Sheng dearly hoped the Americans were foolish enough to engage his tanks. It would mean kills on the battlefield. That might win him a medal, and the medal would definitely help him gain a marriage permit before he reached thirty. Sheng had worked hard to gain this position of honor. The colonel considered him the best first lieutenant in the battalion, the reason why he led the assault.
Sheng lifted his goggles and glanced back. The brigade’s tanks churned a mighty cloud of dust. It rose and billowed, some of it drifting onto the sea to the brigade’s right. There, the falling, raining particles speckled the water, creating ripples.
Incredibly, the Salton Sea was a manmade lake. In his spare hours, Sheng had studied the databases on it. In 1900, the Americans had built irrigation canals, diverting water from the Colorado River and into the Salton Sink, an ancient dry lakebed. American farmers had benefited from this until 1902, when floodwaters from the Colorado River overran a set of headgates for the Alamo Canal. The flood breached the Imperial Valley dike, among other damage. In the course of two years, two newly created rivers carried the entire volume of the Colorado into the Salton Sink. Only the completion of the Hoover Dam in 1935 had ended the periodic flooding of this area.
The Salton Sea was 69 meters below sea level and averaged 24 km by 56 km. It was California’s largest lake and saltier than the ocean, although not as salty as the Great Salt Lake in Utah.
Taking out a rag, First Lieutenant Sheng wiped his mouth. The T-66s were headed for Palm Springs and then LA beyond. Afterward, Sheng hoped to be the first to race onto the Grapevine and over the pass to Bakersfield. They were going to overrun California. That’s what the colonel had told them. They were going to meet up with Navy personnel in Sacramento, crushing any Americans foolish enough to engage the greatest tanks and the greatest army in the world.
Sheng grinned thinking about it, and then he checked a computer. The gauge showed they were in the red, meaning they were almost empty of diesel. He would need more fuel soon. They had been traveling fast for many hours. If the T-66 had a problem, it was a hog-like thirst for fuel. How long until the fuel carriers pulled up?
Dropping down into the interior, Sheng moved to the radio, deciding it was time to find out.
COACHELLA VALLEY, CALIFORNIA
In the late afternoon, Sergeant McGee shut down his Abrams M1A3 Main Battle Tank. He had half a tank of fuel left and wanted to conserve what he had.
In training, the instructors had hammered home the need to conserve fuel. After 2032, with the loss of the Arctic Ocean oil fields and the diminishment of Prudhoe Bay, finding enough oil and gas had become a problem. Extracting oil from shale had provided some of the answer. It proved harder to do on a commercial scale than expected. Synthetic oil from coal produced the rest. Despite this, the American Army seldom had enough fuel and thus everyone conserved wherever he could.
McGee was seven miles outside of Palm Springs, an advance unit of American armor. He was in a swing battalion of the U.S. Tenth Division, the second-to-last reserve formation in LA. The plan was simple enough, as McGee knew about it. Bradley Fighting Vehicles with advanced TOW missiles would engage the Chinese at range, four thousand meters or more. Self-propelled artillery would then hammer the enemy with direct fire of guided projectiles. Old Apache helicopters with advanced Hellfire III missiles would then pop up and try to destroy advancing T-66s, before falling back.
At that point, in the hoped-for confusion, Sergeant McGee and others would turn on their Abrams and attack the enemy flanks. The goal was to get in amongst enemy supply and headquarters vehicles and blow them to Hell. The key vehicles command wanted destroyed were the enemy fuel carriers. They had to stop the Chinese advance to Palm Springs, giving LA time for Central Californian reinforcements.
As he stood in the hatch, Sergeant McGee swallowed uneasily. The rumors coming down were all bad. The Chinese had encircled the fortifications on the border, trapping the bulk of Army Group SoCal. On the coast and a little inland, the enemy was driving up the interstates to LA. But the big right hook that would take out Southern California was coming through the desert past the Salton Sea.
“Sergeant!” his driver yelled up from within the tank.
McGee was resting in the hatch, with a pair of binoculars on his chest. He dipped down inside the tank. “What are you hollering for?”
The driver looked up. “The Chinese, Sarge, they’ve been spotted.”
“Yeah?” McGee asked, trying to sound cool. He was twenty-three years old and was finding that hard to do right now.
“It looks like their advance elements will be in range of the Bradleys soon, maybe in twenty minutes, maybe sooner.”
“T-66s?” McGee asked.
The driver shook his head. “Marauder tanks, Sarge.”
McGee had to turn away from the driver, as the driver looked too scared, and that could be infectious. “We’ll show them.”
“Do you think so?” the driver asked.
“Yeah,” McGee said, looking at the man again.
“They say a whole tank army is coming behind these vehicles. How are we going to face an army of enemy tanks? We’re just a division, Sarge.”
“Yeah, but we’re Tenth Division. They’ve beefed us up to twenty thousand soldiers. We’re going show the Chinese what it means to take on the Tenth.”
The driver blinked so his entire face scrunched up. “I hope you’re right. I don’t want to die out here.”
“No,” McGee said, “neither do I.”
SAN DIEGO, CALIFORNIA
Flight Lieutenant Harris shook his head. He wore VR goggles and sat in his chair in an Air Force bunker. Onscreen, he looked out of his new V-10 UCAV. He flew over the Coachella Valley, hunting for enemy fuel carriers.
What he should be doing was hunting for Chinese amphibious vehicles heading for San Diego. He and the other drone pilots were presently trapped behind enemy lines. It made him nervous. The idea of being shipped overseas to a Chinese POW camp terrified him. The Japanese of World War II, the North Koreans in the 1950s and the Vietnamese during the 60s all had terrible records as prison wardens. Harris didn’t see why the Chinese would be any different.
He shook his head again, trying to drive the idea away. He needed to concentrate on the task. The Chinese were heading for Palm Springs, trying to slip into LA through the side door.
A ping in his ear alerted Harris.
Flipping on a different camera on his V-10, Harris looked down on the white sands below. It showed a billowing dust cloud. He used a thermal scanner. The image told him he could possibly have a fleet of fuel carriers. Unfortunately, air-defense vehicles roared alongside them.
Harris didn’t want to lose another V-10. It would look bad on his record. But he knew this was important, critically so, he’d been told.
He chinned on his radio to the colonel in charge here in the San Diego bunker.
“You see them, sir,” Harris said. “Do I wait for others or—”
“Kill them now, Lieutenant. Don’t waste time. We have to stop the Chinese from refueling their heavies, if they haven’t already done that.”
“Yes, sir,” Harris said.
If he’d been flying an F-35 or a ground-attack plane, the order might have been different. The Air Force didn’t like suicidal pilots. UCAVs changed the rules.
“Here we go,” Harris said to himself, using his joystick thumb-control. He piloted the V-10 down, down, down toward the fuel carriers. As he did, he primed the V-10’s Hellfire III missiles.
From below and hidden in the dust cloud, enemy chain-guns opened up. They were like mini-volcanos and soon he spied eruptions of flames. They were hypnotic if he looked at them too long. He heard a growl in his ear from the threat indicator. The Chinese had radar lock on him. This time it didn’t change a thing. Harris increased speed as he launched Hellfire after Hellfire. Their contrails burned brightly on his screen.
“Come on,” Harris said, trying to get within cannon range.
> On his thermal scanner, he saw the first hit. It was a massive explosion. He’d gotten a fuel carrier. Then came another explosion and another. He’d hit pay dirt, this time.
Harris whooped with delight. This would go on his record, too. He was making kills, critical kills.
At the last moment and on his screen, he saw a Chinese SAM barreling up at his craft. He hit a button, expelling chaff. This time it was too late. The SAM destroyed the V-10 and Harris lost his link to the Coachella Valley. He was back to being a pilot without a drone, but at least he was alive and he had helped the Army out there on the white sands facing the enemy sneak attack.
BAKERSFIELD, CALIFORNIA
On the flat Highway 99 north of Bakersfield, twenty massive tank carriers hauled twenty Behemoth tanks. It was the whole complement of the experimental vehicles. They were spaced far apart on the highway and moved at a mere fifteen mph. If they tried moving any faster, they would risk blowing tires and tipping over.
Captain Stan Higgins sat in the back of the cab of the fifth hauler. He listened to reports from Tenth Armor Division outside of Palm Springs. They were supposed to delay the Chinese tank advance, giving the reinforcements from Central California time to reach Palm Springs.
Studying the desert terrain of the Coachella Valley, Stan realized it would be the perfect place for the Behemoths—if the tanks worked how they were supposed to, and if they had enough air cover.
Could Tenth Division halt the Chinese? Could the lone American formation give the rest of them enough time to get there and set up?
Time for what, though? What could twenty experimental tanks do against thousands of Chinese T-66s, the Chinese MBTs and the light Marauder tanks?
We need a miracle, Stan realized. We need our own Blue Swan missiles.
COACHELLA VALLEY, CALIFORNIA
With his head and shoulders outside the main hatch, Sergeant McGee heard the distant thunder of divisional artillery. There were flashes in the night. Seconds later came the booms.
Dark twilight had come over the desert. Several hours earlier, Bradley Fighting Vehicles had launched a salvo of TOW missiles at advancing Marauder tanks, killing some and driving the others back. It had brought about visible air duels above, more waiting and finally an enemy battalion of what command now knew had been drone light tanks. They had driven at the Bradleys at over forty mph. That had been a mistake: the head-on attack. The TOWs had demolished the drones, although it had seriously depleted the number of missiles the Bradleys had. Maybe that had been the idea.
McGee took comfort in the fact the Chinese could make mistakes. A tank drive against unknown forces…he could only imagine how difficult it was to coordinate everything.
Now word had come down. A large force of T-66 tanks was massed before the Bradleys and the enemy was massed against the flanking forces, too. In other words, there weren’t going to be any American surprises. Instead, it looked as if a slugfest was in the making.
“Are they going to try to overrun us?” the driver asked McGee.
McGee had dropped down into the M1A3 tank.
Two low-powered blue lights lit the Abrams’ interior. The blue light didn’t steal their night vision. Of course, other lights glowed on the panels: red, green and yellow.
“The Chinese waited too long,” McGee told the crew. He had to tell them something to cheer them up. “I don’t know why they waited. They should have rushed us earlier when they had the chance. Now we have more artillery. Our side must be laying down sleeper mines. That will give the T-66s something to think about.”
“You sure, Sarge?” the driver asked. “You don’t think the Chinese have them a good plan?”
“No,” McGee said. “They made a mistake waiting this long. Now we’re going to bloody their noses and then fall back to our next prepared position. They played into our hands and now we’re going to delay them as ordered.”
LOS ANGELES, CALIFORNIA
Stan Higgins watched twilight turn into true night from the cab of his Behemoth-carrier. They had made it over the Grapevine at fifteen mph. Now they were in LA, the vast urban area.
What amazed him was they had only been stopped once, letting a faster formation race past.
He still listened to Tenth Division net. The Chinese had made desultory attacks, but nothing in force. What were they waiting for? It didn’t make sense. Were the Chinese going to let the reinforcements set up outside Palm Springs? It seemed like a missed opportunity for them.
They had raced up the Coachella Valley, heading for the San Gorgonio Pass. It cut between the San Bernardino Mountains on the north and the San Jacinto Mountains to the south. San Gorgonio Pass was one of the deepest in America, the mountains on either side towering 9000 feet above the road. Palm Springs guarded the pass, while Greater San Bernardino was on the other side. Now was the moment for the Chinese to smash through.
“Keep waiting,” Stan whispered.
Jose lifted his head. He’d been snoozing most of the trip. “You say something, Professor?”
“Go back to sleep,” Stan said. “At this speed, we’re still a long way out from Palm Springs.”
“Sure, Professor, anything you say.” Jose’s head slumped back.
Stan stared out of the cab, watching LA go past outside the tank carrier’s window.
COACHELLA VALLEY, CALIFORNIA
First Lieutenant Sheng had been chaffing at the bit most of the afternoon. It was dark now and still his platoon waited for the attack to commence, still waited for a fuel-carrier to fill up his T-66 tanks.
Motion caused one of the vehicle’s outer lights to snap on. In the distance, Sheng spied a jackrabbit in the circle of light. Its long ears twitched, and with a bound, it dashed for cover.
Earlier, Sheng had listened to the major explaining the situation to them. “We will destroy them at a blow, shattering them utterly. We have watched the Americans trickle reinforcements to the Tenth Division. Yes, they have laid their artillery-spread minefields and they have strengthened themselves. We want to destroy them here in the desert so there will be fewer of them in the built-up areas later.”
One swift and massive blow, yes, Sheng could understand that. But the major had been telling lies. The attack hadn’t occurred out of any brilliance. It hadn’t occurred, Sheng suspected, because the Americans had destroyed too many fuel carriers. He’d heard about the air attacks, hundreds of little pinpricks that had hit a fuel-carrier one at a time. Command had ordered the other fuel carriers back until enough air support appeared. Finally, the fuel carriers were here, or so the major had told them.
The T-66 was like an alcoholic with an immense thirst. They needed fuel before they dared attack the Americans.
It took another hour before Sheng actually saw a fuel-carrier. Men attached a hose and gave him half-a-tank full.
“I need more,” Sheng said, as a First Rank began disconnecting the hose.
“Sorry, sir,” the First Rank said. “It’s orders. Everyone only gets half-a-tank.”
That seemed foolish to Sheng. It would be wiser to fill half the tanks all the way, so they could drive to LA without having to worry about another fuel gulp.
Because he was merely a first lieutenant, Sheng kept his thoughts to himself.
After the fuel carriers left, brigade waited another forty-five minutes. Finally, at 9:23 PM, the order came. They were finally going to destroy the American Tenth Division and open the way to Palm Springs and LA beyond.
FIRST FRONT HEADQUARTERS, MEXICO
From his wheelchair in the command center, Marshal Nung rubbed his eyes. He was impatient for the Tank Army to attack. The Americans had cleverly burned up more of their air, hunting through the desert for the most forward fuel carriers.
He should have remembered the tactic from what the enemy had done in Alaska. It was foolish to forget something so obvious. From now on, he would defend the fuel carriers with triple the anti-air units and with continuous air cover.
He mustn’t allow the Am
ericans to practice the same tactic on him again.
General Pi looked up from the glowing computer table. “Sleeper mines are taking a heavy toll of our Marauder drones, sir.”
“Yes,” Nung said. “I accept heavy losses in those cheap units now in order to achieve brilliance later. A hard and furious assault, General, that is what wins true glory.”
“Yes, Marshal,” Pi said.
From his wheelchair, Nung observed Marshal Gang frowning in the corner. He knew the man would record that statement and tell Ruling Committee member Kao about it.
As long as I’m advancing, no one will say anything. It is if I start to lose, that these words will haunt me. But I will not lose. That is the key.
“Unleash the T66s,” Nung said. “It is time to shatter the Americans and let them truly know what it is to fear.”
COACHELLA VALLEY, CALIFORNIA
Sergeant McGee had buttoned the M1A3, meaning he’d shut the outer hatch and was completely inside the tank. He now sat above and behind the gunner. His right hand rested on the pistol-grip handle. With it, he had override control of the turret—where it turned—and where the main gun pointed. He leaned into the brow-padded thermal sights, hunting for a target.
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