Free Off With Their Heads by Mainak Dhar Page B

heard about several desperate last stands by small units. A dozen men could not hope to last long against the Biters.
    Chen had managed to keep his men operating as a cohesive unit, and other than four men who had died when one of their RPGs misfired, he had suffered no other deaths. Most of his men were however dehydrated, and many of them had swollen and bloodied fingers from the constant firing. More than a dozen were wounded due to misfirings and weapons that had overheated, and in more than one case, exploded. Chen had tended to some of the wounded himself, and his uniform was soaked in blood.
    For all that, Chen looked at his boys with pride. They had not broken and run as had so many units. For all their misgivings about the regime and their role in Tiananmen Square, they had done their duty to the people of China. They had fought the battle of their lives, not for a flag, not for politicians, but for the millions of ordinary people who counted on them. So, despite every muscle in his body screaming in protest, Chen walked among his men, whispering words of encouragement to each one.
    When he was done, he sat down heavily and looked across the river. The horizon was dark with Biters. It was a matter of hours before they reached Beijing and he was not sure they would be able to hold them.
    Chen drank some water and thought of how much the world had changed in just one day. Much of the world was lying devastated. The Middle East was largely gone, wiped out in a day of tit-for-tat nuclear exchanges. India and Pakistan had traded their own nuclear blows and their major cities had been hit. Biters had swept through much of the world, and it was unclear if there was any organized government left. In all the chaos, the Great Firewall was down, but as Chen looked at the laptop screen in front of him, he realized news from around the world had not been updated for over six hours.
    The latest updates chilled him. The US Government had decided to use tactical nuclear weapons, air burst weapons, on cities that had been totally overrun by Biters. Other nuclear powers – Britain, France, Russia and India – had followed suit. It was a desperate last measure to deny the Biters control over human cities. Chen wondered how many hundreds of millions had died in one day around the world.
    One of his men started sobbing and Chen looked up sharply, planning to give the man a lecture. Instead, Chen just stared at the sight he saw, and tears began to stream down his cheeks. Just over the horizon, four giant mushroom clouds billowed over the earth.
    *
    ‘There is someone here to see you.’
    Chen sat upright, sweat pouring off his face, and his wife placed a gentle hand on his chest, trying to calm him. There were a dozen people sharing their apartment, and many of them looked on as Chen got up to see who was at the door.
    With the people that had streamed into the city, Beijing was now home to more than thirty million people, and residents had opened their homes to the newcomers. Three days had passed since Chen and his men had held the line long enough for tactical nuclear weapons to be used to finally secure Beijing. There was no telling whether more Biters would come. China had been home to well over a billion people and only a hundred million were reckoned to be safe. But for now, they had bought themselves some time. Enough time to airdrop thousands of mines around the cities and to ring Beijing and Shanghai with armored forces to hold any further attacks.
    It was now a foregone conclusion that any further massed attack by Biters would be met with nuclear strikes. There was no news from the outside world. The Internet was now down, as were phone lines.
    A man in a black uniform was waiting for him.
    ‘Sir, I am to get you to Shanghai immediately.’
    A few hours later, Chen was waiting in front of a nondescript office in Shanghai. He had put on his uniform, since he was meeting someone at the very top of the government, but he was