Invasion

by James Rosone

  Webb looked at his watch. It was just after 2300 hours. They had five more minutes of flying until they came to their next objective.

  “Target destroyed,” Hawkey announced. All the lights below them suddenly blinked out.

  Webb snorted. “Let’s hope.”

  A moment went by before Hawkey stated, “Sixty seconds from the next target. Opening bomb bay doors.”

  “Acknowledged,” Webb responded. Then he prepared the last set of bombs. He had just finished releasing control of the bombs when the computer said they were over the target. The automated bombing system began releasing its payload. Webb observed that the bomber suddenly felt a lot lighter, and its handling had improved significantly.

  Just as they got the bomb doors closed, the warning alarms blared. Half a dozen radars suddenly turned on, searching the air for them. Two pairs of Eurofighters also entered the area with their search radars on. They were being hunted.

  Despite the danger, Major Hawkey remained cool as a cucumber. He applied more power to the engines and moved them into a cloud bank to help hide them.

  Looking at their airspeed, Webb saw they had just crept above Mach 1 and were now approaching Mach 1.3. Their max speed in this beast was Mach 2.1. As they continued to speed up, Colonel Webb started thinking about all the fuel they would begin to go through. The plane was incredibly fuel-efficient when it flew at its cruising speed of Mach 0.9. However, it became a pig when they flew above Mach 1.5. If they kept their current pace for more than thirty minutes, they were going to need to tank up a lot sooner than they’d anticipated.

  For five tense minutes, they cruised through the dense cloud cover at Mach 1.3. Major Hawkey finally announced, “I think we lost them. I’m not showing any fighters within a hundred-mile radius of us. It appears we slipped past them.”

  “I agree. Good job, Major. You stayed calm and didn’t panic when they lit the place up. You’re going to make a good aircraft commander when I finally retire.”

  “Retire? Hell, I thought you had your eyes on a star,” retorted his partner good-naturedly.

  Webb laughed, more to release the tension than at the question. “Oh, I don’t know. I’d like the bump in retirement pay, sure. Northrop knows I’m getting close to retirement. They made me a hell of an offer to go work for them.”

  Hawkey turned to look at his partner. “Really? What would you be doing?”

  Webb shrugged his shoulders. “I think they want me to stay on the Raider program—either as a pilot or something in the engineering or sales side of things.”

  “Sales? Congress said they’re going to buy more than a hundred of these things. They’re finally going to phase out those dinosaurs we have.”

  Webb snickered. “I think you heard wrong, my friend. They plan on keeping those bad boys around a bit longer. They’re going to phase out the B-1s and the B-2s in favor of the B-21 and keep those flying deathtraps going a couple more decades.”

  “Wow, I thought that was still just speculation,” Hawkey countered. “Well, if you want my two cents, sir, I think you should stay in. Get that star and take over as our group commander and head the first fully equipped B-21 bombardment group.”

  Webb laughed at the prospect. “Yeah, well, we’ll have to wait and see what the boss says. I’ve made her follow me around for thirty years. If she wants to stick around a few more for me to get pinned, then I will. If she wants me to take the Northrop contract, well, then that’s what I’ll do.”

  The rest of the flight over the Atlantic went relatively smoothly. They linked up with their tanker a few hours later and continued back to Texas. Word had it they might be relocating in another week if the Army couldn’t stop the Chinese.

  *******

  Hamburg, Germany

  The air was cool and crisp. The sky was gray, and the clouds continued to roll in. There was a buzz in the city, but not the kind of jovial energy one would come to expect. The mood in Hamburg had changed dramatically over the last few months. This sudden war between the UN and America had caught many of the residents of the city by surprise. Practically without warning, Germany had somehow found itself at war with America for the third time in less than a hundred years—not a good position to be in considering how the last two wars against the Yanks had gone.

  “Hier ist seine Kaffee,” a waitress announced as she delivered the hot cup of joe to Captain Flecker.

  The British 22 SAS officer smiled at the young woman. “Danke,” he replied. Flecker slipped her a five-euro note and motioned with his hand for her to keep the change. She smiled warmly at him as she walked off to help another customer.

  Captain Flecker sipped on his coffee and took a bite out of the still-warm cheese-covered pretzel. While he ate, his eyes shifted to the sprawling harbor of Hamburg across the shipping channel. Black oily smoke still rose into the air from more than a dozen different locations.

  Firemen were still trying to battle some of the blazes, while other workers took to the task of cleaning up the mess the Yanks had left behind. American stealth bombers had paid the city a visit two days ago. They had wrecked many of the large industrial cranes used to load and unload the massive ships that would tie up.

  Reaching his hand up ever so slightly to adjust his glasses, Flecker depressed the tiny button on the frames that would allow him to record what he was seeing. He slowly looked at the different shipping terminals, making sure he paused at each one long enough to capture a few seconds of video. The recording would be chopped down into still images later on and examined before being passed on to the Americans.

  A couple of minutes later, another man walked up to his table and pulled out a chair as he took a seat. “They really tore that place up, didn’t they?”

  Flecker snickered at the overly obvious statement from his sergeant. “The Yanks have a way of doing that, don’t they?” he countered.

  “I think we have everything. Are you ready to go?” asked the sergeant, who was holding up his copy of Der Spiegel as if he were there to read the paper.

  “Yes. Let’s head back to the safehouse,” Flecker responded as he finished off his coffee.

  The two of them got up and headed down the road, making sure to stop periodically and check to make sure they weren’t being followed.

  Before they stopped into a pub for a quick drink, the two of them eyed the door and the window, looking for any telltale signs that they might be under surveillance. Not spotting any, the two of them went in and drank their beers in private while they observed the people around them.

  Captain Flecker and his sergeant both spoke German fluently, which was why they had been selected for this mission. Their job was to conduct battle damage assessment of the American bombing missions and to observe German troop movements to the ports. If they spotted a cluster of vehicles or military equipment arriving at the port, they’d send a message back to Hereford, where it’d be passed on to the US intel community. Usually sometime the next day, a stealth bomber or cruise missile would pay the port a visit. It wasn’t a direct-action mission as they would have liked, but it was the kind of cloak and dagger stuff they were still good at.

  The sergeant lifted his beer to his lips. Speaking softly so as not to be heard, he asked, “How much longer do you think it’ll be until we join the Yanks in their little war?”

  Flecker put his mug down and thought about his answer for a moment. There was a lot of talk within the Ministry of Defence about this subject. The politicians, of course, wanted to keep Great Britain out of the conflict, but many others inside the MOD wanted to aid their American cousins. The two nations had maintained a special bond since the end of World War II. It was ironic that now it was America who was being invaded and attacked by Europe instead of the other way around.

  Looking at his sergeant, Flecker whispered, “Soon, sergeant. Soon.”

  *******

  March 10, 2021

  Calumet City, Illinois

  River Oaks Center

  Captain Regan
sat on the top of the turret with Sergeant First Class Miller, eating their MREs while one of the POL guys refueled their tank. Now that they’d been stationary for more than a few days, the ammo and fuel train had finally caught up to them. As soon as they were fueled up, they’d drive over to the ammo section and replenish their stores.

  Once he finished his MRE, Miller stuffed his spork in the empty pouch and looked at Regan. “I suppose you want us to load up on extra HEAT and canister rounds for this next operation,” he posited.

  Regan grabbed his canteen and took a couple of gulps to help wash down his lunch. “I think that’d be best.”

  “I heard from a guy in the 519th MI that the Chinese finally captured Fort Bliss,” said Miller. “They pushed the 1st AD all the way back to Odessa.”

  Regan nodded. “They did. They also pushed the 1st Cav back to Las Lunas, just south of Albuquerque.”

  “Holy crap. Really? I have a sister that lives in Albuquerque. Do you think the Chinese are going to capture it?”

  Regan shrugged. “I have no idea. I know parts of the 4th ID were moving down to help them when some of their units got jumped by the Colorado militia. I think most of the division has now moved into New Mexico and Arizona, but they lost some tanks in that ambush.”

  “What? How could the militia have taken out tanks?” Miller asked, shaking his head in disbelief.

  “They apparently emptied a fuel truck on an overpass as the battalion of tanks was passing underneath on the highway,” Regan responded. “They blew the truck up which collapsed the bridge and dowsed a dozen or so tanks in flaming liquid. Someone in ops was telling me about it this morning at the brief.”

  “Man, that is some crazy Mad Max stuff right there,” Miller said, running his fingers through his hair. “I don’t know what the hell is happening to our country, sir. It’s like a switch was turned on last September and everyone and everything has just gone nuts. I mean, we used to be able to agree to disagree. Now people are shooting at each other and trying to form their own countries or whatever it is these yahoos in Chicago are doing.”

  Regan sighed. He tried to avoid politics—he hated how it turned people against each other. Realizing that Miller was watching him, waiting for him to say something, Regan just shrugged. “I don’t know, Miller. I’m just trying to do my best to stay alive and keep the rest of the guys in our unit from getting killed. I just want to get back home and do my regular job.”

  Miller grunted. “You know, sometimes I forget we’re National Guard and not regular Army. I suppose that’s because I’ve only been out of the regular Army for a year, so I’m not fully adjusted to civilian life yet.”

  “I had just accepted a job as a public defender in Meridian a month before this craziness started. I hadn’t even unpacked my stuff into my new apartment when the call came,” Regan said glumly.

  When he’d graduated law school, Regan had opted to become a public defender rather than going into private practice or working in the district attorney’s office. Mississippi had a program in place where if someone worked in the public defender’s office for five years, the state would forgive their student loan debt. When Regan had joined the National Guard, they’d agreed to pay off thirty thousand dollars of his student loans, but that still left him with a balance of fifty thousand dollars. Despite the fact that the pay as a public defender in Mississippi stunk, it was worth it to him to have all that debt paid off in just five years. Then he’d be able to start whatever law practice he wanted at thirty years old, completely debt-free.

  Miller shot Regan a quizzical look. “Public defender? That’s an interesting choice. As for me, my uncle had gotten me a job at the Nissan plant in Blue Springs. The pay was pretty good, but the employee discount on the cars was the best. I was lucky though—my uncle says the company has to hold my job for me if I’m called up, so I know my job is still waiting for me when we get back from all this crap.”

  Just then, the first sergeant walked toward them. “Captain Regan,” he called. “There’s an officer call over at the battalion CP. I was told to come tell you.”

  Regan nodded. “Thanks, Top. Why don’t you come with me? This way, we can put out whatever needs to be put out when they’re done.”

  The two of them walked off to see what the news was. They’d been sitting on their hands outside the city of Chicago now for five days. Neither side was really shooting at each other as an uneasy truce continued to hold. Word had it some sort of terms for surrender were being discussed.

  When the headquarters group knew they were going to be in a static position for more than a day, they tended to line a couple of the APCs up together to form a working headquarters section. One track would be responsible for managing the battalion’s supply and logistics, another would manage the ops and intel. As he approached the back of the M117 track, Regan saw several of the other company commanders standing around under the tent canopy.

  After a couple of minutes, the battalion commander cleared his throat to get everyone’s attention. “I know some rumors have been swirling around the camp. It’s true—surrender terms have been reached with the German-Dutch division we’ve been facing. However, the Illinois and Wisconsin Civil Defense Force units have vowed to continue the fight.”

  Murmurs spread through the small crowd. Colonel Beasley, who had come over from Brigade HQ, held up a hand to get everyone to calm down and stop talking. “In the next few hours, the German and Dutch soldiers will begin to form up into company-sized elements. They’ll disarm themselves and then march toward our positions. When that happens, the MPs are going to search them one more time before they begin to process them as prisoners of war. They’ll be moved further back behind our lines to whatever POW camps the MPs are setting up.

  “The German commander said they are going to place most of their equipment in a couple of locations for us to collect. Some Special Forces units are over there right now and will guard the equipment until we can move forward and secure it. We want to keep as much of their equipment out of the CDF’s hands as possible. Chances are, the CDF is going to capture a lot of small arms equipment and ammo, but we want to keep the armored vehicles and other systems out of their hands if possible.”

  He nodded to one of the lieutenants who had been working as one of his aides. The man turned on one of the large computer monitors they had with them. It displayed a map of the greater Chicago area.

  “Our brigade is going to move forward into the city,” Colonel Beasley continued. “Our first objective is to reach Grant Park. We’ll set up our initial headquarters there while we wait for the 45th Infantry Brigade Combat Team to relieve us in seventy-two hours. Once they’ve relieved us, we’ll head up to liberate the Army reserve base at Fort Sheridan and then Naval Base Great Lakes. We’ll continue to move up the coast and into Wisconsin, with our end objective being Milwaukee, and then Madison if we have to. Are there any questions?”

  Colonel Beasley looked around. One of the officers had raised his hand.

  “Sir, if we’re moving up to Wisconsin, who’s going to liberate Michigan and the rest of Indiana?”

  Beasley nodded. “That task is mostly being handed down to the 38th Infantry Division. The plan right now is for the 116th Infantry Brigade Combat Team to relieve us in Wisconsin in roughly two weeks. Once our brigade has been relieved of our primary combat duties in Wisconsin and Illinois, we’ll rejoin the rest of our division down in Texas and face off against the Chinese. So, let’s continue to stay frosty, heads on a swivel, and get through these next couple of weeks. Things are either going to go easily for us now that the Germans are surrendering, or we’re about to enter a whole new phase to this civil war.”

  With the overall strategy having been dished out, the company commanders left the meeting, more informed than they’d been in the past several weeks of what their overall objectives were.

  Chapter 15

  Texas Nightmare

  March 12, 2021

  El Paso, Texas

/>   Colonel Li did not agree with the orders he had been given. He knew this strategy was not going to play well in the occupied territories. More importantly, he knew that carrying these orders out would turn all of the American people against them—there wouldn’t be any left who viewed them as liberators.

  Li sighed softly to himself. Like the other PLA officers, he knew he didn’t have a choice in the matter. He had been given his orders from on high, and it was his duty to make sure the regular army implemented them.

  He looked out the window of his vehicle. They were approaching the University of Texas campus, the site that the PLA had designated as the central processing point for the Chinese Q program.

  The occupation of captured America was presenting the PLA with a serious challenge. They had to manage and feed millions of civilians in addition to their ever-growing army. To accomplish this, they had to cull the herd—separating those who couldn’t contribute from those who could. That meant a lot of tough decisions would have to be made rapidly as they captured more land, towns, and cities.

  “We’re nearly there, sir,” his driver announced.

  Soon, their vehicle pulled into the parking lot of the Sun Bowl Stadium. Colonel Li could never understand why the Americans would erect such massive edifices just for the game of football. Outside the stadium were rows upon rows of yellow school buses, intermixed with city commuter buses. Disheveled civilians poured out of them and filtered into various lines to the entrances.

  The giant facility was also ringed by hundreds of Chinese soldiers and armored personnel carriers, to make sure the civilians couldn’t decide they wanted to leave all at the same time. A couple of people had tried to escape, but they’d summarily been shot. Those public deaths had put a damper on the fighting spirit of those who remained.

  As he climbed out of his vehicle, Colonel Li was greeted by General Xi, the PLA garrison commander for Texas. Li saluted and Xi returned the greeting, but both men knew who was in charge. While Xi may be a PLA general, Li was a colonel in the Political Work Department of the CMC—Li was the man who made sure the PLA soldiers and officers continued to stay loyal to the party and President Chen. Colonel Li even had the power to have a general removed from his position and sent to a work gang or one of the newly formed penal battalions that were arriving daily.