Jubilee Year Read online

  He couldn't stop himself now. It actually felt good getting it all off his chest, and he knew with his mate Ryan; it would go no further.

  “Like a big ray gun, you mean?” Hostler asked, leaning forward in his chair.

  “He didn’t tell me what it looks like or how it works,” Young said, sweeping aside the neat stacks of pamphlets in front of him. “He only said that it can crack open the ground as easy as if it was a hammer hitting a watermelon. The Yanks have plasma cannons that fire bursts of pure energy, almost like throwing bombs—you know? I mean without the need to carry them on planes or rockets. They developed a thing that focuses a beam of particles that surrounds a vehicle—ah, better not go there.”

  He had almost told Ryan the freakiest intel of all. His cousin had told him they had the installations where no one would think to look. He still couldn't believe the Yanks had hidden them around three major rivers. Military hardware that blasted out tractor beams able to take control of a frigate-sized object should a frigate fly by. Even an aircraft as large as Russia's giant Antonov AN-124-100 Ruslan could be plucked from the air, he thought. They would have to be for defensive purposes. But what could they be expecting? No enemy would cross the American coastline, and certainly not with a craft as big as Russia's biggest plane. And what enemy would attempt to travel up America's major waterways. That would be suicidal. It didn't make sense. Maybe his cousin was full of shit after all. Or maybe he was just delusional. If that was the case, then it didn't matter much what he told of his cousin's story.

  “My cousin said the Russkie's got this thing they call Fat Cat. But officially it's codenamed the Flying Rose. It's a land-based weapon able to direct energy at a huge area and at a good distance from the target. It's able to take out conventional defense systems. And—ah—he said they were working on manufacturing life forms as well.”

  “Biological weapons?” Hostler asked. “Like creature-soldiers, right? Almost everyone seems to be developing that shit.”

  “He didn't break it down—but he did say the UK was also heavily invested in experimenting with artificial life forms for front-line deployment,” Young said. “He said the Brit's project stalled when their experiments became uncontrollable and did random stuff. Like killing the observers. Now they are focusing on artificial intelligence.”

  “And we aren't told jack shit about any of it!” Hostler said with a grim laugh.

  “Barely a whisper, mate,” Young replied. “Even while they test their toys here in Australia. Maybe you heard about Japan's weapon code-named Shuriken. It's a spinning metallic monster that clears everything on the ground. I mean—ev-e-ry-thing! We're about talking huge areas! No need for an airburst! He told me they tested it in the Northern Territories during the last joint exercise. It was done completely separate from the war game.”

  “Well, we don't really get to lead those exercises anymore, do we?”

  “Nah, mate,” Young nodded in agreement. “The big boys are in control, and it looks like we ain't them.”

  Hostler rubbed his sore neck and looked up with a wide grin. “Fucking Fat Cat?” He chuckled, shaking his head. “What a name.”

  “Yeah,” Young sighed.

  “You got more for me yet, haven't you?” Hostler asked. “You are not finished, brother. Go on!”

  “Well, every major military research facility around the globe has secret weapons ready to use and more being cooked up.” Young felt an uncomfortable mix of guilt and relief sweep over him. He had finally let the monkey off his shoulder. “The French have built a system that delivers a massive torque effect from the sky. It wrenches the ground up and moves it horizontally, like a giant wave, or vortex and just to be sure it pummels the target with metallic ball-like projectiles. It's total overkill. The Germans have what they are calling Thor's Hammer. It fires rods with enough kinetic energy to wipe out entire city blocks with dead-on accuracy. The Yanks spent years developing something similar, but Germany got there first with a workable delivery system.”

  Young was all done, and perhaps it was only the heat, but all of a sudden he understood why his cousin wanted to unburden himself of all he had stumbled on. There was no secure place for the Army to operate anymore. There was no sense in soldiering on a battlefield where that kind of weaponry was to be used against them.

  “Don't stop there,” Hostler pleaded. “You gotta tell me more.”

  “That's it. That's all I have.”

  Hostler stared at him. “Oh, c'mon, mate! Don't hold back on me.”

  Young couldn't help himself. It was too late not to go the whole nine yards. “Well—the most powerful weapons they would use if we do get ourselves into an all-out stoush are scalar,” he said. “That's badass shit that doesn't require the support of regular units. It can all be controlled from the other side of the globe.”

  “Badass shit!” Hostler muttered like an echo.

  He shook his head as if in disbelief. Only he did believe it. Young wouldn't make up any of this.

  “An entire troop can be taken out and they never see it coming. It creeps me out. I've been having nightmares ever since he told me. I wish he never told me any of this stuff, Ryan.”

  “So what about nukes?” Hostler persisted.

  Young drew his hand down his face. Even the last rays of the Sun seemed to burn. He felt as if his skin was frying, and this was close to sunset. “Tactical nukes are nothing new,” Young said with a dismissive wave of his hand. “Most of us already know we used mini versions of the neutron bomb in Iraq, Ukraine, and Yemen. Anyone in the forces with half a brain knows the evidence is out there.”

  “But it's not for civvies to get their knickers in a twist over,” he said with a shrug.

  “I don't mean the small shit,” Hostler protested. “What about inter-continentals?”

  “Maybe they plan to use new technology instead,” Young replied. “It's better than destroying the entire frigging surface of the globe. It gets them past the obstacle of mutually assured destruction. The enemy expects missiles and bombers to be launched in an attack—that's what satellites and surface radar scan for, right? They won't see the other stuff coming at them until it's too late. The secret weapons I've been telling you about are the real game-changers. Just look at what happened in Guam the other day.”

  “Sounds like they don't need us at all,” Hostler said, and he frowned. “They might as well be using us as decoys.”

  “Ryan, I don't want to talk about it anymore.”

  “Hey, you don't think the aliens are stopping them using those inter-continentals, do you?” Hostler, said, making wavy motions in the air with the palms of his hands. “Flying saucers hovering over the silos. Pee-po-pee-po.”

  “Mate, I've not been telling you all this for shits and giggles, ya know?”

  But Young didn't really feel angry with Hostler. The grin he saw on his friend's face was familiar and reassuring. He knew Ryan was doing his best to lift his spirits.

  “Yeah,” Hostler said, slapping his friend on the arm. “I know. You're troubled by what he said and you want to share the burden with me.”

  “Since you put it like that, yes,” Young said nodding his head in agreement. “Just don't you tell a soul about any of it. Not a word. Got it?”

  “Mate. It stays right here. Right between you, me, and your cousin.”

  “You don't have to worry. We're good. You haven't mentioned any details.”

  Hostler saw Young's troubled face and pretended he was searching around for something he had dropped on the ground. “Tell you one thing. They got this weather shit sorted.”

  “That they have, brother.”

  “It's bloody hot today. D'ya think someone might have punched a clear sky into the computer to help us out with our campaign?”

  Hostler chuckled at the thought. Manipulating the weather seemed pretty mild compared to the scary shit James had told him about. But then, why not turn the skies into a weapon as well? It was above everyone and everything after a
ll.

  “You could be right,” Young said, squinting up at the bright sunset. This was the first blue-sky day we've had in weeks.

  “Right,” Hostler got to his feet. “I say we pack up.” He swept the pamphlets into a box.

  “Did I tell you how much I hate this job?”

  “Many times,” Young replied as he stood up and stretched. “I think we best enjoy our holiday while we can.”

  “Ye-up,” Hostler said. “Our orders are coming through any day now. Have you heard any word about which hellhole they're likely to be sending us into?”

  “Could be Eastern Europe, Southern Europe, the ME, Asia... the China Sea,” Young muttered as he pulled back his chair to begin compacting the table. “Even the North Pole! Shit. Take your pick. It's all one giant clusterfuck!”

  Hostler carried the carton of glossies to the bus and dropped them inside the door. When he came out again, he paused at the top of the bus steps. “I just had a thought,” he said. “With all that weird shit we are going to run into, at least we won't die of boredom.”

  13

  Mom, I’m Enlisting!

  Stella's flushed face was a warning sign Storm and his sister knew only too well. Only this time it looked like their mother was about to suffer a fateful turn that would land her in hospital.

  “Take it easy, Mom,” Summer told her. “Storm gets it.”

  “No, I don't think he does!” Stella said, staring angrily at her son. “You don't get it, do you? You have a family so why do you need to replace us? They will put bloody dog tags around your neck, do you know that?”

  “You know that because you and Dad were in the Army yourself,” Storm replied, indignantly. “Well, now it's my turn!”

  Stella was barely able to stop herself from screaming at her son.

  “I wish someone had told me not to do that. In the end it’s clear, the Army is really there to serve the whims of the rich bastards! You'll be treated as a tool, to be used and abused.”

  Stella poked Storm in the chest so hard he took a step backward.

  “They turn you loose with a gun on people who are doing their best to defend their family and country against you! They turn you loose on people who don't look or talk the same as you because they don't come from the place you do. But, they are no different to you at all. The military will tell you it's okay to bomb and shoot them though, because they're the enemy, and that makes them less than human. It seems our enemy always has something we need. Funny that, don't you think? It makes me sick to the stomach to think you would ever consider enlisting.”

  She strode past him to the kitchen, banging pots into the sink, taking plates off the shelf and placing them on the bench with a clatter. She heard the door shut as Summer ran from the house.

  He walked up to Stella and put his hand on her arm. “I'll wash them for you.”

  “It's better if you leave me alone for a while,” she said, her back to him.

  Storm stayed put. “Mom, you and Dad wouldn't have even met if you hadn't both been in the Army.”

  “Pete and I thought we were having one big adventure, but all we ever saw were the new barracks they built in Darwin. We cleaned them, drove trucks around them, and cleaned them all over again. When we weren't doing that they taught us how to shoot and take orders.” She shut off the tap and turned around. “Things are different now. They take us to war. And it's not about defending our country, either. Don't you go thinking that's what it's all about.”

  She saw the stubborn look in his eyes and wished Pete was with her. He would know what to say. She took a breath. “All right then. Tell me why you want to join.”

  Storm threw up his hands. “Mom, it's a full-time paying job, and I can learn to fly helicopters,” he told her. It isn't like I have much choice, he thought. Why can't she understand?

  She looked at her son's determined face and hugged him tightly. “Son, you are young, strong, and smart. There are so many ways you can make a living. You can be a civilian pilot if you want it bad enough.”

  “How do you know that, Mom?” Storm asked and pulled himself free of her arms. “Anyway, I'm eighteen. I don't need your signature.”

  He walked past her and walked out the kitchen door.

  Stella looked around in the middle of the kitchen as she listened to her son kick the motorcycle engine into life. She listened to the bike until it turned the corner at the end of the street, then the only sound she heard was the tap dripping over the sink.

  She looked at the dishes she had stacked on the bench. Try as she might, she couldn't remember why she took crockery off the shelves in the first place and closed her eyes as she swept them all to the floor.

  14

  Another Setting Sun

  Pete was sitting in his saggy chair on the back porch with a can of beer clenched in one hand. He gave Storm a glance and grunted a greeting before turning his attention back to the view he had of his vegetable garden.

  Storm jumped up onto the porch and sat down on the bare boards beside his dad.

  “I went for a run the other morning,” he said after what seemed like an awful long silence.

  “Did you now?” Pete said and took a sip from the can.

  “I stopped when I reached the welcome sign and did some stretches while I waited for the big event.”

  “Well?” Pete asked, raising his eyebrows in expectation.

  “It got so light I thought I'd made a mistake about the time I left the house. The sky brightened up like the Sun was coming up, but sunrise was another hour away.”

  “They disks were as bright as that?” Pete asked, turning to stare at his son in surprise.

  “There was something lighting up the horizon.”

  “The pale orbs...” Pete muttered vaguely. He nodded his head as if his suspicion was confirmed.

  Storm tried to repress an urge to giggle. He hadn't known what to make of Pete's obsession with strange lights in the sky before he saw them for himself. His dad was observing something strange, and for all Storm knew, something unexplainable. He had seen something strange himself, but perhaps he had been seeing things that weren't really there, he thought. It was a warm evening but still, he shuddered. He drew a deep breath and dived into his story.

  “I saw two that looked big,” he told Pete. He was beginning to think it had been nothing but an illusion, a really bright moon reflecting through the clouds. “It was only moonlight I saw. Probably ice in the atmosphere or something like that made it look like that.”

  “Nope,” Pete snorted. “Ice?”

  He took a sip from his can and gazed at his son.

  “And it’s been a crescent Moon these past few days.”

  “One of the lights I saw did look bigger than the other and it almost seemed like one moved around the other,” Storm said.

  He was beginning to feel his skin crawl as he described it all to Pete.

  Storm felt a chill creep through his gut. It had to have been something to do with the cloud mass, he thought.

  “You want a beer?” Pete asked, setting down the empty can beside the dog at his feet. “There's more on the table.”

  Storm walked into the kitchen and took two beers from the open carton. He gazed around at Pete's empty shelves and peered into the refrigerator. “You need to buy some food, Dad,” he called out.

  “I've got potatoes and carrots to pull from the garden for our dinner,” Pete replied from his chair. “I should leave them in the ground a bit longer, but since you're here, we may as well eat them.”

  Storm could never figure out why Pete bothered with a veggie garden in the first place. The only veggies his dad ever ate was carrots, potatoes, peas, cabbage, and beans. It didn't make sense why he would want to buy what he could get cheap enough in town.

  “I'll walk to the supermarket and get some sausages for us,” Pete said looking over his shoulder at Storm. He pointed to the old fruit crate by the door. “Pull that up next to me and take a seat. We can do all that later.”
>
  Storm dragged the crate over next to Champ. He placed one of the cans on Pete's stomach and sat down, pulling the tab and taking a sip. He was not completely comfortable drinking alcohol with his dad. It was only encouraging his old man. Then again, he was never going to be able to change Pete at this point.

  Come on, Dad. Let's talk about things close to home and less about mystery orbs in the sky. Let's try to pick up the pieces. He wanted to say it to Pete just like that. But then he thought of a better way. “Mom said you might move back in with us,” Storm said after a while. “You know it's the happiest I've seen her in a long while.”

  “Well, that's good news!” Pete said, smiling at Storm. “So—do you reckon it might work out between the two of us? The second time around?”

  “It's worth a try, isn't it?” Storm said.

  Pete sighed. “You know, I'm envious of you. I wish I had work.”

  Storm snorted. “I wish I had full-time work and not the on and off again bullshit.”

  He wanted to tell Pete about meeting the recruiters but thought better of it. It might start them arguing again. “You should go to university,” Pete said, staring at him hard. “If you choose the right course they train you for a profession. I'm buggered if I know which one provides most of the jobs these days, but you'll find out.”

  “If you join the Army, they pay you to go to university,” Storm said.

  Pete stretched across and thumped the boy's arm hard.

  “Jeez!” Storm grimaced. “What was that for?”

  “I'd try to beat sense into you if I thought that would do any good,” Pete said, raising his voice. “My old man would've taken that route.”

  “Yeah?” Storm stood up. “Well, it's not going to work too well with me.”

  “I didn't think so,” his father said and pointed at the crate. “Sit down.”

  Storm sat and rubbed his sore bicep. He sulked a while and thought about getting up and walking back to Stella's. The old man's drinking made him uncomfortable, and the punch on the arm was not encouraging.