Ah, took a while to find this in my files. For your entertainment and comparison purposes, the initial version of Chapter One, which was written in early-to-mid-2016. I never really got any further than this as I was still focusing on Autumn Morning.
Chapter 1
The rights of neutrality will only be respected, when they are defended by an adequate power. A nation, despicable by its weakness, forfeits even the privilege of being neutral.
War. War never changes.
In a darkened room in a rebuilt office building near the centre of Austin, five men met in secrecy. A dozen mercenaries specifically known for confidentiality stood outside the door, and no records of the meeting were to be kept. As far as the government of the Lone Star Republic knew, nothing was happening here. Which was just as well for those meeting here. Had it an inkling of what was being planned, treason charges, court-martials and executions would most certainly result.
“We all heard the news,” said the leader, a prominent Congressman. “Travis has been elected President with a clear majority. Given that the gal’s in bed with the Yankees, we can’t expect our republic’s independence to last much longer if she’s allowed to stay in power. We need to remove her, and fast.”
“What do we do then?” one of the other conspirators, CEO of the biggest construction firm in Texas, asked. “An assassination? Hire mercenaries, a car bombing, point a lone nut in her direction?”
“Impossible,” another man said, the light catching his general’s rank pip as he did so. “We kill her, an’ we make the gal a martyr to the pro-Yankees in Congress. Then her veep’ll just go ahead with her plans anyway. What we need is to acknowledge that the will of the people has failed in this particular instance, and then “regretfully” take over to ensure the sovereignty of the Lone Star Republic. In summary: we launch a coup.”
“Desecrate our republic’s values to save it? I’m not certain. Besides, we’d give the Yankees a ready-made license to invade Texas.”
“Not if we get support for our little takeover. The Californians’ll be eager to provide. Those people hate the damnyankees like nothing else in the world.
“The Californians? If we did that they’d have us over a barrel. And with the allies they have? Brotherhood’s eyeing Oklahoma and Mexico the north side of the Rio Grande. I’trust ‘em only so far as I can throw ‘em.”
“We can’t maintain our neutrality. Either we side with the damnyankees or we side with New California. I know what I prefer.”
“If that’s our only choice, then we’ll do what we must. How many troops can you rustle up on short notice?”
“Ten thousand, give or take a few. I suggest we strike during Travis’ inauguration. The parade suddenly turns into a military takeover, then we get the Californians to move in troops to help suppress resistance, and the damnyankees are warded off.”
“Sounds good. Let’s get it moving.”
==*==
“You have the report from our embassy in Austin?” President McLaggen said to his aide, looking at the portrait of President Tandi on the far side of the room. What would she do in this situation?, he idly wondered.
“Yes, Mr. President,” the aide replied. “The Texans are planning a revolt against their pro-Enclave President, and asking for financial and military support.”
“Make sure they have it,” McLaggen said. “If we can switch them over to our side, we may finally be able to crush the Enclave for good.”
It’d been seventy years since the NCR last defeated the Enclave on the field of battle. Three hundred Enclave soldiers had held out for twenty days at Navarro against thirty times their number in NCR men and women, and two-thirds of the victor had been killed or crippled. Then, about forty years after that, it’d been discovered that like the damnable cockroaches they were, the Enclave had survived and even multiplied. Though the Rangers sent to investigate took heavy casualties, much scientific knowledge had been stolen and the common threat had ended the Brotherhood-NCR war.
Later, the Empire of Mexico – remembering the humiliations of 1836 and 1848, then the brutal military occupation of 2060-2077 – had joined the alliance, and the Montana Provisional Government had aligned similarly, though far less willingly. But the Enclave had grown just as their rivals had the past forty years.
Their military expeditions had secured Massachusetts, Ontario, Florida and Louisiana – branching out from there they linked up these holdings, gaining control of everything east of the Mississippi, which was now the site of constant skirmishes as both sides tested each other’s strength. But an escalation to full scale war was inevitable.
The Enclave wanted to bring all of North America under their iron heel – the NCR, the Brotherhood and Mexico wanted to live in peace. That for the forty years since the Ranger expedition in 2287 the inevitable war had not yet begun was a miracle, but the fragile peace wouldn’t last much longer. The only question was whether Texas would be the spark that ignited the war for North America, or whether some other place would be.
Three hours later, President McLaggen signed Executive Order AX-012-90, authorising the use of any military or political means to prevent further Enclave expansion.
==*==
“What is the moral difference between an aggressor and a defender in a violent situation?”
I gulped. This was my last year in High School, so I thought I was going to ace Civics class. No such luck. Teacher got replaced by a substitute in the middle of the year, and he was way tougher on us than the previous one had been.
“That the aggressor commences the use of force, while a defender only uses violence once he has been driven to do so by the actions of the aggressor.”
It was my best reply, and I hoped the teacher thought it was good. Please don’t let him chew me out like last week, I silently prayed.
“Acceptable, Mr. Fitzroy. America has never fought an offensive war in the entirety of her history. If anybody would dispute this, I’ll have them name one war America has fought in which she was unquestionably and unequivocally the aggressor and hence at fault for the war.”
“World War One?” a girl asked.
“An intervention in a European conflict, after the Germans sank our civilian ships and plotted with Mexico to invade us.”
“The Revolution?”
“A response to the increasing tyranny of the English monarchy and its attacks on its own citizens.”
“Sino-American War?”
“Started by Communist China invading Alaska in a sneak attack to control American oil fields.”
“The Civil War?”
“Started by Southern traitors stealing Federal property and attempting to secede from the Union.”
I picked my brain hard as I could, but it was true – history gave me no examples of any wars America started. But once we’re forced into a fight, by God we’re eager to win it.
“Class dismissed,” the teacher said, and I filed with the other students toward the entrance, where I waited for Minnie.
Technically her given name’s Minerva A. Jefferson, but I always call her Minnie.
“How’re you doing, doll?” I asked and gave her a peck on the cheek.
“Fine,” she answered. “How’re you doing, my cute little dreamboat?”
“Very good,” I said. “You good for the arcade at Saturday evening?”
“Shouldn’t you be studying for your exams?” she riposted and slightly adjusted her choker necklace. “Exam week is just around the corner.”
“I guess so,” I replied. I wanted to get into CIT, and that lot were the most stringent of all the big universities. Back before the Massachusetts Expedition of 2287, they’d been puppet masters controlling all the city behind the scenes. Now they were neutered and resembled their pre-nuke selves a lot more, still under heavy Government oversight.
“So if you don’t want to go to the arcade …” I froze up, not wanting to say anything more. But I found the courage and said it anyway. “… After we graduate, would you be my date for prom?”
“Of course, John,” she replied and kissed me on the mouth. “How could I let go of such a handsome young man as you?”
Then she went on to her limousine. Most of us high schoolers got home on the bus, or if we were old enough by (second-hand) car and motorbike. Minnie? She got a big black limo with the Secret Service logo embossed proudly on the doors.
Once I asked her what the limousine was for.
“After-school lessons,” she teased.
“What kind?” I innocently asked.
“It’s a national secret,” she said in a deathly serious tone, and I never dared to ask again.
I got on my motorbike (good old Hermes Motors) and headed to my home in Sanctuary fast as I could. No sense getting caught violating curfew, the stun batons the police use pack a mean wallop. I got home, had dinner with my family and headed to my room to avoid my father and put on the TV.
Channel was showing some pre-War holo about Constantine the Great, I found it pretty boring so turned on the evening news, being broadcast live on the Government Channel.
“This is the American News Network,” the host went on. “And we’ve just uncovered the biggest scandal of this election year! The Freedom and Justice Party candidate has been discovered in a torrid affair with last year’s Miss Teen America, Joanne Delacroix. My viewers, if he can’t stay loyal to his wife, he can’t stay loyal to America. Would the spokesman from the Freedom & Justice Party please make his case?”
“These allegations are most ridiculous!” the guest replied. “We have ample reason to believe that the affair is the result of a specific campaign by the Eagle Party to silence its competitors and that the woman in question was paid by the Eagle Party to seduce Mr. Hendricks and scupper his chances for the White House.”
“Those are some strong accusations you’re making against our President. Do you have any evidence that Ms. Delacroix was used as a honey trap, or is this simple slander against America’s most beloved President, Augustus-“
I flipped the channel and saw an Eagle Party ad.
“Over the past fifty years,” the incumbent President said in his thick-as-molasses drawl while the camera panned over bucolic scenes of farmers, factory workers and young mothers. “The Eagle Party has rebuilt much of our nation and made America great again. My fellow Americans, I want you to help keep it that way.”
“The Eagle Party is better-equipped than any other group to guide this nation through the present trials,” he continued, while showing parading soldiers and cheering crowds, and then one of the President’s speeches this year. He hadn’t aged much since my Grandfather’s time, and looked much the same apart from some flecks of grey in his hair.
The ad cut to the Eagle Party logo (a circle of thirteen stars around a letter E, with the middle bar of the E three separate bars) and a female voice said their campaign slogan.
“Vote Autumn, vote America.”
I turned off the channel, got ready for bed, and swiftly dozed off to sleep.
==*==
Sarah Travis couldn’t believe what’d happened. Just at her inauguration as first female President of the Lone Star Republic, she’d been turned on by the military and arrested along with her Cabinet. Now she sat in a cold, dirty cell waiting for her “trial”, with no lawyer and no expectation it would be anything other than a show for the benefit of the traitorous clique that had foisted her out of power. Not only that, the traitors had allied with a foreign government in their bid to destroy Texan democracy.
They’d sent a full division into Texas to assist the traitors, many equipped with their “Kodiak” and “Grizzly” models of power armour.
“Enclave bitch,” she heard one of them mutter just outside. “Not gonna be kissing their asses much longer once we’ve put you away for life.”
Enclave. That was what the Californians called the Americans, and Travis had no clue where it came from. All she knew about the Americans was they had very advanced tech and they wanted Texas to join up with them. She’d been planning on a plebiscite over that issue once she’d secured a re-election. Now though, there was going to be no chance of that happening while her country was in the thrall of a foreign power.
==*==
I looked at my test results in my room, and knew I didn’t have a chance of making CIT. I had three As in my results and a smattering of Bs. CIT had only ever taken the very best, and I … well, I was slightly above average. Still, I’d graduated, and could still go into any other of the decent universities.
Prom had been good, with Minnie wearing that gorgeous little black dress. And then … my videophone rang. I hit “answer” and saw her pretty pale face framed by black hair and her deep blue eyes.
“Hi, Minnie,” I said. “What’s the deal?”
“Hello, John,” she replied. “I … I’m joining up with the military. If you want to see me before I go, you should head to the Bunker Hill Monument before 3 PM.”
I hurried to my bike and drove into town, past the Hermes Motors plant outside Lexington and through Cambridge before crossing the river into the Fens (or “Diamond City” as the nickname goes, after the old town that used to be built inside the baseball stadium), making sure to avoid the Scollay Square region where they coop up all the Ghouls. They can’t leave their settlement zone without a permit from the Mayor, but then they can go feral at a moment’s notice and there’s no cure for their condition. It’s unfortunate but necessary at least until we figure out what to do with them.
On the way though, I stopped at a jeweller’s and brought a plain silver band. I blew all my allowance for that month on it, but I wanted it for Minnie so she’d know how much I loved her.
She was there sitting on a bench near the monument, and rose up to meet me.
“So,” I said, trying to sound natural. I’d heard about the situation in Texas – the coup, Travis’ show trial, the siege of the US Embassy – but I’d never imagined it could lead to a war. To be fair, I grew up in relatively peaceful times. Grandpa says in his day, things were a lot worse. Whole of downtown was a warzone back then, and there were just a few normal pockets of decent people in the city. “Which branch of the Armed Forces are you joining up with?”
“The Secret Service,” she stated matter-of-factly. I raised my eyebrow. Normally you have to have at least ten years in another branch before joining the Secret Service. All they do is guard the President and top Government officials, as well as some special ops work and a bit of law enforcement on the side. I knew better than to ask for specifics on that though.
“You planning to join up too?” she asked.
“I’m considering it,” I said and decided to ask the most important question of my life.
“Well … after this war is over-“
I fell to one knee and opened the box, revealing the ring I’d brought just today.
“-Minerva Jefferson, will you marry me?”
“Yes, John, oh dear God yes!” she said and slipped the ring onto her finger before I kissed her deeply on the mouth. We sat on the bench holding hands for a while, but it was soon time for her to go.
“Can I see you off to the recruitment centre?”
She rode behind me on my motorbike to the recruitment post near Mass Fusion, and I looked at the posters as she signed her papers.
“IT’S A GOOD DAY TO DIE WHEN YOU KNOW THE REASON WHY!” said one, showing a grizzled soldier firing his laser rifle as unseen enemies fired shots all around him. Most definitely not how I wanted to go out.
“REMEMBER NAVARRO” was the slogan on another one, showing the broken bodies of US soldiers carpeting a distant field. I knew all about the battle – how our men refused offers of surrender, how they and their compatriots fought to the last drop of blood rather than dishonour their nation, and so forth. But it was distant to me, on the other side of the continent and seventy years in the past.
But the third one I looked at struck to my soul.
A father of four sat on an armchair in his middle age, watching his children. His bright-eyed son looked up to him and was asking a question.
“WHAT DID YOU DO IN THE WAR, DADDY?”
Could that man in the poster be me? What would I say to my children? That I’d sat back a thousand miles from the front lines as better men than me bled and died for my freedom? I honestly couldn’t answer it.
“You wanna enlist, son?” the recruitment officer asked me.
“I’m not sure,” I said.
“Might wanna make up your mind soon. Before we chase the Californian rebels all the way back to Frisco.”
I went back home, had dinner, and went to sleep still pondering.
I woke up and resolved to talk to my grandfather, the one on my mother’s side. I got on my motorbike and went north, past Concord and to the town of Sanctuary. It had a fairly complicated history. In the 18th century the first battle in the American Revolution was fought in that terrain; by the end of the 20th it was Minuteman National Park. Then in the 2050s it was sold to a housing developer and became the suburban estate of Sanctuary Hills. For two hundred years after the nukes no one lived there, until my grandfather helped set up the community of Sanctuary in the 2280s.
I parked my bike in his driveway and rang the doorbell.
“Young Master Fitzroy,” his robot butler answered as he opened the door. “You hadn’t called in advance! Would you like me to lead you to Mr. Washington?”
“Yes,” I said and he led me to the living room and got a nuka from the fridge.
“My grandson,” he said. “We haven’t talked in so long. What’re you here for?”
“I want your advice on joining the military.”
“You want to join the Armed Forces? That’s a dangerous life, and I know that personally. I say you’re better off joining the Minutemen.”
“All the Minutemen do these days is parade.”
It wasn’t technically correct; they do disaster relief, wildlife control and a bit of charity work as well. But that is most of what they do these days. The time when they were necessary is long gone, thank God.
“If you want to go and enlist, I won’t stop you. But make sure you know what you’re getting into. Alaska and the Yangtze messed me up real bad, even though I wasn’t wounded physically at all. The army changes you, and not always for the better.”
“I’ll keep that in mind.”
I said my goodbyes and went to the recruitment post in my home town of Lexington.
I signed all the forms, stating my preferred branch of service (US Marines) and other such things. Finally it came time for me to take the oath.
“I, John Sebastian Fitzroy, do solemnly swear that I will support the United States against all her enemies, both foreign and domestic; that I will hold true faith and loyalty to same; and that I will obey the orders of the President and the Officers appointed over me. So help me God.”
That was that. I was a soldier now. I received my enlistment papers and was sent over to another wing of the begin my physicals. They cleared me and set me up with a bunk, as the following day I was headed to begin my basic training.
