by James Rosone
“Thank you, General Rice. I look forward to reading your full weekly update in a couple of days. Let’s move to the Marines next,” the President said as he turned towards the Commandant of the Marine Corps.
General Marcy Lynch was the first woman to make four-star general in the Marines and now was the first female commandant of the Marine Corps. She had been a protégé of General Tyler Black (the previous commandant) before he was asked to take command of the First Army just prior to the Chinese/Russian invasion of Alaska. General Lynch was a dynamic leader with a warrior’s heart and intellect to match. Thus far, she had been doing a remarkable job increasing the training capacity of the Marines and integrating that force with the latest in military technology.
Looking at the President, General Lynch brought up several disturbing images on the screen and began to explain what they were looking at. “Mr. President, I just received these images and a SPOT report of what happened to my Marines while Admiral Casey was providing us his brief. The reports of the Chinese airborne force that were heading to San Diego have now been proven to be false. As you know, we had ordered the base commander at Camp Pendleton to dispatch as many Marines as he could to the landing zones. He sent a force of nine thousand Marines with a second force of eight thousand more Marines two hours later to San Diego and our naval facilities in the area. Within thirty minutes of arriving at the various locations and beginning preparations to defend the area, they were hit by hundreds of cruise missiles. The missiles appear to have originated from both the Chinese and Japanese fleets that are currently heading towards the West Coast.”
An audible gasp was heard by several people in the room and the sudden realization of what this meant. General Lynch continued, with a slight tremble in her voice, “Our local radar systems identified the Chinese cruise missiles, and the laser and railgun systems immediately began to engage them. They destroyed nearly 96% of the 540 cruise missiles the Chinese launched. What the radar systems did not detect was the 560 missiles that the Japanese fired--at least not until it was too late. They did manage to shoot down about 230 of the cruise missiles, but the rest got through--”
Admiral Juliano interrupted to add, “--I’ve just gotten another update while General Lynch was speaking. They’ve hit us hard, Mr. President. I have a partial report that says our facilities on Coronado were heavily hit. The Fleet headquarters on Naval Base San Diego has been pretty much wiped out. So was our naval air station on North Island. Fourteen of our ships in port have also been heavily damaged.” He sighed then blurted out, “They nearly wiped out our West Coast naval capability, Mr. President.”
General Lynch interjected to finish talking. “--Mr. President, before you respond, I do not have casualty figures just yet, but they are going to be high. My Marines were out in the open when the attack happened. They appear to have also hit Camp Pendleton pretty hard, but I have not received a full report of how bad it was.”
The President just sat back in his chair for a minute digesting what he heard. The rest of the room began to come alive with chatter as people began to check their tablets for additional updates and any other information being sent to them. Monty, the President’s Chief of Staff and personal friend, leaned in to be closer to the President asking him, “Sir, are you all right?”
His thoughts were swirling, “This is just too much information all at once. Crud, my migraine is starting to come back--I don’t have time to deal with a migraine. I need to take a break and lay down for a few minutes.”
The President stood up, which got the attention of everyone in the room. “OK here is what we are going to do. The situation right now is too fluid and changing too fast for us to formulate a strategy and respond to this new situation. Right now, we are just reacting, and we need to start anticipating what they are going to do next and make them react to us. Clearly, we need more information to start making good decisions here.”
The President continued, “I don’t really see that I will be of use to you until we have some more information about what the situation is on the ground, so I am going to take a break from the meeting to go eat dinner with my wife while you sort some things out. In the meantime, I will have dinner brought down here while you continue to work and consolidate the information coming in.”
“I am going to come back down here in two hours, and I would like the following information to be ready. 1) I want confirmation that our cyber-attacks have been initiated and are underway. 2) I want the best possible damage assessment of this recent cruise missile attack. 3) I want to know where and what the Chinese and Japanese fleets are doing and what we can do to counter them. 4) I want a full report of what is going on in Oakland and LA… Please coordinate with whomever you need to and have this information ready when I return.” With his instructions issued, the President proceeded to leave the PEOC and let his senior military leaders and cabinet members to do their jobs.
Monty began to follow the President out of the room when the President turned and said, “Monty, I need to spend some time alone with my wife and rest for a short bit. I’m getting another migraine, which I absolutely cannot afford to have right now. I want you to stay down here and manage the information and workflow. Guide them if need be, but we need to right our ship quickly.” Henry spoke with confidence, knowing that Monty could fill in for him for the next couple of hours.
Monty was becoming concerned for his lifelong friend as these migraines appeared to be happening more often. “Yes Sir. Perhaps you should call for the doctor. We cannot afford to lose you even for a couple of days if something more serious is going on.”
“I appreciate your concern; I will set aside some time to talk with the doctor tomorrow and see what he has to say.” With that, the President left the PEOC to return to the residence and have a quiet dinner with his wife.
The information pouring in to the PEOC over the following two hours was nothing short of disastrous. The Marines had suffered some horrific casualties as they were mostly caught out in the open during the attack. Thousands of civilians had been killed by the cruise missiles as well. The Coronado bridge had also been destroyed, along with the police headquarters. The City of San Diego was a mess. Camp Pendleton had been hit extremely hard, killing thousands of Marine recruits and severely damaging the base facilities. In LA, two battalions of the Third Marines had been nearly wiped out by several cruise missiles and several buildings and the airstrip at Twenty-Nine Palms had been hit as well, killing several hundred additional Marines and soldiers and destroying dozens of Razorback attack helicopters and other aircraft.
When the President returned to the PEOC two hours later, he was feeling much better; although he was not one to take medication for a headache normally, his wife had convinced him that the state of the free world was at stake, and he had acquiesced. He was quickly brought up to speed and new orders were issued for the navy to dispatch the newly created Carrier Strike Group 12 (CSG-12 which was a consolidation of CSG-10 and CSG-11) to cross the Panama Canal and destroy the Japanese and Chinese carrier fleets.
This new strike group consisted of three Supercarriers: two of the newly designed Reagan class carriers and one of the older Nimitz class that had been reactivated from the Ghost Fleet along with a lot of other mothballed ships. The Reagan class carriers were enormous. At 1,350 feet in length with a flight deck width of 376 feet and 290 feet in height, the carriers displaced 140,000 tons, making them the largest warship in the world. The strike group also had twenty escort ships, including two of America’s newest battleships, the USS Iowa and the USS Wisconsin, named after the two famous World War II battleships. The President was not playing around.
Send in the Marines
24 December 2041
Riverside, California
The Japanese had succeeded in taking America by surprise. The Army and Marines were stretched thin in Europe and Alaska; the US Pacific Fleet had been destroyed a year earlier, leaving most of the West Coast exposed. People had been assured the Japan
ese would eventually come to America’s aid, then, just as they appeared to come to America’s rescue, they betrayed the U.S. and led the invasion of California. As the first Japanese tanks began to roll off those freighters, the LA police and Orange County sheriff tried to organize a defense; they were not going to lay down to this invading army without a fight, and neither were those civilians who owned personal firearms.
The 3rd Battalion of the 3rd Marines (or 3/3 as they called themselves), moved into Riverside, a suburb of LA. As they moved through the various neighborhoods, they could see some artillery and cruise missiles had already landed in the area. As Captain Thornton led his men through the area, he saw a broken swing set, lying on its side next to a blackened crater and several children’s bicycles. That’s when it hit him, “The homeland has been invaded, and nothing is ever going to be the same again.”
Captain Thornton’s company had been ordered to move through Riverside and destroy any enemy forces they encountered. The 3/3 was moving to secure the road junctions just beyond the city of Corona leading in to the LA basin. The Japanese forces in the area had put up stiff resistance as the Marines moved forward, forcing them to fight block-to-block in some areas, and leveling buildings in others. It was dirty close quarter combat that had not been seen on the streets of America before. Fortunately, some neighborhoods had also banned together, using their own personal firearms to attack the Japanese soldiers (who had not anticipated the population being so heavily armed with their own assault rifles). This unfortunately also led to a lot of civilians being killed by enemy soldiers, who were not taking any chances.
The Marines would have moved through the area faster; however, the cruise missile attack had destroyed a large part of the Marines air support elements, forcing them to have to fight with limited air support. The Marines had also lost two battalions of tanks and wolverines just north of Riverside on the San Bernardino freeway. Several other major freeways had been destroyed by Japanese demolition experts, forcing many of the Marine armored units and foot soldiers to have to move through various side streets going through many of the smaller cities leading to LA. To further compound the problem, many civilians who were being caught up in the fighting were now trying to flee eastward, heading away from the battles, further clogging up the road system the Marines were trying to use to bring in additional reinforcements to attack the Chinese and Japanese already in the area.
To their credit, the Japanese forces fighting the Marines were giving ground as needed while doing what they could to slow the Marines progress. They did not want to get caught up in fights they could not win. Their only goal was to buy time for additional forces to arrive and to be offloaded in the ports. As hundreds of thousands of people began to escape the city, it quickly became nearly impossible for the Marines to move enough of their heavy forces to the front lines to begin recapturing LAX and the ports, which were being used to ferry in thousands upon thousands of enemy reinforcements.
One if by Land, Two if by Sea
25 December 2041
Norfolk Naval Station, Virginia
Rear Admiral Michael Stonebridge was the youngest Admiral in the Navy at just 41 years of age. He had distinguished himself as the Captain of one of two American ships that had survived the nuclear attack against the American Fifth Fleet by the Islamic Republic in the Gulf of Aiden at the outset of the war. His guided missile cruiser had sustained heavy damage, but also managed to destroy six IR naval vessels, including two submarines. During the fighting, they shot down 84 missiles and destroyed 31 enemy drones. After being hit by four enemy anti-ship missiles and sustaining heavy casualties, they were forced to limp away along with the lone surviving destroyer (which had also sustained heavy damage). It took nearly fourteen hours to control the fires that threatened to send their ship to the bottom of the ocean. Stonebridge’s leadership was definitely one of the key reasons that so many of his sailors had survived that confrontation. Upon returning to the U.S., Captain Stonebridge had been awarded a purple heart (with V device for valor) and the Medal of Honor. He was also promoted to Rear Admiral for his heroic defense of the Fifth Fleet.
Several months later, as a newly minted Admiral, his task force assisted the HMS Queen Elizabeth and HMS Prince of Wales in the fighting against the Russian Navy in the North Atlantic and the North Sea as they attempted to push forward and disrupt the supply lines to Europe. Admiral Stonebridge’s task force of guided missile cruisers and three Zumwalt-guided missile destroyers helped to defeat a Russian surface fleet in the North Atlantic as the Russians tried to push past the NATO fleet between Iceland and the Faroe Islands. The French carrier that had been a part of the task force, the Charles de Gaulle, was destroyed during the engagement, and the HMS Queen Elizabeth had been severely damaged. Admiral Stonebridge was awarded his second purple heart after this skirmish; his ship had been hit by several cruise missiles during the fray, and he broke his left arm and lost a finger on that left hand. He had also received the Navy Cross for his actions during the Battle of the Faroe Islands; because the NATO forces managed to hold the line, the Russians had not been able to break out into the Atlantic, giving the Allies a huge win.
After recovering from his wounds, Admiral Stonebridge was given his second star and given command of CSG-12, arguably America’s most powerful strike group. Admiral Stonebridge was a dynamic leader and not afraid to get his hands dirty. He could often be found in the flight maintenance deck helping the mechanics conduct routine maintenance on the drones or mentoring young seamen and junior non-commissioned officers during weekly professional development training. He was a sailors’ sailor and cared about the men and women he was commanding.
Admiral Stonebridge’s work had now brought him to be stationed on the USS New York, just off the coast of Virginia. As he sat at his station, reviewing some emails on his tablet, the captain of the ship, Captain Baker, walked briskly up to Admiral Stonebridge to bring him the latest personnel report. “Admiral, we are still missing about 223 people with only an hour left before we pull out of port. What do you want to do about the missing men?” It was a question he asked rather facetiously, having already resolved to leave them behind if they missed the deadline.
“Under normal circumstances, I would leave them behind and write them up for missing the recall. However, we were not scheduled to leave for another six more days and most people have been on leave for the holidays. I still want the fleet to pull out of port and begin to head towards the canal; then we can dispatch several helicopters and aircraft standing by here in Norfolk to fly the missing individuals out to the fleet as they continue to arrive. We are going to need everyone for this mission.”
Captain Baker had not expected that response. He found that his mouth had kind of hung open while the Admiral spoke. He quickly checked his facial expression and then nodded in agreement. “Yes sir.”
“Are the contractors still coming with us?” asked Stonebridge. The fleet still had several technical systems that needed to be completed before the ships were technically ready for combat, and the navy had enlisted civilians to help speed up the repair process in order to get things rolling.
“Every contractor that was working on the ships has agreed to accompany us to Panama, and directly into combat if we need them. They all want some payback for what the Japanese just did to our forces.”
A broad grin spread across the Admiral’s face, “Excellent, Captain. When we get underway, I want the defense systems run through their paces, and make sure we are not going to have any further issues with them. We are going to need them soon.”
Captain Baker could see that Admiral Stonebridge kept glancing down at his tablet, so he left him alone to finish up his emails while he went back to getting the ship ready to leave.
Once he finished getting his Christmas message written, the Admiral moved down to his quarters, where the media team was waiting for him. He wanted to get a video pre-recorded now rather than giving it live. Once the ship was out to sea, he was g
oing to need to hold a series of meetings with various department commanders within the ship and the fleet as a whole; he was going to have to hit the ground running.
“Admiral, we are ready to begin when you are,” said the Lieutenant Commander who was the media department chief for the fleet. The Admiral nodded and began his prepared speech.
“Merry Christmas my fellow sailors and marines, and to the civilians who have volunteered to accompany us on this dangerous mission. As we prepare for combat, I want everyone to take some time to remember those who have been lost this past year and to be thankful that we are still alive and able to fight for our country. I am grateful for those of us whose families are safe, and that we have been given the opportunity to bring vengeance and retribution to our enemies. 2040 and ‘41 have been rough years for the Navy and our country. We have lost a lot of friends and family members, and our country has been invaded twice. Not since the war of 1812 has America’s very survival been at stake. We have been punched, sucker-punched, and kicked while we were down. President Stein said it best in his Christmas Day address to the nation a few hours ago, ‘America has been given a bloody nose and a kick to the teeth.’ Unfortunately for our enemies, the military giant that is America has been rousted from its slumber, and soon we will be taking the fight to the enemies’ own homelands.”
Pausing for a second and looking at the sailors in the room with him, he continued, “Carrier Strike Group 12 is the most advanced naval fleet the world has ever seen. Group 12 is anchored by the carriers New York and Baltimore in remembrance of our two great cities that were destroyed by the IR, and with the strength of their memory, we are going to destroy the PLAN and JDF fleets.”