Invasion: China (Invasion America) (Volume 5) Read online

  LEVIN: I’m not sure I understand. You plan to put Special Forces on the ground in China?

  MCGRAW: Yes and no.

  LEVIN: That doesn’t make sense.

  MCGRAW: Yes, they’ll be on the ground in Southeast Asia. No, they won’t be Special Forces.

  LEVIN: What will they be?

  MCGRAW: Powered armored Marines.

  LEVIN: Is this a joke?

  MCGRAW: I assure you, this is reality.

  LEVIN: But we don’t have powered armored Marines, whatever they are.

  MCGRAW: Not yet, we don’t. We’re working on it even now.

  LEVIN: What does powered armored Marine even mean?

  MCGRAW: Men in special battlesuits able to deploy directly from space to anywhere on Earth—we’re hoping to have them within a year.

  LEVIN: From space?

  MCGRAW: From near orbital space, that is correct.

  LEVIN: How do they help us exactly?

  MCGRAW: Admittedly, we’re developing and manufacturing the prototype armor suits as we speak. Most of the design features already work. The tactical nuclear weapons are proving the most difficult.

  LEVIN: I envision problems with your plan.

  HAROLD: (Clears his throat.) That’s one of the reasons I requested your presence, Doctor. We want to hear your objections.

  LEVIN: Well, you haven’t said how you’re going to put these Marines into orbit in any kind of meaningful numbers.

  HAROLD: Have you ever heard about Project Orion?

  LEVIN: No.

  HAROLD: General, if you would be so kind…

  MCGRAW: The Air Force worked on the basic concept and design from 1957 to 1965.

  LEVIN: This is old technology then?

  MCGRAW: In one sense, you’re right. What we’re suggesting is off the shelf technology, although we can do it better than what the scientists conceived in 1957 could do. By 1965, they were making feasibility studies for a trip to Mars.

  LEVIN: Project Orion concerns building a spaceship?

  MCGRAW: Back in the 1950s, there were all kinds of ideas about exploring the Solar System. The trouble was their engines and propellants. Chemical rockets need vast size to loft tiny payloads into orbit. Our ICBMs are an example of that. If we used chemical rockets, we could only lift a handful of Marines into orbit. For useful combat purposes, we need at least a battalion, over one thousand men. Luckily for us, Project Orion involved lifting tons instead of mere pounds into space.

  LEVIN: I get the feeling I’m not going to like your answer.

  MCGRAW: Some might consider it extreme, but it is scientifically feasible. The answer is a lift vehicle powered by nuclear bombs.

  LEVIN: Bombs?

  MCGRAW: They will be the propellant.

  LEVIN: You’re serious?

  MCGRAW: As I said, this was a feasible project with 1950’s technology. We will construct the Orion ship to absorb the tremendous blasts. The power of the bombs gives the vessel incredible liftoff capability. By building several such Orion ships, we will be able by next year to put a battalion of powered armored Marines into orbit. From there, they could reach anywhere in the world.

  LEVIN: A thousand men…you’d need big haulers.

  MCGRAW: Each Orion ship—what we can put in orbit—will roughly be the size of a five-story hotel.

  LEVIN: That big? I don’t see how one bomb gives it enough boost to get into orbit.

  MCGRAW: One bomb can’t.

  LEVIN: Then—

  MCGRAW: Every few seconds, a bomb drops into the blast bay, explodes and accelerates the massive ship higher. It will take many bombs per ship.

  LEVIN: You say “many.” You’re talking about thermonuclear explosions. That means in order to lift our ships we will be bombing ourselves.

  MCGRAW: In an empty, already damaged part of the country, yes, that’s true.

  LEVIN: This is too farfetched to believe.

  HAROLD: I assure you it is not. Project Orion was always feasible. America lost her will in 1965, and shelved the idea. Now the will has returned, out of desperation.

  MCGRAW: That isn’t entirely true—I mean about shelving the idea. NASA kept blueprints and specs in case they needed to build an Orion ship fast.

  LEVIN: For what possible reason?

  MCGRAW: In case a killer asteroid headed toward Earth. They would quickly build an Orion ship and send it out to deflect the world destroyer.

  LEVIN: You can’t be serious.

  MCGRAW: It’s in the history books, Doctor, although it isn’t a well-known fact.

  LEVIN: Hmm…I’m beginning to see. The THOR missiles give us tremendous advantages. Orbital space is a new battleground. High technology combined with elite soldiers—your plan sounds insane, and yet, I can see how it could work with Indian allies.

  HAROLD: It isn’t our only solution. Reviving the Grain Union could help us leverage others. If we can get India or Russia to attack China, Hong will have to withdraw his forces from Mexico.

  LEVIN: If we see that, others will too.

  HAROLD: Which is why we need Argentina and Australia. If we can corner the food market in a starving world…

  LEVIN: You have ambitious plans.

  HAROLD: We are Americans. What we need from you, sir, is help with Premier Konev.

  LEVIN: Yes, I can see that. Well, first, let me suggest…

  THE STRATOSPHERE

  Master Sergeant Paul Kavanagh felt nauseous as the stratospheric balloon continued to ascend at one thousand feet per minute. The back of his throat burned, and it felt as if his stomach would erupt. He hadn’t taken his anti-nausea pill earlier, and now he realized that had been a mistake.

  He and four fellow powered armor Marine trainees waited in pressure suits, although they had yet to don their helmets. They sat inside a special capsule that dangled from the polyethylene balloon. This was to be their latest free fall drop, the first one from the stratosphere and the first one from a balloon-carried capsule.

  Paul checked the monitor. The five of them faced inward, staring at a tri-screen. Their great enemy had been wind earlier. It could have literally torn the balloon apart. The worst time had been during their ascent through the troposphere—30,000 to 60,000 feet—where turbulence was common.

  At the secret launch site in Montana, the helium inflatable had been tall and thin, stretching fifty-five stories high. As the giant balloon rose, it slowly filled out, and would reach an almost completely round shape at 120,000 feet, or twenty-three miles from sea level, their destination.

  “We’re slowing down,” Romo said.

  Paul checked the numbers at the bottom of the tri-screen. Yeah. They were leveling off as they approached their float height, now rising at approximately 750 feet per minute.

  They were in near space, still part of Earth’s atmosphere. Here, though, there was very little air. Still, it was enough resistance that it generated too much drag for satellites to remain in orbit. Those flew much higher.

  It was dark outside, with the great blue of Earth spreading in every direction below. This was space, near space, and it made the planet more precious than ever. What had the Chinese been thinking, using nearly four hundred nuclear devices in Oklahoma? The world was huge, sure, but to poison it like that…

  Paul shook his head. They weren’t in outer space, in vacuum yet. Just the same, none of them could survive outside here.

  He recalled some data about their capsule and the stratosphere. The outer shell of this little pod was fiberglass and paint, with heavy foam insulation. That protected them from the current temperature: minus 70 degrees Fahrenheit. Nor could they breathe outside on their own here. The pressure would be so low that the liquids in their body tissues would turn to gas and expand dangerously. The symptom was called embolism.

  Nausea hit again, although Paul masked it from the others. Keeping his face like stone, he pretended nothing was wrong.

  Crazy orbital dropping Marines—what was I thinking joining up?

  He
peered at the monitor, at the blue curvature of the Earth. It was so beautiful. Cheri is down there. I’m coming home, babe. I promise you that, by God, I do.

  Yeah. He knew what he’d been thinking. For one thing, that he’d had enough of nuclear war. He didn’t want to be running outside on the ground again when the Chinese popped off another round of atomic strikes. Forget that garbage!

  In Oklahoma near Stillwater, watching the mushroom clouds climb into the horizon, five different columns spread across the horizon—whew! It had done something to him. He’d been fighting the Chinese for some time. He didn’t like the damn invaders, but in his mind, the Chinese and Brazilians were no worse than the Germans of last year. Until that moment lying on the ground, watching the radiation clouds rise, it hadn’t been personal in a gut-check way. With his NBC equipment working, listening to the filters cycle his air, watching the end of the world— Yeah. That’s what it had felt like. The Chinese wanted to end the world. Lighting off those babies made it a different ballgame. He couldn’t defend his wife anymore by fighting on the front lines, or behind enemy lines. He fought to keep the enemy far away from his home. But if the Chinese deployed thermonuclear weapons…there was no protecting people from that while running around on the battlefield as a Recon Marine.

  As Paul stared at the Earthly blue of his planet, he realized something else, too. He’d refused to think about it before this.

  A grin tightened his lips.

  This was better than talking to a shrink—contemplation time as he floated into position while riding a stratospheric balloon. Seeing the curve of the Earth, the sheer beauty, the uniqueness of the planet—it gave him perspective. It let him admit some things to himself that otherwise he’d kept buried deep inside.

  Back near Stillwater, Oklahoma, as he’d been stretched on the ground watching those mushroom clouds grow, terror had coursed through his body. He’d been scared before, but never like that. It had been worse than the time against the AI Kaiser in Toronto, Ontario against the GD. How did one fight nukes? At least a guy could find a way to take out a smart tank.

  Yeah, the terror had changed his thinking. Paul hated hopelessness. Feeling his gut tighten like that…

  As he sat in the capsule, the grin turned into a silent snarl. To be hopeless made him angry. There had to be a way to hit back against the Chinese. Until that moment in Oklahoma, he would have been content to drive the invaders out of the country. Lying there, with his guts sick with terror, Paul had wanted to strike back at them. The Chinese wanted to come to America and play their filthy games, well baby, they were going to learn what a pissed-off, angry American could do.

  Paul had volunteered when a general asked him if he wanted to join an elite team to take the war overseas. Hell yeah, he jumped on that bandwagon. If the enemy wanted to drop nukes— Now you’re fighting me, Mr. Chinaman. Now you’re pissing in my face and calling it Cool Aid, and laughing about it.

  That’s why he was sitting in this capsule, with nausea threatening to make him puke. That’s why he wanted to be a powered armored Marine, one of the first. He didn’t know the exact plan, but he knew it meant an orbital drop into enemy territory. He knew it meant exotic science fiction weapons and some kind of funky new battle armor.

  This was the worst kind of war, more brutal than a knife fight. He’d made his promise to Cheri. With all his might, he would try to come home. First, he had to finish the war and make it safe for his wife and boy. Otherwise, what was the point anyway, right?

  Paul exhaled, and tried not to squirm. The capsule continued to rise at 750 feet per minute. How much longer was this going to take?

  Ten minutes later, the ground controller radioed, “You’re approaching deployment height.”

  Romo picked up his helmet. Paul grabbed his.

  “Seeing this,” Romo said, as he indicted Earth. “It makes you think.”

  “Yeah,” Paul said. “It does at that.”

  “Where is Mexico and where is America?”

  “Down there.”

  “Si. Down there, together, one.”

  The other three trainees glanced at Romo.

  “You’re turning into a romantic,” Paul said.

  “Maybe I am,” Romo said, with a thoughtful look on his hard features. “I’ve never seen the Earth like this. I have been thinking.”

  “I suppose we all have,” Paul said.

  The others nodded in agreement.

  “It is too bad we must war on each other,” Romo said.

  “It is what it is,” Paul said.

  “Will men always fight and kill each other?” Romo asked, with uncharacteristic lines appearing in the man’s forehead.

  “Seems like it to me. We’re not angels, although sometimes I wonder if we’re devils.”

  “Si. I suppose you are right: men will always fight. It is too bad.” The former assassin sighed.

  Paul wanted to needle Romo about his reflective moment, but he didn’t have it in him, not up here floating above Earth.

  Quietly, with the clunk of metal, the five trainees donned their helmets.

  Paul twisted his until he heard it latch. Then he began to check his suit’s seals. After he finished the rundown, he turned on the pressure unit, listening to it hiss. Once he opened the capsule’s hatch, the full-pressure suit would be his only protection until he reached the lower, safer levels of the atmosphere. The suit could protect him from extreme variations: from plus 100 degrees Fahrenheit to minus 90.

  Checking a gauge, he saw that it had pressurized to 3.5 pounds per square inch, the rough equivalent of the atmospheric pressure at 35,000 feet. The suit would protect him from embolism, and it would prevent decompression sickness, or the “bends,” as he plummeted back to Earth.

  He continued to check his equipment, making sure the chutes were in place and ready to deploy. The five of them were thick bundles now, in this small compartment, five mortals in a place men had no right to be.

  I’m not even an astronaut, a spaceman. I’m just an orbital dropping wannabe. He’d never expected something like this. Even though he was in his forties, it brought back some of that feeling of his twenties when he’d first joined the Marines. It was good to feel that, made him seem alive.

  “Sergeant Kavanagh,” the ground controller said. “You will move to the hatch.”

  Working on his suit and chutes had kept him busy. That had kept the nausea at bay. The order triggered it again. Could fear be doing that? He didn’t want to admit such a thing, not even to himself.

  Paul began to unbuckle. Try as he might not to, he dry heaved as he did it.

  You should have taken the anti-nausea pill. He didn’t like them. They made him feel achy and sleepy. Yet the DIs and other trainers had relentlessly drummed one thing into them. They must listen exactly to the instructions.

  Paul recalled the first time they’d told him that. “This is a brand new endeavor, recruit. You’re trying to become a new kind of Marine in the space age. There’s never been an orbital drop before. You live by our rules, or we flush you like an unwanted goldfish. Do you understand?”

  How many times had they asked him that? He’d signed forms, etc., etc. They still harped on perfect obedience.

  I’m not a dog. I’m a man.

  Yeah. They wouldn’t care about that. If he threw up in his pressure suit…they would know he hadn’t taken the anti-nausea pill. He didn’t want them to know, because they might flush Paul Kavanagh out of the program. He couldn’t fail. He had to pass. He had to become a space-dropping specialist so he could pay back the Chinese for making him scared in Oklahoma.

  “Sergeant Kavanagh?” the ground controller asked.

  He chinned on his communit. “Getting to the hatch now,” he muttered.

  “Your pulse rate is higher than normal.”

  “What?”

  “We’re monitoring your pulse rate. Are you feeling well?”

  “I’m feeling super,” he said.

  “Sergeant Kavanagh, s
trict honesty is the policy. If you cannot comply—”

  “Your systems must be goofy,” Paul said. “I’ve never felt better.”

  “Return to your seat, Sergeant.”

  “Negative,” Paul said. “I’m doing this.”

  The other four candidates swiveled their visors to watch him.

  Paul stood, taking the step to the hatch. He dry heaved once more.

  “Did you take your anti-nausea pill?” the ground controller asked.

  Paul realized his internal communit was still broadcasting. A trickle of sweat beaded down his forehead. He felt awful. With his chin, he turned off the comm and dry heaved so vomit burned the back of his throat.

  Ignore it. Get on with the job.

  He couldn’t ignore it. He dry heaved again and feelings of claustrophobia struck. So, he pressed a switch and his visor slid opened. He exhaled, saw the others watching him and closed the visor. Slowly, as the suit re-pressurized, he reached the hatch.

  “Sergeant Kavanagh, you must know we have a visual of the capsule. Are you vomiting?”

  “It’s no big deal,” he radioed. “A few dry heaves.”

  “Did you forget to take the anti-nausea pill?”

  “No, I didn’t forget. I just didn’t do it.”

  “You disobeyed a direct order?”

  “Yeah, I guess I did.”

  “At least he’s being honest,” someone down there said.

  “You will sit down—”

  “No,” Paul said. “If I’ve just flushed out of the program, I’m at least going to do one drop.”

  “No,” the ground controller said. “If you—”

  “Let him do it,” another man said. “I’m curious if someone in his condition can do it without a pill.”

  Despite the nausea, the next few minutes were amazing. First, Paul decompressed the compartment. It wouldn’t do for him to open the hatch and have the escaping air expel outside before he was ready.

  “Are you in position?” the ground controller asked.

  “Roger that,” Paul said. He moved a lever, turned a wheel and swung open the hatch. Then he looked outside. The Earth was below in its glorious panorama. He could see the curvature of the planet and marveled once more at its bluish atmosphere. Far down below was the United States of America. He was going to land down there in Montana, if he could summon the guts to leap.