Chronos: Coming In Hot, #3

By Albert Valiaveedu

The last installment of Albert Valiaveedu's 'Coming in Hot' Trilogy finishes the story with daring characters. Meet Lucien Vicaro, a French Capitaine in the French Air Force, Ava Ellis, a brilliant theoretical physicist, and James Rae, a man who misses his family. Premiering on Veterans Day 2020, Chronos explores the politics and complexities of the near future.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Albert Valiaveedu
• Release date: Oct 27, 2020
• ISBN: 9781393058212

Book preview

Table of Contents

Chronos (Coming In Hot, #3)

CHAPTER 1

CHAPTER 2

CHAPTER 3

CHAPTER 4

CHAPTER 5

CHAPTER 6

CHAPTER 7

CHAPTER 8

CHAPTER 9

CHAPTER 10

CHAPTER 11

CHAPTER 12

CHAPTER 13

CHAPTER 14

CHAPTER 15

CHAPTER 16

CHAPTER 17

CHAPTER 18

CHAPTER 19

CHAPTER 20

CHAPTER 21

EPILOGUE

Coming in Hot

Book 3: Chronos

Ending the Trilogy where Old Decisions Haunt the Near Future

By: Albert Valiaveedu

Copyright © 2020 Albert Valiaveedu

All rights reserved.

This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, businesses, places, events, locales, and incidents are either the products of the author’s imagination or used in a fictitious manner. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, or actual events is purely coincidental.

This book is dedicated to Derek Wood and everyone else who is making the world a better place by doing good things every day.

Dude. I liked it way better the third time.

―Mr. Derek Wood

CHAPTER 1

November 10, 2050

TENSIONS WERE RISING AROUND THE WORLD.

The People’s Republic of China has all but occupied Sub-Saharan Africa and Chinese companies have relentlessly tapped African resources. This investment into African nations greatly increased wealth and prosperity in the region, leading to an unprecedented growth in infrastructure and education. The average GDP per capita in Africa has exploded past $10,000 USD and diminished mortality rates to unprecedented levels. However, the Chinese spheres of influence forced African countries to trade only with Chinese companies. Mandarin Chinese is now the first language taught in most public schools in Sudan. While China reaped the resources of Sub-Saharan Africa, they began to push further north, coming into odds with the Union of European Nations.

The Union of European Nations (UEN) has become a much stronger entity. By enforcing the universal language of German, the UEN considers itself a single unified nation, as opposed to a collection of very politically and culturally diverse countries. Founded in 2031 after the collapse of the European Union, the UEN stretched from the Atlantic to the Pacific, having a long border with China to the south. The border itself, surprisingly, was not a source of conflict. The expanding Chinese ambitions in North Africa were.

The latest battleground is Morocco, a member of the Union of European Nations since 2045. Since Morocco is at a key geopolitical location, a Chinese occupation of Morocco would be advantageous for Chinese access to the Mediterranean Sea, circumventing the European controlled Strait of Gibraltar. The Europeans exacted a heavy toll on all Chinese imports through Gibraltar and the Suez Canal, which have been steadily increasing and threatening European business interests. However, the People’s Republic of China was not the only threat to the Union of European Nations.

England was never part of the UEN. Because of the strained relationship between the British and the UEN, especially with France, several nationalist terrorist groups have formed within England. With the UEN having the world’s largest arsenal, England was also faced with a large and nearby threat to its national security. The United States of America, stretching to the northernmost islands of Canada down to the Panama Canal, had the resources to protect Great Britain. Therefore, in 2035, England was admitted as the 55th state of the United States of America across the Atlantic. When England joined the USA, these terrorist groups combined into the British Nationalist Army. The BNA is a terrorist group that believes foreign influence is destroying English culture and the international influence it once had, with their crosshairs on France. They also do not believe that the United States could protect their country, which is not a baseless accusation. In recent years, the United States had begun to fall behind in its military and foreign reach. With strong isolation policies and the lack of major threats to the continent, the United States shrunk its military. Most of its overseas bases have closed and their land has been handed over to its respective countries. Because of this, the British Nationalist Army have been garnering more and more power in England and has become a large threat to international security. The BNA would have been put down years ago, if not for the protection it has from the British Government.

Conversely, while the UEN General Assembly decided that Great Britain is not a significant threat, even with the backing of the superpower across the Atlantic, France did. The French were not comfortable with a potential adversary so close to its shores and saw the General Assembly decision as the German-controlled UEN ignoring their concerns. France believed that Germany did not care much about the British threat because it was too far from their borders to be an issue. France needed to remove the British threat and soon.

While the world seems to be on the brink of another World War, there was some good news. After a closely averted terrorist attack in 2025, along with a chain of several nuclear reactor failures, all nuclear-powered countries have collectively agreed that the excavation or enrichment of Uranium-233, Uranium-235 and Plutonium-239 are considered war crimes and infringements of international law, resulting in the complete elimination of nuclear weapons and nuclear energy. Research and development of any nuclear process is illegal, with the strictly regulated exception of ionizing radiation, which can only be used for medical purposes and food irradiation. Solar and wind power have both become much more reliable resources of energy. With solar panels reaching 95% efficiency, nuclear energy is simply unnecessarily dangerous. Existing nuclear reactors have been decommissioned and nuclear weapons have been dismantled. The remaining research papers and books on the subject have been destroyed. It would be illegal for any country to create a nuclear weapon, as would be finding a nuclear weapon and not immediately destroying it.

CHAPTER 2

November 10, 2050

IT HAD BEEN SIX MONTHS since the Volga Hydroelectric Station Reconstruction Project began. As part of the Europäische Infrastruktur Initiative (European Infrastructure Initiative), the UEN decided to redesign all aging energy infrastructure to meet the rapidly increasing power demands. A €500 billion price tag was considered a necessary