Mainak Dhar - Alice in Deadland

'The name is Alice, Colonel Li. Now tell me what you know.'

An hour later, Arjun, Satish and Alice were sitting outside. For some minutes, none of them spoke as they were all digesting what they had learnt. It turned out that the pilot they had captured was much more valuable than they had imagined. Commander Jiang Li was not only a highly decorated Red Guard pilot, but was the son of Comrade Jemin Li, one of the most senior members of the Central Committee in Shanghai. As a Red Guard pilot of his rank, he would probably not have had much information beyond immediate tactical information on bases and weapons, which Alice would have taken to be very valuable in and of themselves. But being the son of such an important person meant that Commander Li was a treasure trove of information about what was happening in the outside world.

It turned out that most of the world had been utterly devastated by The Rising and the chaos that followed. What had been China's larger cities remained largely intact as many of those in bigger cities had been put in hardened shelters, but the countryside and smaller towns had been ravaged both by The Rising and retaliatory American strikes. It had been a desperate plan, one which Commander Li's father had been privy to, but with deep worldwide recession, China's economy tottering behind the US defaulting on debt, two years of famines, and growing calls for reform and democracy in China, some of those in power had taken a last gamble. What the planners behind the whole operation had never bargained for was the way the virus mutated and the way the Biters spread out of control. That together with the smaller tit for tat nuclear exchanges in Asia and the Middle East meant that while the Central Committee in China was the one relatively organized political force to remain standing, it ruled over a planet that was little more than a pile of ashes.

And also it now had more than two hundred million mouths to feed in China. In the first few years, they had been content to follow the Central Committee unquestioningly driven by their terror at what lay beyond the iron grip of the Committee and it's Red Guards. However, over time, as food shortages set in, the Central Committee had to seek out remaining fertile lands and people to work those fields. Only two major food baskets of the world remained-what had been the the heartlands of the US and India. The Americans never gave up, and ever since the first Red Guards landed, had been waging a terrible guerilla war that was bleeding the Red Guards dry. Then they turned to the Deadland of North India, subcontracting Zeus to bring human settlements under their control as a source of labor for farms in India and China.

Alice had grown up seeing little beyond the immediate concerns of her family and settlement and being worried about little more than her immediate survival. It was a bit hard at first for her to grasp the true scale of the struggle they were a part of. But a life spent surviving meant that her instincts were razor sharp and she looked at both Satish and Arjun.

'First, if this Li is the son of such an important man, they will not hit us from the air. They will try and negotiate or come on the ground. We need to be ready.'

Arjun nodded, a slight smile on his face as he realized that the young girl everyone saw as their leader was taking charge.

'Second, if food and people to work the farms is what is so critical to them, we need to hit them where it hurts. No food will mean their own people will start turning against the Central Committee.'

She saw Satish hesitate, so she continued.

'Yes, I know it's harsh and some people may starve, but we cannot be soft. Finally, we need to find some way of coordinating with the Americans if we can.'

She had not told any of the others about the vial of the vaccine she carried, but while much of India had been reduced to the Deadland, she hoped that the Americans might still have people and facilities available where they could put the vaccine to some use. She had no idea of how they could contact the Americans or how they could be of any use to each other from half way across the world, but the knowledge that other people were waging the same war against the same enemy gave her hope and made her own effort feel less lonely.

Just two days later, the first strike in Alice's plan was put into motion.

'Queen of Hearts, I am at the dinner table.'

Alice clicked her mike once by way of acknowledgement and then looking at the airfield spread out in front of her.

'King of Hearts, is the Knave in position?'

She heard a click from Arjun affirming that Satish and his men were also ready. Once Arjun had heard of the book that the Queen carried with her and the prophecy associated with it, he had suggested the code names. That had brought about much laughter among the older folks there, though Alice, never having read the book, really didn't know where the names came from. They were about fifty kilometers from their base in the Ruins, near what had once been the international airport at Delhi. It was now a small, barely serviceable airfield, but it was the key lifeline through which local settlers were sent to farms in China and also produce grown in farms around the region were sent to storage depots the Central Committee controlled. Alice could see three large transport aircraft and two helicopters there through her binoculars. There were several guard towers, at least two of which had remotely controlled gun turrets, and she could see many armed Red Guards walking along the airfield perimeter.

It was clearly too heavily defended to attack in a frontal assault, but that was not Alice's intent. The heist from the Red Guards helicopter had proved to be quite valuable, and together with what the Zeus deserters had bought with them, they now not only had far superior firepower but also many more tactical radios to help in their communication. Alice was sure their transmissions were being intercepted which was why they were using the code names Arjun had thought up.

'The Knave sees some tarts on the table.'

That meant that Satish and his men had seen the convoy approaching them from their position about five kilometers away. They were dug in below the ruins of what had once been crisscrossing flyovers that had provided easy access to the airport from the city. With a combination of the rage among the remaining human settlements in the Deadland after the air raids and the increasing desertions among Zeus troopers, the intelligence they had on Red Guard movements had increased exponentially. So today, Alice knew that three APCs would be escorting a convoy of trucks packed with settlers to be flown to labor camps in China. Her intent was not to hurt the settlers but to take out the APCs and free the settlers. That was the job that fell to Satish and his crew. She, Arjun and a dozen others were to wreak some havoc at the airfield.

Satish's next transmission came ten minutes later. It was simple and terse.

'The Knave of Hearts, he stole some tarts.'

Alice smiled. That meant his part of the mission had been accomplished. Now she would have to put into motion her own plan. Word of the raid must have gotten to the airfield because she saw several Red Guards clamber onto APCs and two helicopter gunships begin to take off. Alice and the others had made their way to their positions two days ago, traveling largely underground, through old sewers, and often lying still in the filth for hours when Red Guard patrols flew overhead. It had been a hard journey, but now it was all going to pay off. As the helicopters approached their position, Alice spoke into her radio.

'King of Hearts, beat them sore.'

She saw two smoke trails emerge from the ground across the road from her as RPGs snaked out towards the approaching helicopters. One missed its mark, but the other hit the lead helicopter just behind the cockpit. The helicopter seemed to shudder in mid-flight and then began to spin out of control as it crashed to the ground. The second helicopter began to turn towards this sudden threat when Alice screamed at her men to fire. Two more rockets flew towards the helicopter and Alice shouted in triumph as they both struck home. There was a fireball and the helicopter seemed to break into two as it fell. As Alice saw four APCs speed out of the airport gates, she was tempted to wreak some more damage, but she knew that standing and fighting in the open would mean heavy casualties. So they retreated back to their underground tunnels and began the journey back to the Ruins.