by Billy Roper
“Okay, thanks, Lieutenant, as you were.” He put the half-written page and the bible he
had been using as a desk to write it on back into his duffel, scooted it under the bunk with
his boot, and straightened his b.d.u. uniform.
“Does my hair look pretty?” he asked Shaddon. The junior officer smiled back good-
naturedly, and saluted.
Col. West had called a meeting of his Company officers to give them the latest: they
were going to lay up at Pearl-Hickam for a day while the rest of the fleet caught up, and
they refueled for the final leg of the trip. From here on out they would be in contested
waters, so the men were being granted a shore leave. It was 0800 local time, and they
were to be back on board and ready to depart by 0800 the next morning. As Jack got up to go and tell his men the good news, Col. West caught his eye and motioned him
towards him. Uh-oh.
“I just got a special order, directly from the Secretary of Defense, about you, Captain.”
West said, eyeing McNabb up and down critically.
“Sir, with all due respect, I’m not sure I’m ready for the responsibility of taking
command of the regiment, yet, Sir.” Jack quipped. The Colonel blinked, weighing
whether to get mad as a wet cat over the smart-mouthed remark, or take it as a joke. He
chose the latter.
“Neither do I, Captain. So, I guess we’re both lucky that wasn’t the order. No, I’ve
been ordered to make sure that you stay safe, when we get to the fighting. How do you
feel about that, son?”
Jack frowned. “Sir, in my experience, the safest place to be in a battle is so close to the
enemy that they can’t see you in their sights, Sir!” He answered back in regulation form
this time, erect, eyes forward.
“Good, I’m glad to hear you say that, Jack, because you wouldn’t be your father’s son
if you felt any differently.” West replied, softening his tone. “Look, Captain, I’ve read
your record, you’ve proven yourself, nobody doubts that you’re the real deal. But if you
know as much about what we’re wading into as I do, you know that it could get real dirty,
real quick.”
“I won’t let the Colonel or my men down, Sir.” Jack promised. The Colonel saluted
him, and Jack stiffly returned the gesture.
“I didn’t think you would, son.” the graying man reassured him. “Now, go tell your
troops to prepare for beaches and bikinis, within the hour.” Jack grinned, spun on his heel
smartly, and headed midships.
It was actually more like four hours before they docked and were secured and the
hatch opened, and another hour before they could find the beach. And, the bikinis were
outnumbered by troops splashing in the water and roasting in the sand by twenty to one.
Still, here they were in Hawaii. Jack tried to not to think of how many people had starved
here, after the Balk and the Chinese occupation. Oahu, which was not on their tour list,
was a port town of 10,000, but very few of those had survived the starving time here. “Hey, Captain, do you reckon any of them poor cannibal wretches are still around?”
Lieutenant Adams interrupted, rubbing SPF 50 sun block all over his face. Great timing. “Only at the officer’s club, Adams.” He replied, before getting back to his story. He
was almost to the good part.
Chapter Eleven
“Anyone who says that the Prophet was black should be killed.” Ahmad ibn Abi Sulayman, the companion of Sahnun. Ibn Musa alYahsubi, Qadi ‘Iyad, p.375”
“Stop and think it over. Put yourself in my unique position. If I get stoned and sing all night long, it’s a family tradition.”
The Third and Fifth fleets’ combined air wings strafed and bombed the small pleasure craft and speedboats and yachts and fishing boats that dotted the ocean like a swarm of ants. After two days on the open water, they came under almost constant attack from the air and the sea. There were so many of them, the naval guns had to concentrate on the front edges of the wave. The radio traffic was filled with commands, responses and questions without answers. Far below, the dark sea was turned to fire by the ordinance and spilled fuel. Still, the fanatical jihadists surged Southwards.
The two arms of the seaborne invasion met and mingled in the Beagle Gulf. Half of the crews were already sick, to the point of not being fit for duty. They anchored off the Tiwi islands and radioed for help. Moerdani screamed and cursed at them over the radio. The northern wing hadn’t been hit by the aerosol dispersal, and were not yet infected. Their combat effectiveness was only being degraded by their losses from air attacks. The commander of the flotilla begged his Caliph for air cover, to fight off the New American attacks. Sur not so patiently told him that there were no more planes left to send, and that his duty was to continue the jihad.
The missile cruisers of the Third fleet began to destroy the sitting targets of the southern flotilla at anchor, before the big guns of their destroyers kicked into the fray. The Fifth cruised between the northern flotilla and Bathurst island, while the air wings continued their bloodbath. The carnage grew, and the flotillas sank.
Miles to the East and West of the raging slaughter, a single tanker slipped away on each side, heading Southwards on trajectories of their own. Their departure went unnoticed, amid the confusion of battle.
“Well, I’ve been all around this great big world, and I’ve seen all kinds of girls..”
Company C reluctantly put their battle dress utilities back on over their swimming wear the next morning, after a night on the beach. Jack didn’t mind, there hadn’t been enough girls to go around, anyway, and the enlisted females were off limits to officers such as himself. Fraternization, they called it. Oh well. Sgt. Chittum and a few of the other men were still buzzed from a night of drinking, but they staggered up the gangway with the rest of them. After all were accounted for, they hit their bunks for a nap. The sun and swimming had drained them. Over the next twelve days, they would have plenty of time to recover.
“Oh, but I couldn’t wait to get back to the States, back to the cutest girls in the world…”
The Fifth Fleet made a stand at Coconut Grove by the d awn’s early light, firing up the small boats who had slipped closer under the cover of darkness during the night. Soon, the F-22s were airborne again, using the daylight to their advantage. The Javanese invasion force, poorly prepared and without air cover, had lost half its’ strength to sickness from the virus, and another quarter to direct combat action. A landing in Darwin itself was impossible. However, the invasion fleet was so large and scattered out, that it could not be destroyed in one fell swoop. Minute by minute, hour by hour, the leading edge of the flotilla was chewed up. The commanders of the vessels in the rear of the formation saw this, and attempted to peel off to the West. A few dozen boats carrying about a thousand jihadists slipped past the fleet into the middle arm and made landfall. The next day they captured the small town of Berry Springs. The frightened townspeople, long fearing an invasion of this kind, fled towards Darwin. The invaders held their position until the larger mass of ships in the rear, fleeing the air assault, beached on the West bank of Port Darwin as the day finally faded. The eighteen thousand, four hundred holy warriors hiked; wet, tired and miserable, along Highway 34 all night, hiding in the ditches when planes flew over from time to time. While the remainder of the fleet was sunk in Beagle Gulf, they slunk into Berry Springs.
The Battle of Beagle Gulf had lasted forty-eight hours. It had been, really, an example of massed numbers against massed firepower, and the firepower had won. Back in Jakarta, Moerdani fumed. He had lost communication with his forces for long hours. Finally, at dawn the second day, the Caliph had confirmed that less than twenty thousand of his quarter million me
n had survived the crossing. Two hundred and thirty thousand men, nearly his entire army, had been blown up, shot, burned, or drowned; or were scattered up and down the Australian coast, being mopped up, one boat at the time. He could ill afford to worry about them, though. The aerosol fog had torn a strip down the center of the heart of his nation. Tens of thousands of his people were already dead, and the virus was spreading, outwards, North and South, in both directions. Soon, things would reach the tipping point, where panic would set in. The former doctor issued an order for all of his most loyal and crucial supporters, all who had received the vaccination and booster, to join him at the Caliphate palace. There were several thousand of them, all together. They would save what they could, for the work of Allah. Sur still had a couple of cards to play.
It had been a hellish day, night, day, and second night, from the air. Gruber could only imagine how it must have been on the ground, and on the waves. After the first twelve hours, the first and second string carrier air wing pilots had been exhausted, so the third string, those of them who normally flew less deadly and aerodynamic craft, were red flagged if they had qualified on the F-22s. Eric had, back when he was a green Lieutenant. Williams hadn’t, so the lucky bugger watched the fireworks from the navcomm deck. Captain Gruber had flown mission after mission, without a single shot headed downrange towards him. Load up ordinance, take off from the deck, dump the ordinance on the biggest mass of ships you could find, then go back to load up again. After six hours he was so sore and wired so tight that he almost undershot the landing deck. They pulled him off the line for six hours of sleep with a sedative, then woke him up with a stimulant. The first stringers had gone through their shift again, and there were still jihadis to sink. The tired but determined pilot saddled up for another ride. Rinse, cycle repeat. He had never seen so many small ships in one place. As far as the horizon, there were sailboats and catamarans, cigarette boats and fishing trawlers, cabin cruisers and patrol boats. Most of them halfway out were sinking, capsized, or on fire. Those in the rear were shearing off for greener pastures, instead of coming at Darwin head-on.
By his third rotation into the grinder, Eric noticed that most of the craft still under power were no longer engaged. They had, from his vantage point, run themselves aground across the bay, and been abandoned. That meant that the Caliph’s surviving men were afoot and loose somewhere, but the overwhelming majority of boats were dead in the water. Literally. Thousands of boats, lifeless now, bobbing in the burning waves. It sure looked like Hell to him.
Ground radar stations in Darwin and carrier based radar systems on board the ‘Ruby Ridge’ were sweeping the coastline for any moving craft. The two biggest signatures, while not engaged in the action, also failed to answer any frequencies. Both were at the fringes of the operational area, and moving away, in opposite directions. Gruber and three other F-22 subs were ordered to refuel rearm, and investigate, eyes on, the nearest unknown. That must mean we’re about done here, he thought to himself, as he coasted in.
Moerdan i had estimated that it would take a week for the tanker, with its’ skeleton crew, to make its’ way down to Perth. Once there, they were to arm and detonate the dirty bomb stowed in a container on deck. It should be enough to destroy the port and poison the city, killing a million Australians, if the winds were right. The good citizens of Derby had been glued to their tellies watching news coverage of the invasion and massive sea battle taking place up in Darwin, a thousand miles away. Most of them had never been there, but it was too close for comfort. The local boys were rounding up their guns and ammo and planning on heading up there to help fight the muzzies. Outside the Blue Bird café, Mick and Wayne were loading up in their flatbed when they saw four planes circling around a ship, just inside King’s Sound. They stopped and watched. It was the weirdest thing to happen in town since half the town’s population had died off, all the Abos, a generation ago. A couple of the establishment’s other customers walked out onto the porch to stare, with their hands over their eyes, at the dancing dots. It looked like the ship had come into the Sound to evade the planes, who were darting around like hummingbirds over it. Suddenly one dipped, and dove. There was a wink of light, followed by three more. Although it had all happened miles away, it looked like the four planes flew off to the East, after that. Three days later, tens of thousands of dead fish and an oil slick washed ashore. The seafood never was the same around Derby parts, after that.
The second tanker foundered after being rammed off Port Moresby by an Australian coast guard boat that had poured every ounce of ordinance they had on board into the big ship without sinking her. The crew of the ‘Cairns Queen’ were honored posthumously with the New American Medal of Honor, the highest award for bravery which could be given to a foreign citizen. All of the radioactive material on board the tanker was successfully recovered.
By the time the New American Expeditionary Force arrived in Darwin, over a week later, the tide and currents had swept most of the wrecked ships and debris to the shoreline, but it was still a sight to behold. Every man among them had cabin fever from being shut up for so long each day, for so many days in a row, and seeing that they had missed the climactic battle only made them feel worse. Jack addressed his assembled company after getting some good news from Colonel West.
“Cheer up, you Harolding babies! You might be late to the party, but there’s still some cake left. There’s still some brown Jihadis left for us to send to Allah!” the Captain yelled. His last words were drowned out by the cheering of his own men, and those on each side who had overheard.
The Caliph had accepted no excuses and no explanations or apologies from the remnant of his invasion force. Once the two tankers ceased transmitting, Moerdani ordered the less than ten percent remaining in and around Berry Springs to attack the New American base and airfield in Darwin. He hoped the twenty thousand men would make a brave sacrifice, as martyrs for the faith. Although close to three thousand of his most crucial supporters who had earned immunity had arrived at the palace, the rest of the country was rapidly falling apart. He had lost contact with most regions outside the capitol, except for a few ships who refused his order to join the invasion, and refused to come back into port, because of the virus. In the streets the bodies had piled up so quickly that they couldn’t be removed fast enough. Out of desperation, he had engineers and diplomats, computer programmers and electronics experts, and paper-shuffling bureaucrats digging mass graves and hauling the bodies in by the tens of thousands, to fill them. They were the only ones left.
The New American Marines from their base in Darwin, supplemented by the Royal Australian Rifles and several hundred naval and air force personnel from both countries, had moved south to block the Javanese invaders at the Arnhem Highway. Although outnumbered, they had managed to fight a rear guard action and evacuate the town of Humpty Doo. Skirmishes took a toll on both sides, as the Caliph’s surviving officers promised the invaders that if they broke through to Darwin, a new fleet would be waiting there, to take them home. It did more to boost morale than the offer of seventy-two virgins.
As both regiments disembarked, Col. West called a general officer’s meeting on board his flagship. Maps of Darwin and the peninsula lay piled across the conference table in a jumble.
“There’s no way around it,” he stated bluntly. “No pun intended.” His wry smile eased their tension. “We can’t outflank them, so we’re gonna outgun them. They’re low on food and lower on ammunition. All they have is what they dragged ashore with them. Now, the Marines and the Aussies have been softening them up. But we’re going to go straight at them, head to head, down Highway One. There’s eight thousand of us, and nearly that many, combined, already in the fight on our side. The invaders have a bit less than twenty thousand, but they’re fighting for their lives and they know it. Thank God for our air cover or we’d be fighting ten times as many of them, and they’d be in the streets of Sidney by now.” West paused, looking at each of the men for a second, before mo
ving on.
“Men, our advantage in firepower has been kicking their butts all week long. It’s gonna finish the job, too.” The Colonel paused. “And let me add this, on a personal level. All of you know our history. You know how we got here. You know that there has been, let’s face it, a global race war going on, for all or most of your lives. We didn’t ask for it, but it came upon us.” His voice softened, urging them to listen more carefully. “Now, what we face today, is the largest remaining nonWhite army in the whole world. Let me repeat that. The whole world. If we destroy them, the battle for the whole planet will be ours. Maybe not immediately, but inevitably. And people will be talking about this battle, and your part in it, as long as there are White men and women who need their heroes.” Col. West pointed at the map, where the position of the Muslims was circled in bright red. “Now, boys, ya’ll go be heroes!” Jack joined in the cheers and applause, but his eye was gauging the distances on that map, and calculating how far their air cover would extend.
Fortunately, the first and second string fighter jockeys had gotten their beauty rest, so it extended all the way in. As hundreds of two and a half ton trucks rolled down the highway South in a line, dozens of fighter jets roared overhead past them, followed by several slower, heavier bombers. They could see the smoke of the front lines a half hour before they got there.
By nightfall, Jack was hunkered down in the bathroom of a Caltex service station at a three way intersection, thinking about the fact that he had been on the beach in Florida and on the beach on the West Coast, well, kind of, and on the beach in Hawaii. The constant explosions had nearly burst his eardrums, again. He wondered, if he got out of this, what the beaches, and the girls on them, might be like in Australia.
He wasn’t in the restroom answering a call of nature. It just happened to be the only part of the building without any windows. He needed the binoculars to see across the street. They looked cooler than wearing glasses, anyway. Windows were a definite liability, considering the amount of firepower that the Caliphate’s soldiers weren’t supposed to have, that nobody had bothered to tell them not to have. The Captain wasn’t enjoying the privacy typical of such a location, either. A whole platoon, Chittum’s First, was in there with him, being intimate under fire.