After the Pandemic - Republic (646 hits)
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Submitted by FuckTheArmy (View user info) at 2005-09-06 07:37:28 EDT
After the Pandemic - Crikey!
Part 1) http://www.ubersite.com/m/62198
Part 2) http://www.ubersite.com/m/62282
After the Pandemic - The basic premise and beginnings: http://www.ubersite.com/m/61238
* * *
Jake Sailor looked across at Uluru. It was still taboo to climb it; not that tribal laws mattered any more, but that was where the shield was located, and leech spies had been found as high as half way up before. Trespassers were shot on sight, although there were no warning signs, fences, or visible military instillations aside from the shield itself.
A little closer to home, the people walked on the streets in the cool of the evening. Despite the relative calm of the past decade, most people still feared the chance of attacks, so the government, his office especially, did everything they could to keep things running 'as normal' - night shift, every day of the year, was standard. It suited the climate of the desert, but more importantly, it suited the tactical advantages they held over the leeches. Even the recent arrival of variant C's on the continent hadn't changed the Daylight Defence Plan.
It had taken the end of the world for proper reconciliation to come to his people. "White Australia" and the Stolen Generations, both "assimilation" policies, had all but wiped out Aboriginal culture, from Tasmania to the Torres Straits, his homeland. Fitting then, that most of the nationalist policies of the Alice Springs government actually favoured blacks slightly, if only in the short term. They weren't exactly harsh anyway; the government was extremely democratic, if nationalist, and the latest polls had white people's support for the reparations policy at over 90%. The security patrols organised by the production councils made sure the few extremists (on both sides, he reminded himself shamefully) were kept under wraps.
Jake's attention shifted back to the report on his desk. It was a tactical plan for the retaking of the eastern cities; since the over-the-horizon radar had picked up signals from the North American resistance fighters about the planned attack, the military collective had been scrambling the nation's forces in a bold plan to take advantage of the chaos, and finally get some back against the leech empires.
It was bolder than he'd expected; tactical nukes, made with red mercury, modified to produce huge amounts of light and especially ultra-violet, shipped covertly all around the world - a reasonable number were being produced in the former US, for local use, but the plan had been extended worldwide when they found out about the Republic's retained manufacturing capacity. It had become so widespread a notion that the latest brief considered the deployment of an expeditionary force to reclaim Africa as soon as the major centres had been cleaned up.
He signed off on it as viable though; they had a ten-to-one numbers advantage on the leeches expected to be capable of fighting after the initial assault. Pity they couldn't get more guns to Britain on time, but the leech establishment isn't any better off, and it was too much risk to the plan to make large shipments. He closed the file and passed it through the data scanner. It was up to the councils to decide now.
The military parade gleamed in the pre-dawn; even the matt covers of the stealth-finished spider tanks and ion-jet hover fighters reflected decently. A hundred thousand soldiers had signed up out of a population of barely a million; the first wave, twenty thousand battle-hardened and well trained ground troops, all riding "Red-backs", and a further five thousand "Mozzies" stood in front of General-elect Simpson, old man Skippy, as he was called.
A few flecks of red still showed in his beard and hair, the only real sign of age on his 90-year old frame, aside from the scars; medical technology on longevity treatments, intercepted from leach transmissions, had been far more effective on baseline human physiology than it had ever been on the infected bloodsuckers, even the c-vees it was developed for.
He remembered the early days of the fighting. Somehow, the government had denied the catastrophe, but the people didn't believe it or put up with it; between the looming war with China and the lies of the old regime in the past, the socialist factions had been gaining massive support instead. Then the chaos started, and the survivors realised they had to take over now. It wasn't a conventional revolution, in the sense that Russia or the later worker's movements had been, but it was certainly a matter of workers taking power.
Despite their truly internationalist leanings, it made sense to organise things as a nationalist movement, because this had become a battle of species; there simply weren't any other countries left with the means to fight back. It was around the beginning of the Republic he'd regained his faith in humanity, especially because as soon as they'd secured themselves, they started planning and scheming ways to retake the leech lands.
Funny that the Marxists had recognised how wrong it was to try and treat the opposition as a group they could work with, but it was a clear and correct view. An 'I-told-you-so' that was now over 200 years old, the Communist Manifesto had actually been ingrained in the constitution of the Alice Springs Republic. It made it a little harder to deal with some of the more conservative human countries, but it kept the Republic three steps ahead of everyone else, even the c-vee nation.
The Republic - which now spread from the fringes of the Murray-Darling basin in the southeast, to the southern edge of Kakadu in the north, and an undefined border in the west. It was not the only baseline-human country in Australia, but since the recent ceding of powers by a number of groups, it was the largest in both population and area, even rivalling the leech territories on the east coast.
Maybe half these troopers would survive the coming month, he thought; but they were volunteers, they knew the risks, and for crikey's sake, they had even voted their approval of the plan. Chances were, the next assault would be easier, since the Darwin Federation, the legal successor to the former Australian Commonwealth, was finally starting to show signs of internal tension between the workers and the government's totalitarian plans. Unfortunately the BHP Super-corporation based in Perth had fallen to the leeches around six months ago. These people in front of him knew what had to be done to take the world back.
Jake's call was forwarded through into Simpson's office.
"Skippy, it's a sound plan, but I don't think we can safely say that over three quarters of the first wave will survive initial combat. What's more, I'm worried about the use of that many of our vehicles in one go. Are you sure we can sustain that kind of damage to our zero-casualty reputation? The younger recruits don't even know what a bloody combat death is. Shit, most of them haven't even seen their parents die of age yet."
General-elect Simpson took a deep breath, and answered.
"Mate, I don't expect half those early troops to come back alive. That might not be very conservative, but it's a fair expectation. It's what I told the troops, and they all said they still want to fight. I'm not concerned by the loss of machinery at all; I'm concerned by how many more lives it would take to win this war if we don't strike on Sun Day.
"You know as well as I do that these creatures don't want to negotiate, as sentient as they are, they're not willing to relinquish the capitalist mentality. Their society has been structured around it, with us at the bottom. It's what needs to be done, for the good of the Republic, for the good of every red-blooded human still out there.
"Jake, it's been debated at length in every office, shop, work-shed and factory from Mildura to Hutt River. Politically speaking, it's the least dangerous option available. The people have spoken."
Jake cooled slightly. "You're right. I been told."
On the dawn of the second day, the first red-backs began to crawl down the ridges of the Blue Mountains, mechanical legs negotiating the terrain easily, leaving the soldiers mounted on top of each craft to aim their heavy guns. They had been carried, four to each mozzie, to the snowline on the coastal side, and dropped from a range of two hundred meters or so; the pneumatic pistons easily taking the shock on every spider which landed upright, although a few dozen had been reported as inactive. Those soldiers would be glad of their monocoque body armour/helmets; no casualties reported yet. A few red-backs were diverted to collect the dismounts, and ten simply needed to be up-righted. The rest were carried to a rendezvous point, to establish a field base.
The mozzies raced ahead to bomb the major defensive posts. So far, everything was going to plan.
User Reviews
Submitted by hcp28 (user info) at 2005-09-07 11:21:10 EDT (#)
Ranking: 2
No Comment
Submitted by FuckTheArmy (user info) at 2005-09-07 07:58:43 EDT (#)
Ranking: 0
Put it this way, I just wanted some politically familiar material to start with.
Watch out for the battle scenes in the next installment, which will be much longer.
Hey, I might even spend a whole hour on it if you're lucky.
Submitted by Yes (user info) at 2005-09-06 11:44:14 EDT (#)
Ranking: 2
No Comment
Submitted by Bubba2341 (user info) at 2005-09-06 10:23:41 EDT (#)
Ranking: 2
Great story. I think donshitferbrains is jealous.
Submitted by HadToBeDone (user info) at 2005-09-06 10:19:28 EDT (#)
Ranking: 2
Submitted by Donitsu2002 (user info) at 2005-09-06 07:40:38 (#)
Ranking: -2
do these ever end?
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Story was good, but that little cunt up there needs a fresh scent tampon.
Submitted by thorpe (user info) at 2005-09-06 09:50:49 EDT (#)
Ranking: 2
This is getting dangerously close to an alternative-Australia based fiction series I'm in the middle of writing.
Submitted by nrduncan (user info) at 2005-09-06 09:39:25 EDT (#)
Ranking: 2
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Submitted by Benny (user info) at 2005-09-06 09:02:52 (#)
Ranking: 2
Perhaps a little bit too political but I am interested in reading more if you choose to continue. Despite what some might think I always like to see new ATP stories.
Submitted by Benny (user info) at 2005-09-06 09:02:52 EDT (#)
Ranking: 2
Perhaps a little bit too political but I am interested in reading more if you choose to continue. Despite what some might think I always like to see new ATP stories.
Submitted by Spam (user info) at 2005-09-06 08:13:51 EDT (#)
Ranking: 2
Just to cancel out the cunt below me.
Submitted by Donitsu2002 (user info) at 2005-09-06 07:40:38 EDT (#)
Ranking: -2
do these ever end?