Others in the control room worked on the timing of the various attacks. They figured out the angle of the attacks and the distance of the THOR package at the instant of release so they would all come in at once while converging from different areas over the Earth.
Colonel Foxx believed in his missiles and he and his team worked feverishly. It just might work, but to coordinate the THORs in a mass attack on so short a notice—
He sat up, swiveled around and picked up a secure phone. In seconds, he spoke to General Alan in Syracuse, New York.
WASHINGTON, DC
Anna watched as the President had a phone against his ear. They were still in the underground bunker.
David spoke with General Alan. “I see,” the President said. “Yes, thank you. I’ll let you know my decision about— Yes, I understand the need for haste. Give me five minutes, General, and I’ll let you know for certain.”
The President set down the phone and faced those assembled. “General Alan says it will be a close-run attack. The THORs won’t be ready to strike en mass until the enemy armada is a mere one hundred miles from the coast.”
“Sir,” Norton said. “If these THOR missiles work, or work even half as good as we expect, we should hit the enemy fleet with all the air we can summon. We must be ready to exploit any victory we achieve by swarming the enemy with cruise missiles.”
“Yes, yes,” the President said, nodding. “That’s wise advice. Make it happen, General.”
Norton picked up a phone.
“I have a question, sir,” Max said.
The President nodded.
“Won’t the enemy lasers be able to destroy the THOR platforms?” Max asked.
“Yes, possibly,” the President said. “But we must try.”
“I totally agree, sir,” Max said. “But to give the THORs a greater chance of getting through, I suggest you give the GD more targets to shoot at. Preferably, give the GD decoys, plenty of them to fire at first.”
“What decoys?” the President asked. “I’m not aware we have space-based decoys.”
“I’m referring to more ICBMs,” Max said. “Launch another assault.”
“Just a minute,” Norton said into the phone. He lowered it and covered the speaker with his hand. Then he told Max, “The Germans will shoot down the ICBMs during boost phase. That won’t help the THORs, but it will cost us many nuclear missiles.”
“I’m talking about keeping the GD Strategic Defense occupied,” Max said. “If they can beam the missiles during boost phase…” The director grinned mirthlessly. “Launch one ICBM at a time. That will confuse them as to what we’re doing, and it should keep them watching the wrong place.”
“That’s crafty,” the President said. “Yes, I like it. We’ll use deception on them as they’ve been using it on us.” He scanned those around the table. “Are there any other suggestions?”
He’s getting his confidence back, Anna realized. He’s putting his faith in the THOR missiles. I hope for all our sakes they work.
“Very well,” the President said. He picked up the phone. “General Alan…”
GDN BISMARCK
Warrant Officer Gunther Weise stood outside the air tower. Every time he raised his right hand to take the cigarette, it shook the slightest bit. The nicotine in the cigarette wasn’t soothing him as it usually did.
He didn’t see as many ships now. They sailed farther apart, but they would converge soon as they hit the enemy coast. Before, that had seemed like an adventure. Now, he was worried about what the Americans would try next. Clearly, they would do whatever they could to try to stop the amphibious invasion.
The big ship moved through a rougher sea. Dark clouds gathered in the east. Would it rain? He hoped it would rain. Yet he wanted to see the sun shine.
Gunther inhaled cigarette smoke into his lungs, and he shuddered. The Americans had launched ICBMs at the fleet. He couldn’t believe—
The bottom door in the air control tower opened. The same officer as before stuck out his bald head. “Warrant Officer Weise! You’d better hurry in here. The Americans are launching more ICBMs.”
The cigarette dropped out of Gunther’s mouth. His stomach twisted. They’re doing it again? No. That isn’t right. We already survived one nuclear attack. They can’t do it again.
Then he broke into a sprint. The great danger wasn’t over yet.
NEW YORK STATE
In the cloudy sky, Lieutenant Penner of the Canadian Air Force leveled his F-35 into position. A US fuel tanker maneuvered its winged boom toward the intake near his cockpit. He could see the boom operator through the two-inch-thick window in the tail.
Penner had more than just his wingman with him today. American Command gathered its last air assets to strike the invasion fleet heading for New Jersey. Penner and the others of this squadron carried antiship cruise missiles. They gathered because soon the remains of the Allied air forces in this region would fly out into the Atlantic Ocean.
According to intelligence, the Germans steamed this way with five supercarriers and their accompanying UAVs, not to mention far too many missile-equipped escorts.
We’re going to be badly outnumbered today. Thinking about it, Penner gripped his controls more tightly. I wonder how many of us will make it through to strike the enemy? I wonder how many of us will return home?
There had been talk about a coordinated strike. America had used ICBMs on the enemy, but High Command still needed the Air Force to finish the German fleet. That meant the ICBMs hadn’t worked well enough, and that troubled Penner. Just how good was the GD Fleet air?
Penner did more than fly planes; he studied them. He knew the history of air warfare. He hoped they weren’t doing what had happened to the Japanese in 1944. In the Central Pacific, the Japanese had hoped to destroy the American Pacific Fleet. To that end, they began Operation A-Go. They had hoped to lure the Americans into an air trap. On June 15 off the Marianas Islands, the Japanese airmen got their chance. Admiral Ozawa kept his carriers far from the American flattops. He then sent his air fleet at the enemy on a long distance flight. He sent 200 airplanes altogether. The American radar spotted them coming, and the US commander sent the heavy Hellcats to meet the Japanese. The Zeros, the Kates and the Vals fell prey to the Hellcats. In the end, the Americans fighters knocked out all but thirty Japanese planes. Afterward, the American airmen had dubbed the battle, “The Great Marianas Turkey Shoot.” It was a rude comment, but accurate enough.
I hope we’re not flying to an Atlantic Turkey Shoot.
The trick would be in coordinating the various strikes. Lieutenant Penner didn’t realize it, but he was far more right than he knew.
GDN BISMARCK
Warrant Officer Gunther Weise was seeing it on the big screen, but he could hardly believe it.
Maybe General Kaltenbrunner felt the same way. “Are you sure we’re receiving accurate information?” he asked the admiral.
“Yes, General,” the admiral said.
“Why are the Americans launching their ICBMs one at a time?” Kaltenbrunner asked.
“It is odd, isn’t it?” the admiral said.
After first checking his station controls, Gunther looked up at the big screen. Nothing would ever be the same for him now. He had survived a nuclear attack. That was amazing on several fronts. It had cleared away the cobwebs of his thoughts. Once his enlistment was up, he would leave the Navy and never reenlist. Adventures were best read in books or watched on the movie screen. Living them was much too harrowing.
Gunther watched another red dot lift from the middle of North America. It blinked, and he could almost feel the tremendous flames pouring from the missile, pushing it into space. Before a minute passed, a blue line reached up from Iceland or near Brest, Brittany, bounced off a space mirror and destroyed the lofting missile. Several minutes later and almost as if on cue, the Americans launched another ICBM. It didn’t make any kind of sense for them to do that. Didn’t they know how useless it was? They were
throwing away their nuclear missiles.
“Surely they realize the uselessness of what they’re doing,” Kaltenbrunner said.
Gunther raised his eyebrows. He and the general thought alike. It made him wonder if he could have been the general. It didn’t seem that hard, standing there and observing the same things a warrant officer did.
The admiral tapped a finger against his goatee. “Their actions do give one pause. In fact, I’m beginning to wonder if they’re actually trying to focus our attention there. If so: why? That’s the question.”
“Look there,” Kaltenbrunner said, pointing. “Are they trying to disguise the fact of their gathering air fleet?”
The admiral studied the screen in silence. He had dark eyes, and they seemed penetrating with intelligence.
“The Americans must destroy us,” the admiral said shortly. “We know that, yes?”
“It’s obvious,” Kaltenbrunner said.
“The fleet has deployed against submarines,” the admiral said. “The Americans don’t have many left, and my understanding is that most are in the Pacific. They attempt to halt the flow of Chinese weapons and reinforcements. We’re lofting the UAVs to annihilate this paltry force of US air. The American ICBMs are more pathetic than dangerous, at least at this point. Is it possible or even reasonable that the Americans have another trick up their sleeve?”
“What kind of trick?” Kaltenbrunner asked.
“Yes, that is an interesting question to ask,” the admiral said. “My first supposition is they’re trying to work a submarine or two near us with nuclear torpedoes. We’re hunting for subs and have found nothing. Hmm, what do the facts tell us?”
“I’m not sure I understand your question,” Kaltenbrunner said.
“Maybe the ICBMs should give us greater pause,” the admiral said.
“How so?” asked Kaltenbrunner.
“Why would the Americans launch them one at a time? Why not launch them all at once?”
“Couldn’t they saturate our space lasers if they went all at once?” Kaltenbrunner asked. “I mean make it impossible for our lasers to destroy them all in time?”
“That seems doubtful. Boost phase is the best time to destroy enemy missiles. They almost seem to be sacrificing the missiles to us.”
“Why would they do that?” Kaltenbrunner asked.
“There is only one possibility,” the admiral said. “They’re sacrificing ICBMs in order to keep the mirrors and the strategic lasers busy.”
“That would indicate the Americans possess another space weapon,” Kaltenbrunner said.
Gunther turned around in time to see the admiral stare in wonder at the general. The small man clapped his hands, and he strode to a communications officer.
“Put me through to Space Defense Command,” the admiral said crisply. This is an emergency priority message…”
LOW EARTH ORBIT
Fifteen minutes ago, THOR Launch Vehicle #3 used cold gas propulsion to deorbit into attack position. A regular rocket exhaust would have created a bright plume—a beacon—for the enemy to see. Instead, the stealth satellite maneuvered with a minimum signature.
Maximum penetration of hardened targets such as missile silos or underground bunkers would have demanded a nearly vertical attack from space. Ships were another matter, something much more easily penetrated than the other two types of targets. The THOR missiles could therefore attack at a much shallower angle. It meant the different stealth satellites could converge more easily from a variety of places around the globe. Major Foxx had calculated—or the targeting computers and his team had—the various THOR satellite locations and their estimated launch positions relative to each other.
THOR Launch Vehicle #3 had now reached its location. At the same time around the globe, other launch vehicles reached their places.
Data flowed into the launch vehicle from high-flying drones and over the horizon radar. The satellite’s computer relayed the targeting intelligence to the individual missiles, giving them their priority objectives.
Miniaturized onboard computers went about their tasks with high speed. The #3 Launch Vehicle burst apart. Sleek tungsten rods—fifty of them—separated from each other like sluggish wasps. Gravity tugged at the missiles and they sped Earthward, on their way.
The remains of THOR Launch Vehicle #3 didn’t know that nine other vehicles did likewise. Nor did the computer-run machine have any idea that a GD sensor finally found it. Seconds later, a laser generated in Iceland speared the empty launch vehicle, destroying it.
Meanwhile, the fifty tungsten rods of the destroyed satellite began their race into Earth’s atmosphere. They sped at the fleet heading for New Jersey.
ATLANTIC OCEAN
Lieutenant Penner flew in the second wave of the great air assault upon the approaching GD armada. The first wave of fighters and V-10 drones engaged GD carrier UAVs, swarms of them.
“This is going to be tough,” Penner’s wingman said.
Penner silently agreed. Look at the number of enemy UAVs, a flock of them or a swarm of bees on the hunt. Missiles fired, four of them.
He released chaff.
US Command didn’t have many options now. To win, they had to destroy the armada. If they burned up the Air Force to kill the ships, it would be worth it. Penner didn’t want to sacrifice his life, but they had to kill the GD armada.
He had thoughts about aborting the mission. He didn’t want to ide. But he was a Canadian officer. He would go down fighting if that’s what it took.
Lieutenant Penner, in his helmet with its dark visor, looked around at the clouds. This was a beautiful day. Maybe, likely, it would be his last day. Under his dark visor, he smiled. It was beautiful today, and it hurt to think that in less than an hour he would be dead, fish food in the great Atlantic Ocean.
Trying to fortify his resolve, Lieutenant Penner and the airmen of the squadron continued to bore in toward the approaching armada and its swarms of UAVs.
GDN BISMARCK
“It’s truly working,” the admiral said, with awe in his voice. “We’re killing their air force just as General Mansfeld predicted we would do.” He turned to Kaltenbrunner. “Mansfeld predicted the Americans would become panicked at the sight of my fleet. He said the Americans would hurl the last of their air against us, thereby aiding our conquest. I tell you, sir, for a landlubber, the man is a genius.”
General Kaltenbrunner grunted a noncommittal response.
At his station near the big screen, Gunther Weise’s hands had finally stopped shaking. He had settled down from the nuclear attack. It had taken long enough.
The Americans no longer launched ICBMs from North Dakota. Whatever their reason had been for launching, it was gone. Maybe it was as the admiral said. The enemy had panicked. The armada’s CAP chewed apart the American air heading out here to fight. Even now, the main amphibious landing craft and helo-carriers gathered to make their initial approach to the New Jersey shore. The Americans would have been wiser to hold their air back for later.
Gunther looked up at the big screen. He frowned. What is that? Does anyone else see this? For a moment, a red enemy appeared in space as if out of nowhere. Then a laser from Iceland destroyed the object.
“Strange,” the admiral said.
With a twist of his head, Gunther saw that the admiral watched the same thing he had.
“What is that?” the admiral asked.
“Sir,” a major asked.
“That,” the admiral said, pointing. “What is that? Where did it come from?”
Gunther’s head swayed back. He noticed something new: a streak on the big screen. It was purple, not red. Purple meant the computer hadn’t registered the thing as dangerous, but as an unknown object, as possibly threating.
“Look,” the admiral said. “There’s another one.”
General Kaltenbrunner swore in a harsh voice.
Gunther sat back in his seat, startled and suddenly uneasy. A blizzard of purple objects appeared on
the big screen. His mouth dried out, and he glanced around. Didn’t anyone have any idea what those streaks represented?
LOW EARTH ORBIT
A twenty-pound tungsten THOR missile—one of fifty just like it—began its descent into the atmosphere. At the start of its rapid fall, the missile had an ablative nose tip.
As the rod plunged down through the atmosphere at meteor speeds, heating up by friction, the ablative nose tip wore away until finally it was gone. It had done its job as a mini-heat shield. Instead of a blunt nose or even a rounded one showing, the THOR missile had a sharp point and an arrow-like design. It sliced through the increasingly dense atmosphere, losing only a fraction of its terrific velocity.
Despite the intense heat, the internal guts of the tungsten rod began to work. At two miles above the Atlantic Ocean, the nose cap popped off. That exposed the sensors. They were high-grade and rugged, and this particular missile spotted the GDN Otto von Bismarck supercarrier, its priority-one target. Small flanges at the rear of the rod steered the projectile, adjusting as the supercarrier churned through the sea.
At twenty pounds, the tungsten rod was less than an inch in diameter and four feet long. A luminous trail appeared behind it, as straight as a line.
Traveling at the incredible velocity, the THOR missile neared its target.
GDN BISMARCK
Warrant Officer Gunther Weise’s hands had begun shaking again. Fear boiled in his stomach, and the approaching disaster angered him as terribly unfair.
Gunther had no idea how this wretched turn of events had occurred. By the startled and grim looks on their faces, the admiral and general didn’t know how or why this terrible thing was happening, either.
In some diabolical fashion, the Americans attacked them from space. It was a science fiction assault. The enemy shouldn’t have been able to deploy or use such a weapons system. The German Dominion was superior in every way to the has-been Americans. Once, the US had stridden across the globe, the strongest power on Earth. But that day had long passed. This was a new era. German might had been reborn through the Dominion.
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