Conquistadors!, page 25
“So far, there’s been little sign our enemies overseas will join the Protectorate,” the Secretary of State insisted. “Right?”
He looked at CIA, who frowned. “It’s hard to be sure,” he said. “We’ve lost contact with many of our overseas assets. It’s quite possible our files were raided and certain names passed to foreign governments, both to make life difficult for us and to curry favour with potential allies. Our communications intercept network has been badly degraded too, leaving us unsure what is actually going on overseas. There are reports that Russia is gearing up to reignite the Ukrainian War, and that China is considering pressing her claims to Taiwan, but we have no independent confirmation.”
“The Chinese economy is still dependent on ours, and ours has taken a serious drop,” Felix said. “The Chinese government will be desperate for something – anything – to keep its people from blaming them for the crisis. If they invade Taiwan and take the island, they can claim the sacrifices were worthwhile; if they lose, they’ll at least have tried.”
“And if the Protectorate gives them a hand, they might succeed,” General Grey said, quietly.
The President looked at Admiral Leone, who nodded. “An invasion of Taiwan will be difficult,” he said, flatly. “We studied the problem to determine how the Chinese might proceed and concluded it would be difficult, but feasible if the Chinese are determined and have some good luck. Or if they have an ally capable of clearing their way through the Taiwanese air defences.”
“Right now, that’s not our problem,” Felix said. “Our country has been invaded. We do not have forces to spare to protect Taiwan, or anywhere else. Our priority is driving the invaders out as quickly as possible, whatever the cost.”
He paused. “If Churchill had surrendered to Hitler in 1940, or even come to terms with him, he would have won a few years of peace for the United Kingdom. There were good arguments for peace, after France had been beaten and the British driven off the continent, and yes ... they were good arguments. There was room for an agreement far short of utter surrender. Hitler would have gone east in 1941, giving the British time to rebuild and prepare for the coming war with Japan ... but this is Hitler we’re talking about. The few years of peace would give way to a renewed war, against a far deadlier enemy. Hitler could have been stopped in 1938, if Chamberlain had stood up to him, but Chamberlain thought he could come to terms instead. And he was wrong.”
The words hung in the air. Felix had studied the Treaty of Munich extensively, as part of his political education, and he’d noted the treaty – as foolish as it seemed, in hindsight – actually made a great deal of sense from the point of view of the average statesman of the era. It addressed Germany’s legitimate concerns, cut the ground out from under Hitler by denying him any further grounds for demands ... if Hitler had been an honourable man, or a conventional politician, the treaty would have worked out just fine. But Hitler hadn’t been honourable ...
And appeasement only works as long as you have someone to throw into the lion’s maw, he thought. Chamberlain might have thought Munich was a great treaty, but the Czechs hadn’t. Who was it who said diplomacy was the art of saying ‘nice doggy’ while you found a big stick?
“This is war,” he repeated. “And we must fight to the end.”
He allowed his eyes to sweep the room, trying to gauge support. Some seemed inclined to agree, others hadn’t realised – not yet – that the world had changed beyond repair. They couldn’t back out and leave their allies to their fate ... he wondered, morbidly, just how long the President’s political career would last, if he abandoned Texas to the invaders. Peace at any price? But Chamberlain had discovered the hard way that there were some people who simply couldn’t be reasoned with or placated, no matter what you offered. Hitler had very definitely been one of them.
The President cleared his throat. “We will, of course, explore all military solutions,” he said. “If we can defeat them in the field, if we can force them to surrender, we will. We will also consider diplomatic approaches, now that we’ve shown them that we can inflict losses on them.”
Our media was ready to run up the white flag when we took a handful of casualties in Iraq, Felix thought. Putin lost over 100,000 dead or wounded and he kept going. The Protectorate might feel the deaths are worthwhile, if they win ...
He gritted his teeth. If the invaders were human, they had human motives and human reasoning. They would want – they’d need – something to show for their dead or wounded. They’d have to throw good money after bad ... unless they thought they could survive losing a handful of men. Could they? He had no way to know.
“A diplomatic approach,” he said. “How much of Texas are you prepared to surrender?”
“None,” the President said. “But if we can convince them the war is futile, they might go home.”
Wishful thinking, Felix thought. They’ve committed themselves to war.
He clenched his teeth, paying close attention as Grey started to outline his plans. The military officers knew what they were doing, now that the real warfighters were in charge. They wouldn’t give up easily, he hoped. But without political leadership backing them to the hilt ...
His mood, already dark, grew bleak. It’s time to start some contingency planning of my own.
Chapter Twenty-Six: Texas, North America, Timeline F (OTL)
Sally hated to admit it, at least to herself, but having power – actual power – was intoxicating.
She stood behind the row of desks, carefully lined up in the town hall, and watched as her staffers registered the townspeople. They’d been government officials before the invasion, the kind of people who’d taken unholy delight in making life difficult for everyone else, and they’d been told – in no uncertain terms – that they could either work for the Protectorate or go straight into the work gangs. Sally had enjoyed watching them fold, one by one, as they realised their old world was gone forever. She hadn’t really expected resistance – if the bureaucrats had given a damn about their country, they wouldn’t have helped suffocate the life out of the land – but it was still amusing to watch as they did their work. Some people just enjoyed wielding power over others, even on such a petty scale. They’d have been running gulags in the Soviet Union.
Her lips twitched at the thought as she studied the townspeople. The Protectorate had established a set of categories and everyone was being sorted out: some would be put to work, if they wanted to eat; others were encouraged to return to their posts and try to keep things running as normally as possible. Sally wasn't too surprised to note the town’s mayor and a bunch of other officials had vanished, along with the majority of the police force. They’d probably fled, the moment they realised the invasion wasn’t a sick joke. It wasn’t as if they’d ever given a damn about the townspeople either.
The thought made her smile as she stepped away from the desks and walked through the town hall. It was bigger than she’d expected, for a relatively small town, which suggested it had been built at the whim of a mayor or used to cover up local government corruption. The staffers had been told to go back to work or get out, even though the majority of the offices were closed ... and would remain permanently so. The townspeople no longer needed permits to open a business, or build housing, or anything else that would have helped improve the town ... if it hadn’t been strangled by red tape. Sally’s father had bitched and moaned about how he could have been a wealthy businessman, if he hadn’t had to keep jumping through hoops held by people who didn’t have the slightest idea what they were talking about and didn’t care to learn. Sally hoped the old man appreciated what she’d done, although she feared otherwise. Who knew? She had connections now, connections she could use to help him ...
Outside, the line stretched down the street, further than the eye could see. A massive tank sat outside the town hall, a grim reminder to anyone thinking of causing trouble, while a bunch of soldiers marched around the building. They had orders to react fast, if anyone did try something stupid. A handful of young men sat on the ground by the building, their faces bloody and their hands bound behind their backs. Sally guessed, from their appearance, that they were unemployed and unemployable, the kind of men who had no hope and knew it all too well. They’d gotten away with a lot, in the old days; now, they’d serve as a salutary example of what happened to anyone who pressed their luck, then go into the work gangs cleaning up the mess. She’d organised the local gangs yesterday, putting them to work dismantling the remains of the defences and digging a mass grave. It was striking just how many people had stood – and died – defending their own. Sally wondered, absently, if Flint’s population would have done the same, if they’d had a chance.
Her eyes narrowed, just for a second, as she saw a pair of soldiers frogmarching a man down the street, straight to the prison camp. A soldier, hiding in the town? An insurgent? She looked away, telling herself he was a moron who’d stood against the changing world order. Why should he – why should she – be loyal to a country that had betrayed him, time and time again? She’d worked hard, as had many others, only to discover there was no way to get on the very first rung, let alone climb to the top. Her teachers had told her, more than once, that anyone could grow up to be President. Sally had realised, years ago, they’d been lying.
The schools will have to be fixed too, she told herself. The local schoolhouse had been closed for the duration of the emergency, but it would reopen sooner or later ... hopefully sooner. They didn’t need kids on the street causing trouble. And then we can teach people the skills they desperately need, not worthless nonsense.
Her thoughts hardened as she made her way to the warehouse, where her next meeting was scheduled. The Protectorate wouldn’t tolerate the lack of discipline that had marked every single school she’d ever known, and some that were so bad they sounded nightmarish. In her ideal world, the teachers would teach their subjects and nothing else; the students who refused to behave would be punished, then kicked out if they refused to change their ways. Sally had had useless teachers and stupid teachers and downright predatory teachers, none of whom could be fired for some bullshit reason ... she promised herself that would change, if she had something to say about it. And she did ... now.
She pasted a smile on her face as she walked into the warehouse, careful not to show a hint of fear. There were nearly seventy men in the chamber, an incredibly diverse group bound together by a single job. Some looked tough, some looked desperate ... some eyed her warily, as if they feared what she could do, while others looked at her as if she were a turd floating down an open sewer. She tried not to take it personally, although it wasn’t easy. She was doing these men a favour, really. The least they could do was show her a little respect.
“I’ll make this quick,” she said, pitching her voice so it carried to the rear of the warehouse. “You are all truckers, with your own trucks. The Protectorate wishes to hire your services, transporting supplies. If you agree to work for them, they’ll pay you very well, in both money and supplies.”
And if you don’t, they’ll cut you off, she thought, coldly. The truckers – like everyone else – had been registered, their details recorded in the Protectorate’s database. It had had its amusing side – a handful of people had discovered their father wasn’t actually their father, or that they had relatives they hadn’t known they had – but anyone who tried to live outside the system would find it very difficult. There will be no money, no food, no nothing.
She felt a grim thrill as they stared at her, muttering angrily. She’d never liked truckers – or any other men like them, men who were so lowly they couldn’t even begin to offer a woman what she wanted. To marry one of them, or even to get into a relationship, was to be dragged down ... Sally loved her mother dearly, really she did, but she had never understood why such a clever and capable woman had married her father. Love didn’t conquer all, not in her estimation ... perhaps her mother had gotten pregnant, or perhaps she’d thought there was no point in striving when the reward was forever out of reach. Sally remembered truckers hooting and hollering at her, when she’d been dangerously young, and felt her mood sharpen. She couldn’t avenge herself on those perverts, but on these ...
“Make your choice quickly,” she said, firmly. “There won’t be a second chance.”
***
Dorothy Steele felt alarmingly vulnerable as she stood in line and waited for the people in front of her to start moving. Uncle Vinnie hadn’t come home after the fighting, nor had half of his friends ... or hers, for that matter. She knew she’d been lucky to survive – the enemy had had her bang to rights; he’d chosen to let her go – but she honestly didn’t know if that was a good thing. She’d spent the last few days hiding in her uncle’s house – hers now, she supposed – trying to conceal as much of his arsenal as possible. The radio was silent, the internet shut down ... the occupiers had told everyone to stay in their homes, unless they needed to leave urgently, and little else. If Uncle Vinnie hadn’t been such a paranoid kook, she would have been starving by now.
There’s enough food stockpiled to feed a small army, she thought. She’d seriously considered ignoring the orders to present herself for registration, although she had the nasty feeling that –if she didn’t – the invaders would assume the house was empty and reassign it to someone else. They’d already handed out a pair of houses further up the streets to newcomers ... immigrants, she assumed, rather than invaders. But what good is it if I am alone?
Her heart twisted as the line inched forward. Uncle Vinnie would have known what to do, but Uncle Vinnie was dead. Or a prisoner. She wanted to tell herself that he was alive, yet ... it was hard to believe he’d have let himself surrender. Dorothy had seen him take beatings and keep going, even though he was clearly losing. He simply didn’t know how to give up. No ... he hadn’t known. Dorothy gritted her teeth, biting her lip to keep from crying. Her uncle was dead, along with far too many others. And she was alive, trapped in an occupied town. She wanted to believe she could escape, but where could she go? For all she knew, the invaders were stomping Washington, DC to the ground right now.
The town hall came into view slowly, a handful of beaten and battered young men sitting outside. Dorothy felt a conflicted wave of emotions as she recognised a pair of older boys: one who’d loitered around the town, after graduation, without even trying to find a job and build a career; one who had scored a touchdown – or something – in a big game and was still basking in the glory, bragging endlessly about his achievement even though everyone else had moved on years ago. Pathetic, really. He’d hit on her too, but Dorothy hadn’t needed Uncle Vinnie to tell her the young man would make a terrible boyfriend. Of course not. He might have been the king of the school, once upon a time, but that had been years ago. She would have felt sorrier for him – he’d peaked in high school – if he hadn’t been such an asshole. Whatever he’d done to annoy the invaders, she found it hard to blame them for beating him bloody.
They’ll probably win some allies just by putting those bastards to work, she thought, sourly. The young men – and their peers – had done nothing with their lives ... but then, there’d been nothing to do, save for drinking and harassing young women. And who knows what will happen then?
The thought mocked her as the line inched its way into the town hall itself. The meeting hall had been stripped bare – the invaders had removed the US flag, the portrait of George Washington and the bust of a Confederate hero that had seemed a good idea when it had been put up and was now rather embarrassing – and turned it into an open office, a dozen women sitting behind desks, registering the townspeople family by family. A pair of masked invaders stood at the rear of the hall, their masks making it impossible to tell if they were watching the townspeople or mentally goofing off. Dorothy wondered, too late, if she’d made a deadly mistake. She was seventeen, too young to live on her own ... legally. Did that even matter now? Or would someone be ordered to foster her?
She’d half-hoped to see an invader behind the desk, but the woman was someone she knew from the DMV. Dorothy tried to keep the scorn off her face ... the DMV had been one of the least effective government services in town, and she wasn’t surprised to learn that someone who’d worked for it was now working for the invaders. They certainly didn’t have very far to fall.
“ID, passport, proof of address,” the woman droned. “Now, if you please.”
Dorothy braced herself and handed over what little she had. She’d never bothered to get a passport – travelling outside the US was reserved for wealthy people – and she was too young to have anything beyond a student ID card. It was enough to make her worry about her claim to Uncle Vinnie’s property ... he didn’t have any relatives, as far as she knew, but was she his legal heir? Or would someone else come out of the woodwork to lay claim to his home and possessions? She wasn’t even sure she was mentioned in the will. Uncle Vinnie had certainly never expected to die defending his hometown ...
The woman eyed her sourly. Dorothy tried not to glare back. Bureaucrats had all sorts of ways to fuck with people who got on their bad side, no matter the cause. Benefits could be denied, permits could be refused ... there were so many rules and regulations that a particularly unpleasant bureaucrat could find a way to justify anything, from demanding more paperwork to certifications their victim was unlikely to be able to obtain. And now ... the wretched quisling only had to call and the masked men would take Dorothy away to an uncertain fate. She recalled the prisoners outside and shuddered. Had they mouthed off to the collaborators too?
“What happened to your guardian?”
Dorothy had expected the question, but she hadn’t been able to decide how best to answer it. If she told them the truth, what would they say or do; if she lied, would they figure it out? There was no way to know how much they already knew ... they might have captured and interrogated a few of the defenders, forcing them to list everyone who’d defended the town. She wasn’t even sure how many of her peers had survived ...
