by Adam Yoshida
"Might I remind you that these nations are members of both NATO and the DU as well," said the President of the Democratic Union.
"Yes, yes," said Prime Minister Blunt, the urgency evident in his tone, "this is all terrible. But we have more important problems to contend with today..."
Crosstalk disrupted the call as objections rang forth from all sides.
"Fucking English sons-of-whores!" screamed the Belgian representative, managing to make himself heard over the majority of the noise. The call began to quiet down.
"All I am saying," said Prime Minister Blunt, making himself heard, "is that all of us are in grave danger, both personal and political, if the American effort is allowed to result in the complete triumph of the United States. If President Rickover is allowed to win re-election and to conquer all of North America, do you think that it will really come to an end there? He will be coming for us. It may be British military personnel - or former British military personnel, I should say - who are spreading sedition on TV today, but tomorrow it will be all of Europe. Already that dreadful Senator from Texas gave a speech about the need to "liberate" Europe. Where do you think that it will end?"
"I understand your point, Prime Minister," said the French President, leaning in, "but what would you have us do at this point in time? We have already thrown in the fleet and we have all sustained severe losses. Our losses will grow only greater still as we bring more force to bear. And we will have less force now that we have come to a parting of the ways with the Russians."
"Perhaps we should not rebuke Russia too harshly," said the British Prime Minister.
More shouts and angry yelling filled the phone line as heads of state and government screamed and howled like children.
"We need to hear this out!" cried the German Chancellor, the bear-line resonance of his voice being enough to bring temporary order.
"The American right-wingers were willing to do a deal with the Chinese to assure their own survival. Their offensive is being powered by Chinese-made war materiel. Their army only escaped the Middle East due to the intervention of the Chinese. This - the Democratic Union - is now the only surviving progressive force on the continent and we must do whatever we can to preserve it. That is our duty," said the Prime Minister.
"You mean to preserve your government," shot back the Dutch Prime Minister.
"To preserve all of Europe - and progressive forces everywhere in the world," insisted the Prime Minister, "after all, if my party is to go from power - I care not a bit about power for myself, but for my cause - who do you think would take my place? I can tell you who would win elections held today and you would not want to be dealing with them."
"Suppose we accept that," said the German Chancellor warily, "how do we win?"
"I think that the question, if properly formulated, is how we should survive," said Prime Minister Blunt.
"Fine, fine, let us answer that," said the Bundeskanzler.
"Why, we surrender," said the Prime Minister smugly as the line exploded with noise once again.
Temporary Seat of the Government of the United States, Colorado Springs, Colorado
"The message was delivered half an hour ago by the Australian Ambassador here in Colorado Springs," explained Secretary of State Jon Simpson.
Acting President Rickover began to flip through the pages on the tablet in front of him.
"Have you read the whole thing?" asked the Acting President.
"Not yet. Not personally," said the Secretary, "but the Ambassador summarized its contents. In essence, they offer us a conditional surrender of all hostile military forces in North America in exchange for our agreement to hold plebiscites in any and all territory that they currently control under international supervision."
"Plebiscites determining whether or not those areas will secede from the United States," said Rickover.
"Well," said Secretary Simpson, "their position is that they will be votes on what polity those areas wish to be aligned with, since they consider them to already be independent. I believe the preferred form - it's somewhere in here - is a three-option vote."
"Meaning that some areas would surely secede," said the Acting President.
"Yes, Mr. President," said Ira Skelton, leafing through a stack of papers in front of him, "the latest data that we have - what we've been able to obtain, at any rate given the challenges of conducting opinion polls in hostile territory - is that the majority of the territory would secede."
"They wouldn't be making this offer," said Secretary Preston, "if they weren't militarily spent. If they could fight us and win they wouldn't even consider this. Some of those areas that they control will join us. Including, I should note, the State of Illinois. At least if the polls that Ira has there are to be believed."
"But they could draw the fighting out for a long time," said General Monroe, "beyond the election, certainly. Not that I'm supposed to consider such things, but it is the elephant in the room, so to speak. They might even be able to hold out for the better part of a year. That's just a military reality."
The Acting President sank deeply into his chair, exhausted.
"Has the offer been released to the public?" he asked.
"No," said the Secretary of State, "but it certainly will be. Or it'll leak. It's going to get out, anyways."
"Are we ready on the other fronts?" he asked.
"The Illinois front is ready immediately. We can attack on the Virginia front as well, but General Mackenzie's troops are still unloading and preparing to move to engage," reported General Monroe.
"Mr. President," said the Chief of Staff, "I had to put it in such a crass fashion: but if you reject this offer out-of-hand and launch the rest of our offensive, then you will lose the election. We will have thousands of dead Americans in a very short period of time. We will have cities in ruins and images of burning buildings, vehicles, and people all over the news. It'll just be impossible."
The Acting President got up and walked over to the window, looking out into his reflection set against the darkness of the evening.
"I've always meant what I've said. Americans are a free people and it is impossible that I would ever consent to consigning a free American to slavery on account of political expediency. There is something to this nation - to all nations - beyond mere politics. Countries have souls whose words echo throughout time. If we abandoned a part of our country we might save this Administration, but we would dishonor ourselves for all time. Worse than that: we would dishonor our country."
"No," said the Acting President as he shook his head, "not one single star."
"How should we respond to the message, sir?" asked the Secretary of State.
"Tell them to go and fuck themselves."
HMNB Portsmouth, United Kingdom
There were no flags or waving crowds as HMS Queen Elizabeth and the rest of the ships of the Royal Navy that had been a part of the combined fleet moved into port. The government, in response to the rioting that had occurred throughout the country in recent weeks in response to the spiralling economic distress and military disasters overseas, had banned any large public gatherings. They were especially concerned that a mass assembly of the people to welcome their warships and sailors home could quickly become a patriotic - which in the minds of the people who presently ran His Majesty's Government equalled seditious and racist - demonstration. Therefore the arrival time of the ships had not been announced and had been set for the dead of the night.
Admiral Travis Childers read the latest message that had been handed to him in silence. He then re-read the message for a second time. He felt the blood rushing up into his neck and pooling behind his eyes. He took a breath and attempted to find some release. Finding none, he picked up the tablet and hurled it to the deck, shattering the screen.
"Admiral?" asked the Captain of Queen Elizabeth , in nearly wild-eyed shock.
"The crews of our ships are ordered to remain onboard," he said, turning towards the Captain, "we are all
to remain until further notice. Apparently the government believes that, in view of the present political situation and how the results of our engagement have been received by the British public that our coming ashore could introduce a dangerous and unstable element that would be contrary to public order. We are now prisoners, Captain. Or so it would seem."
The Captain considered his words carefully before speaking back to the Admiral.
"I can understand your anger, Admiral, but it does seem to me to be a prudent measure if the political situation is that unstable. A lot of the sailors - officers, even - are hardly likely to contribute to making the present situation calmer in their current condition of agitation."
"We have few provisions, our ships need urgent maintenance, and people just want to see their families, Captain," said Childers, "and, additionally, we are only being minimally resupplied with fuel and other necessities of our operations. The government does not fully trust us, you see."
The Admiral stood tall for a moment, looking out at his scarred ships sitting dimly-lit in the dark waters. He thought about all that had already been sacrificed in such an ignoble cause and of how his country was now suffering.
"And perhaps they are right not to trust us," he said quietly.
Davenport, Iowa
Iowa was close enough to the front lines of the fighting that more than a few fancied Mitchell Randall to be bold for travelling there to campaign. It also had the virtue of being far enough away to be, for all practical purposes, as safe as anywhere in the pre-war United States had been. The crowd of people who had come to see the Senator had been gathering since just after noon, with people jostling with one another to get the best seats. He was introduced by the Governor of Iowa and joined by a bevy of state legislators and three members of the House of Representatives. The latest polls had him up by an average of four points - and that was before the political explosion that the Acting President had caused by his forceful rejection of the conditional surrender offered by the forces of the Democratic Union.
"Let us be sensible, not hot-headed," the Senator told the crowd, "let us be governed by practical and morality, not by lofty sentiments whose implementation requires the shedding of so much more blood. Let us have peace with honor and peace with pride."
"There is less than a month between today and the day of the election. On that day, the choice will rest with you - the people of Iowa - and the rest of the people of the United States: will you choose unlimited war, or will you accept a just peace that recognizes the right of all Americans to self-determination?"
"We have done noble things together in the past and we will continue to do these things in the future. For that to be so, we must remain a democracy - a nation where government rest upon the consent of the governed. That, I regret to say, is not what my opponent stands for today. Terrance Rickover's platform is one that is founded upon conquest and bloodshed. He proposes to override the democratic will of millions of people by force of arms. I think that is wrong. In your hearts you know that it is."
"There are so many things that must be done in the aftermath of this terrible and cruel war. There are cities and communities to be rebuilt. There are ties that have been sundered that must be forged anew. We must bring all of our people together. How will we ever do that if we are forced to endure new and more terrible wars? And will it stop even when we reach the Atlantic Coast, or will this President continue onwards even further still, leading us into a state of permanent war?"
Army of Northern Virginia Headquarters, Charlottesville, Virginia
It had taken days of delicate negotiations to sort out the command situation for the forces that General Mackenzie and the Fifth Fleet had delivered to the Carolina shore. After all, the entire Central Command organization served little purpose within the shores of the United States itself, where all forces were organized under the auspices of the former Northern Command which had, with the theatricality typical of the ex-rebels, been designated as the "Continental Army." In theory the General wore two hats, both as the commander of the Central Command and also as the Commanding Officer of the Third Army, but it made little sense to have two different army-level organizations operating along the Virginia front alone. Therefore, the 1st Cavalry Division and the 4th Infantry Division had been joined up with the rest of the Army of the South to form what General Mackenzie, never one to be outdone in terms of theatrics, had insisted upon naming the "Army of Northern Virginia" even though, technically, the army was currently based in central Virginia and, of course, that had been the name of an enemy formation during the last civil war.
The commander of the Army of the South had hoped to retain his command, but given the feat of arms that was being popularly credited to General Mackenzie (even if it had been Admiral Layton, rather than the General, who had directed the fleet across the Atlantic and the Acting President who had rescued them from the Middle East), there had been little chance that the Department of Defense would choose anyone else for a commander. General Monroe had briefly attempted to intrigue with the Secretary and the Acting President to gain the command - arguing that he should swap places with Mackenzie, who could take his job as Army Chief of Staff - but that effort had gained little traction. Instead, forty-eight hours after the first soldiers of the 1st Cavalry Division had come ashore, General Mackenzie had already converted the former organization of the Central Command and Third Army into the headquarters element of the Army of Northern Virginia, with General King appointed as his Chief of Staff.
"I fail to understand," said General Mackenzie to the briefer, "why an offensive along this front has not already been undertaken. The enemy forces that we face here appear to be paltry, at best."
"I wouldn't necessarily agree with that, General," said the Colonel conducting the briefing, a Marine intelligence officer who had been a part of the Army of the South's staff for over a year, "the total forces here amount to nearly one hundred thousand soldiers, in a dense and largely-urban area. Furthermore, this is an area that is extraordinarily politically sensitive. No one wants - no one in Colorado Springs or, frankly, among the American people - wants to see us shelling the Washington Monument."
"I'll agree with you on that point, Colonel," said General King, "but it does seem to me that there are a number of other steps that could have been taken. The forces here are quite minimal. The Army of the South, even before we reinforced it, was larger than the Loyalist and then DU forces that are deployed to the area. From what I see in the briefing documents, most of their forces are barely more than half-trained militia. Mostly ex-AUS soldiers. Perhaps one Division, or maybe a division and a half, of real soldiers capable of manoeuvre in the field. You could have cut off their main forces and compelled their surrender at any number of points."
"Ok," interjected Lieutenant General Calvin T. Olson, who was stewing off to the side of the room, "don't use Colonel Evans to attack me indirectly. I am sitting right here."
The Lieutenant General had been the former commander of the Army of the South. He had enough supporters in the DOD that it had been decided that it would be prudent, especially since he retained great affection among many of the former soldiers of that formation, to appoint him to a role within the new formation and therefore he had been given command of VII Corps.
"I didn't mean to cause offense," said General King blandly, "simply to point out what I see."
"Suppose that we had gone to the north, around Washington - essentially re-enacting Lee's route to Gettysburg," said General Olson, "and then we swung around and moved to the sea, effectively isolating Washington, Baltimore, and their suburbs... The Baltimore-Washington Metropolitan area had just over 10.5 million people living in it during the last census. We'd be cutting off however many millions of those people who are still there - close to ten million per the last intelligence report I saw on the topic - from vital sources of supply. Were we going to lay siege to Washington and Baltimore? Because neither the Loyalists nor the Federation are going to surrend
er them without a fight. They had enough soldiers there, in built-up urban areas, to make any direct invasion a hellish thing."
General Mackenzie looked over at General Olson for a moment, his eyes moving up and down before he settled upon the right words to use.
"Your point is well-taken, General," he finally said, "that is problematic and I suppose it remains so."
"A little less, actually," said Olson.
"Oh?" asked General Mackenzie, stretching his hands out theatrically.
"We haven't been sitting here with our thumbs up our asses, General Mackenzie," replied Olson, "we've been carefully mapping, planning, and recruiting. We've been working closely with our friends in the CIA in that regard. May I?"
The General got up and walked towards the Colonel who was conducting the briefing.
"Proceed," said General Mackenzie. General Olson too the remote from the briefer and went over to the computer.
"For the last year, we've been carefully mapping out every position held by the enemy. We have extraordinarily precise geographic locations of forces and facilities. We know their strongpoints. We know most of their plans for withdrawing into strongholds when we launch our attacks. The areas that they hold remain rife with criminal elements - criminals who have been smuggling drugs and other black market goods across the borders here. Sometimes for years. Some of them we caught and permitted them to evade punishment in exchange for their help. Some of them we paid off. A few we just threatened with a disappearance into a very black hole."
New maps began to cascade across the projector screen, showing the intelligence that the Army of the South had carefully gathered over the previous year. It was, both General Mackenzie and General King instantly recognized, incredibly detailed.
"Wow," said General Mackenzie simply.
"A lot of the guys who signed up after the war started were ex-cops," explained Olson, "and they were very used to this sort of micro-mapping. We had them lend some of their skills to us."