Invasion: New York ia-4 Read online

  By using night vision equipment, Hans watched American soldiers in body armor slithering through rubble toward GD lines. They came like a wave, a tide. They didn’t have a chance.

  “Incoming,” the lieutenant colonel said in his loud voice. “No one should attack yet. Operator 63, what do you think you’re doing?”

  Hans glanced at his radar set. A fool—it had to be the Spaniard—had already raced his Sigrid into battle. The machine now backed up fast. The superior would have the man’s head if the Spaniard lost the drone before the main fighting.

  Over the set and into his ears, Hans heard GD quake shells striking the enemy. The artillery was on time, as usual. The shells exploded and shredded crawling Americans into bits and bloody chunks. The barrage lasted two minutes of hurricane bombardment. Then the GD artillery stopped.

  “Advance!” the lieutenant colonel said. “Hunt and destroy.”

  Hans twitched his fingers, the manipulation gloves moved and his drone lurched to the attack. What must it be like for an American soldier in the battle zone? His Sigrid’s treads churned. Over the headphones, he heard gravel crunch.

  “Ten nineteen!” the company commander shouted.

  Hans flipped visual to camera three—the other quadrants vanished. He pressed for zoom and saw them: five crawling Americans dragging a heavy machine gun and a Javelin launcher.

  “No,” Hans told them. “You may not approach our HK.”

  With skilled manipulation, Hans attacked, using the tri-barrel. He had infrared tracers, and watched through camera three. The heavy rounds tore into body armor and blew the Americans apart.

  One of them lived, although the man’s left leg had ceased to exist. The soldier should be bleeding to death. Instead, the brute American tried to set up the .50 caliber.

  Hans laughed at the foolishness of the attempt, and he charged the enemy soldier. He’d always wanted to do this. Instead of finishing off the man with a machine gun, he would crush him to death with the treads.

  “72!” the company commander, a captain, shouted. “What are you doing?”

  Hans flicked his fingers. Tri-barrels chattered in a burst, and the American died in a hail of bullets.

  “I’m killing them, sir,” Hans said.

  “This isn’t a game, Sergeant.”

  “Yes, sir, I understand.”

  “I don’t want you killing with treads.”

  Hans scowled. Some of the others bragged about tread killing. The captain had gotten wise to that, and no doubt had orders to stick to procedure.

  I have to get tread kills. But it will be harder now with the captain watching. Damn, Luger, how does he always think of these things first?

  Sergeant Luger sat beside him, running Sigrid #71. He was sandy-haired with freckles and had buck teeth.

  “Hey,” Luger said to him.

  Hans glanced at his friend.

  “Tough luck,” Luger said, grinning. “Maybe next time you can get one.”

  Hans lifted a manipulation glove and gave Luger the finger.

  “Sergeant Kruger!” the captain shouted.

  Hans hunched his shoulders. The captain could be a prick sometimes. Scowling, he decided to take it out on the Americans. Look at them come. They raced to their deaths. Who could figure out the American losers?

  The 10th Panzer-Grenadier Battalion proceeded to destroy the American attackers. What did the enemy commander think he was doing anyway? They should have stayed in their foxholes and kept hidden in the rubble. They could have lived another several days or possibly even a week that way. Hans couldn’t understand American thinking. Whatever it took to stay alive, that’s what you did. There were no exceptions.

  “At least they’re making it easy on us,” Hans whispered to Luger.

  “They’re idiots,” Luger said. “There’s nothing they can do to beat us.”

  “Of course not,” Hans said. “They’re too old-fashioned, too stuck in the past to do anything more but scrape a little paint off our Sigrids.”

  They both glanced at the company commander. He was busy speaking to the lieutenant colonel.

  “How many have you killed tonight?” Luger whispered. “I’ve obliterated seventeen of them so far.”

  “Fifteen,” Hans said, in an envious voice.

  Luger laughed.

  It made Hans double down and begin searching for more enemies. If he couldn’t tread any of these soldiers, at least he could chalk up a higher kill number than Luger. That might also help keep the captain off his butt and let him get a treading later.

  Drone wars, Hans decided, were much better than a computer-generated video game. This was real life and real death, and it was a whole lot more fun because of it.

  OTTAWA, ONTARIO

  General Mansfeld stood in the GD Expeditionary Force HQ Operational Center. He watched the American assault in Toronto and he tried to decipher their reasoning.

  Huge screens hung on the walls. It was like being at King’s Table in Dusseldorf during the soccer playoffs. Well, minus the odor of beer and the sound of drunken cheers every time the home team scored. At King’s Table, screens stood side by side and one atop the other on the walls. Everywhere one peered, one saw massed soccer. Here in Ottawa, it was mass walls of war as seen through the night vision cameras of Sigrids and HKs.

  A major handed General Mansfeld a cup of coffee. The trim former Olympic athlete accepted the cup and sipped as he watched a screen. An AI Kaiser HK—a machine known as “Hindenburg”—supplied the images of this screen.

  It showed a nighttime wasteland of rubble and the stumps of buildings. Smoke rose from the nearest. Once, this area had been the heart of Toronto’s financial district. Now, instead of accountants, enemy tanks approached. American infantry flanked the big machines. More soldiers on foot followed in back.

  Three Kaisers to take on eight M1s and assorted GIs, Mansfeld mused. I didn’t know the Americans had so many tanks left in the city.

  Mansfeld handed the cup back to the major. The general then eased forward and touched an operator’s shoulder.

  The captain sitting before him stiffened and twisted his head around. The man had a small crossed bones earring. “Yes, sir?” he asked.

  “Are you in communication with…with Hindenburg?” At the last minute, Mansfeld remembered that AI liaison officers liked to refer to their machines as people and certainly by name. It was odd. It was even a little disconcerting. But Mansfeld wanted information and knew that it helped to put these liaison officers at ease by complying with their rituals.

  “Yes, I am communicating, sir,” the captain said.

  “I’d like to hear the exchange,” Mansfeld said.

  The captain paused for a half-moment, although he obviously kept himself from frowning. Mansfeld found both things interesting. AI liaison officers were like jealous Canine Corps handlers in the attachment to their creatures. Quite odd, if one thought about it. Finally, the captain moved a finger of his manipulation glove.

  A speaker with a metallic voice came online. “Probability indicators show the M1A3s will tack onto grid 2-B-12. The first Abrams will commence firing in…six seconds. I wish them to—”

  “Fire now,” Mansfeld said, bending down and speaking into the liaison microphone.

  In shock, the liaison officer opened his mouth. “Sir, Hindenburg knows how to—”

  “Fire,” Mansfeld said, with bite to his words. “I have ordered you to fire. Why do you delay?”

  “I must confirm your authority,” Hindenburg said in its metallic voice.

  “Confirm me,” Mansfeld told the captain.

  The liaison officer tapped his screen. “Hindenburg, the commanding officer of the GD Expeditionary Force has given you a direct order. You will obey.”

  “I am initiating battle zone override,” Hindenburg said. “If you will notice, please: the first M1A3 has stopped short, indicating the crew plans to fire. My prediction is off by two seconds, although the end results will be the same.”


  On screen, a squat 175mm cannon roared with great effect. At the same instant, two other Kaiser main guns opened fire.

  General Mansfeld watched with absorption. He mentally filed it away for later study the Kaiser’s possible insubordination. At present, the attack met with his approval.

  The Kaisers were efficient and sudden death for the old American tanks. Once, the M1s had ruled the world through superior technology. There had not been a tank around able to compete against the Americans. Tonight, in Toronto, the Americans became like the Republican Guard of Saddam Hussein in the deserts of Kuwait back in 1991. Yes, most of the Abrams tanks fired their cannons once. Those shells did nothing, as the Kaisers intercepted each shell with a 25mm autocannon and a mathematically sound formula with the beehive flechettes. No, Mansfeld took that back. Three high-velocity shells found the armored hide of the lead Kaiser, of Hindenburg.

  “My glacis has taken a twenty-seven percent hull hit,” Hindenburg informed them, “a thirty-three percent strike and a forty-nine percent. None has breached my armor.”

  The AI meant how far each shell had gone into the glacis before stopping.

  “I repeat,” Hindenburg said, “there was no penetration. I maintain a ninety-six percent capacity.”

  The speed of the Kaiser’s turret and ability to elevate or lower its cannon amazed Mansfeld. He watched the salvos butcher the remaining M1s. At the last moment, two Abrams retreated through the rubble, racing to get behind two buildings. None of it mattered. The Kaisers blasted the last Abrams first, blowing its turret clean off, and they killed the second M1 moments later, leaving two smoke-billowing hulks.

  In less than two minutes, the tank battle was over. It was a complete victory for GD arms.

  “You can turn off the speaker,” Mansfeld told the liaison officer.

  The captain seemed grateful.

  “I will speak to you after the battle,” Mansfeld said. “I want to get to the bottom of possible AI insubordination.”

  The captain licked his lips before saying, “Yes, sir.”

  Mansfeld nodded in a reflective manner. What he’d just witnessed is what he had been talking about in Berlin. Not Hindenburg’s insubordination, but that GD equipment was one or sometimes two generations ahead of the American field equipment. The enemy could not compete with them. Oh, there were the Behemoth tanks. But as of now, those three hundred ton monsters remained in Oklahoma, facing the Chinese.

  The enemy had courage. It was impossible to deny, nor did he want to. Yet Mansfeld suspected the courage was partly born out of ignorance. Once the Americans realized how inferior they were, their courage would wilt. This was going to be a hard lesson for the Americans to learn. The Chinese had mass and they had some good technology. The GD had vastly superior equipment and training. And the GD had him. He was the one general who knew how to take these superiorities and turn them into a devastating advantage.

  Frankly, if he were the Americans, he would be doing everything in his power to kill him. He was the focal node in this campaign. With him, the GD would be grossly invincible and crush all opposition in the fastest time possible. Without him, the conquest would take longer. But the facts where the facts. The Americans and their Canadian allies simply didn’t have the weapons to compete with the GD.

  After witnessing this, Mansfeld realized that nothing could save the Americans, nothing other than a supernatural event. But since supernatural events did not occur…

  Mansfeld signaled the major, waving him near with a single finger. He wanted a fresh cup of coffee. The ease of the Kaiser victory gave him an idea. Yes… he needed to exploit the Kaisers better than he was doing.

  -5-

  Tenth Battalion HQ

  PARIS, ILE DE FRANCE

  John Red Cloud’s face hurt because he had been smiling, it seemed to him, for endless weeks now. He hadn’t realized how difficult it would be to move around the various European enclaves.

  In old Canada, races mingled easily. In Quebec, there had been a large native culture. In Normandy and the Ile de France—the two French enclaves he’d traveled through—he had seen a ninety-five percent majority of white people. Twenty-five years ago, it had been different. Much of France had been immigrant Muslim then, with people from all over the Middle East, Turkey and Africa. That had radically changed fifteen years ago with the riots, near civil wars and finally with the vast deportations of the non-natives. It had been an ugly time, and from it had arisen the German Dominion.

  John noticed several oddities here, at least compared to how people did things in Quebec. First, there was much greater automation. Second, he hardly spied any children. He recalled reading somewhere that Europe had a shrinking population. Instead of cheaply hired immigrants, the Europeans used robots. That included a million cameras. John felt an itch along his back wherever he went. What made it worse were the people. The French as a whole cast him dark, suspicious glances. He felt like a pariah, an outsider. It was only a matter of time until the police picked him up and discovered that he wasn’t Jacques Pickard as his ID proclaimed.

  He strode down a Paris suburb with his hands in his jacket pockets. Cars passed, and the drivers cast him dirty looks. In an attempt to offset their hostility, John did something difficult, something foreign to his nature. He smiled, trying to project a friendly attitude. He was certain it fooled no one. But like a hunter wearing a buffalo hide to sneak near a herd, he did it anyway.

  As John saw it, he had three options. One, he could return to Quebec and kill GD authorities there or perhaps gather a group of likeminded Algonquians and create a death squad. Two, he could continue his lone way through Europe until he reached the capital of Berlin. There, he would seek a shot at Kleist. Three, he could throw himself on the mercy of the French secret service and ask for help—actually, he would throw himself on the mercy of the one agent he knew to be hostile to the Germans.

  John’s nostrils flared, and he started to scowl, when a green BMW slowly moved down the street toward him. The car had darkly tinted windows, hiding whoever sat inside. That caused uneasiness between John’s shoulders. Despite the ache to his facial muscles, he forced himself to grin stupidly like some McDonald’s worker.

  Unfortunately, he lacked a gun, knife or even brass knuckles. Too many places had automated detectors. He had barely escaped twice already and had decided to no longer chance fate. He felt naked and exposed without weapons, and forced himself to keep his hands open and relaxed.

  The BMW slowed the closer it came. John refused to glance at it, but he knew this was bad. He had to decide here and now how he planned to proceed. If he went home, he admitted defeat. It would be the safer course, but he hadn’t stepped onto this path to play it safe. He would gladly trade his life to take down the treacherous leader who had betrayed the Algonquians. His wife was dead. His children were dead. All he had left was his people and his pride. The GD automated armies sliced through the Canadians and Americans. The North Americans could not win.

  I must remain on my chosen path. I killed men to reach this place. I cannot stain their deaths by quitting. I must persevere to the end. If I die…I die.

  Red Cloud knew a moment of great calm. He had chosen the path of death in order to serve justice. He was a walking dead man, a hormagaunt. That gave him power, and the power would help him overcome those in the BMW…if he acted boldly, like a sleepwalker, and continued straight at his enemy on the path of death.

  The smile on his face no longer hurt his muscles. For a brief moment, the smile became genuine, if ghastly and chilling. He stopped on the sidewalk and faced the BMW pacing him. Then he indicated that the driver should lower the tinted window.

  The large car continued moving a moment longer, although it slowed to less than John’s former pace. It seemed as if the driver hesitated. Then a motor whirred and the window slid down smoothly.

  A square-faced, blond-haired man regarded him.

  Still smiling with his acceptance of death, John approached the driv
er. The man frowned, and he reached into his suit jacket.

  John bent down as if to talk, and nodded to the other man in the passenger seat. He waited for the right moment, and he could tell both of these were deadly men. The driver removed his hand from underneath the jacket. John had a glimpse of a leather holster. The man held a compact pistol, and he began reversing the barrel so he could no doubt point it out the window.

  Your time has come, John Red Cloud. Step through the Death Gate and accept your fate.

  John moved with that deceptive speed of his. The driver brought up his gun, the barrel almost aligned for a shot. John stepped to the window and reached in with a rattlesnake’s swiftness. Surprise flooded the driver’s face, a flush of red. Then anger followed with a heavy frown. By then it was too late for the driver. One of John’s scarred hands gripped the driver’s wrist, twisting hard. His other hand plucked the compact pistol out of the man’s grip. It was neatly done and successful because he had become a hormagaunt. Death or the threat of it no longer fazed him.

  “Damnit,” the driver said. “You can’t do that.”

  The passenger recognized the danger first. John could see it in the man’s eyes, the dilation of his pupils. The man reached into his suit jacket. Therefore, John shot the passenger first, two bullets in the chest and one in the neck. The passenger flopped, and crashed against the passenger-side door.

  The driver looked at his friend and then looked into the smoking barrel of John’s gun.

  “No,” the driver said.

  With his smile still frozen in place, John shot three times more, obliterating the driver’s features. The man didn’t flop or jackknife anywhere, because his seatbelt kept him securely in place.

  John didn’t bother looking around to see if anyone had witnessed this. He was on the death path. That gave him power and it gave him extraordinary luck. Instead of looking around and wasting time, he dropped the gun into a jacket pocket. Then he tried to open the driver’s door. It was locked. John reached within and opened it from the inside.