by T I WADE
Refueling was completed six hours later, halfway to Elmendorf in Alaska. General Patterson phoned Carlos in California, who was now able to send orders to the satellite via the observatory from “The Cube” near San Francisco.
“How long before you get our observation satellite back over Texas?” he asked Carlos.
“It took two weeks to redirect it from Kansas to directly over Hawaii. I think we will have visuals back over western Texas in about ten days,” Carlos replied.
“Do you need to be there? Can Lee do your satellite commands for you, Carlos? I need you in Texas,” replied the general.
“Give me another day and I’ll be ready to leave.”
“Good, you still have the AC-130 Gunship Pave Pronto with you don’t you, Carlos?” the general asked. Carlos acknowledged that he did. “Get her refueled and head for McConnell Air Force Base in Wichita, Kansas once you are done. I want you to phone Preston’s farm and order the Super Tweets airborne and get them over to Kansas within 24 hours. I’m scrambling the F-4s and F-5s and they will be heading into McConnell today. We are at war, it’s going to take us 24 hours to mobilize our aircraft and base ourselves in that area for our next battle. Get there fast, I have 18 of the attack helicopters aboard and will fly them into Edwards; get the choppers out of our holds and to our technicians to get them operational again, and then fill our 130s up with Marines. It will take 48 hours from now for me to get out of Edwards, and then we should be able to see what we are up against. I’m sending a couple of Cessna 210s south as spotters, and we should have eyes by tomorrow. Call me when you get to McConnell. Fly safe!”
Next the general called other bases and scrambled all the jet aircraft at the bases. It wouldn’t take them long to get to Kansas and he would brief them once somebody knew what the hell was going on. He couldn’t fight a war blindfolded.
Fifteen hours later he landed in Edwards and hundreds of extra technicians at Edwards, flown in by small civilian aircraft from the surrounding bases, began taking the Chinese helicopters out of the thirsty C-130s which were immediately refueled. The first flight of 18 C-130s and three of the six gunships, which had brought in the Marines from China 48 hours earlier, were ready to go with a few of their bellies full of soldiers.
Another 2,200 Marines from the 1st Marine Division were picked up at Camp Pendleton, They had only returned from Europe a week earlier and were still getting used to Pacific Time. The total number of Marines from this division now numbered 4,000 and the C-130s, like a swarm of birds now with five gunships also full of soldiers, headed for McConnell in Kansas. Nobody could tell where the enemy was, and McConnell was far enough away to regroup and prepare for whatever was to come.
* * *
Manuel looked at the sky. He was worried. It was a beautiful day with no wind and not a cloud in the sky. It was very hot and more humid than usual. The weather was too perfect and he thought a storm was brewing as he closed in on the intersection where he was to meet Carlos Sanchez.
Both armies were growing rapidly, sweeping up any Hispanics and Latinos who had a gripe against the United States, or were just bad guys at heart. For many of them this was a dream come true. Manuel’s soldiers were ordered to shoot any gringos or black men who wanted to join his army, and dozens of warm dead bodies littered the Interstate behind them. Many of these unfortunate people arrived on horseback; the horses were taken for the army leaving the dead riders to rot in the sun.
The Sanchez Cartel radioed in and told them that they were two hours from reaching the intersection; their highway was only a two-lane road and they couldn’t travel as fast.
By nightfall Manuel saw the southern army coming over the dunes to meet them.
* * *
By nightfall of the same day, May 14th, the eight F-4s and three F-5s had already been waiting a day for the swarm of C-130s to arrive from the west. There wasn’t much they could do and they weren’t built to be slow spotter planes.
A spotter plane, a Cessna 210, had been sent southwards and flying high at 25,000 feet over San Antonio saw the smoke from the burning barracks. That was all it had time for before returning at dusk to Dyess to report as the small aircraft’s 800 mile range couldn’t get the two pilots back into McConnell.
The Super Tweets, coming in from Preston’s airfield in North Carolina, were eight hours ahead of the C-130s the next day and landed right behind Buck coming in from Andrews in the Colombian DC-3. Carlos arrived an hour behind the Super Tweets, he flying in from California, and excited to see Sally for the first time in weeks. He knew Preston wasn’t far behind and was surprised to see his Colombian gunship standing there with Buck walking up to say hi.
The slower C-130s finally arrived in a line ten miles long and began turning into finals for McConnell’s two major runways from the north east. There was a brisk constant wind coming in from the south.
Martie ran into Preston’s outstretched arms as he exited Blue Moon. He had been away forever and she had much to tell him about her new flying abilities. It was time for the two couples to have a little time together and General Patterson, who rested a little during his long flight, called for a briefing in an hour.
The first spotter plane had gone out again early that morning and was followed by a second one an hour later and a third, an hour after the second one.
“OK guys, get settled, we have another bloody war to fight. When are we going to end these battles?” he asked aloud from the podium as everybody took their seats. “What do we know other than what has been explained already?” he asked. The report from the pilot of the spotter plane told the briefing room that he had seen two major columns of smoke exactly where Fort Houston and Randolph were situated. He had to return due to the lateness of the day and had seen no more.
General Patterson got on a radio on the desk next to the podium and called in the first spotter plane.
The aircraft’s pilot replied that he had again seen the same fires over San Antonio, and he was currently 50 miles west of San Antonio over Interstate 10 at 10,000 feet and heading west towards El Paso. So far he had seen no movement.
The second pilot reported that he was west of Dallas directly over Dyess Air Force Base, southwest of Abilene, and he was to fly southeast to San Antonio to see if any enemy were using the major secondary roads in that direction, and if they were planning on attacking the next Air Force Base, Dyess. The pilot’s instructions were then to fly east over Interstate 10 towards Houston.
The third spotter pilot stated that he was 100 miles north of Dallas and was to head down Instate 35 over Waco and then to circle over Austin to see if he could see any movement anywhere. So far none of the aircraft had seen any movement.
* * *
Manuel Calderón had spoken with Carlos Sanchez the previous night and was happy to learn that a new cartel out of North Texas, the Santana Cartel of 15,000 men, had been found by Carlos just outside Corpus Christi and had happily joined the army. The Santana Cartel knew of and had radio contact with another Mexican Cartel which was heading south from Lubbock, Texas and were currently 50 miles north of Houston traveling south on I-45. They had another 5,000 men.
Carlos Sanchez also had good news which explained why he had taken longer to get to the intersection. He found a large storage warehouse on the Naval Air Station in Corpus Christi he had attacked. There had been only 200 men at this base.
His men had destroyed all the aircraft they found there, dozens of useless pieces of metal. In one of the warehouses was a mountain of army rations. This base looked like it had not been visited for a couple of months by any outsiders as the American soldiers were unshaven and dirty. The only thing they had apart from a couple of operational vehicles and a jeep was this mountain of food. He had stacked the two troop transporters full, and he suggested that they send a dozen trucks back immediately to fill them with MRE rations.
The Cartel members couldn’t keep count of all the men and now with so many men, they would be like locusts on the ground; they wo
uld need to find food supplies in large quantities. Hopefully Houston had some sort of food supplies and only military installations seemed to have ample food stocks.
Manuel agreed with Carlos Sanchez and looked at his map. There were smaller roads direct from Houston to Corpus Christi and if he had a problem, he could send out trucks at night which could return the next night.
Manuel estimated that now he had well over 190,000 men with still more joining every day. He had ordered his commanders to check on food stocks throughout the night and several hours later he was given vague amounts that he and his men had enough for less than a week.
He ordered hundreds of men out of dozens of troop transporters and told them to walk. They were only 30 miles from the outskirts of the massive city of Houston and once he was in there, he knew that he would have better cover from future air attacks, if any came.
He asked Carlos Sanchez for one of his commanders and told him and the thirty drivers of the now empty trucks to immediately head south on the smaller roads, fill the trucks with food and return to Houston. The trucks headed southwards with a fuel tanker, two of the valuable missile launchers and fifty heavily armed men to help load the food.
An hour later he was still discussing his “Invasion USA” plan with Carlos Sanchez when they heard the drone of a small aircraft high in the sky coming from the west, behind them. The enemy aircraft would have seen the rear armies by now, and it was also the first time that he had seen or heard a small aircraft in the U.S. This one was certainly not a fighter aircraft, and his three armies began to move eastwards again as he knew that they would now be monitored by the U.S. Air Force. He hoped the pilot didn’t see his trucks traveling south, now at least forty miles away heading towards the food.
Chapter 4
We have found the bad guys, Sir!
“General Patterson, Sir! We have communication from the second spotter plane,” stated a radio operator entering the briefing room an hour later, and all eyes turned to the woman. “The pilot has spotted a large number of people heading eastwards along Interstate 10 towards Houston. They are around 40 miles from the outskirts of the city.”
A second operator arrived seconds later as the general was about to bark out orders. This time the operator was a male.
“Excuse me, Sir, the same pilot has just reported a second and third group of men; he estimates there are about two hundred thousand in total, and traveling at approximately 15 miles an hour, all in the direction of Houston. The vanguard group is about twenty miles west of the outer rim of Houston, and the second group is about five miles behind the tail-end of the first group, and about fifteen miles behind the lead vehicles of the vanguard group. It seems the three groups have a five-mile space between them, and the third is the largest group by far.”
“Thank you, please get coordinates from the pilot and tell him to refuel at his closest base and to stay overhead as long as he can; we will have attack aircraft incoming within an hour,” replied General Patterson thinking fast. Maybe we can halt their progress into Houston. “F-4 and F-5 crews scramble and get out of here towards Houston at high cruise. It’s a long flight for your fuel reserves so fly steady at medium to high cruise until I give you further orders. I will brief you while you are in the air.”
Several crews in the briefing room already in flight suits collected their notes and readied to run to their aircraft waiting on the apron. All the eight F-4s had been refueled with two extra wing fuel tanks fitted per aircraft and armed for ground attack with six veteran 1970s Maverick air-ground missiles and one 250 pound older 1960s-era Walleye bomb under the belly. The other two wing connectors had the fuel drop tanks for further range. The F-5s, being only single-seat fighters, were much smaller and a faster high-cruise aircraft. They carried six Mavericks, three under each wing, and their two under-wing fuel tanks.
General Patterson immediately realized that he was too far away from where the enemy was situated, and he needed to get closer.
“Dyess Air Force Base in Abilene, west of Dallas will be the next base of operations, ladies and gentlemen; pilots head back to Dyess on your return flights. Now get airborne.” He had ordered the preparation of the jets for as long a range as possible, thinking that any enemy would head straight for Austin and then Dallas. He had been wrong.
All the jets had under-wing fuel tanks, which gave them at least a 900 mile range at high cruise with a light weapons load, but it also increased the time the aircraft would take them to reach Houston, a little over 500 air miles south. Also none of them had fuel reserves to make it back to McConnell after their attack; hence the immediate change to Dyess, 150 air miles closer.
“All six AC-130 Gunships and Tankers,” began the general rapidly giving orders, “I want you out of here within thirty minutes. Carlos and Buck, you guys fly your AC-47. It will take you just under two hours to get there, so hurry and I want you out of here in five minutes; go now and I’ll get some men to collect your personnel belongings. You are returning to base at Dyess tonight as well. Go! You six Super Tweets, I want you ready for takeoff in 45 minutes. I will lead you in Carlos’s aircraft, Hector. Get your stuff packed and outside your doors; Air Force personnel will load it aboard a C-130 bound for Dyess. Get going flight crews!” and the room emptied of pilots.
The general now turned to the men on the ground. “Lieutenant Colonel Clarke, I want you to start hounding the rear of this enemy army. We are not going to be able to stop their entering the suburbs or even the inner city of Houston with only 3,000 men, it would be a suicide mission, but we can certainly try and wag the tail of the dog. I want as many parachutists as you can muster with two days of food, armed to the max, and in by midnight. I will get mortars and a couple of jeeps packed up for a second drop by dawn tomorrow morning.” The last person left the room.
The room was now empty apart from the two radio operators and General Patterson asked them if they had radio contact with Dyess. They didn’t.
“Colonel Marks, Patterson here,” stated the general talking to the commander of Dyess after looking through his satellite-phone book for the phone numbers for the two nearest bases to the enemy—Dyess in Texas and Barksdale Air Force Base in Louisiana. “Commander, I’m setting up my base of operations later today at Dyess, what are your fuel and food reserves?”
Between the two soldiers they agreed that there was enough fuel and food at Dyess for two weeks. Colonel Marks was told to get his base in readiness for operations immediately.
General Patterson then phoned Colonel Montgomery at Barksdale. After several minutes General Patterson realized that Barksdale had much more fuel and food than Dyess; he might need to set up mission headquarters there in a week. He ordered the base to be ready for anything, and then he ran out to get into flight overalls.
McConnell’s base commander, about to enter the briefing room, ran along beside him. “Colonel, we are moving out to Dyess, I will leave you three C-130s. I want all your usable missiles, rockets, bombs and 20mm ammo transferred to Dyess ASAP!” the base commander of McConnell stopped, acknowledged, and headed off in another direction.
Three quarters of an hour later the last of the attack aircraft, the seven Super Tweets took to the air with General Patterson in the lead aircraft. Even though it was a two-seat aircraft, he could fly it solo from its left seat and control what he needed in the way of aiming and firing its weapons.
He had ordered the seven Tweets to be equipped with 14 MK40 air-to-ground rockets, each in two launch pods of seven, fitted a few weeks earlier. These aircraft had used them successfully in Vietnam and the MK40 rockets were light, High Explosive missiles, good for use on enemy troops. He had been told about the missiles by the McConnell base commander who, upon checking for supplies, found the stash of a couple of hundred of these antiquated rockets in an old underground storage armory; it had taken the technicians only a couple of minutes to refit the aircraft for their use.
With the two fuel tanks beneath their wings they had extra rang
e and like the rest of the aircraft had 20-mm cannons in the form of Miniguns for backup. Carlos’s aircraft, Hector was different than the other six. It hadn’t arrived in time and General Patterson had only four weapons of high explosive under his aircraft, namely four large 500-pound bombs. He would have preferred the missiles but whatever they could throw at the enemy was better than nothing.
Once the attack aircraft were away, a single C-130 took off with the crews’ belongings for Dyess and, thirty-two of the C-130s were being filled with 100 parachutists per aircraft under the command of Lieutenant Colonel Clarke. The three remaining C-130 aircraft, the only aircraft left on the apron, were busy being loaded with enough explosives to blow the enemy into tiny fragments.
The F-4s and F-5s were five minutes north of Interstate 10 when General Patterson rose through 5,000 feet and ordered the Super Tweets, with a larger range than the faster F-4s and 5s, to head south at maximum speed, 500 miles an hour.
Unfortunately the spotter aircraft, all short of fuel were already returning to Dyess.
“Foxtrot Fours, I want you to go in first from the west,” stated the general giving orders as soon as he got into radio contact. “The sun should be well down and you should be able to come right out of it from the west. You have enough fuel for one run only, so come in at no less than a thousand feet—and fast—and use all you have and then head back to Dyess. First, I want you to circle for 15 minutes away from the convoy; that will allow us to catch up and be 30 minutes behind your attack, and the C-130s 30 minutes behind ours. Foxtrot Fives, I want you to go in a minute behind the Fours at 500 feet. Mind the F-4 bomb explosions and complete one run, empty everything you have at them before you, too, head back to Dyess. Start your attacks from the west as well, thirty miles out, and keep ten seconds between you; they might have ground-to-air missiles. Good luck and keep your radios open.”