by James Rosone
His son, Wang Ma, not only inherited his father’s wealth, political connections and business, he was later appointed the Ambassador to South Africa and then the African Confederation. He was well liked and trusted by nearly every leader and businessman on the continent, and was considered to be an African, even if he was Chinese.
America, on the other hand, had paid little attention to Africa during the past thirty years, focusing instead on internal domestic problems and their continued antagonistic relationships with the Middle East, Russia and China. This had enabled the Chinese to cultivate a multi-decade long relationship with the current and future leaders of the continent.
Ma’s directive from the People’s Republic of China (PRC) ruling committee was simple--guide the African Confederation in their conquest, but prepare them to support China in the war against the Americans if needed. Shortly after the loss of the PLAN fleet near Southern California and Hawaii, it became apparent that Africa would need to play a larger role in the Chinese plans for global dominance. America was slowly taking back control of the Pacific; that much was apparent. What the PRC needed to do, was solidify their hold in Africa and southeast Asia and ensure that no matter what happened, they would be too big for the Americans to conquer.
Wang Ma had worked with the President of the African Confederation to sign a military pact with China, and began construction of a military industrial complex that could support and sustain a modern military. The military forces the Confederation had were merely adequate for the regional conquest they had been undertaking. They were used to fighting other poorly trained and equipped armies. The Allies, however, were anything but poorly trained and equipped.
Ambassador Ma worked with his African counterparts to identify young men and women who could be trained as drone pilots to form the backbone of a new Air Force. Drone aircraft were cheap and easy to manufacture in comparison to an advanced fifth generation stealth fighter. It was also easier to train someone how to operate a drone than a plane. Ma’s counterpart, General Ming, had 100 drone pilot instructors brought to Africa, and they immediately began an aggressive program of training new drone pilots.
Four new military airbases were built, an intense ten-week drone pilot training school was constructed, and the new crop of drone pilots began to be trained. Multiple state-of-the-art 3D printing fabrication facilities were built across the confederation, and the construction of thousands of fighter/bomber drones had begun. The challenge Ma and General Ming faced was finding enough skilled workers who could man these advanced manufacturing plants and repair the machines to keep them operational. Most of 2041 and 2042 was spent training a workforce that could handle these tasks and develop a nucleus of skilled workers who could, in turn, train more people.
President Aliko Dangote had been the leader of the African Congressional Congress during the 2020s, and was the instrumental leader who advocated for the creation of the African Confederation. He had championed this cause for nearly twenty years, advocating for a stronger, unified Africa. He believed the 21st century was going to be the century of Africa, the rise of the continent from its past colonialization and resource pillaging from the West. With aid from the Chinese, Dangote built a grassroots network across many countries, garnering support from every political circle and walk of life he could. He was the young revolutionary leader the continent needed.
When the formation of the African Confederation began to take shape, he was nominated to become the leader of the movement, and later put forward as the nation’s figurehead. He had worked closely with the leaders of China and Russia in developing the needed foundations of a successful government and country. They needed a functioning economy and the ability to feed their own people. Through a myriad of trade agreements, the African Confederation became a major global food producer. This provided the needed counterbalance to the American-led Grain Consortium, which had formed under President Stein.
President Dangote admired President Stein’s rise to power and what he was doing in America. In many ways, Dangote wanted to emulate what he saw Stein doing in America, but he also had to be cautious. Dangote owed his rise to power and the formation of the African Confederation to the Chinese, not the Americans. It was China that had poured hundreds of billions of dollars into infrastructure and education across Africa, not the Americans. It was China who had provided them with the engineers they needed to bring stable and renewable power sources to Africa. Who had established a manufacturing base and increased food production using genetically modified crops and dozens of irrigation projects? China.
Dangote had done what he could to keep the Confederation’s focus on Africa and not the global war being waged against the major superpowers. He was of the mind that Africa would work with whomever won, but that was not to be the case. His Chinese leaders had other plans in mind. While he wanted to focus on uniting Africa under one banner, his Chinese bosses wanted him to train a military force that would be used against the Americans. He had reluctantly agreed and authorized the creation of a new International Force that would serve with the Chinese wherever they deemed necessary.
The Chinese had nearly 260,000 soldiers stationed in the African countries, spread across numerous provinces. They had assisted Dangote’s forces in the capture of many countries and in the institution of law and order. Now, they were being used as military trainers and advisors to train the nearly 850,000-man army he had been told to draft. Most of the people being drafted into the army could barely read and write their name. The Chinese did not seem to care. They had established a dozen training bases, and began to filter the recruits through their training program. By the end of 2041, the PLA had trained 330,000 soldiers. As they completed training, they were quickly moved to the north of the country to fight with other PLA soldiers who were moving in to capture the Horn of Africa and some of the other provinces from the now-defeated Islamic Republic. Clashes with American and Israeli soldiers were becoming more common, but no direct military engagements between the armies had yet been fought. The PLA was more concerned with grabbing land and consolidating their gains.
What concerned Dangote was the treatment of the civilians in the former IR provinces. He knew the PLA could be brutal when they needed to be, but if the rumors were true, then he was horrified. The PLA had been eliminating nearly every civilian in Somalia and South Sudan. Rather than feed the people they were conquering, the Chinese began a process of systematically killing the population off. While China may have been allied with the Islamic Republic, they did not like or agree with the Islamic faith. The People’s Republic of China had been brutal in their treatment of their own Muslims, and now that they were conquering former Muslim lands, they were doing whatever they could to eradicate the religion and the people who practiced it.
President Dangote had already brought the issue up to Ambassador Wa once, and he was quickly told not to concern himself with what the PLA was doing and to focus internally on winning the war with Cameroon and Nigeria. Dangote was not comfortable with how the Chinese were using his soldiers and was becoming less content with the PLA’s ever-increasing control of his own military. His best officers were being transferred into the International Force that the PLA was training at an alarming rate. Secretly, he feared the Chinese would depose him and just assume control of Africa once he had done the hard task of unifying the continent.
Up until that point, the Americans had left the African Confederation alone. They had no real diplomatic ties with the country, and were solely focused on the wars in Europe and on their own soil. However, once the PLAN lost the majority of their naval forces near California and Hawaii, Dangote began to wonder how long the Americans would stay away from Africa. Just when it seemed they had been defeated, they rose from the ashes and squashed their enemy. Would they repeat this history in Africa?
Liberators
12 October 2042
Washington, DC
Presidential Emergency Operations Center
President St
ein was sitting in his chair at the head of the table in the PEOC, listening to the military advisors around the table talk about the next steps in the war. America had been in conflict for three years now. Millions of people had died as war had been brought directly to Main Street, America. At least after a bloody summer campaign in Alaska, the Chinese and Russians had been defeated and had withdrawn the majority of their troops, leaving those that could not be rescued to surrender. Nearly 128,000 Chinese and 83,200 Russian soldiers had been captured once it was clear they were not going to be rescued.
The re-capture of the Hawaiian Islands and Midway Island a month ago meant the American navy was finally back in control of the Pacific. The US had completed construction of two additional Supercarriers and moved them to the Pacific to join the three operational carriers of CSG12. President Stein had appointed Admiral Michael Stonebridge to be the new Seventh Fleet Commander, and directed him to work with General Gardner on developing a plan to liberate Japan and the Pacific from the Chinese.
Admiral Juliano observed that Stein only appeared to be half listening. “Mr. President,” he said, gently tapping the desk and hoping to gain his fully attention. “We have to be realistic in our expectations regarding taking back the Pacific from the Chinese. I know we have just scored two huge victories in recovering Alaska and in seeing a successful coup in Japan, but the liberation of the Pacific is going to take time.”
The President understood the challenges; the Pacific was a big ocean. Despite the defeat of the Chinese fleet, they still possessed dozens of submarines and other surface ships. They had also established a network of military bases throughout the South China Sea that had been turned into missile bases. Penetrating the Chinese missile swarms to get close enough to their shores and industrial heartland was going to be difficult, but not impossible.
“What I want from everyone is a realistic plan of how we are going to bring this war to a close. We have popular uprisings that we are supporting in the Philippines, Vietnam and now Japan. The Chinese will squash these uprisings if we are not able to offer more assistance. What are your suggestions?”
Admiral Juliano jumped in saying, “Sir, I have redirected our SUDs to the South China Sea to start engaging Chinese shipping. We are also going to start placing a bigger emphasis on going after the shipping between the African Confederation and China as well. Not nearly enough has been done to try and sever the mineral and natural resource pipeline between Africa and China that is keeping their factories going. I also believe we should step up our insertion of Special Forces to these countries.”
General Branson agreed. “We need to send more Special Forces to these countries to help. I also think we should increase the number and type of weapons we provide them. The Chinese are deploying their own version of the M5 AIR, so I do not believe we should hold out on providing them to the insurgent forces any longer. These weapons would greatly increase their ability to conduct hit and run attacks.”
“I agree” echoed CIA Director Rubio. “We held these weapons back in the past because we needed them for our own forces. Now it’s time to step up the scale and type of weapons we provide them.”
“All right then,” said the President. “General Branson, Director Rubio, move forward with the new plans, and let’s see what more we can do to help sow some chaos. In the meantime, I want to know--what is our strategy and plan for liberating Japan and the rest of the Pacific? What forces do we need, and when will we have them?”
Admiral Juliano brought up a new image on the holographic monitor for them to look at. “Sir, what you are looking at is our initial plan for re-securing the Pacific. We have four of our new Reagan class Supercarriers and three of our older Nimitz class Supercarriers in the Pacific. We also have four of our Webb class Battleships.” On-screen he also showed the list of cruisers, destroyers and frigates that were also assigned to the Seventh Fleet. It had taken several years, but the navy finally had the ships it needed to take the Pacific back.
“Our plan is to liberate Japan first, then move to assist Taiwan. To free Japan, we are going to need to secure a launch platform from which we can move in air support to help on the main Island. We have identified the island of Hokkaido as our best location to use for housing our aircraft.” A map of the Island was brought up with several identified landing zones, airports and other strategic targets that would need to be secured.
“The assault against the Kola Peninsula in Russia with the EHDs was a resounding success. We are going to use that same strategy to capture Hokkaido. Four of our American class amphibious assault ships are currently being outfitted with EHD simulator pods just like the ship that we used in Russia. These four ships will be able to carry an assault force of 8,000 Reaper drone operators. Once the key objectives have been secured, we will begin to ferry in tens of thousands of Raptor-equipped soldiers to capture the rest of the Island. With the Island under our control, we’ll begin to move in additional men and material and get ready to liberate the rest of the Japan.”
The President looked over the information, and asked several clarifying questions, but in general, he agreed with the premise of the plan. Then he probed about a more pressing issue. “What I want to know is when this plan will be ready to execute?”
General Branson saw this as his opportunity. “Sir, it is going to take time to get everything ready and in position. We anticipate launching the invasion of Hokkaido in February, and then moving to the rest of Japan in May of 2043. At that point, we will have 12,000 EHDs available for the operation, and the necessary ships to support the mission.”
After thinking about the information provided, the President responded, “I’d like to take the rest of the evening to think about it. Why don’t we dismiss the meeting for now, and we can come back tomorrow?”
There were no arguments from the group, so the President returned to the Residence to mull things over.
The Man No One Was Supposed to See
14 October 2042
Moscow, Russia
The loss of the Kola Peninsula was a heavy blow to Russian morale, and the darkness sat in the air. As President Mikhail Fradkov sat in his office, he was wondering why Petr Gromley had insisted they meet today. Today was not a good day for a surprise visit; he had a strategy meeting with his foreign minister and military leaders to discuss the Pan Asian Alliance. He wanted to see if there was a way for Russia to join the alliance and still maintain their sovereignty. Fradkov knew Gromley and the men he represented were against the deal, but he did not care. He was the President, and this alliance was Fradkov’s way of ensuring he stayed in power despite what Gromley and his benefactors thought or said.
Mikhail had woken up that morning feeling a bit strange. He was more tired than usual, and his heart had been racing all morning. As the palpitations continued, his hands started to feel clammy, and he thought to himself, “I had better check in with my doctor after my meeting with Gromley. Petr had better have a really good reason for insisting on meeting today. I have a busy schedule, and this meeting is an interruption.”
As President Fradkov got up from his desk and began to walk towards the door in his office, the pain overwhelmed him. He grabbed his chest. It felt like an elephant was sitting on him. He could not breathe. He was frozen there for a moment before he realized that he must be having a heart attack; he gasped for air, but could find none. As his world turned black, he couldn’t help but wonder if this was Gromley’s doing.
*******
Petr Gromley’s smartphone vibrated slightly in his pocket. He pulled it out and saw the message; President Fradkov had had a heart attack and was confirmed dead. The President’s doctor would confirm Fradkov had died of a massive coronary arrest, citing “natural causes” and leaving no suspicion that he had actually been assassinated. As Gromley approached the entrance to President’s office (where the other leaders of the Russian government were expecting to meet with Fradkov), he reveled in what was about to take place.
The double
doors were opened for him by the President’s personal guard, who had been personally selected by Gromley and his associates. As he walked into the room, he saw General Gerasimov, the Head of Russian Military, LTG Igor Dmitrievich Sergun, Director of the GRU (Russian military intelligence), Sergei Puchkov, Minister of Defense, Nikolai Bortnikov, Director of the FSB, and several other members of the ruling council.
Nikolai Bortnikov was not able to hide his facial expressions when Gromley walked in the door; his eyebrows seemed to reach for the ceiling. He was also the first to speak. “Petr--what are you doing here? We are about to meet with President Fradkov.”
As the rest of the men in the room noticed the half a dozen armed guards standing just outside the office, they all started to look as surprised as Bortnikov.
Gromley barely managed to hide a smile as he sat down at the table cavalierly and addressed the group, “President Fradkov has just suffered a heart attack and died.”
As several of the men gasped in shock, Gromley pulled a pistol outfitted with a silencer out of his jacket, and shot director Bortnikov in the head. Before anyone else in the room could respond in any way, he fired off two more bullets, shooting General Gerasimov and General Sergun, killing them instantly. He motioned to the others, insisting that they stay calm and seated. The guards that had been standing outside the room stepped in and immediately began to move the bodies of the men Gromley had just shot.
Petr calmly walked over to the head of the table, placing the pistol down in front of him as he took a seat. He calmly announced, “A change of leadership has been called for, and I have stepped in to implement it. The rest of you sitting here have been determined to not have been a part of the corruption at the core of this government. You will be allowed to live so long as you do as you are told.”