by T I WADE
The colonel paused briefly for the applause from the crowd. “I believe that they have lost the ability to fly in more troops, which makes it easier for us from now on. As far as the ground battle is concerned, we got all their men out of the airports, which are safe again. We had our soldiers go in behind them and create havoc once the air cover had done their job. We believe that 12,000 troops landed in 21 aircraft. So far, we have 3,450 wounded and non-wounded enemy prisoners under guard in the two airports, and we are still flying in their wounded to our military hospital set ups here and at Andrews. We have not counted all the bodies since there are still hundreds around side roads and in alleyways, but a search is going on right now. Enemy deaths so far are close to 6,200. We have collected only seven satellite phones, and 103 backpack radios. The commanders believe that at least another 1,500 to 2,000 bodies are not yet counted, which means that we could have between 500 and 1,000 enemy troops wandering around our streets, and I’m sure several of them can communicate with each other. Hopefully they will all be accounted for by dawn.
“Ladies and gentlemen, our losses are substantial. At the airports, as I said, we lost 54 good Air Force men. Newark highways area lost 147 Army soldiers, Newark dock area lost 45 Marines, Van Wyck Expressway is short 41 Army soldiers and ten Marines, Nassau Expressway lost 59 Army soldiers, and the Belt Parkway lost 87 Marines. The total of American fatalities so far, is up to 443 with another 296 wounded, 17 critical. We have one aircraft with several rounds through its engine, which cannot be repaired before tomorrow’s battle. Twenty-four hours from now it should all be over.
“We are expecting ten ships—five container ships and five military vessels. I’m certain that many of the enemy soldiers walking our streets don’t know the whole story and hope the scratchy details from these commanders will not affect the main battle. I’m looking forward to tomorrow. We have reliable information that all the enemy commanders, except one, are aboard the aircraft carrier, and it all depends on how they enter under the Narrows Bridge tomorrow. Folks, our American civilians need that massive amount of food coming in. It could feed cities for months and we must not harm any of those container ships. We will have over a thousand snipers placed around the docks to pick off anybody who shows his head once the five container ships have docked. After that, it is open hunting season on the military vessels, and we have so much ammunition around here that I think we could put the earth out of alignment!” Everyone laughed.
“We have 20 squads of Navy Seals and Marines ready to climb aboard the container ships, and the snipers will back off once they go aboard. Their supreme aircraft carrier fighters can only stay airborne for three to four hours at the most, and when their runway sinks, they either die in freezing water, or land at one of our airports and introduce themselves to one of our welcoming committees. None of our aircraft, except the three F-4s, have any defense against what I believe is approximately 30 of their heavily armed modern J-10 fighters. I’m sure that they will have helicopters somewhere on their ships, and those can easily be taken out by heat-seeking rockets, of which we have hundreds. Once these fighters have used up their rockets and guns, only then can our aircraft take to the skies, but theirs are fast and you will have to shoot well to hit them. At that time, the best we can manage to defend ourselves is to prevent the howitzers on the ground from getting pelted by their fighters.”
For another ten minutes the colonel went on about the three different scenarios possible in New York Harbor. Several questions were asked about ground troops, and he replied that all American ground troops would be converging into the harbor area, making sure that the thousands of troops aboard the ships didn’t reach dry land. A second meeting would be held in two hours time, with the artillery, rocket, and mortar sections on their perimeters for attack, since they had American submarines and warships in the harbor, that did not need friendly fire.
*****
The last meeting of the Politburo was held at the same time in the meeting room of the aircraft carrier, now only 300 miles out of New York Harbor. The room was full with the 15 men, minus Mo Wang, whom nobody had seen for a couple of days, and several of the Red Guard commanders. The captains of the nine other vessels were on video screens piped in from their ships and the fighter aircraft commander was also in attendance. The chairman was on his satellite phone listening in to his panicked commanders on the ground in New York and angrily shouting back into the phone.
“What do you mean that you don’t know where you are!” he shouted to some poor guy on the other end. “Ask an American how to get to the docks! Of course we expected some form of fight, that’s why you are there, you stupid man! I already know that all the aircraft took off and are on their way back to China. Several others have confirmed seeing them leave. Yes, we lost a couple, but that’s war, Major Fu. Now get your men to the harbor area and I’m sure you will find thousands of other men waiting for you who will laugh at you for getting lost. How many men did you say you have with you? 23? How many did you have to start with? 500? Major Fu, may I suggest that they are not dead, just lost like you, and are waiting with the others. I have been told by several commanders that the fighting was sporadic and there were not more than a thousand American soldiers and several old propeller aircraft. I don’t want to listen to any more of your problems, Major Fu. Go and find the harbor and secure it for our arrival tomorrow. Remember, we still have another 4,000 men aboard these ships that will certainly pitch the battle in our favor.” The chairman angrily hung up on the poor man, lost somewhere without lights in a dock area he didn’t know, and surrounded by snipers with night sights. Major Fu wouldn’t see another dawn.
“And we call these troops our finest?” snapped the angry chairman at the crowd listening to his conversation. “What has happened to our youth? Wait until our real crack troops get on American soil tomorrow! I want all American males terminated within 20 city blocks of the harbor area. I don’t need any more problems when I step ashore—just female Americans, happy to see their new leader’s arrival.”
For the rest of the day, the Politburo went over the plans for the invasion of their new country. Several times, the chairman asked one of his aides to get one of the pilots of the 747 aircraft on the phone, but he couldn’t get through. The chairman wanted to get the next load of backup troops in as fast as possible. For the first time in his career, he was slightly worried about his master plan.
The sailors on board the ships prepared for their arrival in New York just after dawn the next morning.
It’s weird that weather often doesn’t play its part in well-thought out plans. It is also likely that bad weather for one person is good weather for another.
At dawn on the morning of January 20th, and after an inch of fresh snow in the New York area overnight, the sun rose behind the thick clouds that had formed along the northern coast of the United States overnight. A light snow was still falling, and thousands of men huddled for warmth in their thick white winter fatigues, brewed warm energy drinks from their ration packs, and cleaned and prepared their weapons.
The incoming ships couldn’t be seen by most of the American forces, but radar from the Coast Guard C-130 circling ten miles off shore and to the west of New York could see the ten blips on her screens perfectly. The ten ships were now stationary, three miles offshore, and Colonel Patterson—receiving a continuous feed in his extremely cold command center on top of the right tower of the Verrazano Narrows Bridge and underneath white tents—was totally blinded by the clouds hanging well below his vantage point.
He now depended totally on the C-130’s continuous information, flying at 5,000 feet. If her radar screen could see the ships, the ship’s radar screens could see her. The colonel had placed her ten miles back from shore to make it look like she was just patrolling, and a second and third C-130 were also visible on the ship’s radar over Washington D.C. and Philadelphia, making it look like New York wasn’t the only area with air patrol. He didn’t want the invading forces to think
that the United States was totally useless. That wouldn’t look right.
The C-130 ‘bait’ aircraft was 20 miles west of the harbor area and directly over Morrisville Airport in New Jersey. She could easily be attacked with sea-to-air missiles. Colonel Patterson was hoping that she would get their fighters airborne and in either scenario, the attack would take time to reach her and she could sink down and disappear into especially prepared ground cover within seconds of a missile or aircraft being launched. Also, the first missiles would be satellite-guided and Lee Wang was ready to scramble the satellite feeds to disrupt any incoming missiles and make them useless.
The vacant ground in and around the Morrisville Municipal Airport where the C-130 would land once attacked from the aircraft carrier, was filled with all sorts of anti-aircraft weapons pulled in from dozens and dozens of military bases from New Jersey and surrounding states.
Forty M-163 Vulcan anti-aircraft vehicles were ready, placed under trees, and next to hangars on the airfield. Even though they were old and many had been pulled out of museums, their 3,000 rounds per minute were deadly for any aircraft if they found their mark.
Several old Bradley fighting vehicles with cannons and TOW missiles had arrived from the Ohio area, 35 Mutts (jeeps) with TOW missiles and dozens more vehicles—mostly old jeeps with all types of cannons made to be temporary anti-aircraft defense vehicles— waited for targets, any targets, and Colonel Patterson hoped that the one lame duck could be the beginning of an ambush for the more advanced hawks—the hawks that would have to fly in close under the low cloud base to see what was so important below the single aircraft.
Another hundred old, antiquated units, mostly with TOW missiles, had been positioned between the Verrazano Narrows Bridge and around the New York harbor area and could open up on the aircraft if needed. The destroyers and frigates could also fire at the C-130, but that would give their complete element of surprise away to the enemy, and as the slow sun rose and the dark skies became a lighter grey, nothing happened.
Sporadic shooting had been heard throughout the night as snipers around the harbor shot at anything that moved on the streets below. There were few civilians in the area—any people the military had met before the day of the attack had been given a case of military rations per person and told to get out of the area. Dozens of city blocks in New York and New Jersey were covered with snipers on the roofs of every building, and it was two hours before dawn before everything went quiet as the snow began to fall and the snipers moved lower and lower to street-level to make sure nobody was missed.
*****
On the enemy ships out at sea nobody was in a great hurry. Their powerful engines kept them still in the calm water and thousands of men waited for the chairman to give his command to start the day’s action.
He was on deck sniffing the air and looking towards the dark grey shoreline three miles away. The American coastline could just be seen through the tapering snow and, drinking from a large china cup of steaming green tea, he held off the attack hoping that the clouds would lift with the sun’s rays warming the area and giving them more sight. He wanted to watch the action unfold.
For another ten minutes, he drank from his cup, leaning on the balcony of the ship, just looking towards his new country. Several camouflaged military personnel around him waited with their aides wearing backpack radios to communicate his orders. He had been told about the three aircraft on the radar screens and had asked his Air Force commander why the closest American airplane was so far from shore. The commander had replied that either it was air support for ground troops coming into New York to fight, or the airport where the rest of their aircraft were stationed, or it was the Americans’ early-warning system using its radar to search for incoming aircraft or shipping.
“So they already know that we are here, three miles offshore?” the chairman asked and the man confirmed that. “They still have guided missiles that can destroy our aircraft?” he then asked. Again the commander nodded to confirm this.
“But our aircraft’s satellite-guided missiles can attack their aircraft from a much further distance. Also, their aircraft can take off once ours take off, as they will see our aircraft taking off on their radar screens, yes?” was the chairman’s next question as he drank the last sip of tea. He looked around and noticed that the snow had stopped, and even though the temperature was slightly below freezing, the clouds had risen slightly and he could just make out the towers of the Verrazano Narrows Bridge, which in an hour or two he would officially rename as the aircraft carrier passed under. The Air Force commander confirmed the chairman’s last question, and then it got serious. “How long can our fighters stay in the air?” he asked.
“Three to four hours depending on fuel usage. Less than one hour if they are in battle conditions,” replied the commander.
“Let’s take our new country, gentlemen,” the chairman ordered. “Admiral, send in the five food ships. I want to know what, or who is going to attack us, and I want to make sure our engineers and our troops are in the harbor area and not American soldiers like our commander said yesterday. I hear no shooting or loud explosions and I believe everything is quiet and ready. I want 12 fighters to take off and go and destroy that pesky fly out there and destroy everything below where that American plane is flying. Get ready to refuel and rearm those aircraft when they return and then get the remainder of the aircraft off the carrier once any enemy contact has been made. I want as much ammunition on deck to resupply the aircraft as quickly as possible. It will be safe on deck once we have the second flight of aircraft in the air to protect us. Tell the first wave to go in low, and as soon as they get halfway to that American aircraft, the first fighter will release their missiles to blow it out of the sky.
“That will be the start of the battle. Get the container ships into the off-loading facilities as quickly as possible. Our ground troops should be ready and our engineers will be there to welcome the container ships. Admiral, since we don’t have tugs to help the ships berth, tell them to be careful and to follow the simple berthing plan we have given them. Make sure that the container ship with the 1,500 Red Special Guards ready to scale down her sides goes in first, just in case.”
Orders were communicated, and ships began to creep forward again inch by inch, as the massive engines powered the great ships forward and the whine of jet engines could be heard several flights below as the chairman looked down to survey the action on the flight deck. He was extremely excited for the first time in his life.
*****
“We see heat spots increasing on the carrier deck, and we are descending to 2,500 feet,” stated the radar engineers in Blue Moon as she hung in the air above Morrisville Airport, the 400 men below ready to fire on any incoming aircraft once the enemy opened fire. “Roger that,” replied Colonel Patterson. “Immediately after the last fighter takes off, get her down onto the ground, into the prepared snow-walled area, get her propellers stopped, and get the white tarps over her. Gentlemen, I believe you will have five minutes once their missiles are scrambled by us and go into space before they come in with guns blazing. All anti-aircraft commanders around Morrisville only—open fire once the first missile is released, or you have visual.”
“All harbor troops, I’ve been told of ship movement, and the five container ships are edging forward. Do not fire on any shipping until ordered. I repeat, no harbor gunfire until my direct order. Please confirm that!” Hundreds of radios replied with their confirmation. “I believe that all five ships will dock on either side of that one Global Terminal area. The snipers will be ordered to fire once the first ships are secure and our guys are safely out of harm’s way. A message to our official welcoming party at the terminal, my old friend Comrade Wong at the terminal—if the war out here hasn’t started and it’s safe for you to do so, go out and wave to the men on the container ships. Get dozens of your large welcoming silver helium balloons into the air and look happy. We want to entice the other ships in ASAP and the balloon
s will help screw up their aiming systems.”