by T W Powell
Inside a single-wide house trailer on a farm just north of Winchester, a White farmer in his sixties lay dead with his rifle in his hand. The bodies of three dead Militiamen lay in the front yard. Spud’s war was over.
The Rockies
At first light, Bobby Ray could sense the train was slowly traveling uphill. As the first rays of light broke over the eastern horizon, Bobby Ray could see the snow packed Rocky Mountains to the west. Bobby Ray was familiar with the “mountains” of Kentucky, Tennessee, and Georgia, but the Rockies were serious mountains.
Junior noticed Bobby Ray staring off to the west, “Now that’s what I call some big assed mountains. What about it, Bobby Ray?”
“I’ve never seen anything like it.”
“Of course, you haven’t. The Collective doesn’t want you to know your country, its’ geography, its’ history. That’s the beauty of America, different people, different landscapes, but all American. We are not ‘Citizens of the World’, we are Americans. God, Country, Corps.”
“It’s getting even colder.”
“Yes, Denver is the ‘Mile High City’ and it can be cold as hell.”
“Junior, what happened after you were evacuated from Wonsan?”
Junior continued the history lesson.
“After the Coalition forces had been evacuated from South Korea and Seoul was captured almost completely intact by the Chinese, scores of jumbo jets arrived at Incheon International Airport near Seoul. A few hours later, Madame Kim made her appearance.
“Hours before the North Korean ICBM launches, Madame Kim and her entire military and government hierarchy had boarded special trains and planes bound for undisclosed fortified locations in Red China. They willingly sacrificed the impoverished hell hole that was North Korea in return for a mostly intact and prosperous South Korea.
“Many US cable news networks and leftist newspapers covered Madame Kim’s victory speech as if it were a State of the Union Address. After all, they were Citizens of the World and this was just another regime change.
“Thunderous applause erupted inside the National Assembly Building in Seoul as Madame Kim made her way to the dais. A talking head on one of the major cable networks was commenting on Kim’s fashionable, yet businesslike apparel. The North Korean Supreme People’s Assembly were in attendance as well as the North Korean military brass. Madame Kim received a 15-minute standing ovation.
“It now became readily apparent to US Strategists that they had been snookered. The North Korean ICBM launch was, in fact, a defacto Chinese pre-emptive nuclear strike against US Naval assets. China was a nuclear power, a nuclear war with China would be catastrophic and out of the question, but thousands of Americans, Japanese, and South Korean citizens were dead. The US Navy had suffered a humiliating defeat. South Korea and Taiwan had been lost. China now controlled the Sea of Japan and South China Sea. The only remaining thorn in China’s side was Okinawa.”
Okinawa
As the freight train made its’ way through Denver without stopping, Bobby Ray just had to hear the rest of Junior’s story.
“Just before I was evacuated to Okinawa, I was wounded in my left leg by some shrapnel. There was so much incoming and outgoing, I don’t really know whose shrapnel got me. Anyway, the wound wasn’t life threatening, but it got infected. The doctors were afraid I would lose the leg, so I ended up in the US Naval Hospital in Okinawa. The northern part of Okinawa is National Park. The Naval Hospital is located right in the middle of the densely populated southern third of the island. There were so many wounded that hospital tents were set up in the parking lots. I was in one of those tents, sort of in rehab, due to the infection.
“We knew the Chinese were coming. It had taken them three months to subdue Taiwan and Korea. Many Japanese civilians had taken the opportunity to evacuate to the home islands. The Chinese A2AD strategy prevented US or Japanese Naval interference in the East China Sea. On Okinawa, a mixture of South Korean, Taiwanese, Japanese, and US forces prepared for the inevitable invasion. This wasn’t an easy marriage as there is no love lost between the Koreans, Chinese, and Japanese, but ‘the enemy of my enemy is my friend’ logic held it all together.
“Pop-Pop had always told me to keep my weapon with me at all times. Sergeant Miller had taught Pop-Pop well. Now I wish I had followed Pop-Pop’s advice. The Chinese finally landed at Naha Airport to the southwest of the Navy Hospital and at Kadena Air Base to the northwest. Both airfields were right on the water. They also landed unopposed on several small islands a few miles west of Okinawa and set up fire bases.
“Damn Junior, you were in deep shit.”
“Damn straight Bobby Ray. The combat was intense and costly on both sides. The Chinese were very disciplined. Not the same crazy characters that Pop-Pop fought back in 1950. Of course, the Japs and South Koreans were no slouches.
“The Chinese were still masters of infiltration. The night following the invasion, several small inflatable boats of Chinese Special Operations Forces made their way a couple of hundred yards up the Futenma River, then headed south on foot through a light industrial area. Their ultimate objective was Marine Air Station Futenma, less than a mile south of the Naval Hospital. The ChiCom Spec Ops carried explosives and canisters of CVX, the Chinese version of the VX nerve agent. They avoided detection as they moved through the deserted industrial area. As they passed the Naval Hospital, an aerosol canister of CVX was emptied into the Hospital’s HVAC system killing most everyone in the Hospital. An 8-man squad then started moving from tent-to- tent shooting patients, doctors, nurses, whoever, with their Type 64 sound suppressed submachine guns.
“I could hear the distinctive muffled ‘thud-thud-thud’ of the Type 64 as the Chinese murdered everyone in a nearby tent. A Taiwanese Marine was lying in the bed next to me. He spoke a little English and was scheduled to be released and evacuated to Tokyo the next day. I grabbed a scalpel and waited beside the tent flap. My Taiwanese buddy waited on the other side. There were 23 wounded Japanese and Taiwanese in the tent and a dozen US medical personnel. I motioned for the medical people to drop to the floor and keep quiet. One of the Special Ops ChiComs came into the tent, but we were ready for him. My buddy swept the ChiCom’s feet out from under him and I killed him real quiet-like with a scalpel. My buddy put on the Chinese helmet and jacket. He then stuck his head out of the tent and let out with a whistle, motioning for the rest of the squad to come over to the tent. As they approached the tent, I tossed one of the dead guy’s grenades and opened up with his submachine gun. I got six of them right then and there. The only surviving Chinese was wounded in the foot, so it wasn’t very difficult for my bud to chase him down. After that, the Doctors alerted the Marine Air Station.
“We rounded up all the surviving patients and medical staff. Some of the walking wounded Japanese and Taiwanese helped me stand guard using the dead ChiComs’ weapons. Eventually, a Marine security detail arrived, and we were all evacuated to the Air Station.”
“Man Darius, that was a close call. I bet you were relieved when you got to the Air Station.”
Junior began laughing and shaking his head negatively, “Are you kidding me? There I was, wounded, on an island thousands of miles from home, with an army of Chinese trying to kill me. I was scared shitless.”
“What did you do?”
“I did what everyone else did. I fought like hell. We slowly retreated, house by house, block by block. This wasn’t a cake walk for the Chinese. The F-35s took a heavy toll as the Chinese could never gain air superiority. They did manage to down a few F-35s, but that was only due to unique circumstances. It took the bastards a few weeks, and several thousand body bags, but the Chinese gradually pushed us back into the town of Nanjo on the southeastern part of the island. The media began calling it the ‘Stalingrad of the Pacific’.
“We dug in at a country club, a golf course of all places, located on a low hill with a great view of the Pacific to the east. This would be our last stand. It had been four months sin
ce the Sea of Japan disaster. At sunrise, on the day that many of us thought would be our last day on earth, we looked out to sea to enjoy what was probably going to be our last sunrise. There, on the eastern horizon were two massive islands of steel, USS Missouri and USS Iowa.”
Battle Group Missouri
Junior did not know all the details of the operation that unfolded in the waters just to the east of Okinawa. The massive Battle Group on the horizon was composed of the battleships USS Missouri and USS Iowa, 3 America Class Assault Ships, 3 Wasp Class Assault Ships, 12 Ticonderoga Class Cruisers, and 12 Arleigh Burke Destroyers. In addition, there were 3 Nimitz Class Carrier Battle Groups cruising 2,000 miles to the east of Okinawa ready to “feed” F-35s into the fray.
Junior couldn’t see the 50 B-52 Stratofortress en route to Okinawa. Each B52 was packing 20 very stealthy LRASMs, Long Range Anti-Ship Missiles. He also couldn’t see the 4 Ohio Class SSGN cruising silently beneath the East China Sea, close to the Chinese shoreline, each carrying 154 LRASMs. The Ohios were far to the rear of the Chinese Navy off Okinawa. Hell was coming to breakfast for the Red Chinese Navy.
A month earlier, a dozen Virginia Class nuclear attack submarines began sanitizing the waters east of Okinawa. Several Chinese destroyers and submarines were torpedoed and sent to watery graves courtesy of those Virginias. Joining in the hunt, to the west of Okinawa, were a dozen Japanese Soryu Class diesel-electric submarines. These boats were not nuclear powered but were considered some of the deadliest submarines in the world. The Soryu’s exacted a heavy toll on Chinese naval assets in the littoral waters to the west of Okinawa. The clearly defined areas of operations for American and Japanese submarine forces helped avoid “blue on blue” incidents.
In addition to the deadly Mark 48 ADCAP Torpedoes, each Virginia’s armament included 12 vertical launch tubes loaded with LRASM just waiting for the right moment to erupt from the ocean depths. As the Missouri Battle Group neared Okinawa, the Soryus formed a picket line between Okinawa and the Chinese coast and the Virginias crept silently into the littoral waters just vacated by the Soryus.
USS Missouri and Iowa had been reactivated and upgraded in record time. The San Diego shipyards worked round the clock, seven days a week, for four months straight. As the two juggernauts departed San Diego, many craftsmen and technicians were still onboard, checking and rechecking all the new systems. A cruise ship sailed with the two Iowas as far as Guam. Once there, most of the craftsmen and technicians boarded the cruise liner and returned home, but many would not go home. They refused. Something could go wrong. A line of code might need to be rewritten, or a circuit board could burn out.
Marine security details still guarded the tarped equipment mounted on the superstructure of the two ships. The night before they reached Okinawa, a master electrician turned to his friends and smiled, “It’s finally ready, now maybe I can get some sleep.”
At Newport News, Virginia, the USS New Jersey and Wisconsin were just setting sail for Panama. After transiting the Canal, they would both head into harm’s way.
The America Class Assault Ships were improved versions of the Wasp Class Assault Ships. They resembled WWII flattops, no angled flight deck. They were designed to carry amphibious assault troops and a mixture of fixed and rotary winged aircraft to support an amphibious assault. Each of these Assault Ships was carrying 1700 Marines, but only one type of aircraft. Each ship carried 20 F35B Short Take Off & Vertical Landing stealth fighters.
“As I looked out into the sunrise and saw those two battleships, the assault ships, and their escorts, the entire fleet became engulfed by what appeared to be an ever-expanding swarm of bees. Strangest damn thing I ever saw.”
Junior had just caught his first glimpse of NEMESIS.
The Interrogation
Tom Jackson made it back to Kingston by mid-afternoon. He had no time to waste. Before dark, he had to interrogate the Chinese pilot and Militia prisoners, then quickly train a few volunteers on the Japanese Type 91 surface-to-air missile.
The first thing he did as he entered Ray’s pole barn, now holding the Chinese Pilot and Militia prisoners, was to pull his 9mm Glock and point it at a random Militiaman’s head.
“Now that I’ve got your attention, you should know that I’ll blow your brains out. I want some answers, fast!”
“Where’s your home base?”
The young black Militiaman formerly held in the dog kennel replied, “Reno.”
“What was your mission last night?”
The ambulance driver quickly answered in a trembling voice, “We were told that a chopper went missing out this way and may have crashed.”
The apparent Militia leader piped up, “That’s right, we were escorting the ambulance. We were told that counter-revolutionary White terrorists were in the area.”
“Well, they got that right Chief. You can see that I’m White.” Tom then pointed his Glock at the leader’s head, “And obviously I am a terrorist.”
The Chinese pilot spoke very broken English. He claimed only to be following orders and those orders were to eliminate Resistance forces in Kingston.
Tom continued, “What do any of you Pricks know about Sarin?”
The Militiamen bantered amongst themselves, but nobody knew anything.
“How about VX, or CVX?” Tom then put his pistol to the leader’s head once more.
“Man, we don’t know what you’re talking about.”
Tom lowered the pistol, “OK, I believe you, relax. This barn is home for a while. We’ll get some lights turned on in here tonight and get a fire going out front. We won’t harm you, unless you try to escape. If anybody tries to escape, I’ll kill you all.”
Thomas then took Ray aside, “Ray, string up some lights in here for tonight. Hide a couple of microphones in here.”
“Doc, pick a couple of ladies to monitor the mics. One, or both, fluent in Spanish. Have them jot down anything they hear.”
Tom then picked out a handful of reliable and capable adults and lead them to the Saloon for missile training. Vet was among those selected, as was Jill.
Then, Tom made a big mistake, “Nicolescu, what kind of name is that? Are you some kind of damned Ruskie?”
Vet was more than a little offended, “Hold on cowboy. My parents were Romanian. They escaped from that butcher, Ceausescu. The only person who hates communism more than me was my father. My Mom and Dad came into America legally. They worked hard all their lives, only to be lynched by that mob because they were White. Now, if you have any more to say about it, we’ll just take it outside.”
You could have heard a pin drop. Jaws dropped around the Saloon.
Tom Jackson extended his hand to Vet, “Sergeant Nicolescu, are you Stinger qualified?”
Vet replied as he shook Tom’s hand, “Yes sir!”
“Then you can handle this training, the Type 91 is very similar.”
Tom was satisfied that Vet was the right man for the job. He went to take a nap knowing the training was in good hands.
Retribution
For the previous few days, hypersonic guided 16-inch munitions had rained down upon Chinese naval assets and fire support facilities on the islands and in the waters west of Okinawa. The Gunner’s Mates onboard the Missouri and Iowa were personally autographing the 16-inch SLRC rounds now being fired from ranges in excess of 1,000 miles. The graffiti scrawled upon these shells was reminiscent of the messages scrawled upon the bombs dropped on Tokyo by the Doolittle Raiders over 80 years earlier.
The Strategic Long-Range Cannon development project began 5 years earlier as an Army program, but very large guns are difficult to handle on land. The Navy became intrigued with the concept of firing large caliber shells that could travel at hypersonic speed at ranges in excess of 1,000 miles. These shells were much like the 5-inch HVP except these shells were much larger, could travel much further, and these shells actually exploded. The amazing speed and range were made possible by an integral ramjet engine that helped propel the
round. Unlike the 5-inch HVP, the 16-inch SLRC rounds destroyed their targets by both kinetic energy and a high explosive blast.
The Iowa’s could now control the sea in a 1,000-mile radius.
That morning, as Junior saw Battlegroup Missouri being engulfed by a “swarm of bees”, Chinese radar technicians frantically ran diagnostics on their equipment. Signals intel was picking up radio chatter and data link traffic from over 500 ships. The EM signatures were verified. The Chinese fire bases on the small islands just to the west of Okinawa launched every anti-ship missile in their stockpiles and the surviving Chinese warships supporting the Okinawa Operation emptied their missile magazines.
Junior described the scene to Bobby Ray, “The morning sky was lit up like the Fourth of July.”
As the incoming Chinese ordnance approached Okinawa, Aegis radars aboard the ships of Battlegroup Missouri identified the threats. Many of the Chinese missiles were decoyed by NEMESIS. Verified incoming threats were initially engaged by SM6 now being fired in rapid succession by the artificial intelligence built into the Navy’s new battle management system. Surviving incoming threats were met by a hail of 5-inch HVP from USS Missouri, USS Iowa, and the battlegroup’s dozen Arleigh Burke destroyers and dozen Ticonderoga cruisers. Chinese missiles of all sorts were shattered in midair over Okinawa by the shear kinetic energy of 5-inch HVP strikes.
A barrage of “Carrier Killer” D-21 ballistic missiles was launched from mobile launchers along China’s east coast. Their guided warheads maneuvered as they descended toward Battlegroup Missouri at hypersonic speed intent upon inflicting another humiliating defeat upon the US Navy. The 5-inch guns of Battlegroup Missouri hurled a hypersonic storm of guided metal skyward, obliterating many of the incoming warheads.