This Fractured Nation Book 1

Prologue

Biloxi, Mississippi

September 2, 1945

Hurricane Victoria slams into the Gulf Coast. Thus far, she’s the strongest of the dozen or so storms that have ravaged the Confederate South this year. Lighting flashes, rippling across the clouds, riding a wave of rumbling thunder as rain pours in sideways sheets, driven by impossible winds that uproot trees and tear rooftops from buildings like they were made of paper. In the industrial harbor of Biloxi, where Confederate ship contractors construct Nazi submarines, the storm is taking its toll.

Biloxi serves as a technological hub for the Axis Powers on the continent of North America. Here they build the powerful warships for the great Confederate Navy and Nazi-designed U-boats which form blockades along the east coast of the North American Democratic Union to the north, and the Gulf Coastline of the Independent Nation of Texas to the west. The Confederate Navy, with the addition of the Nazi U-boats, has become a symbol of evil and oppression around the world.

Biloxi also serves as headquarters for the Bureau of Communications. Easily missed, the central communication hub for the CSA is comprised of four nondescript tan buildings housing powerful communications equipment and intelligence assets. Top Secret communique is wired through here, deciphered by expert code talkers, and sorted according to classification, location, and urgency before being hand delivered by courier to their rightful recipients. In the open space between the shipyards and the blocky tan buildings, large CONEX shipping containers are neatly stacked and surrounded by crates. Here and there electrical transformers surrounded by chain link fences jut out of the ground.

It’s here a figure, just a shade darker than the shadows, darts between crates, only moving during the brief seconds of darkness between flashes of lightning. The dark figure ducks behind a crate as night strobes into day, outlining a female form against the crate for a fraction of a second. She wears an advanced tactical suit, covering her head to toe.

The woman inches to the edge of the crate and peeks around the corner, raising her hand to the side of her head to turn a small dial. With a small click her vision changes to thermal imaging, the ambient heat converted to a digital overlay across her vision, cutting through the rain with ease. They see her almost as soon as she sees them, her HUD auto-marking them with red dots. Three figures, all male. One of them raises his arm, pointing it at her.

“There!” He calls to his partners. Even in the fiery outlined world of thermal vision, the sleek form of a custom filigreed silenced pistol, the trademark firearm of the Southern Gentleman, the CSA’s secret police, is unmistakable. He fires twice, the intricately decorated weapon’s internal suppressor and torrential rain masking the pistols retort. In one fluid motion, the woman spins up and away, back over the crate just as the bullets shatter the wood. She launches into the air springing with ease onto the CONEX next to the crates and takes off in a sprint.

“Jesus, Mary, and Joseph! She’s quicker than a wild boar!” The same man shouts as he adjusts his aim in an attempt to line up another shot as the woman leaps from crate to crate.

The three men, their cream-white suits pristine underneath clear rain slicks, aim and open fire as the woman leaps into the air once more. She stretches out her arm towards the nearest building. THWICK! A thin cable fires from her wrist, its gas-powered dart stabbing into concrete and dragging her through the air with the WHIR of a retracting mini-winch. Bullets ricochet off the building in front of her, and she corrects course, releasing the line in a graceful flip, intent on sticking the landing. The storm thwarts her plans, buffeting her with winds that send her into a tumble and rip the roof from the building like the lid from a sardine can. She falls, ungracefully, through the now missing roof, careening into a roof support before smashing through a small table stacked with boxes, breaking through it and hitting the ground with a bone-cracking THUD! Outside the three men advance on the building quickly, each one finding a different entry point.

Coughing, the woman rolls to her side, away from the rain pouring through the now missing roof, and spots one of the men entering the building, his thick thermal outline bright and hot against the cool interior of the building. She quietly grunts as she struggles to her feet, leaning against a wall and pulling two small black pellets from her belt. She rolls them in the direction of the men, where they quietly POP and emit thick black smoke.

Pushing off the wall, she limps to the opposite end of the warehouse while the three men cover their mouths and noses, coughing briefly, as the smoke quickly dissipates in the rain pouring in through the missing rooftop. She finds an exit door and shoulders through it as the three men open fire once more, bullets WHIZZING by her head. She dives forward, away from the door as the men approach, her lithe body spinning in mid-air. She shoves her fists out and the air between her and the men ripples. As if slapped by god’s invisible hand, the men are thrown violently backward to smash into the shelves and tables behind them. The woman lands on her back, rolls to her feet, and sets off running in a single fluid motion.

“Tsisheró:hen,” whispers the woman as she runs.

“Tsisheró:hen, come in.” The woman stops for a breath and looks behind her. Her augmented vision allows her to see that her pursuers are finally beginning to stir.

“Dammit.”

A loud shot rings out and slams into the metal shipping container behind her, denting it and chipping away paint. Turning towards the shot, the woman sees three more Southern Gentlemen, dressed in white, standing atop a stack of shipping containers. One of them triumphantly displays a severed head, blood still pouring from the stump, swinging from his gloved fist.

“Wraith! You’re all alone!” He calls to her, taunting her with the head before tossing it in a high arc.

As the decapitated head bounces next to her feet, the woman thrusts her hands out, putting all of her weight into the motion. The air in front of her ripples and shimmers, and the bottom shipping container of the stack holding the three men jerks a foot backward. That’s all it takes as the stack wobbles, metal groaning on metal before falling with a thundering screech, sending the men toppling.

The woman leaps towards the fallen containers, landing among the stunned and wounded men as they stagger to their feet. She approaches the first one, quickly twisting his wrist, yanking him towards herm shoving down on his elbow, and snapping his arm with a wet CRACK! The man yells in pain, dropping his gun. She pulls him in, spinning him around and gripping his hair in one hand, chin in the other. With a vicious twist and the popping crunch of vertebrae, she breaks his neck.

She shoves the body towards the other two, using the distraction to scoop the fallen firearm up and quickly discharge it into the knees of the two men while they struggle to regain their footing after dropping their fallen ally.

“Fuckin’ bitch!” The closer one curses her, blood spurting from his shattered leg. The woman approaches and puts a bullet in each of their heads. She tosses the gun and takes off limping again.

Another shot rings out over the cacophony of the storm, hitting her square in the deltoid, pitching her forward. Using the momentum of the bullet, she rolls over her good shoulder and continues moving, risking a glance behind her to see two more Southern Gentlemen running towards her with a third brandishing a rifle close behind them.

“Wait!” The Rifleman calls to his men, stopping them in their tracks. His thick southern drawl is almost pleasant, masking the ruthless killer underneath. “She’s heading towards the gate. We have two more Trios en route.”

“You think they’ll get ‘er? That’s a Wraith! You saw what she did back there.” Says another of the three, his accent equally as thick as the first.

“Don’t worry your pretty little minds, that Pac Rep hound won’t be getting away. Besides, even if she gets passed the gate houses” Says the Rifleman, patting the weapon in his hand. “I tagged her good with a C.T.R.” He smiles broadly, showing white, perfect teeth. “Therefore, my dear gentlemen, we can take our sweet time...Let her lead us to her roost.”

The woman melts into the shadows behind a lone shipping container near the front gate of the shipyard. She reaches up to the dial on the side of her head and adjusts the thermal imaging, fine-tuning it as she scans the two gatehouses, picking up six heat signatures, her HUD auto-marking them.

“Shit.”

She grips her wounded shoulder and winces in pain. Looking back toward the way she came, she can see the three distant dots of the men she had previously marked slowly making their way toward her. Turning again to face her planned escape route, she makes a snap decision and presses a button on her wrist. The air ripples around her body and she stands up straight, taking a deep breath. In a flash, she takes off running from her cover down the fence line away from the gate. As she passes the gate houses she tosses two more pellets, burnt orange this time, into the closest gate house. Instead of smoke, they explode, killing the three men inside before they can even react.

Three more men burst out of the other gatehouse sprinting after the woman. She runs several yards before the air ripples around her body again and she leaps clear over the razor-wired fence. She lands in a tumble on the other side next to a blue tarp covering what looks like a pile of garbage. Struggling to her feet, she pulls the tarp off to reveal a motorcycle, its Nikola Tesla-designed engine protected by armored plating. She throws her leg over the banana seat, straddling it, and with a pained wince she reaches out, grabs the handlebars, and twists the throttle The bike takes off, its electric turbine whining quietly.

The pursuing men catch up to the trio from the gatehouse. Wasting no time, they load up into two sleek sports cars, engines roaring as they speed off, quickly gaining ground on the woman.

On the street, the woman weaves through traffic, checking behind her as she zips along. One of the sports cars barrels through traffic, gaining ground, shoving cars out of the way with its thick ram-cage. She pulls up next to a Confederate truck, reaching into her belt for more small orange balls, grunting as she heaves them into the cabin. The truck explodes as she speeds away. The first of the two cars in pursuit is unable to correct course and smashes into the burning truck causing a second, bigger explosion. Another car slides to a skidding halt close enough to the burning vehicles that the men inside can feel the heat.

“You sure you hit her?” Says the man in the driver's seat.

“Yeah.” Says the Rifleman in the passenger seat, still holding his weapon. “It was a clean shot, upper right deltoid.”

A third man in the back seat smiles as he opens a duffle bag in the seat next to him. He removes a device with a dial, a hollow glass tube extends from one end. He turns the dial and holds the tube up. A small green light flashes and the man's smile widens.

* * * * *

The woman looks over her shoulder and doesn’t see the other car. Feeling safe, she pulls off and guides the motorbike behind a billboard on the side of the road. Getting off the bike, she collapses to the ground and unzips the front of her suit to the waist, underneath she wears a white t-shirt, stained red with blood. She winces as she raises her good hand, palm out over her injured shoulder. The air ripples and she cries out in pain as the bullet tears itself free from her flesh and hovers briefly in the air before falling into her open palm. The projectile is small, with a metal barb on the flattened tip.

The woman tosses the bullet away and looks around. The sky is a dark grey as the morning sun struggles to shine through the clouds. The rain subsides, if only for a little while. Victoria is here to stay. The woman hops on her motorcycle, wincing against her injuries. As she speeds off, she presses a button on her bike, opening an audio channel.

“This is Kahrhakón:ha, ghost-link forty-two point three. Ironclad secure. Rendezvous location Tsikarièn:taks, time now. Repeat: Ironclad secure, rendezvous location Tsikarièn:taks. Time, now.”

The Motorbike zips out from behind the billboard, heading west. In the sky, thunder rumbles as the storm closes in again.