part of a trend that was actually developing worldwide.
During the past 12 hours, reports had been flooding into the VAB bunker concerning conflicts that had suddenly popped up all around the world. Using the few spy satellites it had at its disposal, plus intelligence from various radio monitoring assets and the old reliable “Hum-Int,” the UA command staff had been besieged with communiqués of wars suddenly breaking out in many parts of the world, especially in the Balkans, the Middle East, and South and East Africa. A full-scale conflict had apparently erupted between what was once China and what was once India; enormous bombings and missile attacks were reportedly going on between the Kingdom of Brazil and the so-called Glorious Empire of Argentina. Dispatches telling of battles big and small were coming in from just about every point on the globe. Even a war between Iceland and Greenland had apparently broken out, prompting one UA staff officer to ask: “What the hell are those guys fighting over? Ice?”
It seemed like the world had suddenly gone mad. Anyone anywhere who had a gripe against his neighbor had suddenly decided now was the time to do something about it.
“We live in very scary times,” Jones had told his command staff, as they’d worked feverishly to pull UA combat units from all over the continent and get them to the crisis zone. “Every day, every hour, we still do not know what the next will bring…”
No sooner were those words out of his mouth than a radiophone on Jones’s desk began beeping.
On the other end was John O’Malley, Captain Crunch himself.
He’d just returned from his overflight of Cuba—and he had some rather disturbing news to tell.
Twelve
New Kingdom of Burma
C HLOE APPEARED BEFORE THE GATES of Rangoon City just as the sun was coming up over the titanic mountains to the east.
It was just as she remembered it—yet different, too. The huge air base, the rows of shiny jet fighters, tanks, and other military equipment, were displayed like the toys of the richest child in the world, which was exactly what they were. The streets were lined with old-fashioned American-style billboards. The glittering spiral palace rose above it all.
This was the center of the kingdom of the place once known as Burma. Its ruler was a thirteen-year-old boy referred to by everyone as the Kid King.
Chloe knew this place, and its adolescent monarch, very intimately. During the transglobal dash to keep Viktor II’s space shuttle from landing except where they wanted it to land, Hunter and Chloe had come here to Rangoon, and after a bit of subterfuge and intrigue, had convinced the Kid King to deny his huge base and its ultralong runway to the orbiting superterrorist. This act set up the final battle on the South China Sea island of Lolita and resulted in the United Americans’ capture of the Zon spacecraft.
Though Hunter had moved on to this final confrontation, Chloe had chosen to stay behind in Rangoon. It was from here that she eventually traveled up to the high mountains where the temples were. At the time, she believed that she would stay up there forever, or at least, until Hunter came to get her.
But now she had returned to the city, to the place where it had all started. It had taken her just two days to get here—coming down off the mountain, the trip south on the Irrawaddy River, hitching a ride down to the Imperial City. None of it was any problem. Chloe was so beautiful that getting people to help her had always been easy. But the dream that had woken her up at the temple had stayed with her throughout the journey; even in the daytime it was always there, in the back of her mind, its vision haunting her, especially the horror of the gigantic hand and the sound of someone laughing from very far away.
She knew she had to do something about it, knew she had somehow to warn people—the right people—about the writings in The Book of Thirteen. That quest had to begin here,
During the past 12 hours, reports had been flooding into the VAB bunker concerning conflicts that had suddenly popped up all around the world. Using the few spy satellites it had at its disposal, plus intelligence from various radio monitoring assets and the old reliable “Hum-Int,” the UA command staff had been besieged with communiqués of wars suddenly breaking out in many parts of the world, especially in the Balkans, the Middle East, and South and East Africa. A full-scale conflict had apparently erupted between what was once China and what was once India; enormous bombings and missile attacks were reportedly going on between the Kingdom of Brazil and the so-called Glorious Empire of Argentina. Dispatches telling of battles big and small were coming in from just about every point on the globe. Even a war between Iceland and Greenland had apparently broken out, prompting one UA staff officer to ask: “What the hell are those guys fighting over? Ice?”
It seemed like the world had suddenly gone mad. Anyone anywhere who had a gripe against his neighbor had suddenly decided now was the time to do something about it.
“We live in very scary times,” Jones had told his command staff, as they’d worked feverishly to pull UA combat units from all over the continent and get them to the crisis zone. “Every day, every hour, we still do not know what the next will bring…”
No sooner were those words out of his mouth than a radiophone on Jones’s desk began beeping.
On the other end was John O’Malley, Captain Crunch himself.
He’d just returned from his overflight of Cuba—and he had some rather disturbing news to tell.
Twelve
New Kingdom of Burma
C HLOE APPEARED BEFORE THE GATES of Rangoon City just as the sun was coming up over the titanic mountains to the east.
It was just as she remembered it—yet different, too. The huge air base, the rows of shiny jet fighters, tanks, and other military equipment, were displayed like the toys of the richest child in the world, which was exactly what they were. The streets were lined with old-fashioned American-style billboards. The glittering spiral palace rose above it all.
This was the center of the kingdom of the place once known as Burma. Its ruler was a thirteen-year-old boy referred to by everyone as the Kid King.
Chloe knew this place, and its adolescent monarch, very intimately. During the transglobal dash to keep Viktor II’s space shuttle from landing except where they wanted it to land, Hunter and Chloe had come here to Rangoon, and after a bit of subterfuge and intrigue, had convinced the Kid King to deny his huge base and its ultralong runway to the orbiting superterrorist. This act set up the final battle on the South China Sea island of Lolita and resulted in the United Americans’ capture of the Zon spacecraft.
Though Hunter had moved on to this final confrontation, Chloe had chosen to stay behind in Rangoon. It was from here that she eventually traveled up to the high mountains where the temples were. At the time, she believed that she would stay up there forever, or at least, until Hunter came to get her.
But now she had returned to the city, to the place where it had all started. It had taken her just two days to get here—coming down off the mountain, the trip south on the Irrawaddy River, hitching a ride down to the Imperial City. None of it was any problem. Chloe was so beautiful that getting people to help her had always been easy. But the dream that had woken her up at the temple had stayed with her throughout the journey; even in the daytime it was always there, in the back of her mind, its vision haunting her, especially the horror of the gigantic hand and the sound of someone laughing from very far away.
She knew she had to do something about it, knew she had somehow to warn people—the right people—about the writings in The Book of Thirteen. That quest had to begin here,
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