Wizard returned his team to the Wilizy/Asia with time enough for a nap to rest for the daytime operation. This one would have more danger to it.
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Chapter 39
Tuesday morning, November 13, dawned bright and clear for the Alaskan forces. It was a perfect day to destroy an uppity band of amateur warriors. The pilots of the seventy-five planes in the Yukon strode confidently to their light planes, climbed aboard, pushed their On buttons, and waited. Nothing.
One plane managed to rise a few meters off the ground before a sniper's bullet shattered the engine.
Nice shot, Yolanda.
Thank you, kind sir.
The pilots milled around the plane, stared at the remains of the engine, and wondered what they should do.
"Move towards your sleeping area," a male voice helped them with the decision.
The pilots dove to the ground and tried to hide behind a plane, only they didn't know what direction they should be shielding themselves from.
"Platoon #1," the male voice instructed. "One man at a time, shoot your designated pilot. For now, aim at his boots. You pilots. When you're ready to move to where I told you to, you go ahead. The rest of you, try not to put a boot near a part of your body you're going to need."
Hank shot of the heel off one boot. Yolanda matched him by shooting off a heel of her own. Hank snagged a third. At that point, every pilot stood up and ran to the sleeping area. No fair, Yolanda mind-messaged. Tell them to go back.
"Does anybody have a compass?" Hank called out.
Several fished in their pockets and raised their hands.
"Head due east. In about ten kilometers, you'll cross the remains of the Old Alaska Highway. Follow that northwest. You have a forty-kilometer walk to Whitehorse. Tell them you're the defeated air force from Alaska. They'll be expecting you. Or stay around here and face the wolves. This is their territory. If you see one following you, there's probably a pack in the woods behind you. Just so you can prepare yourself mentally, they track their prey during the day and kill them at night. Usually they disable their prey and eat their stomach contents while their prey is still alive. You might want to leave now before they smell you."
Izzy: To all warriors. The Battle of the Yukon has been won with no casualties. Four shots fired.
An hour later, Winnie and Patella checked on the pilots and found them approaching the highway. Patella landed and showed herself to the Alaskans who suddenly found a lot of energy. She spent the afternoon in the Yukon wilderness and then both she and Winnie returned to the Wilizy/Europe. Hank and Theo had already left in their slings to take part in the battle at the compound if they were needed. TG was sitting in one of the light planes and checking out the cockpit. Doc, Yolanda, and Reese were collecting pellets in one of Will's lead-protected filament vacuums. As we leave this scene, TG's plane is rising in the air and he's messaging Izzy on how to fly one of her own. Together, they would hide the Alaskans' light planes somewhere safe until they received new orders from Mac.
# # # # # # # #
Back we go to the Pacific and back in time to the beginning of the day. An hour after dawn, the carrier's twenty-five light planes lifted off and headed east. The delay in departure was because nobody could figure out what had happened to the ship's power. Communications were down; all forms of propulsion were down; even the guns were inactive. But the planes worked and that was what confounded the command staff. They tested them in the air. All good. Guns could be fired. High speed could be attained and maintained. Time was running out to meet the other forces at the compound, so the admiral sent them on their way. Mac sent Lucas, Will and Wolf with them in case they were needed at the compound. Everybody else was relaxing on the Wilizy/Asia. Mac was going to let the Alaskans on the ship stew while she made sure that the planes wouldn't be returning unexpectedly.
# # # # # # # #
At the Wilizy compound, the carrier's twenty-five planes arrived expecting to see a battle underway. They tried to contact the other Alaskan planes, but couldn't raise anyone. Prudhoe was close enough to talk to but their network was down. The Alberta army and air force weren't here yet. They had been warned that this could be the case. The Wilizy compound looked deserted. "Destroy their defense," their lieutenant ordered.
That proved to be difficult even though the defensive system appeared passive. Nothing shot at them as they winged at high speed around the perimeter of the electronic defense and fired their bubbles at pre-designated focus points. But they couldn't cause it to fail no matter how concentrated their bubble streams were. All planes were now on their second load of bubbles. A third load was available from an external storage unit that had been added to the planes when the replacement ammo had arrived. As the planes started using that third load, they exploded in the air.
Only four pilots remained when their lieutenant pulled the planes back to see where the shells were coming from. They assumed conventional weaponry because their officers had said the Wilizy didn't have electronic grenades. One pilot said that he would try to draw the Wilizy fire by diving straight at the compound's defenses so the other three could locate the source of the shellfire. His plane disintegrated when it touched the defensive perimeter. The other three executed a strategic retreat that, in their case, meant taking their planes in a 180 degree U-turn and accelerating westward at maximum speed. Twenty-two out of twenty-five planes had been destroyed. Their lieutenant had no success in raising their carrier to report this devastating news.
Hank had better luck reporting the news to the carrier. Three planes heading your way, he told Mac.
What happened to the other twenty-two?
They switched to the new ammo.
Guess the ammo was a bit too big and jammed their guns. Not a good thing to happen when you're flying a coffin full of explosives. Was Will pleased his strategy worked?
I believe so. Hard to know with Will.
Who else is with you? I'm reading Lucas, Wolf and Theo too.
Confirmed.
We're starting to herd the carrier's crew into lifeboats; then, we'll occupy the carrier. It would be dangerous if those planes arrived at the wrong time and started shooting at us. We'd have all sorts of shrapnel in the skies when they blew themselves up. Tell Lucas to shoot them down now. Tail End Charlie tactic.
Confirmed. Hank opened a channel to everyone flying next to him but had to explain what Tail End Charlie meant. Simply put, if you have a flight of enemy planes flying in front of you, shooting down the last plane in the formation gives you a chance to shoot the next one down, and then the next one down. Hank told Lucas to use his laser to overheat the target plane's engine. That way, if the pilot were able to send a warning to the others, his warning would be to slow down.
When the last plane was downed without incident, each of the Wilizy slings set course for Anchorage.
Mac: To all warriors: The Battle of the Pacific has been won with no casualties. No shots were fired although one laser was used three times. One more battle to go. We still have to defeat a military force hiding behind an impenetrable citadel.
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Chapter 40
Tuesday night. Both of the day's battlefields were now empty. Most of the light planes in the Yukon had been flown to their hiding place, but Mac had ordered Wilizy pilots to bring five back to the carrier. Once they were safely aboard and all the Chicago pellets had been vacuumed into their lead boxes, Will had enclosed the aircraft carrier inside filament that lifted it invisibly into the sky. Both warrior forces were now combined into one and all Wilizy warriors were aboard the carrier. The two Wilizy sailing ships were anchored in the sky above their own battlegrounds and left unattended. Their weaponry would not be needed in the attack on The Citadel. Mac had the responsibility for leading this assault.
Mac flew the carrier north while she learned the navigational equipment. Nothing too complicated. They passed over the lifeboats on the way.
With their puny little motors, it would be a week before they reached Anchorage. One way or another, the battle would be over by then.
The assignments for the attack were straightforward. Mac was battle commander. Will, TG and Wolf would work on Special Ops. Everybody else was assigned to the team controlling the long-range drones.
The assault on the impregnable fortress began after nightfall. What the Alaskan radar operators first saw on their screens was a wave of ten attack planes coming at them. They could be copters. They weren't likely to be equivalent to their own planes because they weren't coming quickly. Slow, mid-sized copters was the conclusion. They should be easy to shoot down. The officer in charge of The Citadel's defense ordered their guided missiles to be readied.
The targets were hard to hit at first. Even though they were flying on a steady path, the missiles exploded too far in front of the targets to be effective. Something was wrong with their radar guidance system. However by blanketing the area, the copters soon disappeared from the radar screens. Only to be replaced by a second wave. And a third wave. And a fourth wave. By now, the defenders were having more success but they had run out of missiles and were now using traditional high explosive shells. But the sheer number of copters coming at them was forcing the defenders to use up shells at an alarming rate. Fortunately, the base commander had ordered a huge number of shells for the upcoming battle. Better to be safe than sorry, he was in the habit of saying.
Within a minute of switching to different magazines, each gun in the extensive bank of defensive gun placements surrounding the impregnable fortress blew itself up. The Citadel was now defenseless against an air assault. Still, they had a fortress that was built deep into the interior of Flattop Mountain. The Supreme Commandant ordered all of his military forces to retreat into the mountain with the exception of the radar operators. They would remain on duty to warn them of attack by anything bigger than the copters. Those would have no success against a mountain.
At about 2 a.m., Wednesday morning, November 14, Radar Control issued a warning. "Incoming."
"Where?"
"Directly above us and coming fast."
"Target?"
"Flattop Mountain."
The ground-shaking explosion terminated the conversation. Deep in the bowels of the mountain, the Supreme Commandant felt the ground shake, but that was all that the bomb achieved. Nothing in the command center even wobbled. Impregnable, he thought and smiled.
# # # # # # # #
Wednesday mid-morning, Mac was relaxing with the other Wilizy in the command center of The Citadel's aircraft carrier and munching on a carrot stick. Yolanda had gone through the larder and there wasn't a vegetable to be found, so she and Winnie had gone back to the compound to bring in food supplies. While there, she had mind-messaged Stu and Yollie and told them that everyone was safe but they hadn't made any impact on Anchorage yet.
When the carrier's communicator button lit up, Mac answered it and put the call on speaker. She had been expecting this call. "Wilizy Command Center," she said. "This is Mac. How may I direct your call?"
There was a long pause. "Wilizy Command Center?"
"Yes, that's correct. I assume that you're calling from Anchorage. To whom would you like to speak?"
"You're on my ship?"
"No, we're on our ship. May I ask who's calling?" Mac was enjoying this immensely.
"This is the Supreme Commandant of the Anchorage Territory."
"Thank you for phoning, SCAT. Push 1 to access our command directory, push 2 through to 15 to access our commanders from hierarchical top to bottom."
For those readers who are not familiar with the inner workings of bears, the scat is what is left behind on the forest floor after the digestive process has been completed. Mac knew this, but apparently the Supreme Commandant didn't. Every time she called him SCAT, Mac would have to repress a lot of inner merriment.
The SCAT pushed 2.
"This is Mac."
"I just talked to you. I was trying to reach your supreme commandant."
"This is she."
Long pause.
"I'm in the middle of breakfast here, SCAT. What do you want? Incidentally, your aircraft carrier didn't have any vegetables. How can you not stock vegetables? The steering on this piddly-little thing is good, but it's slow at full power, you gave it a stupid design on its armaments, and the power system is positively archaic. Why did you build a ship that can't go anywhere at night? We captured it without a shot being fired. I'm thinking of converting it into a giant shiny urinal. That's all it's good for, frankly. What do you want, SCAT?"
Mac held her finger to her lips indicating that the Wilizy in the room should try to keep it down.
"Uh...my planes? I can't reach them."
"There's a very good reason for that. The seventy-five planes from Anchorage and Prudhoe are now part of the Wilizy Air Force. We captured them – also without a shot being fired. If you wish to speak to the head of our air force, you can press number 5 at any time. If she's not there, leave a voice mail. Your call is very important to us. Please do not hang up or you'll lose your place in line. I'm sure she'll answer today. Right now, she's preparing to bomb the scat out of your mountain tonight."
"My ship's planes?"
"Our ship," Mac corrected. "The planes had serious issues with their weaponry and engines, I'm afraid. Bad designs. Who would ever design a plane that was a flying coffin? Three of them developed overheated engines and crashed; the others blew up in the middle of the sky. All gone, I'm afraid. But, we're quite enjoying the seventy-five that we took from the Yukon campsite. We're letting our children play with them. The planes are a little small and way too slow – not enough power to exceed the speed of sound, I guess. But we like how they're quite light and easy to maneuver. We'll use them as training vehicles until the youngsters are eight or nine and can move up to real airplanes. Was there anything else, SCAT?"
"Alberta's planes? Their army?"
"All safe and sound. Alberta thanks you for the gift of the Prudhoe Bay port. Not a shot fired there either."
"Zzyk broke our agreement?"
"Broke is kind of a mild word. Obliterated might be more accurate. Rick's in charge of Prudhoe now. He just did to you what you were going to do to him, SCAT."
Silence.
"Were you curious at all about the people we've captured?"
"Yes, our men. What have you done to them?"
"Men? Wouldn't that be Men and Women?"
"No. Women are unsuited emotionally for battle. Studies have shown that."
"Well, there's your problem. All of our command staff are women. We keep our men chained to their posts so that they can't drool on us. Prevents any problems of having mixed genders in a battle."
Silence.
"Oh yes, your men. Your pilots from Prudhoe and Anchorage are walking to Whitehorse where they will face whatever Yukon wants them to face for invading their territory. Your men in Prudhoe are now in Rick's hands. I have no idea what he's going to do with them. Your men from your aircraft carrier are in lifeboats that are crawling up the coast. They won't arrive in Anchorage in time to see your defeat."
"The Citadel is impregnable."
"Sure it is. Try to be awake at 2:30 Thursday morning, SCAT. Have a good day."
# # # # # # # #
The reader will already know about the bubbles that were too tight for their bubblegums. When TG went into that armament factory in Hawaii, he changed the manufacturing specs for the bubbles by a few millimeters. He changed the specs for the explosive shells by the same amount. When the new shells or the new bubbles were fired, they jammed in the barrels. The next shell/bubble that they attempted to fire blew the guns up. In the case of the airplanes, blowing up the gun meant blowing up the entire airplane because the magazines were unprotected.
Now to explain the wave after wave of attacking copters last night in Anchorage. Those were the model airplanes with the little motors. The plane was a
lmost all wood, which does not reflect a radar signal. So how could the radar see them? And why did they have so much trouble shooting down little wooden planes?
Will hung brain-bands from Zzyk's first shipment well below the planes. These gave a radar signal. Shiny dense metal, remember. But the radar signal wasn't where the planes were. That's why it took them so long to shoot the piddly-little balsa wood model airplanes down.
And the big explosion at 2:00 in the morning? You'll have to wait for that explanation.
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Chapter 41
The earth shook again at 2:30 the morning of Thursday, November 15. SCAT paid scant attention. Having the rank of Supreme Commandant meant having supreme confidence.
That day, the Wilizy cleaned up some loose ends but did nothing else. Izzy advised British Columbia's brigadier general that Alaska would not be invading B.C. and that the Wilizy were wrapping up the war in Anchorage. She also contacted Rick and gave him the same message. She also told him that somebody would come by in a few days to collect Zzyk. Hank and Yolanda had requested that pleasure. She and Rick also reviewed their Spoils of War agreement. Rick would keep the Prudhoe Bay port and all of its facilities. But since the Wilizy had taken on the full brunt of the war with Alaska, they would acquire possession of any military equipment that they recovered (aircraft carrier, planes, etc.), the lands and buildings in Anchorage and the surrounding area, and all the people found within. That was in addition to the Alberta land parcels that Rick had to give to them because of the sleeper incursions. The Wilizy had no idea yet what they'd do with the land parcels or where they'd be.
# # # # # # # #
That afternoon, Mac sailed the carrier into the Anchorage harbour and launched a few rounds of carefully selected shells at Flattop Mountain to get the attention of the residents. A large cloth sign hung from one of the ship's solar collectors. It read Under New Management. To show that they also had control of the skies, five light planes flew at high speed through the town, circled, and landed on the carrier.
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