Revolution of the Gods: The Battle for Sol Book One Read Online Free PDF Page A

speed toward the western sky escaping their range.
    Bracken was leaning over his desk with his fingers interlaced and clinched watching the entire episode unfold on his video feed.
    I can’t fucking believe this!
    “Alert Space Recon to track that ship and bring me Hauer!”

CHAPTER 04
Residential Occupation Center – Oakland, CA
    B en’s first waking thought after his short rest was about the interesting man he observed being processed earlier that morning.
    There is something very odd about him and I need to see if he is the one. He is likely still near the interment command center,
Ben thought.
    The command center was where most new detainees lingered in shock trying to comprehend the enormity of the camp and their new predicament. The endless rows of overpopulated houses and the dirty smells of close quarters living brought back disturbing memories of Ben’s homeland after the war.
    It happened three and a half years ago. The world economy had been suffering for several years, but no one was really prepared for how quickly it crumbled. Ben was no businessman but he did pay attention to the financial news because it had a direct impact on his job. When buildings were not being built, he was not working.
    He didn’t know the intricacies of how it began but after four days the major world stock indices had lost over 80% of their values. Over 64 trillion dollars of wealth evaporated in just over 72 hours. All the major world governments instituted an array of stop gap measures to no avail. The world economy had collapsed.
    At first, the riots seemed manageable but in about a week the entire social fabric of the worlds developed societies had unraveled faster than anyone could have imagined. As governments fell across the Mideast, Ben and his countrymen knew the danger was increasingly imminent to Israel. First, it was Pakistan and then Iraq. Within two weeks only Saudi Arabia and Israel remained with functioning governments. The Americans redeployed their troops to Pakistan, but it was too late.
    Al Qaeda and other terrorist elements that had been subverting the Pakistani military gained what they had so long sought– control over the nuclear weapons. The Israelis made the critical mistake of hesitating to make a preemptive strike because of the U.S. troop presence.
    At 4:00 a.m. on a mid-July morning, a 15 kiloton warhead struck Tel Aviv. Then two more struck – one in Haifa and the other in Risho LeZiyyon. The comparatively low yields leveled the inner radius of the cities but created less destruction than the average person would have guessed. It was the Israeli response that made the region a hell on Earth.
    Pakistan’s, Iran’s and Syria’s major cities were annihilated in less than 30 minutes. Had it not been for the economic collapse with which most countries were preoccupied, this event would have been the opening act for World War III. As it turned out, the rest of world turned a blind eye opting to maintain resources dedicated to their own survival.
    The aftermath of this nuclear exchange created an ecological catastrophe throughout the entire region. Survivor camps were set up near the devastated areas. These camps resembled the Oakland ROC but with thousands of people suffering the effects of close proximity radiation exposure.
    Ben had been in Netayna working on a resort contract at the time of the blasts. While he was away from his home working, the rest of his family had left Petah Tikvah to vacation with his grandparents in Tel Aviv for the month of July. And it was there that Ben’s entire family met their fate in a downtown apartment near the center of the first blast.
    It was the slicing cries of infants that disturbed him the most. His youngest child was only 14 months old.
    Those damned bastards
.
    Ben anguished as he made his way past the people jammed in the broken down houses, the people huddled in tents and makeshift huts, and the people wandering the streets. He made his way to the ROC