The Human Insurgency Read Online Free PDF Page A

viable."
    Jie gaped at him. "General, are you saying what I
think you're saying?"
    General Meng had no time to explain the rest of his
plan to Jie. The battle had reached the point of no return. PLA
missiles were arcing into the sky, exploding impotently against the
invisible shields of the five carrier ships above. Cockroach
fighters from those same ships were now zeroing in on the positions
of the hidden missile silos and reducing them to scrap. At the same
time the Enemy landing parties to the north and south of the river
were threatening to spill into the city proper, fanning outward in
a two-pronged assault.
    This all seemed like good news for the Enemy. On the
perimeter of the de facto beachhead which the Enemy had
established, General Meng received updates from his well-placed
scouts.
    "Sir, they've wiped out most of our forces near the
landing site. They're making a push now. They're advancing right
over multitudes of our dead."
    General Meng gave the order. "You have the green
light, all units. Open the box."
    Among the dying and the dead PLA soldiers, some had
fallen during the fight on purpose, playing possum. These soldiers
had bombs strapped tightly to their bodies in duct tape, and these
weren't ordinary bombs. They were fusion bombs made from the
dismantled Dragon Missile warheads. The warheads were too heavy and
unstable to be fired with conventional ground weapons. But they
could be properly wired and triggered to make that all-important
chemical reaction happen. General Meng's pessimistic obsession had
gauged that without the chaos of an urban firefight, the Enemy
might detect the trap before it was too late.
    "Go, go, go!" General Meng could hear the scouts
shouting to their men, fleeing pell-mell as the reactions began. On
the large monitor with video-feed of greater Shanghai, General Meng
focused his attention on the Luban Bridge and the surrounding
neighborhoods north and south of the Huangpu. Without warning,
WOOOM. A blue ball of shimmering death thrashed outward from a
central point, blinding the video-feed in washed-out glare. A
second blue sphere of devastation followed the first, and a second
shock wave surged over the face of the urban landscape. The entire
city shook, rumbling to its core. Half the ceiling of General
Meng's bunker caved in. Jie's diving push probably saved the
General's life as a huge cinderblock jarred loose and cracked the
concrete where General Meng had stood.
    Meng looked like a mime in camouflage, his face
covered in white dust. He lurched out of his disorientation long
enough to order the next salvo of missiles launched.
    Crackling with static, his com link still
operational, Meng heard the words that made his old heart gallop
like a stallion.
    "Sir, the Monkey and the Jaguar are in the jungle. I
repeat, the Monkey and the Jaguar are in the jungle." Meng had to
smile. Those code words brought a ridiculous image into his head
even as the fate of this city of nearly 33 million hung on a
knife's edge.
    He turned to Jie, and Jie said what he already
knew.
    "It's about to happen, isn't it?"
    "We're about to see if your father and General Chao
are as smart as they think they are. If that's what you mean then
yes, boy."
    Reports were coming in of the massive, massive
craters that now scarred the earth north and south of the Luban
Bridge. The bridge itself had fallen into the river and the Huangpu
had diverted course, flooding the yawning craters with untold
gallons of liquid force.
    Meanwhile volley after volley of missiles exploded
harmlessly against screens of cockroach fighters that the Enemy had
begun to use defensively as skillfully as they had in their
assault. Swarms of cockroach fighters, like schools of fish, were
providing a moving barrier that shielded the carrier-ships from
missile fire. The irony was that even if General Meng had had
Dragon Missiles deployed on the ground by this point, they would
never be able to get past those screens of cockroach assault