One team in particular wreaked mayhem on a drone battalion. They shot up all the personnel but one. That one man, and much of his equipment, they took to Lake Ontario. They boarded a submersible in the lake and returned to our side.”
“We have submarines in Lake Ontario?” the President asked in amazement.
“Small ones for special operations, sir,” Alan said. “The point is that we’ve been studying the drone equipment and interrogating the GD operator for several days now. We’ve found something called the Heidegger Principle. It’s technical, so I won’t go into it here. But we’ve discovered that’s how the GD drone operators communicate with their vehicles. We’ve finally found out why our jamming equipment, or electronic warfare, has had so little effect on them to date.”
“The Heidegger Principle?” the President asked. “I’ve never heard of it.”
“Mr. President,” Alan said. “Here’s the crux of the matter. We’ve already begun building a Heidegger Principle jammer. With it, we believe we can jam GD drone signals.”
“Meaning what?” the President asked.
“Meaning we can possibly interrupt their Sigrids and some of their drone tanks,” McGraw said loudly.
“We hope,” Alan told him.
“Maybe we could even take over some of their drones,” McGraw said.
“We’re looking into that, of course,” Alan said. “The main event is stopping them from functioning.”
The President blinked several times. “That’s amazing,” he said. “It’s a miracle weapon.”
“No,” General Alan said. “It isn’t that. Otherwise, I would have said something before this. The jammers are going to take time to build. There are some concepts here I don’t admit to fully understanding. The GD tech teams are way ahead of us on this. But I do think it means we can soon—in a week or two—get a special EW jamming company together. We’ll set up more companies as fast as we can. But we may have an antidote to GD ‘Terminator’ battalions and divisions running amok among us. It will force them to put more of their flesh and blood troops on the line. Then we can fight them on near-equal terms.”
“I’m giving the jamming company crash priority,” the President said.
“Consider it already done, sir,” Alan said.
“And unless you men have any more objections,” the President said, “I’m going to implement General McGraw’s idea.”
“Mr. President,” Max said. “Gentlemen, Ms. Chen, I’m surprised at your…your callous disregard of soldiers’ lives. These are stopgap measures. Our military men already admit that. I’ve outlined a plan that will give us decisive victory.”
“Can’t you see that you’re talking about unleashing annihilation against humanity?” the President asked.
“I respectfully disagree, sir,” Max said. “We use the tactical—”
“No,” the President said. “I will not order mass tactical nuclear weapons, not unless there is no other way.”
“Sir,” Max said. “We should use them before we’ve bled our country dry of its best troops.”
The President scowled, and Max continued talking. It took another hour of hard discussions before Max Harold finally lapsed into a sullen silence.
Thus, the orders would go out. There would be a mass entraining of southern East Coast soldiers and others from coastal Mississippi and Alabama heading for Southern Ontario. The New England Command would have to give up soldiers too. Others in New York would immediately attack toward Hamilton to buy time. All the while, artillery from the Midwest, from the Pacific and from the southern East Coast would head for the GD Front.
Like the others, Anna understood the critical nature of the next few days and weeks. If General Zelazny could buy them enough time…they might be able to halt the resumption of the enemy offensive before the Germans broke out of Southern Ontario.
Jake Higgins had lost weight since Topeka, Kansas, making him leaner than ever and giving his face a gaunt look. There was something new in his eyes: a cloaked fierceness some of the meanest junkyard dogs achieved.
He rode in the back of a noisy old Army truck. Gears ground and the engine knocked twice before resuming its regular roar. This was a Militia truck these days, as close to a piece of running junk as he’d ever seen. The rest of the penal squad rode in the covered bed of the truck with him. They belonged to the Second Platoon of C Company of the Third Penal Battalion. Each of them wore Militia green with a big rucksack at their feet. Each of the militiamen wore old worn boots and worn coats, castoff clothing given to the worst scoundrels in the US military. At least, so the training sergeants had told them for the last few days now.
Their training had been extremely short and brutal, with several sluggards shot on the spot to make an example for the others. In Jake’s opinion, sending them into battle now was a crime. Half the men here knew nothing about combat. The other half hardly knew each other’s names.
According to the Militia manifests, most of the men in the truck bed were politically unreliable. Because of that, these dregs had lost their right to American citizenship. There was only one way to regain the rights, and that was through a year’s clean record and through sustained fighting.
None of the other militiamen in here had seen as much fighting as Jake. No three of them combined had seen as much action. It should have made him the squad sergeant. It should have, but the black marks against him were much darker than the marks against any of the others. Besides, he’d knocked down Dan Franks, and the MDG Sergeants had found plenty of things to write up concerning him. Therefore, Jake Higgins was a lowly private.
As a dreg of a private, he sat nearest the tailgate. It rained hard outside, the drops plinking against the outer tarp. Far too many drops slashed within, hitting his slicker, the rim of his helmet and his face if he looked up. The big tires churned through mud, the engine working overtime and the nearly bald tires sliding far too much. On either side of the switchback road towered huge evergreen trees. If the truck served too much, it could easily crash against one of the forest giants.
In truth, Jake didn’t mind this spot on the truck. If the old vehicle did crash, he at least had a chance of making it outside alive. The trouble came from another penal battalion truck that followed on their tail. Dan Franks drove the other vehicle. The sergeant scowled every time his eyes met Jake’s gaze.
The situation reminded Jake too much of the early days in Denver with his friend the lieutenant. Just like then, the Militia MDGs were heavily muscled soldiers trained to regard the penal offenders as scum. The MDGs carried submachine guns and wore body armor. During the few days of so-called training, the sergeants had let the penal offenders know that cowardice would be met with a bullet in the back of the head.
Jake’s truck swerved sharply, and the chain on the tailgate slammed against the wood, clinking repeatedly. Jake swayed back and forth. He clutched his M16 between his legs. It was an ancient model. None of them in here wore body armor and none of them had modern equipment. Instead, they had old helmets, old M16s and even older grenades the MDGs must have found in a history museum.
“Is that thunder outside?” Charlie asked.
“Huh?” Jake said. He looked up, and rain struck against his cheeks. He raised his hand to shield himself from the drops.
“Listen,” Charlie said.
In the rail yard a few days ago, Jake had stuck up for him. Charlie had been caught several weeks ago painting anti-Sims slogans in Boise. Charlie’s dad used to hoard silver and gold, and his dad’s grandfather had belonged to the Tea Party long ago. Charlie was from Idaho and used to ride range for scrawny cattle and grow potatoes. Now he took care of his mom in Boise. He was tougher than he looked and could get by on hardly any food. That’s what he’d been doing for a long time. He hated Sergeant Franks and he was sick with embarrassment for being frightened in the Chicago rail yard. His dad had told him stories about Homeland Security and their Gestapo tactics. Back in Chicago, he’d figured that had been the end. Seeing Jake attack Franks had filled Charlie with admiration for him. Since then, Charlie had become Jake’s shadow.
“Do you hear that?” Charlie asked.
“I hear it,” Jake said, after a minute. “That’s not thunder, if that’s what you’re thinking. It’s artillery.”
Charlie nodded thoughtfully, and he became quiet.
So did Jake. They were headed for Hamilton, or for somewhere nearby there. The word had come down. They were going to help the Americans in the Toronto Pocket.
