Hades is Burning

By Neil Methven

“The Burn” killed billions. And changed our world beyond recognition.

Captain Nathan Crew, an elite special forces officer, is given command of a task force that has one objective. Find out why the Burn happened and make sure it never happens again.

Their destination is an inhospitable wilderness known simply today as “The Wasteland”, but was once known by another name.

The USA.

Crew will lead a force that is comprised not only of forces from the UK, but also elements of what remains of the United States military, and a scientific group led by the wonderfully eccentric Professor Jacobs. A man with a passion for the truth, and a need to solve the greatest mystery of the modern age.

Crew, Jacobs and his people will face incredible danger from both the hostile environment of the USA, and hidden enemies within his own task force. But worst of all will uncover a conspiracy that threatens the entire planet with a dark and terrible future, where power will lie in the hands of one individual whose only aspiration is dominion over the entire world, for ever.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Neil Methven
• Release date: Aug 31, 2016
• ISBN: 9781370133796

Neil Methven

As you look at the gallery on this web site the first thing you will notice is that he obviously likes martial arts. His first introduction to this came in a Judo class when he was only 9 years old. Neil has continued to train in martial arts since this time, training primarily in Karate but also in Ju Jitsu, Wing Chun and Escrima.Although he loves martial arts, the truth is that Neil has always felt that there was something else in his life he REALLY wanted to do.And that was write.He had toyed for many years with the idea of writing a book on Martial arts, but always believed that his real passion for writing fell into the area of fiction. Primarily Science fiction, but as Neil loves most types of fiction, he felt that whatever he would be writing there would be an element of more than one genre involved. And so an idea was born, and from it came his first Novel Those Who Would be Gods.It didnt happen in a day, or a month or even a year, for as many people who have tried to write know, sometimes although you have an idea, putting it on paper is only the start, it often takes a little bit more. But in March of 2016, Neil submitted Those Who Would be Gods to Kindle and published.What else is there to say? He has two wonderful children that he loves more than life. He has always loved literature, and he loves writing.If you want more information on the Those Who Would Be Gods Series, please click on the icon to the left of this column, this will also give you a tab that will talk about upcoming projects that Neil is working on.Oh yeah, there are many more books to come, and so many ideas in his head that it is possible that he will never stop. So keep watching this site for his continuing adventures!

Book preview

This book came about due to a simple thought. What would happen if the United States was no longer around? What would be the repercussions if it was, because of some natural disaster suddenly gone?

Obviously as a work of science fiction it has taken liberties with certain facts that would be the reality in such a world. It has not taken into account the obvious economic repercussions for instance. I have instead, skipped ahead, as it were, and focused on the possibility that we would get it together and create a semblance of order. In the real world it is altogether more likely, if a disaster on the scale that I am writing of occurred, that society would collapse. But I am not writing about the real world, though that is where my story starts, instead I am writing from the point of view of a fiction author, and hoping, above all, that man might come together and sort itself out.

Naive? Perhaps, but as a fiction author I can live in that wonderful place that is all to often denied to us in the real world.

Hope.

Neil Methven 27th August 2016

For people who may be interested in Neil the author, wish to contact him, or just want to find his other novels, please feel free to visit the following. And please tell your friends!!:

www.thosewhowouldbegods.com

https://www.facebook.com/TheLeagueOfWriters/

For my children.

Love you, always.

Prelude

The fire began in 2020. Nobody is sure where exactly. Somewhere in North America. Everyone assumes it was some sort of military experiment. But that doesn't really matter anymore. It burnt across virtually the entire continent, stopping short of utterly destroying Canada, and seemed to pause before suddenly disappearing. Then, for some reason, it reignited and to the shock of the entire watching world, moved right across Alaska into Russia, obliterating everything in its path, Russia and most of Asia become a modern day Dante’s inferno, the clouds of ash blotting out the sky across the world.

And then it stopped. Western Europe, spared the Inferno that had engulfed so much of the globe, found itself facing millions of surviving refugees seeking salvation in the virtually untouched nations. The vast mass of humanity poured across nation after nation before finding itself facing the combined armies of Germany, France and the United Kingdom, who in their fear of being overrun had simply combined their militaries to stop the invaders before they could crash across the last vestiges of organised government. They had envisioned a police holding action, a chance to create a huge refugee camp before attempting to bring some sort of order to the chaos.

And that was when a nervous French Commander, faced with a horde of angry, desperate starving people, men, women and children, ordered his forces to fire over their heads. But the order was a mistake. As the guns fired, desperate parents, thinking they and their families were about to be killed, began to fire back with the few weapons they had. At this point the soldiers returned fire. And didn't stop. Communications were garbled and intelligence was warped and due to this the entire episode became one that the combined powers wished they could forget.

All of a sudden every weapon that was available became involved, helpless men woman and children came under the sort of bombardment that hadn't been seen since the end of world war two. Even a sortie of aerial bombers became involved after a confused commander was handed garbled communications telling him that forward positions were being overrun. It was only after nearly two hours of continuous fire that the order came forward to end the attack.

The consequences of the mistaken order were horrendous beyond anyones ability to understand. Under an ashen sky, darkened by the recent fires, aid workers, doctors, nurses and countless numbers of military personnel wandered through the piles of bodies, their faces streaked by tears. Heart broken, a solitary captain radioed back to his commander They are all dead, all of the children are dead.

At the final count the bombardment had claimed over a million dead. But the worst was what the survivors had done. They had gone back. Rather than face another attack, they had fled back from where they came. To lands swept clean by the fire they ran, hoping that they could somehow survive amongst the ashes. They were wrong. As time passed by and order returned to the allied forces, drones and planes were sent to find evidence of the panicked horde.

All they found was death.

For a length of over six hundred miles lay the bodies. No water, no food and the threat of death from bullet and bomb, they had simply ran as far as they could and died as they tried to live. By the end of the sorties the figures came back. Generated by computers using the available data from the digital footage supplied from the over flights, the figures were cold and harsh and brought home the sheer scale of what had been called by the commercial networks the greatest case of mass murder in history.

Thirty seven million dead.

The governments of the allied nations fell. Destroyed from within by the horrendous mistakes in dealing with the exodus. And in its place arrived a new order. The Unity Government of Europe and Saved Nations (U.G.E.N) was supposed to figure out a way to save humanity from itself. What it created instead was the world we have now. No freedom, and no hope. And in quiet corners people whisper their fear.

Will the Burn return.

1

Captain Nathan Crew was very uncomfortable. His uniform crisp and neat, and shoes polished to a gleam you could see your face in. Parade ready.

And he hated it.

He was special forces. What people sometimes called an irregular soldier. He didn't wear standard uniform, he didn't wear polished boots, and he was generally unshaven. The present situation however called for him to appear as he was now. Suited and booted if you will. And he was more uncomfortable than he had felt in years. Not just because of the outfit though, it was also because of who he was about to see.

Thomas Hamilton was the most senior member of what was now the only real government that existed on the planet. Ten years after the event that had come to be known as The Burn and the aftermath that caused the slaughter at Frances border, Thomas Hamilton was UGEN’s leader. Or as many people liked to call him, Dictator. It was not a well liked term. But for any individual that held the position of Chief Administrator of UGEN it was, wether anyone liked it or not, appropriate.

Once the surviving Governments had aligned out of simple necessity, it had been obvious that any person holding the most senior position had to have incredible powers in order to make the new ruling authority work. It was widely accepted that a standard bureaucracy would be impossible. Events were moving too fast and solutions would never be arrived at with the necessary speed if debate was allowed to occur when millions of people were screaming for water. So the position of Chief Administrator was created. Dictator in all but name. And to all intents and purposes, it worked. People didn't like it, but they liked getting fed, and they liked having running water and lights that stayed on at night, even though they all, without exception, went off at 11pm throughout the remaining nations. It was hardly surprising that the sales of candles went up a thousand fold.

The position had been given a shelf life however, you could only hold the position for seven years. The first administrator had been a controversial choice, as he had been, at the time, one of the commanders of French forces at the site of the massacre on French soil. But he was recognised as a man who was driven and capable of making hard choices.

He was dead one year after taking the job. Blown up, along with over a hundred of his fellow government workers, by an individual who to this day no one knew. One minute the government building with the chief administrator and his aides was there, the next it was gone. Obliterated by an explosive of exotic manufacture, smuggled in by person, or persons unknown.

The next person to fill the role had been German. A former bureaucrat in his nations government, he had been chosen because of his, apparently, remarkable organisational abilities. He never got the chance to make a single decision. The very next morning after his elevation to the role he was dead, shot by a man who had been allowed through the security cordon on his own orders. The postman who had been delivering his letters for over nine years. But he had not known he was a Russian, and did not know that his entire family had been killed during the exodus from France. It was a blunder on the part of the security forces that had not gone unnoticed by the next holder of the role, Hamilton.

He had made it clear, in no uncertain terms, that he was going to be orchestrating his new role from the safety of London, and that Britain was about to undergo a facelift in terms of its borders and security.

Within one week of his selection, the United Kingdom became an armed camp. Huge amounts of troops were stationed at those coastal areas considered high risk, air sorties were virtually continuous and the military was on a standard war footing. His argument for the huge change in British affairs was simple. The world had changed, and attitudes towards security and freedom must change with it. We were no longer, he said, one nation, or even a group of nations, we were simply the survivors of the human race, and to survive, we needed to grow up and accept the way the world now was and pursue agendas that would benefit every member of the new society that had been born of the The Burn and its aftermath. And if that meant a loss in individual freedom, well tough, grow up, its a new world, we all live in it and we had better all get involved.

His rhetoric was not particularly well received, but within a few months of taking office, the sweeping changes he made, and the co-ordinated efforts of his new administration meant that food began to be evenly distributed, the electricity began to work again and people began to feel a normality return to their lives. It wasn't perfect, it wasn't easy, but it worked, and that was all the average Joe wanted. So Hamilton was accepted, and even though he was only supposed to be in the job for seven years, here he was after almost nine, still in charge. Why? Because people knew he got the job done, and they had decided that he should stay. The standard term of seven years was scrapped, and it now depended on wether or not your ideas worked. So at the moment he kept his job. But to most people, he was in an unassailable position, and many suspected that even if he didn't do the job properly, it would be impossible to remove him.

So Nathan sat, waiting patiently, if not happily, to see the man who was effectively the most powerful man on Earth.

The elderly lady who was Hamilton’s secretary looked over at Nathan. Administrator Hamilton will see you now. And she motioned to the double doors behind her.

He got up walked over, knocked politely on the door, then after a deep breath went through.

The administrator was sitting at a huge desk at the far end of the room typing furiously on a computer. I will be with you in a moment Captain, please pour us both a coffee then take a seat. Nathan saw a coffee pot sitting over to the left of the desk, and walking over poured two mugs and placed one beside Hamilton. Then took a seat facing the Administrator.

He briefly looked around the room. He knew that at one point this had been an office inhabited by a powerful whitehall mandarin, long since vanished from the scene. But it still held the trappings of what was once obviously a very lucrative role. He could see on one wall what was obviously a Van Gogh, although how it came to be here, he had no idea.

Strange isn't it. Nathan started, he hadn't even noticed that Hamilton had stopped writing, he had been so absorbed in his surroundings. He turned and looked at him.

Hamilton was the perfect example of an invisible man. He was a former council official who’s rise had been nothing short of meteoritic. And looking at him now Nathan could understand why people did not understand his rise to power. He was small, a little over five feet tall, and had what could only be called a plain face, thin, with prominent cheekbones. But what got everybody the first time they met him were his eyes. A light grey, a former associate had said When they look at you you get two versions, there’s the friendly ones, they make you feel welcome, and you know that this is a man who would go through hell for you, if its obvious you would do the same for him, but the other ones, they scare the hell out of every one, they just show you one thing. Winter. Because they are as cold as they come.

Looking at the man now, Nathan could understand how that man felt, there was nothing, no hint of like or dislike in those eyes now, and Nathan, a veteran of numerous conflicts and battlefields, could not help but feel uncomfortable under their steady gaze.

Im sorry Sir? He said questioning the last comment.

How a masterpiece like that gets here. I am sure that there is more than one old master loitering around these halls. Something I am slowly dealing with. He stood and walked over to stand in front of the painting. Nathan started to stand, but Hamilton waved him down. I am in contact with a gentleman in the National Gallery. I am going to have all of the paintings in the building removed and assessed, and in time put on display there. One of the senior ministers complained about the loss to whitehall. I told him to buy copies like everyone else and buy snap frames for them. Told him I couldn't understand why it was necessary for a junior whitehall lackey to have a painting in his office worth four million pounds when that same man is telling me we can’t afford to put more equipment in a hospital in Birmingham. Bloody ridiculous.

Nathan nodded. It was statements like that that had made Hamilton a champion of the working class. Even more so considering that was his background. Northern boy made good was how one newspaper had put it. But that only scratched the surface of his success.

Hamilton turned back to face Nathan again, took a small sip of his coffee, then continued to look at Nathan steadily. Suddenly he spoke.

Your record is extraordinary captain, to say the least. You have served in every theatre of war this country has seen for the last twenty years. Numerous commendations, medals plus the many times you have been injured in battle make you something of a hero. Nathan could here the unmentioned but at the end of the sentence.

Here it comes, he thought.

And then of course came the rather unfortunate incident in Germany. Hamilton went silent, then turned and walked back to his desk. Gesturing for Nathan to sit down, he picked up a large folder off the desk and sat down on the edge of it, facing Nathan as he read from it.

‘It was clear to this officer that Captain Crew completely disregarded the rules of engagement. Furthermore it is all too apparent to this officer that the Captain has no respect for the chain of command and should be RTu’d as soon as possible.. he looked up questioningly RTu’d?"

Returned to Unit Sir. He had a funny feeling that Hamilton already knew that but had forced him to answer the question anyway. If you are in the Special Air Service it is just about the worst punishment there is. For those of us who are privileged enough to get in, anything else is just second best, and normally those members who are RTu’d quit and go back to civvie street.

Hamilton continued to look at Crew steadily then closed the folders and walking around the desk, sat down. To be honest the Major’s report reads like a piece of fiction. When I did some research and asked some of the intelligence services to do some background for me, it seems as though the Major in question was not exactly your greatest fan. Would you care to give me some background yourself?

Nathan didn't really want to say anything about what had happened in Germany, but he knew that he didn't have a choice. I and a couple of units from the regiment were tasked with assisting a Germany whose own forces were severely depleted after the events of the Burn. We were primarily requested to help them surveil and gather intelligence on ex Russian military units who were heavily involved in terrorist and criminal activities inside Berlin. To put it mildly it was a complete mess there. The city had been ravaged by the refugees and after they fled from the fighting in France it had been pretty much picked clean. He paused and looked at Hamilton, but he merely gestured for him to continue.

Once this period of chaos was over though, surviving members of Russian federation forces dug in inside German territory. Once the germans realised what was happening they tried to make some headway into the areas controlled by these forces, but to put it bluntly they were completely outmatched. That oversimplified things Crew thought to himself. When half of what was left of Asia had descended upon Europe, what little military Germany had at its disposal had been completely overrun. The few survivors had joined the allied forces in France, but he remembered the state of them. They had been haggard, dishevelled figures, virtually useless after the horror of the invasion by the survivors of the Burn. But the aftermath had left Berlin in ruins and the surviving, and to put it bluntly, more vicious elements of the Russian military and criminal fraternity had come to call it home. And they had dug in deep.

He continued We spent about three weeks on site in Berlin, we had people from intelligence, both ours and Germany’s, who gave us intel on at least five different groups who had basically set up shop in one of the ruined areas. But we were after a really bad bunch. Former Russian special forces who had aligned themselves with some of the old Bratva from Moscow. These were the toughest of the tough, and the intention was to get them all together and hit them as hard as possible at the same time. The operation was to be weapons free, and absolutely no mercy was to be shown. But the Major had his orders, and his orders were that we under no circumstances could be involved in the hands on part of the operation. That was to be German units only. I made it clear that I thought this was a mistake, and that they were completely out of their depth against the people who they would be up against. My request to lead the operation once it went live with our people was refused, and I was ordered to have no involvement.

Hamilton nodded What happened when the operation started?

It was a complete shambles. The operation had been compromised, and the enemy had intel on virtually every aspect of the attack. I was in operations when everything when to hell, and to put it bluntly, told the Major to fuck off and took my men into the fight.

Hamilton had closed his eyes and leant back in his chair, but was obviously still listening, as he nodded and spoke And what happened then captain?

We went in and fought a rearguard action alongside the German elements and got out with minimal loss of life.

Did you lose any of our people?

No sir

Hamilton sat up and looked at Nathan. You skimmed over a lot of the battle. In fact you pretty much ignored just how much you had to do to get out. The truth is you and your men pretty much annihilated the Russian forces that were hitting the germans, and your retreat from the area left them unable to function as a force afterwards. One day after what could have been a disaster, German forces moved in, and with very little resistance, cleaned out what was left. The most senior German officer in the operation made special mention of this, and recognised you personally as the architect of his operational success in the area.

Nathan nodded. His own Officer had done everything possible to hurt his career after the op, but the German Colonels comments had been his saving grace. He doubted he would have survived without them.

Hamilton tapped the folder in front of him This folder does not come close to telling anyone just how much you have done for your country, and Europe, as a whole captain. But I am hoping that I can start to make up for that. For starters, how does promotion to Colonel sound, along with an appropriate rise in pay and benefits. And on top of that you will be given command of your own outfit within the SAS, and your choice of who is part of it. Both from our own military and Europe's.

Crew sat in the chair and stared at Hamilton. He was, to put it bluntly, stunned. Hamilton continued to look at him, a small smile upon his face. Well, I am pleased to know that I can still occasionally surprise people.

Crew gathered his thoughts, then spoke bluntly. Sir, I am obviously very happy about the promotion, the money, everything. But I am fairly sure that you must have something in mind for me to do if you are giving me such a fine gift.

Hamilton smiled slyly. Well, of course I want something in return. I want you to put together a specialised group Colonel. It will comprise the best military personnel you can find, alongside a group of scientists and administrators in order to do something incredibly important.

And what is that sir.

You are going to the wastelands of the United States of America Colonel. And you are going to solve the riddle of the Burn.

Crew stared at Hamilton. All of a sudden the thought of fighting a group of howling mad Russians didn't seem so difficult.

2

Tom Parsons looked through the scope of his IWI DAN.338 sniper rifle and let a small sigh escape as he fired. In the distance some eight hundred meters away a small puff appeared behind the man shaped target. Without even hearing it from the spotter he knew he had achieved a perfect hit.

Parsons was the British militaries best sniper. He had over three hundred kills to his name, but he knew full well the target was much higher. Its just that he had stopped bothering to tally them a long time ago, and his superiors had stopped asking. They simply asked him to do the job, and he did it. It helped, as he had once confessed to a colleague keep him sane if he just did the job and didn’t think about the numbers. What he never ever told anyone was the real reason.

He was a sociopath.

He didn't feel anything about the kills, not once. He was completely unfeeling about the whole process. He felt the same about killing any human being, man or woman, as he did about the featureless target that he had just fired at. All that mattered to him was the perfection of his art.

Parsons was recognised even before the Burn, as probably one of the top three shooters alive. Truth be told though, no one liked to say what they thought. That even amongst this elite he was not well liked. But he didn't care, all he knew was that when he was asked to he did his job, and if he was asked to stand overwatch for other soldiers, he did his job, and did it perfectly. He heard the crunch of gravel behind him. He didn't move, simply maintained his position.

I think that was a miss. I think that puff was just some rabbit moving around.

Parsons did something rare. He smiled. Only one man could make him smile, probably the only man alive who could. Because he was the only man alive that Parsons respected enough to call friend.

Nathan Crew.

If there was a rabbit there, he is now dead. Would you like to go out there and check? Maybe pick it up for a stew later?

He felt Crew lean down beside him, and then felt a tremor as he tapped the barrel of the rifle lightly Nope. I suspect Lucy here has done her job properly as usual.

Lucy. Parson’s absentmindedly stroked the trigger. The pet name Nathan had given the rifle almost ten years before. He said it was because of the the song Lucy in the sky with diamonds, but Parsons knew that it was because Crews ex wife had been called Lucy, and he said that she could kill a man from a thousand yards WITHOUT a bullet. With economy of movement that only a truly well trained fighter could employ, Parsons stood up smoothly and looked down at his friend.

Lucy stayed on the ground beside Crew, who looked at the well used rifle for a moment before standing up himself. He was roughly the same height as Parsons, but while Crew was more like a gymnast in build, stocky, muscular and built for combat, Parsons build was closer to that of a marathon runner. He was, like Crew, just under two meters tall, but Crew was fairly sure that he had never weighed more than about seventy kilos. Crew knew however that anyone who looked at Parsons and thought he was weak would be in for a rude awakening. And Crew had seen first hand how unpleasant that awakening could be.

It had been in the USA before the Burn. He and a group of SAS personnel, along with Parsons had been invited to demonstrate SAS close quarters battle tactics as employed by the regiment around the world. Although similar methods were employed by the US special forces, senior members still recognised the remarkable skill set employed by the best of the Regiment, so it was not unusual to find them demonstrating tactics in the US and other nations.

On this particular bright and sunny day at Fort Bragg, Crew and Parsons had been meandering along minding their own business while talking with a couple of Delta force operators that they knew from combat missions abroad, when they came across a group of Rangers doing unarmed combat training. They paused briefly to watch, Crew especially, who had always specialised in unarmed combat was interested in the display, so could not help but watch as the instructors put the rangers through their paces.

Everything was fine until one of the instructors saw them watching and recognised the British uniforms. He called out Hey Brit, come and see how real soldiers train. Might mean that we don't have to keep on helping you out with wars you cant win on your own. He turned his back, and general laughter from the other instructor and assembled rangers followed his comment.

The Delta operators apologised as they saw colour come into Crews cheeks, and knew that they needed to move on before things became more unpleasant. So one of them tapped him on the shoulder and he reluctantly turned his back and followed them, and Parsons followed along. And that was when things got worse.

One of the rangers started to make kissing sounds, and Crew was sure he heard an unpleasant comment about the state of the British army, he began to turn when Parsons grabbed his arm. Crew looked at him, there was no expression on his face, he just shook his head. No, let me. And with that Parsons turned around and walked past the astonished instructors to the middle of the dusty dirt circle that was their training area. He simply stood in the middle and said two words.

Attack me.

Crew felt the two Delta operators tense by his side "We need to stop this,