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Freefall
Twelve year old Richard Hawkins loses his entire family, and is forced to join up to fight for his country against staggering odds, and frustrating civilian apathy. As Richard comes of age he must train for war, and fight against the enemy, but also try to understand the confusing, and often contradictory political situation that is often more dangerous than combat.
Toward the middle of the twenty-first century the Unites States was engaged in war in Central America against an alliance of Marxists and drug cartels that created an insurgency to conquer the hemisphere. The U.S. military defended the Panama Canal to contain the insurgents, but Designer Plagues swept out of the Middle East like wildfire to kill four fifths of world population in less than a year. The extreme lethality of the plagues was primarily the result of Russian weaponized smallpox obtained by Middle Eastern fanatics who used it against Israel, but once the Genie was out of the bottle other opportunistic diseases made the Middle East a barren wasteland, and world civilization crashed.
The United States saved roughly one third of its population by mounting a crash program to develop immunizations to halt further contagion, and distribute them gratis to the world, but not in time to prevent another Dark Age in Asia and Europe. Much American technology survived, and the political system under constitutional government managed to barely weather the storm.
In the mean time the totalitarians used forced breeding to maximize their population, armed a huge conscripted Army with weapons left over from drug profits, and are promising a Jubilee in the land of Norte Americano wealth and technology. As they did before WWII, smart politicians, in the majority in congress, deny the threat, and resist crash mobilization as a threat to their traditional vote buying reelection campaigns.
The remnants of the Unites States Army must rely on high-tech force multipliers to defend against the invasion they know is coming. A very small force of Tactical Area Controllers are courageous, all but naked warriors defending the Southwest against the guerrillas who seek to terrorize and soften the border states. Richard is determined to become one of them.
Toward the middle of the twenty-first century the Unites States was engaged in war in Central America against an alliance of Marxists and drug cartels that created an insurgency to conquer the hemisphere. The U.S. military defended the Panama Canal to contain the insurgents, but Designer Plagues swept out of the Middle East like wildfire to kill four fifths of world population in less than a year. The extreme lethality of the plagues was primarily the result of Russian weaponized smallpox obtained by Middle Eastern fanatics who used it against Israel, but once the Genie was out of the bottle other opportunistic diseases made the Middle East a barren wasteland, and world civilization crashed.
The United States saved roughly one third of its population by mounting a crash program to develop immunizations to halt further contagion, and distribute them gratis to the world, but not in time to prevent another Dark Age in Asia and Europe. Much American technology survived, and the political system under constitutional government managed to barely weather the storm.
In the mean time the totalitarians used forced breeding to maximize their population, armed a huge conscripted Army with weapons left over from drug profits, and are promising a Jubilee in the land of Norte Americano wealth and technology. As they did before WWII, smart politicians, in the majority in congress, deny the threat, and resist crash mobilization as a threat to their traditional vote buying reelection campaigns.
The remnants of the Unites States Army must rely on high-tech force multipliers to defend against the invasion they know is coming. A very small force of Tactical Area Controllers are courageous, all but naked warriors defending the Southwest against the guerrillas who seek to terrorize and soften the border states. Richard is determined to become one of them.
308 pages, Kindle Edition
First published July 15, 2012
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