Alex Scarrow - The Eternal War

‘Negative,’ cut in Becks. ‘The communications bunker will contain sensitive equipment that could be damaged by a conventional assault. We cannot allow that risk. I suggest an alternative strategy.’

Wainwright was rather taken aback by the young lady’s somewhat forthright manner.

‘What, then?’

‘How many British troops garrison the structure?’ she asked.

Wainwright shrugged. ‘Usually it is two sections: twenty … thirty men, no more.’

Becks turned to Maddy. ‘That is acceptable.’

The pair of them had only just crossed the river on Devereau’s motor launch. Off the back of the boat a couple of Northern soldiers had been unspooling a big drum of insulated communications cable and, as they stood now just outside Wainwright’s command bunker, communications officers from each side were debating how best to feed the cable inside and wire it up to permit a direct line between both colonels. As Maddy had been quick to say, their uprising was going to live or die on the strength of how effectively the two colonels communicated.

‘You think you can take it on your own?’ asked Maddy.

‘Affirmative. I calculate a higher probability of success without significant equipment damage than — ’ she cast a gaze at the half-strength company of soldiers Wainwright had assembled for the job — ‘than these — ’

Maddy waved her silent before she blurted anything that might sound rude.

‘Becks is very special ,’ said Maddy quickly. ‘She’s not just a pretty face.’

Wainwright frowned. ‘Ma’am, I appreciate you come from a very different time to ours, but the arithmetic of the situation is still the same: twenty-four armed and well-trained British soldiers in there, and you expect one young lady is going to — ’

‘Becks is a combat unit.’

Wainwright looked at her, frowning, stroking his chin. ‘A what?’

‘She’s a genetically engineered human with a silicon-wafer processor brain. She’s extremely tough, extremely strong and extremely quick. In short, she’s something of a killing machine.’

The colonel eyed her up and down. ‘Are you telling me this young lady is not — ’

‘Not human.’ Maddy shrugged. ‘Not really.’

His eyes suddenly widened. ‘My God!’ he gasped. ‘Do you mean to say she’s a … a eugenic ?’

Maddy shook her head. ‘I’m not really sure what those are, but I guess the best way to think of her is as an organic robot.’

‘ Robot? I have not heard that word. What do you mean, ma’am?’

‘Robot … like, say, like a machine.’

‘Machine!’ He looked at her again. ‘But she is not constructed of metal and wires!’

‘No … no, she isn’t — ’ Maddy shrugged — ‘but she might as well be.’

Wainwright’s eyes narrowed suspiciously. ‘You are not making sense, ma’am.’

‘Look … we’re wasting time here,’ said Maddy. ‘We need the communications hub, and we need it intact . Trust me,’ she smiled, ‘Becks can handle that.’

‘I will need guns,’ said Becks casually.

‘Of course you do,’ replied Maddy, patting her shoulder. ‘And I’m sure Colonel Wainwright here will give you all the guns you’ll need. Won’t you, Colonel?’

Wainwright looked at his men standing in several rows across the rubble-strewn assembly area. ‘You say … she … alone can do this?’

‘Yup. Look, if she can punch out a dinosaur, I think she can manage a few soldiers.’

Wainwright stared at her for a moment. ‘Excuse me? Ma’am. I must have misheard you. I thought you just said — ’

‘Your men, Colonel,’ cut in Becks, ‘could provide useful back-up. A perimeter round the bunker should be established to ensure no additional British troops are able to reinforce the garrison. What occurs inside the perimeter and inside the bunker — ’ she produced a cool smile — ‘is best left to me.’

Maddy nodded. ‘Trust me. She’s right!’

Wainwright studied them both, not quite sure what to make of them. For sure, they were from some other world — their manner, their dress, the words they used — but this one girl taking a bunker on her own?

‘You look unconvinced, Colonel,’ said Maddy.

He looked over her shoulder at his men waiting patiently just out of earshot. ‘My men, myself … we have signed our death warrants. As of this moment, we are all dead men walking, unless — my friend, Colonel William Devereau, assures me — you truly have this machine that can rewrite our world with a better one.’

He cocked a thick eyebrow. ‘This is something I have to take on trust, since I have not seen this device. Nor for that matter has Colonel Devereau witnessed it working.’

‘It works,’ said Maddy, ‘otherwise Becks and I wouldn’t be standing here.’

He shrugged. ‘My point, ma’am, is that I have entrusted the lives of my men to the truth of your story. And now you ask that I trust that this young woman can make a successful assault on a defended position, entirely on her own ?’

‘Affirmative,’ said Becks.

‘Look,’ said Maddy, ‘we don’t want to trash this place, right? So an extended gunfight is probably not a good thing. Becks is the alternative; you have to trust me. And look, if she fails — ’ Maddy shucked a shoulder casually — ‘then you send your boys in. How about that?’

Wainwright turned to Becks. ‘You believe you can do this on your own?’

Becks trained her cool grey eyes on the Confederate colonel. ‘We should proceed directly. We are wasting valuable time.’

2001, New York

Private Sutter stared across the rubble from his guard position: a short section of trench leading down four steps to the entrance to Defence Structure 76 — the official name for the communications bunker. He and the other lads on garrison duty were not meant to officially know it was a radio-signals hub for this section of the front line. Which was stupid, seeing as how the dish and antennae array were quite visible far above them, perched on the partially caved-in roof of the tall building beside the bunker. A twisted trunk of wires snaked down the open front of the building, from exposed floor to exposed floor, all the way down to the ground and into the bunker.

No, they weren’t meant to know what this place was, and it was drilled into them to refer to it only as Defence Structure 76. Should he ever be captured and interrogated by the enemy for intelligence, Defence Structure 76 could mean anything: a turret, a machine-gun emplacement, an artillery station.

Sutter shook his head. Not that those useless peasants in blue across the river were ever going to do much more than quiver in their boots and hunker down in their entrenched positions like cockroaches hiding in a dirty kitchen.

And perhaps they were right to quiver, Private Sutter mused. He’d heard from Lance-Corporal Davies, who’d heard whispers from someone working in regimental equipment procurement, that ‘something big’ was most certainly afoot. An offensive of some kind? Had to be.

All sorts of rumours were beginning to surface and the men in his platoon were itching for a scrap to get themselves stuck into. Playing at being security guards for a small concrete box that did little more than broadcast propaganda messages across this part of the line … well, that wasn’t the kind of soldiering Sutter had signed up for.

He leaned against the sandbags, bored, gazing down a track of cleared rubble. A track just about wide enough for a single vehicle and flanked on either side by banks of brick and debris and dust.

It had been an important road once. On the corner of the building beside him, he could make out a faded sign spotted with rust.