It sounds like thunder. Thunder so loud it shatters windows and eardrums in equal measure. Jackson, a new recruit in the Radicals gang, slips out of their base and comes back holding a slip of paper.
"They're dropppin' paper on us, threats. They say they're moving in tomorrow, and that we better get out," he announces, and the gangsters and their families all look to the leadership, who share a look of their own.
The paper is handed over and looked at, the message is received and understood. Faces grow ashen. "Those...idiots outside have made their choice. We stay here, we hold up, we let the storm blow over."
The decision made, people relax. At least, they try to. Games of cards turn into drawn knives, one baby starts crying and that sets off others, words as sharp as claws cut through the air. Drugs are brought out, tiny vials of sleeping powder are slipped into water and whiskey and beer and passed around. Just a little, just enough to take the edge off.
Outside, the stars stare down at the scene, just as they have countless times before. The only exception is when one is briefly blocked by a passing shadow.
The sun rises over a city gripped by chaos. The police and their allied militias are largely defeated, rounded up and trapped in basements or shot out of hand by angered, undisciplined fighters. The army remains outside, slowly spreading a cordon, rife with unrest. The JIA huddles in their building, under siege, slowly getting picked off by snipers and drone bombs.
But that was all true during the night. But now there is an added element - refugees. The leaflets have been read by everyone. They promise annihilation. Civilians, strikers, soldiers, all tremble in the face of the threat, written in stark black and white.
Some begin to flee. Some attempt to halt them. Others look to more desperate measures. Suggestions for hostages and human shields are discounted. A proposal to cut off the trigger fingers of the imprisoned fascists before setting them loose is proposed, then dismissed.
A few members of the Executive Committee slip away, looking to escape the city and continue the struggle. The televisions show a world tepidly condemning more bloody violence in a backwater, foreign powers more interested in their jockeying than anything useful. The streams show more revolts, more unrest. They report assassinations, bombings, and sabotage. A power station has its connections cut. Mayors and judges are shot or stabbed. The Governing Chairman shelters in his suite as soldiers in hazard suits clear the surroundings with less-lethal toxic gas.
But the bulk of the military, the loyal sections, the forces trusted with the cutting-edge equipment, the Special Brigades and the IMPs and the Extraordinary Use Division are gathering, under the cover of the air force. Orders go out for the regular forces to pull back and let them do the work. They aren't reliable enough for this work.
The sun climbs higher into the sky. The rebellion spreads. The loyal military gets into position. A request for negotiations goes out. It is ignored. A request for time to evacuate civilians from the zone of battle goes out. It is refused. The military will not allow agents of communism to slip through the net. They will drive a stake through the heart of the vampire ideology and kill it, this time for good. New Chicago will be destroyed. They will suffer no compromise in this.
It's high noon as the battle begins. Swarms of drones and cruise missiles lead the way, joined by bombers. They are met with what resistance can be brought to bear: drones fly up into the ground to try and intercept the attackers, flare balloons rise up to try misleading targeting sensors, and ground-fire from what precious equipment the uprising has stabs upward. Distributed stockpiles of necessities are established, the subways and basements are turned into improvised shelters, and decentralized squads hunker down to ready themselves for the onslaught.
It's not enough. Bombs and rockets and missiles fall and blow craters into buildings and streets. The few remaining JIA agents perish to a misaimed rocket meant to break the siege, the dazed besiegers fall to the next one. Apartment buildings and skyscrapers shatter under sustained bombardment. Bridges collapse, tunnels tremble, fires ignite.
But after long, agonizing minutes, it ends, and the survivors start to raise their heads and prepare for the ground troops who will be coming in any minute now...
Instead, the next wave, launched from further away, arrives. The full might of the military is concentrated on this one city. It might not be good sense, it might not be the most effective approach for defeating an increasingly widespread rebellion, but the order has been given and it will be carried out.
Countless die in the waves of airborne death. Scattered among the long-stockpiled ordinance is the occasional delivery of freshly-made pamphlets, printed off in the minutes before the battle began:
"You deserve this."
"You shouldn't have rebelled."
"You will not be allowed to destroy this nation again."
"We will bury you, as we buried your predecessors, and your predecessor's predecessors."
No one bothers to read them, but the message has been sent. For six hours the bombardment lasts.
Later records will determine that the mutiny had begun spreading in the fifth hour, but it was during the sixth hour that the army's air assets began to launch. They launched in defense of the city. They were few in number, many weren't fully armed or fueled, and the air control systems they depended on were being jammed. But they stood, and they fought, and they died.
The confusion bought breathing room for the New Chicago revolutionaries, inspired other mutinies, and delayed the ground component of the offensive.
In the end, most of the mutineers died or fell back into the city, but by then night had fallen. Stockpiles of munitions were exhausted, the intensity of actual combat had exhausted the pilots, and fuel shortages were beginning to take effect.
The night would pass in a bloody sort of peace, full of the screams of the wounded and the cries of the grieving and desperate efforts to triage the shattered city so that the coming battle would be a victory.
The sun rose, and battle began once more. Tanks and IFVs advanced in close, supported by foot soldiers, most wielding rifles, machine guns, rocket launchers, or flamethrowers, many festooned with grenades and coordination equipment. A few came wearing specially designed, cutting-edge "combat suits" designed to turn them into bipedal tanks capable of entering buildings and securing them without fear of bullets.
There were holes in their ranks, and they were tense. Many thought they should go back home and fight elsewhere, where the revolutionaries were having greater success. But they had orders, and they obeyed.
So they began one of the greatest nightmares of every soldier: urban warfare. Every crumbled building was a strongpoint that needed to be reduced, every open stretch of tarmac a lane for a sniper. There was no safety, no shelter. Artillery reports echoed, petrol bombs turned soldiers into living torches, minefields and barbed wire fences cut them off the most direct avenues, forcing them into winding routes, while radio and networked communications became full of confusion and falsehood. Nowhere was a safe direction. Attack could come from anywhere, even above by virtue of a drone or shell, or below by way of ambushes from the sewers.
They were attacking New Chicago, grinding themselves down, bleeding for every inch of ground in a seemingly pointless battle as their allies were losing elsewhere. Some snapped from terror and threw their hands up. Some started slowing the pace, hesitating to enter yet more danger. Some turned and went to fight other battles.
The sun rose and the sun set and rose once more as the defenders took horrid casualties but the attackers suffered as well. They suffered in shattering urban warfare, they suffered in agony as they saw cities around the nation fall to revolution.
The battle did not end in one decisive moment. There was no massive retreat or grand surrender. The battle ended with a thousand desertions, ten thousand retreats, one hundred thousand deaths. The battle ended as units and individuals fled, to hide or other, better fights. The revolutionaries were too exhausted to pursue, and so let their greatest foe survive, something they would dearly regret for many years to come.
But many thought their victory was now inevitable since the survival of New Chicago. Many sought to rebuild that shattered city.
In one factory, a reconciliation took place. The Radicals gang met the Radical Reconstruction Organization, survival begetting the reforging of ties. And in the factory below, the heart of both organizations hummed, undamaged by some miracle. The dead were mourned and buried, the living looked forward to the future.
The secret of the time machine was revealed to...
[] A select few allies among the Provisional Executive Committee, the leadership of the New Chicago revolutionaries, just enough to keep some scraps heading towards the Radical Reconstruction group's special initiatives while avoiding greater entanglements.
[] The entirety of the Provisional Executive Committee, leading to a greater commitment of resources but also more interest in the specific direction of the project.
[] The revolutionaries as a whole. There is no longer any need to keep it a secret, let the world know.
