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Authors: Tom Kratman
Tags: Science-Fiction
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and enough in the way of supply to operate for at least a month without further resupply. And why not? The ships were nearly two kilometers long, half that in beam, and about four hundred meters from AAA Deck down to the landing apparatus.
This five-ship lift consisted of the First Brigade of the 24th Infantry Division, the Victory Division, sharing Fort Stewart, Georgia as a home base with the 3rd Infantry Division and the Constabulary Infantry School. The brigade consisted of 2nd Battalion, 21st Infantry (Light); 2nd Battalion, 34th Infantry (Mechanized); 2nd Battalion, 19th Infantry (SHI); 1st Battalion, 52nd Field Artillery (LRB), along with batteries, troops and companies of engineers, operational reconnaissance, aerial reconnaissance, aerial interdiction artillery, heavy-armor direct fire support, tactical airlift (Chinook W), and a whopping headquarters and service support battalion. In all, and even counting some individual replacement for units already committed to the Philippine campaign, it was just over five thousand men and women.
Two of those, one man, one woman, fairly recently assigned as lieutenants to Company B, 2nd Battalion, 19th Infantry, sat in the officers' lounge looking out over the no longer radioactive ruins of one of America's heartland cities.
Everyone staring at the skeletal remains was quiet, eyes jerking back and forth over what was once a vibrant city filled with their countrymen and women. Indeed, the airship itself had grown quiet after the captain made the announcement over the PA system.
Laurie Hodge thought and said, "That's the saddest thing I've ever seen."
Over the PA, the captain countered, "You ain't seen nothing yet, folks. We'll be passing over Los Angeles in a few hours. That's worse."
Kitznen, Province of Affrankon, 26 Jumahdi I, 1531 AH (19 May, 2107)
"But why won't the Americans share their medicine with you, Besma?"
The older girl sighed, "Because we're at war, and it's a war we don't know how to end and they won't until we're all extinct." She thought about it for a minute and then walked to her trunk. From this she removed a textbook which she brought to the other girl.
She opened the book to a map of the globe. "This is what the world looks like. Here's where we are," she said, pointing to a green patch at one end of the largest land mass. That piece, Petra read, was labeled "Caliphate of Europe and Western North Africa." One small section, surrounded by green, was in red and labeled "Switzerland."
Besma's finger traced east, to a large red swatch extending down into the Balkans. "This is the Socialist Empire of the Tsar, Vladimir the Fifth. He's an enemy, too, but he isn't trying to extinguish us." The finger moved down to another section, colored in paler green, that stretched all the way from the upper part of the area labeled "Africa" over to some islands far to the right. "This is the Caliphate of Islam, Triumphant. I understand it's a mess."
Petra noticed that right in the middle of the Caliphate of Islam, Triumphant, on the eastern shore of the middle sea, there was a bare patch unmarked and unnamed. "And this?"
"I don't know," Besma said. "My teachers wouldn't talk about it."
Still farther down, the finger pointed to, "The Boer Free State, which owns most of Africa below the Sahara. A lot of the black slaves come from there. The Boers sell us their surplus population. The only good things about them are that they distrust America, too, and they provide us with a lot of technology we can't make for ourselves."
Moving her finger to the right, Besma marked, "This is the Celestial Kingdom of the Han. They also sell us some things we can't make for ourselves. They are at war with Nihon," the finger touched a large group of islands in the ocean marked "Peaceful." "Nihon is an ally of the American devils."
From there the finger moved southwest to a multicolored patchwork of little states, all crowded into a triangular peninsula. "This used to be
This five-ship lift consisted of the First Brigade of the 24th Infantry Division, the Victory Division, sharing Fort Stewart, Georgia as a home base with the 3rd Infantry Division and the Constabulary Infantry School. The brigade consisted of 2nd Battalion, 21st Infantry (Light); 2nd Battalion, 34th Infantry (Mechanized); 2nd Battalion, 19th Infantry (SHI); 1st Battalion, 52nd Field Artillery (LRB), along with batteries, troops and companies of engineers, operational reconnaissance, aerial reconnaissance, aerial interdiction artillery, heavy-armor direct fire support, tactical airlift (Chinook W), and a whopping headquarters and service support battalion. In all, and even counting some individual replacement for units already committed to the Philippine campaign, it was just over five thousand men and women.
Two of those, one man, one woman, fairly recently assigned as lieutenants to Company B, 2nd Battalion, 19th Infantry, sat in the officers' lounge looking out over the no longer radioactive ruins of one of America's heartland cities.
Everyone staring at the skeletal remains was quiet, eyes jerking back and forth over what was once a vibrant city filled with their countrymen and women. Indeed, the airship itself had grown quiet after the captain made the announcement over the PA system.
Laurie Hodge thought and said, "That's the saddest thing I've ever seen."
Over the PA, the captain countered, "You ain't seen nothing yet, folks. We'll be passing over Los Angeles in a few hours. That's worse."
Kitznen, Province of Affrankon, 26 Jumahdi I, 1531 AH (19 May, 2107)
"But why won't the Americans share their medicine with you, Besma?"
The older girl sighed, "Because we're at war, and it's a war we don't know how to end and they won't until we're all extinct." She thought about it for a minute and then walked to her trunk. From this she removed a textbook which she brought to the other girl.
She opened the book to a map of the globe. "This is what the world looks like. Here's where we are," she said, pointing to a green patch at one end of the largest land mass. That piece, Petra read, was labeled "Caliphate of Europe and Western North Africa." One small section, surrounded by green, was in red and labeled "Switzerland."
Besma's finger traced east, to a large red swatch extending down into the Balkans. "This is the Socialist Empire of the Tsar, Vladimir the Fifth. He's an enemy, too, but he isn't trying to extinguish us." The finger moved down to another section, colored in paler green, that stretched all the way from the upper part of the area labeled "Africa" over to some islands far to the right. "This is the Caliphate of Islam, Triumphant. I understand it's a mess."
Petra noticed that right in the middle of the Caliphate of Islam, Triumphant, on the eastern shore of the middle sea, there was a bare patch unmarked and unnamed. "And this?"
"I don't know," Besma said. "My teachers wouldn't talk about it."
Still farther down, the finger pointed to, "The Boer Free State, which owns most of Africa below the Sahara. A lot of the black slaves come from there. The Boers sell us their surplus population. The only good things about them are that they distrust America, too, and they provide us with a lot of technology we can't make for ourselves."
Moving her finger to the right, Besma marked, "This is the Celestial Kingdom of the Han. They also sell us some things we can't make for ourselves. They are at war with Nihon," the finger touched a large group of islands in the ocean marked "Peaceful." "Nihon is an ally of the American devils."
From there the finger moved southwest to a multicolored patchwork of little states, all crowded into a triangular peninsula. "This used to be
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