Resistance (34 page)
‘Qwm Sect,’ she answered simply.
‘I’m Dave ur Horde,’ he smiled wanly. ‘Pleased to meet you, orc-sister.’
‘I think we’re supposed to be blood enemies, not allies.’
‘
Dar ienamic
?’
‘Yeah, that’s it.’
Dave nodded, mostly to himself, trying to find the energy to take control of this clusterfuck.
‘So what do you say we get our bosses to work out some sort of detente while we get a few things straight.’
The smile disappeared from her eyes.
‘Your bosses want me dead.’
‘Yeah, well, they’re not gonna be real happy with me either. Come on. Worth a try. You can always just warp out if it doesn’t take.’
‘Warp out? You mean, like this?’ She gestured around them, taking in the frozen city.
‘Yeah.’ He knitted his brows. ‘I’ve never held it as long as this.’
‘Nor I,’ she agreed.
‘So you can warp on your own?’
‘Not like this. This is you.’
‘Huh. I don’t get it. I thought you did this. Look, we got stuff to talk about, Karen, but we’re going to need to chill some folk the fuck out first.’
She grimaced.
‘I will need to explain why the third secretary is in so many pieces now.’
‘And I need to prepare Trinder for disappointment. At least he’s still in one piece. Can we agree to meet in an hour? And if shit gets out of hand, we go to warp and catch up and talk to each other without starting a war this time?’
She eyed him as though weighing up the potential downsides.
‘An hour,’ she agreed.
But an hour later, the city was already at war.
Acknowledgements
Who to thank first?
Dr Who
, I think. It drove me nuts as a kid that guns seemed to have no effect at all on monsters. Like, why did Brigadier Lethbridge-Stewart and UNIT even bother? The Dave
Hooper series is an attempt, in part, to rectify that.
I’d also like to thank the producers of
Reign of Fire
, who annoyed me greatly with movie posters promising all sorts of dragon vs helicopter gunship awesomeness. And failed to deliver.
Less flippantly I have to thank my ur Champion publishers Cate Paterson, Tricia Narwani, Haylee Nash, Deonie Fiford and the incomparable Alex Lloyd who all took up sword and shield with me on this long, strange quest. To their efforts add the sage advice of BattleMarshal S.M. ur Stirling, who helped me out of a difficult tactical conundrum.
To my wizardly agent, Russ ur Galen dar SGG, I offer tribute from the highest blood pot.
And for my armsman, SF Murphy, acknowledgement of his skill with blades and fire staff. His
gurikh
is second to none.
Finally, for my nestlings, Jane, Anna and Thomas . . . You are my Realm.
About John Birmingham
John Birmingham is the author of the cult classic
He Died With a Felafel in His Hand
; the award-winning history
Leviathan
; the Axis of Time
series:
Weapons of Choice
,
Designated Targets
and
Final Impact
, and the
Stalin’s Hammer: Rome
ebook; the Disappearance trilogy:
Without Warning
,
After America
and
Angels of Vengeance
; and the first Dave Hooper novel:
Emergence
.
Between writing books he contributes to a wide range of newspapers and magazines on topics as diverse as the future of media and national security. Before becoming a writer he began his working life as a research officer with the Defence Department’s Office of Special Clearances and Records.
You can find John at his blog,
http://cheeseburgergothic.com
and on Twitter
@johnbirmingham
. You can also buy his books at
http://johnbirmingham.net
.
Want to save the world? Join the conversation on Twitter at #TheDave.
Also by John Birmingham
The Axis of Time series
Weapons of Choice: World War 2.1
Designated Targets: World War 2.2
Final Impact: World War 2.3
Stalin’s Hammer: Rome
(ebook)
The Disappearance trilogy
Without Warning
After America
Angels of Vengeance
The Dave Hooper series
Emergence
More bestselling fiction available from John Birmingham
WEAPONS OF CHOICE: WORLD WAR 2.1
A near-future military experiment thrusts a multinational armada back to 1942, right into the middle of the US naval task force speeding toward Midway Atoll – and what was to be the most spectacular Allied triumph of World War II.
The 21st-century sailors are a shocking spectre for these veterans of Pearl Harbor – men who have never seen a helicopter or a nuclear weapon, and who have never encountered an African American colonel or a female Australian submarine commander. But they respect the armada’s awesome firepower, and what it may mean to the War.
Initial jubilation is quickly doused by a shocking realisation – other ships may have made the trip – and may be in the hands of the Japanese. What happens next is anybody’s guess . . . and everybody’s nightmare.
DESIGNATED TARGETS: WORLD WAR 2.2
The nightmare of the Transition has pitched a whole world into chaos, as the great powers of 1942 scramble to build the weapons of tomorrow.
But the military crisis is only one part of a ruptured history.
Awareness of the future is sweeping the globe, and many of the people of 1942 are split between desire for the freedoms their descendants enjoy, and fear of the society which awaits them. Then Japan invades Australia, foreign agents begin a campaign of terror in the USA, and Germany prepares for an all-out attack on Britain.
The 21st-century forces must resort to the most extreme measures yet and face a future rife with possibilities – all of them apocalyptic.
FINAL IMPACT: WORLD WAR 2.3
As history reaches a tipping point, the forces unleashed by the Transition threaten to destroy the world. Hitler and Tojo race towards an atom bomb. Stalin plots to tear down the future and rebuild it in his image. And the Allies begin their Great Crusade with weapons and knowledge from the next century. What price will Kolhammer and his people pay for disrupting their past?
STALIN’S HAMMER: ROME (ebook)
Ten years have passed since Admiral Kolhammer’s 21st century battlefleet was dragged into a wormhole and thrown across oceans of time, emerging with disastrous consequences and shattering the history of the Second World War.
Hitler and the Nazis have fallen, Kolhammer sits in the White House, but Stalin rules half of Europe and Asia. The great Soviet engines of state power turn and burn to ‘set history right’. Not just of the war, but of all future time.
In Rome with his lover Julia Duffy, an older, mellower Prince Harry is drawn into Stalin’s plans when a simple game of spies goes horribly wrong. Underneath the eternal city, former Spetsnaz officer Pavel Ivanov fights a running battle with the NKVD’s executioner-in-chief as Stalin’s minions fight to preserve the secret of a weapon that could destroy the West with one, fearsome blow.
In
Stalin’s Hammer: Rome
, the first of a series of serialised novellas, John Birmingham returns to the world he destroyed along with the US Fleet at Midway in the Axis of Time series.
WITHOUT WARNING
A wave of inexplicable energy has slammed into America. And destroyed it.
What will the world do without its last Superpower?
For the jihadists, Allah has performed a miracle. For the US and its allies, Armageddon has arrived. Australasia, far from the noxious waste darkening Europe’s skies, beckons as a possible oasis.
Who and what will fill the void?
AFTER AMERICA
‘Our world went to hell on March 14, 2003.’
Four years after an inexplicable wave of energy decimated the American mainland, and then just as inexplicably disappeared a year later, US President James Kipper is no closer to explaining the catastrophe to the traumatised survivors.
In a decaying New York City, an assassination attempt on the President prompts the suspicion that the looters overrunning Manhattan may be more organised and sinister than previously thought.
Working on a farm in Texas to earn his citizenship, Miguel Pieraro believes in the promise of the New America. That is until tragedy cuts through his family.
In the English countryside, Echelon agent Caitlin Monroe must once again fight for her life, a sharp reminder that her nemesis is active again.
Then out of the smoking ruin of the Middle East comes an enemy that will be Kipper’s toughest challenge yet. The battle for the Wild East is just beginning, but does this New America, and its gun-shy President, have the strength of will to destroy the past in order to save the future?
ANGELS OF VENGEANCE
Jed Culver, President Kipper’s sword and shield, knows that what is right and what is best are rarely the same thing.
To some, Mad Jackson Blackstone, rogue governor of the Republic of Texas, is slowly but surely destroying the United States.
In New York, Caitlin Monroe’s one shot at vengeance may lie buried beneath the rubble of the city, but she has to be certain.
Unknown killers hunt Lady Julianne Balwyn in the anarchic, violent freeport of Darwin.
Sofia Pieraro is all alone in the empty heart of a haunted land, revenge her only reason to keep moving.
After many years the long trail of the dead will bring them all together.
The final battle for America and the new world will not be fought with armies, but in the quiet and the dark, by individuals, driven towards vengeance and annihilation.
Previously in the DAVE HOOPER series from bestselling author John Birmingham
EMERGENCE
‘Monsters,’ said Vince Martinelli. ‘There are monsters on the rig, Dave.’
Dave Hooper has the hangover from hell, a demonic ex-wife and the claws of the tax office sinking into him. So the last thing he needs is an explosion at the off-shore oil rig where he works.
But this is no ordinary industrial accident, and despite the news reports, Dave knows that terrorists aren’t to blame for the disaster. He knows because he has killed one of the
things
responsible.
When he wakes up in a hospital bed guarded by Navy SEALs, he realises this is more than just a bad acid trip. It all really happened. Yet his shock is cut short by a startling selfdiscovery; his contact with the creature has transformed the overweight, balding safety manager into something else entirely. A goddamned superhero.
Then he learns the attack on the rig is only the first.
Next in the DAVE HOOPER series from bestselling author John Birmingham
ASCENDANCE
There were too many of them. Lucille was nowhere Dave could see and only a faint mournful sigh reached him from where she lay . . . It was time to die, the hero’s journey over.
New York is on fire, the streets are overrun, and the demon horde is feasting. With the world’s greatest city in chaos, all eyes are on Dave Hooper, the superhero destined to save mankind.
But hero or not, Dave is just one man and he’s short of allies. He soon finds himself relying on Karen Warat: art dealer and Russian deep cover agent. Smart, dangerous and armed with a magic sword, Dave knows not to trust her. He also knows that without her, New York will fall.
While the United States military try desperately to hold off the Horde, Dave and Karen realise that the monsters have a powerful new weapon – one of their best warfare strategists is working for them. With the enemy using the military’s own tactics against them, defeat seems imminent.
To have any chance of survival, mankind needs its Champion more than ever. The world needs Dave to become the hero he was meant to be.
First published 2015 in Macmillan by Pan Macmillan Australia Pty Ltd
1 Market Street, Sydney, New South Wales, Australia, 2000
Copyright © John Birmingham 2015
The moral right of the author has been asserted.
All rights reserved. This publication (or any part of it) may not be reproduced or transmitted, copied, stored, distributed or otherwise made available by any person or entity (including Google, Amazon or similar organisations), in any form (electronic, digital, optical, mechanical) or by any means (photocopying, recording, scanning or otherwise) without prior written permission from the publisher.
This ebook may not include illustrations and/or photographs that may have been in the print edition.
Cataloguing-in-Publication entry is available
from the National Library of Australia
EPUB format: 9781743518229
Typeset by Post Pre-press Group
Cover design: Xou Creative
Cover images: Getty Images
The characters in this book are fictitious and any resemblance to real persons, living or dead, is purely coincidental.
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