by James Rosone
*******
East Timor
The sky was beautiful with not a cloud around, perfect for flying. Lieutenant Daniel Lacey, call sign “Raptor,” guided his F-35 Lightning through the sky at 25,000 feet above the Flores Sea, east of Bali, Indonesia. Below them was the deep blue open, rippled by small whitecaps from the waves. Sitting in the cockpit of this multihundred-million-dollar warplane, Lieutenant Lacey couldn’t help but be in awe of his surroundings. His new helmet incorporated technology that allowed him to see all around him as if he were seated on the front of the plane, whipping through the air with nothing around him; it gave him an unparalleled situational awareness.
When the 3rd Squadron of the Royal Australian Air Force, or RAAF, had arrived on East Timor the day before, their command had told them they would be going up daily to go hunting for the enemy. When the Indonesian government decided it wanted to join the Eastern Alliance, the Australian government made the decision that they would leverage their F-35 stealth fighters to go after their new enemy’s air force. They would work to neuter the Indonesian military in hopes of making them a nonfactor in the Asian war.
When the order came down, Captain David Blake, call sign “Tiger,” had volunteered to lead the first “hunting expedition.” The next morning, Captain Blake and his wingman, Lieutenant Lacey, were given the honor of flying the RAAF’s first official combat mission with the new F-35 Lightning. Now they were headed toward the Indonesian island of Bali and see what they could find.
Suddenly, they received incoming communications from the radar control operator on the RAAF E-7A Wedgetail airborne radar control aircraft. “Tiger Flight, this is Eagle Eye. We’re tracking two Indonesian Hawk 200 aircraft, approximately 140 kilometers from your position. They are loitering over the Bali Airport. How copy?”
“Finally, we’re going to get to see some action,” thought Lacey. Other than the beautiful scenery, they had had forty minutes of nothing but boredom on their maiden combat flight.
“This is Tiger Flight. That’s a good copy,” responded Captain Blake. “We’ll head in that direction. Vector us in as we get closer and send us the targeting data. We’ll engage them from range.” Tiger grinned; he was eager to enter the fight.
Twenty minutes went by as their fighters continued to cruise ever closer to the unsuspecting enemy fighters. Steadily, they came into range of their AIM-120 AMRAAM missiles. The airborne radar aircraft that had been vectoring them toward the enemy Hawks sent the final targeting data they needed.
“Raptor, I’m going to fire off my first missile at target 003,” announced Tiger. “I want you to fire at target 004, five seconds after I fire mine. We’ll loiter in the area and make sure the missiles find their marks. If they miss, then we’ll engage them with another set of missiles. Is that understood?” Since the Indonesians had no idea they were in the area, and they weren’t actively trying to evade enemy radar or SAMs, he wanted to take this first engagement a bit slower and by the numbers.
“Copy that, Tiger. Standing by for your order,” replied Raptor, trying to contain his excitement and nervousness.
“We’re birds of prey…about to score our first victory,” Raptor thought privately.
A minute later, the silence was broken. “Fox Three, missile away,” Tiger announced, initiating the countdown to when he’d fire his own missile.
The first missile ignited as soon as it had dropped free of the internal weapons bay and shot out quickly after the enemy aircraft. Lacey then depressed the firing button on his flight stick. He felt his fighter lift a bit in altitude as his own missile dropped from the weapons bay and raced toward the enemy.
The two of them watched for a couple of minutes as the missiles streaked toward the Indonesian planes, getting closer to their prey with each passing second. Then, the Hawks detected the incoming threats and took evasive maneuvers. They accelerated and dove for the ground, hoping they could lose the missiles in the ground clutter. Unfortunately for them, the missiles had gotten too close to them before they had detected the threats. The missiles quickly entered their terminal speed and slammed into both warplanes.
“Score! We got them, Tiger!” yelled Raptor excitedly over the radio. They had officially achieved the first air-to-air kills for the Royal Australian Air Force of World War III.
“Settle down, Raptor,” Captain Blake chided. “Maintain radio discipline. We’ll celebrate tonight with the rest of the squadron. Right now, we need to focus on getting back to base without getting shot down. You can bet the enemy is going to know we’re operating in the area and look to find us with their SAMs.” He did his best to hide his own level of excitement so that they could make it back to base safely.
The Indians Are Coming
Russian Far East
Komsomolsk-on-Amur
Lieutenant General Adhar Chatterji of the Second Indian Expeditionary Army watched the tired and battered Russian soldiers stand in line, waiting to board the train that would take them West, toward the next defensive line. Should his Indian forces not be able to stop the Americans from steamrolling across their positions, they would hopefully be rested and ready to fight. While the Russian soldiers stood silently waiting for the train to empty, Chatterji felt pride swell within his chest as nearly a battalion’s worth of his Indian Army soldiers exited the train. These new arrivals were led to a long line of trucks that would transport them to one of the many military camps that had sprung up around the city of Komsomolsk.
A month ago, the Americans had landed a sizeable force of Marines among the coastal cities along the Sea of Okhotsk and the Kamchatka Peninsula. Once on the ground, the Americans had advanced stealthily throughout the Russian Far East, severing the oil and natural gas fields of eastern Russia and disrupting a host of other mining operations. The Marines were quickly gobbling up the Far East, which was why General Chatterji and his corps now found themselves here, as opposed to Eastern Europe.
While General Chatterji was not thrilled with being allied with the Chinese, he understood the reasons why his government had gone along. The one concession the Indians had made the Chinese agree to was that neither country would station soldiers on each other’s territories, at least not until both sides felt more comfortable with the arrangement. If it hadn’t been for President Petrov’s intervention in the negotiations, Chatterji highly doubted India would have joined the new Eastern Alliance.
In the dark recesses of his mind, General Chatterji felt bad about going to war with the Americans. His younger brother had emigrated to America twenty-six years ago and loved being an American. Becoming a US citizen had been one of his proudest moments. He’d brag about it nearly every time he came home to visit.
“I hope Krishna is still doing OK in America,” Chatterji thought. He hadn’t been able to talk to his brother in a while, and he worried that some of his nieces and nephews might have been drafted.
After greeting and welcoming his soldiers to Russia following their nearly eight-day train ride from India, he turned to leave the trainyard and was pleasantly surprised when his soldiers spontaneously started to sing an old military hymn.
“They’re excited about going to war…” he reveled to himself.
An hour later, he walked into his headquarters building and made his way over to the room he had set up as his new office. When he walked in, he was pleasantly surprised to see his new boss, a Russian major general, and one of his colonels. Smiling, he extended his hand. “Major General Oleg Chirkin, it’s good to see you. I thought we were meeting for dinner in a couple of hours?”
Major General Chirkin smiled briefly at the question. “Yes, I have a reservation made for us. However, I wanted to speak with you now—it’s a matter of great urgency,” he replied, still standing near the wall of the office.
Chatterji signaled for the two Russian officers to take a seat as he walked around to his desk. Chirkin remained standing. “General, I understand you arrived yesterday and have set this building up as your new headq
uarters. As my new deputy, I must insist that you pick a new location for your headquarters,” urged Chirkin. “I also recommend that you find a way to trim your staff down by at least half and find a more discreet way to run operations.”
Lifting his head up a bit, Chatterji clarified, “You’re concerned with this location being quickly identified by the Americans and then destroyed?”
Chirkin nodded. “Yes. My predecessor didn’t relocate his headquarters when the war started, and the Americans blew him up with a cruise missile. By all accounts, you’re a very competent general. I don’t want the US to score a quick victory and destroy your HQ the first week you’re in Russia,” he replied, hoping the new general wouldn’t take offense to him saying this.
Chetterji smiled broadly. “We’ve already thought about this, General. We made a lot of noise about this new location and are setting up enough communications transmissions emanating from this building to be convincing as well. I even have a body double who will come here daily. We want the Americans to destroy this building. We want to show our people at home how vicious the US is, and how they will even kill civilians and then blame us for setting up our headquarters near a heavily populated area.”
Chatterji wagged his finger with a smile. “I already have a secured headquarters set up. After today, I’ll never set foot in this building again. This is all a ruse,” he concluded.
Laughing at what they had been told, both of the Russians had to take a minute to regain their composure. “Very clever, General. You’re just as crafty and devious as I have heard. Now, can you put that craftiness to use in slowing down the Americans?”
Turning serious, General Chertterji responded, “I have a plan to deal with them. My engineering brigade has finally arrived. We’re starting construction of twelve new airfields. When they’re completed, the Air Force will be sending 150 fighter aircraft, and we’ll also receive a few squadrons of Jaguar ground-attack planes. When our air operations are up and running, we’ll stop the Americans from advancing any further, and then as additional brigades arrive from home, we’ll work on removing them altogether. Under your leadership, this joint Russian-Indian task force is sure to prevail. By the end of summer, we’ll have 90,000 Indian soldiers here, and double that number next spring.”
Leaning forward, he looked the Russians in the eyes. “I’m going to rely on you for your help and expertise. You have hard-fought experience fighting the Americans. With your help, we’re going to defeat the enemy and end this bloody war,” he concluded.
General Chatterji noted the smiles spreading across his Russian compatriots’ faces. He wanted to make sure they knew they were going to be equal partners in this campaign; if they believed that, then their forces would fight harder, and the likelihood of them winning would increase significantly.
Deceiving Appearances
Washington State
Joint Base Lewis-McChord
It had been nearly six weeks since Sergeant First Class Ian Slater and a small ragtag group of soldiers had successfully escaped capture from behind enemy lines. It had taken them another seventeen days to make it back to friendly forces. During that time, the small group of “freed soldiers” had done their best to stay hidden when they could and fight when no other choice presented itself. Slater didn’t really view himself as the leader of this motley crew, but they had latched onto him like a little brother does to his big brother on the first day of school.
During their seventeen-day ordeal, they had seen the Chinese soldiers getting pummeled from the air. The ROK and US forces were counterattacking hard. It was not unusual for them to run into a cluster of dead bodies as they traveled. Given their situation, they always searched the remains for any useful weapons or supplies that might not have been destroyed.
Then one day, a group of PLA soldiers got closer to Sergeant Slater’s motley crew. Searching for a place to hide, his men located a cluster of destroyed armored vehicles. They hid amongst the wreckage, forced to lie down near bodies until the enemy passed by. For twelve hours, they lay next to the fallen American, Korean, and Chinese soldiers, doing their best to hide in plain sight.
Finally, an American unit approached their hiding place, and they presented themselves to their fellow US comrades. Once their identities had been verified, they were brought behind the Allied lines, cleaned up, and sent back to Seoul to see what would become of them. Nearly all the prisoners had some minor injuries that needed treating. However, it was the injuries to their minds that would need more attention.
Slater, along with the other prisoners, was debriefed on what had happened at the Yalu line. Eventually, they had all been sent back to Japan, where they could have a more thorough medical and mental evaluation. Because they’d been prisoners, they weren’t going to be sent back to a line unit right away.
Two days after arriving in Japan, and only five days after they were repatriated, a colonel who was also a psychologist decided that Slater and his fellow prisoners hadn’t been deserters but rather were legitimate prisoners who had escaped capture, removing any doubt or suspicion. With this prognosis, their treatment changed for the better.
They were all assessed to determine their level of mental stability and to decide if they were fit to serve in a line unit at that time or if they would have to be cycled back to a support function for a time. Many of the prisoners were torn by these options. Some of them wanted to get payback for their comrades that had been killed, while others felt the need to serve in a support unit, or better yet, separate from the military entirely.
They went from having a cloud of suspicion over them to suddenly learning that they were being hailed as champions who had outsmarted the People’s Liberation Army. Slater overheard some of the other soldiers labeling his group the “Heroes of the Yalu Line.”
Everyone in that group of soldiers was eventually awarded the Prisoner of War medal, the Purple Heart, and a Bronze Star with Valor for overpowering and killing their captors and escaping back to the Allied lines. As a consolation prize, the Army determined that they should not have to return to combat but would all be assigned as drill instructors or other support jobs back in the States. They had done their part for their country, and now it was time for their country to take care of them.
*******
A day after arriving in Tacoma, Washington, Sergeant Slater reported to the garrison commander’s office at Fort Lewis-McCord for his new assignment. He showed up at 0750 hours, just as he had been instructed. However, he was out of uniform. He showed up wearing a polo shirt, khaki pants, and a pair of Oakley sunglasses on the top of his closely cropped head, an ensemble he had purchased the night before at a Wal-Mart in Olympia.
When his plane arrived from Japan, the first thing he did was check himself into a Marriott in downtown Olympia. He bought some clothes, ate a steak dinner, then found a bar, where he proceeded to get as drunk as possible and try to pick up a local girl for the night. He had succeeded in nearly every goal except finding someone to spend the evening with. Frustrated, he went to the restroom, where he gave himself an honest look in the mirror.
“I’m a bit gaunt right now,” he realized. “I can’t blame a woman for running away from me—I’m all skin and bones.”
Since the start of the war, Slater had lost 32 pounds from stress, lack of food, and overactivity. Of course, dodging enemy soldiers behind the Allied lines for seventeen days hadn’t helped either. Besides that, the medication the doctors had prescribed to him to help control some of his PTSD-related anxiety had also killed his appetite. Defeated, he had left the bar to crash in his hotel room for the few hours that remained before he had to get up and report to duty.
The next morning hit him like a truck. He barely managed to pick himself up out of his bed. As he walked toward the headquarters building, the sun hurt his head, but at the same time, he wanted to soak up the warmth of the sun’s rays. He knew that sunny days were going to be a lot rarer here than in his home state of Florida.
&nbs
p; Seeing the entrance to his new company coming up, he briskly walked along the outside of the headquarters buildings. He pulled the door open and walked in, and a young buck sergeant greeted him with a smile.
“Good Morning. How may I help you?” he asked, a bit too chipper for Slater’s liking.
“God, I have one gnarly hangover,” he thought. “I hope I don’t smell like alcohol…”
Slater pulled his personnel file out of a small daypack he had been carrying and gave the file to the young sergeant. “I’m Sergeant First Class Ian Slater. I was told to report for duty here this morning.”
The sergeant took the folder from him, opening it quickly to review the information. He asked for Slater’s ID card and verified the information with what had been written in the personnel file. “If you would please place your right index finger and right thumb on this scanner, I’ll make sure you are who you say you are,” he said with a smile. It seemed like he had done this a million times before.
“This is new. Never had to do this before,” Slater thought.
Looking at the sergeant’s uniform, he could see the man hadn’t deployed overseas. No combat action patch. Some very unflattering words came to mind as he thought about this green inexperienced soldier lording over him.
The soldier nodded when he received the confirmation that Slater’s identity had been verified. “Sorry for the delay, Sergeant. There have been a few sabotage incidents on base, so security has increased. You’re now registered as a member of the base and this command. If you take a seat over there, I’ll let Captain Wilkes know you’re here and he’ll let you know what your duties will be.”
A few minutes went by, and then a captain walked into the room and spoke briefly with the orderly, who pointed at Slater. The captain walked toward him. “Sergeant Slater, correct?” he asked, a bit of heat in his voice. As the captain looked him over, his lip snarled in disdain.