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Wolf mind-messaged me that the Prudhoe command center has brought in a full night shift of military personnel. We haven't seen this before so something is obviously up. Wolf doubted that this was going to be an assault on us because he saw no signs of the DPS forces preparing for battle. Fortunately for us, Wolf knows exactly how Alberta's DPS comes to full military alert.
I figure that Alaska runs quarterly military exercises that give their forces practice in the operation that will eventually become an attack on us. Their aircraft carrier had been in the Pacific Ocean at the end of February, so Prudhoe's activity now at the end of May suggests that they run them every three months. If the increased size of their night shift proves to be a good early indicator of upcoming real or simulated battles, we're going to get at least a one or two day warning. Most importantly, in the next couple of days, we're probably going to see a preview of how Alaska plans to attack us.
I mentioned this to Izzy and she agrees. She's going to set up two scout teams: Wolf and I will watch the naval operations and she and Hank will watch their airplanes. She had wanted to involve TG, but he said that he's buried in work with all the computer coding he still has to do from our trip to Oxford.
I thought that she was making a mistake in her selection. This would be a good time for me to be more assertive. A lot of people had complimented me on how the Research and Development meeting had gone, so I was feeling good about taking charge. Time for the next step.
I asked Izzy about her choice of Wolf and suggested that Lucas would be the better choice. I was going to say why but she interrupted me and said that Wolf had more experience than Lucas and that was what the teams would be. This time, I didn't back off. I told her that Wolf has been looking grey, has lost some weight, and has been walking around like a moody cadaver. She asked me how I would know that since I've been locked away in my workroom. I said that Yollie had told me. We argued about Lucas versus Wolf for a while, but Izzy got her way because she was in charge of strategic operations and I wasn't.
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Chapter 8
From Izzy's journals: Sunday, June 4.
Will and I had a fight on Saturday night on how the debriefing meeting of the Alaskan and Prudhoe surveillance operations was going to be run, of all things. He wanted to run it as a Research and Development meeting because we could talk about what he would need to invent. I said it was a strategy meeting because we'd be talking about how we could deal with Alaska's military forces. He was really snarky about it. Persistent. Not like him at all. To get him to back off, I had to agree that we could share the meeting. After I had scheduled Sunday for the debriefing, Wolf mind-messaged me to say that Will knew everything he knew and could handle their end of the debriefing. Then he went off-line and never showed up for the meeting. What's with these two guys?
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My report about The Citadel's air force was straightforward. "The military exercise started at first light on Thursday, June 1 at Anchorage. Their carrier was the first to leave and Will is going to tell you about that. Hank and I were waiting at Prudhoe expecting that this was where their air force trials would start. However, Will saw planes coming out of concealed hangers in Anchorage, so he watched them until Hank and I could take his place."
"We now know that they have additional planes in Anchorage and where they are stored. It would be difficult to destroy them in their hangars, but not impossible. However from a strategic perspective, we probably won't have to deal with that issue. The planes will be in the air by the time we launch an attack on Anchorage if we decide to do that."
Will interrupted me at that point. "From a science perspective though, now that we know where they're stored, we might be able to develop a weapon that can take them out before they can launch."
"But that's going to take some sort of big bomb to penetrate through the mountainside. We don't have any big bombs." I thought I had made that clear in our argument last night and I shouldn't have had to repeat myself.
"But I might be able to develop some big bombs, Izzy."
I let it go. Arguing in front of other people is so immature. "About an hour after the carrier had left, fifty planes lifted off from Anchorage and flew in formation to Prudhoe Bay. Lucas has already described these planes to us. They can take off vertically, hover, and land in a tiny space. Their flight to Prudhoe was quick, but Hank and I had no difficulty keeping up. The pilots went into the Prudhoe command center and stayed there until 5 p.m., at which point they were bussed to some barracks."
"At first light on Friday, the fifty planes from Anchorage joined up with twenty-five planes from Prudhoe, and all seventy-five headed east. At about the half-hour mark, the full force divided itself into three parts. One squadron of twenty-five hovered where they were. The other two squadrons split into two directions and disappeared. Hank followed one of them. We determined later that they were positioning themselves so that they could attack a forested area from three different directions. On some signal, they attacked a bunch of trees in waves of five planes. One group would finish killing some trees and they would be followed by another group of five planes coming from a different direction. The bombing site was marked by yellow paint on the trees, and I believe it was the same size and shape as Will's defensive zone around our compound. When they were finished, not a tree was standing. Hank has some things to add."
"As far as I could determine, the weapons they were using were standard military arms for planes – machine guns or small cannon fire. They had no missiles. The planes approached their target at extremely high speed, but not supersonic. Each of the five planes in a squadron operated independently of each of the other four, but they didn't interfere with each other. The coordination from one squadron of five planes to the next squadron of five planes was very tight. One wave was speeding away from the battle and the next wave was attacking immediately."
"The planes then returned to Prudhoe," Izzy continued. "They landed in the open and remained in the open while men in uniforms worked on the planes. Reloading, as we determined later. The planes returned to the same area as before and redid the attack, but this time on a different stand of trees. This time they fired bubbles. The bubbles had no effect, but we think they were just practicing the coordination of their waves. They returned to Prudhoe and stayed the night."
"One thing I noticed," Hank started. "Their planes have a single gun that fires out of the nose cone. That gun can fire either bubbles or conventional ammunition. I suspect that they can only load the plane up with one type of ammunition at a time, but I don't know that for sure. Perhaps, when they're attacking a site, they might have half of their planes with one set of ammunition, and half with the other. They cram a lot of ammo into those planes. When you see them on the ground, the planes are fairly small. I'm guessing that the inside consists of a cockpit for one pilot and the rest is ammunition storage, all of it with a continual feed of ammo into the single gun. Those planes would be flying coffins if the ammunition inside the plane were set off."
I resumed by describing what had happened on Saturday. "The next morning, the planes flew to another area, again in formation, and they practiced strafing empty uniforms that were scattered on the ground in a fairly large area. It was clear these were supposed to be people lying on the ground. Again, they were back to their conventional weaponry and they shredded those uniforms. Some of the uniforms were small sized."
"They practiced killing children that were in a compound," Hank said in case the group hadn't caught that.
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From Will's journals: Sunday, June 4.
"Wolf and I watched their naval operations during the exercise. The carrier left at first light on Thursday and sailed straight west. We counted twenty-five airplanes on their deck and I believe that is the largest number they can carry. We saw no indications that the planes could be stored inside the hull of the ship. Wolf and I believe that in the
ir battle against us, their carrier will sail directly south and will launch their twenty-five planes to attack our compound when they are within reasonable flying distance. With the planes from Prudhoe and Anchorage, that will make one hundred planes completely surrounding the compound and attacking in waves of five."
"Sounds like a strategic observation. I thought you were going to stick to science," Izzy interrupted.
"Here's the science perspective which I was getting to before I was interrupted. With few if any planes left on the carrier to defend it, the science that is needed for the attack becomes focused on one objective – sink or disable the carrier before the planes return. To achieve that objective, the science that we might consider is a bomb from a great height since we have already determined that the ship is vulnerable to an attack from directly above. Now, if I may continue..." She wants to be in charge all the time. She can't even let me speak for a minute without interrupting.
"The carrier anchored at midday and conducted defensive operations against an attacking air force. Their twenty-five planes attacked the carrier simultaneously – all of them trying to disable the ship's thirty solar power panels with their bubbles. The carrier fought back with bubbles of its own – trying to disable a plane's solar panels. We learned that if a single bubble hit a solar panel, that panel would go dark."
"The airplanes had only five solar panels and if they lost even one, their speed went down noticeably. At slower speeds, the planes were very vulnerable. The ship wasn't moving and so could concentrate all of its energy on establishing a wall of bubbles around it. In fact, I believe that the carrier has to be motionless when it is being attacked; otherwise, it may slip out of its defensive bubble circle and that might destroy some of their own solar panels. At the end of that afternoon's battle, all twenty-five planes had been knocked out of the skies; three solar panels on the ship were damaged."
"It took about 25-30 minutes for the solar panels to regain power. We didn't see workers doing anything, so there probably was a natural re-charging process. Even if anyone attacked the carrier when its planes were disabled or absent, it still had its bubbles as defense. However, during power recharging, the airplanes floating on the water wouldn't be able to protect themselves and could be sunk with traditional weapons."
"After the planes had recovered their power, they flew up onto the deck where they received a second load of bubbles. I suspect that if any of the carrier's solar panels had been seriously damaged, the crew would have had ample spare parts to replace them. Installation would be quick. Thus, the carrier could continue as a fighting force for so long as its replacement parts lasted. An airplane, on the other hand, was out of action for at least thirty minutes after it lost power and had to set down in the sea. We saw no signs that the planes might sink while they were waiting for the recharge to finish. The bubbles damaged solar panels only; they had no impact on other parts of the carrier or the plane. However traditional ammo would have been effective against either the ship or the planes. They held another battle in the evening but the results were the same."
"The carrier sat dead in the water that night. It looked like almost everyone on the ship was off duty at the same time. In the pitch black of the night, the carrier was invisible. We knew where they were, but any traditional navy would not. The carrier's radar continued to spin, and we presumed that a small watch was kept in their command center wherever that might be. However in terms of a Wilizy attack, the dead of night might be a time that we could surprise them provided that we slipped through their electronic defensive radar ring."
"Strategic," Izzy said.
I decided to ignore her. Bickering in front of other people seems so juvenile. "Friday morning, the carrier started to move again, but we were surprised to see that the solar power panels were turned off. No bright lights whatsoever. And no wake either. The ship wasn't moving quickly, but it was moving. After a few hours, the carrier took up a position a couple of kilometers from a small island, perhaps a half-kilometer long and a quarter-kilometer wide. It began to circle the island but continually changed its distance from the island, presumably to give their gun crews a challenge. Two ship's guns were blazing away the whole time and these were loaded with traditional weaponry. But the solar power on the ship was off. This suggests that the ship stored enough solar power to operate the guns at night. This, in turn, suggests that when the ship stops dead in the water at night, it is doing so to conserve its battery power in case it is attacked at night."
"The crew was not particularly skilled at finding their target quickly. Once they found the range, they were able to keep a consistent barrage on the island, but first they had to find the range by walking their shots up to the island. They did this poorly when the carrier was sailing directly towards the island, or directly away from the island. This suggests that they have no range finder on those guns. Our Wilizy weaponry always hit their target on the first shot because we have laser/sensor guidance. The Alaskan carrier does not. However their shells are powerful. They would sink our wooden Wilizy ships. When nightfall came, they had another round of target practice but this time in the dark. I believe that they were trying to use their radar to target the shots. They did this poorly."
"After the exercise was over, the ship went dead, and once again, we believe only a skeleton crew was on watch. Wolf and I took this opportunity to swim in our slings under the ship looking for their alternate form of propulsion with the help of a very dim light on our pinky rings. Near the bow, the keel of the carrier has six small water wheels that rotate in place and which can pull the ship through the water but their power is limited. They are placed far enough forward that they won't leave a discernible wake. I believe that these water wheels are oil driven. I suspect that the carrier needs this entirely different form of propulsion because the Alaskans can't easily switch from solar power to oil power and still use the same propeller."
"Saturday morning, the ship used its solar power to sail to Anchorage. Wolf and I took a closer look at the bombarded island. It has been used for target practice before."
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From Will's journals: Sunday, June 4 continued.
We took a stretch break, and then I rapped on the table and continued with my report.
"It's possible that you all have received so much data about the Alaskan threat that you might miss the overall picture. You need to know this."
"While we are in an uneasy peace with Zzyk right now, none of us should have any doubts that there will be a coordinated attack on us sometime in the next twelve months. TG and Mac have both warned us about this. From The Citadel's military exercises, it's clear that they are planning an aerial onslaught against our compound from four directions. They have an aircraft carrier to move some of their planes around. Their aircraft can hover and can land on a square the size of this room, so all they need is a clear field somewhere to land, recharge, reload, and then take off again. There's no place in B.C., A.N., or Alberta where we'd be free from a potential air attack."
"It's only logical that Zzyk and The Citadel will join forces. We don't know for sure how Zzyk is going to contribute to the battle, but if the Alaskans are coming at us by air, we should assume that Zzyk is going to attack us on the ground. Zzyk has half of his air force intact and that includes attack copters and troop transports. If he were to pull all of his forces together, Wolf estimates that he can have one thousand soldiers in the field against us. We have less than twenty Wilizy and that's counting the youngsters. Zzyk's forces will come at us with conventional weaponry."
"The Alaskans have offensive firepower in the form of bubble guns that we don't know how to stop. I believe that each bubble is a type of electronic grenade. Such a grenade would knock out the electronics of a solar panel but only temporarily. Probably by overloading its circuits. These weapons could knock out any type of offensive or defensive electronic weapon, if not on the first touch, then after multiple hits. The Wilizy compound's entire defensive s
hield is electronic. As it is currently structured, it will be destroyed by the waves of Alaskan planes attacking us. We may assume that once the Alaskans destroy our electronic defenses, Zzyk's air force and some of the Alaskan air force will immediately strafe our compound with conventional weaponry targeting any adults and children who are still alive."
I looked up and everyone was staring at me, barely breathing. "Too blunt?" I asked. Nobody moved. I took that as agreement that I should continue.
"If we were to mount an attack first, we'd have to deal with Zzyk's forces that would be spread out in perhaps five different location. Both Prudhoe and Anchorage have military defenses that we know nothing about. Anchorage has a base that is hidden inside a mountain. They consider it impregnable. They may be right about that. I know of no weaponry that can destroy a mountain."
"If we tried to take out their aircraft carrier, we know that it's vulnerable from high overhead and at night. However, we'd still be facing their ship's bubbles, which we don't know how to stop and which could disable our slings with a single hit. Thus, out of the thousands of bubbles they put into the air, a single bubble hit would disable a sling and the person inside would fall into the ocean from a great height. If the person weren’t killed on impact, he'd be stunned and would then drown. If we tried to attack on the ocean, their carrier's regular ammunition can blow our wooden ships to smithereens."
I was running through the list of all the challenges that I had stored in my head as Izzy and I went through our reports. Again, I looked at the audience. Nobody was even blinking.
"Against these forces, we have equivalent science, I hope. I seriously doubt that they have gravitational weaponry, but those weapons aren't strong enough for us to pull a plane down to the ground. We have lasers that might be good enough against ground personnel, but we don't know if they can knock planes out of the sky. We can put perhaps twelve invisible slings into the air with qualified personnel who can fly them at supersonic speeds. But not one of those slings can stop a bullet or survive a bubble hitting the sling. We have twelve warriors to fight thousands of trained soldiers with weaponry that we don't know anything about."
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