The Conversion Bureau: Tyrants and Saints
Day 20 of Invasion.
“I wish I could say I was heroic and fought on the frontlines of Europe before it fell, but then I’d be a liar. See, my specialty was indirect warfighting. I was never intended to be boots on the ground, rather, I was the fella behind a screen some two thousand miles away. Each day I would sit in a dark room with dozens of folks like me, and we would be the watchful eyes in the sky above. Guardian Angels, I hear some folks still call us that at least. We worked with those drones you used to see on TV. The big ones that carried enough firepower to level a neighborhood, and the little ones you can hold in your hands.”
“We would hunt (and make no mistake, that is what we did) the enemy across cities and sand, jungles and mountains. And while it was often our job to put them six feet under, it was also our job to reduce the bloodshed as much as possible. Here’s the thing. Now, we have some smart bombs, but ain’t no man back then had magic bullets. We targeted those who we could and tried to save those we could. I can’t tell you how many times we had some real scum of the earth in our sights, only for their children to get home from school, or something else that reminds you the target was human, and not some readily dismissed nightmare. Human shields are hard to avoid from thousands of meters up. So, that was the reality of my war before the portal in Cern. For a while we still believed the Tyrant could be defeated through conventional means.”
“When the Barrier began to expand, the world held its breath. When it pushed out past the mountains of Switzerland, the evacuation was frantic and unprepared. Most never made it past the checkpoints on the border. A state of Emergency was declared across the EU in less than an hour. French and German forces were being scrambled as the barrier loomed over the Alps, and the Italians did what they could Try as they could, no amount of cannon and rocket fire would stop it. The borders were forcibly evacuated and defensive lines were established.
She brought her weapon to a halt at the mountains, while her servants tried to negotiate the surrender of Earth all the way in New York. You can guess how well that turned out. Still, that gave the evacuation some breathing room, and the militaries of Earth just a bit more time to assemble and prepare. That was the case for sixteen days, a stalemate as the barrier ate at heart of Europe.
She called off the negotiations on the 17th day, and tried to convert the leaders and diplomats all at once. When the security shot down her infiltrators and her messengers, she left without a word, covered in the blood of her attempted coup. I would eventually meet the American envoy that survived the attack, and he said she was just smiling. The entire time, no words from her. Just an unerring grin, while her staff whispered and pleaded with the leaders of the world. She was still smiling when the gunfire started, and smiling when it stopped. We haven’t seen her since.”
(The patient stills in the chair. He has thus far refused to look at me after we began, maintains a consistent gaze at the floor. Erratic blinking, slowed breathing, consistent rubbing between both sets of thumbs and index fingers. Reliving event in entirety?)
“Now, where was I? Oh yes, the first time we saw their army. If I recall right, it was some highway in eastern France, stretching from one of the horizon to the other. We were assigned to overwatch that day, guarding the refugee stream and keeping an eye on the situation. I remember seeing every brand and type of person in that swarm, shuffling and sitting in their vehicles. I saw rich and poor, colored and non-colored, Europeans and everybody else. Even saw a fella I reckoned to be Sikh sitting on the side of the road tending to the sick with a group of nuns. Real ground-breaking, heartwarming stuff. Though, I think the one thing I recall the most though was seeing this old guy sitting on top of an RV.”
“I mistook him for some luggage at first because he was so still. It was the faded off-white Kepis he wore on his head that gave it away, tattered fabric waving in the breeze. It was only when we zoomed in did I see he was armed. He was sitting bowlegged on top of that camper, cradling an old rifle like a newborn. Even from that high up, I could see that thing was cared for. Polished, gleaming metal, and lovingly maintained wooden stock. I didn’t recognize what kind of rifle, but it was a hell of a lot older than I was, no doubt. As he sat there I watched him. Still as a statue, finger off the trigger, a canteen on his left, and a case of ammunition to his right.”
“He was looking over the fields of France, the little rivers, towns and buildings that had survived centuries of wear and war. And he was looking East, coddling a rifle in callused and pale hands. When we zoomed out and kept watch, I saw the rest of the French military there, at least the ones on hand for refugee guidance. Young men and women, arranged in a textbook area defense formation. Loose and regular, they sat in cover, hefting rifles and rocket launchers. Those funny looking Humvee knockoffs they used were scattered about, underneath sheds and trees, all within easy reach of their dismounted occupants. These troops kept glancing upwards, eying the overcast skies with a suspicious dread. But that was all they had. The armies of France were bulked towards the barrier, retrieving anything of worth before it was forever lost. No armored machines of war were on standby, no attack helicopters flitted about, and no jets roared overhead. They were for better or worse, totally on their own. A few dozen spanning just as many kilometers of cluttered roads, and many thousands depended on their steel and duty.”
(Patient has relaxed subtly. Shifted weight from elbows on his knees to sitting up, leaning on the back of the chair. Remains wary and avoiding eye contact. Head has tilted up, now level with the room. Events being recalled with more clarity? No longer rubbing thumbs and fingers, though knuckles are tightly stressed and white.)
“So it went for hours, when our fuel and patience running thin, the evening sun retreating to sunset, all while the slowly shuffling horde tried to make their way west. For such a harried and harassed folk unused to the stresses of war, they handled it ably. I saw no fighting, no brawls, the opposite of what I had expected. I would wager it was the classic French pride that helped them along that day, marching in step like some old flintlock regiment. So when I heard hushed voices behind my head I paid little attention, too caught up in my job and doing what I could, automatically reporting anything of significance to the officers and enlisted at my side. Our interpreter kept whispering into his headset, the French Gendarmerie and Garde Nationale commanders on the other side. I only noticed something was wrong when we saw the troopers below start to shout and gesture wildly, and the refugees suddenly sprang up and began to panic. The fact they had been marching for a day under dreary skies meant nothing when they ran for cover and the empty towns nearby. It was then I learned through a half listened conversation behind me that the Tyrant had made her move, and the borders of the barrier were a warzone like the kind not seen for a century.”
“It still didn’t fully hit me as anything to be overly concerned about though. The bulk of Europe’s military was clustered around the barrier, and if thousands of well trained and equipped soldiers on Earth couldn’t hold the line, then the war was already over wasn’t it? Besides, nobody really took the ponies seriously. Half the size of a grown man, and just plain unintimidating. Most we had seen was the Royal Guard at the diplomats meetings. So what? Muscled horses with polished, useless looking armor. Sometimes they had wings or horns, sometimes not? Again, hardly something to drive the fear of god into the hearts of men. Magic was the only thing they had going for them, and that was totally unknown, but we had some guesses they couldn’t do as much as we feared.”
“We were wrong. When the drone’s camera wandered eastward, we saw the whole horizon was nothing more than fireworks and shadows, flashes and bursts. A whole mess of explosions and missile streaks, flares hanging in the air, and tumbling shapes half lit up in the cloud cover. Couldn’t tell the difference between anything in that shattered sky. Not until the clouds started raining down firestorms and sheets of lightning. It looked like the apocalypse on the horizon, and we might as well have been throwing firecrackers at a wildfire.”
“That was the first time we saw the Equestrian air fleet, and it was a complete surprise. We saw the leading edge of their Flagship peeking out of the Barrier, a masthead that must have measured a solid kilometer tall. The stoic, half lidded stare of the Tyrant cast in metal was watching the battle field, and roiling streams of energy struck out from her horn, tumbling and coursing to the earth like some unnaturally large snake. The feeds blew up behind me, and the floor was breathless, no words uttered as they took in the carnage of the scenes playing out. It wasn’t long after that I heard they had tried an organized fighting retreat. That fell apart in the first twenty miles, and cohesion was lost. The biggest airships lumbered fully into view, busting the clouds they had for cover, while that enormous airship hovered just at the edge, peering down at the burning and broken Alps. That’s the first time we fully realized the threat, though I was just struck numb. Training and instinct kicked in though, when I saw the half dozen small airships dart forward straight towards us, and therefore, the uncounted thousands trying to flee.”
(Patient remains still, no longer fidgeting. Gaze has lost focus.)
“We had precious little time to prepare, and the troops below remained at their posts. I had learned later that the French Airforce had done little to harm the larger vessels, but ground fire and aerial intercept had downed dozens of the smaller ones, classed as Skiffs all the way to Galleons. But they were quickly either broken apart by homing spells or split off from combat due to spent ammunition. Our little Reaper had nothing more than a quartet of Hellfires and a pair of five hundred-pound bombs, neither of which are meant for aerial foes. But, we did have two advantages going for us. These ships were damaged in the fighting, moving fast but bloodied, given the visible wounds on their hulls and fires on the decks. It was reasonable to expect they were at the ragged edge of function, “sprinting” to the finish line, and eager to gain glory and kill or convert as many as they could.
“There laid our first bit of luck. Our second? We were effectively invisible. Quiet, and flying a hell of a lot higher than they were, and surprise was on our side. They were fast, but not fast enough to evade a blitz of sudden firepower, at least that is what we thought. So they closed the distance, soaking the withering ground fire from isolated pockets of the French army, when a volley of rockets from the earth surged upwards and met them. The first dozen cracked uselessly against the unicorn’s shield spells, detonating against the thin magical force field. The next volley collapsed them quickly however, popping under the stresses of so many impacts. The leading two went down, slowly crashing to the idyllic countryside in a screaming mass of metal and fabric and fire. My best guess is they had some kinda fuel or reactor in those airships, because they went up in a towering fireball just after impact, enough force to level everything just around the crash sites. That left the other four, who their mad dash to the civilians running for their lives.”
“The next half hour was a blur, much as I am ashamed to say. We fired until empty, downing another pair of the half dead zeppelins, and the ground troops struggling to evade magical fire and bombs long enough to get a bead on the graceful craft circling overhead. One of the ships crashed into a bog, and the other directly into the jammed road, a hundred meters short of the closest hamlet where the horde had tried to pass through. I think the most shocking part of that battle for me wasn’t the decimation at the start, or the reckless dash to death of those pony crews, but it came after we had to return to base. Our camera lingered on the shattered remnants of that refugee stream, the hulked and burning remains of dozens of cars and buildings.”
“And just around the crash sites, I saw the remains of their crew, scattered about. I thought most had been thrown off in the impact, but then I saw the blackened, burnt paths of a few of the bodies. Even just before death, burning or broken, I saw too many of them had been crawling towards the people who fled, or clustered in dead heaps around the last standing soldiers and police. Our last image of that place was of that camper I already told you about. That old man with the rifle. He was sprawled on top of the roof, laid out in a comfortable prone position, rifle nocked to his shoulder. He was calmly, methodically, firing shot after shot into the dead, to make sure they wouldn’t get up? I don’t know. “
“I… I think that’s all I got today, Doc. I need to catch some sleep before my next shift, and maybe a hot meal. Thanks for letting me vent.”
The unnamed Airman stood up abruptly from the foldout chair in my office, gave one last goodbye, and left quickly, rushing on his uniform with that signature tired speed he had demonstrated in our last few sessions together. I had tried to prescribe medications, counseling, anything that could have helped really, but the ease of which he brushed off the attempts was disquieting. “Someone else needs it more” or “I still got some fight left” or “Can’t get dependent on anything, might mess me up later”. He always had an excuse, at least when it wasn’t a flat “No.” Each time he shows up though, there is always just a little less sparkle in those eyes.
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From the professional notes of Doctor L. Heartstrings, New York Trauma Hospital, attached to the 633rd Medical Wing.
Author's Note
I haven't forgotten about my stories, but the past year hasn't been quite kind to me. Between work and education, my free time was at a premium. That being said, I look forward to posting more.
