 
Everything—the chaos, the death, all the pilots we lost—it's all their fault.
 
Home was supposed to be a haven for every service man and woman deployed overseas.
 
It wasn't supposed to be a battlefield—it sure as hell wasn't supposed to be turned into one by Americans.

Cruising at 1200 knots, it only took another 2 minutes before he spotted the Philadelphia skyline on the horizon.
 
"Nest, Hawk Lead, I have visual on Philly."

"Copy that Lead."

Riggs switched frequencies.
 
"You seein' what I'm seein'?"
 
He looked starboard toward Jonesy's plane, no bigger than a decal on a child's toy.

"That's a lot of smoke."

"Roger that," Riggs replied.
 
A black and gray smear dirtied the horizon over Philadelphia.
 
"I thought they had the power on again…"

"I heard it was just the outlying areas.
 
This looks even worse than New York."

Chapter 9

New Orders

M
AJOR
S
TROGOLEV
STARED
AT
the radio panel in his command BTR. The silence disturbed only by the ticking of his turn-of-the-century wristwatch, an heirloom passed down from his grandfather after surviving the Great Patriotic War.

"Comrade Major Strogolev, do you acknowledge your orders?"

Strogolev blinked. The implications of what he just heard, relayed from the message station on the Atlantic coast had momentarily stunned him. It made no sense. How was it possible an entire
 
carrier battlegroup had slipped through the Russian Navy's grasp, sailed out of the Mediterranean, all the way across the Atlantic Ocean, and plowed its way into New York Harbor? How was it possible for the carrier to
survive
, let alone link up with the remains of the army that destroyed Chicago?

Kristanoff had failed. New York had been retaken.

"Repeat: Major Strogolev, do you acknowledge receipt of your orders?"

Strogolev shook his head. "Yes, yes. This is Strogolev. I acknowledgment and confirm receipt of orders."

"Copy. Transmitting your confirmation to headquarters. Good luck.
 
Relay station 2, out."

Strogolev removed the headset and dropped it on the terminal. He rubbed the stubble on his chin.
How the hell could it all have fallen apart like that?
 
Our entire northern army is wiped out.
 
What happened to the United Nations?

The rear hatch on his command BTR opened, flooding the interior with the soft light of dawn.
 
He turned and squinted at the silhouette of his lieutenant, Gregor.

"Comrade Major, General Doskoy has just divided our strike group." He held up a piece of paper. "New orders."

Strogolev exited the BTR snatched the onion paper from Gregor. He scanned the hastily scribbled
 
Cyrillic. "Why is he splitting the battalion?"

Gregor shrugged. "Comrade General did not deign to enlighten me."

Strogolev glanced askance at his lieutenant. "You did not ask?"

Gregor blinked and looked at Strogolev. "I am not in the habit of questioning my superior officers when handed a list of orders."

No, questioning is not something that you do. You excel at following orders.
 

Strogolev looked back at the paper.
 
"Comrade General," he said acidly, "wishes my strike force to head south."

"While rest of the battalion stays behind.
 
With him."

"So…" Strogolev mused, "Moscow just relayed news our entire northern army has been wiped off the map."

Gregor blinked.
 
"What?"

Strogolev nodded. He handed Doskoy's orders back. "The Kremlin is rightly concerned about the overall survivability of our mission. The Americans somehow slipped an entire carrier battlegroup across the Atlantic past our blockade and into New York. There it linked up with the remaining elements from the Americans that destroyed Chicago."

"But the United Nations was supposed to have…the agreement…"
 

Strogolev nodded. He stormed off, hands behind his back looking for someone to yell at. "I know. The United Nations left us to hang. Moscow will
not
let that slight go unpunished."
 
He sighed.
 

"In the meantime, we must prepare to defend our conquest. Another wave of troops and equipment are currently on its way from the Motherland. It is our job to head north and lock down the border."

"And General Doskoy?
 
What of the insurgency in Bigby?"

Strogolev glanced around at his multi-wheeled armored scout vehicles. They were lined up outside the large bivouacked tents in neat, ordered rows. Most of the soldiers relaxed in the warm sun, awaiting new orders. Those that were smart, slept. The camp, normally a bustling hive of activity was relatively dormant at the moment. The mid-afternoon sun was just warm enough to make everyone
 
drowsy after a full meal and a good night’s rest. It was exactly what his troops needed before a long march.

"Doskoy will have to stay behind and deal with the insurgents by himself."
 
Strogolev snorted.
 
"He created them.
 
I would have preferred to leave nothing behind—he was the one pushing for prisoners and prison camps."

Gregor pulled his vanishing clipboard out of thin air and turned a few pages.

How does he do that?

"The latest reports indicate the insurgency is centered around a small town south of Orlando called Bigby."

"Where the insurgency is centered and how it got started is now Doskoy's problem. Moscow has given me
direct
orders."

Gregor released the paper in his hand and looked at his commanding officer with his head cocked. "Direct orders, major?"

Strogolev nodded, his shoulders squared and chest out. It wasn’t every day a mere major received a direct order from the Defense Minister himself. It must mean his bravery and swift action
 
had finally been noticed back home.
 

"Yes. Before our northern army was destroyed, General Kristanoff made a deal with the rebel leader, Malcolm. The two of them were to work together to defeat the Americans then besieging New York. All that went out the window when the carrier arrived and the rebels fled in the middle of the night.
 
Kristanoff was left severely out-manned and out-gunned."

Gregor's face tinted pink and Strogolev noticed his lieutenant's fists clenched.
 
"What can we do? We're 1,600 kilometers away.”

Major Strogolev smiled. "What Doskoy wants is not my concern anymore. I report to a higher authority. My orders are clear: get to the border and await Malcolm. Even now, he flees before the American army, heading straight into our arms. According to sources at the KGB, the American President has entered into separate negotiations with the rebels. He means to give Florida to them after they kick us out."

"These Americans are nothing but backstabbing traitors—they betray themselves faster than we can kill them!"

Strogolev laughed and clapped his lieutenant on the back. "That's the spirit, Gregor! We will teach these Yankee bastards how we do things in Mother Russia. The rebels will expect a fight. When they arrive, I will offer them a truce. I shall welcome them with open arms.
 
After all, were we not both betrayed by the United Nations?"

Gregor nodded.
 
"A bold plan.
 
And then?"
 

"Then we will kill Malcolm and cut the head off this rebellion once and for all." He stared at the rows of armored vehicles and neatly ordered tents. He had close to three thousand men and vehicles under his command.
 

"Take back Florida, will he? We shall see about that."

Chapter 10

Law and Order

E
RIK
GRIPPED
HIS
RIFLE
with white knuckles and tried to push himself through the side of the truck behind which he hid.
 
This is not happening…this is not happening…
 

No matter how many times he tried to tell himself they weren't trapped, whenever he opened his eyes he saw the M-ATV surrounded by dusty pickup trucks, cop cars, and angry-looking men with rifles.

"I say again: Come on out, we know you're in there."

Erik closed his eyes and felt the sweat trickle down his neck.
 
He took a deep breath and opened his eyes. His radio lay in the gravel a dozen yards away.
 
His mouth suddenly dry, Erik crept to the rear of the truck.
 

Damn it,
 
I can't reach it.

The radio was in no-man's-land between the first row of cars and the second.
 
As soon as he stepped out from behind cover of the truck, he would be an easy target for any one of the dozen men surrounding the M-ATV.
 
He crouched behind the left rear wheel and rested his helmet against the barrel of his rifle.

Now what the hell do I do?
 
I was never cut out for this soldier crap.
 
He focused on slowing his breathing.
 
Ted had drilled into his head the power of remaining calm in a crisis.

"Erik?"

He winced at the sound of Brin's voice coming from the little abandoned radio.

"What are you seeing out there?
 
Ted's up in the turret…"

Erik strained to see if anyone heard the radio.
 
He ducked back down and shifted his gaze between the road and the radio.

"Wherever you're at, Ted says to just stay still.
 
He's going to see if he can get us out of this.
 
If they haven't found you and we can get away, you know what to do."

The hatch on top of the M-ATV opened with the squeal of metal on metal.
 
Erik craned his neck in an attempt to see what was going on.
 
His heart beat faster as the men on the ground called out to each other and tried to take cover behind their trucks.
 
The only man who didn't seem fazed was the one with the loudspeaker. He wore a campaign hat and a matching uniform.
 
He stood casually next to the open door of the police cruiser and waited.

"Now just settle down boys, this ain't nothing to get worked up about.
 
Hold your fire."
 
The man said to his followers.

Erik swallowed, it felt like a rock going down his throat.
 
He watched as Ted appeared in the roof hatch wearing a helmet and waved.
 
"Hello down there!"

"Hello yourself.
 
Where you y'all from?" called out the officer.

"Florida," replied Ted.

"What you doing in Dunham?
 
There's some sort of convoy on the way?"

The floodgates opened and Ted was peppered with questions from the men all around the M-ATV.
 
They asked for food, they asked for medicine, they asked for news.
 
Ted held up his hands to try to calm everyone, but the noise didn't stop until the Sheriff flipped the siren on his car for a few seconds, silencing everyone.

"Now boys just hang on a second, let me do the talking."
 
The man adjusted his wide-brimmed campaign hat and glanced up at Ted.
 
"My name is Daryl Jonston.
 
I'm Sheriff here in Hull County.
 
I'd like to ask you a few questions if you don't mind?"

Ted nodded.
 
"That's fine, Sheriff—I'd like to ask a few questions myself."

"You boys part of a convoy?
 
What unit you with?"

"I'm Captain Ted Jensen, 3rd Battalion, 1st Florida Volunteers.
 
We're with the National Guard."

Erik stifled a laugh.
 
1st Florida Volunteers?
 
What kind of bullshit is that, Ted?

Sheriff Jonston hushed the mumbles from the men around him.
 
"
Florida?
 
You boys know you're in the wrong state?
 
Hell, you're halfway to Atlanta."

Ted shook his head.
 
"All due respect, Sheriff Jonston, we're not going anywhere
near
Atlanta."

The sheriff nodded and took off his hat.
 
He wiped his face but the big sunglasses remained perched on his nose.
 
"I couldn't agree with you more.
 
Atlanta…it's a no-man's-land.
 
Only ones that survived the fires after everything fell apart are the gangs."