Shattered Boundaries

This is my first story and constructive criticism is most definitely appreciated.

-------------------------------------------------------

Prologue:

"What doesn't kill you... leaves you scarred and broken" Unknown NAU Soldier

The year is 2114 and the world is in ruins. Nearly two decades ago the peoples of Earth were ready to celebrate the turn of the century, not knowing the terror that would befall their nations. It began with a botched assassination attempt at a time when nuclear proliferation was a fact of life on every continent. The United States of America was steadily losing ground to the emerging superpowers of Asia. China and India were spreading their influence across the world and the U.S could not sustain its military dominance for much longer. The only way to curb the growing influence of Asia was to create a disaster in their own backyards....Perhaps that is why it was so easy to blame the Americans...

Despite all efforts, North Korea had never been successfully brought to heel and remained a powder keg waiting for the spark that would ignite it. That spark came on June 17, 2089 when the North Korean dictator, known simply as the Red Death, was performing an inspection of his troops. Unknown assassins had slipped in amongst the soldiers and waited for him. Nobody is sure exactly what occurred next, but the attempt was thwarted and a large explosion incinerated the bodies of the attackers. A wounded and very fearful dictator was the end result. Despite a lack of evidence, the United States was quickly blamed and before the other Asian nations could put a halt to its actions, North Korea launched its nuclear arsenal at America and South Korea.

Despite the ensuing exchange, the war could have been contained to just the three countries. It was a malfunctioning American ICBM that set the course of the war in stone. Its target had been a North Korean military base just far enough from the Chinese border that it would not cause problems with the rival superpower. Unfortunately the internal computer had been set with the wrong coordinates and instead obliterated a small Chinese city on the wrong side of the border....

The Chinese quickly retaliated, but with America still holding a far larger nuclear arsenal they knew destruction would be inevitable. In an effort to keep the surrounding nations from annexing what was to remain of China, both Russia and India were attacked. The same mentality held for each subsequent nation that was attacked, creating a domino effect that engulfed every major country.

The advanced nuclear weaponry created Electromagnetic pulses of such size and power that communications from each country hit were quickly lost. Attempts to rely on communications satellites were also in vain as they were a prime military targets.

If communications had not been lost so quickly and completely, the nations that attacked the United States would have been far fewer in number. A highly classified project by the Americans saw two new secret weapons being produced and deployed around the nation, both on land and in space. A variance on the rail gun theory had led to a magnetic projectile weapon that would launch munitions at unheard of velocities. The second weapon, that was far more effective against nuclear missiles, was stumbled upon when researchers were attempting to develop a targeting system for the aforementioned MP weapons. They termed it as a magnetic "laser", although it had little to do with lasers in the traditional sense. The most easily understood explanation was that the weapon could project a small but intense magnetic field on a target. It served its original purpose by drawing the oppositely charged rounds of MP weapons to the target, but was also found to disrupt even the most shielded circuitry in military ordinance. Magnetic Projectile cannons were deployed around the coasts of the nation and Magnetic Laser equipped satellites were launched in a ring around the continental U.S. a few years before the start of the war.

When the smoke had cleared from humanities most coordinated attempt at inducing Armageddon, only three neighboring nations were still known to stand. The ring of defensive satellites had not only protected the continental United States, but had extended as far north as the populated areas of Canada, and as far south as Mexico city. Initially, a good number of Caribbean nations had also survived but with the three North American nations hoarding all food and materials, their governments quickly collapsed in the face of sweeping famines and riots. The North American nations had not come out of the war unscathed though. Every major city south of the Mexican capital had been hit with Brazilian, and the occasional Argentinean, nuclear weapons. America had lost communication with its forces that had not made it back to the country in time while also losing Hawaii and much of Alaska to intense bombardment by Asian nuclear submarines and stealth bombers. Canada's civilian population was relatively unharmed but the majority of its armed forces were lost in Europe in defense of its allies. America was the first of the three remaining nations to institute martial law. The sudden loss of trade, coupled with the collapse of the economy had the nation in chaos. The others quickly mimicked these actions and all essentially became police states.

Five years later, America and Canada became sufficiently stable that their governments began resembling their prewar democracies. Mexico was not so lucky, not due to internal forces, but due to the heavy influx of refugees from the South American continent. The country's resources were strained to the limit in the attempt to keep itself secure, allowing the refugees to enter would quickly collapse their reconstructed economy and deplete their food stores. The U.S saw the implications of a fallen Mexico, and quickly moved to assist its neighbor in exchange for a reinstitution of the North American Free Trade Agreement.

In two years time, the continental divide had been secured with the occupation of Central America by the two new allies. Canada had been growing increasingly wary of its southern neighbors as the level of cooperation between them had reached the point that Mexico seemed to become more like another region of the United States on the level of New England or the Midwest, rather than an independent nation. It seemed that a new conflict was going to erupt as Canada had many resources that its neighbors lacked and was still nursing its depleted military.

Tensions were growing and the Canadian government saw the writing on the wall. While they still had bargaining power left, they quickly drafted and sent a diplomatic proposal that surprised the populations of all three nations. The proposal outlined a union of the continent. It suggested that the current national governments be dissolved and a new government be elected from all three nations. In an effort to appeal to the Americans, the processes and structure of the new government closely mirrored the current American model. Although it was termed as a union of the three nations, everyone saw it for what it was. The Americans would eventually attempt to annex Canada, but this way they would at least be represented in the ruling government. Though there was a long period of debate and fine tuning, the proposal was eventually accepted and the North American Union was born...

********************

Chapter One:

"WE DID EVERYTHING WE COULD DAMMIT!!!" Last words of an Irish politician. Executed immediately after by a mob of his countrymen.

"Son of a Bitch, MREs again? When are we going to get some real food?!" Private First Class Jonathan White complained to his squad mates.

"Shut up and eat, at least we got it better than the poor souls in that last town", Corporal Thomas Anderson retorted and then shuddered at the memory of the people clinging to him and begging for food. He did not speak French but one did not need a translator to understand what they so desperately wanted. Their distended bellies and emaciated bodies plucked at his heart strings, but it was those sunken eyes, that held a rekindled spark of hope at their presence, that haunted him. Their march through the town had raised the spirits of its inhabitants but they had been destined to be crushed once more when the soldiers kept moving through.

"Just hope those Drapeau Bleu units we're scouting for have some extra food with them", Anderson muttered.

The mood around the camp fire now somber, the North American soldiers ate in silence. Their squad was a scout unit attached to the 34th infantry regiment of the NAU. The demand for more soldiers meant that everyone in the division, including their squad, was originally a conscript with little formal military training. Their presence in Europe was an effort to provide the western coast of France with a stable government, though the reasoning behind this was far less noble than it appeared. A few of the city states and regional governments that had cropped up were producing ships and attempting to raid the North American coast for desperately needed food. At this point in time they were easily caught far away from the mainland, but it was only a matter of time before the ships were being produced in enough numbers that some would slip through.

Anderson's squad was on loan to the French government that had been selected as the "legitimate" government of former France. They were called the Drapeau Bleu, Blue Flag, due to their adoption of a nearly solid blue standard. The entire 34th was expendable, that was the only reason they were sent to assist the French so closely. At the moment they were searching for the town that some raiders were using as a base of operations. The raiders were organized enough that it was suspected that they had at least a couple ex-military men in the group. Whether or not it turned out to be true though, they were causing enough damage to concern the Bleu's.

"Ok boys, put that fire out. It's getting close to dark and we don't need to be giving our position away", Staff Sergeant Scott ordered as he rejoined his men. "Anderson, you and White have first watch."

"With all due respect Sir, why are we holing up so early?" one of the men asked.

"Because the enemy knows the lay of the land a hell of a lot better than we do and I don't want to get my ass shot off, private" the Sergeant growled.

Gesturing to White, Anderson and his squad mate climbed into nearby trees to get a good vantage point over the surrounding area. Even though large swaths of France had become uninhabited, the land was still tame enough that a patrolling soldier was easy to spot. Anderson settled into a relatively comfortable position and activated his retinal displays. The NAU government might not be willing to pay up for proper training and armaments but the cerebral implants each soldier carried inside were worth many times their weight in gold. In the eyes of the government they were worth being installed in each soldier because they saved untold billions on having to equip and transport replacements for dead soldiers on the front lines. Anderson did not like the idea that the bureaucrats were more interested in keeping costs down than protecting his fellow soldiers, but he could not complain about the usefulness of the implants. Ranging in abilities from providing night vision and health readouts, to tracking squad positions and providing targeting information, they were the wet dreams of soldiers from previous eras.

At the moment he was not detecting anything on the night vision or infrared displays so he took the time to go over their mission specs again. The raiders they were trying to track seemed to have retreated pretty far inland. Division Command had ordered them to follow as far as the outskirts of Paris if necessary, but they were not to enter the ruined city for fear of radiation poisoning or continue any deeper into the country. He had no problem with those orders, being cutoff from any supplies on a continent where a loaf of bread was more valuable than a thousand rounds of ammo was not his idea of a good time. As for the raiders themselves, there was not a lot of information. The only description they had was from a half crazed witness that kept telling Anderson's squad about a pack of grotesque looking creatures. The story was complete bullshit of course, animals do not slice the throats of men with knives and then lay them out in neat little rows.

Amidst his reverie, the corporal's retinal displays suddenly flashed an alert. It had detected movement by a relatively large object but had been unable to track it. Looking at the spot where the motion had been recorded, he could not pick up anything even with infrared. He was wary though, there was a dip in the land where a small stream ran through nearby. Any person could easily have hidden there. Sending an alert to White, Anderson considered waking his sergeant or some of the other squad members. His displays did not lie but they very well could have just been tripped by a large piece of trash blowing in the wind.

A few more minutes passed in silence and he had just begun to relax again when another alert popped up. His retinal displays had tracked the target just long enough to confirm that it was not simply a piece of trash blowing in the wind. Hefting his rifle into position, Anderson immediately sent alerts to his squad mate in the other tree and his sergeant sleeping down below. Confirmation signals were quickly sent in response and the corporal centered himself, as the sensations of the cool wind playing against his bare neck and the rough bark of the tree digging into his skin faded away.

Patiently he kept the rifle leveled on the area that he had last seen motion in and he was soon rewarded. Breaking from cover, a large indistinguishable form charged at his comrades on the ground. It ran on four feet but was easily larger than most full grown humans. Low thuds shook the ground at each step, a testament to the creature's weight. Anderson did not pause for anymore proof of intent. Whatever it was, it was hostile and Anderson squeezed the trigger on his rifle. The animal went down in a heap while his once sleeping squad grabbed their weapons and dove for cover at the sound of his gunshots.

After the sudden flurry of movement, everything went quiet again. The soldiers remained motionless and scanned for any other threats but none presented themselves. Now that the danger to his men seemed to be over, Sergeant Scott began issuing orders.

"Rodriguez and Lee, check out that... whatever the hell it is, but don't get too near, goddamn sensors won't confirm whether it's dead or not. As for the rest of you, spread out and keep watch, the gunfire might have attracted some unwanted attention."

The men moved to follow orders and as the two soldiers approached the carcass of the hopefully dead animal they were struck by its unearthliness. The creature was completely furless but was vaguely reminiscent of a gigantic bulldog. The hide was leathery and covered in various growths and pockmarks, with the head seeming far to large for the body. As their eyes continued their inspection, the soldiers winced when they came to the joints, there was no way that they were meant to bend correctly. They came to the most disturbing feature last though. Where its eyes should be, there was simply a thick fold of skin that spilled over its snout. The damned thing was blind but had still gone directly for them!

Completing their inspection, the two men turned and began walking back to the group. At their first step all hell broke loose. Everyone's vision was suddenly lit up like a fireworks display by a flood of motion alerts. It seemed the night itself had come alive as more of the creatures charged at them from out of the darkness. Due to their perches in the treetops, White and Anderson were the first to begin shooting. Their rounds ripped into the creatures chasing down Rodriquez and Lee, but the attack had caught everyone off guard and they reached the unfortunate soldiers by sheer weight of numbers. The remaining squad members opened fire and a hail of bullets and magnetic projectiles tore the animals apart, but everyone knew it was far too late.

"GODDAMIT!!" The Sergeant yelled into the night sky. Taking a second to regain his composure he continued speaking, "Whoever has the area motion sensors, toss them up to Anderson and White, nobody move a fucking inch until they're online."

Anderson and White caught the sensor packages as they were tossed up to them. The range was better the higher up they were and they would send alerts directly to each squad member. They were more useful than the built in sensors each soldier had included in his cerebral implant package, as they did not to be facing a particular direction to discern movement. The downside was that the squad only had a limited amount of battery packs for them. Using their combat knives, the two lookouts cut into the tree bark and proceeded to force in steel stakes which would attach to the base of the sensors. They took roughly fifteen minutes setting and calibrating the equipment, with the soldiers below them holding still so as not to attract more attention.

"Ready Sarge", White whispered down.

"Alright then, I need a volunteer to disconnect from the SquadNet and take a stroll around the perimeter", the Sergeant said to his men. One of the soldiers silently raised his hand and the sergeant nodded his head to the affirmative.

Disconnected from the network that allowed the squad to exchange information, as well as obtaining the alerts from the motion sensors, the volunteer quickly showed up as an unknown entity. He walked near the edge of the sensors' range for a couple minutes in order to confirm their functionality. When the Sergeant motioned for him to return, the soldier ran back to cover as if he felt more of the creatures at his heels Now that they would have a reasonable warning time, the men moved to the piles of flesh where the animals had reached their squad mates.

The sergeant reached them first and a string of curses flowed from his mouth. The second soldier to reach the spot had an even more violent reaction as his skin grew pale and he dashed away. Retching noises were heard soon after from his direction, which in turn slowed the approach of the others. As they bore witness to the carnage that had occurred in the seconds before they slaughtered the beasts, they too seemed in danger of joining their vomiting comrade.

The damage to what could be recognized as their fallen brothers was horrific. Amorphous lumps littered the ground with ivory shards of bone poking out from them. The broken equipment and pieces of cloth were the only items that bore testament to the former presence of a human being.

"Start digging men. We might not have a priest to give them a proper burial, but I'll be damned if leave Lee and Rodriguez to rot in the middle of these goddamn animals", the Sergeant spat out. His rage held at a steady boil after seeing what had befallen his men. He had not survived countless battles in Central America by letting his emotions get the better of him though, and he knew that none of them were in any kind of state to be marching around in the middle of the night.

Looking around at his men he saw varying degrees of physical fatigue from lack of sleep. Others moved stiffly with expressionless eyes at the shock of losing their comrades in such a horrendous fashion. The Sergeant hoped that some sleep would help them, because they were too far from the Drapeau Bleu lines for much more.

"Cameron and Reichert, I need you two to replace Anderson and White up in the trees", The Sergeant called out to his men. Addressing the two soldiers that had just finished climbing down from the trees, " Get some rest. And Anderson, there was nothing more that you could do."