INVASION: UPRISING (Invasion Series Book 3) Read online

  INVASION: UPRISING

  Invasion Series Book 3

  DC Alden

  Copyright © 2020 DC Alden

  The right of DC Alden to be identified as the Author of the Work has been asserted by him in accordance with the Copyrights, Designs and Patents Act 1988. All rights reserved.

  No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means without the prior written permission of the publisher, nor be otherwise circulated in any form of binding or cover other than that in which it is published and without a similar condition being imposed on the subsequent purchaser.

  All characters in this publication are fictitious and any resemblance to real persons, living or dead, is purely coincidental.

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  Foreward

  There are thousands of books out there that dive deep into political sociology, religion and military strategy. Invasion: Uprising isn’t one of them.

  It’s a military thriller set in an alternate future where the political and cultural landscape has shifted dramatically, an imagined stage on which this tale is set. Nothing more.

  I hope you enjoy it.

  DC Alden

  Glossary

  2IC - Second in Command

  ACOG - Advanced Combat Optical Gunsight.

  AFB - Air Force Base

  AFV - Armoured Fighting Vehicle

  ARV - Armoured Reconnaissance Vehicle (LAV-25 replacement)

  ATC - Air Traffic Control

  CASE-VAC - Casualty Evacuation

  CID - Criminal Investigation Department

  CO - Commanding Officer

  Common Purpose - Alleged Marxist social engineering cult posing as Leadership Development Charity

  CQB - Close Quarter Battle

  CSM - Company Sergeant Major

  DEVGRU - Navy Special Warfare Development Group (formerly SEAL Team Six)

  DMR - Designated Marksman Rifle

  GMLRS - Guided Multiple Launch Rocket System

  Haji - Slang term for anyone wearing the caliphate uniform

  HEAT - High Explosive Anti Tank

  HVT - High Value Target

  IFF - Identify Friend or Foe (aviation transponder)

  JAASM-XR - Joint Air Surface Stand-Off Missile (Extreme Range)

  KIA - Killed in Action

  LAV - Light Armoured Vehicle

  M27 - Infantry Automatic Rifle

  M-ATV - Mine Resistant-All Terrain Vehicle

  MIA - Missing in Action

  MTVR - Medium Tactical Vehicle Replacement

  NSA - National Security Agency

  NCO - Non Commissioned Officer

  OC - Officer Commanding

  QRF - Quick Reaction Force

  RNLI - Royal National Lifeboat Institution

  RSM - Regimental Sergeant Major

  RV - Rendezvous

  SAW - Squad Automatic Weapon

  SLS - Space Launch System

  UAV - Unmanned Aerial Vehicle

  UGV - Unmanned Ground Vehicle

  UFV - Unmanned Fighting Vehicle

  Contents

  Prologue

  1. Judge Dread

  2. Irish Eyes

  3. Tom & Jerry

  4. Law and Order

  5. Fighting Irish

  6. Resistance is Not Futile

  7. The Gunner Sleeps

  8. Lewd behaviour

  9. The North West Frontier

  10. Snoop Dog

  11. Uber Alles

  12. Hurry up, Harry

  13. Excess Baggage

  14. All Aboard

  15. No Justice

  16. Byker Grove

  17. Bertie Smalls

  18. The Fuse

  19. Advance To Contact

  20. Knock on Wood

  21. Uprising

  22. Light ‘em Up

  23. Battle Cry

  24. Witching Hour

  25. Tear Up

  26. Watch and Shoot

  27. QRF

  28. Regime Change

  29. Willie Gunn

  30. Coup de Grace

  31. Tank Action!

  32. Bridge of Sighs

  33. Hammer Time

  34. Fare Thee Well

  Have your say

  The Angola Deception

  Tower

  Kill The Bill

  Amen, Brother

  Football Violence

  Capstone

  The Hunt Begins

  Also by DC Alden

  “If ye love wealth better than liberty, the tranquility of servitude better than the contest of freedom, go home from us in peace. We ask not for your counsel or your arms. Crouch down and lick the hands which feed you. May your chains set lightly upon you, and may posterity forget that you were ever our countrymen.”

  Samuel Adams

  Prologue

  Semper High

  Space marine.

  Colonel Jon Kramer still found the term mildly improbable, like something you’d hear on a TV show or read in a sci-fi novel. The president had called him that very thing six days ago in a private ceremony at Vandenberg AFB, and even then, it had a ring of unreality to it. The Congressional Medal of Honor the commander in chief had pinned to Kramer’s chest had been real enough, even though he’d done nothing to earn it.

  Not yet, anyway.

  Purdy’s voice hissed inside Kramer’s helmet. ‘Quite a view out there.’

  Kramer turned his head and glanced out of the viewing port. Flashes of lightning flickered across a vast cloud formation that stretched across the dark earth below. With every passing orbit, that earth was getting closer. Kramer looked up to the blackness above, and the marine corps aviator felt it again, that overwhelming sense of awe and wonder. The universe was just one of millions – billions – that existed out there beyond their own sun, an unexplored reality so vast that Kramer struggled to imagine its size and complexity. Was its creation nothing more than a random collision of atoms, or God’s work? He’d find out soon enough.

  ‘Sixty-seconds to separation.’

  The voice was automated, like everything else about their brief excursion into space. Back down at Vandenberg, they’d covertly board the SLS rocket, their Penetrator stealth re-entry craft piggy-backed onto a telecommunications satellite. The launch had been scheduled for several months, and to the curious eye (and there were many this far into the global conflict), the SLS was just another private enterprise venture about to fire yet another orbiting hunk of junk into an already crowded atmosphere. No biggie.

  Except for the first space marines in the history of the United States Armed Forces on board.

  Thirty-six hours ago, the SLS had blasted off the pad in California and the newly commissioned military patch on their spacesuits had been duly earned. In the following 60 hours they’d made 28 low-earth orbits of the planet below, still attached to the satellite as it hurtled predictably around the globe. Other eyes would’ve tracked the launch, the separation, the established orbit. By now, curiosity would be satisfied. Nothing to see here. Move along, folks.

  Kramer felt a vibration through his seat.

  ‘Internal systems checks are complete,’ the she-computer warned them. ‘Thirty seconds to release.’

  He leaned forward, inspecting the underside of the satellite through the narrow slit of the observation window. It was a pilot’s instinctive gesture, a visual check, like during a mid-air refuelling. Kramer knew it
was pointless, but he did it all the same.

  ‘Ten seconds.’

  ‘Going down,’ Gunny Purdy warned, his gloved fingers curling around the handgrips on his seat.

  ‘Five seconds.’

  Kramer did the same. They were pilot fish, swimming beneath the belly of a whale. But not for much longer…

  ‘Three, two, one…detach.’

  They felt the metallic clunk of releasing bolts, and then the satellite was drifting away. Within seconds, it was lost in the darkness.

  ‘Re-entry program initiated.’

  The nose of the Penetrator dipped, and the earth filled the cockpit windows, its surface still blanketed in cloud. Kramer glanced at the altimeter; still over 200 miles above the surface but they were already dropping fast. Ahead, somewhere beyond the terminator line, daylight beckoned, but the spacecraft would avoid the intrusive glare of another dawn. Its mission would be completed long before then.

  The hull shook, and Kramer watched as the nose of the ship glowed. The Penetrator had been originally designed as an escape craft for astronauts on board the Deep Space Gateway until the developers at Lockheed Martin envisaged another role for the vehicle. Not life-saving. Life-taking.

  The ship shuddered, the control panel blurring as it bullied its way back to the planet. Kramer gripped his handles tight as the ship carved through the thermosphere.

  After several long minutes, the buffeting eased. The ionised air beyond the viewing port cleared and the ship’s surface temperature cooled. Terrestrial video and navigation systems booted into life. Behind them they could feel the whisper-quiet, ram-air engine coming on-line, a low-output system designed to give the pilots aerodynamic control all the way to the surface.

  ‘On-board power-plant is initiated. All systems nominal.’

  ‘Flight control check.’ Kramer’s hand reached out for the auto-pilot override. ‘Switching to manual.’

  ‘Switching,’ Purdy confirmed, his hands now gripping the throttle and mini flight-stick.

  Kramer flipped the override. ‘Your aircraft.’

  ‘My aircraft.’

  ‘Deploying wings.’ The ship vibrated as the small delta wings fanned out from the fuselage. Kramer watched another light on the systems panel blink green. ‘Wings deployed.’

  ‘Roger that. Flying like a bird.’

  Kramer smiled at that and looked forward to taking control himself, but right now he had other tasks to perform. The Penetrator was flying at 68,000 feet above Pakistan, with just under 1,000 nautical miles to target. At their current speed and angle of descent, it would take approximately 45 minutes to reach ground zero.

  They’d drilled this a hundred times in the simulator, even when Purdy was sick, in case Kramer became incapacitated during the flight and the gunny had to complete the mission. The radiation they’d absorbed during their low-earth orbit couldn’t have done the 22-year veteran much good.

  ‘How’re you doing there, Ron?’

  The gunny smiled. ‘Better than I’ve felt in months.’

  Kramer gave his fellow Medal of Honor recipient a reassuring pat on the arm, then got back to work. He brought up the checklist on the screen in front of him. He knew the fusing sequence intimately, could start it in his sleep, but he stepped through it methodically, line by line, until the list was complete and he received the computerised, cold-as-ice confirmation.

  ‘Fusing subsystem routine verified.’

  ‘Setting barometric trigger.’ Kramer turned to Purdy and said, ‘What d’ya say, Ron? You wanna see the whites of their eyes or go by the book?’

  Purdy smiled again. ‘Best we go by the playbook, Colonel.’

  ‘One-fifty it is.’ Kramer winked, dialling in the required altitude. He punched the execute key.

  ‘Trigger set,’ the Ice Maiden confirmed. ‘Initiating lockout sequence.’

  Numbers scrolled down the screen as the computer randomly selected a 24-digit, alpha-numeric lockout code. Physically entering that code was now the only way to disarm the weapon, but neither marine had any intention of doing that.

  ‘Arming sequence complete,’ Kramer confirmed.

  ‘Okay then,’ Purdy said, matter-of-fact.

  Kramer turned his head and looked out of the side window. Through a break in the cloud below he glimpsed civilisation, a tiny cluster of lights that the nav system told him was Islamabad. Less than 30 seconds later it disappeared beneath a weather system that stretched all the way out to the Pakistan border.

  Not long now.

  He thought about the road that had brought him to this point, a road paved with God’s good blessings; a wonderful childhood, a private education, then the Marine Corps, just like his pops, and his pops before him. Unlike them, he’d earned his naval aviator wings through the strike pipeline, eventually piloting an F/A-18 Super Hornet. During his stellar career, he’d been attacked with SAMs four times and evaded every one. He’d crashed once (hydraulic failure), but he’d got his bird down off the deck of a rolling aircraft carrier with minimal damage. He’d married the girl of his dreams and she’d borne him three children, two girls and a boy. Every day since, Jon Kramer had thanked God for his good fortune.

  Until four months, twenty-two days and eleven hours ago.

  That’s when the truck driver, who’d pulled a brutal overnighter from Vancouver, closed his eyes for just a second—

  The state police figured it was longer than that, but it didn’t matter. The 42-ton 18-wheeler was travelling downhill at 60 miles an hour in Fresno County when it veered across the centre line and ploughed into Jackie Kramer’s SUV, severing the vehicle in half and dragging a mangled fusion of twisted metal and ruptured flesh a further quarter-mile before the driver stopped his rig.

  And in that one, awful twist of fate, Jon Kramer lost his wife, his children, and both his parents, who were making a surprise visit for Thanksgiving. Without Karen and the kids, he was nothing. His soul had been ripped from him, his reason to exist, gone. The nightmare of watching his dead children being lowered into the dirt had haunted him every night since. He couldn’t go on. The only question that remained was how it would end.

  The US secretary of defence had solved that question for him, and in person. The conversation was respectful, short, and blunt. Kramer didn’t hesitate for a second and answered in the affirmative. Purdy had received a similar visit from the SecDef, although his was conducted at the Walter Reed Hospital in Bethesda, Maryland, where Purdy, a Seahawk pilot, was undergoing treatment for a particularly aggressive and incurable form of pancreatic cancer. Purdy was divorced with four kids. The SecDef assured the Gunny that all four would go to college, courtesy of Uncle Sam.

  The training was brief and intense. Experimental drugs kept Purdy’s cancer at bay but the respite never lasted more than a few days. As they’d orbited the earth, Kramer saw it in the gunny’s eyes, telegraphed by the recurring spasms of pain, although now they were heading back to earth, that burden appeared to have lifted.

  ‘Passing 40,000 feet,’ he told Kramer. ‘Your aircraft.’

  ‘My aircraft,’ Kramer confirmed, his hand gripping the control stick, his booted feet stamping the pedals, feeling the Penetrator buck in the night sky. He tamed her with a little throttle and a minor pitch adjustment. They were still above the clouds, still 300 nautical miles from their target, but the time would pass quickly now. He pitched the nose down a little, increasing their airspeed. The clouds below flickered with lightning pulses, a dying tropical storm that would provide them with some cover. The Penetrator’s stealth capabilities would do the rest. They were an invisible dart, plummeting towards earth.

  They plunged into the cloud, the turbulence causing Kramer to grip the stick a little harder with one hand and reach for the autopilot with the other.

  ‘Primary flight control test complete. Switching to autopilot.’

  ‘Autopilot engaged.’

  Kramer let go of the flight stick. The Ice Maiden was in control now. She’d take them all the
way in. There was nothing left to do now except enjoy the ride.

  The world outside the viewing ports was grey and violent. The Penetrator bucked and shuddered through the storm. Kramer’s helmet thumped against the fuselage as the aircraft began a series of steep banking manoeuvres, slowing its forward air speed. He checked the altimeter; 8,000 feet and dropping fast. He watched the nav display, saw they were descending over the mountains of Kashmir, the western anchor of the Himalayas. In a mission fraught with a multitude of dangers, both Kramer and Purdy had agreed that this would be the most nerve-wracking moment of the mission, not because of the perilous proximity of the many jagged peaks that towered above them – neither man worried about the prospect of a violent death – but because they were so close to completing their mission. To fail now would be unthinkable.

  The aircraft banked hard to the right. Outside, the grey had turned to white, the rain to snow. The cloud swirled and shifted, the terrain outside taking shape. The ship ceased its violent passage, and the ride smoothed out. They were gliding through a narrow, snowy valley surrounded by magnificent granite walls, and Kramer felt the Penetrator making minor corrections to its course as it threaded its way through the mountain range. Soon, the peaks fell away, and as the last of the cloud cleared they saw a bright cluster of lights in the distance.