Occupied Seattle (Occupied Seattle Book 2)

by Christopher Kennedy

  Stepping outside onto the bridge wing, he yelled down to the tank commander, “I sent you to get the weapons. Do you have them? We can still make this invasion work if you were able to bring back some of the weapons.”

  “I’m sorry,” the tank commander yelled back, “but I don’t recognize who you are. Who am I talking to?”

  “I am Colonel Zhang Wei,” he replied, “the head of the ground forces in Seattle. Who the hell are you? Do you have the weapons or not?”

  “Yes,” said the tank commander, “we do have the nuclear weapons. In fact we have all of the weapons, including the one you brought from China. Who am I? I am Sergeant Jim Chang of the 1st Special Forces Platoon, and I’m here to accept your surrender.” As he said it, the turret of the tank began to turn to point at the ship. All of the IFVs’ turrets turned, too. Colonel Zhang was suddenly looking down the barrels of one 125mm gun, nine 100mm guns, nine 30mm cannons and more machine guns than he wanted to count. Sergeant Chang continued, “I am instructed to tell you that you can either come down onto the pier and surrender, or we will fill your ship so full of holes that it will sink right where it is currently tied up. What is it going to be?”

  Although he was tempted to try to run for it, he knew that the ship’s guns would not depress far enough to be able to shoot at the armored vehicles. Anybody trying to untie the ship would be massacred, and the ship destroyed. It was over.

  He put up his hands and walked off the ship.

  Navy Pier, Port of Tacoma, Tacoma, WA, 1345 PDT

  Calvin smiled as the Chinese colonel walked off of the ship, followed by most of the ship’s personnel. The bluff had worked. He imagined that there would still be some people aboard to tend to the ship’s engines, at least until they could get shore power attached. There was going to be a lot of prisoners to take care of…around 300 or so, if the Chinese ship was manned to about the same level as a similarly-sized U.S. vessel. He would have to call someone for help. His bone-weary 20 people wouldn’t be able to control the Chinese sailors for long.

  Calvin looked at the ship they had just secured. He wondered when a major warship had last been captured by ground forces. He couldn’t remember ever reading about it happening, so it must have been a long time ago. The Changsha was a good looking ship, although it was missing most of its top-side gear on its front half. It must have been hit with a HARM missile when the F-18s had attacked Seattle. That was the only thing he could think of that would have given it that nice “sand-blasted” effect.

  Cool.

  HMCS Victoria, Possession Sound, Two Miles off Everett, WA, 1410 PDT

  It was the moment the Victoria had waited for; the Kunming was moving. If the Chinese had decided to leave port, they must be fleeing the country. As soon as they hit open water, Commander Jewell expected them to go to full speed to try to get to the Pacific Ocean as quickly as they could. The Victoria was waiting at the southern tip of Gedney Island in the middle of the Puget Sound. As the Kunming left port in Everett, Washington, it would have to go either to the north or south of Whidbey Island, located to the west of where he lay in wait. While both ways would take the Kunming to the Pacific Ocean, the shortest and easiest route was the southern route around Whidbey; he expected that the Kunming would be going that way.

  As the Kunming eased out of the naval station, it quickly began to pick up speed as it continued to head west. CDR Jewell smiled as he saw the Kunming was going to take the southern route, as he had expected. “Engines ahead 1/3. Come right to 190 degrees,” he said to the helmsman.

  Both the Victoria and the Kunming were headed toward a narrow strait of water between the mainland and Whidbey Island. The Kunming was going faster and was going to get there first, which was exactly what CDR Jewell wanted. The destroyer was going far too fast to be listening to its sonar, even if it could hear anything in the relatively shallow water of the sound. Keeping the periscope up, though, was an unnecessary risk. “Down, scope!” he said, and it came down. With the submarine starting to pick up speed, the periscope on the surface would have raised a wake as it traveled through the water, which would have been easy for the lookouts on the destroyer to see. He didn’t need the periscope, anyway. He had the entire scene engraved in his mind and, at a range of only 3,500 yards, he really couldn’t miss.

  As the Kunming reached Mukilteo point, he decided to end the facade. The motto of the Victoria was ‘Expect No Warning;’ it was time to put that slogan into action. They had a lock on the Kunming ever since it left port, and the targeting data had been loaded into two Mark-48 torpedoes. One torpedo could easily have done the job, but CDR Jewell was not going to take any chances in the narrow waters. If they didn’t kill the destroyer in the first exchange, the Kunming could easily spin around and attack the submarine. In the shallow water, the advantages would all go to the destroyer.

  Depending on the tactical need, the torpedo could be set to run at one of several speeds. The Victoria’s were set to run at their fastest setting. With an unsuspecting target, CDR Jewell wanted to get the torpedo to the target before the ship went through the narrows, which could potentially complicate targeting. The torpedo had plenty of range; at its 55 knot setting, it could run 23 miles, and it only needed to go two. The Victoria fired two torpedoes, and CDR Jewell received a report from the sonar operator that the torpedoes were running normally. The torpedoes continued to track the Kunming, overhauling it over 30 knots.

  The torpedoes had covered over half the distance to the Kunming before it became aware of their presence. The Victoria could hear the Kunming go to its highest power setting, and it began to conduct a series of radical maneuvers while dropping noise makers, hoping to confuse the torpedoes. If it had had more time or maneuvering room, it might have had a better chance for success; as it was, the torpedoes were already almost to it. The torpedoes completed their journeys, detonating beneath the Kunming.

  Unlike the contact torpedoes of World War Two, the two Mark-48 torpedoes were set to blow up underneath their target, and the 650 pounds of high explosives in the warheads combined with their unused fuel to make spectacular detonations in the shallow water. The force of the explosions was effective in buckling some of the hull of the Kunming, but that was not the most destructive part. By exploding underneath the ship, the warhead vaporized an enormous amount of water, creating a huge bubble of air under the center of the ship. As ships are not made to support all of their weight at their ends, when the first torpedo detonated, the center of the Kunming sank into the void from which the water had been evacuated, breaking its back. The second torpedo shredded these two pieces further, and both of them quickly sank.

  The commanding officer of the Victoria brought his boat to the surface to try to help with rescuing any of the survivors that they could find in the water. As quickly as the Kunming sank, there weren’t many.

  Kaohsiung, Taiwan, 1100 China Standard Time (2000 PDT)

  The will of the Chinese forces was broken. Seemingly unbeatable a day earlier, the remainder of their forces was now trapped, isolated and pinned up against the mountains running down the eastern section of the country. With the seaport and airport open for business at Kaohsiung, the Chinese forces’ days were numbered. The United States held the southern portion of the island in an iron grip, and more forces were entering the country from a variety of allied nations every day.

  It was impossible for the Chinese to get any assistance to their troops on the island. The Chinese could no longer move by sea. With two U.S. submarines, 10 Japanese submarines and four South Korean submarines in the East and South China Seas, the Chinese ports were effectively blockaded. Anything that tried to leave port would not last long against them, much less against the air power that was being amassed on the island. With the Japanese task force augmenting the American oversized carrier battle group, it was also foolish to try to fly across the intervening 100 miles. The allies had one simple motto; “If it flies, it dies.”

  Cut off, low on supplies and with th
eir morale in a shambles, the Chinese forces exercised the only other option available to them. They surrendered.

  * * * * *

  Epilogue

  Bangor Naval Base, WA, August 27, 2018, 0945 PDT

  Calvin watched with a sad smile while several bulldozers started leveling the trees next to the nuclear weapons facility. Most government contracts take a long time to be finalized. This one had not.

  He had never been as proud of his countrymen as he was the day that the platoon had arrived here to see the remnants of the 7th Infantry Division attacking the Chinese tanks and armored infantry fighting vehicles with nothing more than hunting rifles. Completely outmatched in range and firepower, much less armor, the Americans fought on, trying to prevent the Chinese from capturing the nuclear warheads stored nearby. Most would only get to take a shot or two before being killed, but they persevered and gave their lives to try to avert a nuclear holocaust for their families. They attacked the Chinese armor for their loved ones and for the love of the men and women next to them.

  On August 20, 2018, records showed that 287 Americans gave their lives at Bangor Naval Base, and another 426 were wounded, when 2,895 infantrymen held off a force of attack helicopters, armed solely with rifles. This sacrifice was duplicated the next day when 4,318 soldiers, including all of the surviving veterans of the fight the day before, stood their ground against an overwhelming armored force, losing 1,895 dead and 1,224 wounded. Nearly 3/4 of their force were casualties, but when the Chinese tried to run, they had stood as one and charged, preventing the escape of most of the opposing force.

  Calvin had already commissioned the statue that was going to dominate the nation’s newest national cemetery. The platoon had arrived on the scene just in time to see Colonel Bart Williamson, the officer in charge that day, stand and empty an entire magazine at one of the tanks across the field from him. While Calvin knew it was the last desperate action of a despondent commander, his willingness to give his life for his country was no greater and no less than the willingness of his troops to do the same. The statue that would be at the center of the memorial was a man standing, firing a rifle at a distant tank, with two other soldiers lying nearby, also firing rifles at the tank. The two soldiers were a man and a woman, to show that all gave equally in the service of their country.

  The bill to donate the land had gone through the Senate and House of Representatives in one day, a Congressional record, after he had called his senator and proposed it. Calvin had a little clout as a national hero and that had probably helped a lot. He had never called a senator before…but then again, he had never talked to the president until a couple of weeks previously, either. It had also helped, he was sure, that no money was required of Congress; Calvin had promised his senator that he had the funds to pay for it all, courtesy of the multi-million dollar offer he had received for the rights to the platoon’s story. He just needed the land for the memorial and cemetery.

  He had thought a lot about how the plaque would read. He wasn’t sure about the exact verbiage, but he figured it would go something along these lines:

  On August 20-21, 2018, five thousand soldiers of the 7th Infantry Division met the enemy at this place while defending the nuclear warheads held at a facility nearby. Despite being tremendously overmatched, they stood their ground against tanks, armored vehicles, and attack helicopters, armed only with light rifles, refusing to yield. 2,182 soldiers gave their lives and another 1,650 were wounded during the two-day battle. Their sacrifice kept the Chinese from capturing the nuclear warheads and helped quickly end the war. This memorial is for the 2,182.

  * * * * *

  1st Joint Special Operations Platoon

  Commanding Officer Lieutenant Shawn ‘Calvin’ Hobbs

  Executive Officer Master Chief Petty Officer Ryan O’Leary

  Platoon First Sergeant First Sergeant Aaron ‘Top’ Smith

  First Squad

  Squad Leader Staff Sergeant Patrick ‘The Wall’ Dantone

  Fire Team ‘A’ Leader Sergeant Jim ‘Shuteye’ Chang

  Rifleman Private John ‘Jet’ Li

  Grenadier Private First Class Steven ‘Bait’ Shad

  SAW Gunner Private First Class Adam ‘Nine’ Severn

  Fire Team ‘B’ Leader Sergeant Daniel ‘Dreamer’ Nguyen

  Rifleman/Missileer Corporal Matthew ‘Dale’ Evans

  Grenadier Private First Class Justin ‘Spaz’ Richardson

  SAW Gunner Corporal Jimmy ‘Colonel’ Sanders

  Rifleman Corporal Suzi ‘Deadeye’ Taylor

  Second Squad

  Squad Leader Staff Sergeant Dave ‘Ski’ Kowalski

  Fire Team ‘A’ Leader Sergeant Jacob ‘Paris’ Hylton

  Rifleman Corporal Tyler ‘Becks’ Beck

  Grenadier Private First Class Nick ‘Radio’ Borneo

  SAW Gunner Private First Class Christian ‘Woody’ Woodard

  Fire Team ‘B’ Leader Sergeant Jose ‘Boom Boom’ Morales

  Rifleman/Missileer Corporal Ken ‘Fergie’ Ferguson

  Grenadier Private Calhoun ‘Spencer’ Spence

  SAW Gunner Private First Class Trevor ‘Mad Dog’ Hall

  Weapons Squad

  Squad Leader/M240 Gunner Sergeant Logan ‘Lawyer’ Hale

  M240 Loader Corporal Berron ‘Reggie’ Wayne

  M240 Gunner Corporal Cornelius ‘Boot’ Hill

  M240 Loader Private First Class Hector ‘Macho’ Carrasquillo

  RAWS Gunner Corporal Austin ‘Good Twin’ Gordon

  RAWS Loader Private First Class Jamal ‘Bad Twin’ Gordon

  Sniper Private First Class Steve ‘Tiny’ Johnson

  Spotter Private First Class Mike ‘BTO’ Bachmann

  M67 Gunner Corporal John ‘FNG’ Duncan

  M67 Loader Corporal Juan ‘FNG’ Gonzales

  #####

  About the author:

  Chris Kennedy is a former aviator with over 3,000 hours flying attack and reconnaissance aircraft for the United States Navy, including many missions supporting U.S. Special Forces. He has also been an elementary school principal and has coached 18 seasons of softball. He is currently working as an Instructional Systems Designer for the U.S. Navy.

  Look for his third novel, “Janissaries: Book One of the Theogony,” coming soon. Can’t wait? Check out the free chapter coming even sooner to his blog at the address below.

  * * * * *

  Discover other titles by Chris Kennedy:

  “Red Storm: The Chinese Invasion of Seattle” – Available Now

  “Occupied Seattle” – Available Now

  “Janissaries: The First Book of the Theogony” – Coming Soon

  * * * * *

  Connect with Chris Kennedy Online:

  Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/chriskennedypublishing.biz

  Blog: http://chriskennedypublishing.com/

  Want to be immortalized in a future book? Join the Red Shirt List on the blog!

  * * * * *

  Table of Contents

  Copyright

  Seattle Area

  Chapter One: Morning, August 20, 2018

  Chapter Two: Afternoon, August 20, 2018

  Chapter Three: Evening, August 20, 2018

  Chapter Four: Morning, August 21, 2018

  Chapter Five: Afternoon/ Evening, August 21, 2018

  Epilogue

  1st Joint Special Operations Platoon

  About the author: