by James Rosone
Chinese Manifest Destiny
Day 140
21 April 2041
Beijing, China
Central Military Committee Command Bunker
The Chinese had consolidated their gains in Southeast Asia, securing Thailand and Singapore. They used these countries as jump off points to invade Malaysia and the Philippines, further securing their hold on the South China Sea and the Malacca Straits. Prior to the war, nearly 95% of the world’s shipping had passed through this region. As the Chinese secured more territory, they established new military bases and defensive networks in order to ensure that China would retain their newly won territories should the US or any other nation try to evict them.
The situation between China and Japan began to heat up once the Chinese learned of the American attempts to move their military force out of Japan to Alaska. The Reds issued an ultimatum to Japan; either intern the remaining US Forces in Japan and sign a non-aggression pact, or be prepared to be invaded. Although in the past, the Japanese had been known to be fearsome warriors, they capitulated to the Chinese demands with relatively little resistance, and 11,345 American soldiers, sailors and airman were interned for the duration of the war. Fortunately, before the Chinese had caught on, the US had already moved the majority of their aircraft, naval ships and heavy equipment out of Japan to Alaska. The loss of troops would certainly hurt, but not nearly as bad as the loss of equipment would have.
The Chinese continued the preparations for their offensive on Alaska. The invasion force would sail for Alaska on May 1st and arrive on the 15th. This would provide the Chinese with the most optimal weather to conduct their assault and complete their objectives before the winter closed in and cancelled any further major offensive operations. Operation Red Dragon was on schedule.
The war in the Middle East was heating back up again. The Russians had made some significant breakthroughs, and were pushing forward near Tel Aviv. They had asked for additional Chinese reinforcements to be sent so they could finish the Israelis and Americans off. The PLA agreed to send an additional 300,000 soldiers to the Middle East.
The Reds also sent an additional 250,000 troops to their bases in Africa. The Premier had decided that it was now time for them to exert their muscle in Africa and start their conquest of East and South Africa. The Americans were in no position to stop them, and with the invasion of Alaska happening soon, the Americans would be powerless to stop them. It was time for China to assume its position as the preeminent global superpower.
*****
Premier Zhang Jinping gathered with his senior advisors and military leaders in the Command Bunker to discuss strategy. First, he looked to Admiral Wei Shengli, the commander of the PLAN, and asked, “Are we ready to begin the invasion against the Americans?”
“We are ready Premier. The attack will commence on schedule. We will have six of our seven aircraft carriers with the invasion force. Once we have secured a beachhead and several of the airports, the PLAAF will begin ferrying in thousands of fighter drones and manned fighters.”
During the 2020s and 2030s, the Chinese had started construction of six super carriers as they began to build out their blue water navy. The Russians had provided a lot of expertise in building aircraft carriers, and the Chinese had also stolen a lot of the designs via well placed spies within the American ship building companies (and through the rampant use of cyber-espionage). They quickly incorporated the latest in American technology into these ships, as well as some of their own. During the fifteen years it took to build their blue water navy, they conducted numerous naval training exercises through both the Russian and US Navy partnership programs. Now these bastions of Chinese achievement were going to be put to the test.
“I have 150,000 Naval Infantry that will secure multiple beachheads for the PLA. These soldiers will be using the new exoskeleton combat suits. This will be our first major use of them. If they work as well as they are supposed to, then we will look at equipping the entire army with them,” Admiral Wei Shengli said, confidently showing an image of what the new exoskeleton suits would look like.
General Fang Wanquan, the Commander of the PLA, jumped in at this point to ensure his thunder was not lost. “Premier, I have 4,400 light drone tanks and 3,800 main battle tanks in the following landings, along with 400,000 troops. I have another 1.6 million follow-on forces and 4,000 more main battle tanks that will arrive once we have secured our foothold. We will conquer Alaska by the end of the summer and begin moving down into British Columbia to threaten the American West Coast. During the winter months, we will move another 2 million more troops into Alaska,” bragged General Wanquan, swelling with pride.
For nearly a hundred years the rivalry between the PLA, PLAN and PLAAF had only grown. Each service believed they were the true protectors of the PRC. Their constant bickering and vying for attention and preference from the Premier was very annoying to their leader. At times this caused a lot of problems for the PRC as the three groups seldom wanted to work together; this caused a host of coordination and collaboration issues that the Americans seldom had to deal with.
“Before this meeting ends, what was the outcome of the meeting our agents had with their Central and South American counterparts?” asked the Premier.
Clearly, no one wanted to give the bad news to the Premier, General Wanquan stepped forward to give it. “Premier, the meetings did not go well for us. Central and South America (with the exception of Bolivia) have chosen to join the Allies in declaring war against the PRC and have already formed a multinational army, which the Americans are going to train and equip. Our agents were able to estimate how many soldiers will be allocated to this multinational force, and we believe that they have collectively committed one million men and women to this new army, though that number could go much higher, if needed.” He waited for the scolding he thought he was sure to get from the Premier.
However, the Premier only sighed before he replied, “It was a longshot getting them to join the Axis instead of the Allies. They already have their Grain Consortium, so it was going to be challenging getting them to leave that in favor of fighting against the Americans.”
Jinping continued, “Admiral, I want more of our submarine forces sent to their waters. If they want to be a part of the war, then let’s work on sinking their navy and commercial shipping. We may not be able to directly threaten their countries now, but that does not mean we cannot hit them with a few cruise missiles from time to time to remind them they chose the wrong side.”
With that, the meeting was dismissed.
STEM
Day 144
25 April 2041
Northern Virginia
The HIVE, 44th Floor – Science Division
The President had arranged for the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs, his National Security Advisor, and his Chief of Staff to be read into this Presidential Level “Eyes Only” science brief. He needed counsel and advice from his trusted circle on what technology they should pursue and how they could employ it in the war.
All four men arrived by helicopter from the White House and went through several security checkpoints before they arrived at the 44th floor of the HIVE, which was the secured Science Division (SD) floor. This floor and the one above it is where DARPA had some of their greatest secret projects being worked on. Away from the prying eyes of the public, and with extremely limited access to their floors (let alone the HIVE itself), their work was truly clandestine.
As the President walked up to the final checkpoint, he saw Professor Michael Rickenbacker, the Director of Special Projects. “Professor, it’s good to see you. I hope you have some good news for us today,” said the President as he shook his hand.
Smiling at the President, Rickenbacker replied, “I see you brought some people with you for this briefing. Are you sure you want to loop them into this?” he asked, a bit skeptical of the guests.
“Yes, I believe it is time for some additional people to be brought into the ‘circle of trust
.’ I need their counsel and advice, and more importantly, I need their perspective for how we can implement these new technologies to help us win the war.”
After leading everyone into a small briefing room, the professor sighed for a moment as he turned down the lights and activated the holographic image display unit at the center of the table. “The information and programs I am about to discuss with you are highly secretive. There are less than a few hundred people who even know about the main project, and less than five people who know about all of the projects combined. We did this for secretive purposes, but also to ensure we had no bleed-over between projects.”
“The first project we are going to talk about is a technology called ‘EmDrive.’” said the professor to the four men in the room. “Have any of you heard of it before?”
The Secretary of Defense looked around the room first before answering, “I believe you are talking about a power or thrust source that uses a resonant cavity to produce thrust without propellant. Correct?”
“That is partially right, yes. We are essentially talking about electromagnetic propulsion; using an EmDrive device, we make an object float, change directions and accelerate or decelerate very quickly. If built into an aircraft, the pilot would activate its engine and then the plane would start to hover or float; as power would be applied to the engines, the aircraft would begin to move in any direction. Using several directional engine ports, the aircraft would be able to climb, descend, accelerate or stop in seconds. Seeing the puzzled look on their faces, the professor brought up the image of a very advanced and futuristic looking fighter aircraft.
“This fighter we are calling the F41 Archangels, leverages an EmDrive propulsion system. It burns no fossil fuels, and does not emit the type of heat a standard fighter does. It can start, stop and turn on a dime and accelerate to speeds of Mach 10,” the professor said with a smile on his face.
“Essentially you have created a scramjet technology that needs no external fuel source and has one heck of steering system, right?” asked Erik Jordan, the Secretary of Defense, skepticism in his voice.
The professor smiled at Mr. Jordan and said, “That is exactly what it can do. But it can do much more than that. We can incorporate this same type of propulsion essentially into virtually all of our current aircraft and increase their speed and maneuverability tenfold. The implications for this technology, just in the transportation sector alone, is amazing. We can also incorporate this into our space program, which is where we would see the greatest advancements,” Professor Rickenbacker explained. He didn’t get to talk about what he did very often, so he could not hide his delight. His face beamed with an almost devilish grin.
General Branson broke into the discussion. He wanted to talk further about the space implementations of this technology. “How else could this be used.?” he asked.
“Right now, the Allies (and the world in general) lack a certain type of resource that can really only be found from asteroids or other types of space rocks. The specific material, Veldspar, has been found in abundance on the Moon. When it is refined down, it creates a specialized material call Tritium4, which is what we use in our armor for the Pershings and Razorbacks. Presently, we are creating a synthetic version of this material, but it is costly, time consuming, and resource intensive. This had not been a problem in the past, because we never needed it in the quantities that we presently find ourselves requiring.” Bringing up a new slide deck with charts and images, Professor Rickenbacker proceeded to show everyone their solution to this problem.
“Mr. President, one thing I would like to gain from you today is your approval to move forward with Operation Pegasus, which is DARPA’s and the AFC’s lunar mining operation,” he requested.
Examining the information, the President asked, “Bring us up to speed on that project again and I will give you a decision. This is going to require a reallocation of some valuable resources, so I would appreciate some input from everyone.”
Changing some images, the Professor began, “Operation Pegasus is a lunar mining operation that, frankly, we have been developing for decades. We continue to update it if there is a significant technology change that could make it a reality or lower the costs. The EmDrive and the Angelic power source have made this operation a truly cost effective reality. Leveraging the EmDrive, the travel time from Earth to the Moon would be cut down to two days. That includes taking off and landing on both surfaces.”
The National Security Advisor broke in to ask, “Excuse me, you said Angelic power source? Can you tell us more about this?”
“Yes, I call it Angelic as the power source is nothing short of amazing. It’s essentially a cold fusion reactor. I will discuss the reactor in greater detail in a short bit, if we can continue on with Pegasus.” He did not wait for permission, but quickly continued.
Showing an image of a space craft, he explained, “What we propose is to build a multipurpose ship to initiate the operation. The vessel you are looking at is what we are calling the Hulk. It’s 5,100 feet in length, 400 feet in height and 300 feet in width.” The National Security Advisor let out a short whistle, saying, “That’s a big ship to construct. Are you proposing to build that in space or here on Earth?”
“We would build the ship here on Earth. Because the ship would use the EmDrive, it would be able to power itself into space without any problem, and return back to Earth if needed. The intent of this ship is to essentially build a self-contained mining operation. Building the ship would be broken down into several operations. The first would be the cargo bay. This section would carry the equipment and vehicles needed to start the mission. It would also carry with it the equipment needed to build a small modular building and two bio-domes. The modular building would be 200 feet by 800 feet, with an eight-foot ceiling. Connected to this central building would be two bio-domes on either side. The bio-domes would be used to grow food and start to establish some initial food production to support and sustain a permanent outpost. This modular building would be expanded with additional bio-domes, which we would incorporate with each successive transport load from the Earth to the Moon.” Rickenbacker showed a short video of the process he had just explained.
“The next compartment in the Hulk is the rock crusher. This section can actually be fed externally once the ship has been anchored to the lunar surface. Once the rocks are crushed, they will be separated from the actual ore. The ore will then be moved internally to a small smelter where it will be melted down into unrefined blocks of Tritium4. The Tritium4 will then be loaded onto the transports and sent back to earth for further refinement and incorporation into our industrial needs. This would effectively solve our Tritium4 problem, and increase our manufacturing capability exponentially. The weapon systems we’ll be able to build with this essentially unlimited supply of Tritium4 would be incredible.”
General Branson spoke up first, saying, “I’m not a manufacturing expert, but I suspect this ship of yours, the Hulk--it’s going to require a lot of resources that would otherwise go towards our Pershings and Razorbacks?”
“It would require us to suspend production of them for the next six months while we used the synthetic Tritium4 to build out the ship” Rickenbacker replied, deadpan as could be.
Eric Clarke, the Secretary of Defense, decided to break in. “We can stop production of the Pershings and increase production of the older M1A5s, but we cannot stop production of the Razorbacks; they are more important right now than even our tanks. My suggestion is we go ahead with this project Mr. President. The gap in Pershings is going to hurt, but like the Professor said, having an unlimited new supply of Tritium4 would, in the long-run, change the course of the war. The question is--can we protect this ship during takeoff and while it is in route to the Moon and stationed on the lunar surface? Also, can we protect the transport craft that will need to travel to and from the Hulk with the materials we need?”
The President looked to Rickenbacker for the answer.
“We
can, if we time our launches and landings to keep the Russian and Chinese ground based lasers from optimal attack trajectories. Given that both countries have been working with directional mirrors on aircraft to increase their laser attack capabilities to go beyond the horizon, this could become a problem. But they are still experimental for the moment. The other thing to remember is that the Hulk will be built with a Tritium4 exterior hull and refractive armor. As long as we know the frequencies their lasers are operating on (which we do), we can modulate the armor frequencies so the laser hits are harmless.” The Professor once again produced another short clip that showed exactly what he had explained and how the entire process would work.
Monty, the President’s Chief of Staff and Senior Advisor, praised their presenter. “I am truly impressed Professor. Every possible question we have asked, you have a ready answer and an illustration to explain it in laymen’s terms.”
Rickenbacker chuckled before responding, “I gave this brief to the others on this team. We came up with a lot of possible questions, and then prepared answers for you.”
“Well gentlemen, not to appear rude, but like I said, we do need an answer on whether to move forward with production immediately.”
“Professor, I am impressed to say the least. Unless anyone has an objection, the project is approved and given top priority above all other projects. With exception to the Razorbacks, the Pershing program will be suspended for the time being until the Hulk is completed. Your AFC LNO will have full authority and support to get production going as quickly as possible, and for all equipment needed to make this project a reality,” the President directed.
“Thank you, Mr. President. This is going to require a lot of manpower; we are looking at close to 140,000 people in all to work on the varying aspects of the project. Our AFC LNO said he can shift people around and make it work though,” the Professor said confidently.