Original Work The Counterfactual War (Conquistadors II)

Hi, everyone

The Counterfactual War is a direct sequel to Conquistadors, in which a near-future United States - a house divided against itself, with all the weaknesses inherent in such a flimsy structure - is invaded by a military force from another dimension, a world 50 to 100 years ahead of our own. Their bid to capture Washington and seize the President has failed, giving them the first bloody nose of the campaign, but the war is very far from over and both sides still have very many tricks up their sleeves.

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Prologue I

From: The United States and the Protectorate War. Baen Historical Press. 2070.

It cannot be denied that the United States of the early thirties was a deeply divided society, in a world that was increasingly fragmented, hostile and/or fundamentally opposed to American values. The recent election had brought many of the tensions threatening American stability into the open and the victory of President Hamlin, a well-meaning and decent but ultimately ineffectual politician unwilling or unable to confront the problems facing the United States, did nothing to calm the roiling fury under the surface. Prone to dithering, lacking any real power base, it seemed likely his first term would be his last. Indeed, even his own party was preparing to primary him rather than take the risk of letting him seek re-election.

Political deadlock in Washington owed much, it should be acknowledged, to the simple fact the United States was not in any physical danger. Chaos along the Mexican border and turmoil in the Caribbean did not post any significant threat, certainly not one that threatened the political or bureaucratic elite in Washington. Simmering tensions in both the Ukraine and the South China Sea – and, of course, the Middle East – might draw attention briefly, only to be dismissed as the United States returned to contemplating its internal problems. Talk of civil war, never far from the surface, seemed to ebb and flow with the tides. The paralysis in Washington seemed to ebb and flow with the tides.

It was the worst possible time for the United States to face an Outside Context problem, an invasion from another world. But there was no choice.

The Protectorate knew nothing of America’s problems when they transposed their assault force into our dimension. Through sheer luck, the Protectorate Expeditionary Force arrived right on top of a small town in Texas – Flint – and rapidly secured the area, while probing the surrounding region and hacking the internet to download as much data as possible. They had assumed theirs was the only timeline that had enjoyed an industrial revolution and it was a surprise to discover that our world was a technological civilisation, if one nearly a century behind their own. Their commander - Captain-General James Montrose – had no intention of retreating, let alone opening peaceful contact and developing diplomatic relationships. He had come to make his name through conquest and determined to do so. His brief attempts at diplomatic outreach were nothing more than a bid to buy time.

President Hamlin dithered, as was his wont. Flint was surrounded and sealed off by the United States Army, but there was no attempt to demand access to the occupied town or seek confirmation of the tale the diplomats had been told. Unsure of what he was dealing with, Hamlin ignored the advice of his Vice President - Felix Hernandez – and his military officials, refusing to countenance either a more aggressive approach or a pre-emptive strike. It was not until a refugee fleeing the town accidentally started a brief engagement that rapidly spiralled out of control that the military was permitted to take a harder line, too late. The PEF attacked with a fury and technological edge the defenders couldn’t match, rapidly overrunning the army positions and expanding into Texas. A combination of computer hacks and cruise missiles strikes further weakened the United States, making it difficult to coordinate any response.

On paper, the PEF was greatly outnumbered. In practice, their advanced technology and cold-blooded ruthlessness allowed them to crush resistance, eventually seizing Austin and threatening nearby states before America learnt how to fight them. The sheer force of their attack weakened both the United States and its global allies, while their diplomatic contacts with hostile states – and covert operations within America – raised the promise of reinforcements and even American surrender. Their ability to land almost anywhere – showing off their power by attacking New York – cowed Hamlin. Believing the war to be lost, with the arrival of a second invasion force in the Middle East, he made overtures to Montrose.

This was too much for Felix Hernandez and his growing cabal. They started making urgent preparations to remove President Hamlin from power, preparations that were ironically detected by the PEF and used to justify a strike into Washington itself. With only limited understanding of how the American government worked, the PEF moved to seize the White House and the President, intending to use him as a puppet. The plan misfired. The assault force found itself trapped in Washington, and the relief force was forced to fight its way through the city in a desperate and ultimately futile bid to save it. Casualties were heavy on both sides, including Hamlin himself, but the PAF suffered its first real defeat.

As Felix Hernandez took the Oath of Office, and James Montrose secured his position by scapegoating another officer, they both knew the war was far from over.

 

Prologue II: Timeline A (Protectorate Homeworld)

It was deeply frustrating, Protector Julianne Rigby reflected, that they couldn’t know what was happening on the far side of the dimensional wall.

The Triumvirs of the Protectorate had been reluctant to concede that they had to trust the men commanding the crosstime expeditionary forces. It put a great deal of power in the hands of men who were incredibly ambitious, who had been chosen for their ambition and determination, and there was always a risk of one or more commanders going rogue. There was no way around it – the researchers had yet to develop any sort of crosstime communications device that didn’t require a gate – and yet it was deeply frustrating. London had been able to direct operations around the globe and beyond, from the moment radio had been invented, and to find themselves out of touch with their commanders was galling. There was just no way to know what was going on.

Her lips thinned as she studied the image on her display. Captain-General James Montrose was tall, dark and handsome, handsome enough to make any woman feel a draw even if she was old enough to know better. He was a brilliant commanding officer, driven by a compulsive thirst for victory – and the rewards that came with it. Granting him command of a crosstime invasion force had always been a gamble, although there were limits on just how much power he could claim for himself before reinforcements arrived. The Protectorate was the only timeline that had mastered steam, let alone coal and oil and nuclear power. There was little he could do to build a power base for himself in a world where the most advanced device known to exist was a waterwheel …

Or so they had thought. Castle Treathwick had been rotated into Timeline F and a sizable chunk of the timeline had been rotated back into the Prime Timeline, including pieces of a town and a large number of inhabitants. They had been rounded up very quickly and interrogated – of course – and the town remnants had been hastily searched for anything useful, from books to maps and charts. They’d expected little, but they’d hit the motherlode. The town didn’t just have a public library, a rarity outside the Prime Timeline; it had computer databases and records and a great many other things that proved, beyond a shadow of a doubt, that Timeline F was a technological society. Their advancement appeared to have come in fits and starts – the sociologists were already producing theories to explain how the widespread degeneracy had retarded technological development – but there was no denying the Protectorate Expeditionary Force faced a foe far more capable than any before. Montrose’s orders for such a contingency had been vague, if only because no one had really thought it would ever happen, and he’d clearly taken full advantage of the latitude he’d been granted to launch a war. Julianne wasn’t surprised. A man as ambitious as Montrose wouldn’t back down unless he was confronted by an equal or greater force, and that was clearly lacking. Indeed, the second set of kidnapped locals – rotated into the Prime Timeline as the second invasion force was dispatched – had confirmed it. The war appeared to be going well.

Julianne felt her mood darken as she studied the political map. It looked absurd, putting the lie to the theory that technological advance would bring about planetary unity, but there was no denying it was real. Hundreds of nations, some with nuclear weapons; their world divided so completely it would be laughably easy to turn them against one another. The combination of superior military force and advanced technology would be quite enough, turning local nations into allies that would be discarded or subjected the moment they were no longer useful. And yet …

Her intercom bleeped. It was time.

Julianne keyed her console, then sat back in her chair as the other two Triumvirs flickered into existence in front of her. The holograms looked faintly wrong, as always, something that had always made her smile even though she understood the reasoning behind it. The Protectorate had more than enough computing power to fake almost any communication, with minibrains playing the role to near-perfection, and a transmission that looked too good to be true would be regarded with extreme suspicion until it was checked and cleared. The council had the finest experts in the known multiverse working for them, yet as technology advanced the technology to fool it advanced too. Julianne would have preferred to hold the meeting in person, but that wasn’t an option. The degenerates of Timeline F were a technological civilisation. The gap between them and their masters was wide, but not wide enough. Given time, they would develop their own crosstime capabilities. They already knew it was possible.

“Parliament is pleased,” Protector Horace Jarvis said, curtly. “That doesn’t bode well.”

“No,” Protector John Hotham said. “But is that a bad thing?”

Julianne shrugged. Jarvis had openly admitted he didn’t trust Montrose, while Hotham argued Montrose could be trusted to serve the Protectorate as well as himself. Julianne had been the deciding vote and it had been impossible to avoid acknowledging that Montrose was very much a two-edged sword. He could cut their enemies, but he could also turn on his masters. It had been a calculated risk, one that – in hindsight – might have been a mistake. Given control of a civilisation that could actually support his forces, Montrose could go rogue. He was certainly charismatic enough to convince many of his subordinates to follow him.

“The prize is worth some risks,” she mused. “If we gain control and open permanent gates …”

The vision unfolded in front of them. The Protectorate ruled four timelines, three populated by primitives and one apparently untouched by intelligent life. It was difficult to uplift the locals of the first three timelines, leaving them fit only for brute labour that could be carried out far more efficiently by machines. A population that actually understood science, and didn’t think aircraft were the chariots of the gods, was a population that could actually achieve something. All they needed was proper guidance, something the Protectorate was happy to provide. An influx of labour from Timeline F could turn the earlier timelines into genuinely productive parts of the empire. It would happen without them, of course, but not in her time.

“If,” Jarvis pointed out.

Hotham snorted. “They’re a hundred years behind us, at least! They pose no threat.”

“Montrose does not have unlimited manpower. Or industry.” Julianne knew why. “They could trade a hundred of their tanks for every one of his and still come out ahead.”

“And if Montrose wins, will he turn on us?” Jarvis leaned forward. “He’s already popular. He could declare himself a warlord, declare independence, if he secures the timeline before we can open permanent gates.”

Julianne kept her face expressionless as Hotham started to splutter. The hell of it was that Jarvis had a point. Montrose’s exploits had been widely reported and even though the reports were incomplete – they could hardly be otherwise – they had made him a hero. The media was already telling the world about his glorious victories, no matter that there was no independent verification of anything they’d learnt from the second set of prisoners. Parliament had passed a vote of thanks, while ambitious politicians were lining up to praise Montrose and demand the government work faster to save Timeline F from itself. The reports of widespread degeneracy had shocked Parliament, not without reason. The analysts had recovered enough pornographic material from the captured computers to shock even hardened spooks. She shuddered to think what such exposure was going to their children.

“He’s not going to be happy working his way up the ladder, not after conquering a world,” Jarvis said. “Why would he step down?”

“He’s too loyal to go rogue,” Hotham insisted. “Julianne?”

“There are two problems,” Julianne said. “The first is that the war is not yet won. It is unlikely in the extreme that the United States of America” – an absurd concept, to one born in the Prime Timeline – “has surrendered. Montrose cannot have won. Not yet. We owe it to him to provide as much support as possible, even if we don’t entirely trust him.”

Hotham glowered. “And the second?”

Julianne braced herself. “Montrose could lose.”

“What?”

Julianne honestly couldn’t tell which of the men had spoken. Perhaps it had been both. The Protectorate hadn’t lost a battle in nearly a hundred years. There were few primal states capable of putting up even the slightest resistance, if the Protectorate decided to squash them, and none of the timelines they’d discovered earlier had enjoyed even the slightest concept of modern technology. The Protectorate had grown too used to its tradition of victory, to regarding war as a game and expansion as their natural right. The war games were as realistic as possible, pitting different units against their peers, but there were limits. It was difficult to imagine what it might be like to face a society that not only understood technology, yet could also mass-produce their own weapons and work to duplicate the Protectorate’s. It had never happened before.

And we don’t know how long it will take them to devise their own plasma cannons or antigravity systems, she thought. The researchers hadn’t been able to offer any sort of reassurance. There were too many unanswered questions for them to be sure of anything. How long will it take them to duplicate the Crosstime Transpositioner and reach our world?

“There is no way they can defeat us,” Hotham snapped. “Montrose can hold his position indefinitely.”

“We dare not assume so,” Julianne said, tartly. “The enemy has nukes. And ballistic missiles.”

“The Castles are capable of withstanding a nuke,” Hotham said.

“The degenerates only need to get lucky once,” Julianne said, keeping her voice calm. “We are committed to war now. We have no choice. We must support Montrose.”

“We’re already preparing the third invasion force,” Jarvis said. “The commander can be given orders to relieve Montrose.”

“For what?” Hotham’s face darkened. “What crime has he committed?”

“He arguably exceeded his orders,” Jarvis snapped.

“Arguably,” Hotham repeated. “Parliament will not agree.”

Julianne suspected he was right. Montrose had orders to be diplomatic – or to blow up Castle Treathwick – if he encountered an equal or superior civilisation. A primitive civilisation would pose no challenge, beyond a minor logistics headache. But one advanced enough to be useful without being advanced enough to be dangerous … Montrose had either been very brave or very stupid and no one would know for sure, not until the war was over. He might have done the right thing.

“We can convince Parliament,” Jarvis said.

“We cannot convince his supporters,” Hotham countered. “They’ll revolt.”

“And the last thing we need is a struggle for command authority in the middle of a war,” Julianne agreed. It wasn’t just Montrose. By long custom, a Captain-General had the right to nominate his subordinates, promising them a share in the new timeline in exchange for their service and support. Montrose hadn’t secured all of his choices, but he’d managed to get enough in place to ensure relieving him would be very tricky indeed. “If the enemy takes advantage of it …”

She let her voice trail off, suggestively. No previous opponent had been able to take advantage of command disunity. They’d lacked the insight to know when it was happening, or the ability to influence their betters. This group of degenerates might be … well, degenerates, yet that didn’t make them stupid. They might be as cunning as any primal, with the technology to make themselves really dangerous. The hell of it, she reflected, was that they’d probably been committed to war from the moment Castle Treathwick was rotated into the new timeline. The Protectorate needed neither competition nor subversion. And it would get both, if they failed to bring the new timeline under control.

The argument went on for hours, but the outcome was inevitable. The war would go on.

But in truth, Julianne reflected as the meeting finally came to an end, the matter was out of their hands. And had been so for months now.

 

Chapter One: Jubal, Texas, Timeline F (OTL)

This isn’t right, Sergeant Callam Boone thought, as he surveyed the deserted ruins of a once-proud town. This isn’t America.

He kept himself low, eyes sweeping the street as the small team lurked in the shadows. Jubal had been a prosperous town once, with a factory and a thriving population and everything they needed to support themselves, from a school to simple and affordable housing. It would have made an ideal retirement town, if the factory hadn’t shut down and plunged the town into a nightmare from which it had never recovered. The majority of the inhabitants had moved out, leaving a few stragglers mired in hopelessness and despair. It had been galling to watch the collapse of so many communities, to see people struggling with alcohol and drugs because they had little hope of ever bettering themselves; harder still to hear the lectures from snooty university lecturers, reporters, politicians and other rich and privileged men north of Richmond who had no idea what it was like to grow up in such a community and cared less. It was easy to see why so many of the remaining inhabitants had joined the enemy work gangs, even though it was technically treason. What had the United States done for them?

Callam spat as he leaned forward, bracing himself. It was dawn, the air light enough to see clearly without NVGs. The street was a wreck, a handful of burned-out cars and houses a grim reminder that the United States was in the grip of a military invasion from another world. The Protectorate – the Puritans, as they had come to be known – had swept through Jubal, blasting aside anyone who got in their way, and then abandoned the town after rounding up the population and moving them south. They had made all sorts of promises about cleaning up the local environment, but they’d done nothing to collect the garbage on the streets or repair the homes for human occupation. Callam felt a hint of shame as the wind picked up briefly, stirring the garbage on the streets. He’d seen such sights in Iraq during the war, but it felt wrong to see them in America. But it was just another sign of hopelessness. It ate people alive.

He glanced back at the rest of the team, then motioned them forward. The four men behind him looked like raiders rather than soldiers, carrying weapons that were surprisingly primitive compared to the high-tech array they’d deployed in Iraq and Afghanistan, but they had no choice. The Protectorate was good at tracking radio signals and any other sort of betraying emission, their visual sensors were better than anything America could deploy. He glanced up into the lightening sky, wondering if there was a drone up there watching them. It was difficult to spot an American UAV with the naked eye, even one large enough to pass for a manned aircraft, and the Protectorate drones were smaller and stealthier. He’d been told the techs were working on ways to detect them, but he’d believe it when he saw it. There was no guarantee they’d crack the puzzle in time to matter.

They advanced forward, skirting the houses and crossing a wrecked schoolhouse that could have passed for Springfield Elementary. A body lay on the ground in front of the gates, so badly decayed it was impossible to tell what had killed it. Callam gave the corpse a quick glance and moved on, wishing there was time to give the dead man a proper burial. Someone had painted a note on a faded sign – SCHOOL’S OUT FOREVER – and left it there, exposed to the elements. Callam felt a twinge of something he didn’t want to look at too closely. If the Protectorate won the war, school really would be out forever. Defeat meant the end of the world.

They reached their planned ambush point and slowed, sweeping the surrounding area for possible threats. There were none, the rotting homes seemingly abandoned. He glanced into one and scowled as he saw the handful of faded pictures on the walls, left behind years before the invasion had begun. A young boy growing from a toddler to a child to a teenager to a young adult … he wondered, suddenly, what had happened to the kid and his parents. They’d left their home and then … what? Why had they left in such a hurry?

He checked his watch, then unslung his rucksack and removed the electromagnetic trap. The device looked crude and cumbersome, as if it had been assembled by someone who didn’t quite know what he was doing, but he’d been assured it should work. Corporal Bulgier took the other half of the device out of his bag and emplaced it on the far side of the street, half-hidden by a garbage can. Callam tensed as he triggered the lasers, linking the two halves of the device together. He’d been told the system was undetectable, but it was hard to be sure. The Protectorate had surprised the defenders before and no doubt it would do so again.

“Get into place,” he hissed, just loudly enough to be heard. The ambush site wasn’t perfect, but what was in this day and age? He disliked having to rely on a plan with too many moving parts and he was painfully aware of just how much could go wrong, yet … he’d just have to hope for the best. “Keep your heads down as much as possible.”

“Yes, Granddad,” Corporal Bulgier hissed back.

Callam gave him a sharp look as he found a place to hide. He’d thought himself retired from war, when he’d left the Marine Corps to become the Sheriff of Flint, and if the Protectorate hadn’t invaded he knew it was unlikely he would ever see war again. He certainly hadn’t thought there would be a civil war, even though he’d seen the spreading hopelessness and despair and outright hatred of the federal government. The population was too beaten down to consider revolt, or working on building its own self-supporting networks and having as little to do with the government as possible. And then …

Guilt gnawed at his heart. It had been sheer luck he’d been far enough from Flint to escape, when the Protectorate arrived. Cold logic told him he’d done the right thing in running, in taking everything he’d seen to higher authority, but he didn’t believe it. He felt like a coward, running from danger even as darkness swept over the town that had elected him Sheriff. The folk back home were under the yoke now, a yoke that was oddly light in some ways and very harsh in others. Or so he’d been told. Reports from the occupied zone were vague and often contradictory. He suspected some were little more than enemy propaganda. The Protectorate had had no trouble finding allies, people willing to sell out their country for money, power, or even something as simple as medical care and enough food to fill their bellies. If they had come into the world blind, they knew what they were dealing with now.

And no matter how many times I fight now, he thought, it will never be enough.

His watch vibrated, once. Callam tensed. It was time. He peered forward, half-expecting to see a handful of enemy hovertanks rocketing towards him. The Protectorate could move with terrifying speed and it was certainly possible they’d want to nip any trouble in the bud, although it was unlikely they’d pegged his team as a major threat. Or indeed any kind of threat. Seventy miles to the east, a USMC formation was risking their lives to mount a diversionary attack, to draw the enemy’s attention away from him. The guilt grew stronger, a mocking reminder of his failure. He wouldn’t fail again.

A faint whining noise echoed on the air, sending unpleasant feelings through his body. He wasn’t entirely unaware of sonic weapons, but it was one thing to read about them and another to experience the effect in person. It was disconcerting, even worrying. The sound grew louder as he gritted his teeth, reminding himself he’d been through worse. And yet it made him want to be afraid.

It isn’t real, he told himself, sharply. It isn’t real!

The sound grew more unpleasant as the drone came into view, a tiny flying saucer about twice the size of a garbage can lid. It reminded him of a drone he’d seen during his last deployment, except it was smaller and radiated strobe lights that made it hard to see clearly. He’d thought the drone would be an easy target – he was a very good shot and his team included shooters who were even better – but the combination of lights and vibration made it hard to pick out the actual drone from the blurry haze. His head twanged painfully as a strobe light pulsed against his eyeballs, a grim reminder of just what longer exposure could do to him. If half the tales were true, a protest march in Austin had ended with the protestors comatose, vomiting, or otherwise incapable of offering resistance – or even running – before it was too late.

He looked down, watching as the drone came closer. It was hard to tell if it was being controlled remotely by a distant pilot or operating on some kind of AI, although he supposed it hardly mattered. The Protectorate used the drones to patrol the edge of its sphere of influence, making it clear that anyone who tried to cross no-man’s land did so at severe risk of their lives. Callam ground his teeth in silent frustration, bracing himself as the last few seconds ticked away …

A deafening shriek, almost human, split the air as the trap was sprung. The drone stopped dead, vibrating so violently Callam half-expected it to tear itself apart as it threw sparks in all directions, then crashed to the ground. He ducked down quickly, fearing the drone would carry a self-destruct charge, although he was already too close to be safe. The Protectorate didn’t have lawyers impeding military operations and while they didn’t set out to cause civilian casualties they didn’t let the fear of killing innocents get in their way either. They certainly wouldn’t let it stop them from fitting a self-destruct into their drones.

It hit the ground. Callam let out a breath as the whining sound and crazy lighting died away. He hadn’t felt so disconcerted since his first combat patrol, despite the best training the USMC could provide, but the effect was fading rapidly now. He forced himself to stand and hurry towards the drone, feeling an odd sense of unreality nagging at his mind. It felt like gazing upon a scorpion or a spider, an uneasy sense there was something fundamentally wrong about the thing in front of him. Up close, the drone was smaller than he’d thought, the disc studded with sensor arrays and devices that had no obvious function. They didn’t look like weapons. The damage was difficult to assess. A number of tiny arrays looked broken, but he didn’t know enough to tell if there was any internal damage.

Score one for the techs, he thought. They didn’t know how the drone flew – up close, there were no propellers or tiny jet intakes – but they had been sure they could bring the flying saucer crashing down. Whatever they did, it worked.

“Get the body bag,” he snapped. “Hurry!”

“Here,” Corporal Hastings said. The lone woman in the group, she moved with practiced ease to open the black bag and hold it ready. “Hurry!”

Callam nodded. It was oddly hard to touch the drone – it felt like reaching out to pick up a spider, the sensation refusing to abate even as his fingers touched cooling metal – but he forced himself to lift the drone and shove it into the bag. The techs had assured him that the material was designed to block everything from radio to a handful of electromagnetic radiations he’d never even heard of, ensuring the Protectorate couldn’t track their missing drone and throw a missile at it from a safe distance, yet it was impossible to be sure. Six months ago, alternate timelines had been nothing more than bad science-fiction, with evil goatee-wearing counterparts tormenting the main characters before being booted back to their own dimension. Now …

His lips twitched. Do I have a counterpart in their world? One with a goatee?

Callam shoved his empty rucksack to Corporal Hastings, then slung the body bag over his shoulders and stood. He’d expected the drone to be heavier, but it was only lightly more weighty than the dustbin lid it so resembled. He supposed it wasn’t really a surprise. The Marine Corps had been working hard to lighten everything for easier deployment, in hopes of ensuring a major force could get halfway around the world before some local tyrant decided to cause too much trouble, and the Protectorate clearly felt the same way. The rest of the team was already bugging out, as planned. It felt wrong – the Corps did not leave men behind – but there was no choice. The enemy might already be on the way.

He unhooked a grenade from his belt and held it at the ready as he walked away, then removed the pin and tossed it at the crash site. It was unlikely any investigators would believe the drone destroyed beyond all hope of recognition, not if they sifted through the crash site, but it was just possible any distant observers would think the drone had exploded. It might buy a few seconds more as they picked up speed, hurrying towards the extraction point. They didn’t dare risk bringing vehicles too close to the region, not when they’d make easy targets for enemy air power. They had to put some distance between themselves and the enemy before it was too late.

This is America, he thought, with a hot flash of anger. It isn’t right!

Corporal Hastings slowed as the sound of distant gunfire echoed through the air. Callam motioned for her to pick up the pace, even though the air was growing warmer by the second. They were too far from the diversionary attack to hear anything – he thought – but it was impossible to be sure of that too. The shooting could be anything from a local offensive to resistance insurgents or drug or people smugglers taking advantage of the chaos to ply their deadly trade. Or men who thought they were the last free Americans in the world. The army had stumbled across a half-hidden ranch of people who thought the Protectorate had overrun the entire country, if not the entire world. It had been surprisingly hard to convince them that the world had not ended. Not yet.

He cursed under his breath as he heard a distant whine, his ears twitching unpleasantly as he picked up speed. The enemy might have been diverted or they might not … it didn’t matter. He forced himself to keep going, heading towards the extraction point as the rest of the team hurried elsewhere. They would probably be ignored, he told himself, as he felt sweat prickling down his back. Better they got clear before it was too late.

“Crap,” Corporal Hastings muttered.

Callam glanced back. Two more drones were gliding towards them, moving with terrifying speed. They could have blasted both Americans if they’d wanted … that meant the drones, or their controllers, wanted to take prisoners. Callam wasn’t reassured. The Protectorate was more civilised than many of America's other foes, but no one had any doubt that any captives would be interrogated and they would be forced to talk. There was certainly no reason to think the Protectorate was be any different. They probably had some super-advanced lie detectors and truth drugs to ensure that whatever they were told was actually true.

He gritted his teeth. “Run!”

The whining grew louder as they ran, the drones getting alarmingly close. He had no idea what they had to capture prisoners – his imagination suggested everything from netting to phasers on stun – but they were running out of time. The noise was making his ears ache, reaching into his brain and making it hard to think … he nearly stumbled, his sense of balance suddenly twisting to the point he almost fell. His muscles jittered painfully, threatening to cramp … it was hard to keep going. He hadn’t felt so sore since his first weeks at Camp Pendleton. He’d thought himself in good shape and yet …

He heard a shout and threw himself to the ground as the RPG team fired, nearly at point-blank range. The RPGs were primitive compared to Javelins and other modern antitank missiles, but that wasn’t a disadvantage against an enemy capable of countering and neutralising most modern weapons. The warheads were touchy too, detonating near the drones even if they didn’t score direct hits. He turned his head just in time to see the drones crashing to the ground.

“Got them, Sarge,” Private Singh snapped.

“Set the charges, then get moving,” Callam ordered. He’d hoped the RPG team would be able to avoid contact and withdraw without being noticed, let alone engaged. They had taken a calculated risk in leading the drones to the team … he told himself, sharply, that they’d done what they had to in order to secure their prize. The drone they’d captured might prove the key to defeating the Protectorate. Might. “We don’t have much time.”

He glanced south, feeling cold despite the heat. Everything looked normal and yet, only a few miles away, American territory was in the iron grip of a crosstime invasion. Six months ago, it would have been unthinkable. The idea was absurd. He snorted as they set the charges and hurried off, leaving them to detonate. The idea of a military invasion of the United States had been inconceivable, after the Civil War.

But a great deal had changed since then.

 

Chapter Two: Castle Treathwick, Texas, Timeline F (OTL)

Captain-General James Montrose had never been one to laze around in bed when there was work to be done, and a lifetime of military service had ensured he no longer needed an alarm clock to wake himself. He slipped out of bed, leaving the sleeping form of Sally Luanne behind, and headed to the washroom, showering rapidly and then changing into a fresh uniform. Sally had moved slightly while he was gone, he noted, her naked body lying shamelessly open to his gaze. He felt oddly conflicted as he studied her, torn between enjoyment of the sight and an odd irritation at slipping far too close to degeneracy. The Protectorate cared little for what men and women – or men and men, or women and women – did in private, but Sally’s sheer enjoyment of her own sexuality felt discomforting, even wrong. It was something that bothered him even though it shouldn’t. She was his most trusted local ally, if only because she had nowhere to go.

He turned away, padding down the corridor to his office. His orderly saluted and hurried to prepare his breakfast, while James himself studied the endless series of updates from his officers in the field. Three drones had been lost along the rough border between the occupied zone and the United States of America, after a handful of raids by local forces that had been beaten back in brief but furious firefights. James wasn’t unduly surprised. The security drones hadn’t been designed to operate in an environment that could actually kill them and the locals had more effective weapons than slingshots and crossbows. If a drone could be taken down by a primal wielding a cricket bat, it stood to reason one could be killed by a machine gun or a missile.

His orderly returned, carrying a tray. James nodded his thanks and placed it on the desk, the orderly withdrawing as silently as he’d come. He’d never been one to waste time with food and drink either, although he had to admit the locals were pretty good cooks. They had more variety than the Protectorate, save perhaps for a handful of major cities where ethnic restaurants were permitted to flourish. He looked forward to the day he could export local produce to Timeline A. It was certain to do well and he, as the ultimate patron of Timeline F, stood to do well too.

James keyed a switch, activating the holographic displays. His quarters and office were nowhere near the walls and there were no windows, but the holograms were good enough. Flint – the degenerate local town – was almost unrecognisable, the original run-down buildings and garbage-strewn streets surrounded by new buildings and factories, thrown together with astonishing speed. The locals were far from stupid, he reflected, and they could have solved many of their problems themselves, if they’d been allowed to build. He didn’t pretend to understand the tangled network of red tape and bureaucratic nonsense that had kept them from building, but now it was gone they were building like crazy. Flint would be a full-sized city before he was done, a city that owed everything to him. His position would be beyond challenge.

Assuming we can beat the locals once and for all, he thought, darkly. He disliked contemplating his mistakes, and those of his subordinates, but he had to admit the Battle of Washington had been a mistake. Hundreds dead, dozens of irreplaceable vehicles destroyed … he ground his teeth in silent frustration. Castle Treathwick had a giant machine shop, crammed with fabricators and everything else he needed to rebuild his forces, but it would take time … time he didn’t have. We underestimated them and paid the price.

He shook his head, annoyed at how his own preconceptions had blinded him. The Protectorate had never faced a society as complex as the United States of America. It had been easy to take control of the other timelines, through a combination of naked force and shameless bribery, and once the rulers had fallen in line the rest of their people had followed. It should have been easy to do the same to America, but the President wasn’t a monarch and taking him prisoner had only removed him from power. James’s lips twisted in dark amusement. President Hamlin had been a dithering fool. In hindsight, leaving him in Washington would probably have caused the Americans more problems than killing him.

They knocked us back, he conceded ruefully. There was no point in denying it. But the war is far from over.

He sat back, taking a moment to contemplate the future. America would be his, of course, a society advanced enough to be genuinely useful. The rest of the world would fall in line or be conquered in turn, the provinces distributed to his clients who would, in turn, build up client networks of their own. Parliament would complain, of course, but it would be difficult to remove him without setting a precedent the other timelines would never allow to stand. They’d be more likely to work with him instead, trying to share in the bounty … the future, his and that of his clients, looked bright and full of promise. Perhaps it was a dream – he had yet to win the war or even secure his position – but he was a practiced dreamer. Who could blame him?

The terminal bleeped. “Sir, General Essex has arrived for his meeting.”

James sighed, inwardly. He’d been putting the discussion he knew they had to have off for weeks, a moment of indecisiveness that was unusual for a decisive man such as himself. General Stuart Essex was loyal to him personally, and yet … James knew he’d made a mistake leaving the other man in command of such a vital deployment. Essex wanted – needed – a military command of his own and it was unthinkable he wouldn’t go haring after glory, if offered the chance. James understood, better than he would ever admit publicly. If it had worked out, if the Battle of Washington had ended with a Protectorate victory, Essex would have been hailed as a great commander. He would have finally had a chance to climb higher. But it hadn’t …

Victory may have a thousand fathers, but defeat is an orphan, James reflected. And the real question is just how far Stuart can be trusted now.

He tapped his console. “Send him in, then hold all my calls unless they’re urgent.”

“Yes, sir.”

The hatch hissed open, revealing a grim stiff-necked man who looked permanently on the brink of bursting into an angry tirade. General Stuart Essex had been, technically, James’s second in command, his lack of actual military experience – let alone a regiment under his direct command – ensuring he had little hope of being able to undermine and eventually replace his commander. James had planned it that way. He knew better than to think his captains were wholly loyal to him, or that they wouldn’t jump ship if they thought James could no longer reward them for their service, and he’d intended to make it difficult for them to remove him if they knew his successor wouldn’t be remotely grateful. Or capable of leading them into battle. The social gulf between officers who had seen command and combat and those who hadn’t was unofficial, but it was nonetheless real.

“Sir.” Essex saluted, curtly. “Thank you for seeing me.”

James returned the salute. He’d ordered Essex to remain in his quarters, technically relieved of his post, until he saw how matters shaped out. Essex was the scapegoat, of course, but that didn’t mean he had to be put in front of the nearest wall and shot. Not yet, anyway. He knew he’d fucked up, to use Sally’s crude terminology, yet … James hid a sudden cold smile. Essex could still be useful. Like Sally, he had nowhere else to go.

“It’s good to see you again,” James said, tapping his console. The orderly entered, carrying two steaming mugs of coffee. It was hardly unknown in the Protectorate, of course, but the locals had hundreds of different brands, some better than any he’d encountered back home. “Please. Take a seat.”

Essex sat, his face darkening. “And there I was thinking I was in trouble.”

James ignored the sarcasm. “You are,” he said, flatly. “You messed up.”

“I did what I thought was best, at the time,” Essex snapped.

James shrugged. He didn’t pretend to understand American politics, and he wasn’t sure he knew all the details of just what had been going down in Washington between President Hamlin’s decision to offer peace talks and the Battle of Washington itself, but he could understand what had been going through Essex’s mind. If the President was plotting treachery, better to seize him before it was too late. The fact it would ensure Essex would finally have a combat command of his own was neither here nor there. If it had worked …

But it hadn’t. And Essex had fucked up so badly it could cost him everything.

“I know you did,” he said, calmly. He hadn’t reached his post without being able to manipulate people, particularly officers who thought they’d been denied the rank and status they deserved. “The fact remains it cost us heavily.”

“There is no such thing as a war where one side takes all the losses and the other takes none,” Essex pointed out, ignoring the fact that many engagements with primals had been completely one-sided. The fact the primals themselves hadn’t realised they were just getting slaughtered, time and time again, stood mute testament to their primal nature. A smarter bunch would have conceded defeat and worked to ingrate themselves with their masters instead. “I took a calculated risk.”

“Yes, you did.” James sipped his coffee, savouring the taste. Perhaps it was degenerate … he didn’t care. “But I didn’t call you here to refight the battle.”

Essex looked wary. There was no way to get around the simple fact he had messed up. Under normal circumstances, he would likely have been dishonourably discharged even if he didn’t fade a court martial. The Protectorate did not take bloody noses. It simply didn’t happen, certainly not in the Prime Timeline. Parliament would lock Essex up and throw away the key and only then acknowledge, at least to itself, that Essex had faced a foe more technologically capable than anything the Protectorate had faced since the Global Wars. Essex had very little time to redeem himself before he became even more of a scapegoat.

“Let us cut to the chase, sir,” Essex said. “What do you want from me?”

James keyed his terminal, rotating the holographic windows. “What do you see out there?”

“A primal town,” Essex said, sourly.

“I see potential,” James said. “The locals do not worship false gods. The locals do not believe that guns are magical thunderbolts and tanks are monsters from their time of legends. The locals understand the scientific method, they know how to work metal and build machines and everything else we assumed was solely our province. They will make great servants and together we will build a new kingdom.”

“I have heard that before,” Essex said, his tone treading the line where James could call him out for it. The Protectorate encouraged debate amongst its officers, but there were limits. “What is your point. Sir.”

“The locals can also make great sepoys, as well as builders and workers,” James said. “We already have hundreds of volunteers, men who will fight for us.”

“Or say they will,” Essex pointed out.

James nodded. The other timelines had no real concept of nationality – or of treason. The locals had been little more than tribesmen, caring little who ruled over them. The Protectorate had had no trouble recruiting thousands of soldiers, although it had been harder to teach them how to use modern weapons … or as modern as the occupation force was willing to allow them. Here … the locals understood guns and tanks, but they also had a sense of themselves as a nation. It was never easy to tell just how many could be trusted. He’d been careful to ensure hostages were kept to make sure anyone who did betray their new masters paid the price.

“Quite,” he agreed. “We can no longer rely on our own manpower and we dare not rely on local nations, no matter how hostile they are to the United States of America. We must raise local units as quickly as possible. I want you to take command of the training post.”

Essex looked irked. “Me, sir?”

“Yes. You.” James met his eyes. “It isn’t a combat command, Stuart, but it will give you a chance to redeem yourself. Like Kingston.”

Essex scowled. General Kingston had messed up badly, during the Second Global War, and his entire unit had been forced to surrender. The Tsarists had shipped them to camps in Siberia ... unaware that Kingston hadn’t given up. He’d planned and executed a prison break and a march to Vladivostok that had captured the imagination of his peers, the whole escapade ending with the Protectorate Navy supporting an attack on the port and a series of Russian disasters that had spelled the end of the war. Kingston had been a failure, and his mistake had put thousands of men in enemy hands, but he’d redeemed himself. His story was still told to inspire officer cadets two hundred years after his death.

“I need someone I can trust in command of the training grounds,” James continued. “There’s too much potential for mischief.”

“Yes, sir,” Essex said. “And do I get to lead my new formations into battle?”

“Once the training program is up and running, I will consider it,” James said. It would be dangerous to allow Essex to lead troops into battle, even sepoys who were effectively expendable, but it would also be dangerous not to let him have a second chance. “Right now, it’s politically impossible.”

“Of course,” Essex said, dryly.

James said nothing. He merely studied the other man thoughtfully. It wasn’t hard to guess what thoughts were going through his mind. The training camp would be out of sight and out of mind, perhaps buying time for everyone to forget what had happened but perhaps also buying time for James to forget Essex even existed. There was already someone else in Essex’s old post, someone who would be ever-present in James’s mind … Essex could be shunted to one side and forgotten. He might not get court martialled, when they set up the gates to the Prime Timeline, but …

Essex let out a heavy sigh. “If you want me to do it, I will. But I won’t tolerate micromanaging.”

“If you do a good job, I won’t,” James said, recognising the signs of surrender. Essex would do the job and he would do it well … he had no choice. “But time is not on our side.”

He tapped his terminal again, bringing up the map. Texas was a desolate wasteland in the Prime Timeline, a handful of cities and towns along the coastline but very little deeper into the interior. It had seemed an ideal spot to set up the Crosstime Transpositioner, ensuring the PEF’s arrival would go unnoticed and that any locals who happened to be rotated back into the Prime Timeline were rapidly rounded up before it was too late. Here … Texas was an economic powerhouse, so heavily populated that it was difficult to maintain control of anywhere that wasn’t directly under their guns. The primal tribesmen of the Prime Timeline posed no threat. The Texans – and the rest of the United States of America – did.

“It isn’t easy to secure the occupied zone, let alone the rest of the United States,” he said. “We need that manpower, and quickly.”

“I do understand,” Essex said.

James doubted it. The PEF had done enormous damage to the USA, threatening to fragment the nation into thousands of tiny fiefdoms that couldn’t hope to muster the military power to prevent the inevitable conquest. It was absurd to realise how much the Americans had depended on their computer network, a system that had been fragile even by local standards; it had been child’s play to hack apart transport networks and upload black propaganda, sparking riots and forcing the federal and state governments to divert troops and police to keep them under control. But the Americans had also been surprisingly resilient. Their sense of themselves as a united nation kept them going. It wouldn’t have happened in any other known timeline.

And we were wrong to think we were the only technological timeline, he mused. The sociologists had had little trouble putting together a potted history of the local industrial revolution. It had started a century too late, and proceeded in odd directions, but it had been real. For all we know, we might run into someone a century or more ahead of us.

“Very good,” he said. “You may start at once. Take the training cadre … take anyone else willing to volunteer. You have first call on any resources that aren’t required for the war or rebuilding our forces. Do well, Stuart, and you will lead your troops into battle.”

Stuart stood and saluted. “Thank you, sir,” he said. “I won’t let you down.”

James returned the salute, then watched Essex leave with a new spring in his step. Putting him in command of the training program was a calculated risk, one that could easily backfire … he shook his head. They really were short of time. He didn’t know precisely what the Americans were doing, but he’d be astonished if they weren’t preparing a counterattack. They had little choice. The longer the Protectorate held Texas, the harder it would be to evict them.

And besides, he reflected, launching a counterattack is exactly what I would do.

 

Chapter Three: Mexico/Texas Border, Timeline F (OTL)

“Keep moving,” the coyote hissed.

Miguel Ruiz gritted his teeth, wondering – not for the first time – if he’d made a mistake taking his family north. There were few opportunities for a young man to make his mark in Northern Mexico, and he’d become all too aware it was a dangerous place to bring up his children, but crossing the border illegally was an uncertain business at the best of times. The United States veered between insane tolerance of illegal migrants and a grim determination to evict them all, no matter how long they’d been in the United States or how much they’d done for their adopted country. If there had been a better choice, he would have taken it without hesitation. But his wife had been threatened with rape, his daughter was blossoming into a young woman who might be threatened herself and his son could easily wind up dead, or forced into the gangs, if they stayed put. Miguel would do anything for his family, even spend everything he had on a stealthy passage across the border. If the coyote – the smuggler – was telling the truth, they would have a chance to establish themselves …

He winced as he kept walking north, trying not to glance at the rest of the small group. Four young men who had eyed the women with frank interest, a couple of women who would have been attractive if they hadn’t gone out of their way to minimise their beauty … a young girl who had arrived at the meeting point wearing a dress, of all things, and had to be told she needed to either change into jeans or stay behind. She, at least, was accompanied by her brothers, two more young men who looked both naive and tough. Miguel hoped they’d take his side if the other men decided they were going to have the women and to hell with what they – and their menfolk thought about it. There were all sorts of horror stories about what could go wrong, on the long trail from Central America to the United States, and being caught by the Border Patrol was the least of them. Miguel knew people who had made it, but he also knew people who had been caught and returned … and people who’d simply vanished, somewhere in the borderlands. He dreaded to think what might have happened to them. It hadn’t escaped his notice that most of the disappeared had been young women.

The night sky seemed to mock him as they kept walking, the moon overhead eerily bright in the darkness. The terrain rose and fell, rough hillocks and ravines providing cover … he hoped. He could hear his own breathing, and that of the rest of the group, but otherwise the night was oddly quiet. He couldn’t even hear animals. He glanced back at his wife and children, feeling a twinge of guilt for bringing them even though there was little choice. He’d considered going himself first, setting up a home in America and then inviting them, but that would have left Carmen and her children without any protection at all. No one who called himself a man could leave his women behind, he told himself. And besides, if they were caught, it was just possible the Americans would look with more sympathy on a family man. They were an oddly sentimental people.

He thought he heard a faint whine, just for a second, as they crested the next hillock and walked onwards. There were no lights in the distance, no homes or farms or anything else … the coyote had told them they’d be giving all settlements a wide berth, just in case. Miguel didn’t pretend to understand just what was going on in the United States – the media talked about an invasion, the internet talked about civil war – but he hoped the chaos would give his family a chance to get settled before they were discovered. The further north they got, the harder it would be to evict them. Or so he’d been told.

The coyote slowed. He was a middle-aged man, capable of switching between a respectable and a thuggish demeanour at the drop of a hat, and … a flash of suspicion ran through Miguel’s mind. There were seven women in the group and there were horror stories about migrant women being separated from their men and forced to work in the brothels, even if they were underage … his fists clenched, ready to fight. If there was an ambush waiting ahead of them, if the coyote had led them right into a trap, he wouldn’t go down easily. He would die before he let his wife and daughter get raped and murdered, or sold to a brothel. If he could buy them time …

A light appeared in the distance, gliding towards them with terrifying speed. Miguel thought it was a helicopter at first, then realised it was flying too low … a drone? The Border Patrol was known to use drones to sweep the border, but … the whine grew louder as the drone neared, flickering lights pulsing through the air and stabbing deep into his brain. He heard someone cry out behind him as the lighting seemed to change. It was suddenly very hard to think clearly.

The coyote swore and yanked a gun out of his belt, his hand shaking as he tried to take aim at the drone. There was a flash of … something … and he collapsed to the ground, blue-white sparks crawling over his body before fading away. Miguel felt his stomach heave. He’d grown up in a rough area, and he was no stranger to casual violence, but … he looked at the drone and knew, without knowing quite how, that there was something controlling the tiny vehicle from a safe distance, someone looking back at him through sensors hidden in the blaze of light. If they tried to run …

“You will follow me,” the drone said, repeating the message in Spanish as well as oddly-accented English. “If you attempt to escape, you will be executed.”

Miguel didn’t doubt it for a second. He took his children’s hands as the drone bobbed away and forced himself to walk after it, Carmen bringing up the rear. The rest of the gang stumbled into motion, their faces oddly pale despite their dark complexions. Miguel’s head ached, the light digging into his skull. It felt … wrong, eerie. He was tempted to pick up the dropped pistol, in hopes of having something to defend himself, but the sense of being watched was growing stronger with every passing moment. If they’d been captured by the Border Patrol … it didn’t seem likely. But who had captured them?

It felt like hours before their destination came into view. A large cluster of buildings surrounded by a high fence, the space around the fence patrolled by tiny drones that seemed harmless and were probably lethal. It reminded him of an army camp, although he’d never seen anything like the pair of hovering vehicles outside the gates. Hundreds of tents, large and small, were erected outside the fence, few people visible in the night. A set of gallows rested just outside the gate, four bodies dangling from nooses. Miguel sucked in his breath as he saw the placards around their necks. PAEDOPHILE. WIFE-BEATER. RAPIST. THIEF. Whoever was in charge, they weren’t messing around. Miguel had no sympathy for paedophiles – no self-respecting father could possibly feel even a hint of sympathy for bastards who preyed on children – and any man who beat his wife was an asshole, but … ice ran down his spine. The Americans were too soft for rough justice. The crazy stories about an invasion suddenly seemed very plausible.

The gates opened. They walked into the camp itself, past two metal wands that seemed to have no useful purpose, and into the nearest building. Miguel blinked in surprise as he realised it was a waiting room, crammed with crude metal chairs. A drinks dispenser rested against one wall, signs in four different languages informing all comers that the machine dispensed soup, coffee and water. A much larger sign in red ink warned that misbehaviour would be punished. Miguel recalled the dangling bodies outside and shuddered. He believed it.

Carman caught his arm, her dark eyes fearful. “What now?”

Miguel shook his head. He didn’t know. The night felt nightmarish, as if he were trapped in a dream, but it was real. The rest of the migrants sat, even the young men he’d been sure would argue and protest. The light was digging into his mind … he had to force himself to fill a plastic cup with soup and pass it to his son, then another for his daughter. He couldn’t take any for himself. It was just …

He lost track of time as he sat and waited, groups of migrants being shown in and out seemingly randomly. A young man in a uniform he didn’t recognise walked through the room, speaking with each group, pausing briefly before moving on. Miguel tried to spot a pattern but couldn’t see one. A handful of migrants fell asleep … he almost wished he could join them. He didn’t dare. He had no way to know what was going to happen.

The young man looked Miguel up and down. Miguel looked back. He was white, but … there was something slightly odd about the way he held himself. It was …

His accent was odd too. “The four of you are together?”

“Yes, sir,” Miguel managed. “Myself, my wife, my son and my daughter.”

“Walk through that door,” the man ordered, pointing. “You will be separated and asked questions. Answer them to the best of your ability. If you lie to us, now or ever, there will be severe consequences.”

Miguel swallowed. “I can’t let my children be separated …”

“You have no choice,” the man said, curtly. “Obey orders or face the consequences.”

Miguel shared a look with his wife, then forced himself to obey. His legs felt heavy as they walked through the door and found themselves facing another set of doors, four open. A voice ordered them to separate … Miguel gritted his teeth and stepped into the first compartment. The door closed behind him, automatically. He looked around and scowled. The room had a chair and nothing else. The walls glowed faintly with white light. He sat, without waiting for orders.

“Welcome to the Protectorate,” a voice said. It was oddly flat, no hint of human emotion. “What is your name?”

“Miguel,” Miguel said. “Miguel Ruiz.”

The voice kept speaking, bombarding him with question after question. Sometimes it would hop back and forth, repeating or rephrasing the question, sometimes it would ask him something that appeared to be pointless. What did it matter which sports team he considered the best? Why did they care if he watched porn or not? It just made no sense. He hoped the children weren’t receiving the same treatment … he’d made a mistake, he realised numbly, in taking his family with him. The voice was so dispassionate he knew it could kill them all without hate. It was just …

A black square appeared on the wall. “Place your hand against the scanner.”

Miguel scowled and obeyed. There was a faint tingle when his hand touched the square … a fingerprint reader? Or something else? Miguel didn’t know. The whole affair still felt like a dream. It was …

The door opened. “Proceed to the right,” the voice ordered. “An officer is waiting for you.”

Miguel stood. “Where’s my family?”

There was no answer. He cursed under his breath and forced himself to walk into the corridor and down into the next room. Carmen was waiting for him, the children beside him. Another man sat behind a desk, wearing the same uniform as the other man. His eyes were cold and hard … Miguel had dealt with people who looked down on him, but this man was worse. He simply didn’t care about Miguel and his family. It was …

“Sit,” the man ordered. He spoke as dispassionately as a man discussing the weather. “We have assessed your case. You have three choices.”

His voice didn’t change. His eyes held Miguel’s “First, you can join our auxiliary forces and fight for us. You will receive training and pay. Should you complete five years of service, you and will be granted first-class citizenship and your wife and children will be granted second-class, with an option to perform the service that will upgrade them. We will provide housing, education, and medical care for the duration of your service and one year afterwards. In the event of you dying in our service, your wife and children will receive second-class citizenship anyway; in the event of you betraying us in any way, or refusing to complete your service, they will suffer the consequences too.”

Miguel wanted to speak, but didn’t dare. It was too much.

“Second, you and your wife can join our labour force instead. You will both be assessed and then assigned to labour units, depending on your skills. Your children will receive limited education and housing. Should you complete your period of service, you will all receive second-class citizenship; if you refuse to do so, you will all suffer the consequences.”

Miguel scowled. “What sort of labour?”

“It depends on your skills,” the man told him. “It can be anything from digging ditches and cleaning the streets to employment in factories, schools or brothels.”

“I …” Miguel stopped himself before he could say something his family would be made to regret. “And the third?”

“You’ll be marched back to the border and sent south,” the man said. “If you are caught in our territory again, without permission, you will be shot. There will certainly not be another chance at gaining first-class citizenship.”

“Oh.” Miguel glanced at Carmen, who looked pale. “What’s the difference between first and second-class citizenship?”

“First-class citizens get to vote,” the man told him. “Second-class have certain rights, which will be explained to you, but they don’t get to vote or serve on juries or … well, you’ll read about it in the orientation leaflets. Suffice it to say that while you can earn citizenship for yourself and your family, it is never given freely. We expect you to fit into our society if you want to live here.”

Carman leaned forward. “You’re not Americans, are you?”

“We are the Protectorate,” the man said. “Make your choice.”

Miguel cleared his throat. “How long do we have?”

“Five minutes,” the man said. “You’re not the only ones I need to handle.”

Miguel forced himself to think. He’d anticipated living undercover, taking up work in the grey economy to feed his wife and family. He hadn’t thought he’d be offered a chance to earn citizenship, even if it came at the risk of his life … his heart sank as he considered their chances. If he refused to fight, they’d go into the labour units … what the hell did that mean? Carman was beautiful even after two children and Mariana was growing into a beautiful young woman … his stomach heaved as he recalled the man’s suggestion they might be assigned to a brothel. It was unthinkable. It was … it was worth any price, just to avoid the risk.

“I’ll fight for you,” he said, numbly. He had a feeling the whole affair had been arranged to push him towards making the choice, even though it might be better than the alternative. There was nothing left for them in Mexico now. They had no savings, no jobs, and the country was collapsing into chaos. “If you guarantee you’ll look after my family, I’ll fight for you.”

Carman sucked in her breath. She would scold him for the risk later. Anyone who insisted Latina wives were submissive had clearly never met Carmen. Or his mother or sisters or grandmothers … he wondered what they’d make of his choice, then shrugged inwardly. He’d never know.

The man showed no visible reaction. “Very good,” he said. Another door opened behind him. “You will be assigned to a room for the night, then you will go to the training camp and your family will go to the accommodation centre. They’ll be cared for as long as you complete your service.”

And if I desert, Miguel thought coldly, you’ll take it out on them.

He kept his face under tight control as he stood. The Mexican Army was poorly paid and poorly led … unsurprisingly, morale was in the toilet and corruption was epidemic. Miguel knew men who had deserted and returned home, to be hidden by their relatives, and others who took money from the drug cartels to look the other way or even fight for them. The army had never been able to come to terms with the problem, their forces eroding under the combination of corruption and intimidation. Miguel knew families that had been threatened to keep their military and police relatives in line … he wasn’t blind to the sting in the tail. His wife and children would be cared for, sure, but if he stepped out of line, even once, they’d get it in the neck. He didn’t know much about the Protectorate, yet … he looked at the man and knew his family would be murdered if he made a mistake. They would do it without hate, but they’d do it.

“I’m sorry,” he said, once they were alone. The twin bedroom was better than he’d expected, although he wasn’t sure they were private. They could be being monitored without it being made obvious. “If we hadn’t come here …”

“We would be dead,” Carmen said, flatly. “Don’t you dare get killed out there.”

“I’ll do my best,” Miguel said. “But …”

He didn’t finish the sentence. He didn’t have to.

 

Chapter Four: Washington DC, Timeline F (OTL)

“Ladies and Gentlemen, the President of the United States.”

President Felix Hernandez nodded curtly as the Secret Service agent showed him into the makeshift Cabinet Office. The underground complex did not exist, at least on paper, and it was hoped the lack of any mention in official databases would keep the Protectorate from learning its rough location. They’d be fools to assume the new President would remain in the White House – still under repairs, after the Battle of Washington – and there was no way to be sure the shell game with human and electronic doppelgangers would keep them from zeroing in on his exact location. It felt wrong to be moving around constantly, like Saddam after the Fall of Baghdad, but there was no other choice. If they could avoid in-person meetings completely, they would have. It was risky to have too many officials and military officers gather in one spot.

He kept his face under tight control as he surveyed the room. The projectors and conference screens that had dominated the old Cabinet Office were gone, as were everything from cellphones to laptops and anything else that could be turned into an unwitting spy. The Protectorate had proved itself to be very capable of hacking government communications networks, stealing data and inserting misinformation to cause chaos and friendly fire incidents that made it impossible to coordinate countermeasures. Their computing power was so far superior to America's, he noted sourly, that their deepfakes were almost impossible to spot. His eyes lingered on the black-edged portrait resting against the far wall, a reminder of a President everyone had liked and no one had respected. It was hard not to feel a flash of anger at the sight.

If Hamlin had listened to me, we wouldn’t be in this mess, Felix thought, as he took his seat. He’d argued for an immediate attack on the Protectorate fortress, when it had first appeared, pointing out it didn’t look like a harmless research lab, even a military one. We could have crushed them before they had a chance to take our measure and attack.

His mood, already dark, darkened further. The United States was facing the gravest challenge since the Civil War. A chunk of the country was under enemy control. Large chunks of the remainder were effectively isolated, suffering major unrest, or battling problems that made it hard to send troops south to face the enemy. The military was adapting, thankfully, but it was an open question if they’d be able to adapt properly before it was too late. He didn’t want to think about what was happening to the economy, or what was left of it. And it was his job to sort out the mess. The buck stopped with him.

He took a breath, allowing his eyes to move from face to face. He’d dispersed much of the original cabinet, in hopes of maintaining continuity of government – and, just incidentally, sidelining a handful of Hamlin’s appointees who weren’t capable of doing their jobs. They’d been replaced with senior senators and congressmen, military officers and a number of others – producers rather than politicians – who would, he hoped, form the core of a war cabinet. The United States was finally taking the war seriously … he shook his head in irritation. If the matter had been taken seriously right from the start …

There’s nothing to be gained from recrimination, not now, he told himself, sharply. We have to deal with the world as it is.

He cleared his throat. “I won’t waste time with preliminaries,” he said. “Admiral?”

Admiral Leone looked bone-weary, unsurprisingly. He’d been head of the Exotic Tech Division before being jumped up to serve as the de facto National Security Advisor and the head of the Joint Chiefs of Staff. It wasn’t a promotion he could have expected under normal circumstances, but he was an expert in his field and Felix knew and liked him personally. There would probably be complaints later, yet … Felix didn’t care. They had to win the war or lose everything.

“Mr Cozort has a briefing, Mr President,” Admiral Leone said. “If you will?”

Felix nodded, graciously. Cozort was a younger man with sandy-blonde hair, a sheaf of papers tucked under his arm instead of the tablets everyone had once carried around Official Washington. There would be no electronic map, no display that would be easy to follow … his lips twitched, humourlessly, as he glanced at the secretary in the corner, taking down notes in shorthand. It was crude and barely-functional, but enemy spies couldn’t hack paper. They’d have to invade and secure Washington to get their hands on the notes.

Which would have been impossible, six months ago, Felix thought. We have learnt hard lessons since.

Cozort took a breath, clearly nervous at speaking in front of so many high-ranking officials, then unfurled a paper map. “With your permission, Mr President, I will begin with the international situation and then focus on America herself.”

Felix nodded, wishing he could say something reassuring. He hadn’t enjoyed learning to speak in public, even though it was a vitally important skill for anyone with political ambitions.

“Our intelligence networks in the Middle East have been dangerously compromised, and normal communications with the regions have been gravely hampered,” Cozort said. “However, it appears clear that the Protectorate’s second invasion force materialised dangerously close to Riyadh and the city was rapidly and brutally overwhelmed. Reports are unclear just how well the defenders fought, but … our analysts believe their military was unprepared to take on a modern force, let alone an invasion from another dimension. The king himself has vanished without trace and what remains of the city’s government appears to be bending the knee. The Protectorate made matters worse by launching hypersonic missiles in all directions, taking out much of what remains of the Saudi military infrastructure. No word on civilian casualties yet, but they’re likely to be high. The Protectorate may not go out of its way to slaughter civilians, yet it doesn’t shirk from killing civilians if they happen to be in the wrong place at the wrong time.”

He paused. “Our sources in Bahrain and Kuwait suggest there are currently two Saudi Governments, one in the north and the other in the south. Quite what sort of legitimacy or military force they control is uncertain, and frankly I don’t expect either to last beyond the week. The terrain favours the Protectorate and they’re being dangerously careless with their radio transmissions. Both claim to be fighting constantly, and they’ve convinced the religious establishment to declare jihad on the Protectorate, but we have no independent verification of their claims. There are reports of Syrian, Iraqi, Iranian and Palestinian fighters heading to Saudi, or at least Mecca, yet … I would be surprised if they pose more than a minor nuisance. The Protectorate will slaughter them.”

“Oh, what a pity,” Senator Thaddeus Remington muttered.

Felix was torn between amusement and a grim awareness that whoever controlled the Middle East would be in a position to influence the rest of the world, even without a full-scale military invasion. The Protectorate had picked its second invasion site well, appearing in a region that could neither launch a mass nuclear strike nor keep it contained. It wasn’t going to end well for the locals. He would be less concerned if their fall didn’t threaten to bring the rest of the global economy down.

“The Protectorate has also sent demands for surrender to the Gulf States,” Cozort continued, grimly. “They’re still debating, but my read on the situation is that they will bend the knee rather than risk getting crushed. Our bases in the region have been ordered to prepare for departure, Mr President, as there is a better than even chance the surrender terms will include a commitment to interning our forces. The Israelis have also received an offer of a non-aggression pact, which we suspect owes much to their nuclear arsenal. So far, there’s been no word from the Israelis on their decision.”

There was another pause. “Again, we have fewer sources in both Russia and China than we would prefer, but there are very definite hints they’ve both received envoys from the Protectorate. The Chinese are in what might be described as a delicate situation, economically speaking, and their preparations for an invasion of Taiwan may be intended as a distraction from their economy’s current woes. Our analysts are divided on the outcome, Mr President. This has simply never happened before, so …”

Felix nodded, impatiently. “And Russia?”

“The Russian economy is far more self-sufficient than the Chinese, at least partly because of the sanctions they faced during and after the Ukrainian War,” Cozort said. “Our analysts have constantly underestimated their resilience, although it is clear their overall tech base is falling relative to ours and it is likely they are suffering from major bottlenecks that have only become worse after the Protectorate’s arrival. We suspect they won’t suffer an immediate fall – a further fall – if only because they don’t have so far to fall. Again, the long-term effects are dangerously unpredictable. Their recent troop movements along the border may be intended as another distraction for their people.”

“Right now, that’s a European problem,” Felix said. He wasn’t blind to the advantages of feeding Ukraine the weapons it needed to bleed Russia white, but … the global situation had changed the moment the Protectorate arrived. “There’s no way we can send troops or weapons to the region when the country itself is at stake.”

He cursed his processors under his breath. They would have had a hell of a lot more flexibility during the Cold War, before weapons and ammunition production plants had been dialled down as part of the peace dividend. Running short of ammo in Iraq should have been a salutary warning of the dangers, but … they’d done some work to build back the capabilities they’d so carelessly discarded, yet the project would take years to complete. The Europeans were even worse off. Their forces couldn’t sustain more than a few weeks of high-intensity combat before they literally shot themselves dry.

Cozort pinned the map on the wall. “The Protectorate has pulled back in places, shortening its defensive lines, but they still control a sizable chunk of both Texas and New York State. There are few reliable reports from within the zone, and the enemy is pumping out a great deal of propaganda, yet … what little we do know suggests the Protectorate is in firm control. Their drones have proven hellishly effective against resistance fighters and they’re disturbingly good at sniffing out trouble before it manifests. They have also started putting our civilians to work and again, they’re good at keeping them under control. We have taken prisoners from skirmishes along the front lines, mainly press-ganged truckers, and they all agree their new masters are holding their families hostage. “

“Fucking traitors,” Congresswoman Downey said.

Felix studied the map thoughtfully, keeping his thoughts to himself. He wasn’t sure what he would do if the enemy held his wife and children at gunpoint, no matter what oaths he’d sworn to his country. Some collaborators had sided with the Protectorate willingly, others would have been forced into it … it was a problem they’d have to solve after the war. Right now, they had more important issues to worry about.

“It’s complex,” Cozort said. “Local government is in a hell of a bind. They collaborate and hopefully keep the Protectorate from taking direct control or they risk being pushed aside by the occupation force. It’s hard to say just how it’s shaping out on the ground. We have reports from El Paso that suggest the Protectorate’s zero tolerance policy towards criminal behaviour, homelessness, racial conflict and other such issues has been very popular, but they could just be deepfakes. Realistically, Congresswoman, we are sure of very little.”

Felix cursed his predecessors again. Would it have been that hard to crack down on shoplifting? Would it really have been impossible to patrol the streets, lock up drug dealers, expel rowdy students, flog biased university professors and a hundred other measures that would have made America’s cities better places to live? Sure, none would have been particularly liberal, let alone progressive, but … it would have done wonders for trust in government, or trust overall. Instead, they’d fretted over the past and grovelled for the sins of their ancestors … without making any sort of positive change. They’d signalled their virtue and weakness to all with eyes to see: they’d done nothing to actually make matters better. And now …

He refused to show any of his anger in his voice. “And the rest of the country?”

“Divided,” Cozort said. “There are too many flashpoints to go into details, but here’s a quick overview. The destruction of the Electronic Benefits Transfer system, for example, caused major riots and the effective defeat of law and order in many inner cities. The looters, some encouraged by professional community organisers and anarchists, have been pushing out of the cities, often encountering armed vigilante organisations and being shot down. The Protectorate appears to be doing everything in its power to encourage the violence and undermine faith in government: for example, a set of deepfake videos depicting local police disarming the vigilantes and leaving them to be slaughtered have been making the rounds, although they’re very definitely fake. A number of policemen have been shot and their killers remain unknown.

“Worse, their hacking is having more subtle effects. They’ve tampered with water and electric distribution networks, although we have managed to isolate many systems to keep them from being shut off completely. They have shut down pretty much any vehicle reliant on computers, including a number of farm tractors. Given time, Mr President, we are likely to face severe food shortages. It will get worse before it gets better.”

Felix rubbed his forehead. “And no one realised this was going to be a problem?”

“They did,” Cozort said, quietly. “The risk of foreign hackers shutting down the tractors was known for years. Some farmers were even hacking their own tractors, because it was impossible to legally repair their vehicles themselves. This was a disaster waiting to happen … and it didn’t need a crosstime invasion force. The Pentagon was certain the Chinese had their own plans to cause havoc if war broke out.”

He shook his head. “Frankly, we’re lucky the country isn’t in a worse state. The electronic banking system is in tatters.”

Felix nodded, sourly. “And if they come north again, can we stop them?”

It was Admiral Leone who answered. “We’re setting up defence lines and preparing the troops as best as possible,” he said. “Recruiting isn’t a problem for once, although many reservists have been held back to handle problems in their states or … well, a great many businesses are dependent on a handful of key workers and those workers are often vets or reservists. We’re working on stripped-down infantry training courses, as well as lessons in insurgency when – if – the Protectorate resumes the offensive. If we have enough time, we’ll make them bleed.”

“If,” Felix said. “I want you looking at ways to take the offensive. The longer they remain in place, the harder they will be to dislodge.”

“We’re looking at options,” Admiral Leone said. “But right now we cannot guarantee success.”

“We are well past saftyism,” Felix said, flatly. “The country itself is at risk. We cannot afford to play it safe.”

He hoped it sounded optimistic as the meeting slowly wound down. The days in which the President had been able to reach out and influence events right around the globe were over; hell, he had little ability to steer events in his own country. Was that how Buchannan had felt, as the United States drifted towards Civil War and federal government installations fell into the hands of damned secessionists? The President had had far less personal power in those days, but still … Felix shook his head, nodding politely as the rest of the cabinet filed out. There was no point in wishing for what he couldn’t have. He just had to play the cards he’d been dealt to the best of his ability.

“We are making progress with our prisoners,” Admiral Leone said. Cozort had remained, but the rest of the cabinet had left. There were certain matters that couldn’t be shared with them. They were above suspicion, but the slightest mistake could bring down hell if the enemy caught wind of it. “They’re telling us a great deal about the enemy civilisation.”

“And their weapons and tactics, I hope,” Felix said. He doubted the prisoners would know much of anything, not when they might fall into enemy hands. “Are you sure they’re secure?”

“We put them through every kind of medical sensor we have,” Admiral Leone said, quietly. “X-Ray. CT. MRI. Everything. If they have some kind of tracking implant, we can’t find them. In any case, the holding centres are heavily shielded. They shouldn’t be able to locate the prisoners.”

“I hope you’re right,” Felix said. If the reports were true, the Protectorate’s industrial revolution had started in the 1600s. He doubted his ancestors would understand the modern world or comprehend the power of modern technology, and how could he understand technology two hundred years ahead of his own? It wasn’t just the technology itself, but the mindsets and options it brought with it. “Have they told us anything useful?”

“A surprising amount,” Admiral Leone said. “They do have weaknesses. We can exploit them. If we have time.”

“Lincoln didn’t give up after Bull Run,” Felix said. Lincoln had been the last true American statesman. Modern elections didn’t leave room for statesmen. Candidates were too busy playing politics, leaving them with no time to think about their country. And right now, politics were the least of his concerns. “We won’t give up either.”

 

Chapter Five: Flint, Texas, Timeline F (OTL)

Every time she looked at the growing community, Sally Luanne knew she’d made the right decision.

It wasn’t something she took lightly. She knew many of her former friends and neighbours viewed her as a traitor, to say nothing of dumbass knuckle-draggers unwilling or unable to lift themselves out of the mud or cappuccino-sipping liberals who had no idea what it was like to grow up in flyover country, mired in helplessness and hopelessness. She had worked hard to succeed, only to find that she couldn’t get a job that would let her escape her hometown and make a new life for her somewhere else. She couldn’t say quite when her disdain for her country had turned into hatred, but she knew it had. The American Dream was dead.

She pretended her bodyguards weren’t shadowing her as she walked through the streets of Flint, although their presence was obvious to anyone who cared to look. The town had been trapped in a slow and agonising death six months ago, infested with drunkards and drug addicts trying to lose themselves instead of facing the reality of their lives, but everything had changed. The streets were swept clean of garbage, the rotting buildings had been replaced by newer and better homes and there was work for everyone, at least everyone who cared to work. The streets were safer too, the schools and medical clinics improved beyond belief … it would have been possible, she knew with a flicker of brilliant anger, if the political will had been there. So what if they called her a traitor? She was no Benedict Arnold, betraying the United States out of personal pique. She had done it for them, for the young boys and girls she’d grown up besides who could have made something of themselves, if they’d been given the chance. She might be the most hatred person in America, from what she’d heard, but she’d done more for her people than Washington ever had.

The thought made her smile as she walked past the medical clinic – free to all comers, treating everything from alcohol and drug addition to cancer and a bunch of other conditions insurance refused to treat – and the communal kitchen, offering free food and drink to anyone willing to work for the town’s new masters. The food had been a little bland at first – the Protectorate insisted people had to actually work to earn the currency for something more than a very basic and tasteless meal – but it had improved. Local health had improved too, as loathe as the townspeople were to admit it. It was astonishing what proper medical care, debt-scrapping and a bunch of other small improvements could do. Her lips twisted as she saw a middle-aged woman shoot her a nasty look, apparently uncaring of possible retribution. The silly bitch had always looked down on her neighbours, while keeping her children trapped in town. And she didn’t even have the wit to be grateful.

She put the thought aside and kept going, heading towards the reception centre at the edge of town. The earthworks the Protectorate had thrown up to provide a limited degree of protection for the town – and Castle Treathwick – were gone, replaced by dozens of prefabricated barracks, cookie-cutter houses and makeshift factories, the latter a strange combination of American and Protectorate technology. A work gang of indentured labourers – rioters from El Paso, she’d been told, who had been offered a flat choice between manual labour and starvation – were digging the foundations of another set of housing, watched by their supervisors. She tried not to shudder as she studied the inner city dwellers, mostly black or brown, digging into the ground. She’d heard too much about the inner cities – in their own way, they were just as bad as Flint – to have much sympathy for their inhabitants. It was yet another problem that could have been solved through the application of political will, but it had been sadly lacking. That wasn't a problem now.

A drone hummed past as she entered the reception centre and made her way to her office. The staff – mainly young women who should have been able to make something of themselves – glanced up and nodded, showing proper respect. Sally smiled upon them beatifically. They would have been trapped in Flint, and a hundred other dying towns, if it hadn’t been for her; they would have been druggies, or teenage mothers, or prostitutes, if she hadn’t found a way to give them a better life. She had done the right thing. She had.

But few will see it that way, she thought, numbly.

Her father certainly hadn’t. Nor had some of his former neighbours, vets who had fought for their country only to be betrayed by the politicians who’d sent them to war. She couldn’t help feeling a pang of regret. Her father might be a stiff-necked old buzzard who had outdated ideas of a woman’s proper place, but he hadn’t been a bad father. She’d seen worse. She’d had worse hanged. The man who’d thought it was a good idea to beat his daughter bloody for making eyes at a boy was dead now, his body left to dangle for a week before being dumped in a mass grave. Sally had no regrets about that. The asshole had deserved worse.

It doesn’t matter, she told herself. I’m doing the right thing.

She sat at her desk – having an office of her own was another perk, one she had taken with gusto – and opened the laptop, scanning the personal files. Montrose – she felt a sudden flush at the thought of her lover, a real man’s man – had put her in charge of organising local labour, registering everyone within the occupied zone and finding them work to do. It was a deeply satisfying role, no matter how much it made her unpopular. There were layabouts and idlers – she felt a flash of anger as she recalled being wolf-whistled, when she’d been fifteen and working desperately to escape her hometown – who hated being put to work, even through the alternative was death by starvation. She tapped a file and smirked to herself. Colin Parkinson had trapped her against the wall once, his stinky breath choking her as he’d pressed himself against her … how far would he have gone, she asked herself, if he hadn’t heard a handful of others approaching? She doubted he would have stopped with a kiss. Now … he was being worked to death. He wasn’t good for anything beyond brute labour, but Sally wouldn’t have promoted him even if he had the skills to be something – anything – else. She felt a flicker of dark pleasure as she checked the latest efficiency reports. The odds were good he’d be dead in a month or two.

Serve the bastard right, she thought. Colin wasn’t the only person she’d trapped in hell. They should have treated her, and the other girls, better. It was bad enough that they’d had no hope, but did they have to drag everyone else down too? The sooner he dies, the better.

She smiled, then turned to her work. James Montrose trusted her. She would do whatever it took to ensure she kept that trust, for the good of her people. And herself. Of course.
***

The bus shook, the motion jerking Dorothy Steele out of an uncomfortable sleep.

She opened her eyes, glancing around in alarm before her memories caught up with her. She was in a bus, a repurposed tourist coach that had been painted grey and turned into a transport for the Protectorate Manpower Commission. The middle-aged woman beside her was still snoring loudly, her mouth opening and closing like a fish even though she was asleep. Dorothy tried to recall the woman’s name, then decided it didn’t matter. The woman had chatted so much about nothing, during the first few hours, that Dorothy had been reduced to pretending to fall asleep.

The bus rattled again, the driver muttering a curse. Dorothy opened the curtain and peered outside. It was later than she’d thought, mid-morning rather than dawn. The coach was driving through the remains of a town, shattered by bitter fighting between the invaders and a combination of troops and civilian volunteers. There was no sign of any remaining inhabitants, suggesting they’d either fled or been ordered to move somewhere they could be kept under control. She couldn’t see any bodies either … her heart twisted as she realised just how accustomed she’d become to the horrors of war. It was funny how her horizons had shrunk in the last few months, although she supposed it probably shouldn’t have been a surprise. The internet was fragmented, the broadcasts from the outside world were jammed or hacked, and the expensive smartphone she’d been given for her birthday was a pocket spy. She’d been cautioned never to trust it, never to take it with her anywhere remotely sensitive. Even if it were turned off, it could be used to spy on her.

She shuddered as the coach drove past a work gang, prisoners being forced to do manual labour for their new masters. Some of the young men she’d known had been marched off to work; others, she’d been told, were criminals who needed a good hard kick up the ass rather than warmth, empathy and restorative justice. She wasn’t sure what to make of it. On one hand, she knew the pre-war justice system was prone to making excuses for bad behaviour; on the other, the work gangs were alarmingly close to a death sentence. She felt torn as she glanced at their faces, silently relieved she didn’t know any of them. It was harder to feel sympathy for the real criminals. The Protectorate had overrun a number of jails, executed the ones whose crimes were past all hope of redemption, and put the rest to work. Dorothy knew it had won them some fans. She couldn’t really blame them.

Her lips twisted. Just because they hanged a bunch of paedophiles doesn’t mean they’re the good guys, she thought. They could be trying to win hearts and minds instead.

The coach passed through a small checkpoint, then drove through a cluster of buildings that reminded her of a school. They were all remarkably similar – a handful were being put together so rapidly she was sure she could see them growing right in front of her eyes – save for a handful of minor variations, as if whoever lived and worked there didn’t want to stand out. Lines of men and women were flowing in and out, watched carefully by armed guards. Dorothy felt her blood run cold as she saw the guardsmen, their faces hidden behind silver masks. The Protectorate troops who’d occupied and garrisoned her hometown were more civilised than many others – they neither looted nor raped - but they had firmly established themselves as the boss and defiance was immediately and harshly punished. If any of the men and women got out of line, they’d be marched off within seconds.

She shuddered. It felt unreal. But it was.

The bus rumbled to a halt in front of a large metal building, the doors opening a moment later. A handful of passengers stumbled to their feet and staggered towards the door, muttering curses as they forced their cramped legs to move. Dorothy stood too, grabbing her rucksack and slinging it over her shoulder. She had brought little, beyond a change of clothes, several sets of underwear and a handful of books to read along the way. She’d been told everything else would be provided and she didn’t doubt it, not after watching the Protectorate sort through abandoned houses and distribute clothing, food, and everything else to the remaining townspeople. It was a blatant attack on property rights, but … she suspected that was the point. The population was slowly being broken into obedience.

She brushed down her skirt as she stepped out of the bus, warm – and oddly clean – air brushing against her face. A guard waved a metal wand over her, then jerked a finger to indicate she should walk straight inside. Dorothy felt oddly naked, even though she was dressed modestly as well as comfortably. The resistance had learnt the hard way that enemy sensors were very good. They didn’t have to force prisoners to strip, or pass through painfully-obvious x-ray machines, to make sure they weren’t carrying anything dangerous. Dorothy had been cautioned not to bring any weapons, not her rifle nor the small pistol her uncle had taught her to use and insisted she carry at all times. It was funny how much she missed it now. A few years ago, the idea of carrying a weapon had been unthinkable.

The interior of the building reminded her of school, and not in a good way. Grim-faced collaborators checked her ID, ordered her to press her hand against the sensor, and then told here to take a seat in the waiting room. Dorothy tried not to show her disgust as she did as she was told, wondering just what the women had been offered to make them sell their souls. Food and drink and medical care, probably. Dorothy had to admit the Protectorate was working hard to win hearts and minds. If she’d had a medical problem that threatened to bankrupt her, she was honest enough to admit she might have sold her soul too.

She sat in silence, the room almost forbiddingly quiet. No one spoke above a whisper, let alone tried to flirt or laugh or even sleep. From time to time, a name would be called and someone would stand and walk through a door, never to be seen again. She hoped that wasn’t true, but … she wondered, numbly, if she’d made a mistake. It wouldn’t have been that hard to keep her head down, to pass unnoticed in the town … probably. Or perhaps not. The Protectorate was slowly working its way through the townspeople, putting them to work. If she hadn’t taken the plunge herself, for the resistance, she might have been pushed. And they’d been no guarantee she would have wound up anywhere useful.

A voice, flat and atonal, echoed in the silent room. “Dorothy Steele.”

Dorothy stood, gritting her teeth as she stood and stepped through the door. A young man on the far side nodded to her, his eyes lingering on her green hair. It took her a second to realise he was one of the invaders, although it should have been obvious. There was something subtly wrong about his features, something she couldn’t put into words. He reminded her of a young man she’d met who’d been raised in a very religious family, one who hadn’t quite known how to act when he’d been plunged into the secular world. That young man had been white. This man was a strange combination of ethnic features, as if he had ancestors from all around the world. Perhaps he did. The Protectorate had many flaws, but it wasn’t racist.

She risked a smile, then shrugged as he showed her into the next room. A blonde-haired woman a few years older than Dorothy sat behind a desk, studying her laptop as if Dorothy’s presence was a matter of sublime indifference. Dorothy felt a flicker of … something … as she recognised the woman. Sally Luanne was very well known, and not in a good way. She was the very first collaborator. Dorothy’s hands itched, wishing for a weapon. She knew better than to try something stupid. If she tried to attack Sally, it would end very badly,

“You have a fairly basic education,” Sally said. Her accent was odd, a strange combination of Texas, New York, and something Dorothy couldn’t place. She guessed Sally had been spending a lot of time with the Protectorate’s higher-ups. “No college. But you did work as a secretary.”

“My uncle owned a store,” Dorothy said. She was careful not to volunteer any further details, particularly the fact it had been a gun store. The Protectorate had shut them down the moment they’d taken control of the town. “He had me working for him and his friends.”

“Your resume says you worked in three shops and a doctor’s office,” Sally said. “Is that accurate?”

“Yes,” Dorothy said, flatly. The resistance had cautioned her not to lie. Too many records had fallen into enemy hands for them to be sure she could get away with an outright lie. “I started working when I was very young.”

“So I see,” Sally agreed.

She studied Dorothy for a long moment. Dorothy looked back at her. Sally would have been pretty, even beautiful, if she hadn’t had the hard-edge of a young woman who had had to come to terms with the death of her dreams. Dorothy knew others like her, women – and men – who had dreamed of being something more, only to discover that there was no way to escape their hometowns. Sally had been caught in a trap, and yet … that didn’t excuse collaboration. Did it?

“Your file caught our eye,” Sally said. “We have a post for you, if you’re interested.”

“I’m interested in money,” Dorothy said. American currency was no longer legal within the occupied zone. Everyone took Protectorate e-currency, or else. It was just another way to keep the population under control. “What does the job pay?”

Sally smiled, although it didn’t quite touch her eyes. Dorothy smiled back. Let Sally think she was a mercenary, willing to do anything for money. She’d considered playing a convert instead, but that would raise eyebrows. It would be far too easy to overdo it. She wondered, suddenly, why her file had attracted Sally’s personal attention. It wasn't as if she was anyone important.

“Enough,” Sally said. “But you have to be absolutely loyal. One slip-up and you’re dead.”

“I understand,” Dorothy said. “What do you want me to do?”

Sally told her.

 

Chapter Six: Protectorate Sepoy Training Camp, Texas, Timeline F (OTL)

Miguel felt oddly conflicted as the bus drove into the training camp, his fellow volunteers sitting upright as they realised they’d finally arrived.

It had been a pleasant night, once the children were in bed. Carmen and he had made love with desperate intensity, heedless of the risk of cameras catching them in their most private moments, and then drifted off to sleep in each other’s arms. The morning had been spent washing, eating a surprisingly tasty breakfast, and holding his two children tightly before they were driven to a gated compound with a handful of other families. Miguel wasn’t blind to the unspoken threat, as Carmen and her children were shown into a cookie-cutter house that had been thrown together at astonishing speed, and he couldn’t help wondering if he’d made a mistake. The gated compound had everything his family needed – a home, a school, shops and a playground – but it was also a prison. If he betrayed his new masters, his family would pay the price.

He forced himself to sit up too, rubbing his eyes. The camp looked as functional as the gated compound, another cluster of hanged men dangling from ropes just outside the fence. He couldn’t see the placards, but he had a nasty feeling they were runaway soldiers rather than criminals, insurgents or terrorists. The fence didn’t look very high – Miguel was sure he could scramble over it, if not easily – and it looked more like a border marker than something intended to keep the troops inside and everyone else out. Perhaps it was a test, to see if the men would stay put. Or … he winced as he saw a tiny drone humming past, barely two metres above the ground. There were probably a bunch of other security precautions he couldn’t see, let alone imagine. The handful of briefing notes he’d been given for the trip had been long on superlatives and short on actual detail, but there was no disputing the Protectorate was terrifyingly advanced.

The bus drove through the gates and lurched to a halt, the doors crashing open so loudly it woke the handful of men who’d remained asleep. “Out! Out!”

Miguel forced himself to stand and hurry out of the vehicle, onto the concrete outside. Two men in grey uniforms were standing in front of the bus, several others in silver armour watching from a safe distance. They must be overheating, he thought, although he guessed the armour had some form of air conditioning. They’d be cooked like lobsters otherwise … they were armed too, probably keeping an eye on the recruits. Miguel hoped to hell none of his peers wanted to do anything stupid. They might manage to charge and kill the unarmed men in front of them, but they’d all be gunned down a second later.

“Line up along the yellow line,” a voice snapped. The man didn’t seem to be shouting, but his voice carried. “Hands by your sides. Remain silent until ordered to speak!”

Miguel gritted his teeth, feeling the rest of the recruits pushing and shoving as they fell into line. There were fifty, he noted, almost all men. A handful of women … he let his eyes wander up and down the line, frowning inwardly. The recruits were mostly Hispanic, but there were a handful of blacks and Asians amongst them. He didn’t recognise anyone from the group the coyote had led to its fate. Was that deliberate? If the recruits had been separated from their friends and families, it would ensure they would all be starting from scratch. Probably. The notes hadn’t said much about their training, either.

The speaker took a step forward. He looked like a light-skinned mestizo, although it was hard to say for sure. His accent was completely unfamiliar, his English oddly slanted in a manner Miguel found hard to like. It suggested the speaker came from a very different world. Miguel’s lips twisted in dark amusement. In this case, it was literally true.

“Welcome to Sepoy Training Camp One,” the man said. His eyes ran over the assembled recruits, somehow managing to convey the impression he’d seen more promising material lying comatose in bars, or staggering out of the drunk tank after an evening of drinking had ended very badly. “My name is General Essex, Commandant of this Camp. This is Sergeant Niles, who will supervise the training program.”

He paused. There was something in his voice that suggested he wasn’t entirely happy to be here. “You men have volunteered to fight for us to earn your citizenship. This program is designed to teach you the skills you need to survive long enough to actually claim your reward. It is not designed to go easy on you. If you wish to leave at any moment, you may do so. You will not, of course, earn citizenship and you may be evicted from our territory, along with your families, but you do not have to be here. If you break any rules or regulations, you will be flogged, dishonourably discharged or executed, depending on the nature of your offense. You’ll be briefed on the rules and regulations shortly, and you will hear the warnings again and again, but for the moment you need to follow orders to the letter.”

There was another pause. Miguel felt cold, despite the warm air.

“This will be difficult. You will be pushed to the limit. Some of you will be injured. Some will be punished, or discharged, or expelled. Those of you who make it, who complete the training course and fight for the Protectorate, will have citizenship, something no civilian will ever understand or enjoy. There will be other rewards, for those who do well. If you succeed, your name will be honoured. If you want to admit failure and leave, you may do so. We don’t want you here.”

His voice deepened. “Good luck. You’ll need it.”

He turned and walked away. Miguel swallowed, hard.

Sergeant Niles stepped forward. “I will add two things,” he said. “First, if you are having problems, I expect you to tell me about them. Second” – his voice hardened – “I expect you to work together. I don’t care what issues you have with people whose skins are lighter or darker than your own, they don’t matter here. If you weaken the group, you will not enjoy the consequences. There will not be a second chance.”

He pointed at the nearest building. “In there. Now. Run.”

The group staggered forward. Miguel found himself pushed and forced to jog as they half-marched towards the door. Sergeant Niles followed them, shouting encouragement in a manner that made Miguel want to hit him – or give up on the spot. The armed guards followed at a distance, moving with the easy confidence of men who knew they’d already made it. Miguel breathed a sigh of relief as they crammed themselves into the building. It was a giant locker room.

“You won’t be walking anywhere here,” Sergeant Niles told them. “You’ll be jogging everywhere.”

He moved to the front of the chamber. “Strip off. Bag up your possessions” – he pointed to the bags, lying on a table – “and mark them clearly with your name and ID code. If you’re carrying anything illicit or dangerous, drop it in the bins. Getting caught with drugs, alcohol or weapons past this point will get you flogged.”

Someone coughed. “Strip off everything?”

“Everything,” Sergeant Niles confirmed. “I want you all as naked as a newborn babe.”

Miguel gritted his teeth. Carmen was the only person who’d seen him wholly naked since he’d learnt to dress himself. The idea of stripping off in front of a bunch of strangers was bad enough, but doing it in front of a handful of women was even worse. He had to force himself to collect a bag, then undress and stuff everything into the sack. The other recruits were moving slowly too, their sergeant chivvying them on with harsh words. He caught a glimpse of a female recruit, her bare breasts bobbling in front of her, and looked away, feeling as if he were being unfaithful to his wife. Another was covering herself, one arm hiding her breasts while her other hand covered the space between her legs. The men weren’t much better, he noted. Half the recruits were covering themselves too. One man was so completely covered in tattoos that Miguel couldn’t decide if he was incredibly manly or a compete idiot.

A yelp of pain shot though the air. Miguel looked up. Sergeant Niles had a young man by the ear, twisting it so hard Miguel winced in sympathy. The recruit tried to throw a punch, only to have his hand caught and twisted too. His face crumpled in agony.

“This is your one warning,” Sergeant Niles said. His face didn’t change in the slightest, his voice never rising. “If you try to grope your fellow recruits again, you will be flogged.”

He left the man whimpering and returned to the front of the room. “When I point at you, put your sealed bags in the basket over there and go through the door into the next room. Obey all orders from the medical staff and answer their questions as completely and truthfully as you can. Lying about anything could easily get you killed.”

The words hung on the air for a long moment. “You three first.”

He pointed at Miguel and two other men. Miguel felt completely exposed as he walked to the basket, then through the door. A handful of people in white coats were waiting for him, their eyes flickering over his naked body. Miguel gritted his teeth and let them poke and prod him everywhere, from his mouth and nose to his genitals and anus. He wasn’t sure if it was a real examination or if they were conditioning him to obey orders, although taking blood samples while snapping questions at him did seem a little extreme for a test. The doctors wanted to know everything, from how much alcohol he drank regularly to his sex life; they asked, grimly, which diseases he’d had and how many vaccines he’d taken. Miguel found it hard to think of answers to some of the questions. The Mexican vaccination program had never quite recovered from COVID.

“You appear to be in good health,” the doctor said, finally. “Go into the next room and wait.”

Miguel had to smile. “You’re not going to buy me dinner afterwards?”

The doctor merely pointed. Miguel sighed and walked into the next room, where he waited for the rest of the recruits and the sergeant to join them. There seemed to be fewer recruits than before, he noted; the man with tattoos was nowhere to be seen. Miguel recalled horror stories about tattoo parlours that accidentally infected their customers with all sorts of diseases and shuddered, although it was hard to tell if the poor bastard had simply failed the medical screening. Perhaps he’d refused to bend over and let the doctor poke something up his rear end. Miguel hadn’t enjoyed it one bit.

Sergeant Niles led the way into the next room. “You’ll find underwear, tunics and everything else you’ll need to wear in the boxes,” he said. “Get dressed now. Quickly. We’re running out of time.”

Miguel nodded. He could believe it.

***

The office was surprisingly nice, for a chamber that looked to have been an air traffic control centre before the private airport had been repurposed as a training camp. Dorothy stood at the window and watched the soldiers marching across the runaways, dressed in basic grey to make them stand out against the landscape. And, she guessed, to make sure they couldn’t get away in a hurry. She had never been much of an athletic, and she’d passed up the chance to be a cheerleader when she’d realised how much work went into it, but the fence didn’t look that hard to climb. It didn’t even look to be electric!

She felt a flash of contempt as she watched the men – and a handful of women – being bossed around by their supervisors. They were volunteers, from what she’d been able to put together, men and women who had actually volunteered to fight for the Protectorate. They weren’t being held at gunpoint, they weren’t being offered a flat choice between fighting or starving … they were fucking volunteers. She wondered, grimly, just what sort of inducements the Protectorate had offered … food, drink, and medical care didn’t seem enough, somehow. Money? Power? Or … or what? Perhaps their relatives were being held hostage to their good behaviour. She’d heard that the cops and town councillors had had their families moved elsewhere. The public rationale was that it was for their own safety, but it would be easy to kill them if the collaborators decided to stop collaborating.

And many of the resistance fighters will think I’m a collaborator, she thought, grimly. Her contact knew who and what she was, but there was no one else who could vouch for her if she fell into enemy hands. I’ll be killed as easily as the rest of them if I fall into their hands.

The door opened. She turned hastily, straightening upright. She had the nasty feeling she was being tested, from the moment she’d been pushed into the empty office and told to wait, and she’d resisted the temptation to do anything that could be seen as unfriendly. The paperwork on the desk had been carefully ignored – she hadn’t even looked at it – and she hadn’t even touched her smartphone. If she was being watched … she shuddered, recalling 1984 and Julia, the unofficial sequel. The nightmare of being watched all the time … did the Protectorate watch its own people? Or people like her? There had been a scandal, a year ago, where a boy had set up a spycam in the girls locker room. The very thought made her skin crawl.

“A girl,” the newcomer said. He spoke like a man with a chip on his shoulder. “They sent me a girl. A green-haired degenerate.”

Dorothy tried not to flush. He spoke degenerate like some of the townspeople spoke whore. Or liberal. She didn’t pretend to understand the Protectorate’s concept of degeneracy, or quite why some things were fine and others deserving of severe punishment, but she could learn. And yet … it felt almost as if she was visiting another country. She had had a friend – an Arab-American – who had found the visit to her father’s homeland deeply disconcerting. It hadn’t been the wonderland her father had promised, not by a long chalk.

She studied the man thoughtfully. He was slightly taller than herself, but he gave the impression of being shorter. She wasn’t sure how that worked. His uniform didn’t hide his muscular build … perhaps he was just heavyset enough to disguise his height. There was something oddly familiar about him, as if he resembled someone she knew … it took her a moment to place it. Skinner, from Ratatouille. The man had the same air. She hoped that wasn’t a bad sign.

“I am Essex, General Essex,” he said. “You will address me as Sir.”

“Yes, sir,” Dorothy said.

Essex looked her up and down. “They sent me a degenerate for a secretary,” he said, in a tone that dripped bitter frustration. “What do you do, that doesn’t involve bending over for perverted sex?”

Dorothy managed to keep from flushing. Somehow. She couldn’t tell if Essex was trying to discomfort her, sexually harass her, or … or what? Did he genuinely believe her green hair, and her failure to cover herself from head to toe, meant she was a whore? She was a virgin! She was sure the doctor who’d examined her knew it. He’d certainly poked and prodded in all the wrong places.

“They assigned me to be your secretary and personal assistant,” she said. “I can make coffee, take notes, run errands …”

“They took my orderly,” Essex said. It crossed her mind that he wasn’t angry at her. She was just a convenient target. “And now they send me you.”

He sat at his desk and scowled at her. “You work for me. You follow my orders – and mine alone. You do nothing for anyone else, even my superiors. Got that?”

“Yes, sir.” Dorothy managed a curtsy. It had been a long time since anyone had shown her how to do it, and she knew she hadn’t managed it properly, but … she thought it was fitting. “I live to serve.”

“And go wash that stuff out of your hair,” Essex added. “You look like a clown.”

And I wanted to ensure I could change my appearance in a hurry, Dorothy thought, irked. The green hair dye drew the eye away from her face. A quick wash and a change of clothes, from something relatively modest to something that drew attention to her breasts, would make her look completely different. She wouldn’t escape if they checked her fingerprints, but if they saw no reason to try … It does make me look stunning too.

“Yes, sir,” she said. “What else can I do for you?”

“Fetch two mugs of coffee, after you wash your hair,” Essex ordered. “I have a very important meeting coming up.”

Dorothy nodded, keeping her face under tight control as she turned and left. She didn’t understand the politics, but one thing was clear. Essex was an angry man who felt he’d been slighted …and angry men made mistakes. She would be there for him, doing everything he wanted … listening, very carefully, to everything he said. She would learn what was really going on and then … she didn’t know how she’d get it back to her contact, but she was sure she’d find a way. Her uncle would be avenged. And so would the United States.

And my hair, she thought, wryly. She’d grown used to green hair. It’s a small price to pay for a priceless opportunity.

 

Chapter Seven: Nuclear Shelter (Repurposed), Near Washington, Timeline F (OTL)

The apartment was the nicest place Martín Cortés, formerly Footman Martín Cortés of the Protectorate Expeditionary Force’s 1st Infantry Division, had ever occupied for any length of time. It lacked some of the technology of the Prime Timeline, and it was very definitely a holding cell even if he wasn’t precisely a prisoner, but it was still a relatively nice place to live. It was certainly better than R&R barracks back home. He’d been denied access to the internet, or what was left of it, but he had a library of history books, DVDs covering everything from current affairs to fantasy and science-fiction, and a handful of other luxuries. He had more than enough to keep himself occupied.

He was fairly sure he was under close observation. There were hundreds of places around the suite that could hide optical and audio sensors and he was pretty sure everything he did was being studied and assessed by his supervisors. They were drawing conclusions about him from what he read and watched … did they think, he wondered, that a preference for Star Wars over Star Trek meant something? Or did they wonder if he was thinking about his own world when he read the histories of Mexico and the United States? He’d told them everything he could about his upbringing, and his life on the Prime Timeline, but they were probably learning more by watching him. His reactions to the endless nudity of Game of Thrones had probably provided no end of insights.

The thought made him grimace as he sat in his armchair and read a history of Mexico. It was wieldy familiar up to the Protectorate era, then it changed so dramatically he would have questioned the plausibility if he hadn’t known alternate timelines and worlds existed. One Mexico was a handful of client states, suffering an endless brain drain as the young and talented fled to the Protectorate; the other was a nation in its own right, a nation that had issues with its northern neighbour but enjoyed an independence that was pretty much real. If he had a counterpart in this world … he wondered, numbly, what that young man had become without the Protectorate. A great leader? A scientist? Something – anything – meaningful? Or had he never existed at all?

Probably, he thought. The two universes had diverged so completely it was unlikely there were any counterparts, even in the most remote corners of the globe. The Protectorate had touched everywhere in the Prime Timeline, making it clear to everyone that it was The Boss and anyone who thought otherwise would be spanked with kinetic bombardment, air strikes, or kill-sweeps to make sure the troops were blooded before they faced someone really dangerous. My great-grandparents might never have met, let alone married, in this world.

The thought bothered him on a deep and primal level, although he wasn’t sure why. He was alive, he did exist …what did it matter if there was no version of himself in this world? It really shouldn’t matter … the math, from what little he’d read, suggested it was impossible to jump into a timeline that was too close to his own. The theory even suggested that those timelines diverged, merged back together, and then diverged again … it made his head hurt just thinking about it. He would like to think there was a counterpart growing up in a world that wasn’t overshadowed by the Protectorate, but it would never impinge on his life. The two would never meet.

He sighed. Perhaps it was for the best.

A doorbell chimed. Martín put the book aside and stood, making his way towards the door as if it truly was his apartment. His hosts were treating him well, in stark contrast to how the Protectorate treated prisoners, but he knew how easy it would be for them to storm the apartment, drug his food, or do anything else they wanted to do to him. It was hard to be sure, really, if he wasn’t being drugged. He hadn’t been able to taste anything in the food, but that was meaningless. The Protectorate had innumerable interrogation drugs at its command. There was no reason the Americans couldn’t have drugs of their own.

He opened the door, allowing himself a smile as he saw Cozort on the other side. The man wasn’t a soldier, which would have made him – at best - a second-class citizen in the Protectorate, but he was sharp, thoughtful, and prone to asking questions that brought more out of Martín’s memories than he’d realised he knew. He didn’t appear to be either scared or contemptuous of Martín either, not like some of his early interrogators. Martín didn’t fault them for being worried about what might have been hidden under his skin, but still …

“Good morning,” he said, cheerfully. He wasn’t sure if it actually was morning – he’d lost track of time – but it was polite enough. “Come on in. Can I get you anything?”

“Coffee would be great,” Cozort said. He looked slightly ruffled. Martín didn’t know all the details, but he’d picked up that the apartment was in a bunker and anyone coming in or out had to pass through a vigorous screening to ensure they weren’t bringing an enemy bug with them. It made sense. The Protectorate had done all that and more over the last few decades. “How are you doing down here?”

“It’s better than the alternative,” Martín said, closing the door and leading the way back into the living room. The coffeemaker was a ridiculous luxury by Protectorate standards, but he had to admit the coffee itself was first-rate. “If I’d been killed in the battle …”

He shuddered. He hadn’t expected much, when the invasion had begun. They would encounter another primal world and beat the locals into a pulp, to make sure they were properly obedient when the settlers arrived. He’d get a homestead himself along with citizenship, a place in the Protectorate that would allow him to bring his family to safety. They would be civilians – not citizens – but at least they’d be safe. Instead … he wondered, inwardly, just when he’d made up his mind to desert. The Americans were many things, but they weren’t primals. They didn’t deserve to be enslaved by the Protectorate. Hell, half the things the Protectorate could offer them in exchange for servitude were things they could do for themselves. The rest would come in time.

“I hope they’ve been treating you well,” Cozort said. He sat in the nearest chair, resting his hands on his lap. “Is the food suitable?”

“I’ve never eaten better,” Martín said, truthfully. He’d always gone short as a child – there had never been enough to eat – and the infantry had served him rations that might have been good for him, but tasted surprisingly poor. The food in R&R barracks, and restaurants that had sprung up around military bases, was much better, yet he’d never really had enough time to enjoy it. “Why do you serve food from all over the globe?”

Cozort made a show of considering it. “What’s common in one country is exotic in another,” he said, finally. “It makes a change.”

He shrugged. “And there’s a great deal of room for fusion cuisines, as long as you ignore idiots whining about cultural appropriation.”

Martín shook his head. It wasn't uncommon for foreigners to set up restaurants in the Protectorate, but they weren’t always popular. The idea of the Protectorate even wanting to appropriate ideas from another culture … he frowned inwardly, recalling that – for all its flaws – the Protectorate was vastly more civilised than the timelines it had conquered. The Protectorate didn’t force gladiators to fight to the death for shits and giggles, it didn’t treat women as brainless chattel fit only to bear the next generation and it didn’t sacrifice thousands of people to gods everyone knew didn’t exist. It had been horrified to see such customs and had stamped them out with its usual brutality. The locals had been grateful. Martín didn’t blame them. If he’d grown up in that alternate Mexico, he might have wound up having his heart cut out and his body thrown to the dogs.

He poured two mugs of coffee and passed the first to his guest. “I assume you’re here to talk about something other than food?”

Cozort smiled. “Did you like Babylon 5? Or Battlestar Galactica?”

“They were hard to follow,” Martín said. The Protectorate’s entertainment tended towards the heavily moralising. Shows that portrayed the government in a negative light simply didn’t exist. A handful did call out individual officials for corruption and degeneracy, but they always ended with the government rooting them out and proving a handful of bad apples couldn’t poison the whole batch. The propaganda was very easy to see. “I kept thinking the Colonials of Galactica were a bunch of idiots.”

“I thought the same,” Cozort said, sipping his coffee. “The original might look dated, but it comes across as more wholesome than the reboot.”

“I’ll take your word for it,” Martín said. “Why do you indulge such … fantasies?”

“It’s fun,” Cozort said. “And in the end, it’s just storytelling.”

“It doesn’t seem to teach any lessons,” Martín said. “Apart, I suppose, from treating your minibrains well.”

Cozort cocked his head. “You don’t have such entertainments in your universe?”

“Nothing so …” Martín stopped. The word that came to mind was degenerate. “The idea of making up a story about such an exodus is alien to us.”

“We may have to export our DVDs,” Cozort said, wryly. “Do you think they’d sell well?”

“I doubt they’d get past the censors,” Martín said. “I heard they had a fit over pornographic material from Timeline C.”

“And that was?”

Martín shrugged. “From what I heard, it was depictions of sexual activity,” he said. “But it was only a rumour. They never told me anything directly.”

He took another sip, savouring the taste. “Why are you here?”

“The war appears to have stalemated, at least in America,” Cozort said. “Your friends are holding Texas and New York, but they’re not advancing further.”

“That won’t last,” Martín said. “The Captain-General isn’t known for letting the grass grow under his feet.”

“You know him?” Cozort met his eyes. “What’s he like?”

Martín snorted. “I never met him one-on-one,” he said. He’d been asked that question before, twice. Perhaps more. The questions had blurred together after a time. “I was a Footman. That makes me … in your terms, a private. I might have been promoted up the ladder a couple of times, but … the idea I had private meetings with the Captain-General is just absurd.”

He paused. “Captain-General Montrose is aggressive, ambitious, and willing to risk a great deal on a single throw of the dice. Or so I heard. If he thinks the gamble is likely to work, he’ll take it. The fact he attacked you is proof of that, is it not? He pushed his standing orders to breaking point.”

Cozort frowned. “What sort of orders did he have?”

“If you were primals, crush you,” Martín said. “If you were close enough to us, technologically speaking, to pose a danger, his orders were to open diplomatic communications instead of starting a war. I don’t think anyone took the prospect very seriously, but the orders were there.”

“We have plans for alien contact,” Cozort mused. “No one thought that was very likely either.”

He leaned forward. “And he didn’t see us as a threat?”

“He figured he could beat you,” Martín said. “Until Washington, he had reason to think that was true.”

Cozort said nothing for a long moment. “Why? I mean … why did he … why do you … think you have the right to take over?”

Martin eyed the history books on the shelf. “Might makes right. Maybe not right, in any sense of the word, but it does tend to determine what actually happens. The Romans were stronger than Cartage and so Cartage was destroyed. The Spanish were stronger than the Aztecs and so the Aztecs were enslaved. The Protectorate was stronger than the rest of my world and so it is in charge. The strong do as they please, and the weak suffer what they must.”

“That’s a very bleak outlook,” Cozort observed.

“Your history says the same thing,” Martín pointed out. “Your ancestors were stronger than the native tribes and so you destroyed them. You imported slaves who were captured by their stronger neighbours and held them in bondage because you were stronger, then had those slaves liberated by the stronger side of your civil war; you took land from Mexico and threatened Canada because you were stronger too. Napoleon and Hitler conquered vast tracts of land because they were stronger, then they were defeated by others who were stronger still. You tell yourself the world is governed by laws, but the truth is those laws rest on naked force. When that force is insufficient to keep the strong in check, they do as they please.”

“That is a very bleak outlook,” Cozort repeated.

“But accurate,” Martín said. “You can delude yourself if you like. I cannot. Nor can anyone else who finds themselves weak, when they are facing the strong.”

Cozort made a face. “What do you think the Captain-General will do next?”

Martín refused to allow the sudden change of subject to rattle him. “His orders were to secure a lodgement and start preparing to open permanent gates to the Prime Timeline,” he said. “I imagine he’ll take steps to ensure he is in a firm position before he opens the gates, but … he’s already running out of time. A second invasion force has already arrived. There’ll be a third shortly.”

“Fuck,” Cozort muttered. “How many? And where?”

“I couldn’t tell you,” Martín said. “They can put together a fortress very quickly. The real problem is storing the power they need to rotate the fortress into this timeline. Or so I was told.”

Cozort leaned forward. “Why can’t they just open a gate now?”

“They need a gate device at both sides,” Martín said. “I don’t know the specifics.”

“But once they get the gate they can just flood our world with troops,” Cozort said. “How big is a gate?”

“Not that big,” Martín said. “But they run rails through the gates into other timelines. It won’t be a problem. Not for them.”

“They’re taking over a technological world,” Cozort said. “Do they really think they can win?”

“They think so,” Martín said. “Montrose is committed now. He’ll have enemies back home. If he looks weak, they’ll jump on him.”

“Ouch,” Cozort muttered. He looked up. “How long do we have?”

“I don’t know,” Martín said. “I was never told the specifics. The people who do will be back in the fortress, protected by enough firepower to hold back your entire army.”

“No idea of the timing?” Cozort pressed. “No sense of how long it will take?”

Martín forced himself to think. “The records from the earlier conquests were sparse,” he said. It had never occurred to him to look for specifics. “There would have been no pressing reason to hurry. The natives didn’t have anything more threatening than bows and arrows and there was no way they could defeat the invaders, no matter how hard they fought. They were slaughtered in their thousands when they marched to war, the defeat so total they couldn’t even begin to recover. The Captain-Generals wouldn’t have needed reinforcements, wouldn’t even have wanted them. They secured control of the timeline before opening the gates to allow the settlers to arrive.”

“Timeframe?”

“A year, perhaps two,” Martín said. “I don’t know if they were following a timetable or if they set up the gates once they were ready.”

He hesitated, unsure of his next words. “I heard – don’t take this for granted – that there were contingency orders for threats that … that hadn’t been imagined. If the incursion encountered something really dangerous, something that might attack the Prime Timeline, there were orders to blow up the entire fortress and hope to hell it kept the threat from reaching through the dimensional wall.”

“Interesting,” Cozort said. “But if they can’t communicate … how would the homeworld know they’d run into spacefaring dinosaurs? Or Cthulhu?”

Martín had no answer. It was a good point. If the Prime Timeline didn’t know, would they send another invasion force? And another? There had to be some way of sending a message … but what? He didn’t know. As far as he knew, from what he’d been told, Montrose was completely on his own.

“They would have interrogated the townspeople,” he said. “Half of Flint was rotated into the Prime Timeline. It probably gave them a great deal of information.”

“I guess so,” Cozort said. “At least, they’d have a good idea of what Montrose was facing.”

“I guess so,” Martín echoed. The Americans seemed both mind-numbingly ignorant and incredibly knowledgeable. The books he’d seen in one of their public libraries had been astonishingly comprehensive … and Flint’s library had been rotated back into the Prime Timeline. It would have been found by now, every last book and computer file scanned and assessed. “They may send someone over with orders to stop the war, but I doubt it.”

“You think so?”

“To them, an industrial civilisation is one hell of a prize,” Martín said. “Like I said, the strong do as they please and the weak suffer what they must.”

“The law of the jungle,” Cozort said.

“The world is a lawless jungle,” Martín said. He knew how the Protectorate thought. They could take what they liked, honour agreements only as long as it suited them to do so. Why not? No one could stop them. It was the same in all worlds. “And anyone who thinks otherwise is deluding himself.”

 

Chapter Eight: Nuclear Shelter (Repurposed), Near Washington, Timeline F (OTL)

The bunker was supposed to be completely off the books, Colin Cozort had been assured, the entrance to the underground complex neatly concealed under a hunting lodge that was owned, at least on paper, by a very patriotic family with no visible connection to the federal government. It was hard to be entirely sure the bunker was unknown, let alone invisible to the Protectorate, although the fact they had destroyed more public bunkers suggested they didn’t know about the secret holding facility. The war, perversely, made matters a little easier. The tourist trade had collapsed and no one would ask questions about the lodge shutting down, instead of being open to the public.

He shifted uncomfortably as he studied the logs of the conversation. The less said about the security precautions the better, from the complete full-body strip search to the scans that might – or might not – reveal a piece of tech too small to be seen with the naked eye. He understood the reasoning, and he’d even played a role in developing the precautions, but it was still awkward coming in and out of the bunker. The housekeeping and security staff never left at all. They’d volunteered knowing they’d be underground until the war was over or the researchers managed to figure out a way to be sure they weren’t being shadowed by unseen eyes.

A young officer entered, wearing the same unmarked uniform as the rest of the staff. Colin suspected it was pointless, although it did have the effect of reminding everyone that they were a military unit even though they were technically on very detached duty. There were civilian clothes in the lodge above, ready for the crew if the bunker had to be evacuated for some reason or another; uniforms, no matter how simple, were explicitly forbidden above ground. Colin’s own outfit was waiting too, for the moment he left the bunker. If he wore a uniform while visiting the lodge, someone might ask why.

And there’s no way to be sure they don’t have eyes in the sky watching us, he mused. The Protectorate didn’t have any way to launch satellites into orbit – not yet – but they could easily deploy their stealth drones over Washington DC. The wretched things were extremely hard to detect and they lurked so high it was difficult for anything short of an ASAT weapon to target them – and actually shooting them down was damn near impossible. Their pilots were good. For all we know, they’re already suspicious.

Captain Francine Yurt nodded, curtly. Salutes were also forbidden within the bunker. “It’s good to see you again, Colin.”

“And you,” Colin said. Francine didn’t look like an army captain, something that worked in her favour. It was at least possible their guests wouldn’t realise how capable she actually was, although Colin suspected that was unlikely. The Protectorate wasn’t remotely misogynistic. The captured footmen wouldn’t think it odd to meet a female military officer. They certainly wouldn’t assume she’d slept her way to her post. “Any major changes?”

“Nothing that wasn’t already included in my reports,” Francine said. She sat, facing him. “They are an odd bunch, but not overtly evil.”

Colin scowled. It hadn’t been easy to understand that Al Qaida, Islamic State, Hamas and Hezbollah and a hundred other terrorist groups really believed their fighters would go to heaven if they died killing the infidel. He had his doubts about their leadership – they certainly didn’t seem as eager to seek martyrdom themselves as they were to send their infantry to die – but the rank and file were often true believers. They would do whatever it took to win, no matter how horrific, and they counted death as a victory in and of itself. It was so unlike the western world that it was hard to believe, no matter how many times the west’s collective nose was rubbed in it.

The Protectorate wasn’t that different, in one sense. The idea it thought it had a right to take anything it wanted – land, people, technology – was absurd, and yet he had to admit the captives had a point. That had been true throughout history, the cold reality of naked force settling arguments never quite cloaked by justifications. The concept of there being something wrong with might makes right was relatively new … he shook his head. He’d always assumed a society capable of developing modern technology would also be relatively liberal, at least by modern standards. The Russians and Chinese hadn’t been able to progress past a certain point because they weren’t. But the Protectorate had.

They had a hundred years headstart, depending on when you place the birth of the industrial revolution, he thought. The modern United States would have no trouble curb-stomping Nazi Germany, Imperial Japan, Fascist Italy and the Soviet Union; he’d once read a timeline, years ago, where the US had been sent back in time to 1941 and done just that. Even if we learn from samples of captured tech, we have a very long way to go.

“They’re trying to take an entire world,” Colin said. He wondered, suddenly, just what sort of lunatic Hernán Cortés had been, to think he could take over an entire empire with a handful of men. The Spanish Conquistador hadn’t even had that great a tech edge over his enemies. And yet he’d won. “And they think they have a right to do it.”

“Their leaders certainly do,” Francine agreed. “The troops didn’t start to have doubts until they encountered us.”

“And got captured,” Colin said. If there was anyone in Castle Treathwick who had doubts about the wisdom or the morality of the conquest, they’d be wise to keep them to themselves. “How are they, psychologically speaking?”

Francine pursed her lips. “To be honest, they remind me of people who grew up in very traditional and low-technology communities, although they were clearly surrounded by modern tech from birth to death. There’s a certain … innocence … around them that is oddly appealing. They’ve rarely been exposed to porn, or graphic material, or any sort of counter-culture stuff … they told us a little about their entertainment, or what passes for it in their world, and it comes across as dreadfully boring. And moralistic.”

“Bible stories,” Colin mused.

“Quite,” Francine agreed. “They do appear to have shied away from religion – we’re not sure why – but yeah, a lot of what they talk about is like watching A Godly House.”

Colin rolled his eyes. A Godly House had been a short-lived television series following the adventures of an ultra-religious family, meeting the challenges of the modern world with faith, principles and a traditional lifestyle that was largely impossible in the real world. They’d faced dozens of strawmen, none posing any real threat to the family, and they’d ended each and every episode with the father leading his family in prayer. It had been sickeningly sweet even if the viewer was blind to the propaganda underneath, or the simple fact that a middle-class father could no longer earn enough money to allow his wife to stay home and raise the kids. His lips twisted. To call the strawmen men of straw was to give them too much credit.

“There’s a lot of odd little gaps,” Francine continued. “Shakespeare wrote in the 1500s, well before the Point of Divergence, and you’d expect them to know at least the basics? Right? The Protectorate is certainly more interested in maintaining its cultural heritage than modern-day England. But … some plays appear to have been erased from history and others changed beyond recognition. The Merchant of Venice ends with Antonio being enslaved to Shylock, because he couldn’t pay his debts.”

“Charming,” Colin muttered. He didn’t know enough about the original play to comment. “What happened to it?”

“Someone edited the play, I imagine,” Francine said. “It’s not the only one. There’s also … what they say about popular fiction is absurdly simplistic. The heroes are all brave, noble and true; the villains trilling their moustaches as they perform dastardly deeds, only to see their threat melt away as soon as the heroes stand up to them. There doesn’t seem to be any great literature, nothing that pokes fun at their society. It’s just … odd.”

Her lips quirked. “Their morality is odd too, by our standards. They don’t seem to care about what consenting people do in private, but making it public is degeneracy. Openly kissing your partner is considered rude, no matter if you’re straight or gay. Excessive drinking is bad, tobacco or drug abuse is worse … you know, we’ve had them in raptures over everything from well-cooked food to coffee.”

“So basically they’re upright religious nuts, without the religion,” Colin said. “Or is it more complex?”

“In a way,” Francine agreed. “No one will try to stop you doing something in private, as long as everyone involved consents, but by God they will be judgemental.”

“Sounds like an improvement on our world,” Colin mused. “In places, at least.”

“Maybe,” Francine said. Her pager bleeped. “Excuse me.”

She stood and hurried away. Colin turned his attention back to the reports, skimming through them one by one. The interrogations had been as comprehensive as possible, although the staff had strict orders to avoid mistreating the prisoners. They weren’t terrorists and there was no reason to think the country needed answers in a hurry … and besides, he acknowledged, the Protectorate had far more American POWs in its camps. If the prisoners were mistreated, the Protectorate was more than capable of returning the favour. And it would.

A shame we can’t get the Red Cross involved, he mused. The Protectorate had ignored all diplomatic approaches, after the first diplomatic contacts had broken down. In hindsight, they’d clearly been stalling for time. A mass nuclear strike on their fortress, before they managed to deploy their troops, would have nipped the threat in the bud. If we could get a list of their prisoners …

He scowled, tiredly. It was rare for American soldiers to be taken prisoner these days, save for a handful of deep-cover operatives whose existence, let alone their fate, would never be publicly disclosed. There were thousands of troops who were missing and no one knew if they’d gone into the POW camps, or if their bodies were resting in an enemy mass grave. Their families might never know what had happened to them … he wondered, suddenly, just what would happen to the prisoners if the Protectorate won. They’d gain nothing from releasing them.

“Mr Cozort,” a new voice said. “Any progress?”

Colin looked up, hastily smoothing his face into a blank mask as Admiral Leone stepped into the room. It wasn’t wise to have the admiral visit the bunker – if the Protectorate didn’t know who he was, Colin would be astonished – and Colin had argued against it, only to be overruled. The admiral wanted to see the prisoners in person, to get a feel for what sort of men they were. Colin just hoped it wouldn’t blow up in their face. It could end very badly indeed.

“A little, sir,” Colin said. “And some bad news.”

Admiral Leone made a face. “Why do I feel like a boxer who has been knocked down five times and is wondering if it is worth the bother of getting up again?”

Colin nodded in grim understanding. Six months ago, there had been no real external threat to the United States. Russia menaced Ukraine and China threatened Taiwan, but the United States could choose if it wanted to be involved in those conflicts – or not. Neither Russia nor China nor any rogue state was likely to strike the US with a nuclear missile, not when they were faced with the certain knowledge American retaliation would blow their countries off the map. The problems along the Mexican border were minor, but containable. There had been no reason to think any of that would change.

And yet it had.

“We’re not beaten yet, sir,” Cozort said. “We’re learning more with every passing day.”

He sighed inwardly as the admiral poured himself a mug of coffee, then sat facing him. The President was sensible, at least, and most of his war cabinet were sensible too, but he had the feeling that some of the politicians thought the scientists could take a look at the captured technology, wave a magic wand and start churning out copies for themselves. It happened all the time, in science-fiction. The real world was much less obliging. They’d learnt a great deal over the last few weeks, but it would be a long time before they could reverse-engineer everything they’d captured and put it into mass production. Hell, the United States had drawn down its industrial base so much that it was difficult to mass produce modern weapons, even more primitive gear like AK-47s and RPGs. He didn’t know if they’d manage to overcome the bottlenecks in time to matter.

They don’t have to occupy the entire world to win, he mused. They just need to fragment our governments and then they can reshape the rest of the world at leisure.

The admiral met his eyes. “Hit me.”

“They’re going to open gates to their homeworld,” Colin said, flatly. “Once they do that, sir, they’ll be able to drive an entire army into our world.”

He scowled, sipping his own coffee. The researchers were still arguing about the theory behind crosstime travel – it had been purely theoretical until the Protectorate had arrived – but one thing they had managed to work out was that it would take vast amounts of power. In hindsight, the energy bursts his team had noted before the invasion had been the Protectorate laying the groundwork for the transition. The staggering power demands were the only reason, he suspected, that they hadn’t launched more invasion forces through the dimensional walls … and if they overcame that problem, the war would be within shouting distance of being lost. It could not be allowed.

“Crap,” the admiral said.

“We have to stop them,” Colin said. “Whatever it takes.”

He took a breath. “It’s a little like Deep Space Nine,” he added. The Exotic Tech Division had always kept abreast of science-fiction. It was astonishing how many ideas came from science-fiction writers, although it took time to determine what could actually be made to work and what was impossible without technology so advanced it might as well be magic. “Back before the Dominion War.”

The admiral looked unimpressed. “In what way?”

“Deep Space Nine was sitting at one end of the wormhole, a powerful and very hostile force was sitting on the other,” Colin explained. “The bad guys were advanced enough to take down the most powerful ship in the Federation’s fleet, but they had to travel through the wormhole if they wanted to attack the good guys. If Deep Space Nine had been armed to the gills and heavily reinforced, they could have prevented the Dominion from securing a foothold in the Alpha Quadrant and …”

He saw the admiral looking irked and switched to a more understandable analogy. “It’s a bridgehead. If we let them take and hold the bridge, they can flood troops across the river and into our territory. We have to take it down before it is too late. They’ll be drawing their supplies from an untouchable rear area, probably outproducing as well as outgunning us. We have to stop them.”

“I see your point,” the admiral said. His lips twisted into a brittle smile. “I wouldn’t talk about Star Trek when you brief the President.”

“He’s more of a Star Wars fan?”

“He needs to deal with the real world, not fantasy,” Admiral Leone said. “But you’re right. They have to be stopped.”

Colin nodded, although he had no idea how the miracle was to be achieved. Castle Treathwick was surrounded by antimissile defences that were light-years ahead of anything the United States had managed to produce, allowing the defenders to shoot down anything from artillery shells to ballistic missiles. The attempts to sneak observation teams into occupied territory hadn’t been particularly successful. In some places, the makeshift border was surprisingly porous; in others, the teams had gone in and never come out again. A suicide mission to carry a backpack nuke into Flint was unlikely to work. And yet, they might have to try.

His imagination painted a disturbing picture. The Protectorate hadn’t sent enough men and machinery to overwhelm and occupy the United States. They could dominate the territory under their guns, and use drones to patrol vast swathes of land, but there were limits to their power. Their reliance on press-ganged collaborators suggested they simply couldn’t spare the men to serve as an occupation government. But if that changed … they’d be able to push out of Texas and drive on Washington, smashing anything in their path. He had no idea how many men the Protectorate had under arms, but it ruled a world. The combination of manpower and technology might be enough to win.

“Write it out, for the President,” the admiral ordered. “I’ll request a meeting once we’re back in Washington.”

Colin nodded. “Yes, sir.”

The admiral hesitated. “Do you think we can mess with them? Politically?”

“Unknown,” Colin admitted. The prisoners hadn’t been able to give many specifics about how the enemy government actually functioned, their statements long on vague generalities and short on actual details. They hadn’t earned their citizenship. Colin had a nasty feeling most of the prisoners would be unlikely to earn much of anything, no matter how well they served their masters. “They may have factions in their homeworld, but not here. Not yet.”

“We’ll see,” Admiral Leone said. “Unless the techs do come up with a silver bullet …?”

“I doubt it, sir,” Colin said. It would take decades, at best, before the United States could build a Crosstime Transpositioner of its own. “Right now, we’re still groping in the dark.”

 

Chapter Nine: Castle Treathwick, Texas, Timeline F (OTL)

“And so production of drones is expanding rapidly,” Major Hamish Lennox reported, pointing to the graph on the display. “Production of Viper vehicles, however, has hit major bottlenecks and we will be unable to start mass-production for several weeks, perhaps months.”

Captain-General James Montrose resisted the urge to curse his superiors as he studied the display. There had been no reason to think the PEF needed any kind of self-propelled guns – the flyer should have provided all the fire support the infantry required – and he hadn’t argued for the weapons anything like as stronger as he should have done. In hindsight, that had been a serious misstep. The Americans were at least a hundred years behind the PEF, when it came to warfighting technology, but they had plenty of mobile firepower and they knew how to use it. His stockpile of hypersonic missiles and precision weapons was depleting rapidly. They couldn’t replace those in a hurry either.

We’re doing better than we should, he told himself. It was not remotely reassuring. And we will overcome the bottlenecks.

He ground his teeth in silent frustration. Castle Treathwick had a giant machine shop, a small industrial base in all but name. It should have been more than capable of meeting all their requirements, from the simple to the gross … and if they’d arrived in a primal timeline, he would have regarded the matter with complete satisfaction. What did it matter how many enemy troops attacked his base, if they had nothing that could even scratch his paint? Instead … it was a matter of struggling with competing priorities, trying to meet demand while at the same time expand their industrial base to the point it actually could meet demands. The more fabricators he devoted to producing weapons instead of duplicating themselves, the harder it would be to increase production rates. In hindsight, he should have argued for a bigger industrial base too.

“We have managed to adapt a certain degree of local production,” Lennox said, with the air of a man condemned to give his superior bad news. “I’m sure we can fill some of the gaps.”

James nodded, curtly. The PEF didn’t believe in separate logistics divisions. Officers who had seen the elephant and understood the importance of keeping the weapons flowing did a term in the logistics section, before they could be considered for promotion past a certain point. Lennox was a good man, one who knew how rapidly a fast-moving offensive unit could burn through its ammunition stockpiles. He would be doing everything in his power to raise production rates as high as possible. But would they be high enough?

He tapped his terminal, looking at loss rates. One infantry regiment shot to pieces, one armoured regiment battered and broken … a number of footmen unaccounted for, either dead in Washington or captured by American soldiers. James liked to think some of the missing were actually making their way to New York or Texas, but it was unlikely. They’d have to cross over two hundred miles if they were heading to New York, passing through hostile territory where they’d stand out even if they ditched their uniforms and donned local clothing. He’d been lucky Essex had dispatched so many units into the battle, he reflected sourly, if only because it had kept them from being taken out when the enemy had blown up Andrews AFB. In hindsight, moving to seize the former President had been a mistake. He’d been far more useful in the White House.

You can’t change the past, he told himself, severely. All you can do is play the cards you’re dealt and learn from your mistakes.

Lennox cleared his throat. “We could requisition supplies from Castle Bothwell …”

“Put in the request,” James said. “But there are high demands on their resources too.”

He scowled. Castle Bothwell hadn’t had any trouble brushing aside the local military forces. The Saudis had advanced technology, but their troops had been poorly trained and unprepared for high-intensity combat; their pilots more prone to treating air combat as a game rather than something deadly serious. The conquest would have moved faster if Captain-General Lambert hadn’t wondered if he was being led into a trap, something that had deterred him from advancing too quickly. James couldn’t really blame him, even if it was against the credo. He’d been given a bloody nose in Washington.

And the more Lambert does, the harder it will be to keep him from creating his own power base, James thought. He was technically Lambert’s superior, but Lambert had an independent command. If he secures his lodgement while I’m still penned up here …

He sat back in his chair. “Do everything you must to speed up production,” he said. “We must retake the offensive as quickly as possible.”

Lennox nodded, looking relieved. James dismissed him with a nod, keeping a firm grip on his temper. There was nothing to be gained from lashing out at the logistics officer for stating facts, no matter how little James wanted to hear them. It would only deter the poor bastard from bringing more bad news, and that would be disastrous. What you didn’t know could kill you. It would only take one slip-up to ensure utter disaster.

He leaned back in his chair, eyes flickering around the office. The sheer scale of the problem was staggering, and it would have been daunting to a lesser man. Even James admitted it was a immense task, although he knew from experience that tackling a sizable problem in small stages was an excellent way to break it down into something manageable. The local industrial base required power as well as security, the local population required feeding and housing as well as protection – a double-edged sword, for both occupiers and occupied – and that was just scratching the surface. He didn’t understand why the local government had allowed its infrastructure to decay so badly. Sally’s explanation sounded like utter madness.

But we are working on the problem, he told himself. And we’ll be resuming the offensive soon enough.

The display updated: another skirmish, a brief exchange of fire between patrolling infantry and local insurgents. Nothing too significant, in the grand scheme of things, but another reminder that the locals were very far from primitive. He didn’t understand why they’d embraced degeneracy and tolerated primal behaviour, yet … he shook his head. It didn’t matter. They would be broken, sooner or later, and take their place in civilised society. The rogues would be worked to death or simply executed, if they refused to fall in line.

His timer bleeped. It was time for the meeting.

He stood and walked into the holoconference room, feeling a flicker of disquiet at how the military-grade coffee had been replaced by a local blend. It didn’t feel right, no matter how much it tasted better than the supplies they'd brought with them. Not, he reflected, that anyone had expected the supplies to last forever. They’d known they’d be feeding local biomass into the processors if they couldn’t obtain food and drink from the locals, by fair means or foul. That, thankfully, had been avoided. Processed food bars were safe to eat, and they provided everything a human needed to live, but they tasted bland, when they weren’t actively unpleasant. The only upside was that they were better than nothing.

James took a breath, then pressed his hand against the sensor. The holoconference chamber flickered to life around him, the holographic images of his captains shimmering into existence. A line of script on the display, visible only to him, confirmed that the minibrains had run through an intensive verification and encryption protocol, something that would be overkill in any of the other known timelines. Here … James had discovered the locals made something of a habit of hacking foreign computer systems, or even their own government’s secure databases. He dared not assume his systems were wholly impregnable, not when the enemy would be doing everything in their power to hack it. If their systems had been a little more advanced …

He took a moment to consider his captains, half-wishing Essex had been able to join them even though he knew it was a bad idea. They were loyal to him, but some were more loyal than others and they would all have ambitions of their own. There were limits to how far he could push them before they started to push back, he knew, while none would follow him mindlessly.

And while I escaped direct blame for the disaster in Washington, he reflected, they know I was the one who left Essex in command.

“The enemy has failed to follow up on their victory,” he said, without preamble. The captains were not the sort of men to be flattered, or soothed with sweet words. “They remain disorientated by our campaign.”

“That hasn’t stopped them harassing us,” Captain (Armour) Jackson King pointed out. “They’ve already killed one captain. They want to kill another.”

James kept his face under tight control. Captain Ruddigore had been openly questioning his commander before the Battle of Washington, where his regiment had been largely obliterated. His death was the one good thing to come out of the battle, removing a potential challenger to James himself, but it had also reshuffled the dynamics between the captains and made it harder for him to identify the next challenger. Was King preparing for a challenge? Or was he just pointing out the downside of their current situation?

“We should build the gates now,” Captain (Infantry) Tobias Hawkweed said. “Let them have their victory. Our reinforcements will crush them soon enough.”

A mutter of discontent ran through the chamber. James was relieved to hear it. The captains knew they’d be first in line for the booty, for land and manpower and everything else that could be taken from a whole new world. Bringing in reinforcements would ensure they wouldn’t get their rewards, certainly not as much as they had a right to expect. There just wouldn’t be enough to go around. And yet, they were self-interested but also realistic. If they’d thought they needed the reinforcements to win, they would have swallowed their pride and admitted it.

“It will take time to put together the gates,” James said. The structure was not only incredibly complex, and well beyond anything the locals could produce for themselves, it was kept carefully dissembled to ensure it could be destroyed behind all hope of repair if the locals turned out to be far deadlier than the Protectorate had thought. “We also have to be aware it can be detected during the tuning phase.”

There was a long pause. James kept his face from showing any hint of his feelings. Normally, there would be no problem. A primal society that didn’t know steam, let alone coal or oil or fusion power, couldn’t hope to detect the emissions as the gate complex was put together and then carefully resonated with its twin on the far side of the dimensional wall, but a modern society might be able to detect the emissions even if they couldn’t understand them. He dared not take the risk they could. The locals had certainly had the concept of alternate universes before the invasion and now they knew it was possible to jump from world to world. How long would it be before they made the leap to a practical technology? James suspected it wouldn’t take them long. They already knew it could be done.

“Then we act now,” King said. “Get the gates up and running before it is too late.”

“We would still be risking disaster,” James pointed out. He carefully didn’t point out that it would be a personal disaster as well as a military one. “The locals will throw everything at us once they realise what we’re doing. And they will.”

“They don’t have gate technology,” Captain (Armour) Florence Danish said.

“They know the basics,” James said. “And really, we know nothing for sure.”

He glanced at the projections the intelligence team had put together, although they’d cautioned him the reports were little more than educated guesswork. The Protectorate had advanced in a straight line, a steady stream of technical development that had seemed the only way to advance until they’d encountered Timeline F. There was no pattern to the local technical development – some aspects were more advanced than their counterparts, others were oddly retarded – and it was impossible to say with complete certainty just what they could, and couldn’t, do. They appeared to have put more energy into entertaining themselves than to developing space fight, fusion technology and a hundred other things they should have put first. He knew he should be relieved – if the Americans had had orbital weapons, the war would have been lost very quickly – but it was still puzzling.

We were mining the asteroids at a comparable stage in our development, he thought. What the hell were they doing? Didn’t they know they’re trapped at the bottom of a gravity well?

“The enemy is numerous, but they lack our technology,” he said. “We must not fight them on grounds they will find advantageous, but on grounds that suit us.”

He tapped his console, bringing up the plans for a simple orbital battlestation. “This is a crude design, compared to many back home,” he said. “Two-thirds come from enemy production lines, rather than our own fabricators. We’ll be filling as many holes as possible with local technology … it will be crude, yes, but it will work. We will build the platform, launch it into orbit, and rain kinetic strikes on anyone who dares question us.”

His lips curved into a cold smile. “If they’re degenerate enough not to make use of space, we will not give them the time to correct their mistake.”

A ripple ran around the chamber, a flicker of hope. The captains had known they’d taken a bloody nose, they’d known the hope of victory had started to fade. They’d all underestimated the sheer size of the United States, let alone the rest of the world, and the Americans were advanced enough to be really dangerous. But what did that matter, when the Protectorate controlled space? They would have access to an infinite supply of raw material – the moon was ready and waiting – and no trouble turning it into effective projectiles. The only real question was just how badly they’d have to hurt the United States before it surrendered. Once they saw it was hopeless …

He looked from face to face, watching the vision take root. They would win. They would have an entire world under their control, to share out amongst their clients … they would secure it before the gates were opened, ensuring they and their descendents would remain in control. It would be theirs. And theirs alone.

“It’ll take time to put the platform together,” James told them. “We shall hold the line as long as possible, harassing the enemy to keep them from attacking us, while we prepare our sucker punch. And then the world will be ours.”

He allowed himself a tight smile. The Protectorate had developed orbital bombardment during the Second Global War and used it ruthlessly, crushing the enemy from far beyond their range. That had been with crude technology, booster rockets often as dangerous to their pilots as they were to the enemy; now, with modern technology, the Americans wouldn’t stand a chance. They would be knocked out of the war, before anyone arrived to relieve him of command.

“Hold the line, gentlemen,” he ordered. “Victory will be ours.”

The conference ended. He wasn’t fool enough to think they wouldn’t discuss the matter amongst themselves. Some would be plotting trouble, others would be fearing the outcome if they remained too close to James … particularly if there was a second defeat. He sipped his coffee thoughtfully, contemplating the possible outcomes. Losing Ruddigore wasn’t an unmixed blessing. If he’d survived, James would have known where prospective trouble would be coming from.

His datapad bleeped. James glanced at it, shaking his head at the endless series of reports that required his personal attention. Essex was no longer his second, of course, and it would take time for his de facto replacement to learn the ropes. She’d been forwarding too much to him. James understood, but … Better to ensure the CO saw everything than risk missing something because his subordinates didn’t recognise its importance before it was too late. And yet …

He stood, wondering if he had time to find Sally. She had been due back at the castle an hour ago and her escorts were normally very good about making sure she didn’t stray too far from her assigned role. He felt a rush of heat as he recalled some of the things she did with him, even though some were shameful and others were degenerate … perhaps even when done in private. The things she did with her mouth … it was hard to imagine a decent woman doing them, certainly not to anyone who wasn’t her husband. The whores he’d enjoyed during his early career had been ashamed of themselves, when they’d gone down on him. Sally hadn’t been ashamed. She’d been proud of herself. And the hell of it was that he liked it.

His lips curved into a droll smile. Sally was useful, in more ways than one. It was a shame she’d been ignored by her own society, but their loss was his gain. He would do right by her, at least by his standards. It was never wise to turn down help, wherever it came from. It only discouraged others from helping themselves. As long as she was loyal, she would be rewarded.

Shrugging, he turned and walked to the CIC. The war might have stalemated, at least for the moment, but there was still work to do. And they would retake the offensive.

It was just a matter of time.