by Rosone,James
Monty walked in to the Oval Office and interrupted the President’s glassy-eyed gaze into a world of spinning thoughts. “Mr. President, the generals and the rest of the staff are ready in the Situation Room.”
Looking up, Henry replied, “Thank you, Monty. Let’s get going then.” The President got up from his desk and followed Monty towards the Situation Room.
As they walked in to the room, they took their respective seats and the meeting began.
General Branson was the first to speak, “Mr. President, General Black has sent his final tally of their losses. It’s pretty bad. We lost several tank divisions, and the 32nd infantry (which was our only infantry division equipped with the Raptor suits) suffered a sixty percent casualty rate during their defense of Fairbanks.”
“Did the 32nd hold up as well as we thought they would?” asked the President, curious to know if the Raptor suits really made a big impact on the battlefield.
“They did, Mr. President. Their 12,500 soldiers withstood a Russian army of 230,000 soldiers for nearly forty-eight hours. They inflicted around 41,000 casualties on the enemy, compared to the seven or so thousand that they lost. If we could equip more divisions with the suits it would make a huge difference in the war in Alaska.” General Branson spoke with pride in his voice; he was elated by the accomplishments of the 32nd .
Wanting to get a better grasp of the overall situation, the National Security Advisor spoke up and asked, “What was General Black’s total casualty count?”
Branson’s face fell into a disappointed wince as he replied, “General Black suffered 213,000 casualties during the last ten days. He assures me that his army is still combat effective, and will hold the Russians and Chinese at the next defensive line.”
The President broke in to add, “Look, we knew he was going to take some heavy casualties; he’s facing over two million enemy soldiers. As long as he can continue to hold them at the next defensive line, that is all that matters for the time-being. What I want to talk about is this Japanese Task Force that just left their home ports.”
Admiral Juliano signaled that he would like to speak to this question. General Branson nodded towards him to continue. “Mr. President, the Japanese Task Force has officially left port and will be in striking range of the Chinese fleet and the Hawaiian Islands a few days before Christmas. We moved our SUDs into the area to support them when they begin their attack.”
“Will their task force be enough to defeat the PLAN in the area?” asked the President, not totally confident in the Japanese’s naval capability.
“When they prepare to attack the PLAN, we will have both flights of our F41s in the area to support them. We will also have four of our five SUDs there to engage the PLAN fleet as well. I am confident that our combined force can destroy the three PLAN supercarriers,” said Juliano confidently.
“Where do we stand with the Third Army? When are they going to be ready, and where do we deploy them?” asked the President.
General Branson took this question, “The Third Army has reached 1,250,000 soldiers in strength. All of their tank divisions are equipped with the Pershings and the new Wolverine infantry fighting vehicles. Seventy percent of his soldiers have been equipped with the Raptor suits as well. They’ve been conducting a lot of training exercises, getting everyone up to speed and ready to face the Chinese and Russians. As to where we should deploy them, right now our plan is to move them to join General Black’s First Army around March. This will hopefully give them a month to do the formal hand over of the area while Alaska is still buried under heavy snow. Once the snow thaws, then Third Army will begin their offensive and hopefully drive the invaders out of Alaska.”
“So in the meantime, what are they doing now? And what are we doing with the new soldiers who are completing basic training each week now that they are at 100% manning?” asked the President.
The Secretary of Defense, Eric Clarke, spoke up to answer the President, “Right now Third Army is training. They will continue to prepare until it is time for them to deploy. As to the new soldiers, they are continuing to form new divisions. These divisions are then conducting a months’ worth of training against one of the Third Army divisions and will be consolidated in Washington State. General Gardner established his Army headquarters at Nellis Air Force Base. He wants to position Washington State for First Army to form up, which makes sense. Right now, General Gardner has Third Marines training at Twenty-Nine Palms, California, and the bulk of his other divisions are training in Colorado, Utah and Nevada.”
Continuing, the SecDef explained, “The Marines continue to crank out a new 20,000-man division every six weeks. We are holding two divisions on the West Coast right now to support the Japanese assault against the Hawaiian Islands. Once they drop their initial assault force, the ships will head to San Diego to load up the Marines and ferry them over.”
The President smiled. He felt good about their chances in the war now that Japan was finally going to come to their aid. With the Japanese neutralizing the Chinese navy, it would then be a logistical war of attrition, which was one the Americans could win. They were, after all, fighting on home turf. “Excellent, Eric. I am glad we are finally starting to catch a few breaks. When Third Army takes over in Alaska, I want us to see what troops we will have available to send to Europe. Perhaps we can finish that fight off while we continue to battle the Chinese.”
“Before everyone leaves, I want a brief update on Operation Pegasus. How are we going to protect the ship once it takes off, and more importantly, how are we going to protect the lunar base?” asked President Stein. He hadn’t gotten firm answers to these important questions thus far, and he wanted something he could stand on before ending the meeting.
The new Director of Science and Technology, Dr. Peter Gorka, responded to this question in his deep baritone voice. “Mr. President. We have developed a series of nasty surprises for the Russians and the Chinese should they try to attack the HULK while it is in flight or at the lunar base. I will discuss the defenses on the HULK first; aside from the suite of electronic countermeasures, we have two laser batteries on the fore and aft section of the ship. These lasers can effectively engage targets in the atmosphere as far out as 150 miles. In space, they can hit targets as far as 350 miles away. They will more than be able to protect the HULK as it transitions from earth to space.”
Bringing up some holographic images from his tablet, Dr. Gorka continued, “This is what we propose for the lunar base. Prior to landing on the Moon’s surface, the HULK will deploy two satellites that will orbit opposite of each other around the Moon. This will provide complete coverage of the Moon for communications to earth and the lunar surface, but more importantly, will provide a defense for the base. The satellites are equipped with a pulse beam laser, which can engage any objects heading towards the lunar base or near any of our spacecraft within its range. We are working on building a couple dozen more of these satellites to place in ultra-high earth orbit. Our hope is to be able to use these satellites to help us gain control of the skies by sniping enemy aircraft from space.”
“We are also working on developing another project called Thor, which is essentially placing special laser-guided projectile spears in space and then guiding them as they reenter earth’s orbit to hit enemy positions anywhere on the globe,” he said with a devilish grin.
The room sat in silence for moment as they sat there in awe of some of the weapons that were being developed, marveling at how far things had come in just the last few years.
The President was first to speak, “This is amazing, Dr. Gorka. Between you and Professor Rickenbacker, we have developed some of the most advanced weapons ever seen. We are going to need them if we are going to win this war, that is for sure. Thank you for the update, are there some other weapon systems you would like to bring us up to date on?” asked the President eager to see if his director of S&T had anything else up his sleeve.
Dr. Gorka nodded, and brought up an image that agai
n silenced the room.
The Secretary of Defense spoke up first. “What the heck is that thing? A rock?” The picture at the moment did appear very much like a rock, but with a million tiny triangles all over it.
Dr. Gorka smiled that devilish grin of his. “What you are looking at is the dormant position of our newest fighters. This appearance allows us to catch the enemy completely off guard.” Then he clicked a button to continue the presentation. The “rock” transformed into what appeared to be a weaponized werewolf, complete with fangs and glowing red eyes. Several of the advisors actually gasped—the psychological impact of the metamorphosis was truly fear-inspiring. “This…is the next generation in combat infantry. Like our flying drones, they do not require a pilot to be seated inside of the device, which allows us to reduce casualties. We have based this model off of the Russian werewolf legends, and are calling it the Bodark. It is made out of very strong alloys, and has been designed with claws and crushing mechanisms that can even cause damage to a tank at close range. For distance, the Bodark can use the lasers embedded in the eyes or the hands to attack. Should the battery begin to run low, it can return to the dormant rock shape to recharge with its micro solar energy cells.”
National Security Advisor, Mike Rogers, whistled. “Holy….”
The President’s eyes were wide. “Dr. Gorka, this is truly impressive. Back when I was fighting in the Second Iraq War in the 2000s, we used to dream about the day that we would have unmanned drones fighting, but we never thought of anything like this.”
Mike Rogers had contained his shock, and asked the practical questions, “So, how soon until it is ready? And how many of them can we produce?”
“Normally, we would do a years’ worth of testing and evaluation; however, we plan on skipping that and just field testing them in actual combat. Right now we have five prototypes. We plan to begin testing in Alaska in January. Once we make sure they work as they should, which we’ll know within the first couple of outings, we can start to ramp up production. A lot of the manufacturing can be done using 3D printing, which will help immensely. We should be able to field the first 500 of them by the end of February and about 1,000 a month starting in March. It will take close to a couple of weeks of training with each operator before they will be ready.”
The meeting continued on for another hour as they discussed more details. They eventually finished their briefing, and the President asked if everyone would like to join him and his wife for dinner--it was last minute, of course, but it was coming up on supper time and Henry thought to himself, “Why not reward everyone with food and a social hour with the Commander in Chief? They’ve certainly earned it. ”
The month of December was going to be a pivotal month for the Allies, one that might make or break the war. Tonight was a time to put all of that aside and just enjoy each other’s company.
Sinking SUDs
Japanese Naval Task Force
300 miles away from Hawaii
Admiral Tomohisa Kawano was the Task Force Commander for the Japanese surprise attack that was heading towards the American West Coast. Two months ago, he had been a Vice Admiral and loyal supporter of the Prime Minister--after discovering the fleet admiral would not lead the navy to attack the Americans, he suddenly found himself in command of the fleet. The Prime Minister said the future of Japan was in his hands; they had to succeed or things with China might not turn out so well for Japan. Admiral Kawano was loyal to Japan and to the Prime Minister, but he had a bad feeling about attacking the Americans. He had trained for nearly two decades with the American navy, and had quite a few American friends. He had always enjoyed working with the Americans. He also feared the retaliation the Americans would unleash on Japan (especially after the nuclear holocaust they released on the Islamic Republic). That was truly barbaric what they had done.
He knew America might be down right now, but they certainly were not out of the war, despite what the Chinese may think or say. The Americans always seemed to find a way out of a tough situation and emerge stronger and meaner than ever. He just hoped that in delivering a devastating surprise attack, he might be able to help secure a quick victory and perhaps a ceasefire. Their objective was to sink the American SUDs as soon as they identified them and then turn the fleet towards Los Angeles and support the landing of the 30,000 troops he was escorting.
Because Japan was still an ally of the US, they had access to certain US Defense systems used specifically by the US Navy. Leveraging this access, Chinese and Japanese cyber experts were going to launch a new wave of cyber-attacks against the American Department of Defense. The first thing they were going to do was black out the American satellites and communications over the Pacific. They needed to blind the Americans and then trick their computers into believing that a great air battle had taken place over Hawaii and that the Japanese had lost. Then they would turn tail and rush towards the American shoreline and the “protection” of the American airpower.
The next wave of cyber-attacks would be against the communications system on the West Coast. They would shut down cell and internet service, hampering communications. This would be followed up with a fake mobilization order for the Marines at Camp Pendleton to deploy their forces to San Diego to repel a fake Chinese airborne assault. The few military computer systems that would be allowed to stay online would be tricked in to believing that somehow the Chinese had snuck in hundreds of transport aircraft and were dropping thousands upon thousands of paratroopers around the San Diego area. While the Marines would be in transit and moving away from their base, the Japanese battleships would launch a devastating cruise missile attack against them, catching most of them out in the open as they moved to engage the fake Chinese paratroopers.
The battleships would then launch a second barrage of cruise missiles at Camp Pendleton, with the aim of destroying the remaining soldiers in garrison there. The PLAN would have their amphibious assault force hit the beaches at Pendleton and move to destroy and then secure the last vestige of Marine power on the West Coast. The Japanese would land their ground force in Los Angeles and move to secure the major ports and airports before moving on to control the various valley entrances leading into the city. Their objective was to hold the area until the second wave of Chinese soldiers would be able to land. With full control of the airports, the goal for both China and Japan would be to transport thousands of soldiers quickly via commercial aircraft to bolster their force before the Americans could react.
It was believed that within three weeks they should have enough armored vehicles and infantry to push any American Forces in the area back and consolidate their gains. With an invasion force on the West Coast, the Americans would not be able to send any additional reinforcements to fight the Chinese and Russian army in Alaska. This would ultimately result in the collapse of the Alaskan front and open the entire top half of America to the invasion.
As Admiral Kawano’s task force began to get closer to the Hawaiian Islands and the PLAN task force, they made contact with the American Navy, who was still oblivious to what was about to happen to them. They began to coordinate the positions of their SUDs with the Japanese so they could “best attack the PLAN task force.”
As the SUDs began to move in to firing position against the PLAN fleet, Japanese anti-submarine helicopters (which had been following the SUDs from the air) dropped a series of torpedoes on the SUDs in an attempt to destroy them. They used Chinese torpedoes in order to mask that they had been dropped by the Japanese.
Two of the SUDs were completely destroyed, while the other two SUDs managed to evade the Chinese torpedoes. Chinese submarines, which had been lying in wait, also fired their own torpedoes at the surviving SUDs, quickly destroying them (but not before two of the Chinese submarines were destroyed by the SUDs). Unbeknownst to the Chinese and Japanese at the time, there had been a fifth SUD in the water, which had been lurking further behind the Japanese task force in hopes of identifying any Chinese submarines that might appear and tr
y to attack the Japanese capital ships. Their surveillance caught the sheer betrayal on the part of the Japanese.
The SUD operator immediately signaled for one of his superiors to come to his station so he could report what he had just seen and recorded. As they were putting together information and reviewing it for the fourth time, the building they were operating out of in Bangor Trident Base, Washington State, was blown up before they could send their report to anyone.
As it turns out, the cleaning crew at this building (who had been cleaning the facility every night for years), were actually Chinese spies, who had been waiting patiently to carry out one specific mission. They had smuggled in a liquid explosive (not hard to do among all of the standard cleaning products) and assembled a device under the flooring panel in the center of the room, near one of the garbage cans they would frequently empty. A timer inside the device would remove the separation between the two active chemicals, creating a volatile mixture that was primed for explosion. A second timer would detonate the device. The Japanese had fed these Chinese spies all of the intelligence they would need about exactly when the attack on the SUDs would occur; their hope was to destroy the building and all of its personnel at the same time as the attack in Hawaii. The Chinese had already carried out a number of sabotage attacks in Washington State the previous week; this would help to belay any suspicion of Japanese involvement.
Once Admiral Kawano confirmed that the first wave of cyber-attacks and the sabotage against Bangor Naval Base had been completed, he immediately ordered his fleet to change course and head towards their intended targets at flank speed. All that mattered now was making sure they were in position at the right time to carry out the next phase of the attack.