Flash fiction thread

[James G]

Timmy was five years-old. He liked climbing. He had no fear of heights, none at all. Anything tall he saw, especially so much taller than he, Timmy wanted to climb up it. He was always getting told off for climbing. His mum, his dad, his auntie, his teachers, adults everywhere and, worse than them all, his big sister, who thought she was his boss, would tell him off. They would say that he would fall and hurt himself. Yet he had never fallen and knew in his heart that he never would. He was careful. Timmy knew what he was doing.

There was a tree at the bottom of his garden, right at the very end where the fence was with the railway line behind. Timmy had been up and down that tree seemingly hundreds of times. He stood at the base of it this afternoon with his neighbour Jessica at his side. She was eight, bigger than he was with her more years, and told him that the tree was too high to climb. He asked her if she didn’t want him to climb it then? Didn’t she want him to get her kite that was stuck in it? She shook her head, looked up at her kite and told him that she wanted her kite back. Timmy said that when he got it back, not if, he would be allowed to play with it sometimes too, yes? Jessica told him maybe… but first he had to get the kite back. The deal was good enough for him. The second she agreed, he was climbing that tree. Up he went and after him Jessica shouted for him to be careful. He got up the trunk to where the first big branch was. When there, Timmy looked towards the house and where the back door was. He saw no sign of his aunt nor his sister either. He imagined one of them coming out shouting for him to get down if they saw him. He laughed, knowing that he wouldn’t be caught. Jessica called up. She told him to be careful not to break her kite when he got it. Timmy shouted back down to her asking just how he could break a kite? He thought that a stupid thing to say! He looked up further above him and saw the bottom of the string. Guessing, Timmy thought that if he could reach that, he wouldn’t have to go any further up than he was. He liked climbing the tree as high as possible but he wanted to get Jessica’s kite down as fast as possible and then have her let him play with it. He would like his own kite but hers would do.

Timmy reached out for the string once his footing was sure. He stretched his arm and even willed his fingers to grow just a little bit more. Timmy almost had hold of the string… almost...

When he hit the ground – with her kite still in the tree too she took time to notice –, Jessica screamed. In the blink of an eye, Timmy came out of the tree and was on the ground. She knew he was hurt bad so she did what seemed best and screamed. The sight of his leg and all of that blood kept her screaming until Katie, whom she didn’t like one bit, and then Timmy’s aunt, whatever her name was, and who was nice, both came running out of the house. Timmy was hurt, Jessica knew that, but she did also think about her kite still stuck in his tree too. Perhaps that was bad, she told herself, but it was her favourite kite.



Lisa Warberry, mother to little Timothy Smith-Warberry, was out of her office and in a black taxi taking her to King’s Cross straight after getting the call from her sister. Her diary secretary had begun to make arrangements for Lisa to travel back home up north before Lisa started moving. Her sister Claire had said that she was taking Timmy to hospital straight away without waiting for an ambulance and had left Katie with Jessica’s mother. Three hours, Lisa had assured her, and I’ll be there. Her own call to David, her ex-husband, wasn’t answered just as Claire’s hadn’t been. Lisa tried once again when in the taxi taking her from out on Whitehall towards the train station yet she received no answer. Noting some of what was going on, the driver asked her what was up. She told him that her son had been in an accident back up home in Yorkshire and she was racing home as fast as quick as she could. There was a train she was aiming to meet. The driver promised she’d get that train. He had intended to take the shortest route once he picked her up but sought to knock a bit off that too when his passenger told him her story and it was clear that she really needed to meet that train. While not endangering himself, her, anyone else nor his license, he pushed the envelope a bit on what was acceptable cutting through afternoon traffic in Central London and what really wasn’t.

Halfway through the journey, going around Gordon Square near to University College London and the British Museum, the driver asked Lisa if he knew her. Was she on the telly or something? Yep, she was. In the middle of checking the details on the ticket which her secretary had sent her to use to get the train, she told him her name and her job: she was an MP up in Yorkshire and also the Secretary of State for International Trade & Development. Lisa wasn’t in the news much, she admitted, but that would be where he knew her from. The driver related some of the names of the famous and important he’d had in his taxi before and told her that he’d add her to that list.

When they reached King’s Cross, Lisa was dropped off as close as possible to the entrance. She paid the driver via her phone, tipping him a decent amount too and thanked him for his haste. He wished her well and said that he hoped her son would be okay. Kids are tough, he finished with, and they get through things. Lisa got through the station with more haste than she had ever before. She was soon aboard, a whole six minutes before departure for the run up to Howden. It was a trip which she had made many times. Home was there, where her family lived. There was a flat in London, one close for work where she spent a lot of time, still, a Northern Lass through and through, Yorkshire was where home always was for her. The train left King’s Cross just as David finally called her back. Lisa gave him an ear-bashing, earning a good few stern but also curious looks from other passengers. Why the heck hadn’t he picked up his phone? It was important, it was about Timmy! What was wrong with him?



Claire had taken Timmy to Hull Royal Infirmary, that small city to the east of where the Warberry family home was at Howden. A wait on an ambulance in the countryside would have been too long as far as his aunt was concerned and so she had put him into her car and gone into Hull. She messaged Lisa when arriving there and her sister replied that she’d stay on the train into the city: the hospital wasn’t very far at all from there. Lisa travelled up to the North with the train speeding through the English countryside. She made calls while on the move, after calming down some first following her chat with her ex-husband. Her secretary had already told the ministry’s permanent secretary what had happened but she spoke with him too. He was very understanding yet said that there were some things that couldn’t wait to be left to dealt with, urgent ministerial business. He would sent up some paperwork and one of the Red Boxes via urgent dispatch rider: Lisa could address that when she had the time, only then, but it wouldn’t be left. She also called the Whip’s Office and spoke to her party’s chief whip. He expressed concern for her son’s welfare once Lisa told him that her youngest children had fallen from a tree and likely broke his leg, maybe worse. There was something important going on in the House of Commons the next day, but he fully understood she couldn’t be there. Another taxi ride once in Hull was undertaken by Lisa, five minutes or so, before she reached the hospital. Claire was waiting for her. An apology was made at once. She was meant to have been watching the children but had failed to see Timmy go up that tree. Lisa told her that it was okay, that such things happened, especially with Timmy, and that she didn’t blame her. The important thing was him and that, while hurt, things weren’t worse.

Inside, Lisa spoke with those in A&E in-charge. She got no special treatment just because she was a government minister. However, being a worried mother with a hurt kid, she got the necessary attention required. An update on her son’s condition was given to her. She winced when hearing it from the doctor. Claire had told her that Timmy had two breaks in his left leg but the doctor used the technical terms and showed Lisa an X-ray. Her poor little boy!

When David arrived, Claire went back to Howden. Katie needed picking up from the neighbour. She was fourteen and very responsible, as well as close to Jessica’s older sister, but needed to be back home. Lisa’s home was Claire’s home too. The latter had left her partner the year before, not long after Lisa and David got divorced, and Claire had moved in with Lisa, Katie and Timmy. She worked at the primary school in Howden and was in so many ways a live-in babysitter even if her elder sister was too polite to say that. The kids spent one week with Lisa, one week with David. Much of their week with Lisa was with Claire in fact due to how often Lisa was either needed in London where her career was or even travelling overseas on government business. David lived in nearby Shelby. He’d been up in Leeds where he worked when he’d finally looked at his phone. Lisa gave him no more grief. She didn’t berate him again for not paying enough attention when it came to the matter of the children. Timmy was his son too and the boy was hurt. Her thoughts were on him.

They transferred him from A&E up to a paediatrics ward higher in the hospital. Timmy raised a smile when Lisa kissed him on the head and he said that he was sorry he’d fallen. His mother told him that there was nothing to be sorry for and that she loved him. David told him off climbing, earning a dagger eyes stare from Lisa. She wanted to stay with him overnight in the hospital. They were keeping him because of his age and because he had fallen from such a great height so as to make sure everything was okay. Therefore, Lisa wanted to spend the night. That wasn’t what the hospital would allow though. It was made clear that there was no argument to win so Lisa had to fold. She didn’t go back home though. She booked a room at the hotel above the train station in Hull so she could be close and be back in the morning. As to David, he left. He said that he would stop in and see Katie back in Hull yet had to return home. First thing tomorrow morning he had an important meeting down in London. Could he postpone that!? David refused to, he told Lisa it was far too important. She could have told him that the thing down there she was missing the next morning was of far greater importance and she was going to be absent for the sake of their son… but didn’t bother. She knew it wouldn’t get through to him.

Lisa barely slept much and was awakened at the crack of dawn by train noises coming into the hotel. It was a grotty place. She could have stayed somewhere else yet hadn’t given it much thought considering the situation. Lisa was back at the hospital early and saw Timmy. If it wasn’t for the plaster cast, he would have been bouncing off the walls. He had discovered that the hospital ward was actually an exciting place to be and wanted to be up and about to explore. None of that was allowed though. Lisa kissed him and told him that she would take him home. He wanted ice cream for breakfast, believing that he deserved that after she told him that he had been so brave, because that was what brave boys got, yet settled for some cereal. Lisa fussed over exactly what they gave him but found nothing that those in the hospital could give him which would harm him. She took a walk outside the hospital while they were getting Timmy ready to leave. Once again, she made calls to both her permanent secretary – he effectively ran the ministry of which she was a political appointee – and also the chief whip. She was unable to return to London for the week, she told them each, and would stay up in Yorkshire. Lisa made arrangements to take her son back home where she could care for him. She also wanted to get out of Hull and back to her beloved Howden.



Timmy needed a lot of attention. Lisa bathed him, fed him and checked up on him constantly. She didn’t leave him alone, fearing that he’d get hurt again despite knowing that was unlikely. He certainly enjoyed the attention. Timmy told her that he didn’t miss school that day and was glad that she was missing work to be with him. He asked about the tree which he had fallen from. Jessica’s kite was still up there: who was going to get it down? Lisa looked out of his bedroom window at that point towards where the tree at the end of the garden was. She wanted to see that knocked down. It had hurt her son and her anger was directed towards it.

Her phone was ringing. It was in her bedroom but she stood in Timmy’s looked at the tree which had had climbed and fallen from. Her mind pictured the garden without it. Timmy told her that her mobile was going off and asked if she was going to answer it. Nope, she wasn’t. She got him in bed and looked at the time when doing so. It was well after midday, coming up on half past the hour. She read her son a story, something which he usually said he was far too old for since he was almost a grown up. Nonetheless, like every time, he listened intently and she encouraged him to read a few lines himself. He told her he wasn’t tired but he yawned when saying that. Soon enough, just as she knew he would, Timmy fell asleep. Lisa waited until she was sure he was fully asleep, not just dozing, before leaving him. Her phone rang again but she closed her bedroom door when in the hallway less it wake up her son. She went to the bathroom and had a shower. The one in the hotel had been terrible! Lisa spent a while in there before going back to check on Timmy afterwards. He was still fast asleep. Only then did she go to her bedroom. Her phone had six missed calls. Six!? That was crazy. Still not ready to deal with whatever that was, telling herself that it couldn’t have been more important than her son and also her feeling refreshed, she got dressed and then had another look in on Timmy. She stood in his bedroom doorway thinking about all that needed to be done in the next couple of months. He’d have that plaster cast on and be on crutches. She’d carried him upstairs to his bedroom – he had gotten so heavy! – but doing that everyday, several times probably, was impossible. Lisa decided to have him sleep down in the study on the ground floor. There was a camp bed in the garage and she would get that set up. He’d need some toys and other distractions but it was something she knew would work.

Her phone rang once again. She saw the name of her sister on the screen and so answered it. Lisa started to tell her that Timmy was all okay but was cut off at once. Claire told her what was going on, what had happened down in London. Oh how she was glad that Lisa hadn’t been down there! Lisa listened, not believing what she was hearing. No, no, no, that couldn’t be true. She refused to believe it, walking over to the television in the living room. Claire asked about David and then started crying. Lisa told her that it wasn’t possible. There must be some kind of mistake. Things like that don’t happen, she told her sister while listening to the near wailing coming. The television was switched on and then Lisa saw that what Claire had told, that unimaginable horror which she was absolutely all over the place about was real.

There’d been an explosion down in London. It wasn’t a conventional one. Where Lisa had supposed to have been that day, down in the heart of London, the television news was saying that there had been a blast there of the nuclear kind. Lisa’s hand went to her mouth, her knees wobbled. She felt a sickness inside her belly. She was meant to have been there. As to those who were, those who Claire kept on crying for, they were dead.

What did that mean for Lisa?

[sandyman]

Congratulations on being the new Prime Minister Lisa

[gillan1220]

Jun 24, 2021 14:07:38 GMT sandyman said:

Congratulations on being the new Prime Minister Lisa

Her son's accident save her life.

[James G]

State of war


It was August 10th 2008. While the Beijing Olympics were happening on the other side of the world, there was full-scale war underway within the Caucasus Mountains on the very edges of Europe. Georgian and Russian forces, the latter supporting separatists against the former, had begun a conflict that spiralled out of control. South Ossetia, Abkhazia and the Black Sea too had become battlefields. President Dick Cheney – two months into office following the Crawford Attack that had seen George Bush murdered by terrorists during the early summer – had moved to intervene early in the crisis to help protect the United States’ ally Georgia. That didn’t involve fighting directly but instead trying to forestall what Cheney believed was a Russian land-grab from developing. He didn’t have wide support at all for what he did in that either at home nor among other allies. Georgia’s attack against South Ossetia, and ultimately Russian ‘peacekeepers’ there too, was done by Tbilisi with the knowledge that America had their back.

Out in the Black Sea, a small flotilla of Russian Navy warships racing towards Abkhazia were attacked by Georgian missile boats. The Russians had the mighty cruiser Moskva there but she was escorted by only lighter vessels rather than fellow heavyweight warships. The Georgians tried to make an attack yet that was one which failed. Retaliation came with a barrage of missiles from what escorts were present. The Moskva herself then opened fire with her own weapons, launching huge anti-ship cruise missiles. Four of them were ripple fired though they didn’t race towards the Georgian survivors. Instead, in what the Americans would afterwards believe was a targeted attack made on higher orders coming from an admiral in Sevastopol acting without permission, those SS-N-12 Sandbox missiles flew towards the US Navy’s destroyer USS Bainbridge. The Bainbridge had been in the Black Sea for only a few days and had raced towards the Georgian coast on presidential authority. The destroyer, manned by more than two hundred sailors, was positioned west of the Georgians when attacked and certainly not in any reasonable firing line where a mistake could be argued as being the cause of the launch made against her. The Russian missiles were spotted late, far too late. One one them crashed into the sea and another was successfully engaged by CIWS cannon fire coming from the Bainbridge. Hostile electronic jamming targeted against the Bainbridge from the Moskva was noted, fine-tuned against her systems: another post-attack indicator that the launches weren’t accidental. Those aided in the failure of her defensive missile systems to get the final two Sandboxes which came in ever so low and ever so fast to hit the destroyer. She was hit once on the main superstructure and secondly towards the rear port quarter. Explosions of missile warheads came with extensive fires that spread fast. The Bainbridge and her crew burnt.

News was relayed to Cheney in Washington fast. He was advised that due to the clear deliberate nature of the attack – that was certain early on and not long afterwards confirmed – that the wisest move would be to evacuate Washington. A wider conflict could be on the cards and to be moved to an aircraft, even underground to a bunker, would be best. Cheney opted not to. He sought to contact President Sergey Medvedev in Moscow. An explanation was to be demanded and he wanted Russia to take ownership of what they had done. Military options for retaliation were discussed but the primary early attempt was getting in contact with Medvedev. Cheney had been prepared to back Georgia yet he was in no mood to see America involved in a real war. Getting hold of Medvedev proved impossible. The CIA and Joint Chiefs both provided information as it arrived that the attack on a US Navy warship hadn’t been authorised at the highest level. However, Medvedev was uncontactable. Vladimir Putin’s whereabouts were sought. He had been in Beijing but had left there for an unknown destination. Several hours went by. The attack on the Bainbridge was not something that the media knew about. Reports arrived that there were dozens upon dozens of casualties. The fires were still raging but were being fought: that destroyer wouldn’t be lost to the flames. Nonetheless, it had been attacked without warning, provocation nor any reasonable excuse. Cheney was presented with military options several times for a response to that strike. He allowed the planning to continue all while trying to get a hold of Medvedev or Putin. None of that paid off.

Nine hours passed from the Russian missile attack until Cheney gave the go-ahead for a counterstrike. He did so after repeated failure to contact the Russian leadership and also more casualty news arriving from the Bainbridge. A proportional response was one made, an American attack that wouldn’t set the world on fire but would make Russia pay for what it had done. Cheney couldn’t, wouldn’t allow the Russians to get away with it. Using the Hot Line link-up, an unanswered message was sent informing Moscow – with no time for them to react to strike yet to give them notice of scope – of what was coming. A pair of flights of four US Air Force jets each, already airborne out of rotational bases in Romania, flew from a holding position in the southern extremes of the Black Sea and across Georgian airspace. Their flight was done at low-level in the darkness where they raced between the mountains. Aircrews worried over the speed of the mission set-up, terrain and also enemy action. A surface-to-air missile was fired at them during their approach towards the target though later inquires discovered it was Georgians not Russians who engaged them where allies made a mistake. Russian fighters were on the other side of the border that ran through the mountains and, when tracked by a distant AWACS aircraft, didn’t move to intervene due to the F-15E Strike Eagles not being detected. When they reached their target, inside internationally-recognised Georgian territory yet somewhere in dispute with the locals, bomb runs were made. As they did so, a state of war – not declared but de facto – came into being between the United States of America and the Russian Federation.

The first flight made the opening strike. 500lb laser-guided Paveways were dropped along a stretch of the Transcaucasian Highway as well as above lay-bys off the two-lane road. The winding course of that access route across South Ossetia that linked it, via a tunnel under the mountains, to Russia was heavily bombed. There were Russian vehicles and soldiers in the path of the bombs with no warning given to them ahead of the attack. A good portion of Russian troops had moved along that highway in the preceding days but it was still full of military units on their way into Georgia who were hit hard from above by American bombs. Casualties were heavy. The second flight came in afterwards and went for the southern entrance to the Roki Tunnel. Again, that was inside Georgia. The F-15Es ‘lob-tossed’ fewer but larger bombs towards that entranceway and the rock-face above it. Those were 2000lb Paveways, again with laser guidance sending them (generally) where the Americans wanted them. Huge blasts took place both inside and outside the tunnel entrance. A major rockfall occurred to block the entranceway and cause an internal collapse within the southern end as well. There were many more Russian casualties caused by that follow-up attack. Back to Romania those jets went, meeting a tanker on the way. No one chased them and all eight aircraft would be recovered safety. They flew home into one heck of diplomatic storm yet the aircrews had done the job asked of them almost perfectly.

The bombs were falling when Putin got in touch with Cheney. He’d reached Moscow and was in the Kremlin. Threats were made of retaliation for what Russia’s prime minister demanded was an unprovoked attack. Cheney told him that it was a response for the attack on the Bainbridge, something that Putin denied Russia had done. Away from where each leader was, military forces of their own countries, plus allies of each, moved to higher and higher alert statuses. Foreign diplomats were trying to intervene and the news media was becoming aware of what was going on by that point too. Asking where was Medvedev, Putin surprised Cheney by telling him that the Russian president was dead. Whether that was true, they couldn’t know for sure in Washington yet the comment from Putin made sense of things. Someone had tried to topple him and attacked the US Navy – for reasons unknown – as part of that. Putin had got back to Moscow and re-established control. The two of them spoke for a short time that first go round. Each waited for further military action though none moved to strike out first. There was shooting followed by explosions at the naval base in the Crimea where Russia had its Black Sea base with Cheney watching a live satellite feed of some of that. French President Nicolas Sarkozy interjected himself in the situation, acting as a go between between Cheney and Putin before they both spoke direct to each other again at his urging. No one wanted war. There were dead on both sides. Putin denied that the attack by the Moskva on the Bainbridge was an authorised attack… yet did concede it had happened. His claim was that the Georgians had created a situation through trickery to see that happen, something that Cheney didn’t accept yet didn’t press either. Pulling back from the edge was by that point his goal. At the urging of Secretary of State Condi Rice, Cheney offered his condolences for the death of Medvedev. That cut through with Putin. He admitted ‘regret’ for American lives lost aboard that warship with Cheney doing the same for those of Russian soldiers near the Roki Tunnel.

Tensions relaxed after that. There were still serious military readiness levels, and some troubling domestic scenes where panic gripped civilians in not just the US but across Europe too, but the state of war was over with. Neither the Americans nor the Russians – who’d just faced an unsuccessful coup by hardline generals & admirals – lashed out any more against the other. The one-day, two-strike conflict ended. Fifty-four Americans sailors and one hundred & two Russian soldiers died (plus other coup deaths inside Russia) as the human cost of it all. As to the nerves of the citizens of the world, those had been shot too. Armageddon had been feared.

[gillan1220]

A short Jurassic World fanfiction I had in mind:

The sound of the alarm clock of the smartphone awoke Samantha from her deep sleep. She tried to grab whatever sleep she could muster as the pillows and the sheets were inviting her back to sleep. On instinct, she mindlessly tapped the snooze button to give her another 5 precious minutes. When the time came up, Samantha was more inclined to rise. She grabbed her phone and checked the clock. It read 4:45 am. Her sleepiness was overcome with excitement as today, she would go to Jurassic World with a friend from her college years.

Yawning, Samantha headed straight to the bathroom while holding her towel and clothes. Stepping into the shower, she adjusted the temperature before letting the warm stream of water hit her skin. She then took the shampoo and washed her hair as the water let the suds fall from her body down to the ceramic tiles below. She then grabbed the soap before rinsing fully. After she was done, Samantha turned off the shower and grabbed her towel to dry herself. Afterwards, she grabbed her clothes that she chose she wanted to wear today. Since Samantha was going to a tropical island off the coast of Costa Rica, she chose something comfortable for the environment. Putting on an Aztec crop top and light blue jeans, Samantha was amazed all her time in the gym and yoga paid-off. Samantha exited the bathroom, grabbed a jacket to keep herself warm, and grabbed a small backpack containing her passport, wallet, and other important things needed for travel. She then tapped the Uber app on her smartphone and called for ride that would take her to airport. In less than 10 minutes, the car arrived.

She got into the passenger seat and relaxed herself. Her phone beeped. The notification showed it was from her friend who was also on his way to the airport.

“I can’t wait to see you, Evan.” Samantha replied via text.

[James G]

The piece below is in the same world as this from last year: alternate-timelines.com/thread/2917/flash-fiction-thread?q=sundown



Tin Foil Hat Brigade

Khan and Swann dragged the policeman into the cottage, pulling and lifting him through the front door. Cook slammed that shut behind them though only after she took a brief look around across the driveway and the connecting road. She witnessed the old man – who she presumed lived there – run up the road and saw blue flashing lights getting closer too. Swearing, Cook went into the living room where her cohorts were.

“Check him. Empty his pockets and take off his belt too.”

Swann moved to do as his team commander ordered him to. Meanwhile Khan, weapon pointed ahead of him, left the two of them behind and went through the downstairs rooms.

He called out from the kitchen: “Clear.” He was then in the wash-closet: “Clear.” He moved on: “Going upstairs.”

“Find a perch,” Cook called after him, “at the rear and keep watch.”

“Will do!”

Cook ran her eyes over the policeman who’d been unceremoniously dumped on the carpeted living room floor. Swann gathered up everything he had taken from the officer and put them in the hallway. Their sudden captive spat out blood while holding his bleeding belly.

“He’s not gonna make it.”

Cook turned to look at Swann and then back at the policeman. “Yep. Give him an hour and that’ll be his lot.”

After a cough, the policeman had his own reply: “F*ck you both.”

Swann gave him a whack on the side of the head, knocking him down onto his side. That shut him up. Cook moved to close the curtains in the living room and then the blind over the kitchen window too. The deadbolt on the rear door was also pushed across before she went back to the front door and bolted that too. There were sirens outside by now.

“You killed Sue.”

“Who was Sue?”

“My partner.”

“Just another agent of the fascist regime. Dead as she should be… and you’ll be too sooner than you should if you don’t shut it.”

Cook came back into the living room after hearing that exchange between her fellow freedom fighter and the wounded policeman they’d snatched from the roadside shooting. She saw Swann with his pistol pointing at the head of the prone policeman but knew that without orders from her, or a truly desperate situation, her fellow freedom fighter would keep his head. Her focus was on keeping them all alive as long as possible. She overturned the sofa and the armchair, building a semi-circle barricade in the middle of the room with them and also the table too which she also brought into the middle of the room. When armed state agents eventually crashed inside the cottage, as she expected them to, none would do much good to shot their bullets but would provide some cover for return fire.

When done with that, she went back to the hallway. “Khan? You good up there?”

He took a second to reply, causing Cook to step forward a bit out of concern. However, the call came back down: “All good. I count seven agents now. We’re surrounded, Boss Lady.”

“Eyes open. Give us a call before an attack and shoot only when you need to. They’ll come through the back and you’re our first line of defence.”

Back into the living room Cook went again. She crouched down, beckoning Swann to do the same. “Snipers.” She turned to the policeman: “What’s your name?”

“Donaldson.” There were no obscenities that time. Pain was evident in his voice, and in his eyes too.

Cook got closer to him. “Listen to me, Donaldson. We did what we had to. These things happen. It was the wrong time and wrong place for you and your girl. Get over it. Make your peace with your God too. Either you bleed out here or, when the shooting starts, you’ll get hit in the crossfire.”

“Who the heck are you people?”

“I’m Cook, he’s Swann. That’s Khan upstairs, who put that hole in you. We’re from the Fourth Regiment, British Freedom Army. This is our country and we’ll go out fighting and dying for it.

Today is that day.”

The policeman shook his head and coughed up more blood. It oozed down his chin as he replied: “You saw you’re from an army and part of a regiment, yes?”

“Ferocious Fourth!” There was so much pride in Swann with that regimental nickname. “We fight for freedom from foreign occupation.”

“You called my partner a fascist. She was a mother of two, little kids as well. Sue was doing her job keeping normal people safe from crazy nuts like you. Your regiment needs a new name, mate, because there’s no war, no occupation & no freedom to be won.

I’m thinking the ‘Tin Foil Hat Brigade’ will do.”

Cook got right up Donaldson’s face, putting herself between him and Swann’s pistol. “I suggest,” her suggestion came with her own pistol held under the policeman’s chin, “that you shut your mouth and say no more.”

The policeman didn’t give a reply. Swann ripped off his shoulder emblem and threw it into the corner yet still, doing as Cook had told him, Donaldson said nor nothing just as she had convinced him to. For a while anyway...

“I see a helicopter!” Khan called down from upstairs. “In that field, Boss Lady, where that hill is to the rear and left. It’s landing now!”

Swann shook his head. He shrugged his shoulders when his eyes met Cook’s. “No way out for us.”

“There never was. We’ve struck a blow against the Republic though. The fascists and their masters from overseas have paid already today and we’ll kill more when they come in here.”

Confidence rose visibly in Swann when Cook made those rousing remarks. That was why she was the 4th Regiment’s best team leader: she knew how to inspire the right revolutionary spirit. “We go out fighting,” he declared, “taking as many of them with us as we can.”

“For the revolution. For the innocents whose lives have been taken. Against the Republic, against the occupation. For freedom we fight!” Cook gave it her all in her speech.

Once more, the prone Donaldson coughed up some blood. Then, with defiance returning after hearing what madness he had just heard, he mocked the two of them. Realisation that death really was coming gave him the bravery to oppose them in the only way he could.

“You are mad!” Another bloody cough. “There is no revolution to fight. There is no foreign occupation either, you stupid fools. The Republic is…”

“Oh, enough of that.” As she had done before, to prisoners and the enemy on the field of battle, Cook took a life of one of the fascist agents of the state that terrorised Britons across the land. They were all complicit and none of them deserved any pity.

She shot the policeman in the forehead while lying down next to him. His blood, brain matter and skull fragments splashed onto her and Swann.

“For the revolution!” Swann had been whipped up into a frenzy.

Khan made his final call down the stairs: “They’re coming now. There’s gotta be a dozen at least.”

The gunfire began once their watchman had finished. He was firing his weapon first, a captured SA80 battle rifle. His shots were returned from more automatic weapons, coming from multiple directions.

The windows were shot out around Cook and Swann.

Bullets raced across the living room.

The two of them remained on the floor next to the dead policeman.

“For the revolution!” Swann repeated his battle cry.

“The Fourth,” came Cook’s last words, “fights on until ultimate victory.”

Moments later, both were killed in the shootout with an assault team of heavily-armed soldiers who hit the house through multiple entrance points. Khan died too, moments after them with a post-battle unauthorised execution by an angry killer.


The bodies were removed from the bullet-drenched cottage within the hour. One of the military assault team had been killed and his remains came out first followed by the unarmed policeman whom the terrorists had murdered in cold blood while he was gravely wounded. Finally, that trio of terrorists were taken out as well. Investigators, who’d already been all over their abandoned car which had crashed by the roadside, moved into the house where they conducted forensics and also an intelligence sweep. The soldiers stayed in the area throughout the night, just in case, though were gone by morning.

There were more terrorists calling themselves freedom-fighting revolutionaries elsewhere.

Claire was the on-scene civilian commander who took over. She viewed the bodies and watched video footage which covered most of the whole event. She also spoke to the old man whose house had been taken over by those hellbent on murder and mayhem. He was lucky to be alive, she reminded him, and he did express his thanks for the work of her and those like her who served the new country being built from out of the ashes of the old. He told Claire he had full support for the Republic of Britain.

Dmitri then arrived. “Report.” His English was excellent. He could have said a lot more, pleasantries too, but that wasn’t his way.

“Three terrorists dead, three friendly fatal casualties too.”

“The car stop was one of pure chance?” There was suspicion in him… as always. “It just happened that your people stumbled upon this terror cell?”

“Yes, Sir.” That was the truth as far as Claire was concerned. “Random sweep, but unfortunately it was unarmed police officers who encountered them first. My reaction team was here fast and put them down.”

The two of them stood outside the once-pretty cottage on the edge of the Yorkshire Moors. It had been a battleground between the old order and the new way of things. Dmitri admire d it while Claire just saw a place of death.

Dmitri turned back towards Claire after taking in the sight. He smiled: “We must kill more of them to secure this Republic. Many, many more.”

[Brky2020]

Run run run
It's only another mile
Don't stop don't stop DON'T STOP

Bridgette was dead tired and running on God knew what.

She hadn't had any water in three hours, hadn't eaten since the previous night and had a lingering cough and runny nose that was slowly getting worse, partly due to the virus inside her and partly from the hot, putrid air.

Every second she stopped to rest, the threat got that much closer. She had no electric vehicle, no horse, not even an old-fashioned bike to help speed her journey. Just her malnourished, underweight body.

Still, her training as a sprinter gave her some advantage over the thugs chasing her through the forest. The realities of climate change and the ensuing food and water crises hadn't kept the Security Service from being adequately fed; loyalty to the State, and especially to its Dear Leader, went a long way in this wretched world.

Hopefully, the next world would be a hell of a lot better...if she got there.

Bridgette heard the barking of the dogs in the background, and knew the SS thugs were closing in.

So, she kept running. Tapping into reserves she wasn't sure she still had, Bridgette picked up her pace.

A minute later, she saw it.

Escape.

This was no time to slow down. She ran, as fast as she could, towards her destination.

Her eyes began to blur, and she felt herself slowing down.

No no no no NO NO NO NO

Twenty yards from freedom, Bridgette stumbled over a rock and fell to the ground, face first.

Oh my GOD oh CRAP OH GOD OWWWWWW!!!!

Bridgette struggled to get up, ignoring the pain in her nose, the copper taste of blood on her lips, and the harsh sting on her right knee. She was concerned only with her inability to jump right up. Still, she willed herself to rise up from the ground; salvation was just yards away. It literally glowed, in a circle, hinting at freedom on its other side.

As she straightened up, ready to run or hobble the best she could, she felt a clamp on her right ankle.

OH GOD NO NO NO!

It was The Boot, a remote device invented by some government agency to stop runners -- like herself -- in their tracks. She literally couldn't move; all she could do was look back, and watch as the goons and their beasts converged on her location.

A dozen Supersoldiers ready to mow her down with their submachine guns, and a dozen German shepherds ready to rip her apart, surrounded her in a semi-circle, while leaving the Way of Escape wide-open.

It wasn't like she was going anywhere, not now.

The biggest of the bunch, a 6-foot-9 behemoth whom Bridgette thought might be non-binary, smirked as they walked up to her and jabbed her in the chest. "It's over, bitch," they said, tauntingly; the six-layer military grade mask actually made the goon easy to understand, unlike the six-layer paper masks the populace were mandated to wear everywhere, day and night.

At least the color of the thing on their face matched the mark of loyalty on their forehead.

"No mark, no mask. That's enough to get you the guillotine," the goon said as they took off their backpack and laid it on the ground. They then pulled three books out of the backpack: Orwell's 1984, Paine's Common Sense and the King James Version of the Bible.

"One of these things is not like the others," the goon continued. "They're all banned. You knew that. Possession of contraband, also punishable by death."

They held up the Bible. "Calling the deity the Antichrist? Death penalty. Preferably by guillotine, but death by bullet is also acceptable."

Then they held up the Orwell and Paine books. "Didn't you learn anything in reeducation class, bitch?"

Bridgette had learned quite a bit in the camps, specifically in 'Night School', where other 'guests' taught her the truth about history before The New Era, as well as how the founders of the State had destroyed democracy and paved the way for the One True god, Lord of Humanity, Equal Among Equals, blah blah blah to take over the world. Dear Leader -- one of the many terms he hated to be called and therefore banned -- represented the cumulation of what the State and its predecessor supergovernments had done to basically rewrite history. The Constitution was burned; the Statue of Liberty demolished; any symbol of freedom and liberty were destroyed or 'rehabilitiated'.

If not for her grandmama, a strong person of faith, Bridgette never would have known of Dr. King. Nor would she have known of the other figures written out of history, warts and all. Although she still hadn't quite brought into her grandmama's faith, she was all in on her love of history, and on her grandmama's assertation that freedom and liberty prevailed due to the efforts of people who not only had virtues but vices.

Most importantly, whatever the odds, however bad things get, freedom and liberty were worth fighting for...even to the death.

When the Ways of Escape became known to the world, though, those who still dissented from Dear Leader and his New Era decided it was time to flee. It was bad enough living under Dear Leader, the State that enforced his will, and the Marked who thought they were serving him and blind to the fact they were constantly being used by him. Living in a miserable climate, caused either by divine wrath or by decades of ecological neglect, made things almost unbearable.

Bridgette knew she couldn't bear things here, on this world, too much longer. She was unmarked, of course, and despite lack of food and water was in as good of shape as any non-Marked person could be, and she had a difficult time surviving in the hellish environment.

She had a theory that something in the Mark, regardless of whether the bearer had it embedded in the forehead or the right hand, delivered a constant source of narcotics that somehow blinded the wearer to the misery around them.

She wanted to ask the goon about that.

Instead, she saw the goon tear the Bible in pieces. The Bible was one of many religious works banned by the regime; the Koran -- which she had a copy of, and lost a few years ago -- was another. Most of its adherents had died during the Rebellion six years ago, where Dear Leader brutally put down the rebels in North America and China and bombed much of the Arab population out of existence.

The Christian and Muslim Problems were still thorns in Dear Leader's side, though, as were the various pro-democracy resistance groups and individuals -- like Bridgette -- who identified with the ideology, if not a specific group. Their numbers were slowly dwindling, though, and, now, Bridgette's time was up. The only question now is where it would end.

"We'll take you directly to the nearest military base," the goon said, "and you'll be given one more chance to repent."

No way am I taking that thing. Guess I'll be getting around to doing my business with God after all.

"Or," the goon said, tapping the barrel of the pistol on her waist, "we could take care of this right now."

Alright, God, you're right. I'm not. I re--

Bridgette stopped, as did the goon and their underlings, at the sound of something flying out of the Way of Escape.

The sound doubled, tripled, again and again.

Bridgette's gut told her to dive, and quickly, which she did.

She heard the sounds of pistols and submachine guns being fired, and she made her peace with her Maker as she waited to die.

Then Bridgette decided to open her eyes, and she looked up. She saw death surrounding her, and wondered this was what hell was really like. She then felt a small jolt on her right ankle, and felt the Boot fall off a moment later, and turned her head around to see what had done that.

Ten drones hovered in tight formation, between her and the Way of Escape. She looked around, and saw all of the goons and their beastly canines had been shot dead; they no longer presented any kind of threat.

The drones then moved to surround her, almost protectively, and it was clear there was only one way to go.

Forward.

As she stepped through the Way of Escape, she first saw nothing but a kaleidoscope of every imaginable color. Moments later, that gave way to a large room full of people, and she felt herself almost faint.

A few minutes later, she came to.

"Lie down, hon," said the kindly woman looking down at her. Bridgette felt a blanket over her, a pillow under her head, and took a breath, then another, then a deeper breath.

"The air...the air's different," Bridgette said, suddenly desiring more of it. Then, she realized the temperature was different. She realized she was cold, really cold.

"Yes it is," the woman replied. "The air here is clearer, and cooler, much better than you're used to. Just relax, and breathe. Don't try to talk."

The woman stayed with Bridgette as medics checked her vitals, and attached IVs to her to deliver fluids her body desperately needed.

There's something about this woman...I've seen her before...but where?

"Where...where..." Bridgette started to say. For some reason, she couldn't think of what exactly to ask.

"You're safe," the woman replied. "You're in a refugee camp, on another world, another dimension. I am a representative of the North American Commonwealth. We've known about your world for some time now. We take in folks like you and we help you."

"Wh...wh...why?"

"It's the honorable and humane thing to do. It's the right thing to do. Now, though, you need your rest."

Bridgette tried to remember where she saw this woman. Then it came to her, and she grasped the woman's wrist as she got up to leave, grasping it as tightly as she could.

"Who...who...what's your name?"

"It's okay," the woman said to one of the medics. "My name is Lenora," she said, looking at Bridgette with the same kind, loving eyes her grandmama had. The same look that grandmama had said her daughter had inherited from her.

The same daughter who died in a drive-by shooting when Bridgette was three.

Mama?

[James G]

Last boat out of Zeebrugge

In June 1986, a shooting war erupted between naval & air forces of both the United States and the Soviet Union in the Persian Gulf. Iranian and Iraqi forces were going at it and, through accidents and misunderstandings, the two superpowers got involved blasting away at each other. Things spiralled out of control very fast. A Soviet attack against the Gulf Arabs – who hosted US forces – led to Pakistani involvement to support their Saudi allies. Pakistan was struck at from out of Afghanistan before the Indians too joined in. It took two days but soon enough the war moved to Europe too after clashes in East Asia. World War Three broke out. There were no nukes used yet everyone knew that was only a matter of time. Soviet and Warsaw Pact forces invaded Western Europe despite significant diplomatic undertakings to forestall that. Within a week, they’d gone past the Rhine and entered the Low Countries. France wasn’t invaded yet was at war with the Soviet Bloc. Major NATO defeats in Europe led to a political collapse of the collective will to fight. The Greeks dropped out of the war first followed by the Italians and the Danes. The West Germans threw in the towel following them. America, Britain, Canada and the other Europeans continued to fight yet were hamstrung by a French decision – dragging the Belgians along with them – to seek a ceasefire pending a political settlement that wouldn’t see all of Europe overrun and to thus avoid a nuclear exchange. On June 22nd, a partial ceasefire took place in Europe where Soviet armies halted their advance towards the Atlantic Ocean but there remained fighting elsewhere in Norway, West Germany and the Low Countries despite wishes of several governments to see that end. Whether the ceasefire would hold, what a ‘political settlement’ might look like and if other governments (the Dutch especially) might join in with the ceasefire, were all unknowns.

That morning, the civilian car ferry MS Viking Viscount arrived in the Belgian port of Zeebrugge. The British Armed Forces had requisitioned the boat and had been using it to move people, vehicles and supplies back and forth from the mainland UK to the Continent throughout most of the fighting. Other ships had been sunk or badly damaged but the Viking Viscount remained in service. When making the trip from Felixstowe (following her usual civilian routing), the only passengers were reservists soldiers from the UK’s Territorial Army. The lone company of the Robin Hood Foresters along with their parent battalion’s mortar platoon had been sent aboard the ferry not to fight on the front-lines of war such as they were but instead aid with evacuation efforts out of Zeebrugge. The front-lines had stalled along the Ghent-Terneuzen Canal, some distance away, and during the ceasefire an opportunity was taken to get off the Continent many of those who it had been decided by the British Government needed to be pulled out when given the chance. The Royal Navy had personnel at Zeebrugge and there were Belgian soldiers present too. However, the situation at the port was chaos and troops were deemed necessary to help bring it under control. There were a trio of ships all due to call at Zeebrugge during the day, with the loading of all of them deemed of the utmost importance. The Robin Hood Foresters were part of the 3rd battalion, the Worcestershire & Sherwood Foresters Regiment, a unit which had spent the short conflict home-based in the UK on security duties as per its training and organisation. With no other troops at-hand though – the losses in West Germany, Denmark & the Netherlands had been extensive – they were scooped up and put aboard that ferry. They were given quite the task in going into an active war-zone despite the unexpected (and surely temporary) cessation of fighting.

Chaos didn’t begin to describe the situation which the Robin Hood Foresters found themselves in when they reached Zeebrugge. There were fires burning and civil unrest onshore. Two ships had been sunk close to port which posed a major hazard for the boat which brought them in. The arrival of the Viking Viscount brought about a series of different reactions. Zeebrugge was full of foreigners as well as Belgians. An escape from what was coming their way was sought by those American, Canadian, Dutch and West German people as well as many of the Belgians too. It was only Britons that the ferry came for though. The orders were to get wounded soldiers and also UK non-combatants who were at the port out: no one else out. Previous instructions had gone out for those Britons that could be reached to meet at Zeebrugge the rescue coming their way. It had been difficult for so many of them to get to there and then they found themselves among other desperate people seeking the same safety that they were after. The Belgian port authorities at Zeebrugge were under military control. They hadn’t got the word that the Viking Viscount was coming – a communications mix-up – and the intentions were misunderstood. The senior officer in charge was under the impression that his government had taken Belgium out of the war. When British soldiers came off the ferry, he wasn’t happy. The Royal Navy officers on-scene tried to smooth over that difficulty though without success. The Belgians wouldn’t cooperate with the loading of the ship. The belief in Zeebrugge, which was incorrect too, was that Belgium had actually surrendered and so assisting with a British military operation would violate that. The Robin Hood Foresters were told they would have to go back aboard and their transport to Zeebrugge would have to leave. Expletives came in response and there was quite the stand-off among armed military personnel who were supposed to be allies. Another Belgian, a colonel who outranked everyone else, then arrived and countermanded the order for non-cooperation with the British. They could load their boat, with Belgian military assistance too.

Wounded soldiers were brought forward. There were struggles to get them through Zeebrugge and in the midst of that, a party of Robin Hood Foresters soldiers opened fire on ‘the enemy’. Three armed men wearing Belgian Army uniforms were engaged with the Britons firing first. The suspicion was that those were Soviet commandos and that was actually proved correct. Nonetheless, it continued the bad feeling in Zeebrugge. Civilians ran from the gunfire yet others didn’t. British soldiers were pelted with improvised weapons from angry people believing they were attacking fellow Belgians. At the same time, the shooting gave the opportunity for some of those desperate to escape to try and make it through the restrictions imposed upon them. It wasn’t easy to board the Viking Viscount though. The RO-RO ferry was positioned with her stern facing inwards and there was only one access-way through the port side also open. Belgian and British personnel covered both of them, stopping those without permission from entering. As was the case elsewhere where crowds had gathered, the full range of human emotions was on display. People begged to be let aboard. They offered cash and other valuables. Others got angry and tried to force their way through, pushing aside others in need. There were lies told too about nationality, especially from those Americans and Canadians who were native English speakers. The orders to only let Britons aboard stood and were obeyed… though some of those from North America did manage to pass themselves off as Britons and get aboard. More wounded soldiers, the primary passengers which the ferry had come to Zeebrugge to collect, were due to be taken aboard. They didn’t show up though. Tidal conditions meant that the ferry could only set sail at a certain time. Zeebrugge had significant war damage and couldn’t handle many vessels of large side through what was still left standing: the limitations were increased by the widespread absence of the majority of port workers who’d fled. Out the Viking Viscount went, leaving behind thousands who had been denied passage aboard.

The MS Spirit of Free Enterprise arrived not long afterwards. There were difficulties in getting the second car ferry into the port. There were no harbour pilots and no tugboats. The boat scrapped the quayside in something that caused a lot of concern yet did no real damage. Groups of wounded British Army soldiers who had missed the Viking Viscount were taken aboard. There were likewise more British civilians who had fought their way through the crowds of other nationalities who were likewise able to board. So many of them were meant to have left the Continent when the war had erupted yet circumstances had seen them only make good their escape on June 22nd. They came with few possessions and in a torrid state. The fates of missing family members from their original parties were asked about with no information available to be returned. Foreign nationals, especially children, were sheltered by many of the family groups who sought to pass them off as fellow Britons. In many instances, that worked. Not always though. Where there was refusal, there came outrage. The Royal Navy people were only following orders. On one occasion, after seeing a little girl being turned away because she was German, a sergeant from the Robin Hood Foresters sneaked her aboard the Spirit of Free Enterprise. He sent her off to Britain with the belief that that would be the best place for her.

It was a case of in-and-out for that second boat. There was no messing around. She was loaded with three hundred and ninety evacuees (a lot more could have been sent as there was room for them) to follow the two hundred and seventy-one that went out aboard the Viking Viscount. When leaving Zeebrugge, and in full view once again of all those who had been left behind without the ability to flee, two low-flying aircraft came in from the north and passed low over the Spirit of Free Enterprise before flashing over Zeebrugge too. People dived to the ground expecting bombs. A few others, including a couple of Robin Hood Foresters soldiers, pointed their weapons skywards and shot off bullets. There were arguments over the identification of those fast aircraft. It was said that they were Soviet MiGs, no American F-4s, no RAF Jaguars… no one could agree. The pair of them flew off though and didn’t return. They hadn’t attacked anyone yet no one knew if, should they have been hostile, they would have passed on information about what was going on at Zeebrugge and whether that would have any later impact into the evacuation. As to the Spirit of Free Enterprise, that boat would later sink when far away from Zeebrugge. She’d strike a mine not far from Dover and go down with only a bare handful of survivors who were lucky enough to rescued by volunteers when no official help came their way. That little German girl was among them yet plenty of other children drowned without rescue.

The first two ferries had been boats wearing the markings of the Townsend Thoresen line. The third which was sent to Zeebrugge was operated by Sealink UK and named MS St Nicholas. Another car ferry operating in peacetime for North Sea trips, she was newer and bigger than the previous two. She was nearly diverted to Flushing in the Netherlands, which would have meant abandoning all those at Zeebrugge, yet a large commercial hovercraft entered up completing that other mission. When the St Nicholas arrived at the war-damaged Belgian port, she berthed elsewhere from where the previous ships had. The Royal Navy changed the exact location and sought to move loading operations there to overcome the problems with the crowds of people elsewhere. The TA major commanding the Robin Hood Foresters was told late in the game while the Belgians barely got any word. Departing evacuees were rushed towards the ship with undue haste, leading to many who weren’t entitled to the trip managing to get past the inspections to stop them… others who did have the right, British nationals, got left behind though. It was a cock-up, not something malicious. To those who missed out though, they didn’t see things that way. The very first Belgian officer, who had wanted to turn away the Viking Viscount, saw the writing on the wall. That was the third and final boat coming. He and several of his headquarters people decided they were getting on the St Nicholas come what may. They took their weapons with them and abandoned their posts. Other Belgian military personnel witnessed that and either followed them or started stripping off their uniforms for civilian clothes while seeking to flee elsewhere rather than be taken prisoner when the Soviets showed up.

More than a hundred wounded British soldiers went aboard the St Nicholas. Close to five hundred civilians were also taken aboard. There was room aboard for two thousand passengers in comfort, twice as many more if need be in an emergency: she was a big ship. The Robin Hood Foresters were recalled. The riflemen and mortar-men (the latter who had no idea why they had been sent to Belgium) were given the word to join the evacuation. Those armed Belgians rushed forward and refused to halt. Shots were exchanged with allies killing and wounding each other. The TA soldiers won their fight but at a heavy cost. In addition, along with a couple of unfortunate Royal Navy people too, eleven soldiers got left behind. They had to watch as their only means of escape fled. A crowd of seemingly thousands rushed towards the St Nicholas at the last moment when all order at the quayside finally broke down. Her captain had the bow doors shut in their faces. It would have been dangerous to allow them all aboard in such an uncontrollable fashion. The tide was turning and there were also orders to follow. There were disputes aboard about the boat sailing away when it could have stayed to take on some more evacuees yet Zeebrugge was in chaos with no end in sight to that. Military need and the survival of those who had made it aboard over-rid the humanitarian concern. On the way out, a small civilian yacht, crammed full of people also heading for Britain (it would be a dangerous trip for them), was almost rammed by the far bigger St Nicholas. There were other vessels of all sorts, coming from various Belgian and Dutch harbours, all over the place too. Fleeing mainland Europe was done for the supposed safety of Britain. It was madness at sea as it was on land.

The last boat out of Zeebrugge had departed. Back on the Continent, those who had been left behind would have no choice but to accept what fate came their way after their last means of escape had sailed away without them.

[stevep]

  James G ,

   That's twice I noticed you mentioned the "supposed safety of Britain"so I wonder if its going to have a grim ending or is this as far as you go with this story?

  Steve

[James G]

Aug 16, 2021 10:01:54 GMT stevep said:

  James G ,

   That's twice I noticed you mentioned the "supposed safety of Britain"so I wonder if its going to have a grim ending or is this as far as you go with this story?

  Steve

It should only have been once, tbh.
It is likely that the war will restart and there will be no safety in Britain.
Just a one-shot. I'll be writing many of them for a while.

[James G]

This is inspired by a lone sentence out of Orwell's 1984.
He has Winston Smith mention that Colchester suffered an atomic bomb when he was a child. Nothing else.
So, I put my own spin on that.



The atomic bombing of Colchester

Commander Knox was called before the inner Central Committee of the ruling Revolutionary Council on May 4th 1953. He was nervous in making his appearance. The nationalist-socialist revolutionaries were those who had an iron grip upon the country which he served and the armed forces which was engaged in a life or death struggle to completely subsume Britain. They were responsible for tens of thousands of deaths and, should he displease them, he would be disposed of with haste. Nonetheless, he obeyed his orders and turned up when demanded. They were his leaders, ones he had chosen to serve rather than stay with the ancien régime as so many others had done. The core fourteen leaders were waiting for him, seated around a table. He was instructed to stand at the base of that within the room buried deep under London that served as the command bunker for the national leadership. His uniform was perfect, his boots shone and his gaze fixed ahead. Knox put his full professionalism on show with the belief that they would help him survive the experience. Only one of them spoke to him. It was Debbings… of course. Debbings commanded the Revolutionary Armed Forces. He was seated beside Turner, the first among equals. Turner said nothing, as did the others, while the War Minister gave Knox his instructions.

Out of necessity for the survival of the revolution, and to defeat the counter-revolutionaries, Knox was to oversee the deployment and use of two atom bombs dropped upon enemy targets within the British mainland. Debbings gave only that as a reason. Knox was to take charge of the attacks which the Central Committee wanted done within the next twenty-four hours. The pair of targets were already selected and the method of attack set. Knox was to see that what those men wanted was done. He was given no opportunity to question those orders nor to express any opinion. Do it, he was told, and do it how & when we say. As he had committed himself to doing since he had sided with those seeking to make his country a better place, Knox confirmed the instruction. He was dismissed from their presence by the War Minister afterwards.

Knox went down to Manston Aerodrome in Kent following his appearance before the Central Committee. There he made the preparations for what was to be done. A lone aircraft arrived after flying in from Wales. It was a captured foreign aircraft: a Tupolev-4 piston-engined bomber. It still wore the markings of the Red Air Force. Bullet damage inflicted during its capture during the Third German War of the previous year, right before the Soviets reinvented themselves as the Eurasian Union, had been repaired. Knox oversaw technicians and engineers as they went to work inspecting the aircraft and noting what further repairs needed to be made. The bomber was in a good shape but Knox wanted it perfect. In addition, arriving in a heavily-protected convoy of trucks and half-tracks, came the weapons which the Tu-4 would carry. Those were atomic bombs, fresh from the factory and, unlike the aircraft which would carry them, very much British. After checks were made upon them, Knox watched as the necessary Eurasian markings were added to each weapons. With hope, those would never be seen by anyone else. However, if something went wrong, the bombs and the aircraft carrying them were meant to look not-British. There was a flight crew to meet with. Knox spoke with each man personally, at length too. They were given their orders and not told the why behind that. He sought out any weakness in them yet found none. They had their orders: the revolution demanded that they follow them. Manston was in lockdown overnight. A trio of youngsters were caught on the perimeter edge of the aerodrome. They were deserters from the Revolutionary Armed Forces. Knox had no sympathy for their claims that they never asked to be conscripted, that they had suffered harsh injustice while in uniform and that they were only looking for food. They were spies, serving the government of traitors that refused to accept the reality of the new country still being built. He had them executed. Bullets weren’t used. Instead, when bound and in full view of everyone the next morning, they were bayoneted to death. Their cries for mercy and attempts to dissuade the execution team – which Knox personally supervised – did them no good.

Just after ten o’clock the next morning, the Tu-4 got airborne. It flew out of Manston, going east first. There was a wide-ranging ceasefire with the Eurasians across the Channel and so the aircraft didn’t enter French airspace. Instead, it made an overwater flight south then west before sweeping back inland over Hampshire. Knox monitored its progress by radar reports. It raced towards it target in Southern England. There was soon the lone radio call of ‘bomb away’. The bomber took a sharp turn and gained height fast. From afar, Knox willed the aircrew onwards so they could escape that blast and move to the second target in Eastern England. Confirmation of the successful detonation came not long afterwards. It was Salisbury Plain where Bomb #1 exploded above. That part of the country was in the lands of the anti-British traitors calling themselves Her Majesty’s Government. There was an army there, one being formed to finally break the winding, complicated front-lines of war which were spread across the whole country. It was a well-equipped force and was in the final stages of moving where it was to be sent towards the Thames Valley Corridor, controlled by revolutionary forces, to smash London’s connections to the West Midlands, and thus open up a linkage between HMG forces there in the South to those in the East. An atomic blast of the force of thirty-five kilotons put an end to that plan to smash the revolution. Knox cheered when that confirmation came.

Onwards flew the Tu-4 complete with foreign markings. There was a second weapon in her bomb bay. The target was Colchester. Again, there was an army assembled around that Essex town. It was one getting ready to move towards London directly. The leaders of the HMG were there too. The young queen which they fought for was in the custody of the revolutionary government though they fought in her name. Colchester was their temporary home yet they intended to return to Central London, a place still greatly a ruin after being bombed repeated in the Second and Third German Wars. The Revolutionary Council would never allow that to happen, nor that strong army to start marching either. The bomber flew right towards Colchester and avoided flak coming upwards – there were no defending fighters – before lining up for the bomb run. Above the Garrison Church was the target marker. That was missed with the bomb slightly off-course yet not by much. Bomb #2 exploded when above the train station right in the middle of the town rather than just outside as was Knox’s intention. Nonetheless, another fantastic atomic detonation occurred with another thirty-plus kiloton explosion. Colchester was flattened and the army around it left devastated. Knox, back at Manston, received the ‘bomb away’ radio call but he also had a spotter nearby. The front-lines in Essex ran between Chelmsford and Harlow. In the countryside that morning, Knox’s man on the ground witnessed the blast. He was the only one who shielded himself in time and properly with knowledge of what was coming. His reports of the rising mushroom cloud made over the radio back to Knox came with sounds in the background of men screaming in pain. Those were soldiers of the revolution on the front-lines of war and unwilling victims of their own side’s weapons of wonder. So many saw the flash and would be blinded veterans.

Like everyone else, they would be told afterwards that the attacks made were done by the Eurasians… it was just fortunate that two armies fighting against the revolution on domestic soil were targeted by those damn foreigners. In the aftermath of May 5th, as the years and decades went onwards, the truth of what happened that day became blurred. The fighting which had been the British Civil War between two opposing governments was erased. The fate of the young queen, along with all other royals & the landed gentry, wasn’t brought up: their hidden graves were forgotten about. The Second and Third German Wars, what others would call the Second and Third World Wars, were merged into one conflict in public perception. That the revolution had ever been contested rather than a sudden will of the people for new leadership was too forced from memory. That Tu-4 aircraft was pushed into the sea. Its aircrew, everyone on the ground at Manston and Knox too all likewise vanished: they knew an uncomfortable truth so were liquidated. Britain became England. The war with Eurasia that the atomic bombings had apparently been the start of became something different than what it actually became: Eastasia was also in the mix. Moreover, the bombing of Salisbury Plain was something too that the Ingsoc Government pushed out of the public mind. Everything was all about Colchester.

More than fifty thousand lives were lost in the atomic bombing of Colchester. So many of those who died could have been saved in the immediate aftermath if there had been a suitable response. One wasn’t made though. The Revolutionary Council left the survivors to themselves. The civilian population plus the army forming around the town were enemies whom they wished to see rid of. Colchester was near flattened. There were surviving ruins but they were left to nature to consume. A blank space on the maps, maps which few people would have access to down the line, was all that was left there. Like Hiroshima, Nagasaki, Frankfurt, Milan, Leningrad & Kiev before it, Colchester would be a monument to the power of most destructive weapons known to man.

[stevep]

Aug 16, 2021 17:42:19 GMT James G said:

Aug 16, 2021 10:01:54 GMT stevep said:

  James G ,

   That's twice I noticed you mentioned the "supposed safety of Britain"so I wonder if its going to have a grim ending or is this as far as you go with this story?

  Steve

It should only have been once, tbh.
It is likely that the war will restart and there will be no safety in Britain.
Just a one-shot. I'll be writing many of them for a while.

  Well the 1st was worded slightly differently, with the young German girl the soldier allowed on the 1st ferry.

[James G]

Operation Ferrous, August 2021

For ten long years, an insurgency had been waged across the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia. It had begun during the Arab Spring in 2011 and continued at an overall low- to medium-level until the final year. For the majority of that time, the insurgency was said to be almost dead. The Saudis were always confident in public that there was no issue, that everything was fine. Outside observers knew better yet underrated the New Ikhwan time and time again with regard to the staying power of that group. Deeply religious, harking back to the past with such a name too, the New Ikhwan were a terrorist organisation claiming that they were fighting for the freedom of the people. They wished to free ‘the land of the two mosques’ from corruption, decadence and the rule of the House of Saud. The authorities repeatedly cracked down upon them. Following every gun or bomb attack, which struck the cities repeatedly, the sternest of reprisals would come. Executions of militants and revenge killings of alleged supporters happened with frequency. The New Ikhwan targeted Westerners as well as the Saudi security forces. They also went for the nation’s rulers, murdering members of the extensive ruling family plus its supporters too. Few innocent civilians were caught up in their attacks despite private comments to questioning foreigners by the Saudis who said that the militants were terrorising and killing with abandon. Oil production, infrastructure and tourist sites were attacked. Killing random princes was never enough for the New Ikhwan. In 2015, when their activities were rampant, they made a serious effort to assassinate the king. That failed but they came very close to succeeding. Foreign help, even from allies, to fight against those seeking to bring down Saudi Arabia was something which was refused. The Americans, the Gulf Arabs and even the Pakistanis were told that the regime had everything under control. They certainly didn’t. Thousands of young Saudis as well as foreign volunteers entered the fight. The year after that failed attempt on the life of the country’s supreme ruler, the city of Jeddah was the site of their fiercest of all battles where a large force sought to seize it as a base of operations. The Saudi authorities crushed that attempt. Their victory came with the broadcast to the world that the New Ikhwan hadn’t gone away and was a real danger to the state. They were beaten time and time again yet kept on coming back trying to ‘liberate’ the country.

Come 2021, the security situation across Saudi Arabia began to collapse. The New Ikhwan did nothing different to cause that. There was no sudden change of strategy beyond targeted killings and bombings, not at first anyway. It was a matter of the Saudi military and security services finally having been stretched too thin. A crisis in the oil-rich Eastern Province, fomented by Iran among the Shia population there, drew in Saudi attention significantly. The Sunni-only New Ikhwan suddenly found themselves some breathing room. They moved to exploit it. In Riyadh, the government couldn’t cope with the two at once. They didn’t have the manpower. More than that, the security forces were just plain tired of it all. Orders were obeyed but slower than before. Defections to the militants increased, with men walking away with weapons too. A realisation dawned upon so many Saudis that the regime which they fought for just wasn’t one with a future. The New Ikhwan took every new recruit who came their way. Their promises of a new country and a seductive ideology suckered in so many outsiders but with the late defectors, there was a lot of wanting to be on the side of the victors when the end came rather than the losers. By February, things got bad enough that the king finally admitted that his throne was under threat. Militants were operating in the open. They were active across many cities, especially down the western side of the nation. Riyadh remained firmly in government hands with the New Ikhwan never having managed to get a hold there, but elsewhere, order was being lost. Everyone outside knew what was happening. The activities of the militants along the borders, in Jeddah, in Tabuk and increasingly around Mecca & Medina was too open to be ignored. External help was offered. For the Saudis to fall to fanatics with an ideology such as that of the New Ikhwan wasn’t wanted in so many corners of the globe. American, Western and Gulf Arab help was refused but the Pakistanis were asked to assist. Riyadh-Islamabad ties were strong and the Pakistanis answered the call. In flights arranged for by the Saudis, with a deployment paid for by the king, Pakistani paratroopers flew to Mecca and Medina. They took over security duties there in the holiest of holy religious sites in all of Islam. Meanwhile, the Saudis turned their full attention on engaging the militants elsewhere in the western reaches of the country while also trying to finally overcome that eastern problem.

Nonetheless, the fight against internal troubles was still too much to undertake. Throughout March, April and May, the New Ikhwan moved increasingly into the open. The Saudi Armed Forces took them on. No longer was it wars in the shadow, but what had been seen in Jeddah five years past was repeated on a bigger scale. The New Ikhwan had no access to tanks, armed helicopters and jet fighters as the Saudi military did. They didn’t have the armed drones nor American SIGNIT tip-offs coming in from afar (unbidden but received & acted upon). Still, they fought and held their ground. Saudi military performance was dismal, an embarrassment. Even with the defections seen, there was still no excuse for all that happened. A paper tiger was exposed, that being the Saudi Armed Forces with all of its expensive Western equipment and all of that training. The wealthy got out of Saudi Arabia as the year wore on and it looked bad for them. The House of Saud had all of those thousands of princes yet only a few hundred were important. From both sides of the family, the heaves and have-nots, there was abandonment of Saudi Arabia of its royalty. Rich Saudis outside the ruling family who had a country named after them also took themselves and a lot of their money out. The New Ikhwan wanted to distribute that all to the people… and those who it could be taken from would lose their heads. Most Westerners had long left yet some remained during 2021. In interactions with the militants, there was little trouble despite fears of massacres of such like. The New Ikhwan had other enemies to fight in a more pressing fashion. Talk in America as the summer approached was of a possible United States intervention into Saudi Arabia with or without permission from the locals. There was a different president in charge than there had been in the early years of the militant activity: he didn’t want to do it, he didn’t believe American lives should prop up such a regime as Saudi Arabia even when the New Ikhwan was on the other side. The world economy suffered gravely due to the troubles in Saudi Arabia but even that didn’t press the United States, nor Western governments either, to intervene. Pakistan offered more troops and there was talk with the Egyptians & Gulf Arabs where the prospect of intervention was more favourable in the king’s mind than it previously had been though. Alas, he took too long to decide, and those seeking to help wanted too much. In the meantime, the New Ikhwan acted faster than everything thought.

They took Jeddah come the beginning of June. Soon, they were fighting Pakistanis out of nearby Mecca and had a torrid time with that. It was a wound that was significant yet not fatally so to the New Ikhwan as a whole. There were separate groups all over the country. Down in the Jizan region, near to Yemen in the southwest, Saudi authority collapsed. Military forces surrendered, defected or deserted. Access to significant military hardware came into their hands. In parts of the West, the New Ikhwan were often portrayed as backwards savages due to their fanatic religious and social views. That didn’t mean they didn’t have the knowledge nor capability to operate such equipment though. The old Hejaz region, up in the northwest, fell not long afterwards. Across the Red Sea was Egypt while to the north were both Jordan and Israel – all enemies for the New Ikhwan – but they focused on subsuming a wide area of the country. They cleansed it of domestic enemies, forcing more to flee, and held it against dismal Saudi military efforts to try and retake it. F-15 fighters in New Ikhwan service flew in the skies after their capture. More than that, the militants got themselves an army. They were previously a guerrilla force but not after first Jizan then the Hejaz. Brigade-sized combat forces defected. Royal princes appointed by the king for supposed loyalty had fled overseas leaving junior men who committed themselves to the New Ikhwan. Their turncoat attitude wasn’t wholly sincere but they had come to realise that the House of Saud was doomed. To fight for the incoming rulers rather than stay with those doomed meant it likely they would keep their heads when it was all over.

Mecca and Medina were a temptation which the New Ikhwan looked at during June and July. The leadership had the desire in their hearts to fight for them, but in their heads they knew that the key to victory was Riyadh. That was where they sent their armies towards. In addition, much attention of their opponents, domestic and international, was directed towards those two cities, where the two mosques were. The decision was to strike where it was unexpected. There was help with that. In the north, almost without having to fire a shot, King Khalid Military City fell. It was empty of troops but the taking of it by a small militant force against all the odds was significant. The Kuwaitis had a military force assembled to go there but the Saudi king didn’t give permission. In the interlude, the New Ikhwan swept in. If the whole world hadn’t been sitting up and paying attention before, they were after that capture. The immense sprawling facility was worth a lot to the New Ikhwan. Outsiders saw their victory as inevitable after that. Those inside Saudi Arabia did so too. A new wave of defections and desertions occurred. The militants couldn’t believe their luck. Riyadh was the focus for them though. They started moving their army, a fully mechanised force, towards the capital. The Saudi Armed Forces were directed to stop them. The civil war became not about security forces chasing shadows in the dark but a full on clash of tanks and heavyweight fire support. There were some real battles where the Saudis finally did put up a fight. But it was too little, too late. The armies of the New Ikhwan, coming from the northwest & southwest, supported by guerrilla activity all across the rear, won out. In towards Riyadh as July turned to August the New Ikhwan went. The king did a runner. He went off to Pakistan in the middle of the night. He took with him wealth and key family members, leaving behind other relatives and his state too. The shocking flight of the strongman, absolute ruler of Saudi Arabia stunned those inside and outside of the country. Him bugging out caused jaws to drop. Despair hit Saudis still loyal to the regime. Fright struck foreign governments. There was a lot of realisation among the latter that they should long ago have ignored Saudi ‘sensitivity’ and intervened with military force. It was too late though.

The New Ikhwan swept into Riyadh when the last defenders abandoned their posts without a king to defend it for.


At Riyadh International Airport, there was a scramble to get out. Saudis of all backgrounds sought to escape by air from there. There were other ways out, away from the fearful New Ikhwan, but Riyadh’s airport became a focal point of much attention from overseas as to what happened there. It wasn’t just Saudis trying to flee but foreign nationals too. That brought about a military response by non-Saudi forces. There weren’t that many Westerners inside the country yet the major powers wanted to see them safely able to leave through that airport. The Americans led the way, with their president finally authorising ‘boots on the ground’ into Saudi Arabia. He was facing serious political difficulties at home due to how he had seemingly ignored the fall of the Saudi regime and the implications which were sure to come from that. Launched from the Gulf, US Marines in helicopters and tilt-rotors arrived. They came not for a fight with the New Ikhwan, who had apparently decided to ignore the airport for the time being, but were ready to engage them should it come to that. With cooperation between London and Washington, Britain undertook Operation Ferrous at the same time.

Gurkhas flown in from Brunei and Royal Marines staging from Oman were involved. RAF aircraft along with emergency chartered airliners arrived starting August 13th. They began security operations to allow for evacuation flights of British and Commonwealth nationals. There were crowds at the airport who needed dispersing. Force was used. It was proportional and a last resort, but it had to be done. The US Marines were already shooting before the British did. Those on the receiving end weren’t the New Ikhwan but instead Saudi security forces from a country that had collapsed yet they still wore the uniforms of. Their aim, widely uncoordinated, was to seize aircraft and get out before the militants got them. Aircraft would be stolen and anyone in the way pushed aside. They tried that, and failed. Deaths occurred on both sides, plus among innocents too. Operation Ferrous was costly for the British troops sent there. Their activities were recorded by the international media too. Back home in the UK, images of what happened were shown but the whole picture wasn’t easy to explain. The Prime Minister had to defend it against criticism. He remained committed to it though knowing that opponents were always going to oppose anything he did.

For a week, there was that major US-UK presence at Riyadh International Airport. The New Ikhwan stayed away. They were too busy swallowing up the city. There was so much wealth and plenty of enemies to find who hadn’t made it to the airport. There were several stand-offs inside Riyadh proper (the airport was on the northern outskirts) where Gurkhas & Royal Marines faced down militants supported by defecting Saudi soldiers who’d gone over to them. The British were searching for missing nationals at reported locations. Nonetheless, what in the eyes of the New Ikhwan was a foreign invasion, orders ran for no shooting unless they were shot at first. They let the Westerners do what they did, confident that they would soon leave. That fight was for another day: securing victory was paramount. That the Westerners would leave was the case. By August 19th, Operation Ferrous came to an end. The Americans pulled out the same day as the British did. Behind them, what had once been the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia was becoming the Islamic Emirate of Arabia where new rulers had taken control for good.

[lordroel]

Aug 18, 2021 17:54:26 GMT James G said:

The British were searching for missing nationals at reported locations.

Something that is happening right now in Kabul, the British are going into the city to find people in safe houses while the Americans are angry that the British might hurt the American-Taliban deal they made regarding the airport.

[gillan1220]

The New Ikwan is like the GLA from Command and Conquer: Generals.