Stories from the War: Military Dystopian Thriller by Autumn M. Birt
Changing Tide
October 2062
“Jared?” Arinna said, flipping on her comm line.
“Yes, my Lady?”
“Really. You don’t have to call me that,” she said with a sigh.
When she’d said she no longer wanted to be called Minister, she had never once fathomed that they would call her the Lady Grey. Admittedly, the Guard troops hadn’t come up with it. Parliament had begun honoring any who served in the war with a title, even if it were a small one like Lord or Lady for most. Higher command meant a grander title on retirement ... or death. Usually it was death.
The slang for the Guard was still the Greys or the Grey Guard due to their mishmash of specialties and units. They were the army, air force, navy, and special forces. And she was their leader even if not officially since she refused to enlist. Jared followed her, so the Guard followed her and had come to love their rebellious leader. So when a civilian dubbed her the Lady Grey, the Grey Guard latched to the name with fervor. And they wouldn’t call her anything else no matter how much she wished, ordered, or cursed.
“I just saw a horse and carriage. Why did I see a horse and carriage?” she asked.
“Because the remaining fuel distribution has been redirected to the Guard,” Jared answered matter-of-factly.
“All of it?” Arinna asked. She swore at his affirmative. “I didn’t think we were that low.”
“We need it to win this bloody war. It isn’t like any of the countries holding a truce with the damn FLF will sell us any,” Jared replied. “The little gasoline remaining for civilian use is getting scarce. So in the absence ...”
“Horses and bloody wagons. I feel like I’m living in the eighteenth century some days. Well make sure there is enough fuel for the tractors in the ag fields, at least. We need the food too.”
“You are flying in a plane running off of spent nuclear waste. Which part of that reminds you of the eighteenth century?”
“Shut up, Captain,” she said, grinning.
“Yes, my Lady.”
She’d have to reprimand him. As soon as she stopped laughing.
The pace of the war slowed. It had to. Not even the high tech planes could root out every FLF soldier. And there were only two in operation. One needed to be sacrificed to find a way to build more. Besides that, beyond the planes, they were pretty much out of equipment.
Arinna locked down Europe. Every supply sent to help the FLF was destroyed or confiscated. She ordered Kehm to figure out how the FLF communicated and laughed to hear it was through old ham radio networks and equipment. It was so low tech, she never would have thought of it. But like much of the FLF armaments, though mothballed, stockpiled, and forgotten by most of the world, they worked. The transmissions were hackable, but untraceable. Worse, they could not be altered. In the end, Arinna ordered Guard soldiers to destroy any relay and radio tower they located. The FLF communication network crumbled just as they had taken down much of Europe’s.
She ran the war much the way she and Michael had once wished to see it when they were just small pieces of Europe’s army. Now, she ordered what she wanted done, and no one stopped her. Not even MOTHER.
They weren’t happy about her control of the Guard, but the win in Sofia and continuing gains won her popularity. MOTHER would not touch her while she won back Europe, and while the soldiers and people MOTHER claimed to represent supported her. She lived on borrowed time, so she made the most of it.
“I’m coming in on the target. You see any movement in the area?” Arinna asked.
“Negative,” Terri answered.
“I still don’t like it,” Jared chimed in. “We have two planes. You shouldn’t be out there without backup.”
Knowing he couldn’t see her, Arinna rolled her eyes. Jared was even more protective of her than he had been of Michael. At least it felt that way. “We are running out of more than fuel and equipment. Need I remind you? This is just a simple recon. I don’t need a babysitter and we don’t have the soldiers to spare.”
Jared didn’t answer. Which meant he was pissed but couldn’t argue. Arinna laughed to herself as she gently set the dactyl down. When they’d first found the planes in Sofia, Arinna had not known how to fly. She’d considered not learning, regulating herself to only fly with Jared and assigning the remaining plane to other, more capable pilots. Jared accepted no excuse. He drilled her until she could maneuver the high tech bird blindfolded with the computer squelching airspeed, elevations, and obstacles. She wouldn’t admit that she loved flying and the challenge of it. Now being able to take the plane, she appreciated that she could fly alone.
“Dactyl One down. Leaving it in defense mode while I check out the center,” Arinna said, eyeing the plain building whose parking lot she’d just landed in.
“Are you sure about this?” Jared asked. She cut off the plane’s comm without answering. He needed to worry less.
The dactyl swiveled after she cleared its tucked wings. Defense mode meant it would evaluate anything nearby for potential threat. It was like having a massive and deadly robotic backup. Darn it, she was getting fond of the thing. Which is why she wanted more and what led her to Trier, Germany.
Lewin had taken her command of the Guard the best out of those on the old Defense Council. He, too, had recognized the planes brought back from Sofia, quickly dubbed dactyls for their shape. When asked, he scanned pages of old information, looking for how the planes had been made, where, designs, anything that would help them reproduce the amazing machines. He’d sent her to Trier near the old US air base of Spangdahlem. There, he promised, she would find plans on how to make more.
The area appeared clear of FLF. Really, today her biggest worry was if Lewin had told MOTHER. Well, of course, he’d told Eldridge. She just wasn’t sure how much Eldridge wanted her dead or what resources he could scrounge to send after her. It was going to be an interesting day.
Inside the old style brick building, Arinna was surprised to see a light down the hallway. “There’s power on here. Generators?” she asked into the comm.
“Not known, but Trier is on a direct line to Luxemburg, which still has power. Could be feeding from that,” Terri replied.
“Well, that will make today a bit easier.”
—
The screen remained blank. Well, not blank. The cursor blinked. A few hard drive based programs ran, which demonstrated the salvaged parts she’d wired together did work. But there was no information hub and certainly no internet connection to direct the computer to search.
“Dammit,” she swore.
“You knew the chances of finding anything were slim,” Jared said conversationally.
“But designs would have been nice. Especially of the bloody batteries ... and laser weapons. By the time we reverse engineer those, the war will be over and your kids will be running the planet.”
“Don’t scare me like that.”
Despite her frustration, she grinned at his deadpanned tone. She had guessed the mission verged on foolishness. The USA was gone. Any information and data systems the old air base had been connected to did not exist. That was why she’d come alone, so as to not waste anyone else’s time. The power in the building had supplied optimism that shouldn’t have existed. But she should be grateful. It had made failure come in record time.
Arinna stood, stretching so that her back popped. Wind whistled through broken windows. Besides that, the world remained silent. Despite the classic outside structure of brick, inside the building looked like any government, at least US government, military office. Bland walls, rows of computer interfaces, and a few pictures of famous planes on the wall denoting this had been an air base. Arinna froze.
“I’m going to take a better look around before heading back.”
Jared groaned.
Instinct wouldn’t let her leave. Not yet. Every military base she’d ever worked in looked like this office. All of them kept secure spaces for files, especially ones that were active projects
or ones of which staff were very proud. Lewin had said the design for the dactyls had been refined here. They would have kept a copy somewhere.
She tried the upper floors first, but they looked more administrative than technical. She needed a level with bigger monitors, testing equipment, and space for problem solving that took place off of a computer.
“Can you still read me?” Arinna asked. As she progressed downward, the comm spat static in her ear.
“You’re breaking up. Where are you?” Jared answered, none-too-pleased.
“Below ground. I think there is still a level or two to go.” She paused as the comm whined. “Are things still clear topside?”
“Affirmative,” Kehm answered.
“I’m going down. Captain, you can worry if I don’t report in an hour. Till then, you’re in charge.”
“Grand,” Jared drawled. “I thought I was in charge normally.”
Arinna snorted as she edged forward. Without windows, the poor lighting barely illuminated the floor. The hallways stretched longer than the building. Rooms were locked behind keypads, adding to the headache and the time. Arinna kept track of the minutes as she short circuited old electronics to check each room. The process was agonizing, making her wish she’d brought help. But the search was worth it when she opened a door onto a wind tunnel.
In front of her, a hybrid window-vid screen looked into a pristine, metal room that held platforms with rings to lock models into. The room she stood in was dim, holding enough computers and video displays to make Guard Command look barren. Despite all the technology, rolls of paper peeped out below crammed desks, a lot of rolls. Arinna’s heart thumped.
She could grab all the designs and wade through them later. But her eyes slid past the jumble of cluttered paper to a flat door. With all the tech in the room and the highly exacting testing and calculations done there, Arinna guessed what would be on the other side. When she found the light switch behind the door, her breath caught in her throat. It was wall to wall with servers.
Arinna checked her watch. Twenty minutes until she needed to report. Of course. She swore. This was just not going to be easy.
It took half an hour, but only because she searched for something to carry the equipment in, locating a wheeled table in an adjacent room. Jared was never going to forgive her for being late to report in. To speed things up, she risked the elevator she’d ignored on the way down, laughing at the thought she’d be trapped and need rescuing. Oh, she’d never hear the end of that. But it slid her to the surface, the power holding and old gears grinding away. When the door opened to ground level, the comm buzzed to life. Jared was yelling.
“I’m here. I’m fine,” Arinna said, rolling the cart toward the front door. She hesitated as she glanced into the afternoon sunlight. “Is everything clear?”
“No! Where the ... what the heck do you think ... get the friggen hell out of there!”
Arinna pushed the cart to the side of the room, glancing out to where her dactyl hummed. Nothing moved. It hadn’t fired.
“What is the situation?” she asked.
“We have ten inter-ballistic missiles coming in from northern Africa, eight more across the former Russian border.”
“Missiles?” It was the last thing she’d been expecting.
“My lady, we have one coming in on a trajectory that is either your location or Luxemburg,” Kehm said.
For some reason, all Arinna could focus on was it was the first time Kehm had called her “my Lady.” Then the words sunk in. That was why Jared sounded so bad. “How long?” she asked.
“Fifteen minutes,” Kehm said calmly.
Damn, that was cutting it close. “Captain, you did the right thing,” Arinna said, pushing the cart out the door while trying not to lose any bits. “The other targets? Any chance of scrambling interception?”
“Negative. They are coming in hot and not responding to any commands we send.”
“Try older commands. Think tech from the turn of the century,” Arinna directed. “Everything the FLF has thrown at us has been—”
“Obsolete,” Kehm finished. “Shit. I’m on it. That might save a few cities.”
“Direct away from cities and ag. Do you think they are nuclear?”
“Unknown,” Jared answered. He continued with a snarl, “Why aren’t you out of there? You have less than ten minutes!”
“I’m stealing a server and talking to you,” she snapped, fighting a nervous sweat. Panicking would not help. “What are the other targets?” she asked as the line fell silent.
“Don’t worry about it. Just get out of there.”
Jared’s reasonable tone ran chills up her spine. Arinna pushed the rolling table up the ramp of the back hatch and vaulted into her seat. She shut the cargo doors while powering up the idling engines.
“Time?”
“Seven minutes. Target is narrowing to the Air Force base,” Kehm answered.
“Focus on the other missiles. I’ll see if I can intercept this one,” Arinna said, launching the plane vertical.
Jared spat curse words into her comm, but she wasn’t listening. The dactyl’s computers locked onto the incoming missile. It was really close, approaching swiftly to her southwest. Seeing it spawned an urge to race away. What kept her was that there was no safe place to run. If it was nuclear, she couldn’t escape its blast zone. Even something less would wreak havoc on the dactyl’s instruments. Best case was that she’d escape this missile’s destructive range and fly into one of the others that were popping up on screen.
Making a decision calmed her twitching nerves. The dactyl swiveled as she commanded the lasers to track and annihilate the closest missile.
“Please don’t be nuclear,” she whispered as the dactyl fired. The world dissolved in a white flash.
The dactyl bucked under her, riding up the strong shock wave before slamming toward the ground. Emergency alarms cascaded around her, but Arinna remained blind from the blast. Auto thrusters engaged, dropping the plane none-too-gently to earth.
“They’re not nuclear,” Arinna said, voice shaking.
“Are you certain?” Kehm answered cautiously.
“I wouldn’t be talking to you if they were. The EMP would have knocked out the dactyl’s systems.”
Arinna watched two more missiles strike and obliterate Brussels and Frankfort. Zooming out to see what other cities were targeted, Arinna witnessed new blips emerge on the radar.
“Captain, there are new incoming,” Arinna said. “Do you have visual?”
“Not missiles. Planes,” Kehm replied.
“What is your status, my Lady,” Jared asked.
Arinna swept her gaze over the controls and out to the view beyond the dactyl’s front window. Tangled power lines arced bolts several hundred yards in front of her. Chimes continued sounding in the dactyl, matching the blinking of damaged systems on the vid screen.
“Weapons systems are compromised, probably blown circuitry between the fuel cells and the lasers as they aren’t registering power. I can fly, but stabilizers were damaged in the ... landing. I can limp back, but should probably stay put as I don’t think I’ll be out-flying much.” Before Jared could formulate a rescue strategy, Arinna continued. “Captain, scramble the other dactyl and remaining planes. Intercept the FLF and see what they are flying. Kehm, make certain Parliament is ready with relief efforts to the affected cities, and someone make damn sure every civilian knows to stay in shelters until this is over.”
Arinna sat back, crossing her arms. The worst part was that she couldn’t do anything but watch. Unless she got some systems back online. But to do that, she needed to know how the systems operated and it wasn’t like the dactyl had come with a maintenance manual. Her eyes fell on one of the hastily stowed servers. Arinna scrambled out of her harness, wondering if there was a way to plug the servers into the plane.
In the end, she found a way to draw juice from the feed running to the dactyl’s computing system
s. The dactyls were experimental enough that they contained numerous connections for diagnostic analysis. Accessing the servers through the main monitors ended up being fairly easy. All the way down to the dactyl and the server recognizing each other and allowing access. Hundreds of numbered files appeared across the displays.
“They are bombers,” Jared said. “Bloody, big freaken bombers.”
“How many can we intercept?” Arinna asked.
“Not all of them. They’ve been flying under radar. Tracking at least ten now,” Jared answered. “Are your vids down?”
“No. I’m trying to fix this thing,” Arinna replied. Despite her frustration with sitting and watching, she wanted to switch the monitors back to radar. Instead, she opened the first file. Not a dactyl. But it was a plane diagram. Telling herself she should take that as a good sign, Arinna began opening others, looking for a method to the naming as much as a diagram of a dactyl.
“I’ll come to your location to provide cover,” Jared said.
Arinna realized he was in the other dactyl. She should have guessed. “Negative. Protect infrastructure and lives first.” Jared fell silent, which was worse than him grumbling. “That is an order, Captain.”
Arinna spoke with authority, enough that he would forget that technically she had no right to order him to do anything. She was supposed to be just a liaison, no matter what role she’d assumed or that the Guard followed. In Jared’s silence, Arinna figured out which of the string of numbers in a file name indicated year. With a quick search, she narrowed down the files to less than fifty spanning the timeframe of the dactyl’s creation. At least the timeframe that made sense from what she and Lewin knew.
Dimly, she heard Jared order other fighters across Europe. Knowing him, he’d give himself central Europe to patrol with a grid right over her head. A diagram opened with the lines of a cargo plane and generator station capable of long range troop movement and instant headquarters creation. She paused with finger over the close key, appreciating the efficient design as much as feeding a yearning to have a dozen of them. Later. She closed the file and tagged the name with “transport.”
A plane flew low over her position, the sound vibrating the hull of the dactyl. Ready to yell at Jared for disobeying, Arinna fell against the side of the seat as the dactyl jumped in time with an explosion. A second knocked the breath from her as she bounced against the console. She expected the next bomb to land on her head.
“Dammit! You could have warned me the FLF was that close,” Arinna snapped as the bombs continued on, intensity diminishing slightly to the west.
“You told me not to worry about you,” Jared answered.
“I wasn’t talking to you. I meant Kehm.”
“We have our hands full here,” Kehm replied, Arinna realizing that not all the explosions she heard were from outside her dactyl.
“What is your status?” Arinna asked at the same time as Jared.
“Nothing has struck Command. I don’t think they know our exact location,” Kehm answered through the static. “They sort of snuck up on us.”
“I’m on my way,” Jared reported.
Arinna cursed, angry at the FLF and her impotence to strike back or protect. Her mind registered a familiar shape as she clicked closed the design that had popped open. She hurried back to it. The streamlined geometric shape of the dactyl filled her screens. Given the time to open fully, pages of diagrams nested behind the first image. She could fix her dactyl. They could build more. If they weren’t out of time now. She sorted down to the schematic showing the stabilizers.
“Kehm, is Command still in one piece?” Arinna asked.
“Affirmative,” Kehm answered, though his response was shaky.
“Tell tech to reassemble dactyl 3. Hopefully they haven’t taken too much off it yet. I want it back together and in the air. Now.”
“They won’t be happy,” he warned.
“Tell them I have the original schematics, including the power cells. That should make up for it.”
“I’m so glad you didn’t get blown to bits,” Jared said, voice distant as if his focus were elsewhere.
“How are you doing with the bombers, Captain?” she asked.
“Like shooting ducks, only there are more ducks than hunters. How long till you can join us?”
“I’m working on it. Right now I can fly, but I can’t shoot anything.”
The stabilizers had been an easy reset and reboot. That left the frizzled wiring to the lasers. The electric system was a nightmare of colored lines running through the 3D schematic on the vids. Desperate for a quick solution, Arinna typed in the warning codes still chiming on the dactyl’s console. Corresponding areas blazed red on the display. Now she was getting somewhere.
“Anything coming to blow me up, Kehm?”
“You have a clear window for the moment. The last dactyl is up with Farrak and Gabriella flying. They really need you too.”
“Roger. Good to hear they hadn’t scraped the third one yet.”
“I think they were afraid of it,” Kehm answered. “It’s barely been eight months.”
“What were they doing, drawing it?” Jared snipped. “Could have been bloody using it.”
Arinna smiled to hear him complain. It meant things were going well enough in the air.
“If you have flight, my Lady, you might want to relocate,” Kehm said, breaking her concentration after a few minutes of silence.
“What do I have coming in?” she asked, not relaxing from her cramped pose as she felt for a bundle of wire beneath the decking of the cargo bay.
“Bomber crossing your path heading northwest,” Kehm answered just as she snagged the wrapped line with her fingers.
Arinna froze. “To the UK? How many of those bloody things are there?” she snapped at Kehm’s affirmative of the intended target.
“At the moment two dozen or so. They’re scattered and flying low with a lot of distance between them,” Jared replied.
Arinna spun the wire around her fingers and yanked, deciding that if the bundle came she would stay and fix the lasers. Otherwise, she’d see what could be done in the air without weapons. The cable slid to the hatch without resistance. When she pulled it out, she could see why. Melted connectors had snapped. Arinna let out a curse that set Jared laughing.
“Remind me to suggest a few improvements to the tech team when I get back,” Arinna hissed.
“You won’t be getting back if that bomber sees you,” Kehm replied.
“Two more minutes. I need to hard-wire the laser power directly to the circuit panel.”
Kehm railed that the idea wasn’t a good one and that she should move, but Arinna ignored him. The minute the dactyl took to the air, she’d be even more a target than she was on the ground. With the final wire soldered securely thanks to the aid of the small onboard maintenance kit the schematics had clued her onto, the last warning chime died. Arinna scrambled to her feet. The small cargo bay was a nest of poorly strapped and sorted servers zigzagged by snaking wires, but her dactyl would fly. And shoot. Which was good. There was a bomber coming directly for her.
Arinna jerked the dactyl a few feet vertical, shooting sideways across the landscape before the engines came off idle. Bombs chased her quickening escape. The cockpit lights brightened as the power surged. The dactyl shot ahead of the bomber, giving her the room to swing it around to finally see what had been causing havoc the last few hours.
A B-52 Stratobomber lumbered toward her. She recognized it from times spent with Michael on US Air Force runways. Old US equipment, exactly like the FLF to put to use equipment thought obsolete. Feeling like a futuristic hornet compared to the old monster in front of her, Arinna flashed beneath the B-52’s wing. The dactyl’s lasers hadn’t warmed up yet.
Flipping around again, Arinna chased down the bomber, watching the last of the bombs meant for her fall toward earth. What she saw made her jerk the dactyl sideways. The bomb never touched the ground. It de
tonated in the air, lines of crackling energy spreading out in a curved sheet to reach downward along either side of a transfer station. The next bomb did the same, though the third fell to earth, blasting a crater of debris outwards.
There wasn’t time to sort out what she’d seen. Instead, she dropped a GPS marker and corrected her flight to hunt down the bomber. It was time to help out the Guard and remove a few planes.
—
The air battle was one-sided. The B-52s had no fighter escorts to protect them. Their only advantage was flying low until rising to prepare for bomb drop, and the spacing between them. The FLF had planned the attack well, wanting to destroy the cities and crop fields remaining in Europe. It might have guessed that a few of the Guard air fighters were operational but hazarded that the EU fuel supply was too low to keep them in the air long. It hadn’t known about the dactyls, or at least what they were capable of, even if it had tried to claim them first.
With all three in the air and targets spread out over the continent, the FLF bombing run became a testing field for the dactyl’s capabilities. Speed, agility, and weapons were pushed. Arinna loved her plane. Though she cringed whenever a sharp maneuver slid server pieces across the cargo hold. Tech would be yelling at her that they needed to fix the servers to access the plans. But it couldn’t be helped.
The sun was setting when Arinna watched her last bomber fall into the North Sea. Terri read reports on damage over the comm. Bad, but not horrible.
“Sounds like most damage is infrastructure,” Jared said, voice weary but satisfied. “And the war pretty much put holes in most of those. The FLF just took them down to make way for rebuilding.”
“Now that’s a thought,” Arinna mused.
Rebuilding when the war ended. Hope stung her eyes with lost dreams. She wasn’t ready for that part yet. Blinking her vision clear, her gaze fell on the soft glow of the GPS tracker. Memories of the strange phenomena Arinna had witnessed earlier resurfaced. The location was on the way to Command. Well, it was close enough for a detour. And she could check out the air base to see if anything remained in case they wanted to salvage more.
The brick building with its glass entryway lay shattered. A corner dissolved into a crater, bits of the remaining building cascading downward in a small landslide as she flew over. Even if there were anything left to salvage resting in the below-ground hallways, it would take a lot of equipment to dig it out. And looking at the size of the crater swallowing the building, Arinna doubted there was much remaining anyway. Especially when one rainstorm would destroy the electronic equipment.
Ahead, the damaged power grid continued to arc, although she doubted it would last much longer. Towers leaned close, wires nearly crossing. If it didn’t ground itself out, the power station was sure to deliver the last of its output. The day of fighting spawned a maverick urge. Arinna fired at the mishmash of lines. The lasers never touched them.
The beams dissolved. No, they were absorbed into a halo of energy. The pulse of extra power flared around the small transfer station in a bubble, transmitting along the damaged lines with an angry buzz. Arinna hovered the dactyl a distance away, giving her a wide view. She fired again. The effect was the same. A shield of power flared to visible around the lines, saving them and the building. Arinna released a puff of breath. It didn’t seem possible, but she’d just witnessed it.
Cautiously, she set the dactyl down outside the invisible halo. The day had faded to dusk. Around the crossed lines, a light aura glowed in the night. She was tired and hungry. Server pieces were scattered across the cargo bay of the dactyl and held plans that could gain them a chance of victory. But the mystery before her captivated. Just to be sure, she shot it again.
The dying glow flared to life once more, power hissing around the shield from the point of impact. Oh, she had to figure out what was happening.
One more pulse with the lasers and Arinna mentally noted the edge of the shield on the ground. It’d stopped bombs and lasers. She wasn’t too keen on discovering what it did to organic compounds accidentally. Dropping the back hatch, she stepped foot onto soil for the first time in half a day. The aroma of plants and ash struck her. Flying disconnected her from the world while making her realize how interconnected it all was when she landed.
Near the invisible shield, the air crackled and stood the hair on her arms on end. A stick tossed toward it bounced backwards with a snap that smelled of ozone. That impressed her. She’d stay up till dawn if that were what it took to unravel what made the effect. Images of the destroyed buildings she’d seen overlaid the small and unharmed station setting at the center of the shield and fueled her with a burst of energy
“How are things at Command,” Arinna asked into her comm.
“Hectic,” Kehm replied. “Repairs are underway for damaged critical systems. MOTHER and Parliament have both requested reports.”
“Jared or Farrak back yet?”
“Negative. Both are enroute and should arrive within the hour.” Kehm paused. “Why aren’t you moving?”
“Send a very brief report to both MOTHER and Parliament outlining the attack, that the threat was dealt with, and that we will know more tomorrow. There is no more FLF movement, right?” Arinna dreaded the answer.
“Correct. No movement. I think we are in the clear for tonight.”
“Hopefully for longer than that. It must have taken the FLF a significant amount of time and resources to pull this off.”
“Agreed. You think that it might have been a desperate gamble?” Kehm asked.
“We can hope.”
“So why aren’t you enroute, my Lady?”
Arinna huffed a laugh at the tentative tone in Kehm’s voice. And that he’d continued to use her unofficial title. She might have to get used to it. Maybe.
“Tell Captain Vries I found something I need to check out. I’ll be late coming in.”
Arinna cut off Kehm’s reluctant affirmative.
October 2062
“Jared?” Arinna said, flipping on her comm line.
“Yes, my Lady?”
“Really. You don’t have to call me that,” she said with a sigh.
When she’d said she no longer wanted to be called Minister, she had never once fathomed that they would call her the Lady Grey. Admittedly, the Guard troops hadn’t come up with it. Parliament had begun honoring any who served in the war with a title, even if it were a small one like Lord or Lady for most. Higher command meant a grander title on retirement ... or death. Usually it was death.
The slang for the Guard was still the Greys or the Grey Guard due to their mishmash of specialties and units. They were the army, air force, navy, and special forces. And she was their leader even if not officially since she refused to enlist. Jared followed her, so the Guard followed her and had come to love their rebellious leader. So when a civilian dubbed her the Lady Grey, the Grey Guard latched to the name with fervor. And they wouldn’t call her anything else no matter how much she wished, ordered, or cursed.
“I just saw a horse and carriage. Why did I see a horse and carriage?” she asked.
“Because the remaining fuel distribution has been redirected to the Guard,” Jared answered matter-of-factly.
“All of it?” Arinna asked. She swore at his affirmative. “I didn’t think we were that low.”
“We need it to win this bloody war. It isn’t like any of the countries holding a truce with the damn FLF will sell us any,” Jared replied. “The little gasoline remaining for civilian use is getting scarce. So in the absence ...”
“Horses and bloody wagons. I feel like I’m living in the eighteenth century some days. Well make sure there is enough fuel for the tractors in the ag fields, at least. We need the food too.”
“You are flying in a plane running off of spent nuclear waste. Which part of that reminds you of the eighteenth century?”
“Shut up, Captain,” she said, grinning.
“Yes, my Lady.”
She’d have to reprimand him. As soon as she stopped laughing.
The pace of the war slowed. It had to. Not even the high tech planes could root out every FLF soldier. And there were only two in operation. One needed to be sacrificed to find a way to build more. Besides that, beyond the planes, they were pretty much out of equipment.
Arinna locked down Europe. Every supply sent to help the FLF was destroyed or confiscated. She ordered Kehm to figure out how the FLF communicated and laughed to hear it was through old ham radio networks and equipment. It was so low tech, she never would have thought of it. But like much of the FLF armaments, though mothballed, stockpiled, and forgotten by most of the world, they worked. The transmissions were hackable, but untraceable. Worse, they could not be altered. In the end, Arinna ordered Guard soldiers to destroy any relay and radio tower they located. The FLF communication network crumbled just as they had taken down much of Europe’s.
She ran the war much the way she and Michael had once wished to see it when they were just small pieces of Europe’s army. Now, she ordered what she wanted done, and no one stopped her. Not even MOTHER.
They weren’t happy about her control of the Guard, but the win in Sofia and continuing gains won her popularity. MOTHER would not touch her while she won back Europe, and while the soldiers and people MOTHER claimed to represent supported her. She lived on borrowed time, so she made the most of it.
“I’m coming in on the target. You see any movement in the area?” Arinna asked.
“Negative,” Terri answered.
“I still don’t like it,” Jared chimed in. “We have two planes. You shouldn’t be out there without backup.”
Knowing he couldn’t see her, Arinna rolled her eyes. Jared was even more protective of her than he had been of Michael. At least it felt that way. “We are running out of more than fuel and equipment. Need I remind you? This is just a simple recon. I don’t need a babysitter and we don’t have the soldiers to spare.”
Jared didn’t answer. Which meant he was pissed but couldn’t argue. Arinna laughed to herself as she gently set the dactyl down. When they’d first found the planes in Sofia, Arinna had not known how to fly. She’d considered not learning, regulating herself to only fly with Jared and assigning the remaining plane to other, more capable pilots. Jared accepted no excuse. He drilled her until she could maneuver the high tech bird blindfolded with the computer squelching airspeed, elevations, and obstacles. She wouldn’t admit that she loved flying and the challenge of it. Now being able to take the plane, she appreciated that she could fly alone.
“Dactyl One down. Leaving it in defense mode while I check out the center,” Arinna said, eyeing the plain building whose parking lot she’d just landed in.
“Are you sure about this?” Jared asked. She cut off the plane’s comm without answering. He needed to worry less.
The dactyl swiveled after she cleared its tucked wings. Defense mode meant it would evaluate anything nearby for potential threat. It was like having a massive and deadly robotic backup. Darn it, she was getting fond of the thing. Which is why she wanted more and what led her to Trier, Germany.
Lewin had taken her command of the Guard the best out of those on the old Defense Council. He, too, had recognized the planes brought back from Sofia, quickly dubbed dactyls for their shape. When asked, he scanned pages of old information, looking for how the planes had been made, where, designs, anything that would help them reproduce the amazing machines. He’d sent her to Trier near the old US air base of Spangdahlem. There, he promised, she would find plans on how to make more.
The area appeared clear of FLF. Really, today her biggest worry was if Lewin had told MOTHER. Well, of course, he’d told Eldridge. She just wasn’t sure how much Eldridge wanted her dead or what resources he could scrounge to send after her. It was going to be an interesting day.
Inside the old style brick building, Arinna was surprised to see a light down the hallway. “There’s power on here. Generators?” she asked into the comm.
“Not known, but Trier is on a direct line to Luxemburg, which still has power. Could be feeding from that,” Terri replied.
“Well, that will make today a bit easier.”
—
The screen remained blank. Well, not blank. The cursor blinked. A few hard drive based programs ran, which demonstrated the salvaged parts she’d wired together did work. But there was no information hub and certainly no internet connection to direct the computer to search.
“Dammit,” she swore.
“You knew the chances of finding anything were slim,” Jared said conversationally.
“But designs would have been nice. Especially of the bloody batteries ... and laser weapons. By the time we reverse engineer those, the war will be over and your kids will be running the planet.”
“Don’t scare me like that.”
Despite her frustration, she grinned at his deadpanned tone. She had guessed the mission verged on foolishness. The USA was gone. Any information and data systems the old air base had been connected to did not exist. That was why she’d come alone, so as to not waste anyone else’s time. The power in the building had supplied optimism that shouldn’t have existed. But she should be grateful. It had made failure come in record time.
Arinna stood, stretching so that her back popped. Wind whistled through broken windows. Besides that, the world remained silent. Despite the classic outside structure of brick, inside the building looked like any government, at least US government, military office. Bland walls, rows of computer interfaces, and a few pictures of famous planes on the wall denoting this had been an air base. Arinna froze.
“I’m going to take a better look around before heading back.”
Jared groaned.
Instinct wouldn’t let her leave. Not yet. Every military base she’d ever worked in looked like this office. All of them kept secure spaces for files, especially ones that were active projects
She tried the upper floors first, but they looked more administrative than technical. She needed a level with bigger monitors, testing equipment, and space for problem solving that took place off of a computer.
“Can you still read me?” Arinna asked. As she progressed downward, the comm spat static in her ear.
“You’re breaking up. Where are you?” Jared answered, none-too-pleased.
“Below ground. I think there is still a level or two to go.” She paused as the comm whined. “Are things still clear topside?”
“Affirmative,” Kehm answered.
“I’m going down. Captain, you can worry if I don’t report in an hour. Till then, you’re in charge.”
“Grand,” Jared drawled. “I thought I was in charge normally.”
Arinna snorted as she edged forward. Without windows, the poor lighting barely illuminated the floor. The hallways stretched longer than the building. Rooms were locked behind keypads, adding to the headache and the time. Arinna kept track of the minutes as she short circuited old electronics to check each room. The process was agonizing, making her wish she’d brought help. But the search was worth it when she opened a door onto a wind tunnel.
In front of her, a hybrid window-vid screen looked into a pristine, metal room that held platforms with rings to lock models into. The room she stood in was dim, holding enough computers and video displays to make Guard Command look barren. Despite all the technology, rolls of paper peeped out below crammed desks, a lot of rolls. Arinna’s heart thumped.
She could grab all the designs and wade through them later. But her eyes slid past the jumble of cluttered paper to a flat door. With all the tech in the room and the highly exacting testing and calculations done there, Arinna guessed what would be on the other side. When she found the light switch behind the door, her breath caught in her throat. It was wall to wall with servers.
Arinna checked her watch. Twenty minutes until she needed to report. Of course. She swore. This was just not going to be easy.
It took half an hour, but only because she searched for something to carry the equipment in, locating a wheeled table in an adjacent room. Jared was never going to forgive her for being late to report in. To speed things up, she risked the elevator she’d ignored on the way down, laughing at the thought she’d be trapped and need rescuing. Oh, she’d never hear the end of that. But it slid her to the surface, the power holding and old gears grinding away. When the door opened to ground level, the comm buzzed to life. Jared was yelling.
“I’m here. I’m fine,” Arinna said, rolling the cart toward the front door. She hesitated as she glanced into the afternoon sunlight. “Is everything clear?”
“No! Where the ... what the heck do you think ... get the friggen hell out of there!”
Arinna pushed the cart to the side of the room, glancing out to where her dactyl hummed. Nothing moved. It hadn’t fired.
“What is the situation?” she asked.
“We have ten inter-ballistic missiles coming in from northern Africa, eight more across the former Russian border.”
“Missiles?” It was the last thing she’d been expecting.
“My lady, we have one coming in on a trajectory that is either your location or Luxemburg,” Kehm said.
For some reason, all Arinna could focus on was it was the first time Kehm had called her “my Lady.” Then the words sunk in. That was why Jared sounded so bad. “How long?” she asked.
“Fifteen minutes,” Kehm said calmly.
Damn, that was cutting it close. “Captain, you did the right thing,” Arinna said, pushing the cart out the door while trying not to lose any bits. “The other targets? Any chance of scrambling interception?”
“Negative. They are coming in hot and not responding to any commands we send.”
“Try older commands. Think tech from the turn of the century,” Arinna directed. “Everything the FLF has thrown at us has been—”
“Obsolete,” Kehm finished. “Shit. I’m on it. That might save a few cities.”
“Direct away from cities and ag. Do you think they are nuclear?”
“Unknown,” Jared answered. He continued with a snarl, “Why aren’t you out of there? You have less than ten minutes!”
“I’m stealing a server and talking to you,” she snapped, fighting a nervous sweat. Panicking would not help. “What are the other targets?” she asked as the line fell silent.
“Don’t worry about it. Just get out of there.”
Jared’s reasonable tone ran chills up her spine. Arinna pushed the rolling table up the ramp of the back hatch and vaulted into her seat. She shut the cargo doors while powering up the idling engines.
“Time?”
“Seven minutes. Target is narrowing to the Air Force base,” Kehm answered.
“Focus on the other missiles. I’ll see if I can intercept this one,” Arinna said, launching the plane vertical.
Jared spat curse words into her comm, but she wasn’t listening. The dactyl’s computers locked onto the incoming missile. It was really close, approaching swiftly to her southwest. Seeing it spawned an urge to race away. What kept her was that there was no safe place to run. If it was nuclear, she couldn’t escape its blast zone. Even something less would wreak havoc on the dactyl’s instruments. Best case was that she’d escape this missile’s destructive range and fly into one of the others that were popping up on screen.
Making a decision calmed her twitching nerves. The dactyl swiveled as she commanded the lasers to track and annihilate the closest missile.
“Please don’t be nuclear,” she whispered as the dactyl fired. The world dissolved in a white flash.
The dactyl bucked under her, riding up the strong shock wave before slamming toward the ground. Emergency alarms cascaded around her, but Arinna remained blind from the blast. Auto thrusters engaged, dropping the plane none-too-gently to earth.
“They’re not nuclear,” Arinna said, voice shaking.
“Are you certain?” Kehm answered cautiously.
“I wouldn’t be talking to you if they were. The EMP would have knocked out the dactyl’s systems.”
Arinna watched two more missiles strike and obliterate Brussels and Frankfort. Zooming out to see what other cities were targeted, Arinna witnessed new blips emerge on the radar.
“Captain, there are new incoming,” Arinna said. “Do you have visual?”
“Not missiles. Planes,” Kehm replied.
“What is your status, my Lady,” Jared asked.
Arinna swept her gaze over the controls and out to the view beyond the dactyl’s front window. Tangled power lines arced bolts several hundred yards in front of her. Chimes continued sounding in the dactyl, matching the blinking of damaged systems on the vid screen.
“Weapons systems are compromised, probably blown circuitry between the fuel cells and the lasers as they aren’t registering power. I can fly, but stabilizers were damaged in the ... landing. I can limp back, but should probably stay put as I don’t think I’ll be out-flying much.” Before Jared could formulate a rescue strategy, Arinna continued. “Captain, scramble the other dactyl and remaining planes. Intercept the FLF and see what they are flying. Kehm, make certain Parliament is ready with relief efforts to the affected cities, and someone make damn sure every civilian knows to stay in shelters until this is over.”
Arinna sat back, crossing her arms. The worst part was that she couldn’t do anything but watch. Unless she got some systems back online. But to do that, she needed to know how the systems operated and it wasn’t like the dactyl had come with a maintenance manual. Her eyes fell on one of the hastily stowed servers. Arinna scrambled out of her harness, wondering if there was a way to plug the servers into the plane.
In the end, she found a way to draw juice from the feed running to the dactyl’s computing system
“They are bombers,” Jared said. “Bloody, big freaken bombers.”
“How many can we intercept?” Arinna asked.
“Not all of them. They’ve been flying under radar. Tracking at least ten now,” Jared answered. “Are your vids down?”
“No. I’m trying to fix this thing,” Arinna replied. Despite her frustration with sitting and watching, she wanted to switch the monitors back to radar. Instead, she opened the first file. Not a dactyl. But it was a plane diagram. Telling herself she should take that as a good sign, Arinna began opening others, looking for a method to the naming as much as a diagram of a dactyl.
“I’ll come to your location to provide cover,” Jared said.
Arinna realized he was in the other dactyl. She should have guessed. “Negative. Protect infrastructure and lives first.” Jared fell silent, which was worse than him grumbling. “That is an order, Captain.”
Arinna spoke with authority, enough that he would forget that technically she had no right to order him to do anything. She was supposed to be just a liaison, no matter what role she’d assumed or that the Guard followed. In Jared’s silence, Arinna figured out which of the string of numbers in a file name indicated year. With a quick search, she narrowed down the files to less than fifty spanning the timeframe of the dactyl’s creation. At least the timeframe that made sense from what she and Lewin knew.
Dimly, she heard Jared order other fighters across Europe. Knowing him, he’d give himself central Europe to patrol with a grid right over her head. A diagram opened with the lines of a cargo plane and generator station capable of long range troop movement and instant headquarters creation. She paused with finger over the close key, appreciating the efficient design as much as feeding a yearning to have a dozen of them. Later. She closed the file and tagged the name with “transport.”
A plane flew low over her position, the sound vibrating the hull of the dactyl. Ready to yell at Jared for disobeying, Arinna fell against the side of the seat as the dactyl jumped in time with an explosion. A second knocked the breath from her as she bounced against the console. She expected the next bomb to land on her head.
“Dammit! You could have warned me the FLF was that close,” Arinna snapped as the bombs continued on, intensity diminishing slightly to the west.
“You told me not to worry about you,” Jared answered.
“I wasn’t talking to you. I meant Kehm.”
“We have our hands full here,” Kehm replied, Arinna realizing that not all the explosions she heard were from outside her dactyl.
“What is your status?” Arinna asked at the same time as Jared.
“Nothing has struck Command. I don’t think they know our exact location,” Kehm answered through the static. “They sort of snuck up on us.”
“I’m on my way,” Jared reported.
Arinna cursed, angry at the FLF and her impotence to strike back or protect. Her mind registered a familiar shape as she clicked closed the design that had popped open. She hurried back to it. The streamlined geometric shape of the dactyl filled her screens. Given the time to open fully, pages of diagrams nested behind the first image. She could fix her dactyl. They could build more. If they weren’t out of time now. She sorted down to the schematic showing the stabilizers.
“Kehm, is Command still in one piece?” Arinna asked.
“Affirmative,” Kehm answered, though his response was shaky.
“Tell tech to reassemble dactyl 3. Hopefully they haven’t taken too much off it yet. I want it back together and in the air. Now.”
“They won’t be happy,” he warned.
“Tell them I have the original schematics, including the power cells. That should make up for it.”
“I’m so glad you didn’t get blown to bits,” Jared said, voice distant as if his focus were elsewhere.
“How are you doing with the bombers, Captain?” she asked.
“Like shooting ducks, only there are more ducks than hunters. How long till you can join us?”
“I’m working on it. Right now I can fly, but I can’t shoot anything.”
The stabilizers had been an easy reset and reboot. That left the frizzled wiring to the lasers. The electric system was a nightmare of colored lines running through the 3D schematic on the vids. Desperate for a quick solution, Arinna typed in the warning codes still chiming on the dactyl’s console. Corresponding areas blazed red on the display. Now she was getting somewhere.
“Anything coming to blow me up, Kehm?”
“You have a clear window for the moment. The last dactyl is up with Farrak and Gabriella flying. They really need you too.”
“Roger. Good to hear they hadn’t scraped the third one yet.”
“I think they were afraid of it,” Kehm answered. “It’s barely been eight months.”
“What were they doing, drawing it?” Jared snipped. “Could have been bloody using it.”
Arinna smiled to hear him complain. It meant things were going well enough in the air.
“If you have flight, my Lady, you might want to relocate,” Kehm said, breaking her concentration after a few minutes of silence.
“What do I have coming in?” she asked, not relaxing from her cramped pose as she felt for a bundle of wire beneath the decking of the cargo bay.
“Bomber crossing your path heading northwest,” Kehm answered just as she snagged the wrapped line with her fingers.
Arinna froze. “To the UK? How many of those bloody things are there?” she snapped at Kehm’s affirmative of the intended target.
“At the moment two dozen or so. They’re scattered and flying low with a lot of distance between them,” Jared replied.
Arinna spun the wire around her fingers and yanked, deciding that if the bundle came she would stay and fix the lasers. Otherwise, she’d see what could be done in the air without weapons. The cable slid to the hatch without resistance. When she pulled it out, she could see why. Melted connectors had snapped. Arinna let out a curse that set Jared laughing.
“Remind me to suggest a few improvements to the tech team when I get back,” Arinna hissed.
“You won’t be getting back if that bomber sees you,” Kehm replied.
“Two more minutes. I need to hard-wire the laser power directly to the circuit panel.”
Kehm railed that the idea wasn’t a good one and that she should move, but Arinna ignored him. The minute the dactyl took to the air, she’d be even more a target than she was on the ground. With the final wire soldered securely thanks to the aid of the small onboard maintenance kit the schematics had clued her onto, the last warning chime died. Arinna scrambled to her feet. The small cargo bay was a nest of poorly strapped and sorted servers zigzagged by snaking wires, but her dactyl would fly. And shoot. Which was good. There was a bomber coming directly for her.
Arinna jerked the dactyl a few feet vertical, shooting sideways across the landscape before the engines came off idle. Bombs chased her quickening escape. The cockpit lights brightened as the power surged. The dactyl shot ahead of the bomber, giving her the room to swing it around to finally see what had been causing havoc the last few hours.
A B-52 Stratobomber lumbered toward her. She recognized it from times spent with Michael on US Air Force runways. Old US equipment, exactly like the FLF to put to use equipment thought obsolete. Feeling like a futuristic hornet compared to the old monster in front of her, Arinna flashed beneath the B-52’s wing. The dactyl’s lasers hadn’t warmed up yet.
Flipping around again, Arinna chased down the bomber, watching the last of the bombs meant for her fall toward earth. What she saw made her jerk the dactyl sideways. The bomb never touched the ground. It de
There wasn’t time to sort out what she’d seen. Instead, she dropped a GPS marker and corrected her flight to hunt down the bomber. It was time to help out the Guard and remove a few planes.
—
The air battle was one-sided. The B-52s had no fighter escorts to protect them. Their only advantage was flying low until rising to prepare for bomb drop, and the spacing between them. The FLF had planned the attack well, wanting to destroy the cities and crop fields remaining in Europe. It might have guessed that a few of the Guard air fighters were operational but hazarded that the EU fuel supply was too low to keep them in the air long. It hadn’t known about the dactyls, or at least what they were capable of, even if it had tried to claim them first.
With all three in the air and targets spread out over the continent, the FLF bombing run became a testing field for the dactyl’s capabilities. Speed, agility, and weapons were pushed. Arinna loved her plane. Though she cringed whenever a sharp maneuver slid server pieces across the cargo hold. Tech would be yelling at her that they needed to fix the servers to access the plans. But it couldn’t be helped.
The sun was setting when Arinna watched her last bomber fall into the North Sea. Terri read reports on damage over the comm. Bad, but not horrible.
“Sounds like most damage is infrastructure,” Jared said, voice weary but satisfied. “And the war pretty much put holes in most of those. The FLF just took them down to make way for rebuilding.”
“Now that’s a thought,” Arinna mused.
Rebuilding when the war ended. Hope stung her eyes with lost dreams. She wasn’t ready for that part yet. Blinking her vision clear, her gaze fell on the soft glow of the GPS tracker. Memories of the strange phenomena Arinna had witnessed earlier resurfaced. The location was on the way to Command. Well, it was close enough for a detour. And she could check out the air base to see if anything remained in case they wanted to salvage more.
The brick building with its glass entryway lay shattered. A corner dissolved into a crater, bits of the remaining building cascading downward in a small landslide as she flew over. Even if there were anything left to salvage resting in the below-ground hallways, it would take a lot of equipment to dig it out. And looking at the size of the crater swallowing the building, Arinna doubted there was much remaining anyway. Especially when one rainstorm would destroy the electronic equipment.
Ahead, the damaged power grid continued to arc, although she doubted it would last much longer. Towers leaned close, wires nearly crossing. If it didn’t ground itself out, the power station was sure to deliver the last of its output. The day of fighting spawned a maverick urge. Arinna fired at the mishmash of lines. The lasers never touched them.
The beams dissolved. No, they were absorbed into a halo of energy. The pulse of extra power flared around the small transfer station in a bubble, transmitting along the damaged lines with an angry buzz. Arinna hovered the dactyl a distance away, giving her a wide view. She fired again. The effect was the same. A shield of power flared to visible around the lines, saving them and the building. Arinna released a puff of breath. It didn’t seem possible, but she’d just witnessed it.
Cautiously, she set the dactyl down outside the invisible halo. The day had faded to dusk. Around the crossed lines, a light aura glowed in the night. She was tired and hungry. Server pieces were scattered across the cargo bay of the dactyl and held plans that could gain them a chance of victory. But the mystery before her captivated. Just to be sure, she shot it again.
The dying glow flared to life once more, power hissing around the shield from the point of impact. Oh, she had to figure out what was happening.
One more pulse with the lasers and Arinna mentally noted the edge of the shield on the ground. It’d stopped bombs and lasers. She wasn’t too keen on discovering what it did to organic compounds accidentally. Dropping the back hatch, she stepped foot onto soil for the first time in half a day. The aroma of plants and ash struck her. Flying disconnected her from the world while making her realize how interconnected it all was when she landed.
Near the invisible shield, the air crackled and stood the hair on her arms on end. A stick tossed toward it bounced backwards with a snap that smelled of ozone. That impressed her. She’d stay up till dawn if that were what it took to unravel what made the effect. Images of the destroyed buildings she’d seen overlaid the small and unharmed station setting at the center of the shield and fueled her with a burst of energy
“How are things at Command,” Arinna asked into her comm.
“Hectic,” Kehm replied. “Repairs are underway for damaged critical systems. MOTHER and Parliament have both requested reports.”
“Jared or Farrak back yet?”
“Negative. Both are enroute and should arrive within the hour.” Kehm paused. “Why aren’t you moving?”
“Send a very brief report to both MOTHER and Parliament outlining the attack, that the threat was dealt with, and that we will know more tomorrow. There is no more FLF movement, right?” Arinna dreaded the answer.
“Correct. No movement. I think we are in the clear for tonight.”
“Hopefully for longer than that. It must have taken the FLF a significant amount of time and resources to pull this off.”
“Agreed. You think that it might have been a desperate gamble?” Kehm asked.
“We can hope.”
“So why aren’t you enroute, my Lady?”
Arinna huffed a laugh at the tentative tone in Kehm’s voice. And that he’d continued to use her unofficial title. She might have to get used to it. Maybe.
“Tell Captain Vries I found something I need to check out. I’ll be late coming in.”
Arinna cut off Kehm’s reluctant affirmative.