2041 The Peoples' United States
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The Militia leader threw down his AK-47, “OK, don’t shoot. We surrender.”
Tom turned to Vet, “Let’s collect their weapons, blindfold and gag them, hands tied behind their backs.”
“Jarhead to Dawg, we have about a dozen POWs here, they’re your responsibility until tomorrow afternoon. They see nothing and hear nothing. And make sure our people don’t kill them.”
“Jarhead to Doc, Abrams done shot the tires all to hell on this ambulance sitting out front of the north roadblock. You and Ray get down here and see what you can salvage from this van and ambulance. Get Jill down here in the morning and have her go through both vehicles with a fine-toothed comb.”
Tom turned to Juan, “Get these two vehicles up to Ray’s boneyard in the morning after Jill is finished. This area is clean tomorrow afternoon. Like nothing happened.”
Jarhead then made his way back to the Saloon, “Doc, I figure we have at least 12 hours until we see more visitors and we will see more. They done lost a helo, a van, and an ambulance. While I’m gone tomorrow, reset the spider web and camouflage the helo wreck. Now I’m going to try to get a couple more hours sleep.”
Omaha
It was getting dark as the freight pulled into the intermodal yard in Omaha. Jo’s Irish Uncle knew his stuff, the train was adding more reefer cars.
“Bobby Ray, we gotta be real careful while we’re in this yard. Them Bulls goin’ to be looking for Trainhoppers.”
Junior and Bobby Ray saw several plain vanilla vehicles slowly pass while reefer cars were added to their train. After a couple of uneventful hours, the train pulled out of the yard.
“Bobby Ray, it’s going to get even colder from here as we go over the mountains. Let’s eat, then get under these blankets.”
“Junior, can you finish your story?”
“I’ll talk until we get tired.”
“Yep, the entire 1st Marine Division was airlifted to Okinawa…”
Junior told Bobby Ray about his arrival at Kadena Air Base and the 1st Division’s preparations for the Wonsan landing. The Abraham Lincoln, Nimitz, and Carl Vinson Battle Groups were in the Sea of Japan ready to support the landing.
The Chinese media had condemned both the North Korean and US nuclear strikes as Crimes Against Humanity but justified both the North Korean nuclear and chemical attacks as self-defense. The Chinese party line went this way, “Greedy Capitalist Imperialists in South Korea, Japan, and America were intent upon replacing the North Korean socialist government with a puppet regime.”
The Wonsan amphibious assault began on March 7, 2025. The Japanese and American Marines captured the airport without opposition. The elite South Korean Spartan 3,000 were then airlifted in along with their heavy weapons, tanks, and self-propelled guns. The port facilities were secured the following day. Supplies and reinforcements poured into Wonsan. By March 15, Coalition forces were approaching what was left of Pongyang from both the south and east. The bulk of the KPA were cut off near the DMZ. The talking heads on American media said the troops would, “Be home by Easter”.
It didn’t take long for the usual cast of characters back home to start acting out. Anti-war, anti-nuke, and just plain old anti-American riots broke out on college campuses and in major cities. Many in the media were pawns of the ChiComs. China had much of Silicon Valley in its’ hip pocket. Many politicians were either sympathetic to the socialist cause, or else just too weak to maintain order. American was in turmoil.
On March 16 at 2:30 a.m. Korean Time, NORAD detected over one hundred missile launches in the People’s Republic of China. It was quickly determined that none of the missiles were ICBMs, they were intermediate range ballistic missiles. In minutes, the Aegis radars on the Arleigh Burke destroyers and Ticonderoga cruisers escorting Abraham Lincoln, Nimitz, and Carl Vinson detected dozens of DF-ZF hypersonic glide vehicles hurtling toward the three carrier battle groups. The ships immediately went to flank speed and began evasive maneuvers. Various decoys were deployed, and electronic counter measures were activated. The Aegis Combat System aboard the escorts started firing SM-6 missiles in rapid succession, but the Chinese glide vehicles were traveling in excess of 5,000 mph and they could maneuver and home in on their moving targets. What the Aegis radars did not detect was the new class of Chinese sea skimming hypersonic cruise missiles headed their way.
The destruction was total. The only three vessels that escaped were the three Virginia Class nuclear submarines escorting the three carrier battle groups.
Chinese intermediate range ballistic missiles and cruise missiles also hit key military installations in South Korea, Guam, Okinawa, and throughout the Japanese home islands. Military installations in Taiwan, the Republic of China, were also hit as well as Taiwanese Naval assets.
Reminiscent of 1950, the People’s Liberation Army had masterfully assembled a force of over 150,000 troops along the Yalu River. The PLA’s crossing of the Yalu was perfectly coordinated with the missile strikes.
The Yellow Sea, Sea of Japan, and South China Sea were now Chinese lakes. The Taiwanese resisted the ensuing Chinese invasion for a couple of weeks, but the military and government were forced to abdicate to Japan.
The next shoe to drop was a massive Chinese amphibious and airborne assault on the Port of Inchon. After bitter aerial combat and massive Chinese losses, a beachhead was secured. It was now the Coalition’s turn to learn the bitter lessons of 1950. The bulk of the Coalition ground forces were north of the 38th Parallel, caught between two massive Chinese forces.
US Naval power in the region had been smashed and the Japanese Navy was forced to retire from the combat zone under threat of Chinese hypersonic missiles. Most Coalition airfields had been neutralized by Chinese missiles. The Russian S-400 air defense system, recently procured by the Chinese, was extremely effective against most Coalition cruise missiles and legacy aircraft. Even stealth aircraft such as the F-22 and F-35 gave the S-400 a wide berth. The Chinese had perfectly implemented their A2AD Strategy, Anti-Access/Area Denial.
The Coalition forces began retreating, back toward the Port of Wonsan. By the end of March all those forces had retreated into a tight perimeter around that city. They would soon run out of food and ammunition and be forced to surrender. They were saved by the “Miracle of Wonsan”.
Entering the Port mainly at night, hundreds of Japanese and South Korean fishing vessels, merchant ships, and Coast Guard vessels braved Chinese attacks and evacuated Coalition forces to Japan. Japanese and US airliners, piloted by combat veteran volunteers, wave-hopped into the Wonsan Airport dodging Chinese anti-aircraft missiles. The South Korean Spartan 3,000 fought a vicious rear-guard action where no quarter was given. As the remaining Coalition forces departed Wonsan, the last of the South Korean 3,000 Spartans fell.
“I was one of the last Marines out of Wonsan. We got our royal asses kicked. For too many years we sent our manufacturing plants to China. We let them steal our technology. Their scientists were educated in our schools. The politicians called it ‘free trade’ while we made the Chinese rich and powerful. Bobby Ray, we did it to ourselves.”
Mighty Mo
The Battle of the Sea of Japan was the worst defeat in US Naval history. The Joint Chiefs quickly realized that America was in trouble. They needed ships and needed them fast, but what kind of ships? The nuclear-powered supercarrier, the capital ship of the US Navy for the last 50 years, may have been rendered obsolete by new Chinese missile technology. At a minimum, new carrier weapons and tactics would be required.
80 years earlier, General Douglas MacArthur stood aboard the USS Missouri in Tokyo Bay. As Supreme Allied Commander, he presided over the formal surrender of the Japanese Empire as an armada of 450 US carrier aircraft flew overhead.
The Missouri was an Iowa Class fast battleship. Commissioned on 29 January 1944, she was the last battleship commissioned by the US Navy. She had been built to slug it out with opposing battlewagons. Highly compartmentalized with armor over a foot thick, the Iowa
s were beasts. But battles such as Coral Sea and Midway had sounded the death knell for large surface combatants that dueled it out with guns. The new capital ships were aircraft carriers. With the advent of this new type of warfare, opposing fleets fought over distances of hundreds of miles. Carrier aircraft were their primary weapon with guns being relegated to shore bombardment and anti-aircraft support.
The four Iowa battleships, Iowa, New Jersey, Wisconsin, and Missouri were large, fast, heavily armed and armored men-of-war. Their main armament was nine 16-inch guns. These guns could hurl 2,000 lbs.+ shells over 20 miles. Secondary armament was twenty 5-inch guns. The Iowa Class had served in WWII, Korea, Vietnam, and Operation Desert Storm, mainly for shore bombardment in support of amphibious operations.
President Reagan realized that the best way to ensure peace was through strength. In the 1980s, he began a massive military buildup that ultimately resulted in the collapse of the Soviet Union. A key part of Reagan’s buildup was his goal of a 600 Ship Navy. The Iowa battleships had been in mothball for a couple of decades. They were reactivated and updated. Harpoon and Tomahawk cruise missiles were installed at the cost of reducing the number of 5-inch guns from 20 to 12. Phalanx 20 mm anti-missile close-in weapon systems were added. All electronics were upgraded. This included radars, sensors, counter measures, and communications. After bombarding Iraqi forces with missiles and guns in Operation Desert Storm, the Iowas were once again deactivated and ultimately became museums. USS Missouri was moored at Pearl, Iowa at Los Angeles, Wisconsin at Norfolk, and New Jersey at Camden. For once, Congress acted with foresight. By statute, the Iowas must be kept in operational condition.
A 2012 science fiction movie depicted the transformation of the USS Missouri from a museum back to a warship within a matter of minutes. It actually took a little longer than that.
Immediately after the Sea of Japan debacle, the Missouri was reactivated and joined the Iowa in San Diego. New Jersey joined Wisconsin at Newport News, Virginia. Even before the call went out, the Navy was bombarded with emails and phone calls from Iowa Class veterans, now in their 50s, 60s, and 70s. Within days, those volunteers who passed their physicals were at the shipyards bringing the Iowas back to life. But these Iowas would not be the same ships that faced down Hirohito, Gorbachev, and Saddam Hussein.
The remaining dozen 5-inch guns on each Iowa Battleship had been previously discounted as virtually useless in the age of hypersonic missiles. This had been true, but the recent development of a 5-inch hypersonic kinetic guided projectile was a game changer. The 50-mile range of the new HVP tripled the range of the 5-inch gun. The projectile traveled in excess of Mach 3 and each 5-inch gun could fire up to 15 rounds per minute. Each Iowa could pump out over 150 5-inch HVP rounds per minute and these projectiles were guided. The cost of an HVP was roughly 5% that of an SM-6 missile.
Four Phalanx 20mm gatling guns had been installed on each Iowa during the 1980s upgrade for close-in missile defense. The 2025 upgrade added four SeaRAM launchers. Each SeaRAM launcher held 11 missiles. These missiles were variants of the Air Force’s battle proven Sidewinder air-to-air missile. Along with the Phalanx 20mm gatling guns, the SeaRAM was the Iowas’ last line of missile defense.
“You can’t hit what you can’t see.” That’s an age-old adage. Iowa Battleships are not in the least bit stealthy, but these Iowas were equipped with NEMESIS. NEMESIS was a complex system of drones, decoys, and electronic countermeasures that projected phantom signatures of naval vessels onto enemy radar and sensor systems. Henceforth, the Chinese would have hundreds of ships to target.
The 1980s’ upgrades also included the addition of 32 Tomahawk Missiles in armored box launchers. Those armored launchers were now being modified and loaded with Long Range Anti-Ship Missiles, LRASM. The LRASM had shorter range than the Tomahawk but was stealthy.
The Iowa Battleships’ 16-inch guns’ fire control system was updated and linked to the new battle management system. There were also other modifications underway that left the old Gunner’s Mates scratching their heads as the 16” ordnance being loaded into the Iowa’s magazines was truly bizarre.
There’s always scuttlebutt around a shipyard. Idle talk was discouraged, but there were still whispers. When not talking about the 16-inch guns, the gossip revolved around the “telescopes” being installed on the Iowas. They were guarded round the clock by a Marine security detail and were kept covered with tarps. The electricians couldn’t believe the electrical plant upgrades underway and why in the hell were they installing all the huge capacitors?
The Rendezvous
Delvin and Tom were both tired as hell, but they still made their rendezvous just off US 50 in Black Bird Canyon. Delvin pulled his truck off US 50 and into the scrub just far enough for cover.
“Good morning Corporal Jackson and good morning Little Sorrel.” Delvin broke a carrot into bite sized pieces for Tom’s mount.
“Good morning Lieutenant Smith, we had one hell of a night last night down in Kingston.” Tom then proceeded to fill Delvin in on the previous night’s action.
“Jesus Christ Almighty, you’re telling me you brought down an Apache?”
“As God as my witness.” Tom was smiling and shaking his head slowly in the affirmative.
Then Tom continued, “The pilot was a fucking Chinaman and we’ll interrogate him this afternoon. His gunner didn’t make it, killed in the crash.”
“We need intel from that pilot ASAP. There’s some heavy shit coming down, Tom.”
“Heavy shit for sure.” Tom proceeded to tell Delvin about the atropine, pralidoxime, and Valium.”
“Sounds to me like The Collective’s gotten their hands on some Sarin or VX.” Delvin was shaken by this revelation, “A bunch of people could die horrible deaths if they get caught in a canyon full of that shit.”
Tom reassured Delvin that preparations for a chemical attack were already being made, but Tom and Delvin both understood the horror of nerve agents.
Delvin then opened the back of his truck, “I’ve got a couple of gifts for you, courtesy of our Nippon friends.”
Delvin handed Tom two metal tubes, 3 inches in diameter and 5 feet long with a pistol grip stock and control module attached, “These are Toshiba & Kawasaki’s latest.”
Tom gave the ordnance the once over, “Pretty much like a Stinger?”
“Actually, a little better IR seeker.” Delvin quickly pointed out the major “need to know” details.
“Thomas, a friend from back East will be arriving in Battle Mountain in a couple of days. Do you know Darius Johnson?”
“Only from all that TV bullshit after Okinawa.”
“He’s traveling with a skinny White kid. Your rendezvous point will be the Mill Creek Recreation area. They will probably be cold and hungry. They will be asking about Miss Daisy.”
“They can ask her directly. I’ll be taking her along.”
“Use Darius as you see fit. Something big is brewing with this virus. Can’t tell you too much. Don’t know too much. But those Chinese bastards and their Collective stooges think they can eliminate the Resistance once and for all.”
“Damn it Delvin. Now we have chemical and biological threats. What other good news do you bring?”
“Darius will provide you with the details of a team we have in place to deal with the biological threat. It’s crucial that The Collective be denied control of Big Smoky Valley. We are tired of just resisting, it’s time to take our country back.”
Drawing the Line
Spud was absolutely right; The Collective was making a major push eastward from their base in Lexington. There was resistance, but much of the rural populace fled eastward toward the presumed safety of the Appalachians.
A couple of days after Darius’ departure, the 3rd Kentucky received new orders. The West Virginia Mountaineers had arrived, along with the Hazard Hilltoppers. Their orders were to halt The Collective’s eastward advance and, if possible, threaten their regional base in Lexington.
The Resistance counterattack at Winchester was not high tech, neither was it glorious. It was swift, brutal, and silent. That night, while Junior and Bobby Ray were freezing their asses off in that railcar in Nebraska, the Resistance struck. Hundreds of small teams, typically three to five fighters each, infiltrated The Collective’s forces around Winchester. The PUS Army, the Peoples’ Militia, was modeled after The Collective. It was a mob. Loosely organized, with few rules. The Collective hated the military, barely tolerating its’ own Militia.
In an age of bioengineered viruses, lasers, chemical nerve agents, and hypersonic projectiles, the decisive weapon that night was a sharp blade. New recruits had been pouring into Resistance camps as The Collective attempted to pacify rural America. Those recruits would eventually become skilled fighters, but not tonight. The Resistance spearhead was composed of battle-hardened veterans who knew what it was like to kill up close and personal. They had gradually retreated for 15 years; they would retreat no more.
That night, there were a few minor engagements of platoon sized units, 30 to 50 men, but the Resistance attacked those units with overwhelming force. Organized Collective forces were quickly silenced.
As the sun rose the following morning, the Resistance quietly retired back into the hills and forests around Winchester. Thousands of Peoples’ Militia lay dead inside houses, barns, churches, schools and commercial buildings in a wide north-south swath centered on Winchester, Kentucky. Most had been killed in their sleep.