World War Take 2

By John D. Thomas

General Pat Wilson has been chosen to command a desperate mission.

In an alternate timeline, the Soviet Union and its communist ideology has nearly conquered the United States. A technology has been developed to send a modern American Army unit back in time to a critical battle of World War II.  If Wilson’s task force can change the outcome, the Russians will not have the resources to conquer the United States. They have enough men and materiel for one decisive battle. One chance to save America.

Despite thorough preparation, secret agendas, divisions, and a strange disease halt the battle prematurely. Will it be enough? And, who murdered so many of the task force and why? Survivors seek answers in a world that has been changed—yet is remarkably similar.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Thompson Woldcroft
• Release date: Nov 17, 2016
• ISBN: 9780998422718

John D. Thomas

John D. Thomas, a graduate of West Point, was a former Captain of Armor. He also served at the US Air Defense Artillery School and graduated from the Officers' Field Artillery Advanced Course. He was an Airborne Ranger. He enjoys alternative history books and is a student of history.  He has made many trips to Ukraine where much of the story takes place.

Book preview

This is a work of fiction. Similarities to real people, places, or events are entirely coincidental.

WORLD WAR TAKE 2

First edition. November 17, 2016.

Copyright © 2016 John D. Thomas.

ISBN: 978-0998422718

Written by John D. Thomas.

World War

Take 2

by

John D. Thomas

––––––––

Copyright John D. Thomas 2016

Contents

Chapter One

Chapter Two

Chapter Three

Chapter Four

Chapter Five

Chapter Six

Chapter Seven

Chapter Eight

Chapter Nine

Chapter Ten

Chapter Eleven

Chapter Twelve

Chapter Thirteen

Chapter Fourteen

Chapter Fifteen

Chapter Sixteen

Chapter Seventeen

Chapter Eighteen

Chapter Nineteen

Chapter Twenty

Chapter Twenty-One

Chapter Twenty-Two

Author Biography

Chapter One

The Soviet Union has announced it will begin bombing the U.S. within seventy-two hours if its terms are not met. Further details on the news at ten. The radio returned to playing chirpy music.

Brigadier General Pat Wilson shook his head. The world’s about to go up in smoke and they want everyone to wait ‘till ten so they can maximize their advertising. Incredible!

His limousine was climbing up into the mountains outside Colorado Springs to the NORAD complex. The general looked out the window. It seems like the world is as dark as this night. The light is gone.

He was deep in his thoughts when the limo went around a bend in the road and the lights of the city below stretched out before him. The general leaned toward the window to get a better view of the clear night sky and the city lights reflecting the stars above.

It sure is something, isn’t it, sir?

The general caught his driver’s wide eyes in the rear view mirror.

Are you talking about the view, soldier, or the news?

The news, sir, the soldier said with a quake in his voice.

We’re not done, yet, son, the general replied with some gentleness, wishing he really believed that. He looked back at the view. I may be seeing this for the very last time. Marie and I drove up this same road and pulled over at dusk to look at the city below. She was so happy that her beautiful face seemed to glow brighter than the city lights. Now she’s gone, too. His eyes misted at the memory.

The limo followed the road around the mountain and the city was lost to sight. The car slammed hard into one of the many potholes in the road, jarring the general from his thoughts.

Sorry about that, sir!

The general grunted and slumped back in his seat. Most roads were filled with potholes. The U.S. didn’t have much money to spend on infrastructure since the Soviet’s imposed worldwide sanctions against the country.

How did it come to this? The damn Soviets controlled almost all of Europe after the Second World War. The US had been constantly on the defensive as the Soviets took control of more and more countries and their resources all over the world. Recognizing American vulnerability, the politicians negotiated treaty after treaty, which the Soviets violated even as the US unilaterally reduced its arms. Now the Soviets felt strong enough to give this ultimatum: Surrender or we’ll blow you to kingdom come! World War III will be over before it really starts.

The sudden braking of the limo to avoid two wooden sawhorses stretched across the road jarred the general back to the present.

What the hell? the driver exclaimed. I’ll move them. He started to open his door.

Soldier, get back in here!

As the words left his mouth, the air filled with the sound of rifle fire. The general instinctively dropped to the floor of the limo. Right at the gates of NORAD!

The right front window shattered and the driver let out a scream. I’m hit!

Soldier, step on the gas and get us out of here! the general growled.

The car jolted forward. The general heard the crack of the sedan knocking the sawhorses out of the way. The sound of the gunfire became more distant and then stopped altogether.

The mountains were quiet again, except for the labored breathing of the driver. The car swerved from side to side. The general leaned over the front seat to see how badly the young man was injured. The soldier grasped his right side. Blood seeped through his fingers and onto the seat. His eyes were barely open.

Slide over, the general commanded. The driver groaned in pain as he moved and then fell to the far side of the front bench. While he was moving, the general flung himself into the driver’s seat. He gave the car more gas and the speed picked up. How are you feeling, son? He asked softly. I have seen too many young men shot—and killed—over the years!

I’ll be OK, sir, the lad replied without much conviction.

The general put his foot down hard on the gas pedal and the car nearly leapt underneath them. Hang on, soldier! We’ll be there in a few minutes!

As the car rounded a long curve, a guard post loomed into view. The car screeched to a halt pulling alongside it. He opened his window as a guard walked toward the sedan. The guard’s eyes widened as he drew near.

I’m General Wilson, The general flashed his identification toward the guard. Have a medic standing by at the complex!

Yes, sir! The guard saluted and ran back to the guard post. As he disappeared inside the building, the barricade in front of the limo elevated. The car sped through.

The general slowed the car near the tunnel entrance to NORAD. As he went into the outer tunnel, dim outlines of concrete barricades and weapon emplacements came into sight. He brought the car to a stop in front of a formidable steel barricade.

The car was quickly surrounded by a half a dozen well-armed sentries. One of them, a clean-cut young lieutenant approached his window. Sir, would you please step from the car? His voice was polite but firm.

While Pat opened his door, a frantic medic tore open the passenger door and eased out the immobile driver, with the help of a companion, placing him on a stretcher. Take good care of him, gentlemen! General Wilson called to the medics as they rushed away with the driver’s unconscious form. He turned to the guards.

Sir, this will just take a minute. The large guard patted down Wilson while the other guards searched his car.

The general nodded in weary understanding. Security measures had become intense at all military installations—and much more so here.

Looks like you had a good time, sir! The guard nodded toward the general’s car. Are you all right?

I am. It was quite a greeting. You boys are going to have to get out a little more often if that road is going to stay open.

Yes, sir. The lieutenant cringed at the rebuke. It’s the sympathizers, sir. They get to drinking and decide that the only way to save their cowardly hides is to show their hatred of anything American. So they go out into the country to look for some government official or soldier that they can kill to show their socialistic fervor.

Pat shook his head as he surveyed the sedan. Yes, I know all about them. A good thing their fervor doesn’t extend to target practice. They were pretty damned bad shots.

A large golf cart drove up and the lieutenant and general took a seat.

Sir, you may want this. An older guard strode to the general carrying Pat’s cap in his hand. As he handed the cap to the general, two large bullet holes were visible in its brim. The guard softly whistled.

Good thing that cap wasn’t on your head, sir.

Pat took his cap. He was unfazed by the damage. I don’t know, sergeant. If the cap was on my head, the cap probably wouldn’t have gotten hit, either.

The sergeant smiled. Sir, I was in your battalion in Chile. I remember the battle for Santiago. The bullets were flyin’ everywhere. We thought we were gonners. You came out of your bunker puffing a pipe. Tracers whizzed around you, but you casually strolled around the firebase lookin’ at everythin’. We sat in our foxholes awestruck. After what seemed like hours, you returned to your bunker without saying a word. Damnedest thing I ever seen! We weren’t afraid after that.

Pat shook the man’s hand. I’m glad to see you’re still in the fight.

They drove down a long, brightly lit tunnel. More machine gun emplacements guarded the way. The cart’s electric motor was the only sound.

The general’s thoughts turned to the meeting ahead. Had they completed the project? Is it possible the Doomsday weapon has been completed at the hour of our greatest need?

__________________

Wilson was dropped off in front of a door with the sign Administration on it. He opened it and stepped into a comfortable outer office with a secretary and a young captain behind their desks on either side of the room. The secretary and the captain both stood up upon seeing him.

Sir, good to see you again, said the captain, saluting. He was a handsome young man with sandy brown hair and broad shoulders.

Pat returned the salute and then walked forward to shake the captain’s hand. Good to see you, Ryan. And Sandy, how are you?

Just fine, Sir, the secretary beamed. The general has been looking forward to your visit.

Where is the old man?

Just then the inner office opened and General Hardin emerged. Pat! Welcome!

General Hardin shook Pat’s hand vigorously with both of his. General Hardin was a bear of a man who could be quite intimidating. He was known to dress down anyone not up to his high military standards and cause even the most courageous warriors to quake. But to Pat he had always been more of an older brother than his commander, ever since Hardin had been Pat’s physics professor at the Academy. Later, Pat had served under Hardin in combat. They had stayed in close contact thereafter. Pat even named his son after the general. That seemed like a long time ago now.

Come on in, Pat.

General Hardin led Pat into his office with his arm around Pat’s shoulders. The office was surprisingly small and spartan. There were none of the prestige pictures and mementos that are normally in an office of a very successful individual. Instead, there was just one picture of General Hardin’s wife, Meg, sitting in a frame on his desk.

Sounds like you had quite a time coming here, Pat?

Some welcoming party! And right outside the gates! Pat shook his head.

Hardin nodded with a grim expression.

We just swept that road clean an hour ago. The sympathizers are getting bold in anticipation that the country will come under new management.

Pat, suddenly tired, picked up the picture of Meg to study it more closely.

How’s Meg feeling, Bob?

Hardin’s strong voice became soft. It’s been rough ... very rough. Ever since Jim left, she’s been getting worse. He paused. The doctors say she doesn’t have much longer to live. As for Jim... His tone grew hard. "I don’t know what has become of him. We had been close. But after his first year of college he came home and called me an ‘oppressive tool of the capitalists’. He wanted nothing more to do with Meg and me.

Maybe I didn’t spend enough time with him explaining what it was all about? But, this has been happening all over America. How many families do you know that are still together? Most of the time, the children are being raised by the State. What can we do under these circumstances?

Pat understood the situation well. Laws had been passed to bring the US more in alignment with the Soviet model. Pre-school and then public school became mandatory. The children were taught sociology almost to the exclusion of all else. Both parents usually had to work to make ends meet. The children became strangers to their parents. The kids joined Socialist Clubs, which had become popular in the country. They learned to hate capitalism and democracy and all it stood for. They were taught to despise their parents.

Both men now sat quietly in their seats, their thoughts taking them into separate worlds.

General Hardin first broke the silence. How are you doing?

It’s been tough without her... it’s been hard to be concerned about anything without her, Pat replied quietly. Her death was still a piercing ache that refused to go away.

He could still see her in his mind’s eye. The soft brown hair falling around her shoulders, the clear blue eyes, the beauty of her body, the tenderness of the way she looked at him. They had been married almost fifteen years last March when Korea was overrun. She shouldn’t have been there, but after illness took their son in infancy, she wanted to be with Pat. She was killed when the communists overran Seoul because she was an American.

This is the story of our country—one heartbreak after another. And now the Commies want to destroy what’s left... maybe they should.

Pat raised an eyebrow. It was common to hear people joke about who would destroy America first, the Russians or the Americans—but, Hardin?

Listen, I’ve been saving an old bottle of Stranahan’s Colorado Whiskey for my retirement. Since it doesn’t appear that I will live that long, what do you say we drink it now? Better us than those Red sympathizers who’ve been trying to get us!

The American communists followed the plan used in other countries—murder soldiers, police, community leaders and anyone else considered ‘reactionary’. Some military units, now facing possible death at the hands of their fellow citizens and almost certain death when the communists took over, had started their own wars with the Soviets in countries where they were stationed. The President, fearful of the Soviet’s response, had helped the Soviets crush them. And so despair deepened. Officers like General Hardin stayed loyal to the country even though there was now little hope they would survive the current threat.

General Hardin opened the door to speak in his normal gruff voice to his aide.

Ryan, bring in the bottle and two glasses.

In a few moments Ryan brought in two glasses and a bottle. Here you go, sir, he said, as he placed them in front of the general. There was a tin cup on top of the bottle, which Hardin removed to reveal the cork.

How am I supposed to open this thing, Ryan? With my teeth? the general bellowed with mock seriousness.

With a flourish Ryan produced a corkscrew from his back pocket.

The general smiled at Pat. Now you know the qualifications that I look for in an aide – skill with a whiskey bottle.

The talents of an infantryman know no bounds, Ryan responded pleasantly.

Ryan filled the two glasses, but when he set down the bottle, Hardin took it up again and filled the tin cup for himself, handing the glasses to Pat and Ryan. Ryan beamed in surprise.

Gentlemen, I propose a toast. To the United States of America—may she win the Second World War!

Ryan repeated, To the US of A!

General Hardin downed his cup of whiskey and Pat and Ryan followed suit.

After a pause, Ryan put down his glass, Don’t forget, sir, the demonstration will be ready at 2200 hours.

Very good.

Ryan nodded and walked out, closing the door behind him.

Pat sat up in his seat, completely focused on General Hardin.

You said ‘the Second World War’. The doomsday machine is ready?

You don’t think that I called you down here just to discuss the good ol’ days, do you? The general’s craggy face broke out in a wide grin.

Pat’s heart jumped in his chest. Incredible! How... how is it possible?

American know-how! And you’ll see the machine in action at 2200 hours, Hardin proclaimed with pleasure.

That is incredible! Pat repeated, shaking his head in wonder. Time travel!

Hardin had a broad smile. Yep! We’re going back to re-fight the Second World War. And this time, we’re gonna whip ‘em!

Chapter Two

That is incredible! Pat repeated again, shaking his head over and over. How?

We started by assuming that time travel was possible, despite evidence to the contrary.

And it violates several theories of physics, like the Second Law of Thermodynamics—entropy—everything moves from order to disorder, Pat stated.

The General smiled. You remembered one of my physics lessons at the Academy.

You never know when ‘entropy’ will be needed in daily conversation. Pat responded dryly.

Hardin chuckled and then continued. Knowledge of physics certainly has come in handy for this job. Hardin stood up and started pacing as if he were about to deliver a lecture to one of his physics classes. There are a few viable possibilities for time travel. The best scientific theories contain no prohibitions on traveling backward through time. The feat should be possible based on Einstein's theory of general relativity, which describes gravity as the warping of space-time by energy and matter. An extremely powerful gravitational field, such as that produced by a spinning black hole, could, in principle, profoundly warp the fabric of space, so that space-time bends back on itself. This would create a closed time-like curve, a loop that could be traversed to travel back in time.

The General poured more whiskey into his cup and continued. Unfortunately, we don’t have any black holes handy. The General chuckled, taking a sip of his drink. "We theorized we could create the same effect. If we created a doughnut-shaped vacuum, space-time should bend on itself using a focused gravitational field to form that closed time-like curve. To go back in time, a traveler would race around inside the doughnut, going further back into the past with each lap... at least in theory.

"The gravitational field required to make such a closed time-like curve would have to be very strong and manipulating the magnetic field would have to be very precise. The amount of gravity required was well beyond our capabilities. In addition, we quickly determined that if we were able to create a strong enough gravitational field inside the earth’s gravity well, it would likely destroy the earth. On top of that, to manipulate that gravitational field correctly, assuming we could control it, our physicists estimated that effort could take as long as three centuries of trial and error with our highest powered computers. So, that was a no-go.

An alternative theory required the creation of an exotic form of matter with so-called ‘negative energy density’, which our scientists have long postulated could exist. Theoretically, such exotic matter has bizarre properties, including moving in the opposite direction of normal matter and, perhaps, time.

Pat sat back in his seat, but his hands were clenched tightly together. You were able to create it?

The folks at DARPA were working on an electromagnetic pulse bomb, an EMP. We’ve known since World War II that electromagnetic pulses are created as an aftereffect of nuclear explosions. If done right, the explosion can cause a massive cascade of electrons, destroying all unprotected electrical equipment within range. An EMP at high altitude above Moscow, for example, could destroy electronics over much of the western portion of Russia. No electronics means most of their transportation would be decimated—no cars, trucks, trains, boats, etc. No power utilities, either. Modern cities cannot sustain large populations without both. So, in most metropolitan areas—after a short while—no water, no food, no medicines. The death toll would be equally large—not only from death, starvation, and sickness, but also the resulting anarchy and conflict.

Sounds like a formidable weapon, General.

Yes. Our hope was that the Soviets understood that, too. It’s like the equivalent of the nuclear bomb race. The first to get a working EMP wins.

Did we develop one? Pat leaned forward in his seat again, his pulse racing.

"Kinda. Part of the EMP experiments included testing different Faraday cages that could be deployed to protect critical electronics. The DARPA boys developed a new substance called graphene. This is an amazing substance. Though only a two dimensional form of carbon, it is two hundred times as strong as steel, conducts electricity very efficiently and is almost transparent.

Several tests were run with computers and other electronics inside graphene Faraday Cages. It wasn’t very effective at protecting the electronics. However, when the graphene cage was hit by an EMP pulse and surrounded by a very strong magnetic field, very low temperatures and an ultra-high vacuum—much like the environment in our time machine—the electrons became massless, producing quasi-particles. These bombarded the platinum in the electronics. The platinum was turned into an isotope, which reacted with other chemicals in the electronics to produce a small amount of ‘quark soup’ or plasma. The plasma contained some exotic matter with negative energy density. The graphene in the strong magnetic field was able to hold the exotic matter. When we found out about it, I was able to convince them to ship some to us for our experiments.

Incredible! Pat still leaned forward in his seat feeling like a kid in a candy shop. How did it go?

We found that it only took a small amount of negative mass in our time machine to make—well, I guess you could call it—a worm hole. This makes sense since, theoretically, a worm hole should be created to ensure the conservation of matter. In essence, the negative mass, within the time machine, opens and maintains a stable worm hole—at least as long as the exotic matter lasts. The exotic matter has a standard decay rate allowing it to maintain the worm hole for a period of time that we can measure.

The general sat down and sipped his whiskey with obvious pleasure. He paused as he studied Pat’s reaction. Pat, that’s not all. Some very interesting things have occurred. He paused to clear his throat. "The worm hole is traversable. And, we can not only send things back in time, but also to any location we choose. We discovered that, using the worm hole, location is relatively simple, given power constraints and the amount of exotic matter available. I won’t bore you with the details.

"We devised a test in which we would send a camera back in time to a remote location in an isolated area of the complex. We determined the time and exact location for the transportation. Fifteen seconds before the device was supposed to appear it popped into view. It was within a few inches of the target – although partly buried in the floor. When we actually sent the original device a half an hour later we