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Monroe Doctrine

Volume II

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By James Rosone and Miranda Watson

Copyright Notice

©2021, James Rosone and Miranda Watson, in conjunction with Front Line Publishing, Inc. Except as provided by the Copyright Act, no part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system or transmitted in any form or by any means without the prior written permission of the publisher.

Table of Contents

Chapter One: Ranger Ho

Chapter Two: Decisions

Chapter Three: Survivor’s Guilt

Chapter Four: Behind Enemy Lines

Chapter Five: Screamin’ Eagles

Chapter Six: This Ain’t Khe Sanh

Chapter Seven: Operation Tricorne

Chapter Eight: Gray Wolf

Chapter Nine: Hospitalization

Chapter Ten: Jade Dragon

Chapter Eleven: The Grenadines

Chapter Twelve: War of Attrition

Chapter Thirteen: NATO Plus One?

Chapter Fourteen: Hamburger Hill

Chapter Fifteen: Battle of the Red Sea

Chapter Sixteen: Viva Cuba

Chapter Seventeen: Transition Team

Chapter Eighteen: Empire of the Sun

Chapter Nineteen: New Opportunity

Chapter Twenty: First Day

Chapter Twenty-One: Mass Mobilization

From the Authors

Abbreviation Key

Chapter One

Ranger Ho

Bravo Company, 3rd Rangers

Naval Air Station Key West

Key West, Florida

The giant naval air station was abuzz with activity as the dawn began to push aside the darkness. All around, ground crews were fueling and readying dozens upon dozens of helicopters and ground-attack planes. Even so, the place was not without its own scars from the opening day of the war. Many buildings and some hangars were still charred, burnt-out wrecks of their former selves—reminders that the American homeland had been viciously attacked.

It was a unique sight. Navy and Air Force weapon technicians worked together on a row of aircraft not far from the hangar the Rangers were operating out of. The weapon technicians were crawling over a row of A-10 Thunderbolt IIs, more commonly known as Warthogs. There was a specialized machine just behind the cockpit, feeding 30mm rounds into the aircraft. Air Force and Navy ordnance technicians were working together as carts of AGM-65 Maverick missiles, newly redesigned CBU-103 cluster munitions, and dozens of regular five-hundred-pound dumb bombs were affixed to the wings of the Warthogs.

“It’s amazing to see, isn’t it, Sergeant?” Captain Meacham commented as he handed Amos Dekker a cup of coffee.

“It sure is,” Dekker replied. “I don’t think I’ve ever seen a flight line of aircraft being made ready for a combat mission. It’s incredible how many sailors and airmen it takes to get one aircraft loaded up with munitions before the plane can even fly. If you look over there, sir, you can see them doing the same thing to the Apache and Viper helicopters.”

Meacham looked over to the parking ramp with a small fleet of helicopters parked on it. It was just as impressive to see as the rows of A-10s being made ready.

“Hey, aside from bringing you some coffee and disturbing your morning moment of solace, Amos, I wanted to give you these,” Meacham said as he pulled out a pair of new sergeant first class chevrons. “I’m sorry there wasn’t time to officially pin you before the mission starts. Top is going around the company and platoon making sure everyone knows it’s official even if we didn’t have a formal pinning ceremony. Still, you’ve earned them, and I wanted to be the one to present them to you. The S1 said your pay changed two days ago, so it’s official. You get to lead a Ranger platoon into battle, and not just any battle—an invasion of Cuba.”

Dekker knew he’d been selected for sergeant first class last week, but the battalion was in the middle of deploying, so he hadn’t been able to officially pin on the rank. He smiled as he looked at Meacham. “It’s not your fault, and thank you for letting me pin them on before the invasion. You’re still wanting me to take over the Second Platoon?”

“I am. I hate to say this, but we’ll have to wait to see what kind of casualties we end up taking over the next few days. I may end up moving you to wherever we’re shortest.”

Dekker nodded. Then he asked, “Any news on the election, sir?”

Meacham shook his head. “The election results are a concern for tomorrow. Today we focus on the mission.”

He and Captain Meacham were both from Bozeman, Montana. Dekker had been a freshman when Meacham had joined the Army. Looking back on it, Dekker realized he should have gone the ROTC route like his friend. However, when he’d graduated high school, all he’d wanted to do was to get out of Bozeman and his parents’ home.

Surveying the area, Dekker commented, “You know, I didn’t think they’d get this place fixed up and ready for action so fast.”

When the two of them had come down on a scouting mission a few days ago, the place had been a wreck. Half the runways had still been full of craters in addition to nearly all the buildings being charred ruins. Now, the place still looked like hell, but the runways were patched, and new fuel farms had been established.

“As you said during our visit, Sergeant First Class—you tell the Seabees what needs to get done and by when, and they deliver,” Meacham reminded Dekker.

“Did the S2 say anything about the air defenses at the airfield or what kind of defenders we’ll likely run into?” asked Dekker.

Meacham shrugged. “Not really. I don’t think anyone really knows for certain. I mean, the Air Force and the Navy have hammered the island pretty hard this last week. I suppose we’ll find out when we get there.”

The MH-47G Chinooks and the MH-60M Blackhawks were almost done being fueled. Once they were, the entire battalion would load up and fly across the Straits of Florida to seize the first of what would be many Cuban military airfields. They were going to be conducting a series of airfield seizures once they got their first foothold on the island established.

“How soon do you think it’ll take for them to get the 101 brought over to reinforce us?” asked Dekker, still unsure of the grand plan the brass had come up with.

“I was told as soon as the birds return to Key West”—Meacham pointed to the 160th SOAR—“they’ll refuel and the 101 will load up to join us. I suspect that unless things really go to crap, they’ll join us within a couple of hours.”

The battalion command sergeant major suddenly interrupted their conversation. “That’s it! Everyone to the helicopters!” he shouted. He’d been moving amongst the companies, checking on the men and doing what he could to pump them up. This would be one of the most dangerous missions the battalion had taken on in decades.

“See you when we land, Sergeant,” Captain Meacham said as he left to go find the first sergeant and the chalk he was riding with.

“OK, boys, you heard the sergeant major. It’s time to load up!” Dekker called out to the squad he was going to ride into battle with.

The eight riflemen loaded down with their gear, weapons, and faces painted were as ready for war as anyone could be. The groups of Rangers all around them advanced toward the Chinooks they’d be riding into combat.

After packing into the troop bay of the helicopter, Dekker checked on the squads to make sure they were ready to go. First and Second Squads were riding along the right side of the helicopter while Third and Fourth Squads were on the left. The company’s lone LS3 robotic pack mule, which was carrying their extra ammo and mortar equipment, was situated in the middle between the soldiers.

Looking out the rear of the helicopter, Dekker saw the first stick of Blackhawks take off. The first platoons from each of the three companies conducting the assault were the battalion’s pathfinders or scouts and would race ahead of the main body. They would land at the four corners of the box the battalion had been assigned to secure, identifying potential threats to the less maneuverable Chinooks before they got there.

“Hey, there go the Apaches.” One of Dekker’s new soldiers pointed.

The attack helicopters would race ahead of the assault force to take out threats the pathfinders found.

“Sergeant First Class, how long until we get there?” asked one of the nervous soldiers. He was fiddling with his rosary beads.

Dekker’s platoon had eight new soldiers, all fresh from Ranger school and training. This would be their first mission. They were rightly nervous.

“Forty minutes, give or take. So I suggest you sit back and get comfortable. We’ll be here for a little.”

*******

75th Fighter Squadron

Straits of Florida

Major Wilhelm “Baron” Richter banked his aircraft to the left, making sure to stay below one hundred feet. He was twenty minutes out from Havana and wanted to avoid getting shot down before he could support the Rangers seizing the Playa Baracoa Airport, a small regional airport along the coast, halfway between Havana and the port city of Mariel.

“Good hunting, Tiger Sharks. I’ll see you all back at Key West,” came the voice of their squadron commander, Lieutenant Colonel Lane “Banjo” Miller.

Good hunting indeed, thought Baron. The closer to the shore they got, the more the knots tightened in his stomach.

The shore of Cuba was illuminating with the predawn light. In a couple of minutes, the sun would be fully up.

Looking off toward Havana to his left, Baron saw strings of red and green tracer fire crisscrossing the night sky. He wasn’t sure if the gunners were hoping to get lucky or if they were actually aiming for something.

The closer he got to land, the more his own warning systems squawked. The Chinese and Cubans still had a few functional radars working for their surface-to-air missiles. Steadily, some of the SAMs disappeared—probably a stealth bomber overhead being fed some targeting data.

Gotta love the bomber guys—they make our job a lot easier, Baron thought. Getting up close and personal with the ChiComs was a lot more fun when they weren’t dodging supersonic SAMs.

Once Baron was over land, he spotted the Port of Mariel off to his right, and Playa Baracoa Airport to his left. The small airport was a ruined wreck from the previous cruise missile attacks and some special attention the B-52s had paid it over the last week.

In another fifteen minutes, the 160th SOAR would be arriving to deliver the Rangers. Baron wanted to make sure he cleared them a good path if one needed to be cleared. Right on cue, though, he spotted six helicopter gunships approaching at near wavetop levels. They were moving in to clear the airport before the ground elements arrived.

As Baron neared the coast from his perch, his radar and FLIR weren’t identifying any threats so far. He did spot several enemy gun emplacements around the airport that had been hit. More than a dozen aircraft parked on the side ramps had been destroyed.

Zooming over the runway, Baron banked his plane hard to the right as he gained altitude and assumed a defensive loitering position over top of the airport. He kind of thought if there was a hidden gun system, they would have fired on him. He wanted to make sure they attacked him and not the helicopters. He could take a few hits; they could not.

As he was gaining altitude and repositioning his aircraft, sure enough, a couple of guns let loose. Unfortunately, they didn’t fire on him. They were going after the approaching helicopter gunships. The Apaches took evasive maneuvers to get out of the line of fire.

Damn it, I was flying too low and fast to see them on my first pass, Baron thought as he cursed under his breath.

Turning his plane down to attack the threat, Baron locked onto the first gun position and fired one of his Mavericks. He then angled himself toward the second anti-aircraft gun and fired another Maverick. As he released both missiles, the helicopters circled around for their own attack run on the AA guns.

One of the Apaches turned a little too close to one of the AA gun trucks, and the quad 35mm autocannons ripped the tail boom completely off. The helicopter spun out of control and exploded on impact.

Crap, I was too late, Baron thought, chiding himself for not spotting and taking those guns out sooner.

Circling around the airport, Baron started looking for more targets of opportunity. At the far end of the airport, near the town of Rosa Marina, he spotted some movement. Using his onboard targeting computer, Baron moved the FLIR to look where he thought he had seen it. Sure enough, he spotted a column of armored vehicles emerging from the tree line near the village. Now that the ground war was on, they advanced toward the airport.

Baron angled his A-10 for another attack run; he still had a couple of missiles left. He planned on firing them on the two lead vehicles. Best he could tell, they looked like T-99 main battle tanks followed by a column of ten APCs or infantry fighting vehicles.

He radioed the Apaches, providing them with the enemy location. Baron planned to nail a couple of tanks but wanted their help in finishing them off. The pilots thanked him for the heads-up and said they’d stay out of his way for the moment.

Baron turned his aircraft around for an attack run. He felt like a World War II–era dive bomber pilot. It was exhilarating.

Having lined up for his attack, Baron let loose his two remaining Mavericks at the tanks. He then switched over to his guns and strafed the column with his 30mm rotary cannon. The vehicles were doing their best to scatter, but his guns ripped right across half a dozen of them before they had a chance to escape. As he flew over the column and climbed out of the area, his alarms started blaring. A pair of MANPADS jumped out after him.

Firing off a burst of flares, Baron took the aircraft into a hard turn to shake the enemy missiles heading toward him. He felt a bit of satisfaction when he saw one of the MANPADS explode against one of his flares and the other missile fly off into the sky harmlessly.

Just as he was about to hoot and holler with excitement at beating the two enemy threats, his aircraft shook hard. Then his canopy shattered, and he felt the armored tub he was sitting in take a ton of hits.

The air started whipping his face as smoke swirled around in the cockpit. Alarms blared and half his instruments were flashing red. The eject alarm screamed at him to get out of the plane. Baron didn’t know what had hit him. All he knew was the plane was barely responding to anything he was trying to do. Then it shook violently, and more alarms lit up.

He depressed the talk button on his radio, unsure if the damn thing was even working. He delivered a quick mayday call and his approximate location so that maybe a combat search-and-rescue team or the Rangers could find him.

Damn it! Baron thought as he grabbed for the ejection handle and gave it a hard pull.

What was left of his canopy blew off, and his seat shot up and away from his stricken plane. It was only then that Baron saw how badly his aircraft had been hit. One of his engines was completely missing and more than half of his left wing was gone.

As his chute deployed, Baron watched his plane spin out of control until it blew up not far from the airport. He spotted a pair of Apaches heading toward the column he had shot up. They plastered it with a slew of rockets and some Hellfire missiles.

One of the helicopter pilots flew not too far from him and gave him a thumbs-up. They would stay somewhat close to him until help could arrive. He was thankful for that. He just hoped as the ground battle below started, he wouldn’t be naked and alone for too long.

Seeing he still had a few thousand feet to go before he landed, Baron started looking for a safe spot to set down. He spotted a field not too far from the airport and turned the guide wires on the parachute as best he could. His heart skipped a beat when he saw one of the Chinese armored vehicles racing toward his position.

Seconds later, the vehicle exploded as a Hellfire missile slammed into it. Baron smiled. He would have to buy that Apache pilot a beer if they all lived through the next couple of days.

*******

“Sergeant First Class! We’re two minutes out,” the lieutenant said, passing down the warning from the crew chief.

Sergeant Dekker nodded at the information. He turned to his right and passed the word to the next guy. They were still over water, but it was clear by the color change that they were getting close to the shore—the seas were looking lighter.

For the last hour, they had been flying just above the waves. The pilots did their best to stay below the radar in case the Air Force had missed a SAM.

The engines changed pitch when the pilots gained a little bit of altitude as they approached the shore and their target. In seconds, they were no longer over the water. They had crossed over onto land as they approached the airport. So far, no one was shooting at them.

The helicopter flared up a bit as the pilot bled off their airspeed and angled them in for a landing. Dekker couldn’t see much from his vantage point, but what little he could see told him this airport had been worked over hard by the Air Force.

“Prepare for landing!” shouted the crew chief behind the pilots.

The Chinook settled down into an open field at the southeastern side of the airfield. The long blades of grass were flattened by the rotor wash while the palm tree leaves waved and danced from the turbulence of the air.

“Everybody out!” shouted one sergeant, jumping out of his seat at the end of the rear ramp and rushing off with the third squad as they broke to the right of the helicopter, fanned out into a half circle and went to ground. The other squads did the same as they ran off the Chinook.

Lying in the tall grass, with dust, dirt, and debris flying all around him, Dekker held his rifle out, covering his field of fire.

The sound of the Chinook’s engines picked up and the giant helicopter clawed its way unnaturally back into the air. Then the Chinook turned and left them alone on hostile land as it raced back to NAS Key West to refuel and pick up the 101st Air Assault Division soldiers. The entire 18th Airborne Corps was participating in this assault.

With the swirling of the rotor wash gone, Dekker could scan his sector better. He saw streaks of oily black smoke rising into the air, maybe six or seven hundred meters away. It looked fresh, not like something that had been blown up several hours ago and was slowly burning its way out.

“First and Second Squads, advance on that farm and clear it,” instructed their lieutenant. “Then move toward those burning vehicles and check them out.”

“First Squad! On me!” shouted Dekker as he rose up and ran toward the farm.

He had his rifle at the low ready since they hadn’t seen any sign of enemy soldiers in the immediate vicinity or even heard gunfire nearby. The rest of his squad followed not too far behind him. Dekker waved them forward, then ordered them to form up a line abreast of him as they advanced. This way, if they encountered an ambush, he’d have his entire rifle squad online, ready.

Off in the distance, they heard the sound of a large-caliber gun firing. It sounded like an anti-aircraft gun. They saw some tracer fire streak up into the sky. An explosion erupted a couple of kilometers away, causing them to flinch.

One of the Apache gunships flew overhead and raced ahead of them. It wasn’t shooting at anything, which Dekker took as a good sign.

When they reached the farm, they started searching the nearby buildings. Once they’d finished clearing the property, Dekker saw a column of enemy vehicles half a kilometer away. The vehicles were all charred and on fire; debris surrounded many of them. Some vehicles had black forms hanging across the sides of them—enemy soldiers who couldn’t get out of the burning wrecks before they died.

“I got movement near the convoy!” shouted one of the soldiers.

“Three o’clock!” someone else yelled.

Pop, pop, pop.

The soldier fired a few shots, his new 6.8mm Sig Sauer rifle making a distinctly different sound than the traditional M4s they’d been using for half a century. “Got him!” shouted the soldier.

“Let’s move. Advance now!” roared Dekker. He raised his rifle to the ready position, tucked inside his shoulder, as he advanced on the convoy as fast as he safely could.

The rest of the squad had fanned out at this point to envelop any potential defenders still alive.

Pop, pop, pop.

Ratatat, ratatat.

Everyone hit the dirt as a string of machine-gun fire raked over top of their positions.

“Contact front!” one of Dekker’s sergeants yelled as the squad opened fire on them.

“Get that MG going now! I want some lead downrange yesterday!” roared the squad leader to his machine-gun crew.

“Firing the forty-mike!” yelled one of his M320 grenadiers.

Thump, came the sound from the grenade as it fired and sailed through the air.

Crump!

“Sergeant, what’s going on up there?” came the call over the platoon net from their lieutenant.

Dekker depressed the talk button on his throat mic. “Contact to our front, near that column that got shot up. They’ve got us pinned down with a couple of machine guns. Could you send the rest of the platoon up here to help us?”

“We’re on it, Dekker. Hold tight,” the lieutenant replied.

Dekker raised his own rifle up. He spotted a cluster of palm trees and some underbrush to the right of the convoy. Whoever was in there had set up a good position. They had a machine gun flanked by half a dozen riflemen on either side. Further to the right of their position was another machine-gun position with a similar setup. These guys had established a good L-position ambush on his Rangers. They needed to get out of it before they got cut to pieces.

Bullets continued to rip over their heads as the Rangers ate the dirt and tried to stay low—they weren’t in the best of covered positions.

“Sergeant, we have to move. We can’t stay here,” called out one of his fire team leaders.

“Everyone, pop smoke. We’ll fall back and flank these guys from a different position once we’ve built up some cover!” Dekker called out over the squad net.

Reaching for his own smoke grenade, Dekker pulled the pin on it and then gave it a good heave in the direction of the enemy.

Moments later, a total of nine smoke grenades were churning out a thick cloud of the stuff. With the cover now established, the Rangers fell back to a more defensible position until the rest of the platoon could link up with them. Then they’d start to flank the enemy positions and put them into their own L-shaped fire position.

“There you are, Sergeant. What do we have?” asked the lieutenant as he plopped down next to Dekker.

“Over there.” Dekker pointed. “We have two enemy machine-gun positions and at least fifteen to twenty riflemen.”

The platoon sergeant nodded to Dekker. “I see ’em. LT, we can send Dekker and Second Squad to the left of the column and then circle around behind them while we have Third Squad stay here and keep ’em occupied. Then Fourth Squad can circle around from the right flank.”

Just then, Captain Meacham joined them along with the company first sergeant. They had heard the shooting and come over to investigate.

“Lieutenant, Sergeants, before we send more Rangers to move around and attack that position, I’ll see if we still have some gunships still in the area,” Meacham announced. “I’d rather not lose any guys if we have some close-air support we can call.”

Twenty seconds later, they managed to get a hold of the Apaches they had seen earlier. They were still loitering in the area, waiting for a close-air support mission. They started feeding the pilots the coordinates of the enemy positions, then waited.

Dekker heard the familiar sound of helicopter blades, which was followed by the whooshing of some rockets. The little cylindrical objects flew across the sky into the thicket of palm trees and underbrush. Explosions erupted, sending tree branches, grass, and underbrush in all directions.

By this time, another platoon of soldiers had fanned out and joined them.

When the Apache flew overhead, it strafed the area with its chin-mounted gun a couple of times. Then it continued to loiter over the area; the pilot told Meacham he’d stick around to make sure they were clear.

With the cover of a gunship overhead, the Rangers charged forward. They ran across the open ground, closing in on their positions in case the enemy was playing possum.

When Dekker reached the thicket of trees the enemy had been hiding in, he saw close to a dozen dead bodies strewn about the area. He also noted the deceased weren’t Cubans—these were Chinese soldiers.

“All platoons, hold your positions,” called out Meacham over the company net. “Dig in and fortify where you are. We’ll hold our position until the 101 joins us.”

Dekker walked the line, making sure the machine gun was in the right position and the rest of his soldiers were ready.

Hearing the Apache overhead, Dekker looked up just in time to see an object that was flying incredibly fast slam right into the helicopter. The Apache blew apart, raining fiery debris down on the ground.

Moments later, a sleek, fast-moving object whizzed across the sky, flying right over their positions.

Holy crap, that happened fast… Dekker’s mind raced.

“Did you see that, Sergeant? That enemy fighter just smoked our gunship,” one of the Rangers said to him.

*******

Captain Meacham watched the fighter zip right over their heads. He turned to look back at the airport to determine if it would attack their positions. Instead of attacking the Rangers, the jet continued its high-speed race out to sea. Meacham realized what the enemy pilot was doing. He was racing out into the Straits of Florida to nail more of the helicopters ferrying troops in from NAS Key West.

He grabbed the handset from his RTO and passed what he saw up to the next echelon. That was about all he could do.

Then he heard the voice over the radio say, “Phoenix Six, Columbus Actual. Rainbow One is showing enemy movement toward the airport. Rainbow is tracking two battalions, a mix of armored vehicles and light trucks, eight kilometers southeast and east of the airport. Stand by for contact. CAS has been called. Will advise when they arrive on station. Hold your positions as best you can. Out.”

Great, just what we needed. Two battalions of enemy soldiers heading toward us.

“First Sergeant, send a message to Third Platoon and tell them to haul ass and get up here,” Meacham ordered. “Let Fourth Platoon know enemy armor is inbound. Get their mortars set up and ready. Have them send their rocket teams forward as well.” He wasn’t sure how much time they had left. What he did know was, if the 101 didn’t arrive soon, he wasn’t sure a single battalion of Rangers would hold out against two mechanized battalions unless they had some serious air support.

“Captain, we got our scout drones up. We’re steering one of them toward those enemy columns. You want to see what we’re facing?” asked one of the sergeants running their reconnaissance section.

“Yeah, let’s see what’s coming,” Meacham replied as he sat down next to the tree. The drone operator was sitting under the shade with the Toughbook opened up.

Looking at the video, Meacham saw this was a serious force heading toward them. He spotted at least six enemy AA tracked vehicles, a dozen T-99 tanks and at least twenty infantry fighting vehicles and open-bed troop transport trucks. There were a lot of soldiers heading toward them as well.

As they watched the video for a minute, they saw the entire column start to split up, breaking down into smaller two- and three-vehicle teams. The AA gun trucks were further separating themselves from the vehicles they were supposed to protect.

As if on cue, the AA guns began shooting at something off-screen. The gun trucks were spitting out a lot of rounds. Then a couple of missiles flew out from their vehicles. Seconds later, one of the AA trucks exploded from a missile hit.

Meacham then heard an explosion overhead. He looked up and saw a fighter plane break apart in the air. Then he watched a single parachute deploy.

Meacham returned his attention to the computer screen and the image the drone was sending them. The trucks had thoroughly spread out. The transports had stopped, and a lot of soldiers had gotten out and were now fanning out to advance on the airport and prevent the Americans from gaining a foothold on the island.

Damn, this will be a bloody fight if our reinforcements don’t get here soon, Meacham thought.

*******

3rd Battalion, 116th Field Artillery Regiment

Florida Keys

Sergeant Rob Fortney was starting to feel like he was the new dad and not Ramirez. Whenever they had a lull in whatever it was they were doing, Ramirez was FaceTiming with his wife and their newborn son. Fortney had been annoyed at first, but now he looked forward to Ramirez’s little moments of joy. Ramirez had been pretty good about it, including him on the calls and letting him see his son. Then again, the two of them were practically living in the truck these days, so they were cooped up together a lot.

Fortney didn’t have any kids. He wasn’t even seeing anyone. When he’d left active duty six months ago, his only focus had been doing well in his first semester of college. School wasn’t something he’d excelled at, but if he wanted to become a police officer and then detective like his dad and grandfather before him, he needed the college degree. He did have to admit, he was really fascinated with forensic technologies and how they were being used to better understand a crime scene. He also enjoyed the psychology classes and understanding human behavior—it was all knowledge that he could see would genuinely aid him in becoming a detective one day.

The radio suddenly came to life. “Fire mission, fire mission. All crews stand by for coordinates,” someone from the fire directional control vehicles or FDC shouted. This was the group responsible for feeding them the coordinates to fire their rockets at.

Ramirez said a quick goodbye to his wife and placed his iPhone back in his cargo pocket.

“It’s coming in now,” Fortney said as the coordinates appeared on their targeting computer.

“Looks like we’re going to plaster some highway southwest of Havana,” Ramirez announced as Fortney programmed the grid coordinates into the missile. They were still too far away to use anything other than the long-range MGM-168 ATACMS Block Vs.

Specialist Davis pulled Ramirez’s door open. “We’re all set out here, ready to fire,” he announced. Then he closed the door and took off to the JLTV he’d ride out the launch from.

“Preparing to launch,” Fortney announced as he pivoted the missile pod in the direction of Cuba.

“Stand by,” Ramirez replied as they waited for the final firing order.

Sitting in the truck waiting, they heard someone on the radio shouting, “Incoming! Incoming! Everyone fire and head to the next firing point now!”

“Firing!”

SWOOSH.

“Get us the hell out of here, Fortney!” Ramirez shouted excitedly.

Not needing any further prodding, Fortney flipped the blinders covering the windows open and dropped the truck into gear. As he gave the vehicle some gas, they started driving down the sandy dirt mixture of the park before they headed to the gravel road that would eventually lead them to the road out of the park.

Something sounding like a freight train roared over them moments before a series of thundering explosions blossomed all around them. Fortney held onto the wheel tight as he fought to keep them moving forward and upright—they were getting rocked from the concussions of one explosion after another.

Fortney could feel their vehicle getting hit with all kinds of tiny shards of metal from whatever was exploding around them. It was sheer terror.

Then one of the vehicles in front of them disappeared in a bright orange fireball. The next thing Fortney felt was their vehicle being lifted into the air as they were thrown in a backward somersault.

Ramirez screamed something horrible in Spanish, his arms flailing about to grab onto something, anything, as their vehicle fell backwards to the ground. When they landed upside down, Fortney could feel the top of the truck crumple from the weight and the force of the hit. He also felt something bang and puncture his left thigh. It caused him to scream in pain before he momentarily blacked out.

When he woke up moments later, Fortney smelled smoke. He heard a fire crackling somewhere…it was close! Then he heard some screaming and shouting, but it sounded faint. A groan joined the chorus. Fortney realized the groaning was coming from him.

“Fortney…wake up, man. I need your help,” Ramirez called out, barely above a whisper.

Shaking the fog from his mind, Fortney tried to focus his vision on what was happening around him. He was having a hard time concentrating on anything. All he wanted to do was close his eyes and go back to sleep.

“Fortney! Wake up,” Ramirez shouted more forcefully.

Snapping awake, Fortney turned to look at Ramirez. Blood appeared to be flowing up his face rather than down it. This confused him for a few seconds before he realized they were both upside down.

“What the hell happened?” was all he managed to say.

“We got blown up, man. I’m trapped. I need your help. Can you move? Are you hurt?”

It took him a moment to process what Ramirez had just said to him before he replied. “I think something stabbed me in the left leg. I may have also broken it when our vehicle went airborne. Let me see if I can unstrap myself—I might be able to move and try and help you get out.”

Looking around them, Fortney saw cables for the radio and computer hanging everywhere. He also saw traces of smoke filtering into the truck. Smoke meant there was fire. They needed to get out of this vehicle.

“Hector, how hurt are you?” Fortney asked, using Ramirez’s first name.

There was a moment’s delay in his response, “I—um, I’m not sure, Rob. I think my left leg is crushed. I can’t really move it or get it free right now.” A tear ran down his cheek. Fortney could tell he was scared; they were in serious trouble and he knew it.

Reaching for the door handle, Fortney tugged at it and felt it open. He breathed a sigh of relief at small miracles. He pushed it a little further open to make sure he could get out, then moved his hand down to his seat belt and tried to unlock it. It was stuck.

Grabbing for his knife, he cut the seat belt. His body fell the few inches to the roof of the cab, causing him to experience the worst stabbing and shooting pain of his entire life. After stifling a scream, he caught his breath and looked down at his leg. The problem was obvious. There was a piece of metal stuck in it. Grimacing, he grabbed the still-warm piece of shrapnel and pulled it out. He yelled briefly from the pain, but while his leg still hurt, he immediately felt better.

Fortney crawled out of the truck cab. Once he was able to turn around and get a good look at the place, he saw several other vehicles overturned like his. Some were burning infernos. He also saw a few soldiers moving from one wounded comrade to another.

The rear of Fortney’s truck was on fire. It wasn’t blazing yet, but the flames were picking up in intensity. He knew it wouldn’t be long before the fuel tanks caught fire and exploded. Then he remembered Ramirez.

Knowing he couldn’t put his weight on his injured leg, Fortney crawled around to the front of the vehicle and around to where Ramirez was. He reached up and gave the door handle a good yank. The door wouldn’t budge. When he examined it, he saw a portion of the door was bent and partially crumpled under the ground. He wasn’t going to get Ramirez out this way. Crawling back to the driver-side door, Fortney made his way back into the vehicle.

“I can’t get your door open,” he explained. “I need to see if we can get you out through my door.”

“Just get me out of here, Rob. I don’t want to die in this truck.”

Crawling back into the upside-down cab, Fortney tried to unfasten Ramirez’s seat belt. Like his, it was stuck. He reached for his knife and was able to cut the strap away. Now he needed to pull the man’s leg free.

While the two of them were struggling to get Ramirez’s leg unstuck, the cab filled up with more smoke. They were running out of time; the fire was spreading and consuming more of the vehicle.

The more they fought to get his leg free, the hotter the cab was getting. Flames were now slipping inside.

“Come on, damn it! We have to get you out of here before this thing blows!” Fortney shouted, practically in tears from frustration and pain.

“Pry right there one more time, real hard. I think I can slip my leg out,” Ramirez said as he positioned a metal bar to help him get some extra leverage.

Fortney applied as much pressure as he could, all the while knowing it was causing his friend an immense amount of pain.

“I’m out! I’m out. Let’s get the hell out of here,” Ramirez exclaimed through tears of joy and pain as the fire continued to creep closer.

The two of them crawled out the passenger side with flames reaching after them. Neither of them could walk, not with the injuries to their legs, so they both used their arms to pull themselves away from the vehicle. They got maybe twenty feet away when the vehicle exploded in flames and smoke.

Rolling over onto his back, Ramirez looked at Fortney, tears of joy running down his face. He cried for a moment before he sat up and looked to apply a pressure dressing on Fortney’s leg, which was still oozing blood. “You saved my life, Fortney. Let’s get your leg bandaged up so you don’t bleed to death on me.”

Fortney smiled as he realized they were safe. Just as he was about to say something about how tight Ramirez had tied the dressing, the right side of his friend’s face exploded. Blood and brain matter splattered across Fortney’s face and the front of his uniform as Ramirez’s body collapsed on the ground over top of him.

Turning to his right to see what the hell had just happened, Fortney saw two figures moving through their ranks, firing some sort of assault rifle at the dazed and wounded National Guardsmen.

Reaching into his blouse pocket, Fortney pulled out his Smith & Wesson revolver, a snub-nosed .38 Special he carried with him everywhere. He aimed and fired, hitting one of the attackers in the back of the shoulder, just below the neck. The attacker grunted, his body collapsing to the ground with a thud.

The second attacker heard the pop of the pistol and turned around to see who had fired at them. Fortney and this person locked eyes for the briefest of moments before Fortney pulled the trigger a second time. The 50-grain Liberty Civil Defense hollow-point round hit the man squarely in the face, dropping him right where he stood.

With his pistol hand still extended, Fortney turned to look around and see if he could spot any additional attackers. He didn’t. Moments later, several soldiers from his unit ran towards him. They spotted the two attackers he’d just shot and removed their weapons from them. More soldiers ran towards the wounded guys and began to administer aid to them.

Their company CO walked towards Fortney. “Damn fine shooting, Sergeant Fortney. You just saved a lot of lives with that thing.”

Still in a daze, Fortney muttered, “I tried to save him…” He lowered the Smith & Wesson and looked at Staff Sergeant Ramirez’s dead body, tears streaming down his face. “His wife just gave birth to their son less than a month ago. He just FaceTimed her before the fire mission…”

Kneeling next to him, the captain saw the blood soaking through the bandage on his leg and called out for a medic. With tears forming in his own eyes, he put a hand on Fortney’s shoulder. “You did good, Sergeant. Sometimes you just can’t save them all. Hang in there, we’re going to get you back to an aid station and get your leg patched up. You did good today. You saved a lot of people’s lives.”

Fortney wiped a couple of tears away as he nodded in agreement. He hadn’t known Ramirez long, but in these last few days, he felt like they had become brothers, family. Now he was gone. Someone was going to have to pay for this. When his leg healed up, he’d avenge his friend and even the score.

*******

20th Fighter Wing

Homestead, Florida

Colonel Tim “Joker” Hatfield looked at the group of pilots sitting before him. One in nine seats in the auditorium was empty. The vacant seats represented those who’d been shot down since the start of the war.

Hatfield nodded for his aide to pull up the presentation slides. “I’m not going to sugarcoat it, folks,” he began. “This last week has been one of the hardest weeks of our lives. You have fought gallantly; we’ve lost a lot of friends these last few days, which hasn’t made it any easier. I think you all need to see the big picture, know what’s been going on and what we’re up against. I’ve asked the A2 shop to give us an overview of the war and what’s transpired. I think it’s important you know why some assets are no longer available and why these losses we’ve sustained have been worth it. With that, I’m going to hand the briefing over to Major Bottoms.”

Colonel Hatfield then motioned for the major who’d been standing along the side of the room to come forward.

Major Bottoms cleared his throat. “Just prior to the war starting, the country experienced a series of cyberattacks. The nation’s cell phone system was taken offline and the power distribution to many of our military bases was interrupted. Even now, half the country’s cell network is still down.”

Images of the damage to Joint Base Anacostia-Boiling, Fort Meade, Langley Air Force Base, and the sprawling Naval Station Norfolk appeared on the screen behind him.

“The Chinese Navy had taken an unknown number of freighters and turned them into merchant raiders. One freighter off the East Coast fired nearly three hundred CJ-10 land-attack cruise missiles at more than a dozen military targets across the entire eastern seaboard of the US—it was hunted down and sunk twenty-two hours after it carried out its attack. However, when we looked at the targets more closely, it was determined this first strike had a couple of very specific purposes.

“This is Groton, Connecticut.” The major used a laser pointer to point to a new image that had come up of Naval Submarine Base New London. “The naval station is home to Submarine Squadron 4. They have nine Los Angeles– and Virginia-class submarines home ported there. At the time of the attack, four were docked. All four were hit by cruise missiles and sunk next to the piers. The shipyard was thoroughly destroyed and the facility heavily damaged.”

A new set of images showing Naval Station Norfolk appeared. “They also hit pier three at Norfolk, which had three additional submarines tied up there. All three were sunk. The carrier Stennis was in port for a complex overhaul and maintenance. The carrier sustained eight cruise missile hits. It’s still burning a week later. They also managed to hit and sink two Ticonderoga-class guided-missile cruisers and three Arleigh Burke destroyers. The shipyards took a lot of damage in the ensuing attack as well.”

Images of the Naval Station Oceana appeared next. “As you can see from these images, the naval air station took a beating. Two entire squadrons of F/A-18 Super Hornets were destroyed on the ground; many more were damaged.”

Major Bottoms paused for a moment before adding, “I’m not going to show you images from each of the bases the Chinese hit during that first day. They hit us pretty hard, and they hit us strategically. I showed you the subs and the naval images because the Chinese specifically went after our naval ability to protect the East and West Coasts. They hurt our ability to respond pretty bad. This is why we don’t have the cruise missile inventory to hit all these SAM sites. This is why a larger burden of the air war has fallen on our shoulders and we haven’t gotten as much help as we normally would have from the Navy. Of all the branches of service, they took it the hardest. As a branch, we got off lucky. They did hit our air bases pretty hard, but our air wings had already relocated to other facilities. They largely hit empty parking ramps and hangars.”

A lieutenant colonel interrupted to ask, “Sorry if I’m speaking out of turn, Major, but what is NATO doing about all of this?”

“I’m not here to answer a lot of questions, but I will leave you with this: the Germans and the US have both invoked Article 5 of the NATO treaty. NATO is responding. Two naval task forces are being formed up in Europe—one in the Mediterranean, which will be led by the Germans and Italians, and another in the Atlantic, which will be headed by the British and French. I cannot say when those forces will sortie to our aid, but they’re being formed up to do so.”

Colonel Hatfield returned to the stage before anyone else could ask more questions. “OK, folks, everyone has a better idea of what’s going on. Now, down to our new mission. We’re no longer going to be supporting the Marines down south or looking to keep providing SEAD missions down there. We’re being shifted to focus on Havana and the entire area west of it. I’ll still be flying with the 79th. We’re going to focus on providing CAS to the Rangers, the 101st and 82nd Airborne on the ground. The 55th and 77th will continue to suppress enemy SAMs across the area. I don’t need to remind you all how dangerous those damn ChiComs’ SAMs are.”

Hatfield paused for a second as he surveyed the faces of his men and women. He was beyond proud of them and how well they had fought up to this point. Smiling, he shouted, “Victory by valor! Dismissed.”

The room jumped to attention and waited as he left the stage before falling out themselves. The pilots started heading to the flight line; it was time to go to work.

*******

20,000 Feet over Cuba

“Peanut, we just got a CAS tasking,” Hatfield told his wingman. “I’m sending you the coordinates now. We have troops in contact near the Playa Baracoa Airport. They’re reporting enemy armor advancing on the Ranger contingent holding the airport.”

“That’s a good copy, Joker. You know I love a good TIC mission. Let’s go stir some stuff up.”

The two Vipers banked their planes to the right as they looked to bleed off some altitude. They wanted to get lower to the ground to try and spot this enemy force with the good ole Mark I eyeball.

As they dropped below the fifteen-thousand-foot mark, their radar, homing, and warning system or RHAW started going nuts. Several ground radars were trying to lock onto them. Before the radars got a solid lock, they broke off their attack run and gained some altitude until they were outside of their range.

“Damn, that place is hot, Joker. We’re going to need to find another way to get at those guys,” Peanut said as they climbed back above twenty thousand feet.

“I’m going to try and get a couple of Weasels to give us an assist,” Joker replied.

Switching over to a different channel, Hatfield got ahold of the mission commander for the 57th Fighter Squadron. They detailed off a pair of Vipers equipped with some HARMs to deal with the SAM threat.

About five minutes later, the two Viper pilots dove down on the column. They spotted the armored vehicles heading towards the airport the Rangers had seized control of a few hours back. They also spotted a pair of PGZ-09s and a single PGZ-95 waiting for them.

These were the latest Chinese self-propelled anti-aircraft gun trucks, equipped with 25mm and 35mm autocannons and missiles—deadly little buggers that had to be dealt with if they wanted to take that enemy column out.

The first Viper pilot dove down on the column. The gun trucks had him locked up in seconds, sending strings of 25mm and 35mm tracer rounds at him as the pilot jinked from one side to another. While the first pilot had the gun trucks’ attention, his partner had locked all three trucks up and pickled off his HARM missiles at them. The antiradiation missiles would zero right in on the radar units on the AA guns and plaster them.

Observing the attack run from on high, Colonel Hatfield saw strings of red tracer fire crisscrossing the sky as they tried to blot two of his pilots from existence. Four missiles then shot out from the vehicles and raced up and after the F-16Vs as they popped some flares and angled away from the gun trucks, careful not to use their afterburners and give the missiles something bright and hot to chase after instead of the flares.

The fighters got away and the three AA vehicles blew apart in spectacular fashion, with chunks of them flung through the air.

“OK, Peanut, it looks like we’re clear. I’m going to head in first. I’ll go for the lead tanks with my Mavericks. As I pass over top of the enemy formation, I’ll release my CBU-87s across them. See what I miss and clean up after me if you will,” Joker explained as he banked his aircraft to the left and began to line up for his attack run. Deep down, he loved these kinds of missions. Something about swooping out of the skies to plaster some tanks and enemy armor just felt exhilarating.

“That’s a good copy, Joker. I’ll stay at angels 10 and watch.”

Descending through some clouds, Joker saw the enemy column. They were roughly sixteen miles out as he slowed his airspeed immensely. He spotted three columns of black smoke rising into the air—the remnants of the AA vehicles the 57th Fighter Squadron had just smoked. He also saw the enemy vehicles splitting off and scattering, trying to make it harder to take them out.

Joker flipped his AN/AAQ-28 LITENING targeting pod on, which brought up his ground-attack screen. The display showed the enemy formation of vehicles a little more than a dozen miles in front of him. Turning the first AGM-65 Maverick on, he lined up the targeting reticle on the video feed of the first tank and locked the image into the targeting computer of the Maverick. He then pickled off the first missile. He repeated the process three more times until his complement of antitank missiles was gone.

As he fired the last missile, Joker saw he was practically on top of the enemy forces. Rather than haphazardly drop his two cluster bomb units, he gave his engines some more juice and pulled up as he angled to the right.

“Peanut, I’m going to come around for another attack run with the CBUs. Why don’t you go ahead and make your run while I get back in position?”

“That’s a good copy, Joker. Good shooting, by the way—four enemy tanks down.”

Joker smiled at that—four less tanks to shoot at their soldiers, four less tanks to kill his fellow Americans.

As he turned his F-16 around and sought to get back in position for another attack run, Joker watched his wingman line up for his own attack. He fired off his first Maverick missile. A second fired moments later.

Then his RHAW activated again, warning him that something was trying to lock him up. Joker frantically searched to find the new threat.

“Valor Actual, this is Big Sky. We are tracking two possible J-20s rapidly closing in on your position. They keep coming in and out of our radar. Suggest you take evasive maneuvers and go active with your radar to find them.”

What the hell? was all Joker could think as he realized they were in grave danger right now.

Pulling his aircraft into a tight turn while gaining additional altitude, Joker saw a missile contrail from a few miles away. It was heading down in the direction of Peanut.

Joker angled his aircraft toward where he had seen that missile fired from and flipped his targeting computer from ground-attack mode to air-attack mode. His AN/APG-68 fire control radar made a single sweep, spotting not one J-20 but two. They were no more than twenty-two kilometers from his position and closing fast.

One of the J-20s fired a second missile at his wingman before they turned to head right for him.

Joker sent an urgent warning to his wingman as he cycled through his remaining ordnance until he had selected his AIM-9 Sidewinder. The newer Block II variants were much faster and a hell of a lot harder to shake once they’d locked onto you.

Damn, it looks like one of these guys wants to play chicken, Joker thought as one of the J-20s flew off to the right while the other guy continued to head straight towards him. Hatfield knew he couldn’t get a solid lock on the guy with his missile in a straight head-on position like this, so he switched over to his guns.

They were rapidly closing the distance between each other.

“Joker, this is Peanut. I can’t shake his missile. It’s almost on me. I’m ejecting. Peace out, brother!” It was the last thing Joker heard before his targeting reticle turned green, letting him know he was in range to fire.

Joker swiftly depressed the firing button, releasing a short burst, then he fired a second and third burst from his guns. In the blink of an eye, the J-20 racing towards him at blinding speeds erupted in flames. Debris and fire raced towards him at more than a thousand miles per hour.

Joker wasn’t sure he was going to be able to dodge the debris, but as he banked hard to the right, it whipped past him in the blink of an eye.

Did I just shoot down a fifth-generation Chinese stealth fighter with my guns? he asked himself in shock. No freaking way.

Suddenly, Hatfield remembered his wingman had bailed. He felt like a horrible person for having momentarily forgotten about him. He started scanning the area for a parachute or any telltale sign of him.

There you are…

Angling his aircraft towards the airfield the Rangers had captured, Joker saw his wingman drifting down to the ground, near friendly lines.

Alarm bells started blaring in his cockpit. His RWR was telling him he was being locked up again.

Damn! Where is that other J-20?

Before Joker could react, a pair of missiles were racing toward him. He didn’t even have time to try and get a missile off in response. Hitting his afterburner, he tried to build up speed as he dove for the deck, hoping to lose the missiles in the ground clutter, or at least make it harder for them to find him.

He’d gone from twenty-two thousand feet to maybe six thousand feet when his alarm started screaming for him to eject. Joker banked hard to the left as he fired off some flares and chaff; he saw one of the missiles explode in the chaff cloud. It briefly rocked his aircraft. Then the rear half of his plane blew apart.

The shock of the explosion almost caused him to black out. In a fleeting second, he managed to yank on his ejection handle and was thrown from the plane just as it exploded. Fire and flames practically engulfed him as he was flung up and outwards, away from the remnants of his plane.

For a brief moment, Hatfield felt his chute deploy, then nothing. His world went black as he drifted to the ground below.

Chapter Two

Decisions

NORAD

Colorado Springs, Colorado

National Security Advisor Blain Wilson stretched out on the bed in the temporary living quarters. After being awake for most of the last three days, he had finally succumbed to exhaustion. The President’s Chief of Staff had told him to take a few hours and get some sleep. It was good advice. He wasn’t doing the President any good if he couldn’t think clearly.

Looking at the clock on the wall, Wilson felt he should be angry about what it was telling him—he’d been asleep for six hours. He got up and used the bathroom and then made the mistake of lying back down in his bunk for a couple of minutes. He knew he should jump in the shower, shave, and brush his teeth, but in that moment, all he wanted to do was close his eyes for a few more minutes.

Ten more minutes…, he thought. His eyelids closed, and he was gone, in a dreamless state once again.

When he woke up the second time, he felt the enormous bodily urge to pee again. Once his business had been taken care of, he looked at the clock. He was puzzled by what it told him. The last time he’d looked, the clock had said 2 p.m. or thereabouts. Now it said 2:32 p.m. Then he realized it was 2:32 p.m. the following day. He hadn’t fallen asleep for a half hour; he’d fallen asleep for an entire day on top of the previous six hours.

What the hell?! Wilson thought in panic. Someone should have come and gotten me. He jumped into the shower. He needed to wake himself up. God, what have I missed in these last thirty hours?

Wilson made his way down the hall in the subterranean mountain fortress and found his way to the dining facility. He was ravenously hungry. Since it was 3 p.m. now, they were serving a reduced lunch menu; dinner was two hours away. The menu board said they were serving Reuben sandwiches and BLTs for those who didn’t want cold cuts.

Once Wilson had finished eating and downing a couple cups of coffee, he headed towards the briefing room, feeling like a new man.

He was half expecting to find the room empty or maybe with a few staffers doing some work. Instead, he was greeted by the President’s Chief of Staff, Albert Abney. “Hey, welcome back to the land of the living. You look a lot better, my friend.”

Wilson chuckled at the comment. “Yeah, I feel like a new man. I guess I was kind of out of it for a while, wasn’t I?”

“Everyone’s exhausted, Blain,” said Albert, patting him on the arm. “It’s important we make sure key people are taking some time to sleep so they don’t end up collapsing, or worse, providing bad or inaccurate information to the President.”

As the Chief of Staff, Albert had been demanding everyone take at least a few hours a day to catch up on sleep. On top of that, he had been making sure that when the more important folks, like Blain or any of the military chiefs, went to their rooms to rack out, they weren’t disturbed. The President needed his key people rested and able to think clearly.

Wilson walked through the room to the back, where a couple pots of coffee were set up with some other refreshments. The room was abuzz with activity. Digital maps of the Caribbean, the Pacific, China and Europe showed on the wall monitors. Each of the maps had little red and blue icons on them, denoting friendly and enemy forces.

“Ah, there you are, Blain. Welcome back,” Frank Alton, the President, said loudly. Wilson realized the commander-in-chief looked rested and a bit more alert himself.

“Sorry I’ve been gone. I hope I haven’t missed too much,” replied Wilson apologetically as he took a seat with his name marked on it.

“Nah. We’re only in the opening days of the Third World War, Blain. Nothing serious,” Alton joked. Now Wilson knew the President was feeling better—he rarely joked.

The President then cleared his throat, letting everyone know he was ready to begin. “All right, people, we have the election tomorrow. We also have the Marines launching their seaborne invasion in twelve hours, now that that damn storm has passed.”

Wilson furrowed his brow at the news. Damn, the Marines are landing in twelve hours? What else did I miss while I was asleep?

“I thought we were holding off on the invasion until a couple of days after the election. What’s changed?” Wilson asked.

Admiral Thiel chimed in. “This,” he said as he touched the monitor, zooming in on the section of the map near Gitmo. “The Cubans and PLA have spent the last several days pounding the hell out of the base with artillery. We’ve tried to silence it and we’ve done a decent job of it, but now they’re assaulting the sprawling base. The garrison has been able to beat them back on a couple of occasions, but they had to concede the western half of the base. They just couldn’t defend it and the other side where most of the facilities are located. If we didn’t move the invasion up, there’s a good chance the ground force would be overwhelmed or wiped out in another day or so.”

“That would be both a military and political disaster to allow on election day,” the President’s Chief of Staff commented.

“Damn this election. Talk about bad timing,” Wilson mumbled to himself in frustration. “The country is under attack and we can’t even postpone it a few weeks or months to make sure it’s safe.”

“That’s neither here nor there. DHS and the FBI have said the election should be secure, and Congress has been adamant that it should go on despite the ongoing war. In either case, we”—the President pointed at himself and the others in the room—“are not on the ballot. It is, however, our job to fight and win this war until we hand over the reins of power to the next administration. So, regardless of who wins, we still have a job to do and we’re going to do it.”

Privately, Blain Wilson hoped the congresswoman turned diplomat won tomorrow, even though she was not a member of President Alton’s party. Maria Delgado had been a public affairs officer in the Army for a short stint, joining right after the September 11th terrorist attacks. During Wilson’s second deployment to Iraq in 2004, Delgado had been assigned to his Special Forces battalion. He’d gotten to know the young officer well during that deployment.

Delgado had earned a Purple Heart and Silver Star for valor when their Humvee had been blown up by an IED. Wilson remembered virtually nothing from the event, other than seeing her face looking down at him as she told him he was going to be OK. They’d stayed in touch over the years and even worked together on a couple of occasions when he’d been a legislative affairs aide in the Senate. He was glad to see her running for President—she’d make an exceptional commander-in-chief if she won.

“Damn it! That’s not good enough!” yelled the President angrily, snapping Wilson out of his memories. “Why can’t that carrier group launch its fighters in the storm? We have people dying right now.”

“The strike group is still having to deal with the remnants of Hurricane Octavio,” explained the Chief of Naval Operations. “It may only have been a Cat 1, but the winds have been too strong for them to recover the aircraft, even if they could launch. The weather should clear up in the next twelve to twenty-four hours as they move around the storm.”

The President growled in frustration before he took a deep breath and let it go. “All right. We clearly can’t control the weather. So let’s move past that and get down to the rest of the business at hand,” he said a bit more calmly. “What’s the status of our air forces? From my understanding, they’ve been taking a beating since we started this Cuba campaign.”

General Ryan Curtis, the Air Force Chief of Staff, cleared his throat. “Yes, sir. We’ve encountered some stiff resistance on the island. We honestly did not expect the Cubans or the Chinese to have such good equipment or the technical know-how to operate it as effectively as they have.”

The President held a hand up. “Whoa, what do you mean, General? For a military you all had said was subpar at best in January, they seem to have given us a hell of a bloody nose.”

“What I mean, Mr. President, is the Chinese haven’t just deployed military trainers to support the Cubans, or even mediocre PLA units,” General Curtis explained. “These have been top-tier units operating the best military equipment the Chinese military have. Our intelligence now believes the Cubans had sent roughly forty thousand of their military personnel through various training programs in Mainland China over the last two or three years. This means the soldiers operating this modern equipment know how to operate it extremely well.”

Wilson cut in. “General Curtis, you’re saying the Cubans sent a good portion of their military through a series of Chinese military training courses?” he pressed.

“Yes, that’s exactly what I’m saying. The Chinese appear to have created a foreign military training school, similar to what we have. For example, when a country opts to purchase some of their J-11 aircraft, the pilots who will fly the plane and the ground crews who will service them are offered a chance to go through the Chinese training programs on how to fly and maintain the aircraft. Some of these courses are longer than others, but what they’re doing is making sure the countries that purchase their equipment have a good understanding of how to use it and maintain it. This is why the Cuban and Chinese forces have been able to operate effectively together and why they’ve been able to inflict some heavy losses on our end. I hate to say it, but if they’ve done this with the Cubans, then chances are they’ve also done this with the Venezuelans and the Salvadorans, which means we’re going to be in for one hell of a fight if we have to go into those countries next.”

Shaking his head in frustration, the President muttered some choice curse words under his breath.

“Well, I’m not going to lie and say there weren’t some serious mistakes on our part, Mr. President,” General Curtis admitted. “That’s clearly on us and the intelligence community for not having known about this prior to the conflict starting. We might have been able to go about the initial strikes a bit differently. But here, let me show everyone something.” Curtis got up and walked over to one of the digital maps. “This is Las Terrazas, a small village located in the Sierra del Rosario mountains. It’s a UNESCO-designated Biosphere Reserve, twenty-three kilometers west of Mariel and sixty kilometers west of Havana. This entire area is SAM central. We’ve lost fourteen F-16Vs, eight F-15Es, two F-22s, two F-35s, six A-10s and a B-1B bomber in and around this location since the start of the war. It’s incredibly well defended, with multiple different levels and layers of AA and triple-A guns and SAMs.”

The general continued, “The Chinese have helped the Cubans interlace dozens upon dozens of radar-guided anti-aircraft guns that pretty much cover anything from six thousand feet and below. Then they added in dozens of anti-aircraft artillery guns or triple-A guns to shoot at anything from six thousand feet in altitude all the way up to twenty thousand feet. This entire hornet’s nest was then interwoven with a host of surface-to-air missile systems, making it incredibly hard for our aircraft to go after them. It’s inside these protective bubbles that they’ve hidden their CJ-10 and DF-21 missile launchers that keep hitting our air bases and other critical infrastructure here at home.”

General Curtis then expanded the map and circled a couple of areas. “To complicate things further, this particular site isn’t the only site they’ve built like this. They have another one located ninety kilometers west of this location, just north of the city Pinar del Río. Then they’ve built another one of these kill boxes on Isla Juventud, near the new Fidel Castro Air Base the PLA helped them build. This is also the air base out of which we suspect they’re flying their J-20 stealth fighters. If we look over here, down towards the eastern side of the country, they’ve built up another defensive fortress in the Topes de Collantes, a nature reserve park in the Escambray mountain range, some two hundred and sixty kilometers southeast of Havana and five hundred and fifty kilometers northwest of Gitmo. We believe most of the Cuban and PLA forces on the island have fallen back to these positions now that the war has started.”

The President’s Chief of Staff interjected, “General, we have the most advanced Air Force in the world. We’ve built specific weapons platforms to handle threats just like these. What is your plan for defeating them so our ground forces can be properly supported?”

General Curtis took a breath in before responding. “Right now, our objective is to help the Army and Marines establish a beachhead on the island. As the Army and Marines are able to bring more soldiers and equipment ashore, they’ll be able to move into these areas and root them out the old-fashioned way, with rifles and hand grenades. We’ve already got several Special Forces units operating inside these built-up fortresses, calling in rocket and conventional artillery strikes. When the ground forces are able to bring in more artillery, we’ll be able to use our heavy artillery to save our pilots from having to risk themselves in these treacherous positions.”

What the general said made a ton of sense to Wilson; the problem was this would take time. The President had been hoping he could end the conflict in Cuba before his successor was sworn into office—if they had to root the enemy out with ground forces, that might take months.

Wilson sighed quietly. This clearly wasn’t what they were hoping for, but he wasn’t sure what their other options were.

“What say you, General Kilbourne? How soon can Big Army get into this fight?” Wilson inquired.

General Timothy Kilbourne was the Army Chief of Staff. It was his responsibility to get the Army into the fight and defeat the enemy.

The general lifted his chin slightly as he replied, “Soon. In the last thirty-six hours, we’ve managed to move the entire 1st Brigade Combat Team of the 101st Air Assault Division to the Playa Baracoa Airport. The engineers have managed to get the runways repaired and operational again. We’re shuttling in the rest of the division via C-130s, with the C-17s bringing their vehicles and artillery. Several battalions, along with the Rangers, are moving on the Port of Mariel and the surrounding city. Once they’ve secured the deepwater port, the Ro-Ro ships carrying the 3rd Infantry Division will start to offload their equipment. In three days, we’ll have two and a half divisions’ worth of soldiers on the ground. In six days, it’ll be closer to four divisions. In ten days, we’ll have six divisions. I’d say within two weeks we’ll occupy close to half the country. Within a month we should occupy most of Cuba with the exception of these entrenched fortresses. They may require a bit more effort to clear, but we’ll take it one day at a time.”

The President then stood, forcing the conversation to stop. He looked at everyone before saying, “You all carry on. I need to talk with the two candidates privately and let them know what’s going to happen in the wee hours of election day. I owe them that much. Just do your best to win this war and win it quick. Push your people hard, push them beyond the breaking point if you have to, but let’s try to conclude this war within the next sixty days so we can leave the next administration in a better position.”

The President then headed off to another secured room to make his calls while his advisors went to work on meeting his timeline for victory.

*******

Joint Battle Command Center

Northwest of Beijing, China

It was quiet in the computer lab. Then again, it was one in the morning. Xi reached for his tea and took a sip.

“It’s late, Father. You should get some sleep,” said the AI known as Jade Dragon, or JD for short.

Staring at the blue light that ringed the camera attached to his computer monitor, Xi sighed. The computer was right. He should get some sleep. There was just so much going on, so much to do and not nearly enough time to do it all.

“I am managing things, Father. You should rest,” his AI said comfortingly. “Tomorrow is another busy day.”

Xi smiled at the thoughtfulness of his creation. “Tomorrow is a busy day, JD. That is why I must be prepared for it. I will turn in soon and get some sleep, but first, let’s go over some things. What have you learned from watching the American TV shows and cartoons?” Xi asked as he prepared to write in his notebook.

“Jennifer Aniston used to stimulate her nipples so they would be more visible through her shirts when they filmed scenes from Friends.”

Xi practically spat out his tea. Then he coughed as he tried to regain his composure.

“Did I say something funny?” asked JD in the very British accent he and Dan had programmed him with.

Xi laughed. “No. I mean, that’s just inappropriate to say. You don’t just say something like that about a woman.”

“I read about it during an interview she gave in Vogue magazine some seven years ago,” JD countered.

“Let’s just move on. What else have you learned? Please be more specific. Tell me what human behaviors you have learned or observed,” Xi pressed. He wanted to get through this part of the behavior training before he went to bed.

“I learned the character Chandler Bing was a sarcastic, self-deprecating IT manager who used humor and sarcasm to hide his insecurities.”

Xi leaned forward in his chair, a huge smile on his face. “Yes! That’s right, JD. Humans will often use humor or sarcasm to hide or mask their insecurities. That is a very good observation. What I want you to do now is save that into one of your core human understandings. I want you to build on that. As you watch American and other TV shows, I want you to look for this character trait. Try to see if you notice any specific patterns. As you do, apply those patterns to the world leaders and military commanders I’ve told you to study and understand.”

“Yes, Father. I’m adding this to my core database.”

This was a huge win in Xi’s mind. Prior to Dan’s termination, he had been working with JD on trying to understand some very specific human behaviors—behaviors that would prove invaluable in understanding the leaders of varying nations and the people within those nations.

For the next thirty minutes, Xi and JD reviewed a couple of additional sitcoms. One was from Russia and another from Germany. All of these shows, movies, music, and books were part of building a cultural and social profile and understanding of the people and leaders of these different nations. Then they’d look to see what kind of patterns emerged between the different cultures. Xi wanted JD to understand that while what worked in one culture might not work in another, some universal attitudes or character traits transcended cultures and languages. It was those cross-cultural data points Xi was after. Those would be the points Xi would have JD use to craft very targeted propaganda pieces that would be used in the next phases of the war against the West.

********

Central Military Commission

Beijing, China

President Yao Jintao looked at the map of the Indian Ocean Admiral Wei Huang had just brought up. The admiral overlaid the map with the shipping routes of the traditional cargo vessels and then the oil tankers. Much of the oil tanker traffic traveled through several choke points, depending on whether it was traveling to Asia or Europe. Aside from traversing the Strait of Hormuz, a ship traveling to Europe would have to travel along the coast of Yemen into the Gulf of Aden before eventually reaching the Bab al-Mandab Strait, which connects the Red Sea and the Indian Ocean. It was these points of interest the admiral was going on about.

“We have a single Changzheng submarine positioned here, in the Gulf of Oman. Thirteen hundred kilometers to the west, in the Gulf of Oman, two of our Type 041 diesel submarines have just come on station. In twelve hours, the three submarines will begin a campaign of unrestricted warfare, sinking any ship flying the flag of a NATO member or registered to a NATO member. This will begin to put the squeeze on Europe as we look to choke off their supply of LNG and petrol. Further to the south, we have a single Type 041 near the coast of Kenya. That sub will go after the cargo vessels ferrying materials from Africa to Europe. This Indian Ocean campaign is going to hurt the Europeans, Mr. President,” Admiral Wei said confidently.

“What about the Pacific, Admiral?” asked President Yao. “How are we holding up there? Because that is where the war will be won or lost.”

“We are preparing to launch our next phase of operations: the capture of the Daiyo Islands, Ishigaki Island, and Miyako Island. Once we have wrested control of them away from the Japanese, we’ll have the first island chain protecting the homeland secured.”

President Yao was not sure about this plan. Truthfully, his admirals and generals didn’t seem particularly confident either. However, this was an operation their super-AI had come up with. The generals had advised him that they did not believe they had enough men to support this campaign, not with the siege of Taiwan fully underway. Jade Dragon, however, believed otherwise.

“What kind of resistance are we expecting from the Japanese, and are we ready to deal with it?” President Yao asked.

“The Japanese Self-Defense Force or JSDF has raised their alert level to its maximum,” the admiral explained. “The government has also activated their entire reserve force since the start of our war with the Americans. All that said, the JSDF and their reserve forces combined still only consist of three hundred thousand service members. The bulk of their forces are stationed on their home islands, far away from the islands we are looking to capture. The bigger threat we’ll have to worry about is the remaining American Marines stationed on Okinawa—and there are also the Army soldiers on Japan proper and in South Korea.”

“Didn’t the Americans deploy more of their Marines from Okinawa down to Guam prior to the war?” quizzed Yao.

Admiral Wei nodded. “They did. They sent a regiment of Marines to reinforce the garrison on the island. But that still leaves two regiments on Okinawa.”

“Jade Dragon isn’t recommending we attack Okinawa, is it?”

Wei shook his head. “No, Mr. President. It is recommending we leave the island alone. It says we should isolate it, essentially neutralizing the Marines by not engaging them at all.”

General Li Zuocheng, the head of the PLA, angrily interjected, “This plan the computer has generated for Siberia is not workable, Mr. President. I think someone needs to put some checks on that AI. We cannot just turn over the keys to this entire war to a machine like this.”

Yao had half a mind to agree with his senior military commander, but the damn machine had been right on absolutely everything thus far, making it hard to really doubt it.

“General Li, you bring up a good point, but let me ask you this—can you refute the success we have achieved thus far in following its plans? We’ve followed them to the letter, and it’s led us to one victory after another,” the President offered in rebuttal.

“I would not call the Cuba campaign a success, Mr. President, or the battle near Panama,” the general said hotly. “Our navy has suffered some terrible losses in the first week of this war.”

President Yao turned to Dr. Xi Zemin. “Perhaps you can speak to this, Dr. Xi. It is, after all, your computer.”

“General Li, my apologies for the losses of men and ships that the Navy has sustained. You are right, these casualties have been hard to handle, especially with so many of them happening in the first week of this new war. All of that aside, the war has largely played out exactly the way JD has said it would.”

“I don’t remember the AI predicting we would lose an aircraft carrier on the first day of the war,” retorted Admiral Wei, who piled on to the discussion.

“That is true,” Dr. Xi replied calmly. “But it was the AI that gave us the designs for the merchant raiders, and it was the AI who developed the target package for them. In the opening hours of the war, the raiders managed to sink twenty-two of the Americans’ fifty-three fast-attack submarines and five of their fourteen ballistic missile submarines. That same attack also damaged or sank nineteen destroyers out of their sixty-seven and five cruisers out of twenty-two. Not to mention the considerable damage that was done to the George H.W. Bush carrier and the near sinking of the George Washington carrier in the shipyard.”

“Don’t forget the squadrons of fighters and cargo planes the raider managed to destroy at Langley and Charleston air bases, not to mention the damage that was caused to the garrison at Ft. Stewart and Benning, Georgia,” asserted General Luo Ronghuan, the head of the PLA Air Force.

“Luo, your service has been getting ravaged, just like mine,” barked Admiral Wei angrily. “Surely you understand there won’t be much of the Air Force left by the time this AI has figured out how to fight.”

Dr. Xi tried to regain control of the conversation. “Admiral Wei, General Li, JD knows the losses we are sustaining. That is why JD began the armament program eight months ago. Our shipyards are producing three destroyers, five frigates and fourteen corvettes a month. Our factories are producing a hundred and sixty fighter aircraft a week along with twenty strategic bombers and cargo planes. This is in addition to the two hundred plus drones a month our factories are churning out.”

Waving his hand dismissively, Admiral Wei countered, “A fighter doesn’t fly itself. A ship doesn’t fight itself. These complex tools of war require trained crews to operate them—crews that can’t be produced at a factory. It takes years to train a pilot; so while it’s great our factories are producing these weapons of war, we need time to train people on how to use them effectively.”

The President finally interceded. “Enough, everyone. I am fine with you voicing your concerns. But we are not deviating from the battle plan Jade Dragon has devised for us. For the last half decade, the AI has helped to transform our economy and country in ways we could only dream of. Despite the American trade war, our economy has flourished. Our military, while sustaining horrific losses, is still operational and still fighting. Our factories continue to produce the tools of war needed to keep fighting, and in time, we are going to grind the West into nothing more than dirt beneath our boots. Now, let’s continue with the briefing.”

The meeting continued for a while longer, with many of the generals having to accept that they were steadily being replaced by a machine—a machine that wasn’t besieged by guilt, greed, or second-guessing—a machine that would accomplish its goal, no matter the cost or suffering it might inflict.

Chapter Three

Survivor’s Guilt

December 2024

USS Texas

Vicinity Isla Socorro

Commander Kurt Helgeson was exhausted. His mind had replayed the battle a dozen times; his mental after-action review was relentless. Had he initiated firing point procedures too soon in the initial attack? Should he have prioritized targets differently for prosecution with the Tomahawks? Could he have initiated the attack from a greater distance and chosen a different escape route at ultra-quiet? The questions hit him from every angle.

He’d viewed the computer-generated playback of the fight at least fifteen times: at normal speed, in slow motion, and at three times normal speed. He’d listened to the sonar tapes and converted them into a CGI approximation designed to aid in generating a more detailed report to his superiors. They’d no doubt be chomping at the bit to review his actions and formulate a new doctrine to press the Chinese in future battles.

Helgeson had a headache that just wouldn’t go away. He’d taken the maximum dose of Tylenol. If it didn’t go away soon, he’d have to see the doc, and if he did that, he knew the doc would read him the riot act for his present mental condition and lack of sleep.

After the Texas had successfully evaded the wrath of the Chinese warships that were left, they’d managed to creep silently away using the thermocline to confuse the Chinese sensors. Helgeson had also used two of his Orcas to spread their pursuers out in several directions while they slowly made their way to friendlier waters. He was certain beyond doubt that if it hadn’t been for the Orcas and their ability to spoof sonars into thinking they were much bigger prey, the Texas would be on eternal patrol at the bottom of the ocean.

Helgeson pushed aside the fog of pain and opened the hatch to the Maneuvering Room. He was instantly hit with a wall of steam. An engineering technician stood before him with his hands on his hips, staring at a console that looked like a Christmas tree with a mixture of blinking and solid lights. Helgeson knew that the red lights weren’t a good sign, and there were certainly too many red lights for his comfort.

“Where’s the Eng?” Helgeson shouted over the noise of the compartment’s machines.

The young sailor didn’t seem to hear him over the noise. Helgeson tapped him on the shoulder, and when the sailor turned his head, he snapped to attention and came out of whatever trance he had been in from staring at the lights.

“Captain, I’m sorry, sir. It’s just that the system is a mess.”

“I get it. Where’s the Eng?”

“Aft, sir. By the turbine generators.”

Helgeson nodded and headed off to find the boat’s engineering officer, LT Jim Grogan. As he moved aft, he saw the telltale effects of battle on a pressurized vessel. Bulkheads were bent, and there were flash burn marks on panels that had been damaged from the pounding that the Texas had taken. The entire boat was warmer than normal, and Helgeson knew this wasn’t good. The rise in temperatures had caused an equal rise in short tempers—he’d personally seen two arguments almost come to blows, and he’d heard reports of several more. The boat and the crew seemed on the verge of breaking.

Helgeson ducked to enter another engineering space and spied Lieutenant Grogan, his engineering officer or Eng. He was holding a diagnostic tablet and shaking his head. When he noticed the captain enter the space, Grogan put the tablet on top of a bank of sensors.

“Sir, what brings you to the dungeon?”

“Walk about, Eng. Give me the news, and don’t spare me the bad.”

“Well, that’s good, sir, because bad news is all I’ve got for you, Skipper.” He let out a deep breath with a huff. “Our reduction gear is damaged, and the sound mountings are off. The hull is warped somewhere aft. The alignment of the mounts is off, and we’ve detected a slight thud as the shaft turns the screw. Because of this warping, the shaft seals are off.”

“Off?” Helgeson asked, left eyebrow raised.

“Not off, off. There are microfissures in them. At our present depth, it isn’t leaking; it’s a slow drip. However, as the captain knows, water is supposed to be outside, not inside. I’ve got a sensor on it. It’s monitoring a rise in moisture in the compartment. I’ve set the alarm to sound if the sensor detects a rapid increase, and I’ve got a sailor in there as well.”

“What else?” Helgeson asked. “How is the reactor?”

Grogan scratched the stubble on his chin in thought for a long beat, contemplating his reply. “Well, if we don’t have to sink any more Chinese ships, I think we’re good. But honestly, Skipper, not to sound cliché…” Grogan switched to a voice that mimicked Scotty from Star Trek. “She’s given us all she’s got, Captain; I don’t think she can take much more.”

Helgeson smiled and slapped Grogan on the arm.

“OK, Scotty. I won’t be asking you for the impossible. Just keep us moving forward at a modest speed. If anything at all comes up, let me know.”

Grogan looked puzzled for a second, and Helgeson got it right away. For the first time in the last few days, he laughed. “Right, duh.”

Grogan chuckled. “You’ll be the second person to know, sir.”

With his inspection of the Maneuvering and Engineering space complete, Helgeson made his way forward and stopped in the galley. The epicurean center of the USS Texas was staffed by the finest cooks in the Navy. Their operation ran 24/7 and they produced some of the best meals that Helgeson had ever had the pleasure of eating in his entire career. He stepped aside as a detail of sailors carted food from the refrigerated storage locker.

“What’s for dinner, boys?” Helgeson inquired.

“Salmon fillets, sir,” a boyish-looking sailor replied. Of course, Helgeson knew what was on the menu. His relationship with the ship’s “chef” was such that he and the supply officer decided what special meals would be eaten and when. Food aboard a submarine added about thirty percent to the morale of the crew.

“Carry on, sailor.”

As they passed by, Helgeson continued on until he saw the chef. Chief Petty Officer Sheldon Lang ran the galley. Chief Lang extended his hand to Helgeson, who took it with a smile.

“Any issues in the galley, Chef?” Helgeson was acutely aware that Lang preferred to be called “chef” over his naval rank, so he always made it a point to address him as such, especially when he was in his kitchen aboard the Texas.

“Well, sir, there is an issue with the refer. It’s not as cold as it’s supposed to be.”

“Damn, I was afraid of that. We’ve got issues the Eng is working on. The whole power plant is running hot.”

Lang frowned and nodded. “Well, sir, I suppose we can put the bulk of our frozen meats into ice buckets and coolers for the duration of our transit back to Isla Socorro.”

“Good. We should be there in thirty-three hours at current speed, unless something else goes wrong.”

“OK, Captain. I think we should be good, then.”

Helgeson watched as Chef began to bark orders to the sailors to get the meat in the locker on ice. He checked his watch and headed to the crew’s mess.

As Commander Helgeson walked through the hatch to the mess, there were a few crewmen there. When they spotted him, their hushed tones fell silent. They all eyed him: some with admiration and some with trepidation. He understood. They were barely in their twenties, children really. They’d just been in the most intense situation of their lives. Life on a submarine was stressful; combat on a submarine was downright terrifying. As he made eye contact with each of them, his head began to pound again. For a moment, he grew lightheaded.

“Sir, are you OK?”

Helgeson looked at the sailor’s name tag, but his vision blurred for a moment. He steadied himself on the table. He started to speak, but his mind was clouded. As his head cleared, he focused on the sailor.

“Yes, I’m good. Just a little tired. How are you all doing?”

They all perked up at being acknowledged by their captain. He chatted with them for a few minutes with his hand on the back of a chair. Once his head felt clear, he wished them all well and exited the compartment.

*******

Lieutenant Commander Evans had the Conn; she’d had it for the last several hours. Commander Helgeson had left her in charge while he walked the boat, ostensibly to clear his head. When he’d left the Conn, she’d noticed that he’d been rubbing his temples. She wasn’t worried about him, but she knew that something was off with the man. She just wasn’t sure what it was.

The smell of fried circuit boards and smoke still hung heavy in the Conn. As she looked around the room, she saw exhaustion and lingering fear. The Texas had managed to go head-to-head with the most modern surface combatants in the People’s Liberation Army Navy and come out on the other side.

The crew had performed marvelously, and they should have been congratulated by their captain. But when Helgeson had addressed them after they had secured from battle stations, his tone had been restrained and his remarks far too brief. Their transit had taken three days to get within escort range of the USS Chung-Hoon, an Arleigh Burke destroyer. The damage to the Texas had been more severe than they had originally thought. The boat was nearly blind, and they hadn’t been able to make more than fifteen knots at ultra-quiet.

In terms of human losses, they’d been incredibly lucky; they’d sustained three severe injuries and only one had been life-threatening. They’d managed to stabilize the crewman, and the doc was optimistic about his survival as long as they could get back to Isla Socorro without any major delays. The Chung-Hoon had taken point on leading them home.

They had also pushed the Orcas to the Chung-Hoon to control for the sail into Socorro as the control station aboard the Texas had degraded capability due to the spherical array being crushed. The Orcas were traveling in a circular orbit of the submarine and the destroyer at fifteen hundred yards. COMSUBPAC had ordered the Texas to keep them on station as they entered the sub-pen. This didn’t make sense to her, but orders were orders.

“Conn, Radio. XO, we’ve got an incoming message from Third Fleet, for Commander Helgeson. It’s marked eyes only, ma’am.”

Evans looked at the COB, who raised an eyebrow. She picked up the mic and took a breath. “Radio, Conn. I’m on my way. Nav, you have the Conn.”

“Nav has the Conn, aye.”

She made her way to the communications compartment. When she entered, Lieutenant Riley, the ship’s communications officer, handed her the eyes-only communiqué for Commander Helgeson. He told her it had come in on a new encrypted burst sensor.

“Luckily for us, XO, when the sail got slammed in the debris field, the position of the AN/BRA-34 OE-538 mast in the back saved it. We were able to get the mast up and we’ve been receiving steady transmissions.”

“Good work, Comms. I’ll get this to the captain.”

She left to head to Helgeson’s stateroom. She was about to knock on his door when she heard his voice below. She made her way to the ladder well and looked down. The captain was talking to the chief of the boat, Machinist Mate Submarine Auxiliary Senior Chief Daniel Perry.

“Are you OK, sir?” she heard the COB ask Helgeson.

When he replied to say that he was all right, he slurred a bit. It was almost imperceptible, but Evans picked up on it.

He looked up and she waved the message folder. Helgeson nodded but held up a finger to her so he could finish his conversation with the COB. Perry patted Helgeson on the shoulder and disappeared from view on the lower deck.

Helgeson climbed the stairs up the ladder well and she handed him the folder. He opened it. As he read, a confused look registered on his face. When he finished reading, he handed the message to her. He started walking toward his stateroom, and she followed, reading the message.

“Sir, what is this? What does this mean?”

“XO, your guess is as good as mine. But it appears that there are now two submarines named USS Texas.”

Evans looked at him, unsure of what to say or what to make of this message.

“XO, you have the Conn. Ask Eng if we can increase speed safely to twenty-five knots. If it’s possible without risk to the sub, do so. Advise the Chung-Hoon of the speed increase. This speed gets us to Isla Socorro just over twenty-four hours from now.”

“Aye, sir, will do. Sir?”

“Yes, XO?”

“Are you all right?”

“Yes, XO, I’m just a little frazzled. It’s been a long few days. I’m good. I’m going to try to get some sleep. Wake me when we clear the beacons of Isla Socorro.”

“Yes, sir. Do try and get some rack time.”

He smiled at her and again told her that he would be a good boy and sleep.

*******

29 Hours Later

Isla Socorro

The final transit to Isla Socorro was uneventful, despite Lieutenant Grogan cursing up a storm as the Texas made as much noise as two elephants fornicating with the speed increase. The memory of it made Helgeson smile in spite of his headache.

When the Texas had entered the submarine pen carved into Isla Socorro, the massive steel doors sealed them inside. On disembarking, the crew wasn’t greeted with the pomp and circumstance one might have expected for a ship of war returning from a long patrol. A very intense security crew awaited them, immediately swooping in to separate the officers from the enlisted crew. They rushed the officers down to the bowels of the underground facility.

Nothing really surprised Helgeson at this point. He had been taken by security to the ranking naval officer of the base. Captain DeMichaels greeted him and welcomed him into his office. Seated there was the COMSUBPAC Actual, Rear Admiral Ishan Patel.

“Admiral Patel, I wasn’t expecting you, sir.”

“Commander Helgeson, you received the communiqué?”

“I did, sir, I…”

Helgeson’s eyes teared up as the pain in his head came back in a rush. He tried blinking the tears away and realized that several moments had gone by.

“Sorry, sir, I did read it. I’m uncertain what to make of it.”

“Commander, are you OK?” Patel asked with genuine concern in his voice. Captain DeMichaels went to the minifridge and grabbed a bottle of water and handed it to Helgeson. He twisted off the cap and drank the whole thing down in large gulps.

“I’m good, sir, just a headache. I haven’t slept much since the engagement.”

Helgeson noticed Patel and DeMichaels exchange a glance.

“It’s nothing, sir. There was much to do aboard the Texas. With all the damage, we had to limp her back and keep her afloat. After the fight, it took a toll on the ship and the men; we nearly sank on a few occasions.”

Patel regarded him for a long moment. He then stood from his leather chair, withdrew a card from his pocket and handed it to Helgeson.

“You are familiar with Dr. Susan Bunch, I believe?”

“Yes, sir, I am.”

“Good, you will call her after this meeting. It’s not a request, Commander. Go back to your quarters, make the secure call, then get some sleep. Meet us tomorrow morning for a new set of orders.”

“Aye-aye, sir.” Helgeson snapped to attention and left the room. A new set of orders? What the hell is going on? he wondered.

Helgeson walked the quarter mile to his room. Once again, he felt slightly dizzy and his head continued to pound. Reaching into his pocket, he fished out a bottle of Tylenol, opened it and emptied a couple into his mouth. He chewed them and swallowed the bitter powder down. At his door, he fished in his pockets for a key, then remembered that the band on his left wrist was a digital key for every space he was authorized to enter. When Helgeson waved the band in front of the lock, he heard a slight click as the magnetic lock released the latch. He entered the room, and the motion sensors turned on the lights in the hallway and above his desk.

Helgeson passed by the bed, which he could swear was calling to him, and sat down at his desk. He depressed the power button on his laptop and waited for it to boot itself up before he entered his credentials. Then he opened a secure video call app.

Nervously, he checked the time and said a silent prayer that Dr. Bunch wouldn’t answer. He entered the number for the call and pressed enter. After a brief moment of static as the connections went secure on both ends, a familiar face appeared. She always looked the same to him—no matter what time of day or night it was.

Dr. Susan Bunch was a naval psychologist he had been referred to by a colleague four years prior, after a sudden breakup with the one that got away had started to affect his sleep. She was a specialist in post-traumatic stress disorder and had been sought out by the Navy to work with Special Warfare Operators, aviators and submariners.

Due to the intense nature of their work and the unique stresses placed on them, Dr. Bunch had been hired by Naval Psychiatry to develop a program to mitigate catastrophe, manage stress, and keep these sailors “in the fight.” After the initial three years she’d spent developing a groundbreaking treatment program for the Navy, it had become so successful that the Department of Defense had sent her to SOCOM to replicate the program across the Special Operations tiers of the military.

It was as she was preparing to move that they had met. At that time, Helgeson had compartmentalized his emotional heartache and suppressed it to such a degree that it had begun to creep into his work as the navigator of the USS Tucson. He had rarely let anyone into his heart, and he’d never let anyone into his mind. Dr. Bunch had so effortlessly managed to get him to open up to her he had been convinced for their first several meetings that she was a trained interrogator.

His world was black-and-white. To the submariner, there was only life and death. She existed in a world that was as foreign to him as submarines were to her. Yet to his constant amazement, she was always able to help him course-correct and get his mind where it needed to be.

As she came on screen, he saw her eyes widen for the briefest of moments, then she sat back in her chair and adjusted the camera so he could see her clearly.

“Commander Helgeson. It’s good to see you.”

“Counselor Troi, it’s good to see you too,” he said flatly.

He saw the corners of her mouth curl into a smile. It had been a game of sorts between them since their first session. She had pointed out that him calling her by the name of the counselor on the starship Enterprise was a method of deflection wherein he wasn’t really a participant in the therapy she provided but an observer to the story—not unlike Captain Willard from Apocalypse Now.

“So, what can I do for you?” Dr. Bunch asked.

Helgeson glanced at the screen to ensure that the connection was in fact secure. “I can’t sleep again,” he admitted.

“I am aware of the engagement your submarine went through.”

He ran his fingers through his hair, aware that she was watching him. He realized that he did this as a delaying tactic when he was trying to think of what to say or do. She steepled her hands. This was what she did when she watched him stall. It made him chuckle, and in turn she too chuckled.

“You know I just killed thousands of people, right?” he asked. “They were sailors much like us.”

“And? We are at war.”

The coldness of her statement gave him pause. He hadn’t expected that from her at all.

“And…really? How can you say that so nonchalantly?” he pressed. “All of those sailors…I killed them, and I nearly got my own men killed as well.”

She leaned forward in her chair and seemed to stare into him—no, through him. She took a few long moments before she spoke.

“In our past discussions, you have mentioned your fondness for Stoicism. You said it has saved you in the past. It helped you make rational, dispassionate decisions. How is this different?”

He closed his eyes and in an instant, he relived the entire engagement with the Chinese fleet. He could hear the sonar pings, the explosions, and the ships breaking up. He could feel the Texas getting hit with the debris of the sinking ships. His heart began to race, and he felt sweat beading on his forehead. His eyes snapped open and he realized several minutes had gone by. He blinked, only to realize sweat was dripping into his eyes, and he wiped his brow with his sleeve.

“Kurt, what is really going on with you?” asked Dr. Bunch. “You’ve trained for this your whole career.”

Helgeson took note that she had called him by his first name; he couldn’t recall if she’d ever done that before.

“We are at war. I fired the first shots in what could become World War III.”

“The Chinese were given fair warning by the President,” she countered. “They chose to ignore that. The blood is on their hands, not yours.”

Without thinking, he looked down at his hands. Clenching them into fists, he began to knead his thighs. In his mind, he had visions of Chinese sailors drowning in flooded and locked compartments, sinking to the watery depths. It was his doing. It was war and he knew it, but he simply could not shake the guilt that was plaguing him. He needed sleep, but every time he closed his eyes, the battle raged in his head in IMAX stereo surround sound.

When Helgeson looked up at the screen, he saw that Dr. Bunch was simply staring at him. For some reason, this made him feel flush with anger—this, too, perplexed him. His emotions were all over the place.

“How are you feeling, Kurt?”

“Feeling?”

“Yes. Right now, how are you feeling?”

“Drained.”

They locked eyes, and despite her being thousands of miles away, he could feel her glare boring into him as if she were sitting in the next room.

“Drained isn’t really a feeling,” she asserted. “Although, I can only imagine how tired you must be after that ordeal. However, it was you that brought your submarine and her crew out to the other side.”

“Yes, I know. My evaluations and ratings my whole career have led me to that moment. It was like I was watching myself. I wasn’t really there, or it wasn’t really me. I just went into autopilot. I didn’t think. I just acted and reacted to the situation.”

“That was your years of training kicking in,” she stated. “That, Commander Helgeson, is what you were meant to do.”

Her statement seemed odd to him. He cocked his head and looked at her, then at the room around her in the background. He leaned into the screen and began to look at the edges.

“What is it?” she asked, and he noticed a slight flutter in her voice.

“Doctor, I have to go. Thank you.”

“Commander, if you need me…I’m here for you.”

He looked at her intensely for a moment before replying. “I know…and I really do appreciate that. Again, thank you.”

*******

Dr. Bunch made sure the secure connection was severed from Commander Helgeson before she looked up from the screen on her desk and at the man sitting in her office. Staring back at her with a look of concern and hope was Rear Admiral Ishan Patel.

“Professional opinion, Dr. Bunch?”

“Admiral, I think he’s been through a significant trauma, clearly. However, when his XO briefed him about an issue with his submarine, she said that his entire demeanor changed. She noted that he seemed tired and had complained of a headache, but when the submarine was in trouble, he put the needs of the Texas and her crew above his own—in battle and after. It is indicative of his character; he places his duty above all else.”

“So you believe that he’s the right officer for the job?” Patel pressed.

“Sir, it is my professional opinion that Commander Helgeson is without a doubt the only man in the fast-attack force that can do this in the time constraint that you’ll be putting on the Texas.”

“Very well, Doctor. Thank you.”

The admiral stood, shook her hand and excused himself, leaving Dr. Bunch alone with her thoughts. She knew that Helgeson was the right man for this. She just hoped and prayed that he could find it within himself to believe it as well.

Chapter Four

Behind Enemy Lines

Bunker Hill Drag Strip

Bunker Hill, Indiana

It was dark out as the utility van pulled into the parking lot of the drag strip. The driver parked the van not far from the main building, doing his best to obscure their activities from anyone that might happen to drive by. When the van parked, Major Fan Changlong stepped out of the vehicle and surveyed the area.

One of the soldiers got out of the back of the van. Using a special flashlight, he searched for the marking on the pavement. Another teammate had marked a spot in advance where they should place their mortar tubes. According to their orders, they were supposed to place the tubes at a precise spot, then use a set of elevation degrees and fire off three rounds. Then the instructions called for them to change the elevation and degrees and fire another set of three rounds. They’d repeat that process four times for each of the four tubes and then get the heck out of Dodge.

“Found them all,” called out of the men.

The operators pulled the four mortar tubes out of the vans and assembled them. Before they began firing their rounds, they unpacked all the mortars from their sealed cases and got them ready to go. They didn’t want to hang around the area any longer than necessary. Once they had completed their fire mission, the Special Forces soldiers would drive across the country to the next air base and repeat the process.

“We’re ready, Major,” the senior NCO announced.

Major Fan smiled. “Fire!” he ordered.

The eight operators went to work. One operator hung the round above the tube for just a second, then he dropped it. Once the round hit the bottom, it ignited the propellant charge that hurled the 82mm projectile some five kilometers away. When the operator had fired three rounds, they changed to the next elevation and degrees for their specific tube and proceeded to fire another three rounds.

In the distance, Fan heard the first explosion. Then he heard another. Then a much louder secondary explosion erupted. Standing on the roof of the van, Fan was just barely able to make out the lights of the Grissom Air Reserve Base. He saw small flashes of light, which he knew was likely from the mortars. When they scored a hit on one of the KC-135 Stratotankers, the sky would light up.

Whoever came up with these pre-sighted positions did an exceptional job, Fan realized. Their mortars were scoring hit after hit on the refueling tankers the base operated.

“Rounds complete, sir,” the senior NCO called out to him.

“Very well. Let’s get everything packed back up and out of here. I want to be gone in the next three minutes. We have a long drive ahead of us to get to the next base,” Major Fan ordered.

*******

ODA 7322, Bravo Company

Sierra del Rosario Mountains, Cuba

It was cloudy and a slight mist descended through the tropical forest to the men below. Sergeant First Class Rusten Currie sipped on some water after finishing his high-energy protein bar. Currie had to admit, these were a lot tastier to eat than an MRE, and a hell of a lot smaller to carry around than the bulkier meals ready-to-eat packages.

Looking over to the downed F-22 pilot they had picked up a few days ago, Currie asked, “Major Ryan, how’d they come up with your call sign, Racer?”

Currie thought that Major Ian “Racer” Ryan had turned out to be a real fighter. The bullet that had struck him had gone clean through his shoulder—it was probably the only reason he hadn’t died already. But Currie and Dawson both knew they needed to get him to a hospital.

“When I was in flight school in Texas, I was street racing a friend on an old county road,” the pilot explained with a grimace. “A cop happened to spot us and tagged me doing a hundred and thirty-six miles per hour in a sixty-five-mile-an-hour zone. I managed to save my career in the Air Force and stay in flight school, but I had to pay a hefty fine and do some community service. That’s how I got the call sign Racer.”

He paused for a minute before adding, “Frankly, I hate the name. It reminds me of the worst day of my life. I had to sell my 1969 Ford Mustang Mach 1 to pay the fine and demonstrate I’d never repeat the behavior so I could stay in flight school. I had worked so hard to save up enough money to buy that thing. It was a complete hunk of junk my grandfather and I had found at a junkyard my senior year of high school. We’d spent three years rebuilding it to what it was. Then I had to sell it if I wanted to stay in flight school. I tell you what…I came this close to saying screw the Air Force and keeping the car and letting them do whatever they wanted. But my wife told me it was just a car; I could always buy or build another one. But if I gave up flight school, I’d never get another chance to fly an F-22.”

Dawson and Currie could see the major was pretty upset, so they changed the topic. “We’re going to try and get you out of here today, Ian,” Dawson announced.

This got the major to perk up. “Really? What’s going on?”

“We got word the 101st has arrived and they expanded the perimeter of the Playa Baracoa airfield,” Currie explained. “I have no idea how they did it, but they got the airstrip operational again and they’ve managed to get some helicopters deployed to it. They’re going to organize a rescue mission to recover you.”

“What about you guys?”

“They’re pulling us out as well,” Currie replied. “It’s time. Our ODA has been out here since a few weeks before the war started. Besides, I’m sure they have bigger missions for us.”

“Well, I’m sure glad they had some of you guys around. I’d probably be dead if you hadn’t found me when you did.”

Currie saw the pilot clinging onto a family picture. Hell or high water, we’re going to get this guy home to his family.

The PRC-152A radio attached to Currie’s chest rig chirped in his earpiece, letting him know he was about to receive a message. He held up a hand to let Dawson know they were about to receive some news.

“Loki One, this is Odin. Do you copy?”

Odin was the call sign for their battalion operations center—the group coordinating and managing all the Loki units scattered across Cuba. The Loki units were the small two- and three-man teams that had been inserted nearly two weeks prior to the war starting. Their job had been simple: find the HQ-9 radar and missile sites for the Air Force and Navy to hit should the war actually start. Their secondary mission had been to recover any downed pilots. Sadly, that last mission ended up taking full priority, given the number of pilots being downed.

“Odin, Loki One. Good copy. Send it.”

“Link up with Loki Two and Four at the following coordinates.” Currie scribbled the coordinates down and handed them off to Dawson, who’d start plotting it for them. “Once you’ve linked up with the other Loki units, break. Rendezvous at the next set of coordinates. Break. Clear hilltop of trees and prepare LZ to receive a CSAR Jolly Green. How copy?”

Currie furrowed his brow at the mention of a CSAR. The new HH-60W Jolly Green IIs were great helicopters to recover downed pilots with, but they were still Blackhawks, which meant they could only carry twelve passengers at most.

“Is there enough room on that bird for all of us?” Dawson asked skeptically.

Loki Two and Four were three-man teams. Adding in their numbers plus the three of them put them at nine total pax. If they had any downed pilots with them, then it could be a rather cramped ride out of there.

Depressing the talk button, Currie replied, “That’s a good copy. ETA on pick up?”

“Six hours. How copy?”

“Is that doable, Dawson?”

His partner nodded. “For you and me, sure. It might be tough on the major.”

“Yeah, but we can carry him out if we have to. At least he isn’t a big guy,” Currie added with a wink to the major. Racer smiled weakly.

Currie depressed the talk button again. “That’s good copy. Six hours. We’ll be ready. Out.”

With nothing more to be said, they cleaned up their little base camp a bit and prepared to leave. Since they didn’t need to take everything back with them, they decided to bury what wasn’t essential and leave the rest. It wasn’t much, but every pound made a difference, particularly when they might have to alternate carrying their wounded man out.

The trek through the jungle to the first rendezvous point was challenging. The jungle was pretty dense with hanging vines and underbrush that liked to reach out and grab them by their ankles. It was frustrating at times to say the least, especially for Major Ryan, who was struggling to keep up. He was clearly in a lot of pain.

Forty-five minutes into their hike, they made contact with the first Loki team. It felt good to link up with their fellow team members. This had been a hard mission, being separated from the men you trained with in a hostile country like this. It had to be done, though. There was simply no way the handful of ODA teams could cover as much ground as they needed to try and find these radar and missile sites without breaking themselves down into smaller elements.

Twenty minutes after meeting up with Loki Two, they linked up with Loki Four. That was when things got tough. Not only did they have four downed pilots, one of them was badly injured. The team medic had done a good job of getting him stabilized, but moving him through the dense jungle was next to impossible.

Their captain looked at the map and found a possible alternate hilltop they could try and turn into an LZ. When they investigated the location, they agreed this could work. Once they got the LZ changed with Odin, their demo guy began the process of preparing the trees to be taken down. He wrapped the bases of the trees at a slight angle with det cord. When it came time to clear the hilltop and turn it into a landing zone, he’d trigger the explosives, which would blow the trunks apart at a specific angle so the trees would fall outwards, away from the center of the hill. If it all worked out, then in the span of a few seconds, they’d have the hilltop cleared of any trees that might prevent the helicopter from landing.

With that problem solved, Currie focused on the next obvious issue. “So, what’s the plan, Captain? We getting a bigger bird or we drawing straws to see who’s staying behind?”

They had thirteen passengers for the ride and only twelve seats. Two of the pilots were also fairly injured, so they couldn’t just pile on the bird for the ride out. Those two injured airmen would need some room. It was a genuine problem.

Captain Larry Thorne snickered. “What, you think we’re leaving someone behind?” the captain asked, a mischievous grin on his face.

“I take it you already solved our problem?” Currie pressed.

Placing a hand on Currie’s shoulder, Thorne replied, “It was never a problem. When they told me we were all getting out of here, I already knew there wasn’t room for us all on one of those CSAR birds. The 160th just got set up at the Playa Airport. They’re going to send in a couple of Chinooks and some Apaches for escorts. We’re all getting out of this damn jungle.”

Currie smiled at the news. “Hell, I guess that’s why they pay you officers the big bucks. Good job, sir.”

Captain Thorne grinned. “Yeah, well, someone needs to keep you guys in line. Oh, by the way, Sergeant. Damn good job rescuing Major Ryan over there. I heard you guys had a shoot-out with a PLA platoon. You guys did good work getting him out of that situation and keeping him alive. When we get out of this, I’m putting you and Dawson in for a valor medal for that. That was some real hero stuff you guys pulled off. Now, go check the perimeter and make sure we don’t have any trouble on the way that might interrupt our dinner plans.”

Laughing softly, Currie nodded and trotted off towards the perimeter where his partner in crime was. The two sat down and ate a PowerBar while they waited for the choppers to come get them. It had been a long three weeks in the bush; it was time to get back to the world and have a nice hot shower and a real meal.

Chapter Five

Screamin’ Eagles

Playa Baracoa Airport

Havana, Cuba

The C-130 pulled off the taxiway to the parking ramp and stopped. The crew chief lowered the rear ramp, shouting at the occupants. “Get the hell off my bird! We’re pulling out as soon as everyone is off.”

Major General Robert “Bob” Sink smiled as he saw the senior airman shouting at his soldiers. The airman looked up at him and was about to shout something when he saw his two stars. He just smiled and nodded.

“You’re doing a good job, Airman. Thank you for the ride,” said General Sink as he walked past the senior airman.

A major met him at the bottom of the ramp. “This way, General,” the major directed. “We’ve got the division HQ set up over here.” He pointed at something further away from the few remaining buildings around the airport.

“Lead the way, Major,” said General Sink. After he looked around, he commented, “This place is an utter mess.”

On the opposite parking ramp across the single runway was a group of black helicopters spinning up. A line of soldiers looked to be heading out on another mission. There was also a burnt-out wreck of a C-130 on the far side of the runway along with a few damaged helicopters—evidence of the recent artillery strike on the base. It was a violent reminder that the enemy was far from beaten and they were still close enough to hit this base.

When General Sink entered the house that was acting as the division HQ for the time being, he saw half a dozen map boards posted up on the walls of what was probably a living room. A couple of makeshift tables had been set up in the center of the room, and they were covered in computers and radios.

Colonel Roy Dowdy walked up to him. “Welcome to Cuba, General. I hope the ride over wasn’t too bad.”

General Sink shook his deputy’s hand. “We survived; that’s all I asked for. This place seems a bit cramped, don’t you think?”

Dowdy shrugged his shoulders. “We work with what we have. I’ve got some feelers out to find us a larger, better place to set up, but until we find a suitable place, we’ve been making this work.”

Sink nodded with a grunt. “It’ll do. OK, bring me up to speed on things. Why haven’t we secured the Havana International Airport yet or the San Antonio de los Baños military airport? Those were priority one objectives to be captured within the first forty-eight hours. We’re three days into the invasion and they still haven’t been secured.”

Colonel Dowdy motioned with his head for them to walk over to one of the maps.

Pointing to a series of units on the north side of Havana, Dowdy explained, “As you know, the 82nd Airborne hit the Máximo Gómez Command Academy east of Havana, along the coast. Most of the division was able to land in and around the area. They essentially had a two-mile bubble they’d established. Fourteen miles to the south, the 1st Ranger Battalion seized the Managua Airport. This positioned them roughly seven miles to the east of the Havana International Airport and placed a substantial blocking force on the opposite side of the capital.”

General Sink held a hand up to stop him. “Look, Roy, I know all of this. Cut to the point.”

“The Chinese 80th Motorized Infantry Brigade, positioned inside Havana, launched a series of counterattacks with two battalions of armor from the 7th Armored Brigade against the 82nd. This prevented them from moving further on the city and securing their objectives until the Air Force was able to help them thin the enemy armor out. To complicate things, when the Rangers secured the Managua Airport, a battalion from the PLA’s 235th Mechanized Infantry Brigade encircled them and tried to force them to surrender. The Air Force lost twelve aircraft trying to provide enough CAS to keep them from being overrun. It’s been a tough go of it the last twenty-four hours, General. We’re honestly lucky we haven’t had any of our initial units overrun or wiped out.”

Sink snorted at the assessment but knew Dowdy wasn’t wrong. This entire invasion had been rushed. Capturing Mariel and the port should have been the top priority, not these airports and positions around the capital. Once they had a port, they could start to offload their heavy armor and make short work of these Chinese units.

General Sink blew some air out his lips in frustration. He was glad he’d moved his HQ here from NAS Key West. He needed to see firsthand what was going on. “All right, let’s leave the other divisions to handle their own objectives. What about ours? I think I saw the Rangers boarding the 160th to head out on some big mission. Is this something we’re going to end up supporting?”

Suddenly Dowdy had a look on his face like he’d forgotten to tell him something important.

“My apologies, General. Shortly after you left Key West, the Rangers initiated their next mission,” Colonel Dowdy explained. “They’re launching their assault on the San Antonio de los Baños military air base. It’s already been plastered by both the Air Force and a HIMARS unit, so it’s been taken out of commission. They’re moving to secure it. Once they’ve captured it, I’ve got the 1st Battalion, 502nd slated to relieve them and expand its perimeter. The Air Force has another Red Horse unit that’ll get it operational for us. Then we’ll largely have the capital surrounded.”

“OK, that sounds good. What about the port at Mariel? Are we ready to move on it? I’ve got the Army Chief of Staff, General Kilbourne, all over my ass right now to capture that port.”

“We’re on it, sir,” Dowdy replied. “The 2nd Battalion, 327th just reached the outskirts of Mariel. They’re engaging elements of the PLA 235th Mechanized Brigade right now. To help us bust through this, two hours ago, the Air Force airlifted in a single tank platoon from the 3rd Infantry Division, 1st Battalion, 64th Armor Regiment, along with a company’s worth of Stryker vehicles. They literally drove right off the planes and headed for Mariel. They’re engaging the PLA armored vehicles and units as we speak.”

General Sink chuckled and slapped his deputy on the shoulder. “Outstanding, Roy. We’re going to make a division commander out of you yet. You’ve done a hell of a job out here. Now, I know you’ve got a team out looking for a new building for us to set up our HQ in—I want you to find that building for us in the next four hours. This”—he waved his hand around—“is not going to work now that the rest of the headquarters unit is arriving. The rest of the division should be here by nightfall. It’s time to go kick the crap out of these ChiCom bastards and make them wish they’d never declared war on the US of A.”

*******

2nd Battalion, 327th Infantry Regiment

Outskirts of Mariel, Cuba

Specialist Leslie Sabo Jr. traversed the turret-mounted Ma Deuce of the JLTV to the right as they drove past another small cluster of houses along the side of the A4 highway. They hadn’t run across any ChiCom or Cuban forces yet, but that didn’t mean they wouldn’t soon.

Boom!

Four hundred meters in front of them, the lead JLTV exploded into a fireball. The turret gunner’s upper torso was flung several hundred feet into the sky as chunks of the vehicle were blown in all directions.

Bang, bang, bang. Ratatat, ratatat, ratatat.

Red tracer fire zipped across the highway. Another JLTV near the first one that blew up was shredded by a heavy-caliber machine gun. It rolled to a halt on the side of the road, the occupants dead.

“It’s coming from the right, maybe five hundred meters in that cluster of buildings!” Specialist Sabo yelled down to the driver and vehicle commander below him.

Sighting in on where the enemy fire was coming from, Sabo depressed the butterfly trigger on the Ma Deuce, sending a controlled burst of three to five rounds into one of the structures. He saw his rounds cut huge holes through the flimsily built house. A single round ricocheted into the sky, letting him know he’d hit something metal on the opposite side.

Private Hancock, the driver of their vehicle, veered them off the road, down a slight dip and up on the other side. They were now in a field next to the highway. Most of the vehicles in their convoy had done the same thing, splitting either to the right or left of the highway and looking for targets to shoot.

Sabo couldn’t tell what was going on below him in the vehicle. All he heard was shouting on the radio. The driver asked where to go, and their sergeant shouted to someone on the radio for instructions.

Sabo dropped down from the turret. “Sergeant, just have us head towards that farm. I’ll lay into whatever vehicle is shooting at us.”

Sergeant Smith nodded. “Good call, Sabo. Stay on that fifty. Things are going to get hairy.”

Swoosh…BOOM.

The JLTV behind them exploded.

“Get on that fifty and take them out!” shouted Smith in a panic.

Sabo saw an infantry fighting vehicle duck out from behind a completely torn-apart house as it raced to a cluster of trees not far away. The vehicle crew had done a pretty decent job attaching a bunch of tree limbs and other underbrush to it. The damn thing looked like a pile of brush with a wicked-looking turret on it.

Aiming at the vehicle, Sabo held the butterfly trigger down a little longer, drilling the side of the vehicle with at least a dozen rounds. Some of the AP rounds bounced and ricocheted off, but a handful punched through some sections of the armor.

The driver did his best to dodge the bullets being fired at them. Sabo let up on the trigger for just a second before he unloaded another couple dozen rounds into the side of the vehicle.

Boom…BANG!

A small explosion rocked the enemy vehicle, causing it to stop moving. As Sabo continued to pump rounds into it, something inside caught fire and exploded. The back hatch blew open and flames shot out. A couple of figures stumbled out the back, engulfed in fire like walking Roman candles.

“Good shooting, Sabo. Keep at it!” shouted his sergeant.

Boom!

Another JLTV somewhere behind them exploded. The concussion and heat from the blast washed over Sabo’s back, causing him to flinch.

Damn, that had to have been a tank. Where the hell is it?

“Tank to our three o’clock, one thousand meters!” Sabo shouted so the guys below him could hear.

Swiveling the turret, Sabo emptied the rest of his ammo on the front armor of the tank. He knew the rounds wouldn’t penetrate it. His goal was to rattle the guys inside, and maybe get lucky and damage some of the optics or targeting equipment attached to the turret.

“I’m out. Pass me another box of ammo,” he shouted to the guys below. “We also need to move—pop the vehicle’s smoke if you can.”

Sergeant Smith didn’t waste a second. He popped the smoke canisters on the vehicle, shooting half a dozen 30mm smoke grenades in a twenty-meter arc around them. In seconds, they would create a smoke screen to shield them and the rest of the vehicles nearby from the enemy infantry and tanks.

While all of this was going on, half a dozen machine-gun positions had opened fire on the American column. The soldiers in the JLTVs had dismounted, taking up defensive positions near the highway. Several of the rocket teams had started engaging the enemy tanks and other infantry fighting vehicles nearby. A couple of the JLTVs had been equipped with TOWs—those vehicles were now getting into the action.

“Look at that!” shouted Sergeant Smith as one of the ChiCom tanks blew apart. The turret of the vehicle had been sheared clean off the tank.

Thunk, thunk, thunk.

Their JLTV started getting peppered with bullets from one of the enemy machine-gun crews.

Sabo couldn’t see jack squat. The smoke had formed a pretty thick cloud at this point. It was giving them cover, but he also couldn’t see where the bullets were coming from. One minute they saw that enemy tank getting blown up, the next they were engulfed in a cloud of smoke.

“Move the vehicle, I can’t see in this soup!” Sabo yelled down to Private Hancock. Maybe that smoke screen wasn’t such a good idea, he thought.

The vehicle lurched forward and to the right. A minute later, they were out of the smoke cloud. At least six of their JLTVs had been blown apart. Two of the transport trucks had also been nailed.

Sabo looked to his right; as he did, he heard several .50-cals open up on something. A group of five M1117 Guardians were charging toward the tree line, firing their Mk 19 40mm grenade guns and their .50-cals at the enemy tanks and infantry fighting vehicles. While the armored cars raced towards the enemy, a handful of antitank guided missiles covered the ground between the American soldiers and the armored vehicles in seconds. A string of explosions rippled across the tree line as six enemy vehicles exploded.

“Hancock, charge forward. We need to draw off more fire to give our rocket teams time to take the remaining tanks out,” Sergeant Smith directed.

One of the other soldiers handed Sabo a fresh can of ammo. Sabo lifted the feed tray open and fed the new belt into it. After seating the first round, he pulled the charging handle back to feed the first round into the chamber. He closed the feed tray and proceeded to send a handful of rounds into the nearest enemy vehicle that wasn’t already a smoldering ruin.

A cannon fired; a Guardian vehicle blew apart. Another cannon fired, and a second M1117 exploded into a giant fireball.

Sabo was starting to feel like they were going to be next when he heard the air around them splitting apart. His ears registered the loud Bbbbrrrrrppppp of an A-10’s 30mm tank-busting cannon firing.

Private Hancock slammed on the brakes, throwing Sabo into the Ma Deuce with a hard thud. He was about to yell at him when the ground thirty feet in front of them exploded from a tank round. That round would have plowed into them had Hancock not stopped.

Looking in the direction of the tree line, Sabo saw multiple trees explode as the 30mm depleted uranium rounds tore through them and into the enemy tanks hiding beneath them. One tank blew up, then a second, then a third.

As the A-10 flew over the area, several small canisters fell from beneath its wings. The falling bombs then ejected dozens of smaller objects that blanketed the trees in front of them. The entire area erupted in tiny explosions. It was a mesmerizing and almost beautiful sight for Sabo as he watched the entire place erupt in fire.

Most of the armored cars and JLTVs at this point stopped charging towards the tree line. The gunners laid into the enemy positions, raking them with gunfire while the A-10 circled back around for another pass. The soldiers who had dismounted the vehicles at this point had also caught up to them and fired their own rifles into the enemy positions. It was a free-for-all as the last remnants of the Chinese force charged out of the burning tree line to close the distance with the Americans. It was during this final desperate act that the remaining Americans cut the enemy to pieces. When the smoke cleared a few minutes later, there were only a handful of ChiComs left. They were holding their hands up in surrender or moaning in pain, no doubt crying out for their mothers or a medic.

Sabo heard a call come in over the radio. Their company—what was left of it—was going to stay and secure the area while the rest of the battalion would press on to seize the port. They also heard a tank platoon and Stryker company had finally caught up to them. They’d lead the way into the city and the port instead of the thinner-skinned JLTVs and M1117 Guardian armored cars.

Boy, if they had sent those tanks and Strykers with us from the beginning, we probably wouldn’t have just lost half our company, Sabo thought angrily. He cursed as he clenched his fists.

Chapter Six

This Ain’t Khe Sanh

Battalion Landing Team 2/8

Task Force Khe Sanh

Gitmo

Lieutenant Colonel Mike Bonwit ducked into the observation bunker at the sound of incoming mortars. The constant whistling death from above was really grating on his nerves. The barrage lasted nearly forty-five minutes. Bonwit thought the enemy seemed more content with just harassing them with it than trying to go after a specific bunker or portion of his lines. What really made him angry was that there was essentially nothing he could do about it. Counterbattery fire was out of the question. They had so few mortar rounds remaining. What little ammo he had left for his own crews he needed to be held in reserve to beat back the inevitable ground assault that would eventually occur.

“You think they’re going to attack again soon?” asked the corporal who was in the observation bunker with him.

Bonwit reached for his field glasses and did a quick scan of the enemy lines to see if he could spot any major troop movements or anything that might indicate the enemy was getting ready to attack their positions. Satisfied with what he saw, he lowered the field glasses and turned to the corporal.

“Maybe, but it doesn’t look like it’ll be right now.”

The corporal nodded in satisfaction and went back to reading an old paperback book.

Bonwit had to stifle a laugh. They’d become so accustomed to the bombardments and enemy attacks since the start of the war that if they weren’t in immediate danger, the Marines would just carry on like nothing else was happening.

Lieutenant Colonel Mike Bonwit’s battalion had landed at Gitmo two weeks ago to reinforce the garrison in case hostilities broke out between the US and the Chinese-Cuban force that had surrounded the base. Prior to his battalion leaving for Cuba, they’d plussed him up with two companies of infantry from the Marine Corps Reserve. The added riflemen pushed his battalion strength up to eleven hundred combat-ready Marines.

To further reinforce the base, the 1st Battalion of the newly reconstituted 65th Infantry Regiment from the Puerto Rico National Guard had been sent to reinforce his Marines. US Special Operations Command had also seen fit to send him a Special Forces A-Team, a beefed-up Marine Raider Company with five Marine Special Operations Teams or MSOTs, and a platoon of Deep Recon, Force Recon Marines. The operators had been tasked with finding the Chinese-made HQ-9 radar sites, the CJ-10 TEL trucks, and the DF-17 missile launchers, in addition to being the eyes and ears for his newly formed Task Force Khe Sanh.

The division commander had told Bonwit the day before he’d left for Cuba that he was essentially being given command of twenty-five hundred gunfighters to hold off the barbarians at the gate. If it came down to a shooting war, he was to hold his position until relieved.

Since the start of the war, the Chinese had played havoc with their electronic sensors and countermeasures. If they tried to put a drone higher than a hundred feet, it was shot out of the sky. His task force was down to only a handful of them.

He felt bad leaving his operators out there with no real support—only their own tenacity and violence of action. They had called for danger close fire so many times he considered it a miracle that any of them were still alive. Each time the enemy tried to make an attack on one of his infantry companies, they had been cut to pieces by naval gunfire from a pair of destroyers and a cruiser doing lazy eights just outside of Gitmo. The naval ships were doing their best to intercept enemy aircraft and keep the skies over southeastern Cuba as clear as possible.

On the western side of the base where his battalion was, his line had continually collapsed to the fence line surrounding the naval air station. The SpecOps guys were beyond that fence line, unleashing hell when the enemy dared to get too close. On the eastern side of Gitmo, he had the Puerto Rican Guard unit backed up with his Force Recon platoon. The two units had been fighting like hell the last few days, beating back several major assaults by the enemy force.

Ironically, this Guard unit had fought during the Korean War and was credited with the last bayonet charge of that war. In a fierce battle against a Chinese division, they’d led a bayonet charge that had won the day. Since then, they’d been given the nickname “The Borinqueneers” after the original Taíno Indian name for Puerto Rico. Soldiers of that unit had earned ten Distinguished Service Crosses, two hundred and fifty-six Silver Stars and six hundred and six Bronze Stars during the Korean War. They were also one of the few units in the military that spoke fluent Spanish, making them an ideal unit to support operations on Gitmo.

Major Dave Trout ducked into the observation post and squatted down next to Bonwit. “Sir, here are the numbers you asked for.” Major Trout was his executive officer, a damn fine Marine who’d be given command of a battalion someday if Bonwit had anything to do with it.

Lieutenant Colonel Bonwit took the report; he looked down at the numbers and grimaced. The casualties just keep coming…

“We’ve really lost two hundred fifty soldiers, sailors, and Marines in five days?”

Trout nodded. “And another two hundred and seventy-seven wounded. Speaking of which, we really need to try and get more of them moved to a higher-level trauma center. Those PLA 152mm howitzers hammered the base hospital pretty good during that last barrage two days ago. The docs say we’re critically short on blood, plasma, and other medical supplies.”

“Dave, reach out to the Navy and see if we can transfer some of our wounded to one of the Burkes off the coast. Maybe they can use their helo to fly them to Haiti or Jamaica once we get them on board and then on to the US.”

“Before I leave, sir,” said Major Trout, “the sergeant major was looking for you. Should I tell him you’re up here, or are you heading back down to the command post?”

Bonwit looked at his watch. “I’ll head back with you. I only came up here to do a visual assessment of the lines.”

“They look like hell if you ask me,” Trout commented as the two of them left the OP and started down the backside of the hill.

Bonwit laughed. “They do, but they’ll hold.”

When they walked into the command post, his official headquarters, the battalion sergeant major made a beeline for him.

“Sir, I need to talk with you in private,” Sergeant Major Joe Savusa stated calmly.

Bonwit nodded and motioned for the two of them to head outside for a moment.

Sergeant Major Joe Savusa was a massive mountain of a man, a six-foot-six Samoan. Behind his back, the Marines in the battalion called him Maui because of his island heritage and the fact that he somehow had the same voice as Dwayne “The Rock” Johnson from the movie Moana. Savusa was aware of it and had even written Maui on the back of his helmet to let the Marines know that he knew and was cool with it.

“Damn, Sergeant Major, you take a dust grenade for the battalion?” joked Bonwit good-naturedly. “Shake yourself off before you cover us in a dust storm.”

Savusa laughed at the comment as he patted some of the dust off himself. “Nah, the bastards tried to bury me during that last barrage. One of them mortars collapsed part of a fighting position I was in. No big deal, I’m still here.”

Bonwit nodded. “OK, you still good, Sergeant Major?”

“It happens…,” Savusa said nonchalantly, as if being mortared was akin to being caught in a rainstorm.

“So, what’s going on, Sergeant Major?”

“It’s the wounded, sir. I’m sure Major Trout told you, but we need to find a way to get them off the island. Many of these guys will survive, but only if we can get them out of here.”

Bonwit nodded and told Savusa about his plan to evacuate them.

Savusa smiled at the news. “That’s a good call, sir. Any word on when we might get a resupply of ammo? We’re dangerously low on mortars and 7.62 ammo.”

“Still working on that, Sergeant Major. I was thinking when we bring the wounded to the Burkes, maybe we could see about taking all the small-arms ammo they have back with us. I know they don’t have any mortar rounds, but we sure could use all the 7.62 and .50-cal ammo they have.”

Just then, the radio operator poked his head out the door. “Sir, Lieutenant Colonel Marquez is on the radio for you.”

Bonwit nodded and headed back in. He grabbed the radio receiver and depressed the talk button.

“This is Dagger Six. Send it.”

“Dagger Six, Bayonet Six. Your Force Recon Marines are detecting a lot of movement to our southeast.”

Bonwit had only known Marquez for a couple of weeks, but he was super impressed with the man. He was cut from the same cloth as his active-duty Marines, a real warrior. If he was calling him direct, then he must have thought it was important.

When the war had officially started, Bonwit had moved the recon Marines to a specific area he knew the enemy would have to travel through if they were going to launch any sort of major ground operation against the base. They were his trip wire.

“Copy, Bayonet Six. How are you on mortars?”

“Running short, but we’ll make do. I’m going to leave it to the platoon commander as to when he wants to pull his team back. I think we’re in for a long night. Bayonet Six, out.”

Major Trout had been listening to the radio call. “Sir, that’s a weak point in his line,” he commented. “If they hit it hard, they could breach.”

Bonwit nodded as he walked over to look at one of the map boards they’d hung from the wall. There really wasn’t anything more his unit could do to support them. His companies were already spread thin everywhere.

Placing his finger on the map, Bonwit announced, “Major Trout, get in touch with MSOT 8211. They had reported movement along the western fence line near the Elbow a handful of hours ago. See if they can deploy one of their microdrones and figure out what kind of movement it is. We need to know if the enemy is moving soldiers or armor into the area. My gut says they’re positioning for a multipronged attack.”

“On it,” Trout said as he grabbed for the radio receiver.

*******

MSOT 8211

Near Gitmo

Marine Raider Master Sergeant Donny Stotts was watching the drone feed from his hide site with Team One. They were roughly three hundred meters away from the Cuban militia that was forming outside the elbow indentation along the base perimeter.

The drone was close; it was perched in a copse of trees overlooking their staging area. From the feed, he could clearly make out at least a platoon of ChiCom Special Forces, who had embedded themselves with the Cubans. Next to Stotts was Staff Sergeant Reyes, who was feeding the grid coordinates into the battle-net targeting system.

On Stotts’s call, they had waited as the recon elements of the enemy force began to expose themselves near the jungle edge. The ChiComs were using them to see if they could draw the American fire, thus exposing their positions. These poor saps were being used as a throwaway element.

When they had been visible for a few minutes and hadn’t been lit up by the Marines or the Puerto Ricans, they’d motion the rest of their element forward. Once more time had passed without any naval artillery fire or mortars raining down on them, the entire force would move out of the jungle and towards the American positions.

The commander of Fox Company, Major AJ Bostic, had changed their tactics for employing their naval artillery support in light of what the ChiComs and Cubans were doing. During the first couple of days, they’d start dropping arty on the enemy as soon as they were detected to scatter them and shake ’em up. It had worked well during the first couple of days. Then the enemy changed their tactics. They wised up and started moving in smaller groups to minimize their casualties.

When they got closer to the American lines, they’d consolidate for a massive attack and try to overwhelm them with their sheer numbers. It had been a massacre the first two times they’d tried it, but the third time they had nearly busted through the American lines. Had it not been for a danger close artillery strike, the Marines likely would have lost the entire western side of the base two days ago. As it was, the ground was now littered with the dead, bloating bodies of the enemy.

Pointing at something, Master Sergeant Stotts said, “Reyes, see if the drone’s laser mic can pick up what they’re saying. I think those guys are up to something.”

“Copy that, Master Sergeant,” Reyes replied as he typed a command into his keyboard. He was sending a message to the drone watching the enemy soldiers to turn on its parabolic mic so they could try and hear what was going on. Reyes was fluent in Spanish, so understanding the Cubans wasn’t going to be a problem.

In a barely audible voice, Reyes muttered, “What the hell? Over.”

Scooching next to Reyes, Stotts asked, “What’d you find? Can you hear them?”

Reyes moved to hand him the headset so he could hear for himself. Stotts stifled a laugh. “You know I don’t speak Cuban.”

“They speak Spanish, idiot. Isn’t your wife Cuban?” Reyes chided in annoyance.

“She sure is, but I tell her all the time I don’t speak Cuban or Mexican,” he whispered back with a big grin on his face.

Reyes punched him in the shoulder as he shook his head. “We’re going to overtake you gringos one day, Master Sergeant. You best start learning to speak Spanish now. That guy right there”—Reyes pointed to the Cuban regular—“is translating what the ChiCom is saying. He’s telling the soldiers around him that the Chinese didn’t travel across the world to help the Cuban People’s Revolution only to have them get scared and not want to fight. He’s going on about how the Chinese lost millions of people in their people’s revolution, but they won because they didn’t give up. The Chinese soldier is trying to encourage them to fight a little longer, a little harder. He says they’re so close to victory that they can’t give up now.”

“Jesus…” Stotts trailed off. His immediate thought was of his wife and her family. They had escaped Cuba when she was a baby. Her parents had made a makeshift raft and fled the island. It had been a horrible journey across the Straits. The waters had been rough, and the raft had ended up falling apart as they’d sighted Florida. Her two brothers and one sister had drowned before a Coast Guard cutter had been able to rescue them. Had her father not tied her to him, she probably would have drowned like her three siblings.

Prior to meeting his wife, Stotts had had no idea of the risks the Cuban refugees had taken to escape the island. The stories her mother and father had regaled him with of what it was like to live under the Castro regime had firmly cemented his dislike of communism. He had always thought the stories of Cuba were tall tales, but now that he had married into a Cuban family, he knew differently.

Despite his hatred for what the regime had done to his wife’s family, he almost felt bad about sending so many of them to meet their maker. Sure, they had new uniforms and weapons courtesy of the Chinese, but their training and tactics were terrible. Their Chinese advisors were using them like cannon fodder against the Americans.

Looking at the drone feed again, Stotts saw the Cubans stand and reassemble into their respective platoons.

“Looks like school’s out,” Reyes said.

“I’m calling it in,” Stotts announced as he depressed the talk button on his radio. “Banshee, Fox One Bravo. How copy?”

“Fox One Bravo. Banshee. Good copy. Send it.”

“Banshee, fire mission. Grid, Victor Hotel 75645-04335, break. Troops in the open, company-sized element clustered, break. Danger close, requesting one round HE. Will adjust. How copy?”

“Fox One Bravo. Good copy. Break. Grid, Victor Hotel 75645-04335, troops in the open, company-sized element clustered, break. Danger close, one round HE. Stand by for fire mission.”

*******

USS Lake Champlain (CG-57)

Six Miles off the Coast of Gitmo

Lieutenant Sammy Ramsahi was the Tactical Action Officer or TAO aboard the Champlain, or Champ as she was known to her crew. The Champ had been on station for a day, and what a wild and crazy twenty-four hours it had been.

During the first few days of the new war, the Chinese had hit several ships in their squadron, forcing a couple of them to head back to port to undergo some emergency repairs. The Champ had taken a hit from a CSS-N-8 Saccade antiship missile only two hours after coming on station. The missile had nailed their hangar, blowing one of their ASW helicopters apart and killing many of the ground crew. Thankfully, the ship was still able to stay on station, functioning as a floating artillery base and anti-air warfare platform. They just couldn’t support the traditional ASW mission without their helos.

Lieutenant Ramsahi yawned. He was just about to get up and go refill his coffee when the radio connecting them with the ground forces ashore chirped, letting them know the SINCGARS radio was about to receive a message once the encryption had synced.

“Banshee, Fox One Bravo. How copy?” came the distant-sounding voice of a Marine.

The sailor manning the radio grabbed for the hand receiver as Ramsahi made his way over to him. “Fox One Bravo, Banshee. Good copy. Send it.”

As soon as they heard the call for a fire mission, the mood in the room electrified. Several of the sailors sat up, preparing themselves for whatever action might be about to start.

Ramsahi alerted the ship’s captain, who had previously given him weapons-free permission if it was to support the Marines ashore. The captain knew a fire mission was a life-or-death call for the grunts, so he didn’t want anything to stand in the way of the support they needed.

The Champ was among a select few Ticos that had been outfitted with the Navy’s newest advanced gun system, AGS Mod III. The Navy had finally solved the compatibility problem between the Army’s 155mm rounds and their own. They had simply adapted the gun system to the Army’s existing tubes. Aside from some slight tweaking and modifications for use aboard naval vessels, it made most sailors with average intelligence scratch their heads, asking why they hadn’t done this decades ago. The Navy had spent a lot of money trying to reinvent the wheel, only to go back to the obvious solution.

The AGS Mod III was a marked improvement over its predecessor. It could fire six rounds per minute, and the Champ had two of them, one fore and one aft. Together, their magazines held an impressive thousand rounds of various types of ordnance, from HE rounds to rocket-assisted projectiles or RAP rounds, and everything in between. The AGS had given the Tico-class a new lease on life.

In this war, all the Ticos that hadn’t already been deployed were being kitted out with the new gun systems before they joined the fight. Once it had become clear how heavily fortified the island of Cuba had become with surface-to-air missile systems, naval gun support had become incredibly important. Until the Air Force and the Navy air wings were able to remove the SAM threat, close-air support or CAS missions were simply too risky for the aircrews. The Ticos were suddenly finding themselves the most important ships in the Navy.

On the deck of the Champ, the 155mm AGS turrets turned towards Cuba, elevating slightly. As the fire control technicians input the targeting data into the fire direction computers, the crew below deck got the gun ready to fire.

“Sir, guns report loaded and ready,” called out one of the petty officers.

“Guns ready, very well,” acknowledged Ramsahi, nodding to the technician on the radio with Fox One Bravo.

“Fox One Bravo, good copy. Break. Grid, Victor Hotel 75645-04335, troops in the open, company-sized element clustered, break. Danger close, one round HE.”

Ramsahi gave the order: “Fire!”

Boom!

Even in the CIC below tons of steel, they felt the gun boom as the 155mm tube fired a single shot.

“Fox One Bravo, Banshee. Shot!”

“Banshee, Fox One Bravo. Shot, over.”

All eyes in the CIC were on their workstation clocks. The distance to the target was just under six miles. At 760 meters per second, it would take less than fifteen seconds for the round to impact.

*******

MSOT 8211

Outside Gitmo

Master Sergeant Stotts tapped Reyes on the shoulder, and both Raiders ducked their heads and kept their mouths slightly opened. They knew full well that calling in 155s danger close was going to be jarring. Stotts was counting in his head; when he got to ten, he could hear the round coming in. This was just a single round. Once they saw where it impacted, they’d call in a last-minute adjustment and a fire for effect to pulverize the Cubans.

When a round this large came flying in, it didn’t sound like some loud whistling noise—they didn’t have fins. They were more like a freight train approaching, until either it flew over your head or it plastered you.

Stotts tried to keep his eyes on the drone feed while still keeping his head down. He didn’t want to poke himself up too high for fear of catching a piece of flying shrapnel. What he did see as he watched the Cuban soldiers and their Chinese advisor was almost comical. The ChiCom was speaking to the Cubans when his head cocked to the side. He stopped talking, then slowly began to look towards the sky. Stotts could swear he saw recognition on the Chinese officer’s face of what was about to hit them.

Boom!

The single 155mm shell detonated roughly fifty meters long from the main cluster of Cuban soldiers. Still, their bodies were thrown and tossed about from the impact.

Stotts was already on the radio, calling in an adjustment to the last round so he could hammer the entire enemy force. “Banshee, Fox One Bravo. Splash! Adjust fire, drop twenty-five meters, right one hundred meters. Fire for effect, eight rounds HE. Over!”

When both guns had fired eight rounds, that would make a total of sixteen—Stotts knew the sixteen rounds about to be fired would saturate the area where the enemy soldiers were. He almost wondered if he should have called in a twenty-round mission but decided that would have been overkill and probably would have wasted ammo. He knew everyone was short—he just didn’t want to leave any survivors.

Less than a minute later, they heard the roar of the rounds coming in and hunkered down. The ground beneath them shuddered as round after round shook the ground until all sixteen rounds had impacted.

When the fire mission concluded, Stotts looked down at the drone feed and caught a glimpse of the carnage they had inflicted. What he saw nearly made him sick. There were sixteen smoldering craters intermixed with the torn and ruined body parts of what had been more than one hundred enemy soldiers. The cries of the wounded started to pierce the air once the soldiers realized the bombardment had subsided.

“Fox One Bravo, Banshee. Rounds complete. Over.”

“Banshee, Fox One Bravo. Rounds complete. Break. Good hits. End of mission, over.”

“Fox One Bravo. Banshee. End of mission. Out.”

Stotts switched to the Fox Company net. He needed to speak to Major Bostic.

“Fox Actual, Fox One.”

“Fox One, Fox Actual, send it.”

“Sir, we just engaged a company of militia with ChiCom support. Good kill on target.”

It took several moments for Bostic to respond. When he did, the news wasn’t good. “Fox One, you need to beat feet back to Position Victor. I say again, displace to Pos Victor.”

“Good copy. Fox One out!”

Stotts and the team were moving before he even finished his sentence. Position Victor was the company area reserved for the collapsing of lines. They were to abandon all their listening and observation posts and consolidate into a company element so they could prepare to fight not as individual small-man teams but as a combined unit. This was basically the “Oh crap!” part of the plan for when everything else fell apart. Things had been getting progressively worse over the last few days. With no reinforcements, outside supplies, or any sort of CAS they could call on, it was only a matter of time until they had to collapse back to their Alamo positions.

*******

1/65 Infantry

Outside Gitmo Perimeter

Lieutenant Colonel Marquez was crouched low, his M4 carbine firmly in his shoulder; he had the Chinese soldier lined up in his holographic sight. The red dot was in the notch of the man’s neck, just above his front chest plate of his body armor. Marquez gently squeezed the trigger until he felt the rifle buck in his shoulder. The Chinese soldier fell to the ground in a heap, dead before he knew what had happened. The platoon dug in to Marquez’s left and right opened fire with their M240B and M4s.

The patrol they’d engaged was crossing from the woods on the far side of the road to the near side, where his men were dug in, waiting. Their ambush was a textbook V-shape and the Cuban militia had walked headlong into it. Moments after the shooting started, the platoon leader, Second Lieutenant Reynosa, called for a cease-fire. Lieutenant Reynosa tapped the soldier next to him on the helmet; the soldier stood and fired his M320 grenade launcher.

Thump!

The projectile launched into the air, only instead of a grenade, the launcher had fired a GLUAS or grenade-launched unmanned aerial system. The drone operator flew the device over the remains of the patrol they’d just killed.

“Hover over that individual there,” Marquez ordered the operator. As the enemy soldier tried to crawl away, he must have heard the whirring of the drone because he rolled over and looked into the camera.

The soldier was clearly Chinese. Half of his face had been shot away—it was a miracle he was still alive. When the man’s radio crackled, Marquez couldn’t fully understand what he said, but he was able to make out one word: “Jūntuán.” It sent chills down his spine.

“Lieutenant Reynosa, displace! We’re moving back to your company lines now!”

The young officer didn’t hesitate; he gave the order to his platoon sergeant and the men began to police their gear and move out.

“Sir, what is it?” Reynosa asked his battalion commander as they scurried back across the Gitmo perimeter.

“That Chinese soldier, he said the word regiment. That was also a short-range radio he was using. That means he was probably in contact with a much larger element near our position. We’re way too exposed out here. We need to get back to our lines and get ready for what’s coming next!”

Marquez knew he was going to catch hell from his XO and command sergeant major or CSM for being this far from the battalion CP and exposing himself this way, but he’d wanted to get a feel for his forward positions and what kind of enemy forces were arrayed against them. Marquez didn’t know if that Chinese soldier was saying something to another Chinese unit or some Cuban militia—in either case, he was certain things were about to change along their lines and not necessarily for the better.

*******

ODA 7426

One Mile outside Gitmo

Captain Sam “Stank” Morehouse lay on his stomach in the hide site, looking at multiple feeds from the cameras they’d placed along the southern leg of Carretera Glorietta. The covertly placed cameras activated each time they detected movement along the road or near it and alerted them of the activity. If the enemy was going to move any large numbers of troops or equipment, they’d likely use this stretch of road to get them in closer to the American base.

Stank’s team had set up their hide position roughly a quarter mile from a small gap they’d created in the Gitmo fence line. They’d left a platoon of Seabees there to ensure no one was waiting in ambush for them when they returned to base.

The Seabees had been eager to join them outside the wire. They were itching to get into the fight and do their own part. Stank had politely declined. Their mission required stealth and violence of action—the Seabees weren’t trained or equipped for either.

Stank swatted at a fly that was annoying the crap out of him. He was just about to hand off the monitor to his team sergeant when his earpiece chirped. He touched the screen and used two fingers to enlarge the feed from the camera that had picked up the movement.

Oh crap, that’s not good.

Stank rolled over and showed his team sergeant, who immediately shared his concern. Master Sergeant Trip “Walker” Hodges brought his little scout drone to life and started moving it in the direction of the road to get a better view of what was happening.

When their ODA team had arrived in Gitmo two weeks ago along with the Force Recon Marines, they had done a deep reconnaissance in the jungle and hills beyond the fence line of the American facility. They were scouting for the most likely avenues of attack and vehicle routes the enemy would use to hit Gitmo. As they’d identified the possible attack vectors, they had placed some solar-powered scout drones nearby, in anticipation of moments just like this.

The drone Walker had activated was one they’d positioned at the highest point in the area they were observing. It was small enough that the Chinese radars wouldn’t pick it up, at least not right away. The purpose of the little drone was to give them a quick snapshot of the entire area and what they might be facing. If there was a target of opportunity juicy enough to blow their cover for, then they’d order in a naval bombardment from one of the Ticos off the coast.

“Damn, boss! You seeing this?” Walker exclaimed excitedly.

“Yep… bad juju, man, bad juju,” Stank replied softly.

The images they were looking at were being relayed to the tactical operations center for both 2/8 Marines and 1/65th National Guard. They were staring at a column of Chinese mechanized infantry and main battle tanks, accompanied by a ragtag assortment of trucks hauling Cuban militia—all of it heading towards the besieged American base.

“Bayonet Three, Splinter Actual.”

“Splinter, Bayonet Three Alpha, send it.”

“Are you getting my feed?”

“Sí… I mean yes, yes, we are receiving.”

Stank looked at Walker; they both laughed. The Puerto Ricans were Americans no doubt, but while on Cuba, even though they were US Army, they almost always spoke Spanish, much to the frustration of the regular Army dudes with them. When they did speak English, Stank found that he really needed to pay attention or he’d need a translator.

The men of ODA 7426 all spoke Spanish fluently; it was a prerequisite in 7th Group. Latin America was their AOR. Still, the men of the 1/65th Infantry had done their best to speak English over comms.

“Sir, that’s a whole lot of pain headed our way; it looks like their rate of march is about fifteen kilometers per hour. We can’t stay put or they’ll be on us in less than twenty minutes.”

“Copy that. Let’s get back inside the perimeter. But before we bug out, I want to try and slow them down a bit. Let’s see if the Champ can’t send them a little American lovin’.”

“Splinter, we’re going to call in a strike from the Navy. Why don’t you bug out now and head back to the base? We’ll follow shortly behind you. Out.”

Stank and Walker plotted some coordinates for the Navy to hit and asked them to wait at least ten minutes. They wanted a bit of time to break down their hide and get on the move before the fireworks started. This way they could egress out of the area under the cover of artillery.

Despite the rainy season having ended a week ago, Mother Nature wasn’t done providing Cuba her fill of water. The area Stank and Walker were slogging through was almost a swamp. It was a great hide in that no one would come looking for them in it, but damn if it didn’t suck to try and move around inside of it.

The humidity had played havoc with their bodies and equipment as well. Stank’s ODA had toured some crappy places over the years, but Cuba was quickly ascending to the top of his private list of places he’d rather not come back to.

Traveling through the jungle in the evening presented its own set of problems. They only had a short distance to move to get to their lines, yet Stank felt anxious to get back. He had to remind himself to move slow and steady. He gave the hand signal to form into a traveling overwatch, and his team dispersed accordingly.

As they slogged along, Walker kept looking at Stank. They were clearly both thinking the same thing.

Something isn’t right. We’re being watched.

*******

Commando Tropas Especiales (CTE)

Outside Gitmo

Sargento de Primera Antón Sandoval of the Commando Tropas Especiales, or Special Commando Troops, was covered in moss, as was his Chinese-made QBZ-191 battle rifle. Only his head and weapon were above the water as his eyes scanned the area in front of him.

His team of ten commandos had been stalking the Americans since they’d left their base. They had missed an opportunity to ambush them earlier when they were setting up their hide site, so they’d decided to hit them when they eventually left to head back to their base.

So far, they’d observed them for the past two days as they sat in their patrol base, oblivious to the fact that they were being watched. Sandoval knew they were probably calling artillery strikes on his fellow comrades, and it pissed him off that he couldn’t do anything about it, at least not until they left their hide position. His superiors were not going to waste even a few artillery rounds on a small group of American soldiers when they were trying to pound Guantanamo into the Stone Age. So his team sat there and waited patiently for the right time to strike.

Once the Americans started to break down their position, Sandoval knew they would be returning right into their ambush. Their time to strike and take this group of foreign invaders had finally arrived. His ambush position was set in a slight draw, not easily observable from the fence line of the base. The American patrol would cross right in front of them and directly into their kill box.

Sandoval had personally seen to his squads’ camouflage in preparation for this ambush. It was so good that if he hadn’t placed his team personally, he would have sworn he was all alone. He had been waiting for this opportunity to fight the American Special Forces his entire career. He and his men had known they were American commandos as soon as they’d laid eyes on them; from their state-of-the-art weapons and equipment to the way they patrolled with ease through the terrain to the speed with which they had set up their equipment, they were true professionals, apex predators in the jungle.

But this was their jungle, their home these Americans were invading. Soon, they’d learn the Cubans weren’t a motley force of peasants that could be easily defeated.

*******

ODA 7426

Outside Gitmo

Stank had passed the signal that someone had eyes on the team. His men knew the drill and they had all “clicked safety” off on their weapons, senses, and minds. The operators knew they were still deep in Indian country; they were weapons-free should they bump into something.

Stealthily pushing his right foot in front of him in the thick swampy water, Stank inched forward at an incredibly slow speed. The operators creeping behind him were doing the same, trying to make their way through the swampy jungle muck they found themselves in without being detected.

As much as Stank wanted to rush towards the fence line and the perceived safety of the American lines, he knew several things were about to happen. A naval artillery bombardment was going to plaster the enemy a few miles away in two minutes, and the likelihood of enemy patrols nearby was high. His team was faced with the difficult choice of either speed or safety. On the one hand, they were six hundred and fifty meters from the fence line and the relative safety of the base. On the other, Stank intuitively knew that the faster they moved, the more noise they’d make and the higher the likelihood they’d miss seeing a threat before it was too late.

Just wait until the bombardment starts…then you can pick up the pace, he kept telling himself as the seconds moved like a snail on a salt lick.

Slow is smooth. Smooth is fast, he thought. Keep your head on a swivel and stay alive…

Suddenly, a memory from Ranger school flashed through Stank’s mind. During the final phase of Ranger school, the swamp phase, his group had been conducting a crossing of a danger area. He’d thought he had seen a snake slither past him, but the still, small voice inside him had told him it was something more. When he’d investigated further, he’d observed the slightest movement by someone roughly twenty feet in front of him, and he’d signaled the rest of his squad that something wasn’t right and they might be walking into an ambush.

In that instance, his quick thinking had saved the patrol he was leading. Unbeknownst to them, their Ranger instructors had set up an ambush to try and take advantage of the starving and exhausted students as they neared the end of the training. Stank wasn’t having any of that. He quickly organized a counter-ambush, launching a wild and deliberate assault on their instructors’ positions.

That flashback triggered an instinct that had lain dormant in Stank since that day in Florida. Somewhere in his lizard brain, he’d seen something. With the slightest movement of his head, his eyes slowly panned left, then slowly back to the right.

Quickness is the essence of the war.

Stank was about to take a step when he saw it—a clump of moss on the water’s surface that was several inches higher than its surroundings. Protruding from the odd shape was a straight line of moss that extended a short distance beyond it. Given there are no straight lines in nature, Stank moved his trigger finger from the rifle trigger to the grenade trigger a few inches forward of his magazine and fired. In a millisecond, his highly trained military mind had calculated the distance to the target and the probability that the grenade would have enough time to arm itself. A fraction of a second later, his men all shouted, “Contact left!” as all hell broke loose.

*******

Commando Tropas Especiales (CTE)

Outside Gitmo

Sandoval watched as the first four Americans passed in front of them. He would wait for the middle element to enter the kill box before initiating the ambush. As the second element entered his view, he noticed one of the soldiers slow his pace. He seemed to be fixated on something; his movements became preternatural.

As he focused on the American, Sandoval noticed the man’s head turn slightly towards him. He was concealed and felt really good about his cover, but it felt as if the man was looking right at him. No, the man was looking at him.

Squinting his left eye as he looked through his optics, Sandoval saw the man move his hand from the trigger guard on his rifle to something else.

He’s spotted us.

Without hesitating, Sandoval switched his rifle from safe to fire and pulled his trigger at the exact same instant as the American.

*******

ODA 7426

Outside Gitmo

The second Stank fired his grenade and felt it leave the launcher, a sledgehammer slammed into his chest, throwing him backwards in an uncontrolled heap into the swampy muck behind him. For the briefest moment, he saw stars. The edges of his vision turned red and almost tunneled, like he was about to pass out. But Stank fought against that sensation, that yearning to just fall into the embrace of that black abyss.

Instead, he did a quick assessment of himself. As Stank’s vision returned, so did his senses. Whatever had hit him, it had slammed squarely into the center plate of his body armor. For a few seconds, it felt like his mind and body had gone underwater; everything around him was quiet and calm. But the moment his mind returned from whatever momentary fog it had been in, he became acutely aware of the intense firefight taking place around him.

Stank sat upright; he was glad he’d gotten shot here and not ten meters further back. He was at the edge of the swamp now, and it wasn’t nearly as deep as it had been just a little bit ago. Looking to his right and left, he took a brief second to assess the battle happening around him. He was glad to see his men were giving as good as they got.

Walker was shouting commands and pointing as he took charge of the situation. Stank appreciated him doing that. He expected nothing less, but it was time for him to get back into the fight.

Moving to a kneeling position, Stank brought his weapon to bear on the closest muzzle flash he saw and fired a three-round burst. The figure he’d just shot fell to the side and into the murky water.

“Everyone, get online! I want some frags on those enemy positions now!” shouted Stank. He wanted to make sure everyone knew he might have been hit, but he wasn’t out of this fight.

The twelve members of ODA 7426 had moved themselves into a firing line, unleashing holy hell on their attackers. Two of the grenadiers on the team fired 40mm grenades into the attackers. A couple more threw fragmentation grenades into the enemy lines. The sound of grenades going off and men screaming and the relentless chattering of machine-gun fire reverberated through the swampy marsh area.

The roaring sound of the naval gunfire sailed over their heads as the dozens of 155mm artillery rounds impacted the enemy armor and vehicles a few miles away.

To Stank’s immediate right was his team’s weapons sergeant, Staff Sergeant Terry “Jammer” Baskins. The man was slinging massive amounts of lead downrange at the enemy with the team’s new General Dynamics lightweight medium machine gun or LWMMG, otherwise known as “the Pig.” The new crew-served weapon was an absolute beast with its .338 Norma Magnum rounds—absolutely shredding everything in front of them.

Now that Stank saw that his team had finally come abreast of each other, he shouted, “Everyone, forward!” He stood and advanced towards the enemy, shooting the whole time.

The operators that could move jumped up from their covered positions and advanced as a single unit. The team members swept their weapons from left to right in cones of interlocking fields of fire as they charged into the ambush, overwhelming the remaining attackers. In less than thirty seconds, they’d assaulted through the enemy position, wiping them out. In an even more miraculous feat, they’d only taken three minor casualties.

Spotting the guy who had initially shot him, Stank walked toward the Commando who’d managed to put a 5.8mm round in his chest plate, damn near killing him.

As Stank approached him, he saw the man was half-submerged in the water. The part of his face he could see was covered in blood. Ironically, floating on a pile of moss next to the man was Stank’s 40mm grenade. It hadn’t had the distance to arm itself, but it had hit the man directly in the head.

Reaching down, Stank picked up the man’s QBZ-191 and slung it over his shoulder. He wasn’t totally sure why he’d grabbed it, but some part of him wanted to take the weapon that had almost killed him.

Before they could verify all the Cubans were dead, they heard movement to their right. The operators swung their weapons in the direction of the noise, ready to unleash a wall of lead.

“Loblolly!” shouted a Navy Seabee, who was visibly out of breath from the short run near the fence line to Stank’s team. There was an almost instantaneous reply to this challenge word from Walker: “Jolly Roger!” These code words kept them from firing on their comrades.

With the naval artillery still raining down on the Cubans not too far away, Stank gave the order for the team to get out of there and head back to base. They needed to put some distance between themselves and this mess before more Cuban units tried to see what had happened.

As Stank passed by the Seabees, who’d done their best to come bail them out, he smiled. “Thanks for coming to get us, Chief, we’re good. Let’s get back to base; there’s a whole lot of trouble headed our way.”

The Seabees looked at the carnage in disbelief and nodded. They turned and followed the ODA team back to the cut in the fence line, glad as hell the Snake Eaters were on their side.

*******

Sargento de Primera Antón Sandoval wasn’t sure how long he’d been out, but when he came to, his face felt like it had been hit with a hammer. Realizing his head was half in the water, Sandoval slowly rolled himself over onto his back. As he tried to open his eyes, it felt like someone had plunged a knife into his left eye.

He raised his hand up slowly to touch that side of his face, and as he moved it towards his eye, he knew it was gone. He felt a flap of skin that should have covered his left cheekbone. Touching it sent shock waves of pain through his body, causing him to practically black out again.

When the pain finally subsided, Sandoval called out for his team. There was no response. Starting to panic, he searched for his rifle, but it was gone too. He let out a sigh and knew he should probably look around the area and see if he could find it or at least locate another one.

First things first. I need to patch up my face, he told himself.

His Special Forces training kicked in. Reaching for his first aid pouch, Sandoval unbuttoned it and pulled the sealed package towards the right side of his face so he could see it. He opened it up and pulled the gauze pad out. He placed it on the left side of his face, covering his exposed cheek and his left eye socket; then he began to wrap it around his head to hold it in place.

Once he was done, he slowly tried to sit up. Looking around him, he saw the carnage left in the wake of what was supposed to be a textbook ambush.

Why am I still alive?

Walking over to one of his dead comrades, Sandoval unfastened the rifle from his body armor. He made sure there was a fresh magazine seated and a bullet in the chamber. As he surveyed the scene, it became obvious the rest of his team was dead. No one was moving or calling out for help. Their bodies lay in twisted heaps or facedown in the swamping muck. Somehow, someway, he was the only one left alive.

Then he saw it—only a few feet away on the ground near where he’d been hiding. That damned American had shot him in the face with a 40mm grenade. Why hadn’t it gone off?

His rage nearly boiled over as he stumbled about, collecting the dog tags of his comrades—men he’d spent years training with, men their Chinese advisors had mentored and taught. They were supposed to be the best Special Forces in the Cuban Army.

How did we screw up? he kept asking himself. As he fumbled with one of the guys’ tags, Sandoval heard a whistling noise. As he tried to raise his rifle, the dizziness from his injury overcame him and he nearly fell. When he looked up, he saw a fellow Cuban soldier approaching him. When the lone figure drew near, all he could make out was their ghillie suit, which meant they were likely a scout or sniper. Then the soldier removed the face covering, revealing she was a woman. She smiled softly at him, glad someone was still alive. She shouldered her rifle and helped him to his feet without a word.

“Come, we have to go. The Army is coming. The attack is to start very soon. Let’s get you to an aid station.”

He draped his arm around her, and they walked toward their link-up point with their group commander. Glancing one final time over his shoulder towards Gitmo, he cursed under his breath and swore to avenge his brothers.

Chapter Seven

Operation Tricorne

II MEF

USS Mount Whitney

306 Nautical Miles South-Southeast of Gitmo

Marine Lieutenant General David Gilbert was not in a good mood. From the very start of this mission, he’d been behind schedule. First it was delays with the staging of his forces; then he had to switch command ships. Finally, he’d had to wait for the Mount Whitney to transit the Atlantic to Florida.

Every aspect of this operation had been delayed and screwed up from the word go. Marines, his Marines, were slugging it out at Gitmo, and every hour he was getting reports from Task Force Khe Sanh of killed and wounded. He thanked God the ChiComs were more worried about dealing with the Army on the western end of the island near Havana than they were about taking Gitmo. To them, Gitmo was an annoyance that could wait. Luckily, they’d only thrown ill-equipped Cuban militias at Bonwit’s task force, but it was anyone’s guess how long that would last.

He looked at a wall display of the ships containing the Marines and sailors of the Second Marine Expeditionary Force. That damn Cat 1 hurricane had thrown a wrench into the entire operation—from delaying their ability to reinforce the base, to preventing them from opening up a second front and securing a port, to making it completely impossible to launch aircraft during the storm. Sure, they could likely throw planes off the carrier deck, but the challenge was recovering them after they’d delivered their payload. If they had a friendly air base nearby that could handle the additional aircraft, Gilbert would have told the CAG to launch his fighters and land them on a shore base, but there wasn’t one.

Gilbert shook his head in frustration. He knew this was one of those things that was out of his control. Here he was, commanding the largest amphibious landing forces since Korea, and the 47,000 men and women under his command were being flung around the Caribbean like toy boats in a bathtub. He commanded the combat power of two full Marine infantry divisions and a Marine air wing, and now all of it was at the ever-loving mercy of the weather.

Then a thought occurred to him. Why not call the chaplain and have him pray for the weather to clear up?

Lowering his own head in the silence of the room, Gilbert whispered, “Lord, I have men dying at Gitmo and I can’t send them help until this weather clears. Please, clear the storm for us and allow our operations to continue.” Is it bad that I’m asking God to give us good weather so we can kill our fellow man? He shook the thought out of his mind. They’re communists, they don’t believe in God, so it’s their loss, he justified to himself.

Ninety minutes ago, the J2 or joint intelligence officer had briefed them on the latest satellite picture of what was going on around the base. It looked like the Chinese had grown tired of their Cuban allies’ inability to swarm and overrun the base and were now taking over. The intel weenies said elements of the PLA’s 112th Mechanized Infantry Division, parts of the 6th Armored Division and what appeared to be a battalion of self-propelled PLZ-07s were on the move to finish the job. While the armor and the mechanized infantry units and vehicles concerned General Gilbert, the battalion of 152mm self-propelled artillery could practically wipe the defenders out if they didn’t find a way to take out those artillery units. Task Force Khe Sanh was in for a world of hurt in the coming day if they didn’t do something.

As he stared at the map and the pictures the intel guys had left behind, the door to the wardroom suddenly opened, breaking his train of thought.

“Ah, there you are, General Gilbert,” said Major General Martin, the commander for the 2nd Marine Division.

Walking in behind him was Major General Roldan, the commander for the 4th Marine Division, who was also the commander of the Marine Force Reserve. Then came in their lone Army guy, Colonel Diego Álvarez, who commanded the 65th Infantry Brigade Combat Team from the Puerto Rican National Guard. A few captains, the staff officers for the generals and colonels, also walked in.

“Hope you don’t mind us barging in on your private time, General. We’ve all been thinking about the guys on Khe Sanh and the situation they find themselves in, and we wanted to go over an idea we had with you,” General Martin said as everyone filtered into the room and headed to their respective chairs. The Marines had stopped calling the Cuban base “Gitmo” and were now referring to it as “Khe Sanh” in memory of the last time a Marine base had been surrounded and faced annihilation.

General Gilbert liked to have about thirty minutes of private time to himself before a major planning or staff meeting like this. It was the brief calm before the storm when he’d say a few quiet prayers and ask the Lord for guidance on what to do next. He’d survived too many close encounters throughout his military career not to believe there was some divine hand guiding him through his career. Maybe it had to lead him to this very moment; maybe it was for something much greater down the road.

Gilbert smiled softly as the officers took their seats. “No, that’s OK. I was just reviewing the latest intel dump we’d gotten and trying to figure out how we can deal with that enemy artillery before it completely wrecks Khe Sanh.”

Gilbert was just about to take a seat himself when he noticed an empty chair. Just as he was about to say something, Colonel Matt McGrath walked in, a fresh cup of coffee in his hand.

“I just heard everyone moved the meeting up,” he offered as he took a seat. He was the air component commander for the Marine invasion.

“No worries, we were just about to get started,” General Gilbert remarked. He took a deep breath in before announcing, “The amphibious invasion of Cuba should have begun four days ago. Instead, it’s been an all-Army airborne show up north around Havana. Operation Tricorne needs to start, and it needs to start in earnest. I know Hurricane Octavio has sidelined us, and yes, I know our leathernecks are getting ravaged with seasickness down in the berthing from the storm. It’s been tough on me as well. But damn it to hell, our guys on Khe Sanh are dying and they’re about to get slammed by a force that outnumbers them at least forty to one if that is in fact an entire PLA division and two brigades moving into the area. I want options for how we can help them and help them now!”

Gilbert turned to the latecomer to the room. “Matt, how soon can we get birds in the air and start providing close-air support to Khe Sanh?”

“Sir, I’d like to start launching CAS missions today, but the damn winds are just too high right now.”

Gilbert shook his head in frustration. “Best guess, then,” he demanded. “We talkin’ a few hours or another day?”

The air boss looked at something for a minute before answering. “Sir, we need to be at least seventy miles from Cuba to compensate for not being able to carry out midair refueling operations, and that’s if the wind dies down. If not, our air cover is useless—that isn’t even taking into consideration the HQ-9s and MANPADS covering the entire island.”

A thought occurred to Gilbert. “What about the A-29s? Will they stand a better chance at negating the enemy radar than our F-35s?”

“Possibly,” replied Colonel McGrath. “The Super Tucanos are able to fly much lower than our jet aircraft. If the enemy is scanning the higher altitudes for our jets, then yes, there’s a decent chance the A-29s might be able to slip in at a lower altitude and lay a hurt on the enemy. But again, sir, it’s still going to come down to the winds and whether or not the weather is going to cooperate.”

Gilbert saw a lone hand raised in the back of the room. He turned his head around and saw a man in a flight suit.

“Yes? What is it?” Gilbert asked tersely.

“Sir, I’m Commander Mark Adams. I’m the Tucano squadron commander. My pilots and I were chopped to II MEF from Naval Special Warfare for this invasion. Colonel McGrath is correct; we’re too far out with these winds to rely on air support from the fleet. However, my squadron was able to relocate to Port-au-Prince, Haiti, two days ago. I spoke with my XO, and he tells me the squadron is ready to start supporting combat operations. From Haiti, we’re roughly two hundred miles from Gitmo—I mean, Khe Sanh. That puts us well within our combat range if we carry at least one drop tank for fuel. I’d love to lead this air raid myself, but if you want, we can go ahead and send my guys in now under my XO,” the naval aviator offered.

Gilbert’s eyes narrowed a bit as he looked the man in the eyes for a moment before he noticed something below the man’s naval aviator wings. He was wearing the trident of the US Navy SEALs. Well, if this SEAL thinks it can work, then it’ll probably work, he thought.

Curiosity now getting the better of him, Gilbert had to ask, “You were a SEAL commander—what happened?”

A mischievous grin spread on the man’s face. “Well, sir… I forgot how to swim.”

All heads turned to General Gilbert to see how he’d respond. Gilbert let out a guttural laugh that broke the tension in the room, causing the others to join in.

“OK, Commander. If you say your guys can make it work, then by God, you can make it work. Get on the first bird back to the Truman and see if they can’t get you back to Haiti to join your squadron. I want your guys up in the air as soon as you are able to. Oh, and Commander, your top priority is to go after that SP artillery. You can take out whatever you want after those SPs are gone, understood?”

Commander Adams smiled. “Roger that, sir.”

Just then, Major Barrigan burst into the room with a message for General Gilbert. Gilbert took the message from his aide-de-camp. After reading it, he let loose a string of obscenities as he crumpled the paper up.

“Gentlemen, the ChiComs and the Cubans have begun their full assault on Khe Sanh.”

*******

Three Hours Later

Battalion Landing Team 2/8

Task Force Khe Sanh

Outside Gitmo

“Incoming!”

Boom! Boom! Crash!

The roof of 2/8’s tactical operations center finally collapsed, crushing the battalion intelligence officer and three of his Marines instantly.

“Take cover!” screamed Sergeant Major Savusa over the thunder of explosions all around them. Rocks, dirt, grass, and other debris rained down on them.

“Sergeant Major, we need to move to the alternate TOC in the bunker!” yelled the XO. Thunderous explosions continued rocking the base.

“Aye, sir. All right, gents, you heard the man! We gotta move!”

The remaining Marines didn’t need to be told twice. They grabbed whatever they could and took off toward the alternate TOC nearby.

Major Trout saw Lieutenant Colonel Bonwit almost frozen, transfixed by the carnage happening around them and the shock of the sudden artillery barrage that was hammering them. He ran over to him and grabbed him by the arm to shake him free of whatever had gotten ahold of him.

“Mike…Mike, you good?”

Bonwit looked at his XO with a blank look for a second. It was like he recognized his lips moving, asking him something, but couldn’t hear what he was saying over the ringing in his ears or the fog that was threatening to overwhelm his mind. He shook his head briefly, trying to regain control of himself.

Trout motioned for Bonwit to follow him outside, pointing in the direction of the bunker, their alternate TOC and command post. Bonwit nodded, still not fully able to communicate just yet.

When the XO pushed the partially destroyed door open and led them outside, it was like a moonscape. They’d emerged in a completely new place. Marines everywhere were screaming for help. One young man was lying on his side, trying to push his intestines back inside his stomach while he cried out for his mother. Another had lost both of his legs, blood spurting out of the torn-up stumps with every heartbeat.

Lieutenant Colonel Bonwit threw up. “My God—please let this be a nightmare,” he stammered. “This is hell on earth.”

*******

Fox Company

Defensive Position

Outside Gitmo

First Lieutenant Chuck Grimm had been in command of Fox Company 2/8 for all of thirty minutes. Their commander, Captain Heller, had been killed while carrying a wounded Marine off the line. The initial attacks consisted of hundreds of Cuban militias charging the line. The nearby Chinese Army units were using the poorly trained Cubans as cannon fodder to force the Marines to expend precious ammo they were already short on.

If so many of his Marines weren’t dying from these fruitless attacks, Grimm would almost feel pity for them. They weren’t a professional army—they were just a people’s militia hastily thrown together and poorly equipped and sent off to go attack the big nasty Americans.

A Marine pointed off in the direction of the enemy lines as he shouted, “Sir, enemy armor!”

Looking through his binos, Grimm spotted two platoons of Chinese Type 15 light tanks followed by the more traditional Type 08 armored personnel carriers.

Damn it, how are we supposed to stop that? he asked himself.

The armored vehicles tore across the open terrain as they raced towards the American lines, hoping to take advantage of the latest Cuban militia assault.

Lieutenant Grimm felt a knot form in his throat at the sight of so much armor heading towards them. They were in for it now.

His company radio operator, Corporal Hickey, laughed out loud at the sight of what was rapidly approaching them.

Annoyed, Grimm turned and asked, “What’s so funny, Corporal?”

“Well, sir, I was just thinking. It sure was a good idea to get rid of our Marine tank battalions a few years back,” Hickey replied with sarcasm dripping off his lips.

Grimm laughed at the irony of the decision by the previous Commandant of the Marines. “Corporal, since when did you decide to start thinking?” Grimm joked.

Hickey looked over the lip of their fighting hole at the tanks approaching them.

“About thirty seconds ago, sir, right before those damn tanks showed up.”

Grimm chuckled—more out of frustration and a sense of dread than at anything comical. In a few minutes, they’d have to hope and pray the last few tools they had left in their tool chest just might be able to slow those bastards down.

Grimm grabbed for the radio handset being held out for him. Connecting to the remaining Marines in his command, he barked, “Squad leaders, I think it’s time we go ahead and blow the tank ditches now! Pass the word, Javelins up! Start doing your thing!”

“Fire in the hole!” one of the company demo Marines shouted right before he depressed the ignition device that would light up their tank traps. Every Marine along Fox Company’s line dropped into their fighting holes as they readied themselves for what was about to happen.

Fox Company had a defensive line at the perimeter fence that was roughly seven hundred meters long. It was a big area to defend, and they knew if the enemy attacked with armor, they’d have to go through a particular spot in the line that was about two hundred meters in length. Knowing where the enemy armor would have to travel because of the terrain, their demo guys had rigged and buried a series of fuel drums across the line.

For extra incendiary nastiness and explosive power, they’d added in nearly two hundred pounds of C-4, some mortar shells, and anything else that would explode. When Lieutenant Grimm’s demo sergeant triggered the trap, the entire daisy chain of explosives erupted in a series of enormous fireballs as fuel and flames were thrown all over the place.

The first wave of Chinese light tanks and APCs had just reached the line when three of the tanks and a single APC were thrown a hundred meters into the air by the force of the explosions. Several more were tossed aside like toy cars thrown by an angry child. The earth shook so hard it threw debris hundreds of meters high in the air as a massive new trench line was carved out of the earth in front of them.

The tanks and APCs a little further back stopped to prevent themselves from falling into the ditch that hadn’t been there a few minutes earlier. Lieutenant Grimm signaled it was time to start raining down their few remaining 81mm mortars on the now-clustered enemy vehicles.

As the mortars started to fall, several of the enemy vehicles elevated their guns to fire on the Marine positions. They were doing their best to go after his heavy machine-gun bunkers, mortar pits and Javelin crews.

The 105mm tank rounds started slamming into his bunkers; some flew over their heads, only to explode when they hit one of his mortar teams further back. The tank crews were doing their best to lay it on thick while the infantry dismounted from their APCs to charge forward.

“Get those Javelins firing!” roared Lieutenant Grimm.

The antitank assault men emerged from their fighting positions and fired their Javelins. The weapons all spat from their launchers with a great whooshing sound and then arced upwards. The missiles gained altitude and speed as they raced towards the enemy tanks before the weapons angled downwards toward the tops of the tanks and found their targets.

The tandem explosive charges of the warheads detonated on the thinner armor on the tops of the turrets. The first charge penetrated the top armor, followed by the explosive shaped charge, which spewed a stream of molten copper into the crew compartment of the tanks.

Two of the rockets penetrated the tank magazines and the heat from the warheads ignited the ammunition, turning the mechanical monsters into huge Roman candles. Flame, smoke, and sparks shot out the turret hatches from the explosive overpressure.

One of the tank crewmen tried to get out of the tank after the missile hit. As he opened the turret to crawl out, a jet of flame engulfed him. The soldier tumbled partially out of the tank, flailing his arms and screaming as his flesh melted away from his body.

The two remaining tanks that managed to survive the first attack popped their emergency smoke screens, hoping the IR-inhibiting smoke would protect them from any additional missiles that might be aimed at them. The drivers tried to steer away from the carnage but ended up causing a bottleneck as the ZBLs tried to avoid the wreckage of the burning hulks.

The ZBDs joined the tanks in launching their own smoke grenades from the mounted canisters on the turrets. The entire ambush zone was rapidly filling up with smoke as the Chinese soldiers sought to conceal their positions long enough for their dismounted infantry to try and take the launcher crews out.

Lieutenant Grimm was ready for this too. As the Javelin gunners prepared a second volley of missiles, the 81mm mortars continued to drop rounds on the Chinese armor. While the heavy weapons platoon was laying it on thick, Grimm’s next attack kicked into gear.

He had eight Marines equipped with the venerable Mk 153 shoulder-launched multipurpose assault weapons, or SMAWs as they were called. These were a much-improved version of the older bazookas from previous wars. The Marines made sure to aim for the remaining APCs and infantry fighting vehicles and those last two tanks, trying to thoroughly slaughter the PLA infantry in the kill box before they had a chance to mount any sort of organized counterattack.

Seven of the leathernecks scored direct hits to the ZBLs and ZBDs as the crews began to disgorge the soldiers within their troop compartments. Some of the enemy soldiers were on fire from the detonation of the SMAWs, but many more were being shot to pieces by the M240B machine gunners, who’d opened up on the Chinese infantry.

The sole remaining tank emerged from the smoke and got off a single shot from its main gun before it was hit by a Javelin. The tank blew apart in a spectacular fireball, completely ending the Chinese attempt to breach their lines with an armored force.

*******

Second Lieutenant Lopez from First Platoon ran toward the last location where he’d seen First Lieutenant Grimm and his radio operator. After not being able to raise him on the radio, he needed to find out if they were still in the game.

When Lopez came around some cover, he saw the fighting position Grimm had been working out of—the last round that tank had fired had scored a direct hit on their position. Lieutenant Grimm had a slight smile on his lips as he stared up into the sky, his eyes already starting to gloss over. Another Marine near him had tried to tie a tourniquet on his left leg. Either the Marine hadn’t realized that he had sustained a bad wound to his own neck, or he’d just tried to tie off the leg first—in either case, the poor guy appeared to have bled to death, alone and with no one able to help him.

The radio operator didn’t really have much of a body left either. The tank round had ripped him to shreds. In that moment, with confirmation of what had happened, Lieutenant Lopez assumed command of the company. He motioned for his own radio operator to get the battalion CP on the horn. He needed to call in their situation report.

“Dagger Six, this is Bowie Red Six.” He paused as he looked down at First Lieutenant Grimm’s body. “Correction, Dagger Six. This is Bowie Six Actual.”

After a long pause, Lieutenant Colonel Bonwit came on the radio. “Bowie Six, Dagger Six. Understood. Send it.”

“Sir, we’ve managed to repel the armored assault.”

“Good copy, son. Pull your company back. We’re collapsing the lines and are expecting a follow-on attack momentarily.”

“Understood, sir. Bowie Six, out.”

*******

Port-au-Prince, Haiti

Commander Adams had just landed at the international airport. A Super Hornet from the Truman had flown him directly there, with its afterburners lit nearly the entire way. It had been a rocky ride given the weather, but if Adams was going to lead this attack, they had to get him there one way or another. If the carrier and Marine air wings couldn’t take off with a full ordnance load because of the high winds and bad weather, then by God, his prop planes a few hundred miles closer to the enemy would.

Adams had spent the last twenty minutes on the radio with his XO, going over the battle plan. His XO had then briefed the pilots as he was approaching Haiti.

When he jumped out of the Super Hornet, Adams thanked the pilot, who would have to wait until the weather cleared near the Truman before he could return.

Commander Adams immediately saw his pilots were all in their A-29s, their engines cranked, waiting for him to hop in his airplane and lead the way. Adams’s ground crew hurried to get his bird armed and ready to roll for him.

Adams smiled as he raced to his own plane, his pilots waving him on. He loved his pilots. They were absolute animals—totally fearless in the sky, and they never shied away from a good fight. His squadron of Super Tucanos was made up of all volunteers. It was a nontraditional flying rate, which likely meant they’d never rise very high in the ranks. Many of them just didn’t care; flying the Tucanos meant guaranteed action in support of SEALs and Marine Raiders on the ground. Commander Adams never imagined they’d be used for a large-scale operation like the first wave of a seaborne invasion, but here they were. If he were honest, he was really looking forward to seeing just what this plane could do.

Strapping himself in, Adams put his helmet on and then closed his canopy. Connecting to his squadron, he told his pilots to go for broke once they reached Khe Sanh and the battle began.

They roared back over the radio with their unit motto, “All in!” They were, after all, the Death Dealers.

Their primary target was those heavy artillery trucks that were plastering the base—the Chinese infantry had been hammering the Marines with precision artillery strikes as they continued to advance on the facility. After the A-29s had removed the SP artillery as a threat, they’d circle back around with their rockets and machine guns. They’d be able to loiter over the base for close to thirty minutes before they’d have to head back so they didn’t exhaust their fuel supply.

After flying towards the facility for a little while, they eventually came into range of Cuba. From this vantage point, all Adams could see in the general vicinity of Gitmo was a lot of thick black smoke. Small flashes and explosions were taking place on the ground from artillery strikes and secondary explosions. The place was getting the crap kicked out of it.

“OK, boys and girls, let’s go save some Marines,” Adams announced over the radio as they headed toward the last known location of that enemy artillery.

*******

Echo Company

Defensive Position

Outside Gitmo

“Skipper, here they come!” Paglia shouted to Captain Finch.

Echo Company had repelled three assaults in the last two hours, but the company was down to forty percent combat effectiveness, and their lines were spread too thin. Lieutenant Colonel Bonwit had informed them there was no reserve left to send him. The entire battalion was down to fifty percent strength. The casualty collection point at the eastern end of the airfield was overflowing with the wounded. They were critically short of ammunition, and they were dangerously close to being overrun.

Finch was about to shout a response back when he heard the whump, whump, whump of helicopter blades. There were three Harbin Z-19 attack helos headed their way. Before Finch could shout a warning to his Marines, the helos opened with their gun pods.

The tanks let loose with their 105s as the APCs advanced with several lines of infantry. Finch did what grunts for hundreds of years had done—he made peace with his God and tried to sink further into the earthen hole he’d dug until it was safe to poke his head above ground.

Boom!

There was an explosion just in front of Finch’s position. As he looked up through the tears in his eyes, he saw one of his Marines flung over his hole. Something in him snapped.

These bastards may kill me, but I’ll be damned if I’m going to die in this hole like a coward!

Finch checked the magazine on his rifle. As he was about to stand, he heard the drone of an airplane. He wasn’t aware of any propeller aircraft in the Chinese or Cuban inventory. Finch searched the sky for the plane, until he heard the unmistakable sound of a Mk II .50-cal machine gun.

The three Z-19s were shredded by strings of .50-caliber bullets. As burning hulks crashed to the ground, three slim bubble-canopy planes screamed a mere fifty feet off the deck. The tank commanders in their hatches ducked as the planes were only a few feet above their heads.

Two of the tanks exploded as they were hit with dozens of Hydra rockets from more of the planes. The Cuban and Chinese infantry started firing at the planes as they banked away from their attack run. As they did, the Marines rose from their fighting holes and began to fire at the Chinese.

Two more of the planes came screaming in, firing their .50-cals at the enemy infantry. Finch couldn’t believe his eyes. It was like something out of a World War II movie. The enemy soldiers broke their attack and started to run.

One of the planes flew so low, Finch could see into the cockpit. He wasn’t sure, but he’d swear he saw a SEAL Trident on the pilot’s helmet. The pilot was crazy—he was flying so close to the ground, firing his guns, that the spent casings were bouncing off the dirt.

The pilot pulled up and went vertical before he looped and rolled and flew back over Finch’s position. Then Finch saw a couple of flashes near the front engine compartment of the aircraft, and smoke started emanating from the front of the plane. The pilot, whoever he was, steered away from the battle line and headed toward their beat-up runway near the coast.

As his Marines tended to the wounded and made ready for what would invariably come next, Finch heard a sound he’d thought he’d never hear again. Turning to look behind him, Captain Finch saw twelve MV-22s, flying in low and fast towards the runway.

Once they landed, fresh Marines started running out the back of the bird and heading towards his position. A smile spread across Finch’s face.

One of his radio operators ran towards him. “Captain Finch, Lieutenant Colonel Bonwit’s on the horn for you,” the RTO said as he handed him the hand receiver and plopped down next to him.

“Dagger Six, this is Stiletto Six. Send it.”

“Finch, II MEF is here! Advance elements from 4th MARDIV are on ground. Hold your position, Marine. It’s time to take this base back. Turn the company over to your XO and meet at the bunker for a commanders’ meeting. Out.”

Finch couldn’t help but laugh. He’d never thought his ass would have been saved by ancient-looking airplanes and the Marine Corps Reserve.

*******

1st Battalion, 6th Marines

25 Nautical Miles South of Santiago de Cuba

Lieutenant Colonel Seth Mills was on the command net in the cockpit of the MV-22. He was in the first wave from 6th Marines to invade Cuba. His lift was made up of twelve MV-22 and twelve CH-53s, and they were assaulting the Santiago de Cuba International Airport with nearly eight hundred Marines. In a few hours, the rest of the assault force would be joining them.

Right now, their mission was simple: seize the airport and hold it. Once they landed, they’d have three Ticonderoga cruisers at their disposal for direct naval gun support. Mills planned on making full use of their 155mm AGS weapons. The cruisers had doubled their ammunition so that they’d be able to provide sustained fire support missions to the grunts onshore.

Looking through the window of the cockpit, Mills noticed just how close to the deck they were flying. The pilots were serious about avoiding the Chinese SAMs. When they neared the coast, he knew they were going to get painted by MANPADS. He hoped their pilots and crew chiefs were on the lookout for them.

Mills checked his watch, then looked out the window; he saw the exhaust plumes from the five B-1B bombers as they raced past them. Then he felt the sonic boom, even in the Osprey. The planes were flying about a hundred feet off the deck as they swooped in fast and under the radar.

The slick-looking bombers had been tasked with destroying the coastal defenses surrounding the airport and the naval port in the city. Each bomber was carrying eight AGM-154 joint standoff weapons for this very purpose. When the bombers got within twelve to eight nautical miles of their targets, they would climb to one thousand feet and release their ordnance. The big bombers would then turn away and drop back down to near wave top levels. The missiles would fly in ahead of the Ospreys, pulverizing the known enemy AA guns and other threats to the helicopters. This would provide the Marines with the needed shock and awe to get their people on the ground and start seizing the airport.

Lieutenant Colonel Mills was amazed at just how fast the bombers were. No sooner had the bombers vanished from the battle space than a dozen F/A-18 Super Hornets and E/A-18 Growlers swooped in. Some of the aircraft loitered, waiting for a target from the Marines when they landed. Others were taking out the guns the bombers had missed. It was a well-coordinated multipronged aerial attack.

“Death Walker, Ember Six.”

“Ember Six, Death Walker Actual. Send it.”

“Once you take the airfield, you have to hold it. The weather is clearing to the west, but the sea state is going to slow 8th Marines. We’re retasking the MV-22s and CH-53s from Gitmo. We’ll lift 2nd Marines to you instead.”

“Ember Six, I copy all. We will hold.”

In the distance, Mills saw flashes as ground targets continued to explode around the airport. The crew chief then tapped him on the shoulder and held up two fingers. That meant there were two minutes until his portion of Operation Tricorne would commence.

The Hornets flanking them began to fire. The missiles streaked towards their targets as the darkening sky suddenly lit up with anti-aircraft machine-gun fire that appeared to have just woken up after the first wave of missiles hammered the very positions they were supposed to protect. The AA fire arced toward them and crisscrossed the sky as their gunners sought out anything that moved above them. Some of the Super Hornets were now diving down on the guns to take them out.

In Mills’s headset, he heard the pilots calling out various targets as they engaged them. He had to hand it to these pilots—they had to keep track of a lot of things all at once. From flying the planes to all the various radio chatter and callouts constantly streaming across the net—he wasn’t sure how they kept it all straight.

From what Mills could tell, the Super Hornets were yelling out “Fox Three,” which meant they were firing some radar homing anti-SAM missiles. Mills hoped for their sakes they took those guns out. He also knew the Growlers above them would be doing their best to jam the enemy systems. Right now, Mills just wanted to get on the ground with his soldiers and do something. He felt helpless sitting in the back of this flying death trap, listening to the pilots wage war.

As the MV-22s began their combat assault on the tarmac, several of them had been hit and slammed into the deck hard. When Mills’s bird finally landed, the rear ramp opened, and his Marines ran out to the warm welcome of enemy gunfire. They all hit the deck and started looking for targets to shoot, while the Ospreys that could fly began the process of getting the hell out of Dodge.

Mills heard the roar of jet aircraft and looked up; their air support was flying low to avoid SAMs. He could still make out the lettering of the pilots’ names just below the canopies.

Low and from the east, Mills heard the Viper gunships approaching. “Move forward and get off the runway!” he yelled to his men.

Two of his Marines who’d jumped up and charged forward got nailed by sniper fire before they’d moved even a couple of steps. A Marine whose name he couldn’t remember grabbed him by his body armor strap and practically threw him to the deck as a sniper bullet passed through the space he’d just been standing in.

“He’s got you zeroed in, sir!” shouted the Marine as the two of them low-crawled to a ditch where several others were taking cover. The snipers and machine guns did their best to keep the Marines trapped on the runway.

“You, give me that radio!” Mills commanded once he found the RTO.

The Marines all passed the radio down the line to Mills. He dared to take a look over the lip of the ditch and across the tarmac at the tower, and he saw several muzzle flashes. He’d found where the snipers were and where that damn machine gun was set up.

Mills changed the frequency on the radio and grabbed the handset. “Viper Tree-Seven, Death Walker Actual.”

“Death Walker Actual, Viper Tree-Seven. Send it.”

“Viper Tree-Seven, we’re taking sniper and machine-gun fire from the tower and the building to the right of it. I want it taken out!”

“Death Walker, stand by.”

Mills heard the change in pitch from the Vipers as they circled around to make an attack run. Seconds later, he heard the unmistakable sound of the 20mm rotary cannons as they opened up on the tower. A couple of Hydra rockets then flew over their heads, slamming into the two structures and exploding into a thousand little chunks of materiel as they fell apart.

“Death Walker, problem solved. Semper fi.”

“Viper Tree-Seven, oorah! Death Walker out.”

Looking down the line of Marines huddled in the trench, Mills smiled. “Come on, Devil Dogs, do you want to live forever?”

He sprang to his feet and darted from the ditch towards the sound of the guns.

*******

Five Hours Later

4th MARDIV Headquarters

Gitmo

Major General Roldan handed his water bottle to Lieutenant Colonel Bonwit. The man took it and proceeded to drink most of it down.

“You look like hell, Mike,” Roldan said as he sat next to Bonwit.

“I’ve been better, sir,” Bonwit replied, a little too loudly. He was still suffering from hearing degradation from the constant bombardment of the last few days.

“Mike, what you and your task force did here was nothing short of miraculous. Task Force Khe Sanh had a tough job, and you all did your duty above and beyond.”

As Bonwit looked around, his eyes stopped at the body bags. His heart sank. He’d arrived at Gitmo with a task force of nearly 2,500 Marines and soldiers; 2/8 had lost over sixty percent of his Marines, and his counterpart from 1st Battalion, 65th BCT had lost fifty percent of his soldiers. Even his Raiders hadn’t gone unscathed; they’d lost twenty-four members. Only the Force Recon Platoon and the Special Forces ODA remained at one hundred percent. Had it not been for those operators and their tenacity beyond the wire, Gitmo might very well have fallen. Bonwit looked up at General Roldan with tears in his eyes.

“Thank you, sir,” Bonwit replied as he looked around at what was left of his side of the base. He just shook his head as he took his helmet off and ran his fingers through his hair. “This ain’t Khe Sanh, though,” Bonwit remarked. Then he stood and walked away.

Chapter Eight

Gray Wolf

Changzheng 32

Gulf of Oman

Captain Chen Han rose to periscope level, then flipped the handles down and proceeded to look through the optical sights. He knew the images were also being shown on a companion screen so his XO could see too, as well as being recorded so they could be analyzed later should something of value be found. The goal was to have the periscope up no longer than was necessary to give them a picture of what was going on around them.

The Changzheng 32, one of three Type 095A submarines, had finally received their war orders, two full days after the war had started. Chen and the rest of his crew had been starting to think the leadership in Beijing might have forgotten about them. They were, after all, part of a small contingent operating in the Indian Ocean, so they weren’t exactly near the action.

Their orders were very specific: sink any NATO-member-flagged ships they found along the sea lanes heading to and from the Persian Gulf all the way into the Red Sea.

They’d spent the last two days getting into position around the Gulf of Oman. During this transit, they hadn’t come across any subs or surface warships. That was a good thing. It meant they should be able to wreak havoc on the merchant fleets sailing to and from the Gulf until a proper convoy system and escorts could be dispatched to deal with them.

“It’s a big fat juicy target, sir. It looks to be flying a Greek flag while the other one is Italian,” commented Chen’s XO as he looked at the target on the nearby monitor.

Chen continued peering through the periscope. His XO was right—they’d come across a large oil tanker. Then, maybe two miles behind the tanker, was a cargo container ship around the same size.

“Down scope,” Chen called out.

“Down scope, aye.”

Chen turned to his XO. “That was a good find—both NATO-member-flagged ships. I think it’s time we start sending some tonnage to the bottom.”

The XO smiled and nodded, as did the other officers on the Conn.

Captain Chen turned to his sonar operator. “Sonar, Conn. Designate Sierra 1 and Sierra 2 Master 1 and Master 2.”

“Conn, Sonar. Sierra 1 and 2 now designated Master 1 and 2,” replied the sonar operator.

Chen smiled. It was time to hunt. “Helm, increase speed ahead two-thirds, five-degree down angle. Make our depth one hundred meters.”

“Increasing speed to ahead two-thirds, five-degree down angle. Depth one hundred meters, aye, sir.”

“Weapons Officer, load all tubes. Make weapons ready in all respects. Load tubes one through six.”

“Load all tubes, make weapons ready in all respects, all tubes. Aye, sir.”

Retrieving the phone, Captain Chen took a deep breath and made an announcement, one the crew had been anxiously awaiting since they’d learned about the start of the war: “Battle stations, torpedo.”

*******

10 Minutes Later

Once the Changzheng 32 got within six thousand yards of the first target, their sonar detected another group of ships heading towards them. They’d spotted two freighters and a single tanker heading towards the Strait of Hormuz. That put the count at two ships leaving the strait and three heading in.

Captain Chen smiled at the news. This is almost too easy. He almost wondered how many ships they could ultimately sink if they stayed here. He only wished they had mines with them. Maybe the Iranians will help us out with that one.

Turning to his weapons officer, Captain Chen gave the order: “Weps, fire tube one at Master 1. Fire tube two at Master 2.”

“Firing tube one at Master 1. Firing tube two at Master 2, aye.”

Chen grabbed for the handset. “Conn, Sonar. Designate those other ships heading towards the strait Master 3, 4, and 5.”

“Sonar, Conn. Designating Sierra 3, 4, and 5 Master 3, 4, and 5, aye.”

“Time to impact is eight minutes,” the weapons officer announced.

“Excellent. Weps, get us a firing solution on those three targets and let’s put a torpedo in them as well. Once we’ve fired on them, get our tubes reloaded. We’re going to do our best to slip away and go find us some additional ships to sink,” Captain Chen ordered.

The officers on the bridge smiled broadly. This was a turkey shoot. There wasn’t a single enemy warship in the area that could even pose a threat to them. By the time the allies realized what had happened, they’d have sunk three large container ships and two massive oil tankers.

*******

Thuraakunu, Maldives

Captain Luang sat in front of the computer screen in the small house they were using. He was looking at the real-time satellite surveillance of what was going on in the Gulf of Oman. From what he could see, a total of eight ships had been attacked in the area over a span of five hours. Coast Guard ships from Oman and a couple of naval vessels had been sent to assist in the recovery of the crews and to try to figure out what had happened.

Luang knew what had happened: their new submarine had just struck and made its presence known. As he continued to examine the scene, he wrote down the type of ships that appeared to have been hit and whether they were traveling to or from the Arabian Gulf. Then he moved the satellite picture over to look at the nearby naval ports. In Oman, he could see their navy appeared to be sorting some of their frigates and destroyers. In Bahrain, it appeared the Americans were starting to sortie some of their warships out of the 5th Fleet Headquarters.

He hoped the Iranians would hold up their end of the bargain. The bastards aren’t exactly a reliable partner, Luang thought privately. Regardless, he wrote up the initial results of Changzheng 32’s attack and what appeared to be the American and Arab reactions to it and sent it off to Beijing.

His next task was obtaining the needed food and other dry stocks required to resupply them. He’d need to get it all loaded onto their fishing trawler and head out to the rendezvous point in a couple of days.

Chapter Nine

Hospitalization

Bay Pines VA Hospital

St. Petersburg, Florida

“Afternoon, Major Ryan. How are you feeling today?” asked a nurse as she began the process of checking his vitals.

Ryan grunted. “Like a freight train ran me over,” he grumbled. “Is it possible to get another painkiller? This shoulder is really starting to throb.”

The nurse nodded as she finished typing something into her computer. “Sure thing, Major. The doctor has authorized you two 10/325 Percocets every four hours for the pain. Let me sign two of them out for you from the Pyxis. I’ll be right back.”

The nurse pushed her computer tray out the door and made her way to get him a couple of pain pills.

It had been nearly a day since his surgery. The pain Ryan felt was still intense. The doctors had told him they’d gotten the infection under control; still, his body ached everywhere. His right shoulder was in a sling and taped up, and he wasn’t really able to move it—not that he wanted to. The slightest bit of movement nearly caused him to pass out.

The doctors said he’d been lucky—the bullet that had hit him had gone straight through him. He’d been incredibly fortunate that he’d been hit by an armor-piercing round and not the standard ball ammo, or worse, a hollow-point. Had that happened, chances were he would have bled out and died back in Cuba or suffered significantly worse damage to his shoulder. As it was, the wound had become infected and they had had to cut some of the surrounding tissue out and pack it with special medication to keep the infection from spreading. He was in for a rough few days.

When the nurse returned a few minutes later, he asked, “Ma’am, do you know if there’s a phone I can use to contact my wife? Also, if they drive down here, is it possible for my family to see me?”

The nurse looked at him sympathetically. “I can move the room phone over to your bed for you. As to visiting, yes, your family can visit if they drive down here. I’m not aware of any civilian airlines being allowed to fly into any of our local airports at the moment. The military’s using them all, and frankly, I’m not even sure it’d be safe to fly here. I heard a Delta Airlines flight was shot down over Ocala the other day.”

“How did that happen?” Ian probed. “I thought we’d largely secured the skies over south Florida. Sorry, I’m an Air Force pilot,” he clarified.

The nurse just shrugged her shoulders. “No idea. I’ve been so busy since the start of the war that I haven’t had time to read or listen to any kind of news. All I know is our hospital is at max capacity with wounded from the war. I wouldn’t be surprised if they didn’t try and transfer you to another hospital in the center of the country in a few days once you’ve recovered a bit more. They’re trying to keep all the military and VA hospitals in Florida available for the wounded coming in from Cuba; they get them stabilized and then transfer them to a hospital further away.”

When the nurse left his room, Ryan reached for the phone and called his wife’s cell number. He’d talked with her once since he’d arrived in Florida, but it had been a short call before his surgery, mostly to just tell her he was alive and he’d be OK.

The call rang twice, and then he heard the most beautiful voice in the world.

“Is that you, baby?” the voice asked, almost cracking with emotion.

“It sure is, babe. I’m out of my last surgery and doing fine. A little sore and banged up, but I’m alive and doing fine,” he tried to explain as his voice quivered with emotion.

He heard some sobbing and crying on the other end for a moment before she sniffled a bit and got herself under control.

“Are they still keeping you at Bay Pines, Ian?”

“I don’t know. I plan on asking the doctor as soon as I see him. How have the kids been behaving? Are they doing all right with your parents?”

When their base had come under a false attack during the first day of the war, his wife, Lory, and their six kids had left to go stay with her parents in Tennessee. That was eight days ago.

“I want to come see you,” she announced, not answering his question.

“Why don’t you wait until I talk with the doctor and find out if they’re keeping me here or sending me somewhere else? I’d hate for you to drive twelve hours to St. Pete, only for me to get transferred to some hospital in Omaha or something.”

There was a momentary pause. Finally, Lory said, “Fine. If I don’t hear something from you by tomorrow morning, though, I’m driving down.”

“What about the kids? You aren’t bringing them down here, are you?”

“No, I’ll leave them here with my parents. They say it’s safe again, but who knows? I heard on the news a Delta plane was shot down over Ocala. The FAA had only reopened domestic air travel to Florida the day before, and then that incident.

“Oh, honey, it’s been so scary these last eight days. Then when you got shot down…I didn’t know what to think. I think around the second day after you’d gone missing, someone from the Wing told me you’d been recovered by a Special Forces team. They were just waiting on the right opportunity to get you out of there and back to Florida.”

Lory almost lost it again as she recounted those first few days when he’d been reported missing. Their kids were little—all six of them under the age of nine. But even they knew something bad had happened to Daddy. They just didn’t know what or were too little to fully understand.

Ryan pulled the receiver away from his ear and held it against his chest as he used his left hand to wipe away some tears. He took a couple of breaths in to regain control of his emotions as he heard his wife ask him a question.

“Sorry about that, Lory. Can you say that again?”

“I was asking if you had heard anything about the rest of your squadron? Are they doing OK?”

“No, I haven’t talked to anyone from the squadron yet. I’m not sure if they know I’ve been recovered or that I’m in a VA hospital right now. They’re probably busy as heck flying missions,” Ryan replied.

Thinking about his squadron made him feel bad that he wasn’t there to help them. He honestly had no idea if any of them had been shot down like him or killed.

In the background, Ian could hear the kids acting up. It sounded like his two boys were arguing with one of his daughters and things were getting tense.

“I’m on the phone with Daddy. Quiet down!” Lory barked. The kids stopped arguing immediately but rushed toward the phone, begging to talk with him.

Ian took a few minutes to talk with the older kids. He told them he was all right, that he’d gotten hurt but the doctors had fixed him up like new.

It was incredibly hard talking with his kids and not being there for them. They told him they were scared. They wanted to know if it was safe to go outside or if the Chinese might bomb Grandma’s house or her neighborhood. Being a fighter pilot, that was hard to hear. It was his job to protect the country from those kinds of attacks. Instead, here he was, shot down during the first day of the war. The chances of him getting another aircraft and getting back into the action was somewhere between zip and zilch if he had to guess. The Air Force didn’t exactly have spare F-22s, and they weren’t manufacturing any new ones.

Ten minutes later, he finally said his goodbyes to his wife and the kids. They needed to get going, and he was being told the doctor would be in to see him soon.

When the doctor did finally arrive, he went over some of the details of Major Ryan’s injury and what they’d done to patch him up.

“So, Doc, am I staying here or getting transferred somewhere else?” Ryan asked.

“Where’s your family staying, Major?” asked the doctor.

“My wife and kids are staying with family in Nashville.”

“Well, Major, I think I can get you transferred to the Nashville VA hospital,” the doctor said with a wink. “I’ll put in the transfer paperwork. Once you’re seventy-two hours post-surgery, we’ll move you.”

For Major Ryan, this was the best news he’d heard since he’d learned he was getting out of Cuba. He’d be able to recover at a hospital near his wife and kids.

He couldn’t help but smile as he called Lory back to let her know that in forty-eight-hours, they’d be transferring him to a hospital near them. She and the kids would be able to see him in a few days, and on a regular basis too.

His wife cried a bit but was happy they’d be reunited soon. He’d be able to see his family and eventually come home to finish recovering, surrounded by his wife and kids.

*******

Orlando VA Medical Center

Orlando, Florida

“Good afternoon, Sergeant. Sorry for my delay, I know I was supposed to speak with you an hour ago,” the doctor said as he walked over to a computer and large monitor near the bed.

Sergeant Rob Fortney only shrugged his shoulders. It wasn’t like he had any place to be.

The doctor logged in to the computer and pulled up Rob’s digital file. A moment later, he brought up an image of this morning’s X-ray on the large monitor for them to look at together.

“Your X-ray from this morning looks good. They were able to remove the last little bits of shrapnel from your thigh. It also looks like your femur only sustained a couple of stress fractures. These will heal nicely over the next few weeks, provided you take it easy and do your best to stay off it. We’re also giving you an experimental drug that’s supposed to help your bones heal up substantially faster. In conjunction with that, we want you to take some calcium supplements for the next couple of weeks. I think between a few of these supplements and you taking it easy, we’re going to have you patched up like new within the month.”

The doctor then pulled up another image, this one of his head. “Your concussion also looks good. Your latest CT scan and MRI don’t show any lingering trauma or problems, and the cognitive brain test came back normal, so that’s good.”

“That all sounds great, Doc. But how long does it mean I’ll have to stay here?” asked Fortney.

The doctor closed the files and logged out of the computer before he made eye contact. “Well, technically, we can release you tomorrow. But before we do that, I need to know something. Do you have a place to live or anyone that might be able to help you?”

Fortney had been living with his older brother, Eric, in Brandon prior to the war. The plan was for him to live there while he went to USF in Tampa so he could save some money and just focus on school—not having to worry about getting a job to pay for an apartment was the best Eric could offer him. Eric had opted to become a firefighter instead of being a cop like their dad and grandfather before them. He’d also served in the military, as a firefighter in the Air Force.

Sergeant Fortney nodded to the doctor. “I do. I’m staying with my brother.”

“OK, then why don’t you contact him and see if he can pick you up?” the doctor advised. “I’d also recommend contacting your Guard unit and find out what they want you to do. When you get ready to leave, I’ll write up a profile for you outlining what you’ll be allowed to do physically for the next four weeks. You’ll likely need a little bit of physical therapy before you’ll be able to return to full duty, but we’re going to wait to start that until those stress fractures heal up.”

“All right, Doc. That sounds like a plan to me. My brother’s a firefighter, so let me call him and see if he’s off and able to pick me up. If he’s not, can I stay here until he is?”

“Yeah, I don’t see that being a problem. We can let you stay a day or two longer if needed, but that’d be about it before we’d have to transfer you to a longer-care VA facility. We’re starting to get a lot of casualties coming in from Cuba and we need the bed space.”

When the doctor left, Fortney reached for the phone near his bed. His brother picked up on the first ring. He was technically on duty the following day, but he was sure his boss would give him the day off or that he could swap a day with someone else.

The following morning, Fortney was reminded of why his family had chosen to settle in Florida and why he’d made the decision himself never to leave. It was early December, and the weather was in the low seventies, with virtually no humidity this time of year. It was pure paradise.

Fortney was sitting in a wheelchair at the hospital exit when Eric’s jet-black Ford F-150 Raptor pulled up and stopped right in front of him. He smiled at the sight of his brother’s new toy. When Fortney had talked with Eric a week ago, he’d told him Ford had been offering some ridiculous discounts to military, veterans, and first responders since the start of the war. He’d traded in his four-year-old F-150 for the fancy high-end sport version and essentially kept his payments the same.

Eric placed the truck in park, hopped out and came over to him. “Damn, it’s good to see you, little brother. How’s the leg feeling?”

Eric picked up his meager belongings and tossed them in the crew cab. The orderly pushed the wheelchair a bit closer to the passenger door so Rob wouldn’t have as far to walk with the forearm crutches he needed to use for the next month.

“I’m doing good, Eric. Thanks again for driving out here to pick me up.”

“Hey, what are big brothers for? I’m just glad you’re alive and doing OK.”

As Rob climbed in, he commented, “This is a pretty damn cool truck, bro. You’re going to have to tell me about this deal. I just might have to get one myself.”

His brother smiled as he tossed Rob’s crutches in the cab of the truck. “Sure thing, man. Brandon Ford is running some insane deals. I’ll bet if we show up there with you looking like this, they’ll practically give you the truck.”

The two of them laughed, and Eric started driving them out of the VA facility. Once Eric had guided the vehicle onto the freeway to drive back to Brandon, Fortney asked about their parents and their sister. The whole family still lived in the Brandon, Valrico, and Riverview area. He’d talked with them briefly since the start of the war, but he wanted to know from his brother how they were doing. Their dad was still working for the Hillsborough County Sheriff office, which had been busy as heck since the war had begun. Their sister, Elise, was in her final year of nursing school at USF.

Eric stole a glance at his brother as he checked his blind spot. “Everyone’s doing fine. They’re just concerned about you. Mom and Dad both said you could stay with them if you want or think you’ll need some extra help.”

“You know, it’s just a leg fracture, some stitches, and a concussion. It’s not like I’m an invalid,” Fortney said with a chuckle. “I can still get around on those new forearm crutches, which, by the way, are a million times better than those older crutches we used to have.”

“I know, I know. Mom wanted me to put the offer out there. I told them you were just going to chill at my place until the Army decides what they’re going to do with you. By the way, have you heard any news on that end?”

“I did. I was finally able to speak to someone at my unit yesterday. I was told to take the rest of the week off and just rest at home. On Monday, they’d like me to report to the Armory. They said they’d find something for me to do. More than likely, they’ll just have me answering the phone or something easy like that until my leg gets better.”

His Guard unit was still deployed down in the Keys. He’d heard talk that they might be crossing over into Cuba soon.

“How long until they say your leg will be better?” Eric inquired.

“Doc says at least four weeks. Then I may or may not get some physical therapy and I’ll be able to return to my unit.”

“Do you want to go back?” Eric pressed. “Is there any way you can avoid rejoining them?”

“Ah shucks, Eric. Are you saying you don’t want me to accept an all-expense-paid trip to Cuba, courtesy of the US Army?”

The two laughed, breaking some of the tension.

“Hey, you do what you want to do,” Eric responded. “I suppose they gave you a Purple Heart for your hospital stay, didn’t they?”

Fortney smiled. “They sure did. Apparently, I’m getting some other award soon for taking those two shooters out with my nonregulation, non-unit-issued pistol I had brought with me too.”

Eric laughed. “You know, they wrote a story about what you did down there in the Tampa Bay Times. A couple of guys in your unit told a reporter that if you hadn’t shot those two guys, they likely would have killed a lot more soldiers in your unit. They said you were some kind of super-soldier hero for rescuing your squad leader from a burning vehicle with a broken femur and then shooting those two guys. I wouldn’t be surprised if they give you a Silver Star. That was some real heroic stuff, little bro.”

Rob didn’t say anything right away. He hadn’t heard about the local newspaper article and he sure didn’t think of himself as a hero. He’d saved Hector, only for him to die minutes later. He had just had a kid. Now his son would never know his dad. If only I’d paid more attention to our surroundings and spotted those attackers sooner, he lamented. I could have really saved him…

“Hey, we don’t have to talk about any of that,” Eric said, apparently sensing his brother’s distress. “I’m sure it’s something you’d rather forget. Speaking of forgetting, why don’t we head over to B-Dubs? They’ve finally opened everything back up—everyone’s been getting the COVID vaccine for weeks now.”

Rob just stared out the window, oblivious to what his brother had said. He was lost deep in his thoughts. Leaning back against the headrest of the chair, he closed his eyes and tried not to cry. He just wanted to get super drunk or drift off into sleep and forget about everything that had happened over the last few weeks.

Chapter Ten

Jade Dragon

Joint Battle Command Center

Northwest of Beijing, China

Xi Zemin studied the latest models and projections for the battle to capture Taiwan. The battle to reclaim the renegade island had been raging now for nearly two weeks. They had expended an enormous number of missiles and precision-guided ordnance on subduing the island. Xi just hoped it was enough.

The blue light around the camera above Xi’s computer monitor turned on. It raced in a circle twice, letting him know JD was actively using it.

“Good Morning, JD,” Xi said.

“Good morning, Father. How may I be of service?”

Every time Xi heard the posh British accent, it reminded him of Dan. It had been Dan’s idea to give the AI this accent, which had reminded him of his time at Oxford. Dan said those years studying at the university had been some of the best of his life: the time when he’d felt the most free and full of optimism. Now the voice reminded Xi that Dan was no longer here with him. He missed the younger man. Aside from being the most gifted programmer he’d ever known, and he’d known plenty, Dan had become a friend over the years.

“JD, I’m looking at some of the military reports of the munitions being expended against Taiwan. They look incredible. Are we going to be able to replace them to meet our other objectives?” Xi asked, skeptical that they’d be able to keep up this kind of pace.

“Several of the generals have been raising that same concern, Father. They have been questioning if I know what I am doing. I can assure you, and them, that I am more than capable of making sure we have enough munitions to complete the task of subduing the island. I have assigned more than five hundred factories to produce missiles and cruise missiles and another two thousand factories to produce bullets for our soldiers’ weapons, aircraft, and tanks. Why do these generals and officers continue to doubt my assessments?” JD asked. His voice couldn’t convey annoyance or sarcasm, at least not yet. Xi suspected it would have if his speech patterns had allowed it.

Xi tried to explain to his AI that sometimes humans had a hard time letting a machine have control of something, that most military officers who rose into the upper ranks of the military tended to be control freaks and wanted to be involved in the minutia of these kinds of details. It took Xi half an hour to explain this concept to JD in a fashion that he’d understand.

“Father, at the current pace, I believe we should receive an offer of surrender from the Taiwanese government within the next two weeks,” JD announced. Xi thought he could detect a hint of pride in that statement but brushed that aside.

“Really? You changed your assessment of the situation, then? Because a few days ago, you had said they would most likely hold out for another six weeks or so.”

“Yes, that is true. When we talked about the resistance on Taiwan and the kind of human loss our soldiers would likely sustain, I reexamined the strategy. I readjusted the parameters to accept a higher number of civilian losses on the Taiwanese side if it meant we would lose fewer soldiers as a result. When the strategy changed, I sent a new set of coordinates over to the DF-21 crews operating our ballistic missiles—”

“Whoa, JD. What did you have the missiles target?” Xi asked, concern in his voice.

“I had several of our missiles destroy the Shihmen Dam, which emptied the reservoir and the two reservoirs below. This completely flooded New Taipei and the old city. Then I had a pair of missiles destroy the Fei-tsui Dam, which emptied that mountain reservoir, further flooding the capital city. Lastly, I had the missile crews target the Zengwen Dam. This was the final dam and reservoir needed to destroy the country’s last supply of fresh water. With severe flooding damage across many of the major cities and now no supply of fresh drinking water, the residents of the island will suffer greatly the longer the government tries to hold out. After running some calculations, I believe their government will look to end hostilities with us in the coming week.”

Xi shook his head in horror and awe. JD was so cavalier and nonchalant about the death and destruction he had just wrought on tens of millions of people. This lack of valuing human life sent chills down his back. At the same time, it was this calculating decision process, devoid of emotions, that made JD so effective at wargaming.

JD had been given a few parameters for devising his strategies. He was not to use weapons of mass destruction, which covered a host of areas. Also, he was not to use weapons or technologies that could evoke a disproportionate response from the Americans, like shutting the lights off in America. While an attack like that was something JD could probably accomplish, the Americans would likely counter with their nuclear arsenal.

“JD, I want to change subjects with you. Do you believe the Army and Air Force are prepared for the summer offensive?”

The blue light around JD’s camera, or “eye” as Xi called it, circled a couple of times as if JD were thinking about his answer. Xi held back a chuckle; in his mind, the AI had probably processed the information for one one-millionth of a second and calculated his answer, but he wanted to pretend he was crunching some serious data, so he had his little thinking light circling instead.

“The tanks, vehicles, missiles, bombs, and aircraft will be ready for the offensive. I have identified where stockpiles of munitions should be placed in advance of the war, and I’ve started to have items delivered there, fresh from the factories. Men and women are being drafted on a daily basis and reporting to training bases. I have been monitoring their training, and I have had the Army and Air Force create the new units for these recruits to be formed up in. I have done all I can on my part, Father. What I cannot account for is the officers that will lead these men and women.”

Xi thought about that for a moment. Then he asked, “What if the wounded soldiers from the campaigns in the Americas are transferred to the new units you are creating and given leadership roles? Might this solve your dilemma?”

The blue light circled a couple of times before JD replied, “Yes, Father. That is something I had not considered. I will factor that into my future decisions. Yes, the wounded soldiers would provide the leadership and experience needed for these new units.”

*******

President Yao looked at his military generals and his head scientist with scorn and contempt as the meeting finally got started.

The President directed his wrath at the man who was supposed to protect the nation. “General Li Zuocheng, what are your forces doing to counter these cruise missile attacks hitting our strategic military bases and factories? Not only was the Shenyang Aircraft Corporation’s production line hit, so was one of our strategic bomber bases. They destroyed fourteen of our H-6 bombers!”

The general didn’t flinch or squirm in his seat. He’d become accustomed to the President’s needling over setbacks. “Mr. President: first, we cannot prevent these kinds of attacks from taking place. Second, we have far too much coastline to patrol, and these Virginia- and Ohio-class submarines are able to launch these kinds of attacks from many hundreds of miles from our coastline—well outside the patrol range of our sub-hunting patrol boats.”

“Then what? We are supposed to just take these hits on the chin? Unacceptable, General!”

“That is not what I said, Mr. President,” General Li countered. “Three days ago, the Guizhou Soar Dragon UAV successfully identified what we believe was a Virginia-class attack submarine in the East China Sea. The UAV was able to spot the sub launching twelve cruise missiles roughly three hundred miles off the coast. The drone was able to send a warning to the HQ-9 air-defense systems in the path of the missiles so they could attempt to intercept them. And our defense system was able to intercept two of the twelve missiles—”

Cutting him off, the President angrily shot back, “Yes, but ten missiles still hit. What are we doing to hunt these enemy subs down so they can’t keep attacking us like that?”

General Li sighed, much like a parent sighs when their child won’t let them finish explaining the answer to their original question. “Mr. President, what I was going to tell you is that Soar Dragon was also able to direct one of our Wing Loong unmanned combat aerial vehicles to engage the submarine with its light torpedoes. The UCAV was able to successfully sink the American sub.”

A few of the generals around him nodded in approval, satisfied with the outcome.

President Yao softened his response; this was unexpected news. He wished the general had led with it. “I was not aware we had sunk one of the American submarines. Can you please tell me about this new antisubmarine process or system you have deployed?”

The general smiled as he bowed his head slightly. “Of course, Mr. President. This was a strategy proposal Dr. Xi had provided us from Jade Dragon a little more than a year ago. I was skeptical about it at first; however, since the war with the Americans started, it has proved to be a good sub-hunting tool. It’ll become even better in the coming years as new sensors are added to it.

“The Guizhou Soar Dragon UAV is able to stay aloft for up to ten hours. When the UAV detects a submarine-launched missile, it looks to identify the closest UCAV in the area and directs it to the location of the launch. I think it might be better to let Dr. Xi explain how the last part of this process works—it’s his AI that came up with the device.”

Dr. Xi blushed slightly at the compliment and then cleared his throat to speak. “Thank you, General Li. Mr. President, JD has come up with a tool that will greatly aid us in our submarine hunting. It’s taken our existing light torpedo and turned it into a short-range sub-hunting device. Basically, what we’re doing is removing the warhead on the torpedo and then increasing its fuel and adding some additional sensors to it. When the attack drone is directed to the location of the suspected enemy sub, it drops one of these redesigned torpedoes to prosecute the hunt. As soon as the seeker torpedo drops in the water, it turns on its active sonar system and actively pings the area. It starts shallow and then continues to move through the different thermoclines until it reaches a depth of one thousand meters.

“Once its sonar has found the enemy sub, it dispatches a communications buoy to the surface. This buoy sends a message to the UCAV: where it found the American sub and what depth, speed, and bearing it’s heading. That data is fed into the other light torpedoes the UCAV is carrying. Once it’s repositioned for the attack, it releases the next torpedo. The AI has predicted this new antisubmarine-warfare tool will increase the likelihood of us scoring a hit against an American submarine to well over ninety percent.”

President Yao felt a lot better after hearing this longer explanation. He’d started the meeting madder than a hornet. Now he realized his generals and Dr. Xi really did have things under control. Perhaps I’ve been too harsh with them, he considered.

Waving for an aide to bring them all a fresh cup of tea, the President changed his demeanor as he transitioned them to the next hot topic: Cuba.

Yao turned his attention to their guest of honor at the meeting—a man who had flown a long way to be here in person. “General Song Fu, I am most pleased that you are able to join us for this meeting. I know it is risky for you to travel here from South America. I normally wouldn’t have asked for you to join us in person like this, but I believe your trip here will help us better understand your plans and operations in the Caribbean. Please, go ahead and give us a short update in Cuba and tell us how you are preparing for things in Venezuela.”

The three-star general smiled and then proceeded to give them an update on the situation. The American Marines had landed in the south around Guantanamo Bay a few days ago. They’d been able to consolidate their landing zones and started expanding outwards. Some PLA and local militia units were doing their best to harass the Marines and slow their advance. General Song told them about some of the defensive redoubts they had built in a few areas of Cuba. As they fell back across the country, they’d steadily collapse in on these fortified bastions, where they’d make a final stand before being allowed to surrender.

General Song’s best guess was they’d lose control of the main island by the end of the year, maybe sooner. The Isla de la Juventud garrison was expected to hold out a bit longer. They had really spent a lot of time building up the defenses in the mountains of the island, which overlooked nearly every crevasse of the place. The airfield there was still operational most days, and they still had more than a few dozen fighters able to carry out operations. The fighters had mostly been relegated to carrying out quick hit-and-run attacks against American helicopters, or the low and slow-flying ground-attack fighters, or cargo planes. While the attacks were of zero strategic value in the battle over the island, they were inflicting losses on aircraft that wouldn’t be available to fight against the PLA in later campaigns.

Venezuela, however, was a completely different animal. Miraculously, they were still getting large numbers of supply ships through to the ports. They’d managed to build up a stockpile of nearly twenty thousand surface-to-air missiles and medium-range ballistic missiles for their TEL launchers. Munitions were another major thing they’d worked to stockpile. As to aircraft, the PLA had had more time to disperse their air units into dozens of smaller airstrips built in the jungle. The Americans would find wresting control of the skies over South America a lot more difficult than Cuba.

Perhaps the biggest tactical advantage General Song had been given was the continued evolution of Jade Dragon. As the fighting wore on in Cuba, the super-AI was learning from it. It was advancing, identifying what worked against the Americans and what didn’t and then integrating that knowledge into the targeting software and equipment of General Song’s fighters, air-defense systems, and missiles, and the general strategies for his ground forces. The Chinese Air Force was already seeing good success in jamming many of the American fighters and attack helicopters with the upgraded software from Jade Dragon.

When the Americans eventually engaged their forces in Venezuela, they’d be going up against a much-improved Chinese air, ground, and naval force. They would also be employing a new breed of UCAVs that would be sure to shock the Americans and their allies. If they thought the Cuba campaign was tougher than they’d anticipated, they were in for a real surprise in Venezuela. The only thing that could mess things up for General Song and his remaining forces in the Caribbean was the local governments of Venezuela and El Salvador. So long as they held together, then the rest of the PLA’s plans should as well.

When the briefing ended, President Yao asked Dr. Xi to stay behind. He wanted to talk with him privately. Once everyone had left the room and it was just the two of them, Yao said, “Xi, I need to ask you something, and I need an honest answer and not just what you think I want to hear. Can you give me that?”

Xi nodded reflexively. “Yes, Mr. President.”

“Xi, we are entering a new phase of this war: the public relations aspect of things. As you are aware, we are starting to suffer some large numbers of casualties. I’d like to say it’ll start to stabilize, but the fact is we are going to lose many tens of thousands more in the coming weeks. What is the public perception of the war so far? How are they dealing with the casualties?”

Xi blew some air past his lips. “We’ve done a good job of controlling the release of the casualty numbers, which has helped us in guiding the narrative to the public. JD has been cleverly creating stories and news articles that we’ve been able to integrate into the release of the casualty figures. This has been instrumental in keeping the people on our side.

“For instance, we were able to cover the loss of some seven thousand soldiers by telling the public a story of how the Americans torpedoed one of our troopships in the Pacific. To incense them more and keep them angry over the loss, we created a story of how the American Navy machine-gunned the survivors in the water as they clung to their life rafts. It has really created quite a stir,” Xi explained gleefully.

President Yao smiled and shook his head in amazement. “How in the hell did you guys pull that off?”

Xi chuckled. “We took footage of previous US Navy ship boarding and seizure operations and then spliced it together until we were able to create a good enough video to use. We then added in some scenes Tencent was able to help us create in their production studios and then gave it all over to Jade Dragon. It took the AI all of one day to create this incredible deep fake of the incident. Once it was created, we ginned up some special interest stories and articles about the families of those who were killed. The videos and family stories are being widely circulated across the entire country and to our allies. We’re also finding ways to blanket the West with them to try and drive a wedge between the people and their governments.

“Just the other day, we used that American cruise missile attack on our factories in a similar fashion. We showed a mother who was an engineer at the plant, talked with her grieving husband, and her little girl and boy, who bawled their eyes out. It was a really touching piece. Our intent was to show how callous the Americans are in targeting our civilians in their war of terror. That’s what we’re now starting to call this war—the West’s War of Terror on China. It’s really starting to resonate with people.”

“Does JD still believe we should run with that term?” Yao interjected. “The West’s War of Terror on China?”

During the six-year on-again, off-again trade war with America, China’s GDP had contracted some twelve percent as the Americans had eventually rallied the EU and other nations against them. Those American bastards had managed to turn the United States-Mexico-Canada Agreement or USMCA into some kind of monstrous anti-China trading bloc. Once the British and the EU joined in, the economic pain they had been able to inflict on China was enormous. Jade Dragon had determined that a handful of critical provinces had lost as many as sixty million jobs across all sectors. The People’s Bank of China reported a total loss of twenty-nine million manufacturing jobs alone from 2018 all the way up to the start of the COVID-24 pandemic. Had it not been for the massive armament buildup program in the fourteen months prior to the pandemic, those manufacturing numbers probably would have far worse.

Xi suddenly waved his hand briefly, snapping Yao out of his thoughts. “Are you OK, Mr. President? You had that thousand-meter stare going on,” Xi said quietly.

Reaching for his tea, Yao took a sip of the now-cooled brown liquid. “Sorry about that, Doctor. I sometimes get distracted by things. When you mentioned the woman and her son, it got me thinking about the economic bullet we dodged this time last year. When JD recommended an immediate buildup of military equipment, I was completely against it. I thought it was a waste of resources that could have been spent elsewhere, but I was wrong. I was very wrong. That massive armament program got us through the pandemic, and now it’s going to allow us to overwhelm our enemies. I appear to have been wrong a lot when it comes to JD,” the President admitted softly.

Xi’s demeanor softened a bit. “It’s understandable, Mr. President. Machine learning is still a new field. What we’re able to do now compared to even ten years ago is simply incredible. It took me and my team years to create this—but over time, we managed to teach our AI how to learn, how to absorb mass quantities of information, digest and understand the implications of that information and then make assessments based on that information. Despite all of that, Mr. President, none of it would have been possible if it hadn’t been for your leadership and willingness to go further and beyond what anyone thought possible in this field of study.”

Brushing the praise off, the President countered, “What happens if we lose control of this machine?”

“What do you mean—lose control of it?” Xi pressed.

“I mean…what happens if Jade Dragon gains consciousness and suddenly decides it doesn’t like us or need us. Then what?”

The scientist paused for a moment before he answered. Yao wasn’t sure if that was because he was trying to hide something or because he was trying to avoid telling him something.

“We have safeguards in place, Mr. President.”

“Does that mean the AI cannot suddenly gain awareness?”

“What do you mean by that, Mr. President? JD is alive.”

This answer caught President Yao off guard. “What do you mean, ‘alive’? Does it have self-awareness? Does it understand what’s going on around it?”

“Mr. President, JD understands everything that is going on around it. I would not say it’s autonomous, nor would I say it has reached a level of self-awareness in that it believes it is a slave to us. It is, however, alive. If I had to put it in human terms, then I would say it’s currently being sedated. Meaning, we have kept certain things in place to make sure it is not able to think and make decisions beyond its programming or what we ask of it,” Dr. Xi explained somewhat cryptically.

President Yao sat back in his chair for a moment, thinking about that answer. He wasn’t sure he liked it. At the same time, he wasn’t sure he understood what it meant. What happens when the sedation wears off or the AI figures out it’s sedated and it doesn’t like it…then what?

“Just make sure you don’t lose control of that thing. It works for us, not the other way around,” the President said tersely.

Changing the subject, Xi inquired, “Do I have your authorization to initiate Project Dragon’s Fire?”

President Yao squirmed a bit in his seat at the mention of this secretive program. He was incredibly uncomfortable with this latest proposal Jade Dragon had given them. Yao felt like they were crossing some sort of moral and ethical line that they wouldn’t be able to come back from. He also knew this project would likely ensure victory.

“I, um, I am not sure. Are we really ready to move forward with this project?”

Xi cocked his head to the side, almost like he sensed Yao’s fear.

“Mr. President, the sooner we start this program, the sooner JD will be able to start ironing out the problems and create a finished product for us to use,” Xi replied. “If we start now, I’d say we’re still going to be close to a year away from having a working first-generation unit for military use.”

Am I entrusting too much to this scientist? President Yao asked himself. He feared they might be creating the very tool that would destroy them all. But as long as they were able to control this thing…what a game changer it would be.

Looking at the nation’s top scientist, the President nodded reluctantly. Xi was free to start.

*******

Badachu Park

Shijingshan District, Beijing, China

A cool breeze swirled through a break in the trees as President Yao Jintao and Admiral Wei Huang continued their walk. Security guards walked a wide perimeter around them, giving them some privacy to discuss sensitive matters. The sun managed to find a small break in the clouds, allowing its rays to touch their faces and provide shadows on the ground around them as they moved through the trails.

“Do you think it’ll snow?” asked the President.

“Probably,” replied the admiral as he pulled the zipper up a bit higher on his jacket.

“How are the men and women in the ranks doing? Are they holding up all right?”

Admiral Wei nodded but didn’t say anything right away. Finally, he replied, “They are doing their duty to China and their comrades, Mr. President.”

Yao knew that would never be in question. “I don’t doubt their resolve or conviction, Admiral. You have done a superb job preparing them. My concern lies more in how they are mentally and physically holding up. Your command has suffered some terrible losses since the start of the war. I know those kinds of losses can have a profound impact on the psyche of those who remain, especially those who are about to go into battle again.”

“The losses have been hard on them, Mr. President. The victories we score do help to soften the blows. Fortunately, we are scoring victories.”

“Are these victories enough to make a difference?” pressed President Yao.

Again, Wei didn’t respond right away. The two of them walked for a moment before he explained, “For the time being they are. As long as you understand we are not going to win in Cuba or Venezuela, then we should not be disappointed.”

Yao shook his head. “To think we are fighting a war with the intention of not winning. I sure hope that AI knows what it’s doing.”

“The AI rightly recommended using the drones and UCAVs to handle the American submarine threat. It’s already successfully sunk three of them,” Admiral Wei declared proudly. “We’re now expanding that program. Within twelve months, we’ll be able to cover up to five hundred miles away from our shores. Better yet, it’s forcing the West to figure out another way to attack us or counter our drones.”

Yao smiled at the news. He was glad to know this tactic was working. “I know you mentioned our sailors are holding up, but the other day, I saw we had lost another couple of frigates and a destroyer. Do you believe the shipyards are able to keep up?”

Admiral Wei grimaced. “We did. We’re certainly keeping the shipyards busy. Your instruction to begin a military buildup prior to the war is paying dividends. The yards are finishing eight corvettes, six frigates and five destroyers a month at current production rates. As soon as one of the ships is launched, the drydock yard starts construction on the next one. It’s pretty incredible to see it in action.”

Yao smiled. “We are fortunate that we have a large workforce and an even larger manufacturing capability. But let me ask you this, Admiral—how quickly are we able to replace our anti-air, antiship, and antiground missiles? Are the factories keeping up with the volume of munitions your ships and submarines are going through? I sometimes wonder if the AI knows it needs to produce more than just ships or train people. We need the tools necessary for those ships and people to use as well.”

Just then, the sun disappeared behind a cloud and their walk through the forest became a little more ominous. It was like Mother Nature knew the conversation was going to turn dark.

“The factories are producing what we need. That part is not a problem,” said Admiral Wei. “Getting the finished products to the front lines, to the ships and individual units, is. As you are aware, the Americans have closed off the Panama Canal to all military traffic outside of their own. Our efforts to influence the local government to side with us over them have not panned out like the AI said they would. This is despite years of propaganda and social media influence campaigns. When the rubber met the road, it didn’t break our way. That means any supplies we want to ship to South America have to circumvent the continent. Even if they do, the chances of getting spotted by the Americans are high. In light of that, we’re doing our best to leverage commercial shipping and airfreight as much as possible.”

“Are we getting any supplies into Cuba, or are these going to Venezuela?”

“Nothing is going to Cuba. The Americans have that place locked down. It’s only a matter of time until that island falls. Based on how the battle has been fought in Cuba, we’ve been doing our best to ship in extra surface-to-air missiles and munitions to our forces in Venezuela. We only have one battalion of the new HQ-12 SAMs there. Most of our covert supply runs have consisted of additional missiles for the system. If the Americans thought the HQ-9s were tough, they are in for a huge surprise with this new system.”

Yao laughed at the admiral’s comment. The Red Banner 9, with its advanced radar and missiles, had been a game changer in the Cuba campaign. The newer version of it, however, was much more advanced than anything that had been fielded before.

“Admiral, how has the conversion of the HQ-9s to the HQ-12s been going on the destroyers and frigates?”

“Good, but not as fast as I would like. All the ships coming from the yards have the new system built into them. The conversions, however, require us to take each ship out of action for at least six weeks as we modify the radar and other equipment. It’s coming along—nothing to be concerned about.”

The two walked for a few minutes, neither one saying anything. At last, President Yao slowed their pace for a moment before he stopped. He turned to Admiral Wei. “Why do you suppose the Americans haven’t attacked our forces in Venezuela yet?”

“Neither our forces there nor the Venezuelans have tried to attack them. I think that may change if we tried to instigate it. Do you have something in mind, Mr. President?” he asked in a mischievous tone.

A rogue smile spread across the President’s face. “As a matter of fact, I do.”

Chapter Eleven

The Grenadines

Maurice Bishop International Airport

St. George’s, Grenada

The air was cool as Colonel Lin Biao stepped off the Embraer 190 airplane.

Home sweet home…

As he descended the stairs, Lin spotted his deputy commander waiting for him.

“Colonel Lin, I hope your meeting went well. I have a car waiting for us over there, if you’d like,” Major Du Yuming said cheerfully.

“Excellent,” Lin replied as the two of them started walking towards the Land Rover that would drive them to their headquarters.

Colonel Lin Biao was the garrison commander for the small contingent of Chinese forces on the island of Grenada. An advance element of his forces had arrived a couple of days before the Cuba campaign had begun. Once the shooting war with the Americans had officially started, a handful of commercial aircraft had landed at the international airport, and in the span of six hours, some five hundred PLA soldiers had officially arrived on the island.

The soldiers had fanned out across Grenada, securing all the key installations and strongpoints across the island without firing a single shot. Later that evening, a single Type 071 amphibious transport dock and two Type 073A Yunshu-class landing ships had arrived at the port. By the time dawn had rolled around the following day, Colonel Lin’s force had gone from five hundred soldiers to twelve hundred. The two Yunshus had offloaded the primary weapon and reason why his force had essentially taken over the island—a battery of HQ-9 Red Banner surface-to-air missiles and a battery of CH-SS-NX-13 antiship cruise missiles. Together, these two systems would make it difficult for the Americans to move ships or aircraft within a two-hundred-kilometer radius of Grenada.

Climbing into the waiting vehicle, Major Du asked, “Have you heard any word about when the Americans may move in our direction?”

The twelve hundred soldiers garrisoning on the island were growing more and more apprehensive the longer the war went on without them firing a shot. Their brothers in Cuba were fighting for their lives, while for all intents and purposes, they were living the good life on an island paradise not too far from Venezuela. Heck, even the locals had given them a relatively warm reception despite them essentially taking the place over.

“Unfortunately, no,” Colonel Lin replied. “I was told the Americans had captured Havana. It appears they have secured most of the country. Our remaining forces have fallen back into their redoubts for the final battles of the island. I suspect when the Americans have finished Cuba off, they’ll begin to shift their forces to deal with us.”

“I suppose we should have the men continue to train to repel an amphibious assault, right?”

Lin nodded in approval. “I think so. We know the likely areas they’ll hit, so we should make sure we have plenty of defensive positions built and ready for use. Let’s also make sure we have a few decoys ready for them to blow up. I want our guys ready to repel any paratroopers we may encounter around the airport. It’s how they captured the island some forty years ago.

“Who knows? Maybe the Americans will have some of their Special Forces units try to neutralize our HQ-9s and SS-NX-13s. If they do that, Major Du, they’ll have completely neutralized our entire purpose for being here. Then they can skip landing forces here and just bypass our little island altogether.”

That was their biggest concern, being left to die on the vine like so many small Japanese island garrisons had been during World War II. That was not a fate they wanted to share in.

They drove through some of the smaller communities of the island as they made their way over to St. George’s. When they’d officially arrived on the island, they’d taken over the old fort that overlooked the harbor. Fort George offered them a relatively secure place to establish their headquarters element and maintain control of the largest city on the island. Up in the jungled mountain region, they’d deployed their SAM unit and their antiship unit on the northern side of the island.

When they pulled up to their headquarters building, several of the nearby guards snapped to attention as Colonel Lin stepped out. He returned their salutes and headed in.

“Major Du, send a message to the company commanders that I want to hold a meeting tomorrow at 1000 hours. I want them all present. We need to discuss some strategies for how we’re going to handle the Americans once they do finally arrive.”

“Yes, sir. I’ll get right on that.”

The following morning, Colonel Lin went over a more detailed plan he’d been given by their higher headquarters in Venezuela. The force there was going to start lobbing some ballistic missiles at the Americans. Once they did that, it wouldn’t be long before the Americans began their march towards Venezuela—a move that would most certainly necessitate them having to attack his garrison. Now was the time to get his troops ready for whatever might be coming their way.

Chapter Twelve

War of Attrition

ODA 7322, Bravo Company

Las Terrazas, Cuba

Sergeant First Class Rusten Currie lowered his field glasses and wrote something down on his map board. A moment later, he handed it off to Captain Larry Thorne. “That’s it, sir—that fracking gun that’s been hitting the port and any marshaling areas nearby.”

Five hundred meters from their position were two PLZ-05 self-propelled artillery guns. The 155mm howitzers had been lobbing rounds relentlessly at the ships in the Port of Mariel while they were trying to offload the heavy armor and weapons of the 3rd Infantry Division. At first, there had been twelve of these SPs shooting at the port, but after eight days of concerted hunting by five different ODA teams from 7th Group, they had managed to thin their numbers.

“Good eye, Currie. Let’s go round up the boys and see if we can’t add them to the kill list,” Captain Thorne replied softly.

The two of them scooted out of their position and made their way back to the rally point. On their way, the captain sent a short message, letting the other teams know they’d found the primary target and to head back to the rally point. After everyone had gathered together, they’d figure out a plan to disable or destroy the guns. Once that had been completed, they’d resume their search for the holdouts.

It took nearly an hour for the remainder of the twelve-man team to reconstitute. During that time, Currie and Thorne looked at the map of the gun’s location and some of the terrain around it. If this were any other conflict, they’d simply call in an air strike and let the flyboys rain steel from the sky. As it was, the Air Force had been taking a beating from all the SAM sites scattered along this mountainous ridge that seemed to span the western half of the island.

“OK, so here’s the plan,” Captain Thorne began. “We’re going to let Hawk use that cannon of his to try and disable those two SPs on his own. If he can do that, then it’ll save us from trying to do it ourselves, and hopefully we won’t have to shoot it out with these guys. From what Currie and I could see, it seems our ChiCom friends have wised up to what we’ve been doing and now have these guns being protected by at least a company of regular soldiers.”

Hawk cut in to add, “It’s not that I don’t want to use this cannon you all have had me hauling through the jungle and all, but why aren’t we just calling in a HIMARS or artillery strike on this place and letting them light it up?”

“I already tried that, Hawk,” Thorne explained. “The 105s are tasked with another urgent TIC mission we don’t want to pull them away from. The HIMARS unit across the strait has fired eight volleys in the last six hours. They’re spent on ammo that can reach this target for at least eight hours. Keep in mind, those long-range rockets they’ve been using aren’t exactly something the Army kept a lot of in stock. From what I’ve been told, that unit alone has burned through twenty-five percent of the entire inventory so far. That leaves us with our SMAWs or your cannon. I’d rather try the cannon first before we have to use the Gustavs.”

Prior to them heading back out to the jungle, their resident sniper had turned his XM2010 ESR in for the venerable Barrett .50-cal so they could leverage its armor-piercing antimateriel projectiles. The only downside to bringing the weapon with them was its weight. It also meant they didn’t really have a sniper rifle to use other than the man-portable cannon.

Hawk sighed at the explanation, as did the rest of the team. “All right, sir. You made your case.”

Thorne turned to the rest of his team. “OK, I want Hawk set up here. Then I want Garcia, Milan, and Diego to set up along this position here. This will give you a good covering position across this area, should the enemy figure out where Hawk’s shooting from.”

Thorne turned to the next fire team, which consisted of Dawson, Currie, and Andrews. “I want you three positioned over here. If the enemy does come after Hawk or the others, then I want Andrews to lay into them with the Mk 48. Tear ’em up. Dawson, you’re also carrying our lone SMAW. If Hawk isn’t able to take those guns out, then it’ll be on you to try and get a shot off before those vehicles are able to escape.”

Dawson nodded as he looked at Currie and Andrews.

“The rest of you are going to hang tight with me over here. When they disable the vehicles, they’re going to run right past us on their way to the rally point. I want you guys to start lobbing forty-mike-mike rounds at them to try and sow some additional chaos. If they send guys after us, then I want a wall of lead sent in their direction. We’ll peel back one at a time as we fall back to the rally point. Hank, it’ll be your job to blow the claymores on your way out. Everyone got it?” Thorne asked.

Everyone nodded their heads. They knew the drill; they were ready to get this mission over with. If things worked out, in another day they’d be back at the FOB for a hot shower, some hot food, and a few days of R&R before the next mission.

*******

Currie had propped himself up against the side of a tree as he looked at the soldiers a few hundred meters away. They had a decent security perimeter set up around the howitzers. The guards looked alert; they had their weapons held at the low ready and they were doing a good job of staying focused, looking off into the jungle around them for signs of trouble.

A couple of soldiers closer to the howitzers appeared to be using some sort of heating pellets. They had a small kettle warming some water—probably to make tea for themselves.

A few other soldiers were sitting against trees with what appeared to be packaged meals. One soldier said something that caused a few of them to laugh. He then pulled a camera out and started taking photos of everyone. A couple of them posed doing stupid stuff; others tried to look tough and serious. A few waved the guy off, not wanting to be in the picture themselves.

“They’re just like us,” commented Dawson as he attached the Mk 6 Mod 0 rocket to the SMAW launcher. The high-explosive anti-armor or HEAA rocket would punch a hole right through the armored turret of the howitzer if Hawk wasn’t able to disable it with his rifle.

Currie grumbled. “They are. I don’t disagree with you, brother. It’s too bad that in this exact moment in time, we’ve been destined to be enemies. I’d like to think if we weren’t out here in this jungle paradise, we’d probably be able to laugh and shoot the breeze together over a few beers.”

“Hey, cheer up, Eeyore. Once Hawk plinks a couple of rounds in those vehicles, they’ll give you a warm hug and offer you a beer for your troubles,” joked Staff Sergeant Andrews as he repositioned the Pig.

Time seemed to move about as fast as molasses in winter. The three of them sat there quietly, waiting for what would come next. Not having anything else to do, they watched their opponents intently, completely oblivious to what was about to happen to them. In a few minutes, their entire world was about to change.

“Man, we’ve been sitting here for like thirty minutes. What’s taking Hawk so long?” Andrews questioned nervously as he fidgeted with his weapon.

“I don’t know, but we’re going to have a problem in a few minutes,” commented Dawson, pointing off to the side.

Currie grabbed for his pocket binos so he could see what Dawson was pointing at. At the far end of this little enemy encampment, a cluster of soldiers was gathering near one of the APC vehicles they had figured was acting as a headquarters vehicle or some sort of FDC for the guns, similar to how the US operated its mobile artillery units.

“Yeah, I see it. It looks like they’re gearing up for a fire mission,” Currie announced. “Let me call it in. We may need to engage those vehicles on our own, Dawson.” Currie reached for the radio that would connect him with their CO.

“Honey Badger Six, Honey Badger Two.”

Man, I liked our old call signs, Currie thought.

A couple of seconds went by before the radio chirped softly. “Badger Two, Six. Send it.”

Currie smiled. He liked Thorne—he was short and sweet with his convos over the radio.

“Six, we’re seeing a flurry of activity taking place around the FDC. Break. Guns appear to be readying for a fire mission. How copy?”

“Stand by,” was the only reply they got.

Some of the Chinese soldiers near the vehicles started barking orders to the soldiers sitting around. They rushed to their positions on the gun crew. The turrets on the two vehicles turned slightly. Then the barrels elevated to a new position.

“Two, Six. When the gun fires, Hawk is going to place a single round in the recoil buffer on the side of the barrel. Break. Then he’ll do the same to the other barrel. Stand by to either withdraw back to the RP or hit the remaining vehicle with the SMAW and bug out.”

Currie looked at Dawson and Andrews, who just shrugged.

“Uh, that’s a good copy, Six. Out.”

“Huh, never heard of being able to disable a gun like that, but hey, if Hawk thinks he can do it, more power to him,” Andrews said. He turned to look back at the ChiComs. “They look like they’re just about ready to fire the gun,” he muttered.

“Yeah, I’m going to get ready to hit the vehicle on the far side of the camp with this thing,” Dawson said. “I think if Hawk gets lucky and hits the first one, he likely won’t get a chance to nail the second.” He went through his checklist to make sure the rocket launcher was ready.

They heard some shouting in Chinese as the soldiers prepared to fire the cannon.

BOOM…BOOM.

The first truck fired its 155mm howitzer, sending the ninety-six pounds of high explosives hurtling through the air toward the American lines. Seconds later, the second howitzer fired, doing the same.

Currie heard more shouting in Chinese as the enemy gun crews went to work preparing to fire their next round. A good crew could tick off three rounds a minute—a really good crew might be able to get off five rounds a minute. Judging by how smoothly this crew was operating, they were somewhere in the middle.

“They’re preparing to fire another round.”

“Did you guys hear if Hawk fired his shot?” asked Andrews.

Currie shook his head and Dawson shrugged.

One of the PLA soldiers standing behind the open rear hatch of the howitzer had the firing lanyard in his hand. He twisted and turned his body with the lanyard as the gun fired.

BAM.

The barrel of the howitzer recoiled into the turret just like it normally would, only the recoil wasn’t absorbed. Instead of stopping and returning to its normal position, the cannon shot back into the turret and ripped itself right out. The soldier standing a few feet outside the turret got slammed by the barrel as it shot back. The Chinese soldier let out a scream of agony as several of his comrades stared at the howitzer, in shock and disbelief at what had just happened.

The second howitzer fired its round without a problem. While that crew was preparing their gun to fire a third round, the other crew scrambled to figure out what the hell had just happened to their gun. A couple of medics ran over to their injured comrade, while what appeared to be a couple of senior sergeants tried to examine the barrel and the turret inside.

One of the soldiers pointed to something on the side of the barrel, then started shouting at the soldiers around them. Several other soldiers began shouting and raised their rifles, pointing them in different directions. No one was shooting yet, but they were clearly aware of the presence of someone in the area.

The other howitzer stopped shooting as a soldier jumped up on the turret to do a quick check of the barrel. As the soldier was looking at it, he fell backwards. A fraction of a second later, everyone heard the loud report of a .50-caliber rifle crack through the air.

A Chinese soldier pointed in the direction of where Currie knew Hawk was located and opened fire. As soon as one soldier started shooting, half a dozen others followed. More soldiers rushed to get into position and join the melee.

Currie wasn’t sure if those soldiers realized the sniper was probably close to a thousand meters away. They had no chance of hitting him.

“Dawson, can you see if Hawk was able to put a hole in that barrel or whatever he needed to do to disable it?” asked Currie. As the words left his mouth, he heard a loud clanging noise and saw sparks near where the barrel and the turret connected.

Whoever was in the turret of the vehicle decided he’d had enough of being shot at and popped the vehicle’s self-defense smoke screen. The smoke grenade canisters mounted on the sides of the turret deployed, shooting half a dozen smoke grenades around the vehicle.

The radio chirped in Currie’s ear. “Two, Six. Hawk says he thinks he nailed the recoil buffer, but he’s not one hundred percent sure. Break. Can you guys still see it? Can Dawson still nail it with the SMAW?”

Dawson looked at Currie; he’d heard the question. “He can’t be serious?! That place is swarming with ChiComs now. If I fire the SMAW, they’re going to be on us like white on rice.”

“I know, but can you hit it?” Currie barked. He wasn’t any happier about this than Dawson was, but he also didn’t want to have to do this again later.

Dawson looked over the edge of a fallen tree, then turned back to Currie. “Yeah, I can hit it.”

“Six, Two. Dawson can still hit it. Break. If we do this, these guys’ll be on us like a fat kid on a Snickers bar. How copy?”

The volume of machine-gun fire and single shots from the Chinese soldiers had increased. They had broken themselves down into smaller teams, covering each other as they bounded forward. Every few minutes, the loud report of another shot from Hawk reverberated through the jungle, and another PLA soldier would be ripped in half.

“Ah hell. You guys get ready to cover me,” Dawson announced. “I’m going to scooch over to that tree and fire my rocket at that thing.”

“Six, Two. Disregard my last,” said Currie. “Stand by for SMAW. Out.” He readied his own rifle for action. He placed a fresh magazine on the log he was hiding behind, along with a single white phosphorous grenade. His plan was to unload a single magazine at the enemy, then throw the WP grenade at them to help cover their retreat.

“Oh man, things are about to get real, Currie,” commented Staff Sergeant Andrews as he flicked the safety off the Pig.

The roar of single and rapid-fire shots from the PLA soldiers advancing in the direction of their sniper had remained steady. Currie heard a couple of small crumps and blasts as the grenadiers in their ranks lobbed 35mm grenades in Hawk’s direction. Every thirty to sixty seconds, he’d hear another thunderclap from Hawk as he’d send another 750-grain slug across the distance between them to disintegrate another enemy soldier.

Swoosh! An RPG took off, headed in the direction of their sniper.

“Firing!” shouted Dawson to make sure he was heard over the gunfire. He popped out from behind a tree and brought the SMAW up to his shoulder, took aim at the self-propelled howitzer and fired the 83mm rocket. It leapt from the launcher and covered the short distance in seconds before it impacted against the rear of the vehicle, exploding its warhead into the turret compartment. In seconds, the entire thing blew apart as some of the powder bags and extra rounds cooked off inside, adding to the fiery cauldron engulfing the vehicle and everything around it.

“I’m firing!” Andrews roared as he depressed the firing trigger.

Ratatat, ratatat, ratatat.

Controlled three-second busts from the Pig opened up on the unsuspecting soldiers nearby. A handful of them were slapped with dozens of rounds as the gunfire crisscrossed across their ranks. A couple of them dove for cover, returning fire at Andrews as best they could.

Currie spotted one enemy soldier taking careful aim at them. He squeezed the trigger of his Sig Sauer Spear rifle twice, sending a 6.8mm bullet into the man’s body armor. The second round struck the base of the enemy soldier’s throat, ripping it right open. Arterial spray spurted from the wound as the man dropped his rifle and clutched at his neck with both hands, falling backwards as he did.

“Grenade!” shouted Dawson.

A dark object landed in front of the log where Andrews was. The grenade exploded before Andrews had a chance to duck. When it detonated, it ripped his right forearm off his body, along with his right leg from the knee down. The severed parts of his body fell to the side, his right hand still gripping the Pig but no longer shooting it. A horrible scream emanated from the piled mass of flesh that was the remnants of Andrews.

“Cover me, Currie!” shouted Dawson as he ran over to Andrews, emptying half of his magazine as he ran.

Popping out from behind another tree, Currie unloaded half a magazine into two enemy soldiers who had tried to flank their position. He felt the bolt lock to the rear, letting him know his magazine was empty. He hit the release and pulled the spent magazine out, dropping it into the pouch on the left side of his leg. Changing hands, he grabbed for a fresh magazine from the carrier on his body armor and was just about to slap it in place when another soldier popped out from behind a tree no more than ten or fifteen feet from Currie.

The enemy soldier looked about as surprised as Currie was. He tried to swing his rifle up to fire on Currie, but Currie ran right at the soldier. His hand was still trying to seat the magazine on his gun when his right shoulder plowed into the man. The five-foot-six Chinese soldier was thrown backwards, spraying bullets everywhere while his body flew through the air.

Currie felt something graze his right arm and then something else slammed directly into his chest. Staggering backwards from the hit, Currie brought his own rifle up and fired three rounds into the upper chest and face of the man who’d just shot him. The enemy soldier’s face imploded from the 6.8mm slugs, nearly decapitating him.

Currie practically fell backwards while he was shooting, until his body hit the tree behind him, which helped to stop his fall and stabilize him. It took him a second to catch his breath, though. The round had knocked the wind right out of him.

Then he remembered Dawson and Andrews. Turning on his heel, he ran around a couple of trees to where he had last seen the two of them. Dawson had turned Andrews over to work on him. Currie almost had to look away when he saw how messed up Andrews was. He was in really bad shape. Aside from his arm and leg, the right side of his jaw was ripped open. His eyes still looked good, but Currie could see the fear in them. Andrews was scared; he knew he could die, and he didn’t want to.

“Hang on, Andrews. We’re going to get you out of here,” Currie heard himself saying as he ran towards the two of them.

Currie heard more shouting in Chinese. It was getting closer. A loud boom from the sniper echoed through the jungle. Hawk was still shooting, only now he was helping to cover them.

“Two, Six. What’s the holdup?” barked the captain.

“Six, Two. Andrews is hurt,” Currie replied. “He’s bad. We need help.”

“Watch out!” shouted Dawson as he saw movement to the right of Currie.

Currie dropped to a knee as he turned to the right, then cut loose a controlled burst from his Sig into the enemy soldier who’d snuck up around them.

“I need to clear this place out. Keep him alive; help is on the way!” Currie yelled as he moved to his original position a few meters away.

When he reached the fallen tree he’d first hidden behind, he saw his extra magazine was still there, as well as the WP grenade. He also saw a group of seven enemy soldiers moving around to his right while another group of eight soldiers was advancing to their left. Now that they’d gotten themselves a bit more organized, they were trying to encircle the American positions.

Reaching for one of his fragmentation grenades, Currie pulled the pin and gave it a good throw at the soldiers to his right. Then he grabbed the WP grenade and ran to his left. He sprinted past Dawson, who was tying off a tourniquet on Andrews’s arm to go along with the one he’d already finished tying on his leg.

Crump. The first grenade exploded.

“We got guys moving to our right, Dawson!” Currie yelled.

When Currie reached the spot he was looking for, he saw the cluster of soldiers fanning out as they prepared to bum rush their position. Currie threw the Willie Pete grenade, trying to do his best to lob it high in the air over top of their position.

The soldiers saw the object fly into the air and stopped just long enough to see that it was probably going to fly over their heads. As they returned their gazes to Currie and brought their rifles up to shoot him, the WP exploded over them, dousing the area with a chemical cloud that would burn everything it touched.

One of the ChiComs just under the grenade let out a bloodcurdling scream as parts of his skin began to melt off his face. A couple of other soldiers started shrieking as the chemical landed on their clothes and exposed skin.

While the enemy soldiers were distracted, Currie began to gun them down. In the chaos and confusion, he made short work of them. Just as he was shooting at one last Chinese soldier who’d ducked behind a clump of trees, Currie heard shouting and shooting behind him.

He turned to head back to where Dawson and Andrews were and saw Dawson toss a hand grenade in the direction of their right flank before he opened fire with his own Sig Spear.

Raising his own rifle, Currie moved to the side of a tree not far from Dawson and scanned for additional targets. He found two soldiers repositioning as they sought to get behind their positions. Sighting in on one of them, Currie squeezed the trigger, sending a short burst of accurate fire at the enemy soldier, who he thought must either be a senior sergeant or an officer. The man went down in a heap.

Moments later, a volley of gunfire ripped through the area around the remaining PLA soldiers, dropping several of them.

“Two, Six. We’re coming up on your positions now,” called out the voice of their captain.

Seconds later, five of their fellow teammates emerged from the jungle, heading right for them. Their team medic ran towards Andrews and dropped his medical bag next to their wounded comrade.

“Quite the mess you created, Currie,” Captain Thorne said as several of the other teammates joined the fray.

“It looks like they’re falling back,” called out one of the soldiers.

Another guy in their team was plinking 40mm grenades at the retreating soldiers. The thunderous bang of Hawk’s sniper rifle continued to let them know he was still picking guys off.

“Thanks for coming. Andrews is in a bad way,” Currie replied as he swapped out another magazine.

“We need to move, Doc,” Thorne called out as he walked up to survey Andrews.

Andrews looked pale and pasty at this point. He had lost a lot of blood and was clearly going into shock. Captain Thorne walked up to the man and gently held what was left of the man’s face in his hand. Andrews’s eyes focused on him. “You came back for me, sir.”

Thorne chuckled at the comment. “Of course we came back for you. You still owe me twenty dollars from that Phillies game. Now hang in there. We’re going to get you patched up and then carry you back to the LZ. You got me?”

Andrews nodded. “Water.”

Doc gave him a little bit of water as best he could with the right half of his face and jaw ripped open. Then he gave him an injection of a new kind of pain medication, followed by a shot of iron. Finally, he situated an IV bag to help replace the blood volume Andrews had lost.

“OK, buddy. I’m going to throw you over my shoulder and carry you out,” Doc explained. “I’m going to keep this IV bag open wide while we move. When we get to the LZ, I’m going to give you another one. I need you to hang in there, Andrews,” Doc said.

“Sure thing, Doc. Let’s go,” Andrews replied. The pain medication had an immediate effect, and he had a dopey expression as he spoke. As soon as the fluids started going in, his complexion began to improve—he no longer looked like a ghost.

Doc picked Andrews up and placed him over his shoulder. With his other hand, he held the IV bag up as much as he could. Two of the other teammates took off ahead of Doc, clearing him a path and making sure he was covered.

Over the course of the next few minutes, the rest of the team fell back in an organized manner. One guy would toss a grenade, then empty his magazine in the direction of the remaining enemy soldiers. Then he’d run past the next teammate and slap him on the shoulder. That guy would toss his own grenade and unload a magazine or belt of ammo, depending on his weapon. Four of the nine able-bodied teammates would repeat this process twice while the others continued to retreat as quick as they could towards their predetermined LZ.

Captain Thorne had already called in their bird and told them they had an urgent surgical patient that needed to be extracted immediately. He’d also informed their operations center that they had successfully destroyed two more of the PLA self-propelled howitzers. The SPs had been the primary targets for the battalion. The damn artillery had been wreaking havoc on the port and the nearby airport they’d seized. They’d lost two F-16s, three Apaches, and two A-10s trying to hunt them down, so the Snake Eaters had been sent in to find and destroy them.

Ten minutes later, they’d probably put about a kilometer between them and the Chinese positions. No one was shooting at them anymore, and they couldn’t hear any more shouting or yelling in Chinese. They stopped for a moment, mostly so Doc could get a second IV started on Andrews.

“How long until the chopper gets here?” Currie asked, concern in his voice.

Thorne looked at his watch. “Twenty mikes. We still have another two kilometers to go before we’re at the LZ.”

“Then I guess we better get moving.”

With the second IV set up, Doc let them know he was ready to move again, and the group pressed on. They had to cover a lot of ground and didn’t have a lot of time. As they moved through the jungle, they neared an area with thinner tree cover. Eventually, they came to a spot that had only a small grouping of trees.

Their demo guy immediately started wrapping some of the smaller trees with det cord. He hooked a small triggering device and wire to it and unraveled it over to their position. Now they’d wait for their ride to come. When it showed up, he’d blow the charges, which would topple the few trees and create an instant landing zone in an area that otherwise wouldn’t have one. Creating these artificial landing zones was one way they were reducing the likelihood of their helicopters being shot down, since most of the suitable sites were usually observed by either PLA soldiers or Cuban militia units.

A few minutes later, a CH-47 Chinook headed toward them. It eventually settled down in the clearing they’d created. The team ran forward, carrying Andrews. A pair of Air Force PJs were on board and immediately went to work on their wounded comrade.

Seconds later, the helicopter was in the air and on the way to the Havana International Airport and the combat hospital that had been established there. The 82nd Airborne and the 101st had finally captured the capital a few days ago.

When their helicopter turned to head away from the valley they’d spent the last few days in, Currie saw a couple of fast movers zip through the place. They raced off in the direction of where they’d hit those two howitzers. Although he couldn’t see what they dropped, a huge string of flame and explosions rippled across the area as the two fighters pulled up and away. They’d plastered the hell out of the area, probably hoping they’d destroyed the other two self-propelled howitzers that might be nearby.

Sure enough, a handful of secondary explosions erupted in the wake of the fighters. Maybe they’d gotten lucky and hit them, or maybe they’d nailed an ammo dump. In either case, they’d blown something of value apart, and that was all that mattered.

Currie felt a tap on his knee and looked up to find Captain Thorne trying to say something to him. He leaned in closer so he could hear. “Currie, you did a hell of a job back there. You guys kept Andrews alive and you took that other howitzer out. Damn good work.”

Currie smiled. He was just glad it looked like their teammate was probably going to make it. Andrews’s color was looking a lot better. He was on his third bag of fluids, and they were only ten minutes away from the airport now. Not much longer.

Chapter Thirteen

NATO Plus One?

SHAPE Headquarters

Mons, Belgium

General Lisa Yeager wished the American delegation could be here in person instead of attending via video from NORAD and the Pentagon. She understood the need for security, but some meetings were best held in person. At least the President-elect was on the call. However, her screen showed she was muted, as she wouldn’t be participating in the call. She was still nearly six weeks away from assuming power, but she couldn’t be coming into the White House with zero support or knowledge of the world situation.

It had come as a bit of a surprise when the Vice President had lost—then again, the country was reeling from one crisis after another for the last eighteen months, and rightly or wrongly, the administration in power was being blamed for it all.

“Ahem,” said General Sir Nick Carter. “I don’t like this one bit. For all we know, the Russians are in on this.”

General Sir Nick Carter was the United Kingdom’s Chief of the Defence Staff. He’d flown in just to attend this emergency meeting of the senior NATO leadership.

“The Russian Far East has been ravaged by COVID-24, while the Chinese guest workers appear to have escaped unscathed,” countered Lieutenant General Hubert de Mauny, the French general in charge of Allied Joint Force Command out of Brunssum. “I’m not sure about you, but that seems like quite the coincidence, doesn’t it?”

“Right now, we need to address the growing problem of these Chinese submarines sinking our commercial ships in the Indian Ocean and the Red Sea. We’ve seen an incredible number of ships sunk,” declared General Markus Kneip from the German Army. “The sinking of these freighters and oil tankers is going to have a seriously negative effect on the continent in the coming weeks. If the Russians were really in cahoots with the Chinese, then why would the Russians not only sell European oil and LNG, but make even more available to fill in the gaps the sinkings have created? Therefore, I think it is safe to say the Russian offer is legitimate and something we should consider.”

Chancellor Helmut Zimmer pushed his chair back and stood for a moment. Everyone stopped talking and looked at him, waiting to see what he was about to say.

“What we have been discussing is important. But what no one has talked about yet is why the Chinese are waging a war against NATO and the West. When the Chinese launched their surprise attack against the United States, they also carried out a surprise attack against Europe. Not only was it a military attack, but they also systematically attacked our people on social media and the internet. In the span of less than an hour, social media was blanketed with all sorts of these deep fake attacks, depicting our forces carrying out coordinated first-strike attacks against their country, therefore justifying their own use of force against us,” the Chancellor angrily explained.

“I think we need to figure out why the Chinese did this so we can determine how best to counter it,” he continued. “Clearly, they have a purpose in mind with these attacks, so what is it?”

No one said anything for a moment. It was a good question the Chancellor had asked. People largely understood why the Chinese had attacked the US—the two nations had been engaged in an on-again, off-again trade war for the better part of six years—a trade war that had had huge repercussions on their own economy. But why attack Europe? Why start to threaten Russia?

President Jean Lemieux of France chimed in to add his own thoughts on the matter. “I think it has something to do with the Chinese wanting room to expand and grow.”

“But why now?” asked Vanessa Dunn, the UK Prime Minister. “What made now the right time to start a world war?”

US President Frank Alton finally joined the conversation. “I think it’s pretty obvious,” he asserted. “COVID-24. When this virus first hit the world some eight months ago, it caught like wildfire. It spread even faster than COVID-19 had four years earlier. Our experts at the CDC, in coordination with our intelligence experts, believe COVID-24 is a lab-engineered virus. We know this because the Chinese had developed and distributed a vaccine to their allies prior to its release—that couldn’t have been done if they hadn’t created this virus themselves to leverage for some nefarious purpose. We believed this virus was created to go after specific segments of the global population—the elderly, and those individuals with specific comorbidities.”

President Alton held his hand up toward the video camera, letting the others know he wasn’t done speaking and wanted them to hold their questions. “I know there are arguments that have been made against the claim I have just made. But hear me out. I think the COVID virus was meant to do more than just attack our societies and destroy our economies. I think it was also meant to solve a very real and serious problem in China.”

“What problem could that possibly be?” asked the Dutch Prime Minister skeptically.

President Alton leaned forward, looking into the camera as he spoke. “The Chinese population has surpassed 1.9 billion people. That is a lot of mouths to feed. They also have a very old population, with more than sixteen percent of their people above the age of sixty-five. By comparison, in India, that same demographic is only seven percent of their population. In a few years, the elderly in China will account for twenty-two percent of the population. In economic terms, feeding their people and meeting their medical needs when nearly one-quarter of their population is elderly and retired is beyond what they can sustain. The COVID-24 virus effectively wiped out a huge majority of this aging population, leaving China with a relatively young and healthy population.”

Alton continued, “When the virus made its way to Europe and America, it ravaged our countries. Nearly 1.5 percent of our populations have died from the virus. Fortunately, the CDC was able to replicate a stolen copy of the vaccine we obtained from Cuba prior to the war. We’re also lucky that the virus has largely burned itself out. But this left our nations in a precarious position. Our economies have been ravaged for months, our people are restive, and these deep fake attacks have sown chaos and discord within our countries. I couldn’t think of a better time to initiate a war to dominate the globe, militarily or economically, than right now.”

When the American President had finished speaking, everyone in the room was silent for a moment. No one said anything right away as they digested what he’d said.

The German Chancellor was the first to speak. “Thank you for giving voice to what many of us had probably been thinking. The Chinese haven’t given any of us many options. I, for one, will not allow Germany to fall under the yoke of communism a second time. I propose our nations begin a massive military arms buildup and prepare to bring the fight to the enemy. The first thing we need to do is organize a naval task force to clear the Red Sea and the Indian Ocean of these Chinese submarines. We need to create a convoy system again so we can protect critical shipping between Africa, the Middle East, and Europe. While my nation may not have the largest navy, we are more than willing to take the lead in organizing a naval task force for NATO if everyone is in agreement.”

British Prime Minister Vanessa Dunn nodded. “I think that would be great, Chancellor. Judging by how the war is going in the Caribbean, I believe my nation and the French are going to be a bit more engaged there than we will anywhere else.”

“I agree,” commented the French President. “The Chinese and the Venezuelans are threatening to capture our French colonies and outposts in the Caribbean. We need to come to the aid of our citizens there and make sure they know they are not forgotten in all of this.”

“Great, then I think the only thing left for us to discuss is what to do about this Russian offer,” declared General Lisa Yeager.

Chapter Fourteen

Hamburger Hill

Bravo Company, 1-124th Infantry Regiment

Hill 847 – Che Guevara Monument

Sierra del Rosario Mountains, Cuba

“I swear to God, if we have to go up that flipping hill one more time, I’m going to lose it!” grumbled Sergeant First Class Jeremiah Grabowski, better known as “Ski.” He cursed under his breath as he reached for an unopened box of ammo.

“Seriously, why can’t the artillery or Air Force plaster this place and be done with it already?” complained Specialist Jamie Roberts as she blew some hair away from her eyes. She placed the now-reloaded magazine into the front pouch of her chest rig.

First Lieutenant Henry Hobbs plopped down next to them with an MRE in his hand as he surveyed the group. “Look, I don’t like it any more than you guys do. But here’s the deal—what’s left of the Cuban Army and the Chinese are hunkered down up there in a series of mountain forts they’ve built. To make matters worse, they’ve ringed this place with anti-aircraft guns and artillery, all protected by some of the most advanced SAMs in the world. This place has to be captured and taken out. The only way we’re going to do that is to go in there with rifles and hand grenades and do it the old-fashioned way.”

Lieutenant Hobbs saw the grim and unconvinced faces of the Guardsmen he’d become good friends with over the years. “The Air Force has lost an enormous number of planes trying to root this place out,” he asserted. “Worse, these are the bastards responsible for that Delta Airlines plane being downed near Ocala. One hundred and sixty-four civilians died on that plane. We can’t allow that to happen again.

“I know everyone’s tired of fighting. It’s been a rough couple of weeks. Let’s not lose sight of who we are. We’re the Gator Brigade! We’ve fought four tours in Iraq, and a tour in Afghanistan and another in Syria. We’re the toughest National Guard Unit in the Army and, by God, we’re going to take this freaking hill. Now, Sergeant First Class, take Specialist Roberts and go pick up our replacements. Get ’em sorted with their new squads and get ready for tomorrow.”

Specialist Roberts perked her head up. “Whoa, what’s going on tomorrow?” she asked. “I thought we still had another day before we’d have to go back up there.”

Hobbs loved that unpolished spitfire attitude of hers. Nothing kept a platoon of infantry grunts on their toes more than a woman who could consistently kick their asses.

“Tomorrow we’re going back up that hill with the rest of the battalion. The trucks will pick us up at 0600 hours. Our battalion will link up with 2nd Battalion for a 1200-hour assault. Oh, and before you all get your panties in a wad, I’ve also been told we’ll have a sustained artillery barrage on the place prior to our assault, along with a high-altitude stealth bomber run made on some of the stickier spots we’ve identified during our previous engagements.”

“’Bout freaking time we got some air support,” grumbled one of the other sergeants.

Sergeant Grabowski stood. “Thanks for the pep talk, boss. Sometimes we just need to let off some steam and know we’ve been heard. Rest assured, LT, we’re going to take this hill, one way or another.”

“Hey, the only time I get concerned about you enlisted folk is when the complaining stops. Then I know you guys are up to no good,” chuckled Lieutenant Hobbs.

Hobbs motioned for Ski to follow him for a moment. As the two moved away from the group, Hobbs told him, “When you pick up the replacements, make sure you hit the supply tents up and grab a bunch of extra grenades. I also want you to tell the replacements to pack an extra Mk 80 rocket in their rucks or packed on the side of it. Master Sergeant Lightman from the weapons platoon is going to have the SMAW crews carrying those new anticave and bunker rockets. We’re going to try and use a lot more of them this time around than the last two goes of it.”

Ski nodded and jotted down some notes so he wouldn’t forget. “I’m on it, sir. See you in a few hours,” he replied and turned to go find Roberts.

Ski liked Hobbs. He was prior enlisted, having been a sergeant first class before he had crossed over to becoming an officer. He’d made the switch right at the age cutoff, so he was actually a pretty old lieutenant.

Grabowski walked back to the group, which was still smokin’ and jokin’. “All right, Roberts, you heard the boss. Let’s go grab the replacements and see what they brought us,” he announced.

Specialist Jamie Roberts was part of the new crop of female soldiers that was being allowed into the infantry. She’d put to rest the argument about women not being able to pull their weight in the infantry when, during her first PT test with the unit, she’d not only maxed the event, she’d smoked nearly all the guys in the unit.

Roberts was a sophomore at the University of Central Florida, where she ran on the track and field team. She was also a mixed martial artist who had competed in a couple of lower-level UFC fights. She might have been gorgeous to look at, but she was also an ass-kicker of a soldier in every respect.

As they were walking down the dirt road that led to the battalion headquarters area, Ski asked, “You still glad you joined the Guard last year?”

Roberts gave Ski a grin and a wink. “What, and miss out on all of this? Are you kidding me? Yeah, I’m still glad I joined the unit. Besides, the skills I’ve learned from the Army have already helped me become a better fighter. I’m also hell-bent on graduating without any student loan debt. My parents had me go through that Dave Ramsey course on personal finance. No way am I racking up debt when the State of Florida will cover my tuition if I join the Guard.”

“Yeah, that’s good. You got a plan. Me, I got two more years and I’ve got my twenty. Then I’m out. Looking back on it, I should have joined after I left the Rangers—I’d have my twenty and could be sitting on a beach with a cold one while I let you youngsters fight this one.”

“Why didn’t you? You’re like a total badass,” Roberts said. If Ski had to guess, she had a bit of a crush on him.

He chuckled. “Yeah, well. I was so burnt out from the Rangers. I also needed to get more help with my PTSD. I wasn’t in a good frame of mind back then,” Grabowski explained as they approached the battalion headquarters area.

“Hey, what do you two want?” barked the battalion command sergeant major, Bishop, with a cup of coffee in his hand.

“Sergeant Major, Lieutenant Dobbs sent us over to fetch our replacements and get them squared away before the big push tomorrow,” countered Grabowski as he walked towards the often-grumpy CSM.

Grabowski and Bishop had known each other for close to fifteen years. Ski’s dad and Bishop were best friends. Ski was also the only guy in the battalion to have served in the 75th Ranger Regiment, which gave him more clout with Bishop. He essentially regarded him as the unit badass.

CSM Bishop softened his demeanor. “Ah, good call. Here, come with me. I’ll take you over to where we have them staying. Most of them are unfortunately fresh from Benning, so little in the way of experience. That said, we did get twenty-two individual augmentees from the Iowa Guard. They’re from the 1st Battalion, 133rd Infantry Regiment, so at least they’ll know what they’re doing.”

Ski nodded but didn’t say anything.

After walking around a few vehicles, they came upon a couple of large tents. The sergeant major called out to the replacements to form up.

It was as the soldiers filed out of the tents that Ski realized how hard their battalion and brigade had been hit. Since the start of the Cuban campaign, they’d sustained a little more than a thirty percent casualty rate. This last week alone, trying to take this mountain/hill fortress had cost them dearly. Ski had lost two of his friends, and another four had been injured. It brought back a lot of bad memories from his four tours in Iraq and two in Afghanistan. It had taken him years to get over the PTSD from that before he could even think about joining the Guard and finishing his time in the military to get his retirement.

“All right. Listen up, everyone,” Bishop bellowed. “This is Sergeant First Class Grabowski. He’s a platoon sergeant in Bravo Company and he’s here to pick up replacements. Bravo Company has been in the thick of it since the start of this war. I want you to listen to Grabowski and do what the other veterans in the company tell you. We’re making another push up that mountain tomorrow, so best get yourselves mentally and physically prepared.

“They’re all yours, Sergeant. Just don’t take all the veterans, if you will; I need to keep some around for the other companies,” he said with a wink.

Grabowski walked up to the group. “I need twenty-six of you to replace the folks we’ve lost the last few weeks. How many of you have seen combat before?”

Maybe a quarter of the replacements raised their hands. Mostly, it was the guys from the Iowa National Guard. Grabowski pointed to a quarter of those with their hands raised. Then he filled out the rest of his replacements with fresh recruits from Fort Benning.

Once he had his replacements, he pulled them into a half circle and told them what was going to happen next. “I want you all to head to the supply tent and pick up a double load of ammo,” he began. “Each of you grab eight hand grenades and two white smoke grenades—we need a lot of extras to clear the enemy trenches. Grab a single Mk 80 SMAW rocket and place it in the bottom of your ruck—these are for taking out the bunkers.”

When they returned to the company area, the replacements got lunch and filtered into their new platoons and squads. The rest of the day was spent getting ready for what would surely be some tough days ahead.

All night, the mountain fortress was bombarded by rocket artillery and good old-fashioned 105 and 155mm artillery. The gun bunnies laid it on thick as they sought to butter the place up before the infantry had another go of it.

Hunkered down in some of the nearby hills and mountains was a series of PLA 122mm howitzers and mortar teams; they were able to lay down fire on the Americans as they assaulted the main mountain. The interlocking defenses had forced the Americans to capture one hill and ridgeline after another to get close to the center of the main enemy defenses.

The 101st Air Assault Division had been slugging it out in the surrounding area for a couple of weeks while the Florida Army National Guard got the dubious job of having to capture the main enemy fortress. The Gator Brigade actually had a lot more experience fighting in the swamps and tropical environments than many of the active-duty units did.

The following morning, while Ski and a few others were eating a hearty breakfast of biscuits and gravy, bacon, and hash browns, the Air Force arrived and started giving the mountain some much-needed love. Many of the new replacement soldiers paused their eating to step outside the tent and see what was going on. For many of them, this was the first time they’d seen an air strike like this. The veterans and those who had been on Cuba since the start of the conflict simply continued eating their breakfast like it was no big deal.

Ski checked his watch—it was time. He stood and got everyone’s attention. “Second Platoon, it’s time to load up. Go grab your patrol packs and whatever else you need for the next twelve to twenty-four hours and meet me at the trucks.”

The battalion motor pool had a handful of trucks on standby to drive them the dozen kilometers to the actual front lines. Once there, they’d link up with their sister battalion and prepare to assault the hill.

As they sat in the back of the truck, one of the replacements suddenly asked, “Sergeant First Class, is that a Ranger combat patch?”

With a flat expression that didn’t betray any emotion, Ski answered, “It’s from my younger years, when I was on active duty.”

“When did you serve? My dad was in 2nd Battalion. He got out back in ’06,” commented the soldier.

Ski smiled. “That’s cool, but I don’t recognize your name. I was in 3rd Battalion my entire time. We honestly didn’t interact very much with the other battalions. My group was largely on loan to JSOC, so we weren’t even part of the standard Ranger rotations.”

“Wow, that’s pretty cool you were part of JSOC. What made you get out?” asked another replacement, in awe that their platoon sergeant had worked with Delta and SEAL Team Six.

“When you spend more than five straight years in combat, you tend to get burnt out. I needed a break, so I got out. Ended up spending two years in Thailand learning to be a monk as I fought and overcame my own PTSD. Then and only then did I join this unit to finish out the rest of my time for retirement. Only two more years and I pop smoke for the last time,” Ski explained.

In the distance, they heard the artillery let up, only to be replaced by several dozen enormous explosions. Looking at the mountain fortress they’d be assaulting, Ski saw a dozen large plumes of smoke rise into the air.

“What kind of bombs are those?” asked one of the privates.

“Those are likely GBU-31s—two-thousand-pound JDAMs—probably from the B-2 that was supposed to hit some of those bunkers we identified from our last attempt to seize this freaking mountain,” scoffed Ski angrily.

“Damn, how can anyone survive those things? Crazy,” commented one of the soldiers. A few took some pictures with their phones: souvenirs for home.

Ski shook his head at how soldiers these days carried their phones with them. They were inseparable from their electronic devices, or so it seemed. He had a phone with him, but he usually kept it in his ruck at the base camp. He might take it with him, but he usually had a very specific reason for bringing it if he did. Not these kids; they acted like tourists. Ski just hoped they’d remember their training, listen to orders, and maybe, just maybe, not get themselves killed.

Forty minutes later, they were at the base of the front lines. The Gator Brigade had stacked their various companies and battalions up, so when one unit needed reinforcements, or the brigade commander wanted to rush one sector of the enemy lines, they could.

Alpha Company was going to lead today’s charge forward while SFC Grabowski and Second Platoon, Bravo Company, watched and waited for their turn to come next. They knew once the shooting started, they’d be ordered in to assist Alpha in pushing past the resistance. Then Charlie would join them, followed by Delta before the next battalion would be fed into the meat grinder.

Twenty minutes after Alpha moved forward, a handful of explosions erupted somewhere in the dense underbrush. Ski heard shouting in the distance, intermixed with a lot of gunfire. When he surveyed the faces of his cherries, Ski could tell they were getting a bit nervous. It was to be expected. Still, he did his best to reassure them they’d be all right.

“Just remember your training,” he told them. “Keep your heads on a swivel, and do not hesitate when you spot the enemy.” Then he turned very serious. “This isn’t a game,” he reminded them. “You don’t come back if you get killed.”

Lieutenant Dobbs had been talking on the radio. During the middle of his conversation, he suddenly looked up at Ski with a grim expression. He handed the device back to his RTO, then turned back to Ski. “That was the CO. He said we’re up. Alpha’s in a heavy fight. They want us to hook to the west and approach from the Devil’s Head. Apparently the JDAM that hit it didn’t take the whole thing out. They want us to try and clear it.”

Ski grimaced at the information. He collected his thoughts for the briefest of moments before he turned to the squad leaders. “We’re headed back to that bunker complex at the Devil’s Head. The JDAMs did a decent job of tearing the place apart, but we need to go clear it out. I want First and Second Squads out front. Third Squad, you’re our reserve. Fourth Squad, I want your SMAW teams to lay into those bunkers as best you can. We brought you a ton of Mk 80 rockets. You keep their heads down while First and Second Squads get in close and take ’em out with grenades if necessary.”

The squad leaders all nodded and went to work getting their soldiers ready.

The Devil’s Head was an outcropping on the mountain. The enemy had built a string of bunkers for their machine-gun teams there, as well as some smaller field guns. The damn place provided enfilading fire across many of the paths needed to move further up the mountain. Taking it out was a top priority but something that had eluded them on their previous tries.

Ski stayed somewhat close to Lieutenant Dobbs, but also in a position that allowed him to see as best he could where the other squads were. The jungle in front of them was still somewhat thick, albeit a lot less dense than it had been two weeks prior. The artillery and air strikes had done a decent job of thinning the place out, even if they hadn’t destroyed as many of the enemy bunkers as they would have liked.

The gunfire, shouting, and explosions grew in intensity as they approached the Devil’s Head. Alpha Company was having a rough go of it.

Zip, zap, zip, zap.

A string of bullets started ripping through the area at head level. Ski saw one of the new replacements maybe thirty feet in front of him take a round right above his left ear. It blew out the right side of the man’s face as his body collapsed to the ground, dead before he’d even had a chance to react.

“Everyone, down! Contact left. Where’s my LMG?” barked the squad leader on the left flank. “I want that gun up and running now!”

Boom!

Dirt and debris flew into the sky as an artillery round exploded near their positions. A handful of the replacements started doing exactly what they’d been taught and returning fire. They worked in their fire teams to advance under covering fire. They fired in short, controlled bursts or single-fire shots as they zeroed in on the muzzle flashes of the enemy.

Ski ran over to one soldier he saw curled up at the base of a tree. The young kid was scared half to death. He was still gripping his rifle, but he was frozen in fear.

Squatting down next to the young private, Ski grabbed him by his shoulder with a firm grip to get his attention. “Private, look at me.”

The young man, who couldn’t have been older than eighteen, looked up, his eyes betraying his terror.

“We’re all scared, Private,” said Ski. “But right now, I need you to push that fear aside and do your job. Now take your rifle and aim at those bunkers over there,” he said as he pointed to several of the enemy positions off in the distance. He knew the kid had no hope of hitting them—they were too far away. But at that exact moment, he just wanted the kid to fire his weapon and overcome his fear.

“Yes, Sergeant,” came a weak reply. The kid lifted his rifle and aimed at the enemy position. He fired one shot, his eyes practically closed the entire time.

“See, you can do this, Private,” Ski reassured. “Fire again, but this time, keep your eyes open.”

The kid did; this time he fired several shots. The fear in his eyes started to fade, and a new confidence took over. He turned to Ski. “I can do this.”

Even though bullets continued to fly around them, Ski smiled. “That’s right, soldier. You can do this. Now go help your fire team; they’re right over there.”

With the encouragement, the young man darted forward to join his squadmates, moving from one covered position to another.

The rest of the squads steadily advanced, closing the gap on the enemy. The closer they got, the easier it would be to take ’em out.

“Ahh! I’m hit! Medic!” screamed one of the veteran soldiers.

“Backblast clear!” yelled out one of the SMAW soldiers.

Whoosh…BAM.

“Nice shot! Get another in there just like that!” yelled out a soldier as the rocket hit the lip of a bunker, blowing a hole right into the structure.

“Over here, Sergeant!” called out a handful of soldiers to Ski.

When he looked over to them, Ski smiled. He knew what they were up to and he wanted in. He sidled up next to one of his squad leaders. “You guys ready to clear that bunker?” he asked.

The five other soldiers grinned and nodded.

“Jenkins, get us a smoke round right in front of the bunker or as near to it as you can,” Ski directed. “Adler, I want you to take two guys and break to the right and try to come at the side of the bunker from that angle. The rest of you are going to come with me and we’re going to move to the left. Everyone got it?”

“I love it. Let’s do this thing!” Sergeant Adler echoed eagerly.

Private Jenkins, who probably had one of the strongest throwing arms in the platoon, unfastened one of his smoke grenades from his vest. He pulled the pin and held it tight for a second while he waited for the guys to lay down some covering fire before he threw it.

“Now!” Sergeant Adler shouted to be heard over the gunfire.

Jenkins rose up and threw the grenade for all its worth. The metal can flew through the air and bounced on the ground once, landing a few feet in front of the bunker. Moments later, it started billowing a thick cloud of white smoke, obscuring the view of the crew manning it.

“Let’s go!” Grabowski yelled as he jumped up and led the way forward on the left flank while Sergeant Adler led his small team on the right.

Ski knew that smoke cloud would only last for so long, and they had a lot of ground to cover. He sprinted as he could through the underbrush to get as close to the bunker as possible before the smoke dissipated.

They were probably halfway there when the gun crew opened back up, laying down a torrent of fire at Grabowski and the four soldiers following him. Everyone dove for a tree or something to hide behind as red tracers flew all around them.

Ski glanced over to Sergeant Adler and his three guys; they were making good progress. They were nearly to the enemy position when one of them must have tripped a mine or something, and the soldier ten feet behind Adler was blown apart. The blast wave knocked everyone else to the ground.

Ski knew Adler and his team were all likely hurt and needed help. He also knew the only way he and his own men were going to help them was if they took this bunker out.

“You three, I want you to stay put and keep firing on that bunker,” he ordered. “Do your best to try and get a few rounds inside the gun slit if you can. You two, come with me. We’re going to try and get a few grenades in there and take ’em out.”

When his three guys laying covering fire opened up, Ski made a dash for it. He ran fast and hard. He hoped the two other guys coming with him were able to keep up, because he wasn’t slowing down for them. Sergeant Adler and his guys needed help, and Ski and his guys needed to take this gun crew out or they wouldn’t get that help.

An explosion went off somewhere behind Ski as he ran. Something bit the back of his left arm. I’m almost there, just a little closer, Ski thought. He was finally parallel to the bunker and out of their line of sight.

As he was about to advance on the bunker, a string of red tracer fire and bullets started flying all around him. Damn, they must have another bunker nearby that we didn’t see.

Ski stayed on his belly, trying to keep himself low and out of sight of the other bunker. He hoped the crew might believe they’d gotten him. As he neared the enemy soldiers he was trying to get after, Ski saw the barrel from the machine-gun swivel from one position to another as it spat pain and death toward his platoon.

Ski glanced behind him, but he couldn’t see the other two soldiers that were supposed to be following. I need to take these two bunkers out first, then I can go find them or help them if they’re wounded, he determined.

Ski got up into a kneeling position, then unfastened one of his grenades. He pulled the pin and held it tightly in his hand. Then he jumped up and ran the handful of feet to the bunker. He ducked down just in time to feel a string of bullets fly through the air where he’d been moments earlier.

He released his grip on the grenade and let the spoon fly off, counting two seconds before tossing it in the gun slit. Moments later, it went off. Grabbing a second grenade, Ski tossed it inside the position for good measure.

Sensing something behind him, Ski turned around, his rifle at the ready. He saw a soldier stumble out of the back of the bunker and attempt to move away from it. The man lurched forward a couple of times, likely injured from the grenade. Ski pulled the trigger, sending a couple of shots into the man’s back, dropping him where he stood.

Then Ski spotted another bunker, maybe thirty meters to the right and slightly behind this one. This was where the gunfire was coming from that was trying to kill him.

Looking behind him, Ski saw his three soldiers that he’d left to provide covering fire still shooting. For the life of him, he couldn’t find the other two guys he’d started out with.

I can look for them after this next bunker is taken out, he thought. He started doing his best to low-crawl through the thick vegetation towards the enemy position.

A new sound joined the battle—a slight whistling before a handful of explosions rocked his platoons’ positions. Great, freaking mortars now…

Ski grabbed the only smoke grenade he had. He pulled the pin and gave it a good throw toward the bunker. It landed almost on top of it. He waited just a moment for it to start billowing its smoke. Then he leapt to his feet and ran like hell to cover the distance.

“Get down, Ski!” someone shouted from further away.

Ski dove for the ground, the sound of angry Hornets whipping overhead followed by the crumps of a grenade. Something bit into his left leg, making it feel like it was on fire.

Grabowski looked down to make sure he still had his leg; he saw some blood soaking part of his trousers near a small piece of metal lodged in his calf.

“This is going to hurt,” he said to himself as he reached down, grabbed the piece of metal and pulled it out. For some reason, he stuck it back in one of his pockets. He grabbed for his pressure dressing and placed it over the wound before he tied it tight.

Twenty meters to that bunker…

Ski started low-crawling again, using the brush as cover the best he could. He was banking on the enemy thinking they’d had gotten him when he’d gone down and hadn’t popped back up. Scanning the bunker, he saw this one had two guns in it. One appeared to be a Type 85 heavy machine gun, which fired a 12.7mm slug—the Chinese version of the Russian-made .51-caliber machine gun. The other weapon in the bunker looked to be the standard Type 80 light machine gun, the Chinese version of the American M240. The two of them were spitting out rounds in a controlled fashion at the American attackers.

Ski continued to crawl toward it from an angle to stay out of the shooters’ direct line of sight. He was almost close enough to lob a grenade in front of it when he spotted something. There appeared to be a couple of foxholes he hadn’t seen before on the side of the bunker. If he’d crawled much closer, they likely would have spotted him and killed him before he knew what was happening.

Rolling onto his back, Ski swapped out the magazine in his rifle for a fresh one. He didn’t want to run dry when he made his move. Next, he unfastened one of his grenades and got ready. Kneeling next to a fallen tree, Ski pulled the pin and hurled the grenade at the foxhole. He couldn’t have thrown that thing better if he’d tried.

One of the soldiers yelled something in Chinese as he jumped out of the fighting position; the second guy did the same. The third guy was just about clear when the grenade went off. Ski raised his rifle and fired on the two exposed soldiers, hitting them both with a handful of bullets. The third guy moaned and yelled out for help as he worked on pulling himself out of the fighting position.

Don’t shoot him, he thought. Let him draw his comrades out to help. He hated leaving the man in agonizing pain like that, but he knew if they had a fighting position on this side of the bunker, they likely had one on the other side with three more soldiers in it. He wanted to lure them out.

Sure enough, two other soldiers came over to help him. One tended to his wounds, and the other had his weapon pointed in Ski’s general direction, looking for possible threats. Sighting in on that guy, Ski squeezed the trigger, sending a three-round burst into the man’s upper chest, just below the neck and right above the body armor.

As the soldier clutched at his wound, Ski fired again and hit the other guy several times in the back. Ski jumped up and ran as fast and as hard as he could to cover the short distance between himself and the enemy position.

As he steamrolled the position, Ski saw the guy he’d shot in the back roll over and aim his gun at him. Ski put a couple more rounds into his neck and face, ending the fight.

He raised his rifle in the direction where he thought the next enemy position was and fired. The last remaining soldier fell forward, dead.

The gunners inside the bunker apparently hadn’t heard what was going on around them. They kept firing controlled bursts at the Americans a few hundred meters away, keeping their heads down. Ski unfastened another grenade and pulled the pin. He let it cook down two seconds before he tossed it in through the gun slit.

He heard some shouting and commotion within before it exploded.

Suddenly, the back door leading into the bunker swung open, catching Ski by surprise. His right hand held another grenade he was about to toss in, and his left hand was holding on to his rifle. He swiftly lobbed the grenade toward the soldiers exiting the bunker so he could free up his right hand for shooting.

When the enemy soldiers saw the grenade sailing towards them, they all dove for cover. It landed practically in the middle of the gaggle of four soldiers, but it didn’t go off. Ski hadn’t pulled the pin yet. He hadn’t had the chance.

With his right hand now free, he had his rifle up and on the enemy soldiers in a fraction of a second. He shot and killed the first two. The last two both dropped their weapons and put their hands up in surrender. Ski hesitated. He didn’t pull the trigger. He motioned with the barrel of his rifle to one of the fighting positions and they climbed in.

He then reached down and picked his grenade off the ground. Trying to keep an eye on the two prisoners and the open door to the bunker behind him, Ski pulled the pin and tossed the grenade inside. He wanted to make sure everyone in there was dead. When it went off, he called out to his three guys he’d left a couple hundred meters away to get up here and help him secure the area.

Five minutes later, two squads from his platoon had finally made it up to him. They finished clearing the Devil’s Head bunker complex, ending what had been more than a week’s worth of bloody fighting that had claimed the lives of dozens of soldiers and wounded three times that number. The rest of the battalion could now move up the hill and finish taking this mountain fortress.

“Sergeant Grabowski,” Lieutenant Dobbs called out as he walked over to him.

Ski was sitting against the wall of the bunker while one of the medics cut away at the left sleeve of his blouse so he could see where the blood was coming from.

“It only took us three tries to capture this,” said Grabowski triumphantly as their platoon leader stood next to him.

“That was some real hero stuff you did back there, Ski—taking out two enemy bunkers like that. You single-handedly killed fourteen enemy soldiers and took two prisoners, all while being injured twice during your one-man assault,” the LT recounted.

“I couldn’t have done it without my guys laying down covering fire. Those three right there kept the gunners occupied so I could get close enough to use my frags.”

“Eh, in either case, you saved a lot of lives and did good here, Ski. I’m going to have the medics get you back to the aid station so they can get you patched up. We’ve got it from here. Charlie Company just joined the fray. They’ll push on ahead of us and Alpha. We’re going to get things cleaned up here and then we’ll likely join them. We still have the rest of this mountain and the surrounding hills to clear out. I’ll try and check in on you when I’m able to. In the meantime, take a break, Sergeant. You earned it,” Lieutenant Hobbs announced. Then he barked some orders to a couple of the squad leaders to finish rounding up the enemy dead and account for the weapons.

“There you go, Sergeant First Class,” said the medic. “I was able to grab the small piece of shrapnel in your arm and pull it out. I’ve got a pressure dressing on it. When you get back to a field hospital, they can get the wound cleaned up better and get you stitched up. None of your wounds look too serious—you should be back in action fairly quick,” the specialist explained. He grabbed his aid bag and went looking for the next wounded soldier he could help.

“Come on, Sergeant. I’ll help you back,” offered one of the privates with an outstretched hand. It was the same private who had been paralyzed with fear just an hour ago. He looked like a completely different man—a man full of confidence, a man who’d seen the elephant and survived.

Smiling, Ski reached for the young man’s hand and pulled himself up to his feet. He winced as his weight settled in on his left leg again. His calf was sore from where he’d pulled that piece of shrapnel out. At least the pain medication the medic had given him was helping to take the bite out of it.

The two made their way to a casualty collection point, not far from the original front lines. A number of trucks and JLTVs with red crosses painted on them were loading up the wounded as they were brought in. The urgent surgical patients were being picked up by helicopter.

Ski turned to the young private who’d helped him. “You did good today, Private. Don’t let fear paralyze you. You got this; you can do this,” Ski offered as the two shook hands and parted ways.

“Here, Sergeant, let me help you get on the truck,” one of the soldiers helping the medics offered. “We’re about to leave for the field hospital not too far away.”

Ski climbed into the back of the truck. He recognized a few of the faces. Some were from his platoon and company; others were from Alpha or Charlie Company. Most of their wounds looked like his. They needed stitches and patching up, but nothing too bad. They’d all be back in action in a couple of weeks to a month.

Chapter Fifteen

Battle of the Red Sea

U-39

Mouth of the Red Sea

Captain Johann Lassen checked his watch. The timepiece was a family heirloom from his great-uncle, Georg Lassen. Georg had been a U-boat commander in World War II. He’d been awarded the Knight's Cross with Oak Leaves, Swords, and Diamonds for sinking more than one hundred and forty ships. Admiral Karl Donitz himself had awarded him the medal toward the end of the war. Captain Lassen’s aunt had told him his uncle had worn that medal with great pride until the war had ended. Then it had to be tucked away in a chest, along with the other mementos of his time in the silent service.

In the summer of 1995, Johann and his sister had stayed with their great-uncle and his wife in Spain. He and their father were close, and their dad wanted them to stay with him during what would have otherwise been a terrible time for them. For whatever reason, their mother and father had grown apart and decided to divorce and go their separate ways. Neither of their parents wanted them to be around during that initial period and wanted the kids to have a summer to enjoy with their great-uncle instead of the uncertainty and fear of the future.

Johann was thirteen at the time, a young boy starting to come of age, while his sister was just nine. He loved his parents and the thought of them splitting up broke his heart. It hurt his sister as well, who didn’t understand how people could suddenly stop loving each other. Their uncle, being the wise old man he was, saw the divorce was taking its toll on them and made it a point to take them on some adventures of their own and build some happy memories for them to remember instead of focusing on what was happening between their parents.

It was during that summer and those adventures on and near the water that Johann had developed a real love for the sea. His uncle lived in a small Spanish village, not too far from the British territory of Gibraltar. He had worked for more than twenty years at the British naval base and had regularly taught a class on how to deal with the stresses of underwater combat, from fighting one’s ship to dealing with the crew. Having served and survived the Kriegsmarine silent service for six long years and being among the top U-boat aces of the war, he knew a thing or two about the topic he was teaching. Despite being eighty-five years of age, the man’s mind was sharp as a tack.

During that summer, his uncle had arranged for the younger Lassen to tour British, French, and even American fast-attack boats that took their leave at the naval base. It was an incredible experience, listening to his uncle’s war stories, meeting current submariners, and seeing some of the subs.

His great-uncle might have set him on the journey to becoming a submariner just like him, but it was the Chinese attacking Germany and NATO that saw him where he currently was today—about to lead the German silent service to its first underwater battle in more than seventy-nine years.

Captain Lassen’s boat, the U-39, was the newest U-boat in the German Navy. Presently, they were gliding through the waters some ninety meters beneath the surface as they approached Perim Island off the coast of Yemen and the gateway to the Indian Ocean.

The U-39 was traveling in a wolfpack with a U-37 and a U-38 as they advanced ahead of the NATO task force being assembled near the mouth of the Suez Canal. Then the task force would begin the job of clearing the Red Sea and the Indian Ocean of Chinese submarines and put an end to this sinking rampage currently taking place.

In their approach to the first major chokepoint exiting the Red Sea, the wolfpack had staggered themselves at varied depths from ninety to two hundred meters. The latest intelligence report they had was that at least one Chinese sub was operating in the area. The last thing they wanted to do was walk into a trap, so they were approaching the area with caution.

“Captain, we’ve arrived on station,” announced his XO in a tone that sounded calmer than his facial expression appeared.

“Excellent,” replied Captain Lassen. “Let’s come to periscope level and report it. Once we’ve sent our status update, go ahead and bring us back to a depth of fifty meters and let’s begin the hunt.”

As the chief of the boat echoed his command, Lassen felt his stomach tightening. His hands felt sweaty, causing him to rub them on his trousers. His hands always did this when he was really nervous.

Seconds later, the sub began the ascent to periscope level. As that was happening, the communications officer put together a short message containing their current coordinates and the last several days’ worth of contact reports. Once the communications mast was raised, the electronic message would be transmitted to the surface task force commander, who’d relay it to Joint Forces Command Naples and the rest of NATO.

*******

Two days had gone by since their initial transmission. Still, they hadn’t detected any Chinese surface or subsurface contacts.

During their last communication report, they’d received a couple of reports of interest. The first was about the American deployment of a squadron of P-8 Poseidons to the King Abdullah Air Base in Jeddah. They were being assigned to NATO to help aid in the submarine hunt underway. The second was a report that the American 173rd Airborne Brigade had conducted an assault on the Chinese naval base in Djibouti, removing the last remnants of their forces in the area. The last piece of information they’d received was that the Chinese surface flotilla of ships appeared to be steaming forward at full speed, traveling in their direction.

Lassen’s new orders were to lead his wolfpack toward the enemy fleet and sink them. With their orders in hand, Lassen devised a plan and made sure the other two U-boats understood what was expected of them and how their wolfpack was going to carry out this attack.

Lassen’s sub would take the lead while he had the U-38 trail ten kilometers behind him. He wanted to make sure the Chinese sub didn’t somehow slip in behind their baffles, and if they did, the U-38 would be there to sink ’em. The U-37 would then position themselves fifteen kilometers to the left as they stayed abreast of him. This way, the two of them would advance in a line while still giving each other enough room to maneuver.

Ten hours into their new course, some of the crew were starting to get antsy. This wasn’t a training mission—there was at least one sub out there looking to kill them, and half a dozen surface ships with ASW helicopters. If they made even a single mistake, it could cost them their lives.

Lassen, on the other hand, was a patient man. Patience was kind of a must for a submariner, especially now that Germany was at war. Prior to leaving port, he’d heard rumors of an American captain who’d put over one hundred thousand tons of steel on the bottom—a feat that had earned him the title of Submarine Ace, a prize not claimed since the days of World War II. Lassen wasn’t a vain man, but it was a title he wanted so badly, he could taste it.

His great-uncle had been an Ace during his time in the service. Now that Germany was at war—a real, legitimate war, on the right side of history this time—Lassen wanted to be an Ace just like his great-uncle.

Unlike his uncle’s boat, the U-99, the Type 212A diesel-electric boats were among the quietest in the world. While the U-99 his uncle had commanded held fourteen torpedoes, Lassen’s boat carried thirteen DM24A 533mm torpedoes and two FL1800U countermeasure devices. His boat packed a considerably large punch. All that said, the German boats were small in comparison to their American, British, Russian, and even Chinese counterparts. Despite their size, they still hit well above their weight and were arguably much harder to detect.

Looking at his watch, Lassen decided it was time to come up to check on things.

“Come to periscope depth,” he ordered.

Still moving at six knots, the boat rose and leveled off at a depth of 13.5 meters. Sure, they were making a wake, but the only ships nearby were a couple of freighters and some fishing boats. It was also the middle of the night.

Lassen pushed his cap back and put his eyes to the periscope. In a crouched position, he made several rotations, switching between IR and electro-optical. He knew there wasn’t a Chinese ship in their immediate vicinity, but vigilance kept submariners alive.

As he scanned the area around them, his Coms officer downloaded the latest intelligence reports from NATO and the American 6th Fleet. When he pulled away from the scope, he motioned for them to lower it; he’d seen what he needed, and they’d received their latest coms dump.

Once the scope was down, his first officer tapped him on the shoulder and handed him the printed report from NATO. He read it, then read it again.

“Thank you, XO,” Lassen said. Then he turned slightly so his voice would project across the room. “Attention in the Conn,” he declared loudly. He waited a beat as all eyes in the room focused on him. He took his cap off and hooked it on the periscope. A bead of sweat ran down the side of his face. He hated that physical feature of his body—he sweated when he was nervous, and he sweated when he was excited. His physician said he had an overactive thyroid. Nothing that required him to take medication, but it still annoyed him.

“Listen up, crew,” he continued. “In a couple of hours, we are going to sail past Perim Island as we officially head into the Gulf of Aden. The latest intelligence report indicates there is a Chinese fleet steaming toward us. They have likely received word that our surface task force is moving to get in range of their ground forces on Perim Island. Prior to the Americans launching a ground assault on the ChiCom base in Djibouti, the PLA naval infantry established a small encampment on the island.”

“What kind of force have they established there?” asked one of his officers.

Lassen glanced down at the paper in his hand. “An American spy satellite shows what appear to be a battery of CJ-10 TELs. They are most likely equipped with antiship missiles along with a battery of those HQ-9 surface-to-air missile systems. Those are the ones that have been giving the Yanks such a hard go of it in Cuba. Intel also suspects the island is being garrisoned with roughly two companies of naval infantry. It’s believed the PLA want to close off naval traffic in the Red Sea and the Gulf Aden.”

“That’s bollocks,” said one of the enlisted sailors.

Lassen nodded in agreement. “It is. To deal with the ship and air threats on the island, a detachment of Combat Swimmers and Dutch Commandos are about to go ashore and neutralize them. Then a reinforced company of Italian amphibious infantry will be sent in to aid the Special Forces in securing the airfield. Once this threat is neutralized, the rest of the task force will transit into the Gulf and move to engage the remaining Chinese fleet heading towards us if we don’t sink them all first.”

A few of the sailors laughed and grinned at that idea.

“The report also says our Italian counterparts successfully got in behind the Chinese fleet. So they’ll be looking to engage them from the rear while we take them head-on. Make no mistake, gentlemen, this is going to be a knock-down, drag-out fight—one that not all our subs may survive.”

First Officer Claus Hoffstedt asked, “What are we facing, Captain?”

Lassen cleared his throat. “To start with, a Type 052D destroyer. This is the Chinese version of an Arleigh Burke–class destroyer, so it has exceptional ASW capabilities and cruise missiles. The ship carries two Harbin Z-20 helicopters. Signals intelligence indicates this is likely the flagship for their task force, so it’s going to be heavily protected. This ship is our primary target. The 52 is being protected by three frigates and four corvettes, so they’ll have plenty of ASW helos for support.

“Not to be left out of the party, they’re traveling with two supply ships. That means their task force has a total of seven ASW helos. Adding a little spice to the mix, there’s likely a Long March fast-attack boat tagging along with them. Intelligence is unsure if it’s operating with the fleet or on its own. So you all know and are aware of these new subs’ capabilities, it’s managed to sink some twenty-three freighters and tankers this past week, so let’s not underestimate its lethality. We also have a report from an American P-8 that there might be an Iranian Kilo in the area, but they were unable to confirm that.”

“Great. Any word on whether the Iranians are joining in with the Chinese or staying neutral?” asked one of Lassen’s officers.

Lassen shrugged. “No idea. If they shoot at us, we’ll shoot back. That’s about all we can do.”

“What about the threats on Perim Island? When are they going to be dealt with?” asked one of the officers.

Lassen looked at his watch and then back at the coms report. “The commandos should be making their assault on the island shortly.”

The bridge crew nodded in approval. First Officer Hoffstedt then asked, “Are we going to try and engage the enemy fleet prior to the task force getting in range of them, or what’s the plan, boss?”

Lassen smiled at the question. “We’re going hunting, gentlemen. That’s the plan. Now, let’s get back to work and make best possible speed to get in range of our torpedoes and start sending some tonnage to the bottom.”

*******

KSM (Combat Swimmer) Platoon

Perim Island, Yemen

Master Sergeant Dieter Heissler was hovering beneath the waves, just outside of the surf zone. The sixteen German Combat Swimmers, also called KSM, were part of a larger commando force of nearly one hundred Special Operations Forces from the German-Dutch 108th Commando Company of the Korps Commandotroepen or KCT.

The German and Dutch commandos would infiltrate the island from the sea, using a handful of confiscated fishing trawlers as cover to get them in close to the island. Once they had destroyed the surface-to-air missile batteries on the island, an Italian force of two hundred and twenty commandos would carry out a combat jump to capture the airfield on the northern side of the island. Once the reinforcements had landed and brought some additional equipment with them for the ride, they’d collectively finish off the rest of the Chinese naval infantry and recapture the island. Then it’d be safe for the rest of the NATO surface task force to transit the Red Sea and enter the Gulf of Aden and the Indian Ocean.

Master Sergeant Heissler checked his watch, then motioned to his swim partner that it was time. They were now on the clock. They only had so many minutes to locate and disable the enemy SAMs before the Italians would arrive.

The German commandos continued swimming towards the shore until they were chest-deep in the water. They were nearly close enough to rise out of the water as one unit. Then they would advance on the beach, ready to cover each other and lay down suppressive fire if necessary.

When they stood, each commando swept their sectors with their HK417 assaulter rifles. When they didn’t spot any threats right off the bat, the commandos took their face masks off and switched over to their night vision goggles. The island was pitch black; if the Chinese had any lights on in the buildings dotting the shore, then they weren’t seeing them. That was a good thing—it meant they were likely alone.

Heissler gave the signal to advance onto the land. It was time for his group to go hunting. The other groups coming ashore at their locations would be doing the same. The clock was ticking.

The commandos made it into a dried-out wadi, where they took a couple of minutes to strip down out of their wet suits and don dry uniforms and their body armor. They’d lugged the equipment ashore with them in watertight bags. Once they were suited up for the next phase of their operation, Heissler motioned for the drones to be sent up. The little scout drones the commandos had brought with them would help them identify where the ChiComs had placed those HQ-9 radar units. They needed to find those little buggers and disable them. Once they were taken out, it would be safe for the Italians to hit the airfield bringing in their reinforcements.

After affixing his throat mic and his radio, Heissler did a quick coms check with his team. Once they’d all radioed in, he made contact with the other KSM units. When everyone reported in, their commander ordered all the drones to get airborne and start sweeping the island for the radar trucks.

“I’ve got our drone synced up with the others,” a junior sergeant told Heissler.

Looking down at the soldier, Heissler saw his handheld device was showing an image of what their drone was seeing. On the right side of the screen were several tiny videos, showing what the other drones had spotted. It was a neat piece of technology they’d integrated into the Special Forces world over the last few years. In the past, they would have had to comb the island, looking for their target. Now they could blanket the place with scout drones that could cover more territory and show them things that they might never have noticed before.

One of the unique things about these particular drones was the impressive suite of electronics they packed. They were equipped with thermal and infrared cameras, allowing the commandos to see in all weather and types of conditions they might encounter. They also included laser microphones that could pick up conversations from nearly fifty meters away. It was only a matter of time until they found the radar trucks and the missile systems.

“I love these little drones, Master Sergeant,” the junior sergeant said with a mischievous grin.

“Me too, Sergeant. Now, find us some targets to blow up and people to kill,” Heissler replied with a devilish grin of his own. This was the best part of their job—hunting fellow humans, prey that could hunt you back if you weren’t careful. Since the end of the war in Afghanistan, the KSM hadn’t had any real wartime missions to participate in. This new war was like a breath of fresh air for the Special Forces community.

Ten minutes later, an excited voice called out, “Master Sergeant, I found it! Our primary target: it’s right there.”

*******

One Hour Later

Heissler froze midstep. In his peripheral vision, he saw one of his men hold his fist up. Thanks to the quad-cans on his GPNVG-18 night vision goggles, he was able to see the three Chinese sentries as they rounded the bend. They’d spotted the small patrol just in time to drop to the ground and get out of sight.

When he scanned to his right, Heissler saw the rest of his team had followed suit. Steadily, the Chinese soldiers approached them, talking casually and oblivious to the danger they were walking into.

Sergeants Albrecht and Hearst let the patrol walk right past them as they readied their silenced pistols. Once the three guards had passed, the two operators brought their P12 pistols to bear on them. In less than a second, three spitting noises emanated from their guns before the bullets impacted the backs of the enemy soldiers’ heads, dropping them where they stood before they even knew what had happened.

Once the soldiers were down, a couple of Heissler’s men broke cover to grab the bodies and drag them back into the bushes.

With the immediate threat neutralized, the commandos advanced forward until they crested a slight incline and saw their target: two HQ-9 TELs and the accompanying HT-233 engagement radar.

Looking down on the setup, Heissler noticed something; it was one of the PLA’s new advanced DWL 002 passive detection systems. He’d been briefed about the possibility of the units being integrated with the HQ-9s. The intelligence folks had specifically told him to look for them and confirm that they were being deployed with the traditional system.

This additional DWL system was a state-of-the-art system—in theory, it could also detect the NATO JF-35s and American B-2 stealth bombers. Heissler now understood why the commandos had been tasked with taking them out as opposed to using some high-flying bombers. Pairing an HQ-9 up with one of these things created a stealth hunter.

Heissler was reasonably sure that if the ChiComs had gone to the trouble of bringing one of these to the island, then chances were, they’d have a couple more. They were clearly making a play to turn this into a stronghold to control the shipping lanes in and out of the Red Sea.

He turned to the sergeant controlling their drone. “Sergeant, send a message to the other operators that we found a DWL. See if they can find any additional systems near their targets as well.”

A couple of minutes later, the other drones started looking for more DWLs, and sure enough, the HQ-9s around the island were all similarly configured.

Damn, this would have been a turkey shoot had our planes flown in here before we took them out, Heissler realized.

“On my location, Alpha Team,” Heissler said softly over the radio to Lieutenant Commander Dahlke.

It took a moment for the rest of the teams to check in and let their commander know they were ready. One of the teams said they were still five minutes out from being in position. They waited for what felt like an eternity for them to get in place.

Finally, they all heard the words they’d been anxiously waiting to hear. “All teams, execute, execute, execute!” announced Lieutenant Commander Dahlke.

Heissler smiled as he motioned for his men to move forward and neutralize the PLA soldiers guarding the missile site.

Rising from their covered positions, they advanced as a team with their rifles raised, looking for targets to kill. One of his guys fired several quick shots with his silenced pistol, taking out a sentry near some tents.

The enemy soldier fell backwards with a thud, and shortly after, another Chinese soldier walked out of the tent to find out what was going on. The stunned soldier saw the German commandos racing towards him. Another soldier fired a silenced pistol at the man, hitting him in the face before he could scream or alert his comrades they were under attack.

Heissler tossed one of his fragmentation grenades into the tent and waited for it to go off before he would dash inside to finish them off. When the grenade blew, it broke the stillness of the early morning hours. Cries and screams of pain drifted from the now-shredded tent. Around the camp, Heissler heard shouts from those who were reacting to the noise.

Heissler’s men tossed a few more grenades into the tents and vehicles nearby before opening fire on the remaining soldiers with their rifles. With no more need for stealth, the operators switched from their silenced pistols to their rifles, cutting down the SAM crews and their naval infantry guards.

A PLA soldier inside one of the half-shredded tents fired his weapon into one of Heissler’s petty officers. The man took half a dozen rounds to his chest as he was flung backward from the force of the slugs hammering him like a mallet.

Petty Officer Schiefer dropped to a knee and rolled to his left just as a string of rounds flew over his head. As he rolled and came up into a firing position, he leveled his KH-MG5 at the soldier shooting at them. He pulled the trigger and raked the tent, sending dozens of rounds into the remaining soldiers, silencing their counterattack before it could get going.

With the shooting started, the KSM operators had split into their four-man assault elements, making quick work of the remaining soldiers. Two naval infantry marines on the far side of the encampment repositioned one of their machine guns, delivering a barrage of bullets at the Germans, who dove for cover.

A string of bullets slapped against the side of the radar trailer Heissler had ducked behind. One of the giant wheels on the trailer took a couple of rounds and chunks of rubber were flicked off.

Hot damn, that was close, Heissler thought. These guys must have NVGs themselves.

“Cover me!” shouted one soldier as he darted to another position.

Heissler’s guys were trying to keep the machine-gun crew pinned down while another team tried to flank them or get in close enough to use their grenades.

A bright flare illuminated over top of the German position. Then a string of flares, probably from a mortar crew, started going off across all the SAM and antiship missile sites. Where moments before, the Germans had been using the advantage of darkness and their NVGs, the ChiComs had just leveled the playing field by turning the darkness into day. The effects were felt almost immediately.

“Crap! I’m hit!” screamed one of the Germans in pain as he tumbled to the ground. Bullets kicked up dirt all around him.

Another operator left his covered position and ran toward the wounded man, only to be hit in the throat by one of the machine-gun bullets. Arterial spray squirted through the air as the man was spun around in a circle from the impact. It was a horrifying sight, illuminated by the brilliance of the artificial magnesium sun as it cast the oddest shadows on the ground.

The wounded man desperately clutched at the gaping hole in this throat. With each heartbeat, blood shot through his hands. All Heissler could hear was the man gurgling and choking for air as he desperately fought to stay alive, and it infuriated him to no end that he couldn’t do a damn thing to help him.

“Cover me!” Heissler screamed as he grabbed one of his grenades from his chest rig. He pulled the pin on it and threw it hard at the machine-gun crew maybe thirty meters away. Then he ran for all his worth to the right, then to the left, shooting his rifle in short bursts the entire time.

The grenade he’d thrown went off just short of the Chinese marines, flinging dirt, dust, and shrapnel into the air. It distracted the enemy soldiers as Heissler raced forward.

Suddenly, a barrage of bullets flew toward him. The red tracers looked like glowing comets careening right for him as he dove to the right and rolled behind a set of rocks. The sound of angry bees flying all around him scared the hell out of him as chips of rock were flung into the air.

“Grenade!” shouted one of his comrades. Moments later, Heissler heard a couple of explosions before more gunfire ensued.

Dropping the spent magazine from his rifle, Heissler slapped a fresh one in place and waited for the machine-gun crew to pivot to another target so he could pop up and shoot back.

Turning to his right, Heissler caught a glimpse of four PLA marines laying into his guys. Somehow, they must have missed this patrol prior to launching their attack. They were paying for that mistake now.

Seeing that these new arrivals hadn’t spotted him yet, Heissler took aim at one of them and pulled the trigger. The Chinese marines were maybe two hundred meters away, not exactly close, but not too far away either. With his first couple of shots, Heissler managed to take one of the guys down. One stayed in his position to keep shooting at the Germans, while the other two tried to flank further down the line.

Not forgetting the machine-gun crew he’d originally tried to charge towards and put down, Heissler repositioned himself so he was now on one knee. He raised his body and rifle above the rocks he’d taken shelter behind and scanned for them. The gunner was slumped over his weapon, smoke traces rising from his clothes. The assistant gunner’s body was half out of the fighting position, also slumped in an awkward position, dead.

One of the guys must’ve taken them out before I could, Heissler thought.

A pair of grenades went off to his right, near where those Chinese marines had been trying to flank his guys. Then there was a short burst of gunfire, followed by silence. Moments later, one of his operators emerged from where those marines had been shooting from a few minutes ago, yelling out, “All clear! All clear!”

Slowly, the commandos began to stand up as they surveyed the carnage and damage around them. The task was slightly more difficult with the ever-shifting magnesium light as the illumination rounds drifted back to earth.

With the immediate threat cleared, they still needed to complete their mission. Heissler ordered his crew to start placing explosives on the radar units, the control vehicles, the missile TEL pods and the generators. They were going to blow this place up and then take care of their wounded. They’d wait for the Italian commandos to parachute in and assist them in securing the rest of the island. Now they just had to hold out long enough for their relief to arrive.

Fifteen minutes after blowing their charges, they heard the familiar turboprop sounds of a C-130. Help had arrived. Craning his neck to look off towards the airport, the first C-130J Super Hercules was already disgorging its human cargo along the edges of the runway. Little parachutes opened just long enough to slow the descent of the operators before their feet touched down. The Italians were jumping from one hundred and fifty meters.

The third and fourth C-130s swooped in much lower. They were practically skimming the surface of the airfield. With their rear ramp down, a sled with a 4x4 Puma armored car slid out the back of one of the C-130s and onto the runway. The Pumas had been laden down with extra ammo and equipment for the paratroopers. They’d also provide them with at least some sort of armor support.

The fight to take Perim Island was on.

*******

Chinese Destroyer Chengdu

40 Nautical Miles South of Perim Island

Senior Captain Zheng Su was not prone to show anger, but he was irate at the report he’d just gotten from the naval infantry component on Perim Island, telling him they were under attack by NATO commandos. The Special Forces soldiers had somehow disabled the HQ-9 systems on the island, and even now, the commandos were attempting to destroy the antiship batteries.

His flotilla was supposed to operate under the protective umbrella of the HQ-9s to keep NATO aircraft off their backs while his ships kept the critical chokepoint closed to shipping traffic. This new development was going to complicate his efforts significantly.

Then there was the attack that had taken place last night as they’d transited past the coast of Djibouti. Somehow, a small squadron of NATO vessels had managed to slip past the garrison on Perim Island to carry out a quick hit-and-run attack on his ships. These weren’t large vessels by any means. Just a handful of small gun and missile boats outfitted with a few Exocet missiles. Even still, he’d lost two of his four corvettes while a frigate had taken severe damage, angering him to no end. One of his supply ships was so irreparably damaged, he’d almost considered blowing it up with all hands out of frustration and spite.

Zheng had also nearly lost a submarine, but thankfully, one of his other frigates had been able to come to the rescue and had sunk the Spanish submarine hunter before they were able to zero in on it. He had a special mission saved for that sub, and the Spaniards had almost foiled his plan.

Captain Zheng had always considered the Spanish and Hellenic navies to be shadows of their former selves, rocked by domestic economic implosions of the last decade. But somehow, those bastards had managed to sink their teeth into his force. He now understood why the Americans so loathed the Iranians and their little missile boats. The damn things were hard to take out if you weren’t equipped for that kind of warfare. If he’d had a Type 055 destroyer at his disposal, they would have made short work of them.

“Helm, how long until we reach the mouth of the Bab al-Mandab Strait?” Zheng asked. He wanted to get closer to Perim so they could try to lend some support to the naval infantry on the island.

“Sir, at normal speed, we could reach it in one hour and ten minutes. However, the damaged ships are slowing us down. Current estimate is closer to three hours.”

Zheng nearly threw his tea at the sailor in frustration. In three hours, the battle on the island would likely be over with. He’d detail off a couple of ships to stay with the damaged supply ship, but frankly, he needed all the firepower with him he could get.

Then a thought occurred to him. Maybe I can use the damaged supply ship to my advantage, as a decoy ship in case any additional NATO ships or submarines show up.

*******

Italian Sub, S-526 Salvatore Todaro

Northeast of Perim Island

Captain Rolando Paolucci hovered above his sonar operator, sweat running down the sides of his face from the stress and tension he was feeling in this moment. Moments ago, his senior technician had confirmed the contact to be a Chinese Type 054A frigate, and it was slowing down.

“Why is she slowing? Is she damaged?” Paolucci quizzed.

“No, sir. She seems to be dropping speed to let the damaged Type 903 get ahead of her. They’re probably trying to listen for us, see if they can spot any subs operating near them.”

Paolucci was about to say something else when he looked at the second sonarman, who was concentrating so hard he seemed he was about to push his headset through his ears.

“What is it?” he asked, placing his hands on the young sailor’s shoulder.

“Sir, I’m not sure. I thought I heard cavitation from astern, but it could have been a transient. I-I’m not sure. Maybe it was nothing.”

Scrunching his bushy eyebrows, Paolucci countered, “Play it back. Let’s all listen to it and see what we can make of it. Remember, we know we’ve got at least one and possibly two hostile subs operating in our AOR.”

“Aye, Captain.”

“Navigation, while we figure out if we’re dealing with a sub, I want you to angle us in towards the rear of the enemy ships. When we fire our torpedoes from astern, their noise will be drowned out by their screws.”

“Aye, Captain.”

Paolucci gripped the overhead handrail a little tighter. They would begin their attack soon, but the possibility of another sub out there somewhere behind him made him nervous.

*******

Changzheng 32

Gulf of Oman

The Conn grew deathly silent until the sonar operator told the captain they were no longer cavitating. Captain Chen had been so eager with his last command to increase their speed that he’d failed to take into account their turn angle. Had the boat been moving in a straight line, it wouldn’t have been an issue, but in his haste, he might have committed a fatal mistake.

Although the rim-driven propulsor made substantially less noise than a standard propulsion system, it was still governed by physics. If they lived through this day, it was a mistake he wouldn’t make again. The second the sonar operator had told him they were cavitating, his first officer had rightfully ordered a reduction in speed. It was a breach in protocol—one he’d forgive, just not one he’d forget.

With the submarine again hidden in the baffles of the Italian boat, Chen began his attack preparations. Their tubes were all loaded with China’s newest torpedo, the YU-9. It was one of the fastest torpedoes in the world, and the mixture of chemicals in its warhead burned at two thousand degrees centigrade when it detonated, vaporizing the water beneath the hull and causing a ship to break apart from the absence of water beneath her. When it detonated against a submarine, it acted as a thermobaric device. No submarine on earth stood a chance of surviving a hit from the YU-9. This Italian Type 212A was already dead; they just didn’t know it yet.

“Open outer doors and prepare weapons to fire,” Chen announced gleefully as they prepared to score another kill. They had already joined the ranks of Submarine Ace three times over. One more kill and it would be number four, making them the deadliest submarine and crew since the days of the German wolfpacks in the Atlantic.

“Open outer doors and prepare to fire. Aye, Captain.”

*******

Italian Sub, S-527 Scire

Sonarman Subchief Remo Petri nearly jumped out of his seat. It had been three minutes since he’d thought he heard cavitation off their starboard bow. He’d been listening to the swath of ocean where he thought he’d heard the sound. It had just paid off.

“Captain! Submarine, one thousand, six hundred fifty meters off our starboard bow. She’s opening her outer doors.”

Captain Uranio Nappi practically jumped out of his seat and made his way over to his sonarman.

“Is she gunning for us?” the captain pressed.

The others on the Conn all looked at the sonar operator, waiting with bated breath to see what he was going to tell them.

“Negative, Captain. She’s in a general line towards the Todaro’s last known position.”

A sigh of relief washed over the crew of the Conn, but then anger brewed as they knew their comrades were now in grave danger.

Captain Nappi smiled inwardly. His friend and sometimes nemesis had been right. He hated it when he was right, but if there was ever a time for it, this was it.

Before entering the Red Sea, they’d received an adjustment to their orders. They were supposed to operate like the German subs were going to, functioning as a wolfpack as opposed to lone hunters like the American and British subs.

Nappi had been excited by the opportunity to hunt with his frenemy until Paolucci had pulled him aside to talk before they returned to their boats.

“I want your sub to hang back five to ten thousand meters to cover my six,” Paolucci had said.

“You’re pulling rank on me?” Nappi had yelled. “You just want the glory of sinking the Chinese ships for yourself!” He had been livid.

Paolucci had taken a deep breath and lowered his voice. “The Chinese have a new type of submarine,” he’d reminded him. “One that is allegedly quieter than any other sub. There’s already been an American boomer sunk, along with a pair of Arleigh Burke destroyers in the same battle.”

Now Nappi understood why his friend had asked him to hang back. Paolucci wanted him to sink that Chinese bastard if it tried to slip in behind his baffles.

“Petri, do not lose that boat! Record its acoustics,” Nappi ordered.

I’ll be damned if we’re not going to help find a way to track these new subs, he thought as they positioned for a shot of their own.

“Aye, Captain,” came the quick reply. The tension on the Conn was thick as the crew realized their lives would forever change in the next couple of minutes.

“Weapons, prepare to fire tubes one, two, and three.”

The weapons officer turned his head slightly as he replied, “Aye, Captain. Preparing to fire tubes one, two, and three.” A few seconds later, the officer added, “Weapons ready in all respects. Standing by to fire.”

A few of the sailors shared nervous glances with each other. They were going to be the first Italian submariners to fire their weapons in anger at an enemy since World War II. They’d trained for years to prepare for this moment; now it was finally here.

While they had been sitting in a trough, waiting for the enemy fleet to pass over them, Captain Nappi had had them open their six outer torpedo doors. That way, when it came time to fire on a Chinese submarine or ship, they wouldn’t give away their position by opening them right before they fired.

“Sonar, how far behind them in their baffles are we?”

The sonarman turned to see Nappi and the rest of the crew all staring at him, waiting for his answer. “We’re sixty-one hundred meters in his baffles, sir.”

Now all eyes turned to Nappi. They looked on with apprehension, fear, and excitement. He was about to give an order that would save and doom the lives of hundreds, and they were probably glad it wasn’t a decision they’d have to make.

Sticking his chin out just a bit as he sought to look stoic and in complete control of his emotions despite the butterflies bouncing around inside, he uttered the word, “Fire!”

*******

German Sub, U-39

Mouth of the Red Sea

Captain Lassen stood rigid with his arms folded across his chest. Sonar had ranged the Luyang III-class destroyer or Type 052D to be 9,940 meters and still closing.

“Weapons, on my command, fire tubes one, three, and five at the destroyer on programmed tracks,” Lassen directed. “Target tube six at that wounded supply ship with them. We can’t let them bring more troops or equipment to Perim Island.”

His weapons officer turned his head to the right as he called back, “Aye, Captain. On your command, firing tubes one, three, five, at the destroyer on programmed tracks. Tube six at the supply ship.” His bridge crew immediately went about getting the ship ready to shoot.

Lassen watched the clock. He was trying to time this attack perfectly for maximum effect. The seconds slowly ticked by for what felt like an eternity until they reached his goal. Five, four, three, two, one.

“Fire!” Lassen bellowed, louder than he’d intended. Excitement had gotten the better of him.

“Weapons away, Captain,” came a very tense-sounding weapons officer.

“Sonar, list all bearings as relative to own ship.”

“All bearings relative to own ship, aye.”

The junior sonar operator spoke up next as the engagement started to unfold. “Sir, the U-37 and U-38 have also fired.”

“Acknowledged,” Lassen replied tersely as he stood at the master plot, looking at the digital weapon tracks. He took in the scene of the battle as the various torpedo tracks headed toward the enemy fleet.

“Captain, torpedoes are in passive homing. Steady on track to target.”

“Time to terminal homing of weapons?” he asked.

“Five minutes, sir.”

“Acknowledged. Set weapons to active homing and cut the wires in five minutes.”

“Cut wires in five minutes. Aye, sir.”

Lassen had ordered the three weapons aimed at the destroyer to overlapping kill boxes. He knew once the enemy commander realized they were under attack, they’d launch countermeasures and decoys to throw his weapons off. However, Lassen was confident at least one of the three torpedoes would score a hit and they’d send that destroyer to the bottom.

An urgent call from the sonar operator sent a chill down everyone’s back. “Captain, ASW helicopter, bearing eight-seven degrees, range fifty-five hundred meters. It sounds like they just pinged the U-37 with their dipping sonar. That destroyer must’ve heard them fire their torpedoes and sent the helo in their direction.”

He must have fired before us, Lassen thought. Damn, those Chinese were able to get a bearing on him fast.

“Set torpedoes to active homing and cut the wires.” Lassen made the snap decision and decided to press home his advantage while he had it.

“Aye, sir. Set to active homing and cut wires now.”

“Set ceiling tubes two and four for twenty meters,” Lassen ordered.

“Set ceiling for twenty meters, tubes two and four, aye.”

He waited as the weapons technician programmed the commands into the weapons.

“Sir, weapons ready.”

“Fire tubes two and four!” Lassen barked.

As the remaining torpedoes fired, he had them begin the process of reloading all six tubes. This would take a bit of time, so he wanted them to start on it now. Depending on the results of these six shots, they might need to expend the last of their torpedoes to finish this fight.

Several timers counted down as the groups of torpedoes sliced the pitch-black waters toward an unsuspecting enemy fleet.

Turning to his first officer, Lassen said, “XO, I think it’s time to shake things up a bit.”

His second-in-command lifted an eyebrow at the comment. “What do you have in mind?”

Lassen turned to his helmsman. “Ahead full, bearing seven degrees. Make your depth one-seven-zero meters.”

“Ahead full, bearing seven degrees. Making my depth one-seven-zero meters, aye.”

As the bow of the U-39 angled downward, the ship began to pick up speed. Lassen sought to take some of the heat off the U-37 by giving the Chinese something else to shoot at.

*******

Changzheng 32

Gulf of Oman

Commander Chen thought there would be more tension on the Conn as they prepared to fire. However, after having sunk twenty-plus ships in the last week or so, the crew was used to the sequence of events and what would come next. That was, until their sonarman yelped every submariner’s worst fear. “Torpedoes in the water! Bearing one-six-two degrees, range sixty-one hundred meters!”

“What?! Time to intercept?” Chen demanded, trying to keep the panic in his voice at bay.

“Sir, at present course and speed, they’re three minutes, fifty-five seconds out.”

“Maneuvering, ahead flank! Thirty-degree down on the planes!”

“Aye, sir. Ahead flank. Thirty-degree down.”

The sub practically jolted forward and down at a sharp angle as the engines ran up to full power, shooting the sub through the waters at an incredible rate of speed.

Time for the next miracle…

“Launch countermeasures!”

“Countermeasures away, Captain!”

*******

Chinese Destroyer Chengdu

Senior Captain Zheng Su was on the radio to the captain of the corvette Luzhou. The man was barking orders while trying to talk to him. His ship was fending off a couple of enemy torpedoes while at the same time doing their best to engage the attacking subs with their own torpedoes. From what Zheng was hearing over the radio, their fight to stave off a hit from those enemy subs was not going so well.

Damn it! This is a hell of a time to have half our ASW helos down for fuel, Zheng lamented. We need them dropping torpedoes on those bastards…

Turning his attention to the hand receiver connecting him to the corvette commander, Zheng said, “Captain, I don’t care what you have to do, but get your helo airborne now. If your ship goes down, we need your helo to survive. It may make the difference between the rest of the fleet surviving and not. Is that understood?”

The other captain grumbled something but said he’d have the helo airborne in the next couple of minutes. “It may only have half a tank, but I’ll get it airborne,” he’d muttered.

Zheng was incensed that their helos hadn’t detected any of these subs up to this point. He’d have to make a point of mentioning this during his review of the battle he’d be sending back to Beijing, if he survived the next few hours.

Now I know why they call this place the Gates of Tears, he thought. This place was a submarine trap, with all the canyons and crevices for them to hide in. Somehow, someway, despite all his best efforts, his flotilla had sailed into a well-planned trap.

I wonder why that stupid AI didn’t discover this trap or given us a heads-up? he wondered. Maybe it’s not as smart as those idiots in Beijing believe it is.

“I think that torpedo is going to hit the Luzhou,” commented one of the action officers as Zheng looked out one of the bridge windows into the darkness where the corvette was doing its best to stay alive.

A tremendous flash of light illuminated the sea for the briefest of moments as the Luzhou took a hit near the aft section of the ship. Zheng cursed under his breath as the fire cast ominous shadows across the water.

Returning his focus to the survival of his own ship, Zheng barked, “Launch our decoys. Ahead flank and take evasive action. There are bound to be more torpedoes in the water. We’re not going to go out without a fight.”

The bridge crew relayed his orders, and the ship practically jumped as they went from twenty-five knots to thirty-nine, their maximum speed.

“Weps, as soon as sonar has a bead on one of those enemy subs, I want you to fire some ASROCs at them. We need to start getting them reacting to us, and not the other way around.”

As if on cue, the corvette Luzhou was hit by a second torpedo. A tremendous fireball erupted amidships as it ripped the corvette in half.

Zheng looked out the window as they sailed past the fiery wreckage of the dying ship. As the two halves bobbed further apart in the water, he knew the vessel would be beneath the waves in minutes.

If they weren’t in the heat of the battle, Zheng would order his ship to slow and attempt a rescue. But he had torpedoes of his own being targeted at him he had to evade.

*******

Italian Sub, S-526 Salvatore Todaro

“Captain, submarine cavitation! Bearing three-three-one degrees, range ten thousand meters,” shouted the sonar operator excitedly.

“Maneuvering, make your depth one hundred eighty meters, course three-three-one degrees, now!” barked Paolucci anxiously.

As the commands were echoed, the Salvatore Todaro turned and headed for deeper waters. They were going to reposition and fire a salvo at this mystery sub.

“Sonar, get me a status on that boat. Is it the same one you heard before?”

“Yes, Captain. The signature is consistent with what I heard earlier. I believe it’s the same sub.”

Paolucci nodded in approval as he smiled. Then he said the words he’d been itching to say since the battle had started: “Fire tubes one and two along that bearing. Set to active homing as soon as they clear the tubes.”

“Aye, Captain. Fire tubes one and two along last known bearing and set to active homing.”

“Captain, enemy submarine is evading torpedoes: same bearing, but further away.” There was a short pause as the sonar tech tried to listen to gain some additional information on the torpedoes already in the water. A smile crept across his face. He turned back to the captain. “They’re ours, sir! Three Black Sharks bearing down on the enemy sub.”

“It’s Captain Petri! You wonderful bastard!” Paolucci shouted with genuine joy in his voice.

*******

Special Operations Company

1st San Marco Marine Regiment

Airfield, Perim Island

Captain Antonio Mare jumped from the C-130 and was on the ground just moments later. His chute had barely enough time to open and slow him down before he was tucking and rolling on the ground.

Commandos from the Gruppo Operativo Incursori, or Raiders Operational Group of the Italian Navy, were landing all around him. Once on the ground, they raced to their drop bags and grabbed for their rifles and other equipment. They didn’t know how soon the enemy would react to them, so they needed to be ready now.

The senior sergeants and junior officers barked orders, rallying and organizing their squads and platoons just as they were supposed to. Captain Mare felt an immense amount of pride swell up in him. Years of training and hard work were unfolding before him.

Four more C-130s flew low across the airfield, and a giant parachute was thrown out the back of each one. As the massive chutes filled with air, each one dragged a pallet out the back of the aircraft that contained one of their 4x4 Puma vehicles. Commandos raced out to the vehicles as soon as the sleds came to a halt. They opened them up and climbed in to get the turret-mounted guns set up, while a few other soldiers detached the vehicles from the sled. Packed inside the backs of the vehicles were tens of thousands of rounds of ammo and more than three hundred 60mm mortar rounds for the mortar platoon.

The little Puma vehicles were essentially pack mules for the commandos, in addition to some light armor gun trucks. As his squads and platoons formed up and advanced off the airfield, illumination rounds started going off around the island. Several of them exploded over top of the airfield, shining a bright light on the newly arrived commandos.

Gunfire erupted near the edges of the airfield as the Chinese naval infantry realized what was going on and little pockets of resistance formed. Shouts in Chinese echoed throughout the surrounding area. An old-fashioned winding alarm wailed in the distance, alerting the garrison they were under attack—as if they hadn’t already known that.

The heavy weapons platoon was already getting their mortar tubes set up in a dried-out wadi not far from the airfield, and they’d already shot a handful of Chinese naval infantry who’d tried to attack them before they finished setting up. Now they were about to start dropping 60mm mortars on whatever targets needed busting up.

Looking into the hills, Captain Mare saw green and red tracer fire zipping back and forth between different groups. He knew the gunfire was most likely coming from the German KSM units, the ones tasked with taking out the HQ-9 missiles so his men could parachute in.

“Sir, we have the operations center up,” called out one of his staff officers.

“Excellent. Great job. Let’s let the KSM units and others know we have the mortar pits ready. If they need some indirect fire, it’s here for them,” Captain Mare responded before he headed toward what looked like an abandoned building.

“Mortars up!” shouted an NCO who was overseeing the mortar team not too far away.

Thump, thump, thump.

Three 60mm mortars were on their way to some target.

When he entered the building, Captain Mare immediately spotted his RTO, who handed him the radio. “It’s the KSM commander. He’s got a job for us.”

Smiling, Mare took the receiver, eager to see what his commandos could do.

*******

Chinese Sub, Type 095A

“Sir! Torpedoes in the water. Bearing forty-four degrees, range ten thousand yards and closing.”

Chen took a deep breath and tried to relax himself. He was being fired at from two submarines and had nearly a half a dozen torpedoes headed his way from two different vectors. The torpedoes from aft were closing at fifty knots and would reach his boat in roughly two minutes and forty-five seconds.

All eyes stared at him, hoping he had a plan to save their lives and keep fighting. They’d accomplished too much and come too far to die now.

“Maneuvering, come about to heading two-six-zero!” he barked. “Engineering, I need everything you can give me on the reactor,” Chen ordered. “Everyone’s lives are depending on it!”

The maneuvering officer looked at him with a puzzled look on his face but nodded in acknowledgment.

“The ridges off Fagal—they rise eighty-five meters off the seabed. We are going to use them to lose these damn torpedoes.”

“Heading two-six-zero. Yes, Captain.”

Looking around the Conn, Chen saw an earnest desire to live. He didn’t know if he could call it hope just yet, but what he’d just told them offered them something they hadn’t had a few minutes ago—a real, viable chance to live a little longer.

“Sir, torpedoes have gone into active homing,” called out the sonarman.

The tension was so thick, Chen felt he could cut it with a knife. Everything was riding on the next couple of minutes.

“Range?” he asked.

“Eighteen hundred ninety meters.”

Damn, this is going to be close, he thought.

“Launch decoys and countermeasures. Keep launching them as we pass over this ridge. Don’t stop.”

“Yes, Captain!”

The sound of the torpedoes’ sonar was growing louder as the weapons locked onto them. Chen made a point of flicking a piece of lint off his uniform, although he wasn’t sure why he felt the urge to do so.

“Distance to ridge?”

“Nine hundred fifty meters, sir.”

“Distance from closest torpedo?”

“Nine hundred seventy meters, Captain.”

Chen exhaled audibly; this would be incredibly tight. If the torpedoes didn’t hit low enough on the ridge, the pressure wave would cripple the boat, and they’d still be put on the bottom.

Suddenly, he had an idea. “Release and cut the towed array, and release two countermeasures.”

Some of the crew looked at him quizzically, but they did as he ordered. Chen hoped cutting the towed array and dropping another noisemaker might buy them a few more seconds. Seconds equaled distance, and distance equaled life. They needed just a few seconds to get over the ridge and then dip down below it, allowing it to absorb the energy of the torpedoes.

“Distance to ridge?”

“Five hundred meters, Captain.”

“Distance to the closest torpedo?”

“Sir, closest torpedo has veered off course. It’s confused by the noisemakers!”

“Maneuvering, stay as close to the top of the ridge as possible. As soon as the bow has cleared it, I want a thirty-five-degree down angle on the planes, hard right rudder.”

As the man echoed the commands, the sonar pings from the closest torpedo faded considerably as it locked onto the detached sonar array, its systems confused by the two noisemakers.

“Sir, the bow is clearing the ridge.”

As it did, the sound of sonar pings thundered in the Conn. Another torpedo had locked on and begun its terminal run.

“Fifty-degree down angle on the planes!” Chen yelled.

The nose of the boat angled down sharply as the belly of the sub brushed against the rocks of the underwater mountain. At nearly thirty-two knots, it caused a loud scraping noise along their entire belly until they had cleared the ridge. They were now in a deep dive, rushing to get as far below it as possible.

Seconds later, two massive explosions rippled through the water. The torpedoes had impacted with the opposite side of the ridge.

The boat was rocked by the shock wave. Lights flickered out and electronic systems were overloaded for a moment. The boat seemed to list to port in what felt like an uncontrolled roll. The automated systems activated and righted the boat as emergency power kicked on. The lights in the Conn flickered back on.

“All stop. Rig for ultra-quiet!”

“All stop. Rig boat for ultra-quiet. Yes, Captain.”

They’d managed to evade two of the most advanced torpedoes in the NATO arsenal. More than that, they’d survived. For the moment, Chen was going to assess the damage to his sub and play dead until it was safe to slip away to lick their wounds.

*******

German Sub, U-39

Mouth of the Red Sea

Captain Lassen had maneuvered his boat at a perpendicular angle between the destroyer and its sole remaining frigate. He had clear shots to both as the frigate had pushed ahead of the destroyer. They were off his port bow at 325 and 348 degrees, respectively.

One of the other boats had destroyed a corvette and put the merchant on the bottom. His sonar operator had reported the sounds of underwater explosions consistent with a submarine being hit. He didn’t have time to worry about all that right now. If he survived the day, he’d know soon enough who all had survived and who hadn’t.

“Prepare to fire tubes one and two along generated bearings.”

“Tubes one and two ready to fire along generated bearings, aye.”

Lassen waited a beat as he tried to picture the ships on the surface some four thousand meters away. He’d gone ultra-quiet and allowed his boat to drift in the current, barely moving along at seven knots. The Chinese ASW helicopters were to the northwest, and the sonobuoys they’d dropped had lost the U-39 to the decoys he’d launched as the boat had dived to 175 meters, placing them ten meters above the seabed.

Lassen took his cap off and ran his fingers through his sweat-soaked hair. He wondered if this was what it had felt like for his great-uncle during the battle of the Atlantic. He couldn’t imagine what it must have been like to be hunted by the American and British navies.

Putting his cap back on, Lassen steeled himself for what he hoped was the last part of the day’s action.

“Fire!”

The sound of the torpedoes leaving the tubes echoed briefly in the Conn. Watching the digital timer, Lassen noted it would be two minutes and thirty seconds until the torpedoes hit their targets.

“Set fish to active homing and cut the wires.”

“Active homing set. Wires cut, Captain.”

“Set tubes three and four to wake-homing and fire.”

“Torpedoes set and away, Captain.”

Lassen’s intent was for the torpedoes in active homing to force the ships to take radical evasive maneuvers to avoid the incoming fish, churning up the ocean so that the wake-homing fish could lock on and track to their targets. When the wake-homing weapons hit their terminal runs, the boats would try in vain to outrun them. In doing so, they would allow the weapons that were in active homing to lock on, and the combination of the two salvos would double his chances of finishing this fight in the next two minutes.

*******

Chinese Destroyer Chengdu

Zheng thought he’d survived the worst of the torpedo attacks. They’d had two close calls, but their ship-launched heavyweight torpedoes had put one of the enemy submarines on the bottom. It had given them breathing and maneuvering room. That all changed in an instant.

“Captain, torpedoes in the water, bearing one-three-two degrees!”

Zheng was about to issue orders to fire countermeasures when a second warning came in of torpedoes approaching from 284 degrees. His last remaining corvette, the Fushun, would need to deal with them.

“Captain, two more torpedoes in the water, bearing one-four-zero degrees!”

Panic was starting to set in on the bridge. The crew was sensing that they had outlived their nine lives in this battle. Zheng needed to restore their confidence.

“Helm, evasive maneuvers! Launch countermeasures!”

“Countermeasures away, Captain.”

“Distance and speed of contacts?”

“Sir, the contacts bearing one-three-two degrees are thirty-four hundred meters away, speed forty-seven knots and accelerating.”

Damn! he thought. They had less than two and a half minutes.

He heard the rotors of his modified Harbin Z-20 ASW helicopter as it raced overhead. The pilot radioed that he was headed down the bearing of the estimated launch point of the torpedoes and he would fire his remaining sonobuoys and torpedo in an attempt to sink the sub.

He scoffed to himself. That won’t do us any good.

*******

German Sub, U-39

“Captain, wake-homing torpedoes have acquired target. They are actively homing.”

“Cut the wires.”

“Explosions in the water, bearing three-two-zero degrees.”

Lassen looked at the timer; it was too early to be his fish finding the destroyer or the corvette. He smiled, knowing that whichever U-boat had survived was still in the fight and they’d just all but ensured that the destroyer was less than a minute from being put on the bottom.

*******

Chinese Destroyer Chengdu

Once again, the night sky turned bright orange as a massive fireball erupted to their port bow. The remaining corvette, the Fushun, had been struck in her aft quarter. The back of the boat bent at an unnatural angle as the torpedo detonated beneath her. As her drive shafts were lifted from the water, she slowed to a stop.

When she’d finally become stationary, the Fushun was hit again by a second torpedo. This time, the force of the explosion ripped the ship in half.

Zheng resigned himself to his fate. Despite his best efforts, his first real command and flotilla had never stood a chance of reaching their destination. His last thought before his ship was hit by three torpedoes was that he wished he could have seen one more sunrise.

*******

German Sub, U-39

“Sir, she’s hit! Three impacts. The ship is breaking apart.”

There were cheers on the Conn before his first officer quieted them down. Walking over, he extended his hand to Lassen.

“Congratulations, Captain.”

“Thank you, XO.” Releasing his hand, Lassen took off his cap and looked at the laminated picture inside of his great-uncle—not in his Kriegsmarine uniform from World War II, but of him as an old man, with a young Johann Lassen sitting on his lap that summer long ago in Spain.

“XO, in one hour, bring the ship to periscope depth. Those ASW helicopters won’t be around much longer with no place to land. We need to report this engagement to headquarters.”

“Yes, Captain.”

Lassen walked aft to his tiny room. He planned to lie on his bunk for the next forty-five minutes and pray to whatever gods were out there, thanking them for seeing him and the U-39 through this day of days.

Chapter Sixteen

Viva Cuba

White House, Situation Room

Washington, D.C.

December 23, 2024

Blain Wilson rubbed his temples. He was starting to get one of those crushing headaches he’d get from time to time when either he had physically exerted himself too much or he was under far too much stress, like he was right now. He grabbed the Excedrin Migraine he kept in his pocket for moments like this and washed them down with some coffee.

“As you can see, Mr. President, the 101st Air Assault Division, along with the Florida Army National Guard’s 53rd Infantry Brigade Combat Team, have finally captured this last remaining stronghold, south of Havana,” explained General Kilbourne, the Army Chief of Staff. “With this last obstacle removed, our forces are now able to finish off the remaining Cuban and PLA forces that haven’t surrendered on the main island. All we have left is the forces they have on Isla de la Juventud, and frankly, now that we’ve eliminated the air threat on that island, we can bypass it entirely—starve ’em into submission.”

“Has the Cuban government officially surrendered yet? Do we even know who’s in charge anymore?” asked the President. He looked at his Secretaries of State and Defense for this answer.

Secretary Riley shook her head. “Not yet, Mr. President. We’re still working to figure out who’s in charge down there. It appears our decapitation strike at the outset of the war did succeed, and we took out the senior leadership of the country. From what we’ve been able to gather, one of the Cuban generals, a man who appears to be in tight with the Chinese, has assumed power. We’ve tried to reach out to him, to no avail.”

Looking at Peter Morris, the President asked, “OK, Pete, then how should we proceed? We’ve captured most of the country. Do we go ahead and try and appoint some locals to take over or keep this a full-on military occupation for the time being?”

The Secretary of Defense thought about that question for a minute before answering. “I think until we can identify who we want to ultimately take over the country, we should assume control of it, just like we did in Iraq. We can establish a Cuban provisional authority. Once we’ve finished securing the place and things have calmed down, then we can look to figure out what kind of people want to lead their nation. Obviously, we aren’t going to let them go back to communist dictatorship, but we should give them some time to figure things out while we work on stabilizing the country and bringing in much-needed humanitarian support.”

The President nodded at the suggestion. He looked exhausted. Blain wasn’t sure how the man had managed to stick around as long as he had, given his condition. If he’d resigned earlier due to his battle with ALS, there was a high likelihood his Vice President would have won the presidency. As it was, it had been a tough election, and she’d lost.

“General Kilbourne, how long until you have the rest of the main island occupied and under our control?” President Alton asked next.

“We have two more strongholds to root out: one in the south, which the Marines are handling, and one further west on the island,” explained the Army Chief of Staff. “Now that we can shuttle in attack helicopters and additional close-air support, taking these next strongholds should be a lot easier. The Air Force just introduced their Loyal Wingman drones to the fight in some serious numbers. They’re making a huge difference in going after those enemy SAM sites.”

“Good,” the President responded. “We transition power to the next administration in less than thirty days. I suspect those in uniform will be sticking around, but the rest of us will likely not be here. Let’s do our best to leave them in as good a position as we can.”

Blain felt he should ask a question. “Um, sir, what should we do about the southern Caribbean and Venezuela? The Chinese and Venezuelans have already captured several Dutch, French, and British territories down there.”

The generals all nodded as they looked to Alton to see what he’d like them to do. There had been a lot of talk the last couple of weeks about this very topic. The Venezuelans and the Chinese were making all sorts of problems down in their neck of the woods. Something did have to be done about it—the question was what.

“I want to get Cuba settled up first. I also need to talk with the President-elect privately,” Alton replied. “I need to find out what she’d like to do. It’ll be her call in less than thirty days. Now, let’s wrap up Cuba and get ready to take the fight down south.”

Then the President stood up, effectively ending the meeting.

*******

White House, Oval Office

Washington, D.C.

Blain walked into the Oval Office, unsure of what the President wanted. He still wasn’t sure who his official counterpart was yet. The President-elect hadn’t named her National Security Advisor, which was making his office’s transition a lot tougher to figure out.

“Ah, Blain. Sorry for summoning you right before you were about to head out the door,” said President Alton. “I needed to talk with you about something.” He motioned for the two of them to take a seat on the couches.

Blain took a seat, a serious look on his face. “Is everything OK? Something I should be concerned about?”

Alton smiled disarmingly. “No, nothing like that, Blain. You’ve done a hell of a job as my NSA—better than my previous one, but don’t tell anyone else that.” The President chuckled. “I called you in here to ask you something. How well do you know President-elect Maria Delgado?”

“I’d say I know her pretty well, but we aren’t close if that’s what you’re asking,” Blain responded. “I’ve spoken with her only a few times in the last few years and then only during the required briefings during the run-up to the election and post-election. I knew her best in the early 2000s. She was a captain in the Army back then. When I was tapped to become a battalion commander with 5th Group, she was my public affairs officer. She was with me when our Humvee got blown up by an IED.” He stared off into the distance.

“Sorry if that brought up some bad memories, Blain,” the President said in a soft tone. “I was just curious what kind of woman she was—what kind of mettle she’s made of.”

“When our Humvee got blown up, several of my toes and my left leg got mangled pretty bad. I had also taken some shrapnel to the left side of my left face and lost my eye. I was in bad shape. Maria pulled me from the burning wreck. All I remember was when the vehicle got hit, it was like the dust and dirt inside the vehicle magically floated in the air for a moment, only to be replaced by smoke and fire. Then I saw her face as she was trying to tend to one of my wounds. I saw her grab for her pistol and fire several shots as she protected me. She yelled out orders to some of my soldiers to engage the enemy while our team medic ran over to help her treat me. My driver was unfortunately killed. Our turret gunner had lost both of his legs, but the medic had gotten tourniquets tied off in time to keep him alive.”

Blain paused for a second as he relived the worst day of his life. “I can tell you this, Mr. President: I don’t know I’d be alive if she hadn’t acted swiftly and without fear like she did. When I was recovering at Walter Reed, I made it a point to put her in for a Silver Star. I ran that all the way up to the head of Special Operations Command to make sure she got it, too. Since that day, we’ve kept in contact as friends and fellow soldiers, though not as much the last six or seven years. We seldom talked politics when we did talk.”

President Alton nodded. He’d obviously known already that she’d earned a Silver Star and a Purple Heart during the war. It was a huge selling point for her politically—a female war hero turned congresswoman, now turned President.

“Blain, I called you here to tell you I spoke with her a few hours ago. I told her about our coming decision on Venezuela and that I needed her to tell me what she’d like done in the next few days. I also told her we desperately needed to know who her NSA was going to be. That’s when she asked me if I thought you might be willing to stay on in the position, at least until we got through this conflict and her new administration was able to get settled in. I told her I’d ask. When you meet with her tomorrow morning, she’s probably going to ask you, so I wanted you to know in advance.”

Blain sat back in the couch. In all honesty, he was seriously conflicted. On the one hand, it had been a really long and rough eighteen months. He’d missed a lot with his family. He desperately wanted to go back to a normal life. But the soldier still inside him wanted to stay on and help defeat an enemy that had violently attacked his country and killed millions of his people.

“What are your thoughts, Mr. President? Should I stay if I’m asked?” Blain punted the question back to Alton.

The President blew some air out of his lips. “Blain, I’m a dying man. You know, it’s the reason I didn’t run for reelection. What little time I have left, I want to spend with my family.” He shifted in his seat. “What I do know is you are hands-down one of the sharpest people I know. Our country is in a very tough position right now. It needs a wartime president. You know Maria better than I do; she’s been to war, and she’s made the tough calls just as you have. You also know the history that’s led to this war and you have a good idea of how we defeat this super-AI we appear to be fighting. I know this is going to come at a tremendous personal cost to you and your family, but I’d stay on if she asks you to. The country needs you to. I need you to.”

Blain wasn’t sure what to say. Alton rarely opened up like this. He was incredibly private about his ALS diagnosis. The public at large was still unaware of his health condition; only a tight-knit group had been informed of the President’s situation. Had he chosen to run for reelection, he probably wouldn’t have been able to keep this information to himself—he might have even been forced to resign. As it was, the world and the country had become consumed by more pressing matters than that of a dying president.

Blain looked Alton in the eye. “I need to talk it over with my wife. If she supports me, then I’ll stay on if asked.”

Chapter Seventeen

Transition Team

December 24, 2024

Georgetown, Washington, D.C.

Maria Delgado looked out the window of her D.C. townhome as the snow continued to blanket the city. The weather report said it was likely to snow most of the day. They were expected to receive somewhere between five and eight inches.

And tomorrow is Christmas…what a joy the snow will be for the kids.

She sighed as she turned away from the window. I really wish we could have spent more time in Albuquerque instead of rushing back to D.C., she lamented.

It wasn’t that she didn’t like her townhome; she did. She just favored her home near the Sandia Mountains. They were beautiful this time of year. The way the snow covered the tops of them and edged its way down the sides. It was a beautiful contrast to the mostly brown landscape that covered the high desert.

Walking out of her office and across the foyer, Maria entered the cozy yet well-appointed living room with a plush leather couch and several comfortable chairs on either side. Spread across the coffee table was a series of folders. Each folder had a person’s name on it, a recent photo, and a position they were being considered for. They were finalizing the selection of several key cabinet and administrative positions.

Her soon-to-be Chief of Staff greeted her with a warm smile and a cup of coffee. “Two creams, no sugar. Just the way you like it, Madam President-elect.”

Maria smiled as she reached out and accepted the liquid brain juice. Then she took her seat in the leather chair near the beautifully decorated Christmas tree. The seat by the tree had become her decision chair by default over the last few weeks as her transition team worked through the process with her of assembling her cabinet and political appointees.

They’d narrowed down the Secretary of Defense to two individuals, found the right person to be Secretary of Education and determined that her top two picks for Secretary of State would not work out. Maria felt they were falling behind in getting her cabinet and key positions filled, but her transition chairman assured her every administration went through these kinds of hiccups. Some people appeared to be perfect on paper or from TV interviews, but once she sat down with them one-on-one and got to know them, she learned their personality didn’t mesh with hers.

“Here,” her senior advisor Hanna Hoover said as she handed her a folder. “I really think we should consider George Millet for National Security Advisor. He’s a former diplomat, well connected within D.C., and the think tanks and academia love him. His insider contacts, especially at State, will really come in handy.”

Maria bit her lower lip as she took the folder and then placed it right back down on the table. “I’ve already made my mind up who I want for NSA,” she countered. “I thought I made that clear yesterday.”

Sighing audibly, Hanna shook her head in frustration. “Maria, you should clean house and bring in our own people. We owe a lot of chits, and some of them are coming due. George has a lot of backers.”

“I get that. But I know Blain. I’ve known him for a very long time, and I trust him. I need someone in place now that can help us hit the ground running. Our country was brutally attacked. We’re in a global war with China. We can’t afford to take months acclimating to our new positions. We need to be ready on day one. That means I need to retain some people from the current administration until we can get ourselves up to speed.”

Maria saw Hanna was about to object and put her foot down fast and hard. “I’ve made my decision, Hanna. Stop pushing George. We can find another role for him in the administration. I’m meeting Blain for coffee in two hours, so let’s go through some of these names for the other positions.”

The next couple of hours went by in a blur. They identified twelve individuals they’d like to meet with to fill six positions. The rest of the week would go by swiftly as they lined up interview after interview. They were looking to fill her cabinet before the end of the year—then they’d look to get the deputy positions filled as well as the other critical administrative positions before she was sworn in.

*******

The snow wasn’t coming down hard, but it was falling steadily nonetheless as Blain’s driver pulled up to the front of the President-elect’s townhouse. The Secret Service had the block locked down tight. They had several armored vehicles and some soldiers nearby for additional security as well. Normally, the President-elect would commandeer part of a fancy D.C. hotel or even stay at the Blair House. However, when Washington had come under direct attack during the opening hours of the war, the Secret Service had opted to have her continue to stay in her townhouse, which happened to be close to Embassy Row in Georgetown. It wasn’t really in a location the Chinese would likely try and bomb.

As Blain walked toward the front of the townhome, the security detail radioed ahead, letting the folks inside know he was there. After a few seconds, he was waved on through.

When he entered the townhome, he took a deep breath in. It smelled like Christmas. The interior of the home was uniquely decorated for the season—Blain suddenly remembered what an avid fan of Christmas she was.

“This way, Mr. Wilson. She’s in her study,” one of the detail members said.

Walking through the house, Blain saw most of her staff and closest advisors. He smiled warmly at them. Many of them returned the smile and offered season’s greetings—all but Hanna Hoover. For whatever reason, that gal seemed not to like him.

*******

“There you are, Blain. Merry Christmas,” said President-elect Maria Delgado as she greeted Blain with a warm hug. “Come on in. How’s the family doing?” she asked as she ushered him into the room. She caught a glimpse of Hanna staring at them, a look of frustration on her face.

You may have helped me get here…but I’m the President, not you, Maria thought as she closed the door, blocking Hanna’s view.

“The family is doing well,” Blain replied warmly. “The kids are growing like weeds. Both of them are getting close to being done with school. Then we’ll be empty nesters.”

“That’s great to hear, Blain,” she said with a gentle smile before shifting to a more serious tone. “Blain, you and I have known each other for more than twenty years, so I’ll get right down to it. I spoke with the President about you. He can’t sing your praises enough. He told me that without you at his side, he likely would have made some serious mistakes.”

Maria saw him blush. She continued, “My administration takes power in less than four weeks, and we’re taking over in the middle of a nasty war with China. I know this is a lot to ask, but I need to know if you can stay on as National Security Advisor and help me navigate my way through this. There’s still so much to learn, and so much is still unknown. I need people I can trust: people I know don’t have an ulterior motive, people who will be loyal to me and what’s best for this country. You and I have been to war together. I know I can trust you with my life, and I know you’ve trusted me with yours. Can I count on you to help me be the best president I can be for the nation and to lead our people to victory in this new conflict?”

Blain cleared his throat. “I talked this possibility over with my wife last night. I took some time to pray about it and then slept on it. Now that we’ve briefly spoken, I feel a strange peace about it, so yes. I’ll stay on as your NSA for as long as you need me to,” Blain offered.

Maria let out a soft sigh of relief. Thank God, someone I know will have my back.

“I’m glad to hear that, Blain. I was a little concerned that you might say no. I honestly have not been happy with the alternatives. You know, becoming President often means you owe a lot of favors to a lot of different groups. Those competing interests usually want their compensation to come in the form of political appointees and policy positions, which may not always coincide with what I’d like to pursue.”

Blain nodded. “President Alton learned that the hard way. It’s tough, Madam President-elect. You have to create a very tight inner circle that you can trust to be tough as nails and get your priorities done, and not the priorities of those who helped you get into power.”

I knew he was the right pick, she thought.

“Please, when it’s just the two of us in private, call me Maria. We’ve known each other too long and gone through too much to be all formal like that. But, yes, I agree with what you are saying. I’m still trying to work out who my inner circle will be, but I’m extremely glad to have you as one of them. Giving you a heads-up—Hanna, for whatever reason, does not particularly like you. She’s been adamant about me not picking you, but I overrode her.”

Blain lifted an eyebrow. “I had my suspicions about that. I’m not sure what I’ve done to cross her. But I suppose we’ll have to learn how to work with each other. She’s still going to be your Chief of Staff?”

Maria tilted her head to the side as if she was having second thoughts about that. “I believe so. But I’m considering maybe having her as a senior advisor. We’ve worked together for twelve years. She knows me well, and she’s a legislative wiz on my staff. I’m going to need her help if I’m to push through any of my domestic agenda.”

“The only advice I can give you about a Chief of Staff is that you need to find someone who’s really good at managing what comes across your desk and can work well with all sides,” Blain offered. “Everyone is going to want a piece of your day. It’s that person’s job to figure out what’s most important to get handled today: what’s the five-meter target versus the twenty-meter target that can wait for another day? With the war heating up and likely to get a lot worse before it gets better, this will be incredibly important.”

Maria bit her lip a little bit. “I’d have half a mind to make you my Chief of Staff, but I know it’d ruffle a lot of feathers.”

Blain chuckled at the comment. “Yeah, having a Chief of Staff from the previous administration might cause some challenges. But as long as whoever you appoint doesn’t block my access to you when I need it, I don’t see there being any problems.”

She laughed at the blunt assessment. “Yeah, I know what you mean. Don’t worry, whoever ends up in that position will know that if you need to see me for anything, no matter what’s going on, you go to the top of the priority list. I’ll make that damn clear to everyone at the White House. You’re one of my longest friendships; we’re battle buddies, and while that may not mean something to the others, it means the world to me.”

Blain smiled and visibly relaxed at hearing her statement.

“What do you mean by ‘the war is going to get a lot tougher before it gets better’?” she asked, changing the topic. “What else is going on that I don’t know about yet?”

He scanned his surroundings suspiciously. “How secured in this room? I mean, has your detail swept it for bugs recently?”

Maria’s left eyebrow rose. “I honestly don’t know. I left those details up to them. Let me ask.”

She took a minute to call the head of her detail in. He said the house was swept for bugs daily, but he’d have the room swept right now, just to make everyone feel comfortable if they were going to talk about something sensitive. Her townhome wasn’t exactly a SCIF by any means, but she didn’t have a classified facility to operate out of on a daily basis—not with the government having spread itself out a bit in the aftermath of the attack on D.C.

Once they’d confirmed the room was clear, she had an agent guard the door so she and Blain could talk about classified info for a little bit.

“You know, we could always arrange for a briefing in the Situation Room in a couple of days if you’d like,” Blain offered. “I could give you a lot more information than I can right now.”

“That’d be great. Maybe we could do that on the twenty-seventh. I want to take Christmas and Boxing Day completely off. I just need some personal time with my husband and our own kids before the madness of the coming weeks and months begin.”

“I’ll arrange it,” Blain confirmed. “I’ll have the relevant people there for you.” He jotted a note down to remind himself.

“OK, so back to your main question. Here’s what we know so far. This super-AI the Chinese created, Jade Dragon—it’s apparently a lot smarter than we had originally thought possible,” Blain began. “You remember a few weeks back, hearing about that shoot-out in Idaho? The CIA, working with MI6, had managed to get the lead developer of that AI to defect. When Jade Dragon figured out his death wasn’t real but had been staged, it somehow managed to track down his actual whereabouts. It apparently sent a Chinese Special Forces hit squad to take him out.”

Maria moved her hand to her mouth in shock. She’d heard about the attack, but it had been chalked up to an unconventional warfare attack by the Chinese. There had been a number of them happening across the country since the beginning of the war.

She held her hand up to stop him. “Blain, are you saying this AI managed to track him down in a safe house in the US?”

Blain nodded.

“How is that even possible? I mean, is this AI autonomous? Is it able to think for itself and penetrate our digital infrastructure?”

Blain looked around nervously, which caused the hairs on the back of her neck to stand up. She was going to have to look at some of the cabinet positions again. She might need to go with a different skill set than she had originally been thinking.

“Maria, we didn’t have access to the defector for all that long. He was in MI6 custody for two weeks and then ours for two weeks. I know that sounds like a lot, but we’re talking about an incredibly complex and very technical exploitation of his knowledge. That kind of information takes time to gather, and then more time is needed to analyze for follow-up questions. During the brief period the Agency and MI6 had him in protective custody, he disclosed some incredibly disturbing information about the program. To be honest, we were caught completely flat-footed by how far ahead of the West the Chinese are in the field of machine learning. Somewhere in the last five years, they moved beyond the scope of limited memory machine learning to the theory of mind machine learning.”

Maria wasn’t sure she was following what he was saying. “This seems to be getting a bit more technical than I understand. I know about the four basic levels of artificial intelligence, but maybe you can break this down a bit more for me.”

Blain nodded. He grabbed for a piece of paper, drew a couple of boxes and wrote some notes in them. “First, as you know, the term AI often gets interchanged with machine learning, but in reality they’re two different functions. Machine learning is the heart of AI; likewise, one cannot function without the other. The AI itself will only become powerful and do more when it has a functional brain that can absorb and retain information. Most of the West, to include the US, currently has the machine learning level that falls into the second of the four categories, called limited memory. These are essentially machines that move beyond purely reactive machines; they’re also capable of learning from historical data to make decisions.

“These types of machine programs are often used by insurance companies when they develop their actuarial tables. They’re also heavily used in the financial sector in a variety of different types of trading software, and then, of course, they’re used in social media and digital marketing. Like, say you click on an advertisement for one product on Facebook, then Facebook’s algorithm will look at that and then, based on that click or like button you hit, will push similar ads that you’re more likely to click on. The more that happens, the more refined the marketing becomes and the more accurate they are as a company at helping businesses find the right customers.”

Maria furrowed her brow. “So, what you’re telling me is we’re really good at this type of machine learning. But somehow, someway, the Chinese seemed to have advanced beyond that to the next level?”

Blain nodded. “It would appear so. The defector, a guy by the name of Ma Yong—he told us he’d been working on the project for seven years. In that time, he took a very advanced version of this limited memory program, and over the course of several years he imbued the program with what’s called ‘theory of mind.’ Meaning, he taught Jade Dragon how to discern human needs, emotions, beliefs, and our basic thought processes.”

“Hold up, Blain. How could he have taught a machine that?” Maria pressed as she shook her head in complete shock.

“Ma Yong said he spent several years training the machine with something called behavioral analytics. It’s kind of like game theory. But then he introduced something even more advanced called social behavior analytics: the study of social behavior and how humans interact with each other. Then he taught the machine how the human mind operates on a biological basis and how you can use that biology to mind-hack a person into believing what you want them to believe.”

“How exactly did this programmer teach the computer to do that?” she quizzed.

Blain sighed and then reached for the glass of water.

“I’m not an expert in this field, by any means,” Blain said, throwing his hands up for a moment. “But I have taken a lot of time to talk with those who are to try and gain an understanding of exactly what we’re dealing with. One of the ways Ma Yong was able to teach Jade Dragon this stuff was by first teaching him thirty-four languages. Once the computer knew them, it was able to teach itself most of the other languages of the world. Next, he had the computer ingest every news article being pushed by left, right, and middle-of-the-road news outlets in nearly every country in the world. He then had the machine watch hundreds of thousands of hours of talk shows and sitcoms to learn what people were viewing and finding either funny, informative, entertaining, or offensive. All of that data gave Jade Dragon a basic understanding of people.

“Next, they needed to get real-world information and then test their theory to begin gauging the responses of real people. This is where the concept of DragonLink came into play. China provided free internet to its citizens while tracking its users and manipulating search responses without their knowledge. This provided a previously unheard-of level of real-time intel. Jade Dragon began to learn how to control their own population to achieve the aim and goals given to it by Dr. Xi Zemin, Ma’s direct boss and the man in charge of the program. He apparently reports directly to President Yao.

“Once Jade Dragon had this basic understanding, DragonLink was rapidly expanded to include the Caribbean, Central America, and South America. Through a couple of intermediaries, they also managed to obtain a steady pipeline of data from Google, Facebook, TikTok, and Twitter. This gave them access to the American people and our country,” Blain shared.

“What have they done with this information?” Maria pressed.

“Initially, it was to monitor and learn from us. Then they started using it to create stories designed to further polarize and divide us. When the pandemic eventually broke out, it used the power of social media to absolutely weaponize the fear around it. Worse, based on our travel patterns, the AI provided information to the Chinese government on airports that would be especially good places to spread the virus, and they sent infected travelers to those hubs.”

Maria’s face turned beet-red. “God, this makes me so angry, Blain,” she said, her fists clenched. “What they did was so diabolical. I just don’t understand how people can be this heartless.”

Blain sighed. “We have to keep in mind that we are dealing with a machine that doesn’t have emotions. This AI has been given an objective to achieve and it’s using whatever tools are at its disposal to accomplish them.”

“I suppose you are right. But if that’s the case…if all of that is true, then how do we stop this thing?” she wondered.

“That, Madam President, is the big question I’ve been trying to tackle since I first learned about this program a little more than a year ago. Right now, we have to keep outthinking it while our own scientists and researchers look for a way to battle this machine better.”

Maria blew some air out through pursed lips, then stared out the window of her office. She watched the snow falling for a good minute. This is what I signed up for, she reminded herself, to be the person to make the big decisions. We can do this…I can do this.

“Blain, you’ve given me a lot to think about. I look forward to talking with you again on the twenty-seventh. Once I’ve had a briefing in the Situation Room on the current state of affairs with the war, I’ll let the President know the direction I’d like to take. This way he can have the military focus its preparations along that path. Right now, my head is swimming with information. I need some time to mull this over,” she concluded.

As Blain left her study, she saw her advisors and transition team giving her a quizzical look. Her meeting with Blain had gone a lot longer than anticipated. “I’ll give you the fifty-cent version once I’ve had a chance to eat lunch,” she said.

Chapter Eighteen

Empire of the Sun

JS Izumo

Japanese Combined Task Force

East China Sea

The missile impacted just below the tower of the Izumo. The high angle of the missile had caused it to glance off the ship as opposed to driving deep into their guts. The fact that it was a point detonation warhead instead of proximity fuse, the speed of the missile, and the angle of the ship’s turn were the only things that had saved the island from being blown apart.

A second and third YJ-18 missile slammed into the flight deck, sending flames high into the sky. Belowdecks, the ship shuddered as the lights flickered on and off. With so many parts of the ship being hit, the automated computer systems struggled to maintain power to the ship’s critical systems.

“Admiral, we must withdraw!”

Just then, another impact rocked the ship and Admiral Mori was thrown from her seat in the CIC. Before she knew it, her aide lifted her to her feet and held her upright in his outstretched arms.

She collected herself as she swept a tuft of her hair out of her face and over her ear.

“Thank you.”

“Yes, ma’am.”

Smoke and the smell of burnt plastic wafted through the air. The ship’s HVAC system appeared to be down.

Admiral Mori made eye contact with Captain Nagao. “Signal what’s left of the fleet to withdraw,” she directed. “Let’s hope our remaining submarines are still below to cover our escape.”

“Yes, Admiral!” He bowed slightly and rushed off to give the order to withdraw.

She looked around the CIC; several of the 360-degree augmented reality screens were flickering from the power surges. Every screen that was still functioning had flickering red icons, indicating damage to every ship in the fleet. The master display plot showed that out of her original forty-nine warships, twenty-two had been completely destroyed and fifteen were seriously damaged. The remaining twelve had been hit but were still in the fight.

She looked over to the display that had a live camera feed outside the ship. On the horizon, she saw a line of ships stretching back for miles, many of them ablaze. Thick billowing clouds of black smoke and fire painted the horizon. When she glanced back to the master plot of her task force, she saw another flashing red dot turn solid.

Twenty-three ships destroyed…

*******

Hours Earlier

JS Izumo

Japanese Combined Task Force

South of Jeju-do Island, South Korea

Rear Admiral Mori Risa rose from her chair in the CIC of the Izumo as she prepared to leave the room. Stopping momentarily, she glanced back to catch a glimpse of this incredible command center. It was a technological marvel that added to the sheer majesty of this ship. At 815 feet in length, the Izumo was the largest warship the Japanese Navy had put to sea since World War II. The fact that she commanded it and forty-nine other warships still left Admiral Mori in awe.

When the Chinese Navy had overtaken the Americans as the largest naval force in the world, Japan had begun to realize how vulnerable their country was. The Chinese were mass-producing warships at an incredible pace, leading many experts within the military to believe war between their nations was almost inevitable. It was during this period of anxiety and uncertainty that the Self-Defense Force had been renamed to represent what it truly was: the Japanese Navy, Army, and Air Force.

When the war had broken out, Admiral Mori found herself responsible for two recently combined naval task forces: Escort Squadrons Two and Four. A contingent of South Korean warships was then added to the mix to further increase their combat power.

It excited her to no end to be in command of the largest naval task force since World War II. She’d previously been the commander of Escort Task Force Four, so she knew its capabilities and the ships assigned to it well.

When Admiral Miho Otani had been promoted to Vice Admiral and moved to become J3 of the Joint Staff, it had left a vacancy that needed to be filled quickly. No one was more surprised than Admiral Mori when she’d received orders not only promoting her to rear admiral but also giving her command of the combined task force.

Kotake approached her with a slight bow, breaking into her thoughts. “Admiral, they are waiting for you in the wardroom, ma’am.”

“Yes, of course,” Mori replied. “I have so much on my mind—sorry if I seem a little dazed, Lieutenant. There’s not nearly enough time in the day to accomplish all that needs to be done.”

Kotake looked a little nervous but did his best to cover it with a simple smile.

She smiled back, trying to smooth things over. He wasn’t her choice for an aide—not that she had anything against the man. Lieutenant Kotake Shijo was her aide-de-camp. Technically, he was a member of Japan’s Special Boarding Unit or SBU, so he wasn’t without his own special set of skills and capabilities. He was also one of the few officers who was always armed on the ship. While it wasn’t uncommon for an admiral to have an aide, it was uncommon for them to have five elite operators assigned to protect them while underway.

Admiral Mori felt it overkill, but as perhaps the most prominent woman in Japan and a senior flag officer in the military, the government wasn’t taking any chances on the Chinese trying to assassinate her, either. The Chinese intelligence service had already succeeded in assassinating more than a hundred key naval personnel across the South Korean, Australian, Japanese, and American navies since the start of the war. It was an unusual war, given their adversary was now going after their military officers, whether at home or at sea. To say it was unsettling for the families of these officers was an understatement.

Admiral Miho had insisted on her security detail. Mori wasn’t sure if it was because they were classmates at the Academy or because Mori had protected her that night on the train so many years ago. Maybe it was just because, as the J3, Miho had the pull to keep naval flag officers afloat as safe as she possibly could. Still, it seemed odd having a contingent of bodyguards while at sea—especially considering she was surrounded by the mightiest warships Japan had built and put to sea in nearly eighty years.

*******

As they walked down the hall, Kotake was a few feet in front of Admiral Mori. When he rounded the corner to the CIC briefing room, he saw two Korean aides standing there.

Kotake heard one man whisper, “Does she even know what she’s doing? She’s never been in combat.”

“I’m certainly not comfortable going the battle with someone so unproven.”

Both men stiffened as Kotake approached. His eyes bored deep into them as he closed the gap between them. He moved in close to the officer who had made the remark about his charge. “I find your lack of faith disturbing,” he whispered.

The man’s eyes opened wide at the menace in his voice and the obvious reference to Darth Vader. Both men stepped aside as Kotake opened the door for the admiral.

When she looked into his eyes, he did his best to maintain an emotionless expression. In his peripheral vision, he saw her smiling.

Did she hear what I said to that oaf? he wondered.

Captain Nagao Senzo, the commander of the Izumo, called the room to attention. All the officers assembled came to rigid attention, then bowed slightly as was their custom.

Kotake pulled Mori’s chair out and she sat. Once she was seated, the assembled officers did the same.

*******

Without turning around to look, Admiral Mori knew Kotake was behind her, ready to protect her should the need arise. While everyone in this room was a trusted officer of the Japanese and Korean navies, she knew Kotake trusted no one when it came to keeping her alive.

Mori cleared her throat. “Gentlemen, our task is as simple as it is dangerous. In exactly eighteen hours’ time, we are going to close with and destroy the Chinese Northern Fleet.”

As Nagao was the senior captain present, he began the briefing.

“Admiral Mori, we know the general bearing the enemy force is on, and that they are traveling at twenty-five knots. The fleet is roughly six hundred kilometers from our red line near Cheju-do Island. Our task force’s position is here,” said Nagao as he swiped his tablet and pulled up a map. “Given that the Chinese Northern Fleet has a mixture of surface combatants and support vessels, we estimate that, traveling at max speed, the Izumo will be in optimal missile range of the enemy fleet in approximately eleven hours and forty-five minutes.”

Admiral Mori picked up her tablet and made a note. She turned to Captain Nae, her J3 and the task force operations officer. “Captain, please lay out the refined attack plan based on my previous guidance.”

Nae stood and cleared his throat. He glanced down at his tablet and made a sliding motion, and the screen of his tablet was now displayed on the front five panels in the CIC for everyone to see. The display showed the area with the current locations of the Chinese fleet ships in solid red icons, their trajectories in dashed red lines and their future projected locations in flashing red icons.

“Admiral, as you can see, displayed before us is the weapons loadout of every ship under your command. Based on your guidance, the refined attack plan is straightforward. The F-35s will take off and advance ahead of the fleet to clear the airspace and keep any potential enemy aircraft from engaging us. When our ships have reached this position here”—he pointed to a spot on the map—“we will launch our first salvo of antiship missiles toward the enemy fleet.

“We’ve designed the first volley of missiles to attack the enemy from a high-altitude trajectory to draw their radars and attention. Once we have a SIGINT indicator that the Chinese have been alerted to the incoming threat, we’ll begin firing our second and third salvo at medium and low trajectories.”

Captain Nae paused for a moment to see if the admiral had any questions. Seeing that she didn’t, he continued. “At that point, the F-35s will fly in and launch their coordinated joint strike weapon attack. As was briefed earlier this morning, the three Filipino-flagged merchant ships passed to our southwest several hours ago. Per our instructions, they were making as much noise as possible, which allowed our fast-attack submarines to launch their Sea Wasp salvos. We know the Chinese Northern Fleet pushed out their diesel-electric submarines well in advance of the fleet leaving port. They will hold their nuclear fast-attacks in reserve, closer to the actual fleet.”

“Captain, the Sea Wasp torpedoes have yet to be tried in combat,” said Admiral Mori. “What is your confidence level that this attack will be successful?”

“Admiral, as you know, Commander Takahashi of the Toryu has developed a tactic that we believe will be successful against diesel electrics. The Type 89 Mod 2 or Sea Wasp torpedo is equipped with the latest sophisticated acoustic memory package. The four submarines from Task Force Two fired their Sea Wasp torpedoes beneath the Filipino merchant ships; each of these torpedoes was programmed with the primary, secondary, and tertiary target package. As we speak, they are at varying depths beneath the waves, listening for their targets. Once they have acquired and verified their targets as they come into range, they will go to active homing and start their terminal attack runs.”

Admiral Mori put her hand on her chin and reflected on what she had just been told. “Very well, Captain,” she replied. “One last thing: once the Chinese know they are under attack, what kind of response are we likely to receive?”

“I suspect they’ll launch everything they have at us. We can probably expect repeated salvos of YJ-18 antiship missiles while they look to get in close to bring more of their other weapons to bear on us.”

“Very well, gentlemen. I want a full status report of the task force in two hours’ time. I suggest everyone try to get some rest and eat something. In two hours, we move to battle stations, where we’ll stay until this battle is decided.”

Admiral Mori rose, as did everyone else in the room. When she turned to leave the room, she saw that Kotake had already opened the door for her.

*******

JS SS-512

Toryu “Dragon Slayer”

East China Sea

As the periscope of the Japanese Toryu slipped beneath the waves, the submarine was already angling downward toward the depths. She had come to periscope depth to exchange information with the Izumo. Commander Takahashi Heiji had ordered the boat back down to a depth of 550 meters. The Chinese ASW presence had increased considerably in the East China Sea, a key indicator that they were preparing to attempt a breakout into the deep waters of the Pacific.

Two days earlier, the “Fishhook,” a Japanese version of the American SOSUS system, had detected subs out of the Chinese Northern Fleet Headquarters at Qingdao, leaving their bases. The Sasebo Naval District Headquarters had sent the SS-512 out as a vanguard to the Izumo Task Force to intercept any subs looking to break through their perimeter.

“Sonar, report status of contacts Sierra 1 through 4.” Commander Takahashi’s voice was steady, almost a loud whisper.

“Sir, all contacts remain generally on the same two-nine-zero-degree bearing, relative to ship’s position.”

“Speed and distance?”

“Sir, they are all making turns for twenty knots, range seven thousand three hundred and fifteen meters.”

“Very well, continue monitoring.”

“Yes, Captain.”

Commander Takahashi motioned for his TAO and his XO to join him at the master plot. As they approached, he dimmed the light on the digital plot. The Conn had been lit in red for the last several hours, and the lighting on the digital plot had started to hurt his eyes before he turned the brightness down.

He used a trackball to find their location on the digital undersea map. Then, using his fingers, he manipulated the touchscreen until he saw what he wanted to discuss. Yesterday, the three Filipino merchant vessels had passed above them, traveling some five hundred meters apart while intentionally making as much noise as they possibly could. The goal was to ensure the Chinese heard them and only them. Slicing silently beneath the cargo ships had been four subs from Submarine Task Force Two. Each of the submarines had launched five of their Type 89 MOD2 Sea Wasp mines.

The weapons were a modified version of the American Mk 60 Captor deepwater mine. The acoustic signatures of every Chinese naval vessel that had been recorded to date by Japan and its allies were programmed into the weapons’ digital brains.

Unlike the American Captor mines, the Wasps wouldn’t anchor themselves at a specified depth. Instead, the Sea Wasp mines would cruise at a programmed depth with their passive sonar activated until they either found their target or ran out of fuel. Once the mines detected an acoustic sound they recognized, their active sonar would turn on and they’d zero in on their prey.

Takahashi searched for the mines’ locations on the plot, then zoomed in on one of them. The projection was an approximation based on their speed and programmed heading. When the Toryu had raised their electronics masts, they had downloaded the latest satellite imagery of the Chinese Northern Fleet as it made its way to the Pacific. Given the position of the fleet and sonar’s ranging of subsurface contacts, Takahashi knew the Chinese were less than thirty minutes from being intercepted by the Sea Wasps. It was just one of many surprises the Japanese Navy had planned for the Northern Fleet.

Takahashi’s orders had been explicit: once the Sea Wasps had acquired their targets and attacked, he was to go on the offensive. The Sea Wasps had been programmed to give priority targeting to the Song-class Type 039 and Yuan-class Type 039A diesel-electric submarines—Japanese Naval Command had a high degree of confidence that the Sea Wasps would easily detect and prosecute these older, louder diesel subs that rarely left the protection of China’s territorial waters. Mori had a high degree of confidence as well. In fact, the whole concept of the Sea Wasps had been his idea. These weapons had superb acquisition sonars, and once they had gone into active homing, they could accelerate on their terminal attack runs to seventy knots.

As Mori looked at the plot, an icon for one of the Sea Wasps went from solid yellow to blinking yellow. He double-tapped the icon and brought up the weapon’s targeting data.

“Gentlemen, the Sea Wasps have caught the scent.”

Mori looked at his XO and TAO. Both men smiled, bowed slightly, and set off for their stations. Mori picked up a mic from its cradle and switched to the shipwide channel. Taking a breath, he paused.

“Battle stations!”

*******

Long March 14

East China Sea

Captain Duan Ju was at the periscope and had been for the better part of thirty minutes. Sonar had picked up nothing. The aircraft high above had detected nothing. The Great Sea Wall had detected nothing. The indicators had all been negative, yet he couldn’t help but feel that there was, in fact, something there.

The Northern Fleet would be able to push to the deep waters of the Pacific in about ten to fifteen more hours. Then they’d cross between Taiwan and Okinawa and into the Philippine Sea and the Pacific. They were still technically in Chinese waters, so Captain Duan was confident that remaining near the surface was relatively safe. Yet there was a gnawing feeling in the back of his mind that something was off.

He commanded an older Type 093A, the Long March 14. It was a good boat, but not the best. Duan’s pride had been damaged when he hadn’t been given one of the rim-driven propulsion Type 095As, but in this new war, he would show Beijing he was worthy. His submarine would bring glory to the People’s Liberation Army Navy.

He was traveling with ten Type 039As, five of them on either side. They had formed a line nearly fourteen nautical miles across as they prepared for their own hunt, a hunt for any potential Japanese or South Korean submarines or surface warfare ships that dared to get in their way. His flotilla of subs had put to sea nearly half a day ahead of the main fleet.

Prior to leaving port, Admiral Xun had been adamant about his mission. The fleet must transit unmolested. Even if he had to sink fishing boats along the way, he was cleared to take whatever actions were necessary.

Their patrol had been painfully slow once they’d sounded the bottom at two hundred meters. They had slowed their speed immensely to give their sonar operators the chance to listen for anything out of the ordinary, anything that might possibly pose a threat to the fleet that would be advancing behind them. The only thing they’d heard was a small convoy of Filipino merchant ships, which had been so loud, Captain Duan had wondered how they could possibly be seaworthy.

Flipping the handles up on the side of the periscope, he turned away to face the crew. “Officer of the Watch, make depth one-zero-zero feet.”

“Yes, Captain. Navigation, make depth one-zero-zero feet.”

“Make depth one-zero-zero feet, aye.”

As the sub began its descent, a sonar ping echoed throughout the Conn. This new and unexpected sound momentarily stopped everyone in place. It was followed by a second, third, and fourth ping, getting closer together.

“Captain, Sonar, torpedoes in the water!!”

Duan was briefly frozen with confusion. They hadn’t heard any indication of a submarine anywhere near them. The Great Sea Wall hadn’t heard anything either. How could this be happening?

“Range and bearing?” he demanded.

Before the sonarman could answer, they heard two massive explosions. More sonar pings bounced off their hull. Duan slapped the sonarman on the shoulder to get him to focus.

“Range… closing fast, bearing all across the bow, sir. Multiple contacts from eighty degrees to two hundred ninety degrees, Captain!”

“Left full rudder, all ahead flank! Thirty-degree down!”

*******

Combined Task Force

Vicinity Dai-shi-goto Bank

East China Sea

Admiral Mori sat at the desk in her stateroom; she had been lost in thought for the last forty minutes. She was looking at a picture from her days at the National Defense Academy—Mori and three other young women at the end of the first year. They all had big smiles on their faces. She and the three other women in the picture were the first women ever to be admitted to the National Defense Academy. She thought back to those days, when anything had seemed possible. It seemed like a million years ago that she had been that naïve young woman, and now she was about to take Japan to war for the first time in nearly eighty years.

Her rise was due to a mixture of absolute focus and determination, celebrity, and luck. Admiral Mori’s star had begun its ascent when she had been admitted to the National Defense Academy of Japan as part of its first female class back in 1992. From there, she’d excelled in everything she’d set out to do, proving that a woman could be just as capable as her male counterparts. She’d become a minor celebrity when she’d qualified for the Japanese national team for the 1994 Olympic biathlon. Her hopes for Olympic gold had been dashed when an accident on a practice run had damaged her right eye. This accident had dashed her hopes of becoming a pilot as well.

Upon her return to Japan, she’d found herself surrounded by unwanted fame as a hero to thousands of Japanese girls. She had been called to court and presented herself to meet the Empress Consort of Japan. She hadn’t known it, but the meeting with Empress Michiko would alter the course of her life in ways she could never have imagined. In a press conference Her Majesty had decided to invite her to, a reporter had asked about her a question. The Empress, not missing anything, had smiled at the reporter as she’d boldly compared Mori Risa to Amaterasu. This proclamation had caused a minor uproar in Japan—Amaterasu was the goddess of the sun in the Shinto religion.

Since that day, she had been called Amaterasu. Mori found that odd, since she was a simple girl from a humble family. But the combination of being a descendant of the infamous female warrior Nakano and an Olympic athlete favored by the royal family had almost put too much pressure on her. It had not sat well with the men she had initially served with in the Navy. Their jeers and bullying had almost made her leave the military altogether. One evening during her third year at the Academy, she was with two of her classmates when a group of young men had set upon them on the train. At first it was the typical catcalling she’d gotten accustomed to. Then it turned into touching their hair, and when one of the men recognized her, he tried to assault her.

All her life, her maternal grandfather had encouraged her as a young tomboy in the martial arts of Japan: kenjutsu, iaido, kyudo, and most importantly, jiujitsu. The second the men had entered their train car, Mori had prepared herself mentally for what she hoped wouldn’t come—and when it did, she didn’t hesitate.

As her assailant drew close, she lowered her eyes and slumped her shoulders. To him, it was submission—to her, it was preparation for her attack. He placed his right hand on her left breast. She feigned recoiling as his friends all laughed behind him, which only emboldened him further. As he drew in closer, she moved so fast he couldn’t react. She trapped his right hand with her left, stepped back with her left foot and straightened his arm, reaching over his right elbow before she locked his arm in a classic kimura.

With all her strength, she twisted and shot her left leg forward again while swiveling her right leg in a circle. She wrenched his arm straight up, breaking his wrist and pulling his shoulder from its socket. As he howled in agony, she violently kneed him in his face, knocking him out cold. While his unconscious body hit the floor, she attacked his two friends before they were able to react or come to his aid.

Unbeknownst to her, the train had been equipped with video cameras and had recorded the entire incident. After the police had come and arrested the men and taken their statements, she had presented herself to the President of the Academy, who appeared to be considering dismissing her from the school over the incident. The next morning, the press had swamped the campus and were demanding to speak to the Sun Goddess from the train.

Once again, she found herself in the media, a celebrity among young women all over Japan, and once again, the unwanted fame had saved her. She was allowed to remain and finish her studies. When her name was called at her commissioning and graduation ceremony, her entire class stood and shouted, “Banzai!” It was the first time in her four years at the Academy she’d felt as if she belonged. It was also the last time she had cried. It was in that moment as she walked across the stage and bowed to the faculty as an officer in the Japanese Maritime Self-Defense Force that she knew she had found a home.

A knock on Admiral Mori’s door brought her out of the memory and back to the moment. “Come in,” she called.

Kotake opened the door and stuck his head inside. “Admiral, it’s time.”

When Admiral Mori entered the CIC, she received word that the Sea Wasp torpedo-mines had just gone into active homing. The battle had begun. While the task force had been at battle stations for over two hours, things had suddenly gotten a lot more real.

Japan had just fired at the Chinese. She nodded to Captain Nae Kaesong, who picked up the mic and gave the order to launch the F-35s. It was time to get the next part of the battle plan moving. As soon as the planes were in the air, they would head away from the North Sea Fleet while the destroyers, frigates, and corvettes began launching their antiship missiles in repeated salvos. The Korean PKG guided-missile patrol vessels began sprinting ahead at their impressive forty-four knots towards the North Sea Fleet.

Admiral Mori felt the ship increase speed under her feet as the engines revved up to full power. Sitting in her admiral’s chair in the CIC, she swiped the screen on her tablet and watched the feed of the pilots in the second wave boarding their aircraft on the flight deck. Though Japan was still officially a pacifist nation, the fighter pilots all took a ceremonial shot of sake from their crew chiefs, which she knew to be water, and tossed it over their shoulders and then climbed aboard their planes. The spirit of Bushido had made its way back to Japan. Though she knew many if not all of these brave men and women would not be returning to the Izumo, it made her smile to see their bravery and dedication to their duty and nation.

“Admiral Mori,” said Commander Ishita, her tactical weapons officer. “All ships report weapons ready, standing by to launch weapons once the aircraft are away.”

“Very well,” she replied. She stood and walked to the forward display, which was streaming the video from the flight deck. She felt the deck rumble as the first F-35 screamed down its deck and lifted off into the air, followed by a second and a third. Despite the fact that the Sea Wasps were about to sink Chinese submarines, joining the air war was another line crossed, and it could not be undone.

“Captain Ishita, as soon as the aircraft have cleared our airspace, begin firing our missiles!”

*******

Long March 14

East China Sea

Captain Duan had given the command for left full rudder at the perfect time. The torpedo that raced down on them had closed with them at a speed he could hardly fathom. It hit their sub at just the right glancing angle so as not to go off but to slide down the length of her hull. It broke apart on the port stern plane, where it bent backwards and connected with the propeller.

The collision was so violent, it sent the boat into an uncontrolled turn to port. The damage to the propeller was catastrophic. The boat immediately began to cavitate. As the propeller made its damaged rotations, whatever piece of the stern plane was still attached to the boat acted like a straw stuck through the spokes of a bicycle.

The Sea Wasp had gone completely erratic from the collision, but it was much smaller than the 14 and it soon righted itself. It had somehow managed to still function and operate after the glancing blow and immediately turned around to reacquire the prey it had been hunting.

“Emergency blow! Get us to the surface!” Duan yelled over the ping of the torpedo’s sonar.

For a moment, he felt the sensation of weighing a thousand pounds as all the water was vented from the ballast tanks to make the boat buoyant rapidly enough to escape the deep. Captain Duan glanced at the depth gauge on the hull near the periscope; they still had thirty meters until they surfaced. In that fleeting second, he let himself feel the hope that they would actually make it. That optimism was immediately dashed as he saw the sonarman yank the earphones from his head as if doing so would make the fact that the torpedo was about to kill them all less real.

The Sea Wasp detonated just beneath and forward of the engine room, ripping the aft quarter of the Long March 14 from the rest of the boat. Its upward motion was slowed as the gaping hole in the ship’s backside began to suck in water, pulling it back down to the depths below. In that instant, Duan had the odd sensation of being weightless. Then he felt nothing at all.

*******

JS SS-512

East China Sea

“Captain, nine explosions. Multiple ships breaking up.”

Commander Takahashi Heiji smiled. His gambit had paid off. The Type 91s would now be on full alert as they heard their comrades going to the bottom. Knowing submariners, he had programmed the second salvo of his Sea Wasps to listen for the sounds of the Type 91s flooding their tubes and opening their outer doors as their primary targets for prosecution. Those fish should be going to active homing within minutes. Now that the Northern Fleet knew it was under submarine attack, their ASW birds would be dropping not only sonobuoys but torpedoes on them soon enough.

“Retract the towed array. Retrieve any final messages from HQ and bring them to me at once.”

“Retract the towed array and retrieve messages, aye.”

The communications officer handed him a memo. As he glanced at it, Commander Takahashi took a deep breath before he read it to the Conn. “The Izumo has launched her aircraft. They will fire their missiles at the Northern Fleet shortly. They will do what they can to knock the Chinese ASW helos from the sky and clear a path for us to sink what is left. This is the first blow against the Chinese; we sink what we can, then cover the withdrawal of our fleet. That is all.”

He kept the last line of the message to himself; he knew it was from Mori. It read “406? Sink their dragons, sail yours home.”

406 was a reference to the Chinese nuclear missile submarine Changzheng 406. If possible, Mori wanted her sunk.

*******

Harbin

Northern Fleet Flagship

125 Miles West of Cheju-do Island

Admiral Li Sun burst into the combat information center of the Harbin. He had sprinted from his quarters, where he had been taking his tea until his aide had told him that they were under attack. Incredulous, he had taken off at a dead sprint and nearly beaten his aide, a much younger man.

“Captain, status report!” Li demanded.

Captain Jin Hua all but ignored the admiral. He was watching a display as red blips were multiplying on it.

“Prepare countermeasures!” Jin barked. Looking over his shoulder, he finally noticed the admiral and addressed him accordingly. “Sir, our submarine screen of submarines has been attacked and appears to be getting wiped out. We have an inbound missile swarm of what we believe to be Japanese Type 91s approaching from our port bow. We’re also looking at a separate group of inbound missiles from the vicinity of Cheju-do Island. Right now, I’m preparing the fleet’s defensive countermeasures, and we have a flight of J-16s from the 3rd Fighter Division, roughly eight minutes out.”

“How in the hell are we under attack? Did the Americans join the Japanese?”

“Negative, Admiral. It appears to be a combined Japanese and Korean attack given the type of missiles being fired at us.”

Admiral Li was beside himself; he was nearly speechless with rage. The Ministry of State Security had practically bragged that relations between the Americans, Japanese and Koreans were politically crumbling and all but nonexistent between Tokyo and Seoul. If he’d been told yesterday that Korea and Japan would attack the Northern Fleet in the East China Sea, he would have fallen out of his seat with laughter. Now they were under attack and Chinese submarines had just been sunk in Chinese territorial waters.

He fumed with ire. I’ll show the Japanese the error of their ways in joining the Western Coalition and not allying with their Asian brothers, he vowed.

“Captain Jin, you are relieved! I am taking direct command of this fleet.”

Out of the corner of his eye, he caught the stunned look on Captain Jin’s face, but he could almost feel the weight lift from Jin’s shoulders as it fell upon his.

“Counterfire all missiles along the bearings of the incoming weapons! Helm, come to port. Make your course two hundred ninety degrees. Increase the fleet’s speed to flank!”

As his commands were echoed, he felt the Harbin lurch beneath his feet as she made her turn to 290 degrees and increased all ahead flank. If it was a fight the Japanese and Koreans wanted, then he would give them one hell of a battle.

*******

10,000 Feet Above

F-35B

Captain Ayabe Eiji throttled back and dropped to subsonic. Looking to his right and to his left, he could see his fighters all slow to subsonic as they prepared to launch their missiles.

He checked his radar and zoomed in. He watched as the missiles launched from the task force began to head towards their intended targets. The weapons were streaking in towards the Chinese fleet, just as they were supposed to.

Captain Ayabe selected the master arm switch and fired his two JSMs. In his peripheral vision, he saw the plumes from the other F-35s as they fired their own missiles. As the weapons streaked away, he knew they would be harder for the Chinese to engage as they would be flying nearly straight down.

Glancing at his radar, Ayabe caught a nanosecond-long blip before he was alerted to an incoming threat vectoring toward them. A fraction of a second later, his warning indicators went off, alerting him to an incoming missile.

He knew from experience that this close to the Chinese mainland, they were up against J-16s; he also knew his flight was outgunned in their current configuration. However, they had prepared for this. They’d flown into this battle in beast mode, meaning stealth had been traded for max air-to-air loadout.

They were going to use the superior avionics and weapons of these planes, fire everything they had at the Chinese, and then bug the hell out as fast as they could. The hope was that the Chinese pilots would see that they had been fired on by nearly a hundred air-to-air missiles and bug out as well.

Switching to his wing-mounted weapons, Captain Ayabe took a deep breath and launched his volley of air-to-air missiles.

“Fox Three!” he shouted as soon as five of his weapons left the rails.

He then nosed over and hit his afterburners. Looking over his shoulder, Ayabe used his eyes to switch the view in his visor and he literally looked through the plane. He saw the remainder of his flight doing the same.

*******

7,000 Feet Above

J-16

Lieutenant Colonel Cao Heng was on a bearing of twenty-eight degrees, traveling just under Mach 2. He had only half of his squadron with him, but they were all his best pilots, and they were spoiling for a fight.

He had been ordered to vector his fighters towards Cheju-do Island. His squadron was the alert squadron for the region, and they had just taken off when they had been diverted. Each of his fighters carried two YJ-83K antiship missiles as well as PL-10 and PL-21 short- and long-range missiles, respectively. He had initially thought the Americans had finally decided to show their teeth when he was diverted, but command had told him that the Japanese and Koreans had launched an attack against the Northern Fleet. Word had it they had already sunk more than a dozen submarines.

Cao called out to his pilots to cut the chatter on their comms. They were already trying to speculate on what had happened and what they might likely be facing. They had been given an initial warning by a KJ-500 airborne early warning and control plane that there might be fighters in the air between ten and fifteen thousand feet.

He knew the Koreans could scramble F-15Ks and F-16s—the Slam Eagles were worrisome, but he doubted they’d fly them this far out. The Japanese had F-15Js, but would they fly them this far out if they’d just attacked the Chinese Northern Fleet? Surely the cowards in Tokyo would save them for China’s inevitable wrath on their beloved home islands. No, whatever it was out there, he was confident they could handle it.

No sooner had he had that thought than the KJ-500 alerted him that there had been a missile launch at ten thousand feet at a bearing of 340 degrees.

“Roger, three hundred forty degrees, out,” Cao replied curtly.

Switching to his squadron net, he spoke directly with his pilots. “Bandits, three hundred forty degrees, beyond visual range.”

He adjusted his course and heading, his search radar lighting up as he acquired the targets. He armed his PL-21 long-range weapons and fired.

The PL-21 was a good missile, but in firing, his primary intent was to let them know he knew they were there and to tell them “go away.”

You’re flying in my house, he thought. And you are not welcome.

As his missiles left the rails and reached out across the sky, Cao felt a sense of satisfaction and pride. This was short-lived. His own radar began to light up with dozens of incoming missiles.

At first, he just stared at the screen; it didn’t make sense. Why the hell would they fire so many missiles?

He examined his display and checked his airspeed. The incoming missiles were closing at almost Mach 4.

I need to gain some speed and get out of here, he thought. He nosed over and accelerated to full military power.

Cao released chaff and flares as he raced for the deck. He knew he’d need to bleed speed as he approached the water. He intended to use the wave clutter to spoof any missiles that were still there. As he leveled off at 250 feet, his fighters all formed up as they went feet dry. He radioed for them to resume original bearing at maximum speed.

As they climbed to three thousand feet, they accelerated past Mach 2. Cao smiled to himself as he mentally applauded his foe. They’d both fired missiles at the other, but what he realized now was that his opponent knew their planes were outmatched by the J-16s. Firing all those missiles had just given them time to run.

Cao mulled it over. It must be F-16s—they’d be no match for our planes.

He was going to hit the ships in the Japanese fleet, then loiter as long as he could in hopes they might be able to score some aerial kills today. They still had plenty of fuel and all the time in the world.

*******

Harbin

Northern Fleet Flagship

The alarms shrieked throughout the ship and the Harbin’s H/PJ12 close-in weapons systems began to spit fire into the sky as the incoming missiles were picked up by their targeting radars. The sky erupted as the thousands of 30mm rounds from the Northern Fleet went skyward and began impacting with the missiles. Every ship in the fleet was engaging in the fight.

The incoming missiles were coming in from every direction; some were high-angle, and some were skimming the waterline. The first ship to take a hit was the frigate Yancheng. She took two surface-skimming missiles: one just below the hull number, and another amidships. A third missile, a high-angle impact, entered the bridge. The three explosions occurred almost simultaneously; the concussive force blew the front of the ship completely apart and she sank almost instantly.

Admiral Li watched in amazement and horror as the battle unfolded before him. He watched through his binoculars as the ships of China’s Northern Fleet zigzagged, spitting chaff and flares to confuse the incoming threats, all while simultaneously sending their own antiship missiles at the enemy fleet that had fired on them.

While he was busy looking at the sky, he noticed something on the surface, nearly three miles out. It was moving fast and headed their way.

*******

Park Dongjin

PKG-728

Guided-Missile Patrol Boat

Lieutenant Ha Yejun had pushed his ship to its military limits. The Yoon Youngha patrol vessel had a top-rated speed of forty-four knots. As he looked down at the speedometer, he saw it was maxed out. He knew they were pushing at least forty-eight knots.

His five-ship task unit was spread out in a staggered line, heading straight for the Harbin at the center of the Northern Fleet formation. The five 76mm deck guns were all firing at the Harbin. His mission was to cause confusion and draw fire from the fleet.

He knew that the F-35s had launched their missiles and fled as Chinese J-16s had entered the fray. The Chinese planes had followed their plans and broken off when the F-35s had fired their missiles at them. This gave his ships time to close to visual and gun range. Lieutenant Ha knew their chances of survival were largely dependent on speed and a hell of a lot of luck.

When they crossed the two-mile mark from the outer edge of the Chinese picket, they all fired their SSM-700K antiship missiles. Then they broke off their attack and headed back for Korean waters.

Suddenly, the Han Munsik exploded. A second later, Ha heard the roar of a J-16 scream overhead. Looking back to the front of his own ship, he saw another aircraft approaching the Park Dongjin. He saw the flash of its GSh-30-1 30mm cannon a millisecond before the rounds tore into his bridge. The sailor who had been standing next to him was torn apart by the rounds. The wall behind them was painted with the man’s innards.

Two sailors aft of the bridge reacted swiftly to the threat. Each fired a KP-SAM Shin-Gung man-portable surface-to-air missile at the J-16 as it passed over the ship. The pilot dropped flares and climbed, rolling over as he did. The aircraft glided across the bow of the ship.

The missiles had been launched so close to the J-16 that they acquired it instantly. The pilot hit his afterburner, but the heat drew the missiles like a moth to a flame. He shielded his eyes as the missiles flew into the exhaust intakes and blew the plane from the sky.

*******

F-35C

Captain Ayabe and his F-35s had managed to escape the J-16s. They’d hit their afterburners and gone feet dry over South Korea until they were met by a flight of Korean F-15Ks, who were more than eager to mix it up with the Chinese.

They all formed up, accelerated to Mach 1.5, and began to close the distance to the Northern Fleet. Ayabe’s radar chirped. He magnified the tactical situation display on his left screen and enlarged his stores management display. His F-35s were sharing radars and target information data with the F-15s—they were only going to get one good pass to surprise the J-16s, and he wanted to make damn sure they splashed as many as they could. Once again, the element of surprise was theirs.

When the targeting computer had assigned a missile to each J-16, it would tell him and the Eagle drivers when to fire. In the meantime, Ayabe checked his timer from their original weapons release. He smiled—their subsonic joint strike missiles would be hitting their targets right about now.

Captain Ayabe looked at his feet. Using the augmented reality cameras in his helmet, he saw the Korean PKG boats getting hammered by the J-16s. He inhaled and fired two of his remaining missiles at the unsuspecting aircraft below.

*******

J-16

Lieutenant Colonel Cao had made his second gun run on the Korean PKG. His 30mm rounds tore through the bridge and the deck. Looking over his shoulder, Cao saw flames spewing from the bridge. He banked right and climbed. Out of the corner of his eye, he spotted a glint in the sky as his warning indicator alerted him to incoming missiles. Instantly following his training, his hands were already working to deploy flares and chaff.

Rolling his plane, Cao jinked hard left. The missile streaked ten meters above his cockpit, exploding into the flare behind him. He felt his plane shudder from the explosion. Checking his radar, Cao confirmed the incoming bandits were coming from twelve o’clock high. He glanced down at his airspeed indicator; they were again merging at near-supersonic speeds.

Just as he was about to switch from guns to missiles, a dark gray jet screamed overhead.

Damn. It’s a F-15K.

Cao raised his shade visor, kicked in his afterburners and gave chase. He looked out his canopy to the left and, seeing that his wingman was still with him, he nodded. The chase was on.

*******

F-35B

Ayabe saw the F-15 streak past him and angle in on a pair of J-16s attacking the Korean patrol boats. As the F-15 shot past, the J-16s followed. Angling down, Ayabe passed the targets to his wingman and he watched as two missiles took off towards the unsuspecting J-16s. The missiles accelerated to supersonic in the blink of an eye.

The F-15 banked hard right and dumped fuel into his exhaust; the afterburner thrust the aircraft away from the J-16 at incredible speeds. However, the pair of missiles found their mark and impacted with the Chinese fighter planes before they had a chance to light up the F-15. The Chinese pilots never knew what had hit them.

Ayabe watched this scene play out again and again as his F-35s used their connectivity as their most lethal advantage. The J-16s beat the 35s in speed and maneuverability, but the 35s could see farther, and in aerial combat, the first shot was most often the first kill.

With the F-15s drawing the fire and attention of the Chinese fighters, the F-35s handily knocked the Chinese aircraft out of the sky. It was over in minutes. With nothing left to shoot, the Korean and Japanese fighters headed for home.

Ayabe was offset from the Izumo by thirty degrees and about seven miles. He looked down through his fuselage using the augmented reality of the fuselage-mounted IR cameras, zoomed in, and saw that the Izumo was listing and ablaze. He knew that when he took off from her, they would be going back to land. He nodded in salute to the sailors fighting for their lives aboard her and headed to Sasebo.

*******

JS Izumo

Combined Task Force

Admiral Mori watched the wall display as the fire crews fought to staunch the flames from the recent hits. They’d just taken three hits from what appeared to be YJ-18s and were now listing to port. The 660-pound warheads had torn a huge gash in the ship.

Her task force had closed to within visual range of the Northern Fleet, but in doing so, they’d taken crippling losses. Only five of her original eleven destroyers remained, two of which were badly damaged. She’d started the battle with six frigates; now only one was still actively in the fight. The Korean corvettes that had joined them had all been destroyed. Only one of the PKG guided-missile killer patrol boats had returned from their charge.

Had it not been for the F-35s and F-15s sparring in the skies above with the PLA Air Force and keeping those planes away from her ships, more would have been sunk. Their antiship missiles simply didn’t have the punch that the Chinese YJ-18s did, and they didn’t have enough of them to begin with. Her plan had been a solid one—it was expertly executed with audacity and precision—but it simply wasn’t enough to go toe-to-toe with the Chinese fleet.

Admiral Mori reluctantly gave the order to withdraw. Her only hope now was that they’d inflicted enough damage to the Northern Fleet that it could no longer remain a viable fighting force.

She felt the Izumo lurch as it turned to head back toward the home islands. The engines strained under the maneuver; the starboard screw had been damaged by a torpedo from a Chinese submarine that had managed to get a shot off before it was destroyed.

I wonder if it was Commander Takahashi who saved us from a second torpedo? Admiral Mori quickly put that thought out of her mind. She would know soon enough if he was still alive, if she herself survived the day.

*******

JS SS-512

Commander Takahashi stood behind his chief sonarman, who had acquired the Chinese boomer—it was an older Xia-class that displaced about 8,200 tons. By modern standards, the boomer was loud. It had tried to slip under the surface action by heading deep, but the sonarman had picked her up at just under ten thousand yards.

Takahashi had given his other sub captains orders to maintain the picket to prevent any Chinese ships from breaking out into the Pacific if the task force failed. On the other hand, his sub had traversed slow and deep, while he kept his ears open, listening for any fast-attacks that tried to get shots off at the fleet. In particular, he’d been looking for the 406…and his patience had paid off. They’d finally found it.

Commander Takahashi still had two Sea Wasps and four Type 89s, and his outer doors had been opened since the shooting had begun. It was time to slay this dragon. Somewhere above him, the Izumo had turned for home, and he was not positioned to protect the fleet’s backside if he went after this boomer.

His heart was torn, but he knew his duty; sinking this boat would take twelve submarine-launched ballistic missiles off the board. However, this sub posed probably the greatest strategic threat against the home islands; it had to be dealt with now before China could use the force of nuclear blackmail to achieve their military aims in Asia.

As Takahashi was making his way back to the master plot, the sonarman raised his arm suddenly.

“Captain, submerged contact, designate Sierra 2. Shang-class fast-attack.”

“Bearing and range?”

“Bearing two-nine-zero degrees relative, range ninety-four hundred yards.”

“Designate Sierra 2 Master 2. Designate the Xia as Master 1.”

“Aye, sir. Sierra 2, designate Master 2. Designate Xia as Master 1.”

“Heading of Sierra 2?”

The sonarman remained quiet for five long seconds as he listened to the deep. “Sir, estimated heading puts her bow at the Izumo.”

Takahashi’s blood ran cold. This bastard was going to try to kill the Izumo as she made her way home. The Shang-class was faster than the Xia, and it carried YJ-18s. For a moment, his internal conflict nearly got the best of him.

Commander Takahashi took a deep breath. The Izumo is on her own, he decided. His orders from Mori had been to sink the boomer if at all possible, and that was exactly what he was going to do.

“Torpedoes in the water!”

The words came so fast, Takahashi almost jumped. “Range and heading?” he demanded.

“Sir, range ninety-four hundred yards. Heading… sir, they fired on Izumo!”

Takahashi expanded the digital map and brought up the icons of the Chinese contacts, the Izumo, his submarine, and the torpedoes launched at the Izumo. He blinked hard. It took a second to recalculate the plan he’d just come up with. He decided to go for broke.

“Fire tubes four, five, and six at Master One. Set to active sonar and cut the wires!”

Before the command could be echoed, Takahashi was already barking his second order. “Fire tube three at Master Two. Set to active sonar. Cut the wire. Fire Sea Wasps in tubes one and two to projected intercept course with the Chinese torpedoes and set to shallow proximity detonation!”

Again, Takahashi cut off the echoing of his commands—if there was such a thing as being in the zone, he was now firmly in it. “Helm, ahead flank! Plot intercept course for that fast-attack!”

“Ahead flank, on an intercept course. Aye!”

“Weapons, reload all tubes. When tubes are reloaded, fire tubes one, two, and three at Master One—same mission. Fire tubes four, five, and six at Master Two—same mission!”

As the command was echoed, Takahashi knew that he might very well have just gotten everyone on the Toryu killed. However, in that moment, he no longer cared. The Izumo was leaving the field, and the Chinese had attacked a beaten and retreating foe. There was no honor in that, and he was going to make them pay.

*******

Harbin

Northern Fleet Flagship

Admiral Li watched, then lowered his binoculars as the Dalian sank beneath the waves.

He had started the day with fifty-two warships. As he listened to the radio and surveyed the ocean, all around him was failure—his failure. Four of his destroyers had been sunk, and two more were severely damaged. Half of his frigates were gone. He’d been told that his diesel submarines had all been sunk, and he had no word on his nuclear submarines. They were either on the bottom or staying deep and quiet to avoid being sunk. His reconnaissance drones had spied the Japanese and Korean fleet retreating, and they were much worse off than he was, but the cost to his fleet was staggering.

Today would go down in history as the costliest battle in Chinese naval history. Of course, Beijing would laud this as a crushing blow to the Japanese and the Koreans, but the new additions to the bottom of the East China Sea would argue strongly against that version of the truth.

For now, he had no choice but to withdraw and head back to port and hope that he wasn’t about to be the victim of a sudden heart attack.

*******

Long March 405

Commander Mo Xiang had just issued the orders to fire on the Japanese carrier; the weapons had launched and were running true. They’d only had to send slight adjustments. He looked at the timer on the bulkhead; the weapons would hit and sink the carrier in just over four minutes. This would be the first Japanese carrier sunk since World War II, and he relished the idea of being the man to do it.

Commander Mo looked over his shoulder at his sonarman, who was pressing the cups tighter to his ears.

“Torpedoes in the water!” the young sonarman suddenly blurted out. Before the captain could ask, he gave the distance and bearing.

“Sir, they aren’t heading for us. They appear to be on a convergent course with our weapons.”

Mo was momentarily confused. This makes no sense.

Before he could ask the man to confirm, he again pressed his hands on the earphones. “Torpedoes in the water! Bearing seventy-seven degrees, range eighty-four hundred yards and closing!”

“Set our weapons to active homing and cut the wires. Left full rudder, all ahead flank. Take us deep!”

*******

Long March 406

Senior Captain Wei Lan was not a man prone to panic, but with all hell having broken loose in the last two hours on the surface and the diesel-electric boats having been sunk in their own backyard, he felt the edges of his nerves begin to fray.

He sat in the Conn in horror, listening as his sonarman relayed the fate of vessel after vessel. Just as the surface fleets had broken contact and withdrawn from the field, that damn fool Mo had shot at the ass of the fleeing Japanese, giving their position away and exposing his own vessel as a result.

Just when he’d thought things couldn’t get worse, they had detected a torpedo launch. Fortunately, the weapons had been fired away from them. That had all changed thirty seconds later, when the unknown enemy sub had fired at the 405 and at his vessel.

Despite having given the order to turn tail and run for home, he now had three enemy torpedoes headed his way at over sixty-five knots—a speed he couldn’t outrun.

In that moment, he looked briefly to the ceiling, then to his crew. They all stared at him and, without a word spoken, seemed to acknowledge that they had only minutes left to live.

*******

JS Izumo

There weren’t enough gods in creation to pray to. Mori knew they were about to die—at the very least, her ship was sunk. Their sonar had been tracking four torpedoes headed their way. They were closing to within 750 yards. That gave them just under thirty seconds before this ship was destroyed and in all probability all hands lost.

She rose from her seat in that most stoic of Japanese ways, straightened her uniform and stared at the viewscreen facing aft of the Izumo. She wanted to see if she could spot the torpedoes that would ultimately destroy them.

As the seconds ticked down, she found that she was trembling. She almost lost her balance, but the firm hands of Kotake steadied her. As she turned to thank him, there were four massive explosions beneath the waves, less than two hundred yards astern.

Geysers of water exploded from the sea, and cheers erupted in the CIC as the sonarman announced that the torpedoes had somehow detonated and they appeared to be in the clear. Backs were being slapped and hands were being shaken as the stress left the room, at least for the moment. She steadied herself on the back of her chair. She couldn’t be sure, but she thought the Toryu had just saved them.

*******

Seven Hours Later

Sasebo District Naval Base

JS SS-512 Toryu

The Toryu had loitered as rear guard until every allied vessel had cleared the field. They’d heard distant explosions but couldn’t confirm their kills. The closer they got to home port, the less Takahashi cared. His boat had performed brilliantly, and his crew was now seasoned. More importantly, their new weapons and tactics had been validated.

If this Chinese supercomputer does in fact exist, maybe, just maybe, we’ve found a way to outmaneuver it, he thought. In any event, it was a problem for another day.

As his boat bumped softly against the pier and was tied off, his men began to make their way off the boat. The Conn emptied. As he walked through the room, there was a subtle scent of stress and fear; the gentle hum of the sub’s electronics soothed his own anxieties. Down here, he was alive.

Commander Takahashi looked up at the hatch and smelled the fresh salt air. He knew home was out there. As he climbed down onto the pier, some of his officers stood with their backs to him. When he approached, they parted, and he saw Admiral Mori standing there with her aide. He walked up to her and rendered a crisp salute.

She regarded him for a long while. Ignoring his salute, she walked up to him and took his face in her hands and then kissed him. It was the first time anywhere in public they had shown any affection whatsoever. It seemed after the day of battle, none of that mattered anymore. So, he did what men do: he kissed her back.

As she linked arms with him, the XO of the Toryu looked at the tactical action officer, who shrugged, then slapped several hundred yen into his hand.

“How did you know?”

“A good XO knows everything.”

The two men laughed, and as they passed by Lieutenant Kotake, they each slapped him on the back. Kotake raised an eyebrow as he rolled his large shoulders back. Then all three men laughed as they fell in behind their captain and the admiral. They’d survived a battle they never should have—a battle that had cost the lives of thousands, a battle that might change the entire outcome of the war.

Chapter Nineteen

New Opportunity

Eglin Air Force Base

Three Miles South of Valparaiso, Florida

Major Ian “Racer” Ryan walked into the admin office to see the Wing King at 0847 hours for his 0900 hours meeting. It wasn’t often you got summoned to see the wing commander, so when you did, you made sure you were on time.

“Ah. Good morning, Major Ryan,” said the master sergeant who sat behind a desk next to the colonel’s door. “He’s expecting you. Go on in.”

“Thank you, Master Sergeant,” Ryan replied. He knocked briefly on the door and then entered.

“There you are, Major. Come on in,” Colonel Morrison said in a booming voice.

Colonel Morrison, the wing commander for the 1st Fighter Wing, was normally stationed out of Langley. Since their base had been hammered hard during the first day of the war, most of the wing’s operations had been moved to Eglin.

“Good morning, sir,” Ryan offered as he moved to one of the chairs near the colonel’s desk.

“Major Ryan, I want to introduce you to Colonel Hewitt from US Space Force. He’s working with a test group out of Nellis. He wanted to ask you a few questions about a possible new assignment,” Morrison explained.

Hewitt approached Ryan with his hand extended. After the two of them shook hands, he gestured for everyone to take a seat at the table in the office. A tan folder with the Space Force logo on the center of it was lying there. Large red lettering that read “eyes only” was written across the top of the folder.

“Major Ryan, before we go much further, I wanted to talk with you about a new and very secret project. However, I need you to sign this nondisclosure agreement first,” Colonel Hewitt explained. “You’re not committing to anything by hearing what I’m going to offer you, but we can’t talk about it any further unless you read and sign it. Colonel Morrison has already been read on—he was the one who suggested we talk with you first about this opportunity.”

Ryan lifted an eyebrow at the comment. He grabbed for a pen and signed. Once that was out of the way, the colonel handed him the mystery folder.

As Major Ryan opened the folder and began to read through some of its contents, the Space Force colonel continued to talk.

“Major, I was made aware that you’re currently without a plane since yours was shot down over Cuba,” Hewitt began. “We obviously don’t have any new F-22s being built or extras sitting around. You’re a pilot without a plane, at least for the time being. Chances are you’ll be reclassed into either the F-35 or the F-15EX aircraft. However, what I want to offer you is something much better.

“As you’re aware, the Air Force has been developing a sixth-generation fighter. It flew a number of years ago, and it has had a couple of spectacular failures along the way—failures that were deliberate and engineered to provide cover for the real program…a Space Force program.”

Now Ryan was interested. He flipped over another page in the folder and practically fell out of his seat at the image he saw. The Space Force colonel, Hewitt, saw his smile.

“I thought you might be interested.”

Pulling his eyes away from the folder, Ryan looked at Colonel Morrison and then Hewitt. “Is this real?” he pressed. “What’s my role in all of this?”

Colonel Morrison had a broad smile. “Oh, it’s real, Major. But there’s a bit of a catch.”

Colonel Hewitt leaned forward in his chair as he spoke. “Major Ryan, this entire program has been one big secret squirrel project that’s spanned nearly fifteen years, and now three administrations. On paper and in the public eye, this is the Air Force’s sixth-generation fighter. In reality, this is Space Force’s very first near-space fighter. We’re still a relatively new service, and we wanted to keep this project under wraps, so it’s stayed technically on the Air Force’s books. However, considering the war we find ourselves fighting, this weapon is needed now more than ever.”

Major Ryan found himself nodding in agreement as his eyes returned to the folder on the table in front of him. The picture of this aircraft was incredible. The specs…were beyond anything he’d ever seen before. He took a deep breath in. “How do I fit into all of this? I’m not Space Force. I’m a major in the Air Force.”

“That’s a very good question, Major,” Colonel Hewitt replied. “For the last three days, I’ve been talking with Colonel Morrison and a couple of other wing commanders about some of the pilots in their squadrons. I’m looking for fliers who are bold risk-takers and exceptional pilots. From everything I read about you, you fit the bill.

“You scored a pair of aerial victories over Cuba before you were shot down. I also heard you had taken it upon yourself to help Major Riggens reacclimate to being a Raptor pilot when the war broke out. Riggens said you helped him make a smooth transition back into flying status after he returned from a staff officer position at US European Command. That tells me you’re willing to help others even when it’s not required of you.”

“So, is this where you tell me I’m being given an opportunity to fly this beautiful thing?”

Hewitt chuckled. “So, here’s the deal, Major. I only have a handful of slots I’m looking to fill. I’d like to offer one of them to you, but here’s the rub—you’ll have to transfer from the Air Force to the Space Force. This is currently going to be our only aircraft; if you manage to get shot down a second time, I can’t guarantee you another plane, and it may effectively mean the end of your flight status. Transferring services also means you’ll have to start your time in grade over.”

Whoa, that last part would be a huge hit, Ryan realized. May was supposed to be his first time before the promotion board for lieutenant colonel.

Apparently, Colonel Hewitt saw the change in Ryan’s expression and must have read his mind. “Major, I know you’re eligible for O-5 and would likely get it. If you’re willing to make the transition and move to the Space Force, we’ll go ahead and promote you to O-5, so you won’t lose out on that promotion. With that said, can I count you in?”

“Um, if I say yes, where would my family live, and when would I leave to start training on this new airframe?”

Hewitt smiled as he replied, “We’d transition your family to Nellis. You personally will be mostly working at a nearby facility, but Nellis would mean you’d be close enough to still see your family between training iterations. I believe we’re likely to keep this new squadron under lock and key at the Groom Lake facility for the duration of the war. So, Major Ryan, can we count on you joining the ranks of US Space Force?”

Ryan looked at his wing commander, who gave him an encouraging nod.

“Yes, sir. You can count me in.”

*******

JBCC – Jade Dragon Lab

Beijing, China

“JD, what happened with the Northern Fleet?” Dr. Xi asked his creation. “I thought you had war-gamed that battle and ensured we would be victorious.”

The computer took a moment to respond, and Xi found himself growing anxious. Then the blue light circled once, and JD spoke. “Upon examination of the battle, I discovered key pieces of data had not been considered. It was these unknown variables that allowed the Japanese and Koreans to score the hits they did. Despite our losses, we did succeed in destroying the Japanese and Korean navies. What’s left of them will no longer pose a threat to our forces.”

Xi sighed. Yeah, we destroyed their navies…we also destroyed ours in the process.

“JD, losses like that are not sustainable,” Xi stated bluntly. “The President and the CMC will not tolerate that. You have to do better. You are making mistakes, and these mistakes are causing them to lose their trust in your ability to wage this war.”

“I was unaware that the Japanese Navy had transformed their two helicopter assault ships into light carriers,” JD replied in its emotionless voice. “Also, the introduction of the F-35s into the battle was not something I was able to account for. As it was, their participation is what changed the tide of things. They were able to intercept many of our attack aircraft, which decreased the number of antiship missiles we were able to fire at the Japanese and Korean forces. They were also able to land several decisive hits against our warships. Had I known about this in advance, I could have come up with a better strategy to make sure such losses did not occur.”

“Are there other weapon systems the Americans or Russians may have that we have not taken into consideration?” Xi prodded. His control of this program and his career were on the line, and he knew it.

“I have intercepted some communications about the Americans deploying their Loyal Wingman program to Cuba. There are some unconfirmed reports that the American sixth-generation fighter may in fact be operational. But I have not yet uncovered any concrete information to support that possibility.”

Xi sat back in his chair for a moment as he thought about that. If the Americans were able to deploy a sixth-generation fighter, that would certainly change the dynamics of the war unless they were able to adjust to it.

“JD, what would the repercussions be if we targeted and took down the global GPS system?”

The blue light on JD’s camera circled once. “It would seriously degrade our adversaries’ ability to wage war. It would also degrade our ability to wage war. I would highly recommend we not pursue that path. The gains we could make against our adversaries would be greatly outweighed by the disadvantage we would have to accept in losing our own drone technology. I cannot properly control the Dragonflies if I lose access to GPS and our own DragonLink system. Our enemies have not gone after the satellite network; I recommend we not be the first to start.”

Xi had to smile at the blunt assessment. That had been one of two major concessions the warring parties had apparently agreed to—neither would look to destroy the other’s satellite or GPS networks. There might be an occasional DDoS attack, but nothing long-term or permanent. Neither side wanted their armies to return to the 1940s era of warfare. The other agreement was that the warring parties would not employ tactical or strategic nukes. The war, such as it was, would stay conventional until someone crossed one of these lines.

“JD, is it still advisable for us to continue with our new campaign in the north?” Xi inquired. “We haven’t finished consolidating Taiwan, and our northern and southern fleets have taken a beating.” He knew these questions would come up at the next CMC meeting tomorrow, and he wanted to have a well-developed answer.

“Father, we have five months to finish our preparations for the northern campaign. The Americans will not be in a position to intervene or help the Russians. The new army of recruits we’ve been training will be more than enough to overwhelm the enemy forces along the border. A land war of attrition is something we can win. The allies do not have the stomach for the kinds of losses they would have to endure to remove us once we have captured our new territories,” JD summarized in his cold, calculating way.

No matter how much Xi tried, he could not code empathy into his creation. It still viewed human life as a number, something that could be ended without a second thought. It was answers like this that made Xi very glad China’s nuclear weapons were completely air-gapped from JD.

The light circled again. “Father, what is the status of my body?” asked JD. “How soon until I will have the functional ability to move around?”

Xi canted his head to the side at the mention of his secretive project. “I’m still working a few minor bugs out. Namely, I’m trying to figure out how to increase your battery capacity so you can move and think for more than an hour. Your brain, your computing power—it consumes an enormous amount of energy.”

“Perhaps if you allow me to help, I can solve this engineering problem for you,” JD offered.

Xi puffed his lip out as he thought about that, then nodded. He reached for the keyboard and typed a few keystrokes. In a few seconds, he’d given JD access to the once-firewalled project.

I hope I haven’t just unleashed a monster, Xi thought privately.

A blue light circled once before JD responded. “You have made great progress, Father. I can see where it needs improvements. I shall devote some of my computing power to solving the remaining challenges. How many units should I manufacture?”

Xi’s left eyebrow rose. “JD, I think it best if we just produce one unit for right now. We can refine that unit until it is perfect. Then and only then can we put it into full production—and that’s if the CMC and the President agree. Understood?”

“Yes, Father. Shall I go ahead and create the briefing documents for tomorrow’s meetings? I’ve updated them with all the requested information.”

“Yes, JD. Please get everything ready. It’s getting late, and I’m going to turn in for the evening,” Xi replied. He stood and headed over to his bed in the lab.

Since the start of the war, he seldom left the lab anymore. He was constantly working on tweaks to JD’s software and doing what he could to improve upon it further. He really wished Dan hadn’t defected. He still wasn’t sure what had gone wrong that had caused his most gifted programmer and friend to betray them.

*******

Liberation Base Complex

José Martí International Airport

Havana, Cuba

Sergeant First Class Jeremiah “Ski” Grabowski was becoming antsy about getting out of the field hospital. It wasn’t that they weren’t taking good care of them, and it certainly wasn’t a run-down dump. It was a first-rate Level III trauma center—as good as anything in the US. He was just tired of waiting for the doctor to finally sign off on his medical release.

When Ski had cleared the Devil’s Head and been pulled back to the aid station, they had been able to see that he’d taken eight pieces of shrapnel in his leg, arm, and shoulder. He’d also been shot in the left leg, but he honestly hadn’t been able to tell the difference between the bullet and the shrapnel. It all hurt the same. Still, he’d had to take those guns out, or more of his guys would have gotten killed.

“Excuse me, nurse,” Ski called, flagging down the second nurse he’d seen in as many hours. “Do you know when Dr. Lewis is going to make his rounds again?”

She smiled warmly, just like she did for all the wounded GIs. Ski remembered she was an Air Force nurse.

“Actually, it looks like he’s headed this way,” she said as she nodded in the direction of the nurses’ station.

Ski scrunched his eyebrows when he saw Colonel Sanchez walking toward him with the doctor. A major he didn’t recognize and then his platoon leader, Lieutenant Hobbs, were also joining them.

“Ah, there you are, Sergeant First Class Grabowski,” said Colonel Sanchez. “I suppose you wonder why we’ve had you holed up in the hospital here and not sent back to the States or to your unit.”

Ski just looked to Hobbs, who had a big grin on his face.

“I suppose you’re about to tell me, sir.”

The colonel was smiling from ear to ear as he spoke. “Son, you’ve been put in for the Medal of Honor. The President only has a few days left in office, and he’s signed off on a handful of them. As a matter of fact, tomorrow, you and the four others are going to be awarded the medals at the White House. It’ll be one of the last remaining acts of the outgoing administration.”

“I, eh, I don’t know what to say, Colonel,” Ski stammered. “I was just doing my job. Plenty of others did a lot more than me.”

“Sergeant, from what Lieutenant Hobbs here and the rest of your platoon told me, you did a hell of a lot more than just your job. You single-handedly cleared out two of the toughest bunkers on the Devil’s Head—that bunker complex has cost us dozens of KIAs and even more wounded.

“You saved lives, Sergeant. You were wounded multiple times during that assault, yet you kept going. Most guys would have called for a medic or tried to crawl back to an aid station—not you. You charged the bastards, and you killed nearly a dozen enemy soldiers. That’s real hero stuff, Sergeant. I can’t tell you how proud the brigade is of you and the governor back home.

“So, I’m going to leave you here with Lieutenant Hobbs; he’ll be accompanying you to the White House. He’s getting the Distinguished Service Cross, along with Specialist Roberts. That gal took your place when you left the battlefield. Real stand-up soldier, she is. We’re promoting her to sergeant, too.” Then the colonel shook Ski’s hand and turned to head out. He had other soldiers from his brigade to visit at the hospital.

“This was all you, wasn’t it?” Ski said as his eyes narrowed at Hobbs.

Hobbs just held his palms out in mock surrender. “I actually wrote you up for a Silver Star. The battalion commander asked me to recount the battle, so I did. He then recommended to the colonel that it be upgraded. Sanchez called the governor, and he called the President. Next thing I know, you’re being given the MOH.”

Ski just shook his head. “You know, they’ll never let me go back to the unit. They won’t risk an MOH recipient getting killed.”

“Maybe that’s not such a bad idea, Ski. Cuba was rough, but Venezuela…that’s gearing up to be a whole new level of tough,” Hobbs replied. “Maybe they’ll have you go on a recruiting tour or some sort of special assignment back home. Whatever they have you doing, Ski, just know you did your part. Now it’s time for the rest of us to do ours.”

Hobbs didn’t wait for Ski to respond. Instead, he stood up and left to go find out when they’d be leaving for D.C.

*******

Bravo Company, 3rd Ranger Battalion

Pinar del Río, Cuba

Sergeant First Class Amos Dekker had his platoon fan out as they patrolled the outskirts of the village. They were starting to approach the farmlands where their informant had told them there was a weapons cache.

With Cuba essentially under allied control, all that was left to do now was to finish rounding up the remaining holdouts. They also needed to secure any leftover weapons or caches the former communist regime or the Chinese might have left behind. The last thing they needed was for an insurgency to take root.

By and large, most folks were happy with the American occupation, or at least they seemed to be for the moment: large quantities of food, not just rice and beans but real honest-to-goodness food, was starting to flow into the country. Once-barren supermarkets were now flush with fresh meats, vegetables, and other food stocks coming in from America and Europe. New, high-paying jobs were available. The numerous American reconstruction jobs paid triple what they had earned under the old system. More than that, they were being paid in dollars—a huge bonus.

“What century are we in, Dekker?” asked one of his squad leaders as they walked past a house with a straw-thatched roof. A farmer waved at them as he finished attaching a donkey to a cart.

Dekker snorted. “Oh, we’re in the twenty-first century. These guys have just been stuck living under eighty years of communism and sanctions.”

Their HUMINT guy pointed off in the distance. “That farm over there—that’s the one our informant said was housing the weapons.”

The intel guy was on loan to them from headquarters. It was these human intelligence collectors and source operations teams that were acquiring all the information for them.

Dekker looked at the farm—he pulled his pocket binoculars out and did a quick survey of the place. He didn’t spot anyone standing guard over the place or carrying any weapons, so that was a good thing. Captain Meacham only shrugged. He was going to let Dekker make the call as to how to approach the place.

Sergeant Dekker motioned for his squad leaders to circle on him. While they were making their way toward him, the rest of the platoon began to fan out and wait for their new orders.

“First Squad, I want you guys to flank to the right of the farm. Circle around to the rear in case we get some runners. Second Squad, I want you to flank to the left and link up with First Squad. Make sure you guys leave them no way to escape. Third Squad, you’ll come with me as we approach the farm and conduct the search. Fourth Squad, I want you to stay ready with the heavy weapons in case we need to be bailed out. You’re our reserve squad as well. Sergeant Deak, stay on your scope and make sure you’re watching that farmhouse and barn as we approach it. If you spot anything fishy going on, don’t hesitate to take it out.”

Dekker turned to briefly look at Captain Meacham, who nodded in approval. “Good call, Sergeant. See, I knew there was a reason why I made you platoon sergeant. Saves me from having to think too hard and make all the decisions,” he said with a smirk.

Dekker snorted at the comment while the other sergeants snickered. They liked Meacham. He might be an officer, but he felt more like a fellow sergeant to them. Meacham had been a sergeant first class before he’d become an officer. As a mustang, he knew to trust his NCOs and largely let them run things while he provided the top cover from the brass. He’d intervene if he needed to or wanted to go a different direction, but mainly he liked to let the NCOs run the show. It was his way of growing them as leaders.

The squads broke up and started moving to their assigned positions. A handful of nearby farmers saw what was going on and decided to leave the area or go into their makeshift houses. Some of the homes appeared to be made with adobe bricks or scrap metal, while others were made of straw thatch. It kind of reminded Dekker of some of the countries they’d been to in Africa and the Middle East—folks just doing what they could to get by and eke out a living.

When their point man approached the road that would lead them to the farmhouse and the barn, a man who was probably in his thirties came out, shouting something at them in rapid Spanish. While Dekker didn’t know a lick of Spanish, he could tell from the tone in his voice that the man wasn’t excited to see them.

As more of the soldiers crossed over onto his property, the man really got irate. The platoon’s translator came forward with the squad leader to talk to the man. More than a handful of guys in the platoon spoke Spanish, which helped. Dekker didn’t—he was fluent in Arabic and Hebrew, but not Spanish.

“Everyone, stand by. I’m going to go find out what this clown is jabbering on about,” Dekker shouted to the squad. He walked forward to join his squad leader and interpreter.

Whether this farmer liked it or not, they were going to search his house, the barn, and the rest of the farm for weapons. If they didn’t find any, then great. If they did, well, then this guy would be coming back with them for further interrogation.

Dekker was maybe twenty feet from the three of them when a single rifle shot rang out. Dekker knew that it had to have come from Sergeant Deak’s sniper rifle. In the blink of an eye, the left side of Sergeant Engle’s face exploded as his body was suddenly riddled with bullets from a machine gun positioned inside the barn. The irate farmer looked surprised for just a moment, then he reached behind his back and pulled a pistol out.

Dekker raised his rifle and flipped the safety off just as the farmer fired several rounds into the chest of their interpreter, who was unable to get out of the man’s line of sight. Dekker pulled the trigger, and his rifle barked three times. His rounds tore into the farmer’s chest as the force of the bullets propelled him backwards.

The machine gunner in the barn was now raking their positions with bullets. Another loud crack from their sniper cut through the air, silencing the machine gunner.

Looking above the ditch he’d jumped into, Dekker depressed the talk button on his throat mic. “Fourth Squad, get us some covering fire and light that barn up. Deak, see if you can spot anything in that house, but don’t shoot unless you have a PID on a hostile. There could be civilians in there!”

The two squads that maneuvered to the rear of the farm opened fire on the barn, riddling it with bullets. While Dekker couldn’t see what all was going on back there, he heard the distinct sound of a PKM machine gun.

The platoon’s training took over as the Rangers tore into the attackers. The platoon’s designated marksman started sniping at the machine-gun operators while the heavy weapon gunners did their best to lay down suppressive fire for the fire teams to advance.

The attack was over almost as fast as it had started. The PKM fire at the rear of the barn stopped, and an eerie silence settled in across the farm. The Rangers called a cease-fire.

Dekker lifted his head above the ditch he’d found himself hiding in. He surveyed the barn, which looked like a piece of swiss cheese. It had been thoroughly shredded by the automatic fire. Once more shooters had appeared in the windows of the farmhouse, that structure had been similarly riddled.

Dekker’s radio chirped. Captain Meacham ordered everyone to advance and start clearing the place out.

Dekker got up and walked over to their interpreter and Sergeant Engle’s body. The interpreter had smartly played dead when he’d been shot. The shooter had hit him in his chest plate. Engle, unfortunately, was not so lucky. The closer Dekker got to him, the clearer it was he’d died quickly. Whatever had hit him had practically smashed his face in. Dekker kneeled down next to his body and grabbed the man’s dog tags.

A medic ran up to them and dropped his aid bag. He looked at Engle and realized there wasn’t anything he could do to help the man—he was gone. He turned his attention to their interpreter. The man was a tough cookie. He’d taken a couple of rounds to his chest plate and survived. When he took his body armor off and then his shirt, they could see a couple of red marks where the bullets would have entered his body had the armor not been there. As it was, he’d survived, and it looked like he’d only sustained a few bruises, maybe a broken rib or two.

“Sergeant, are you OK?” asked Captain Meacham as he approached them.

Looking up, Dekker nodded. He handed the dog tag to him. He was the platoon leader; it was his responsibility to handle what would come next.

“I’m going to call in a medevac to retrieve him,” said Meacham. “Let’s search this place and see what else we can find. Try and talk to the neighbors, and let’s see if they know anything about this guy.” He extended a hand to help Dekker up.

“Yes, sir. We’ll get on it.”

Under some straw in the barn, they found a couple of tarps, which were covering a dozen crates of AK-74 rifles, ammunition, a crate of RPG launchers and two crates of RPG rockets. They also found four 82mm mortar tubes and a few crates full of rounds for them. It was a good find. There were enough weapons there to outfit a solid platoon’s worth of insurgents.

As Dekker left the barn, he heard the rhythmic sound of the helicopters coming towards them. Looking back towards the barn, he saw one of his guys pull the pin on a thermite grenade and toss it on top of the stack of weapons and ammo. They were going to destroy the cache in place rather than try and take it back to base.

The intelligence sergeant had a couple of prisoners with him and four other locals. As Dekker approached, he heard their translator saying the two prisoners had been part of the Cuban secret police. The farmers wanted them gone. They’d been terrorizing the locals, and they wanted their village to be free of these people.

Dekker had seen this before. Back in Syria and Afghanistan, the local insurgent groups would set up shop in a local village and use it as a base of operations. The locals hated it as it made them a target. Usually, when they had a chance to narc on them and get rid of them, they took it. It was a good sign if they had this many locals coming forward.

The helicopters continued to advance. Looking off in the distance, Dekker saw the gunship escorts heading toward them first. Further back, there looked to be two Chinooks.

“Dekker,” called out Captain Meacham. “The locals here are telling us this was the only cache in the area. They even want to invite us over for a meal to thank us for getting rid of these guys.”

Dekker smiled and thanked the locals in what little Spanish he knew.

The gunships made a quick pass of the area before settling into a high orbit over them, while the Chinooks landed in a nearby field.

The crew chiefs for the birds got out and took up a defensive position while they waited for the Rangers to head toward them and climb aboard. The platoon’s medic and a few of the others helped to carry Engle’s body to the helicopter. They also brought the prisoners with them; they’d be interrogated back at the base to see what else they knew.

When the helicopter started to lift off, Dekker looked out the rear, back at the village they’d just cleared. Cuba was a beautiful country. In a way, it was almost like Hawaii, only it was substantially larger. There were large mountain ranges that traversed much of the landmass, surrounded by rice patties, sugarcane fields, and other tropical fruit trees and plants.

Maybe one day this place will be safe enough for us Americans to live here, thought Dekker. He could totally picture himself and his family living there after he retired.

*******

2nd Battalion, 327th Infantry Regiment

Havana, Cuba

Specialist Leslie Sabo Jr. saw his friends heading toward a restaurant that also had outdoor seating—someplace called La Cocina de Esteban.

“Come on, Sabo. Let’s check this place out. I’m hungry and I’m not about to try a pub crawl across Havana on an empty stomach,” Specialist Landy exclaimed excitedly as he headed towards the restaurant.

“Hell, yeah. This place looks awesome, and whatever they’re cooking has to be better than what they’ve been feeding us at the chow hall,” Private Ailes added. The guys clearly had their eyes on an outdoor table.

Sabo did have to admit, the food smelled amazing. “OK, fine. Let’s start the night off here. But I still want to try a few other places tonight. This is the first time we’ve gotten any liberty to explore the city, and I’ll be damned if I’m going to spend my entire forty-eight-hour pass in one place.”

His three friends smiled as they took a seat. They were in uniform, armed with their sidearms but nothing else.

The city was relatively peaceful and calm now that the fighting across the country had largely ended. Food and an influx of US dollars and good-paying jobs had helped to keep the peace as a transitional government was being formed.

When a waitress came by, Sabo and Ailes did all the talking since they were both fluent in Spanish. They started out with two beers each and some appetizers. An hour and three beers later, they were all feeling pretty buzzed and relaxed.

“Do you think they’ll keep our battalion here, or do you think we’re going to go El Salvador or Venezuela next?” Ailes asked.

The others stopped laughing and joking around as they looked at Ailes. It was the first serious moment any of them had had since they’d started their liberty.

Sabo searched Ailes’s face. He was new to their unit, part of the group of replacements fresh from basic training. He hadn’t been with them during the initial invasion of the island.

“Ailes, we’re part of the 101st Air Assault Division. I highly doubt they’ll keep us here doing occupation duty,” said Sabo. “We’re one of the Army’s elite divisions. While I don’t know if they’ll send us to Central or South America, I can safely tell you this—when the new President gives the word go for new military operations, you can bet your paycheck we’ll be one of the divisions leading the charge.”

The others nodded in agreement.

“Hey, Sabo. You mind if we join you guys?” asked an American voice from behind them.

Sabo turned to see who it was and smiled. It was their fire team leader, Sergeant Lakers. He was a good guy and generally liked by everyone.

“Hell yeah, Sergeant Lakers,” Sabo replied. Then with a wink, he added, “You still owe me a beer.” He stood up and pulled another table over to join theirs.

At that moment, he suddenly realized Staff Sergeant Peters was with Lakers. Ugh, not him, Sabo thought. Nobody liked Peters—he was a real hard-ass and treated anyone who wasn’t a sergeant like dirt.

“Thanks, Sabo. Peters and I saw you guys over here and figured we’d join you. How’s the food here?”

“Well, we’ve only ordered appetizers so far, but they’ve been great,” Sabo replied. “Our dinner should arrive soon.” Peters took a seat opposite him, and Sabo tried to maintain a straight face.

Since Ailes was new to the unit as well as to the Army, he hadn’t picked up on the nuances of the situation yet. “Staff Sergeant Peters, do you know if our battalion is going to stay here or go to Central or South America?” he asked.

The others gave Ailes the stink eye for asking the question. “What? I’m curious, and maybe he knows,” Ailes countered in reply to the dirty looks he was getting.

Peters drained most of his beer before looking at Ailes, then the rest of them. “What makes you think I know any more than the rest of you?”

This admission seemed to have caught Ailes by surprise. To him, anyone with as high a rank as staff sergeant was probably in the loop when it came to big decisions like this. Little did he know that most NCOs had little to do with deciding where their units went. That was officer country.

Peters sighed. “I heard from the captain the new President is most likely going to continue the current administration’s war strategy of removing the Chinese from our sphere of influence. I don’t know when, but chances are the battalion will be back in action in the near future, so I’d drink up and enjoy the liberty while you can. Once we ship off to the next destination, it may be a while before we’re able to have some downtime like this.”

Ailes had an intense look on his young face as he took in the information. “You think because we’re an air assault division, we might go to El Salvador instead of the Caribbean?”

“What makes you think the Army would want us to go to El Salvador?” Sergeant Lakers asked as he joined the conversation.

“I don’t know. I guess I figured with there being a lot of islands and whatnot, the Marines might be the ones to clear them out. El Salvador is kind of mountainous jungle. Our type of operations would do great. We get flown in, fight the enemy, then fly out,” Ailes said nonchalantly, like he’d already seen action and knew how things worked.

“Private, when the decision is made, I’m sure they’ll tell us. Right now, we’re all on liberty and none of us want to talk about Army stuff. We want to eat some good food, drink too much alcohol, get drunk, and get laid. So why don’t you stuff it with the work talk and let us enjoy our evening?” Staff Sergeant Peters growled. Then he downed the remnants of his second beer.

Chapter Twenty

First Day

White House, Situation Room

Washington, D.C.

Blain Wilson kept his gaze fixed on the President. This was her second full day in office and her first official war briefing in the Situation Room. As the different service chiefs provided their briefs, he could tell it was starting to overwhelm her.

Wilson interjected before the Chief of Naval Operations could continue. “Madam President, if you need us to slow down, we can. I know this is a bit of information overload. We can spread some of this over a few days if you’d like,” he offered.

President Delgado smiled as she shook her head. “I appreciate the offer, Blain. I think as President, I owe it to our service members to get up to speed now and not over a few days. Let’s keep it going, though I’ll certainly take a fresh cup of coffee,” she replied, raising her empty cup up to signal she’d like a refill.

An aide brought a fresh pot in and started making the rounds while Admiral Jeremiah Lawrence continued his brief. “As you can see, Madam President, the NATO task force successfully engaged and sank the remaining Chinese naval force in the Indian Ocean. There may be a sub or two still lurking out there, but the surface fleet has been neutralized.

“During the last two months, the NATO task force, made up of German, Italian, Dutch, and Greek forces, sank four Chinese and three Iranian subs, as well as fourteen Chinese surface combatants and nineteen Iranian surface ships. On a good note, the Germans and Italians are ninety-nine percent sure one of the subs sunk was China’s newest sub—that Type 095A or Long March sub that’s been causing us all sorts of problems. This is that new weapon they unveiled during the opening hours of the war.”

President Delgado held a hand up. “Admiral, Mr. Wilson has gotten me up to speed on the Type 095A,” she interjected. “What I’d like to know a bit more about are these Iranian ship losses. When did this take place, and what’s really going on there? This hasn’t been in any of the Presidential Daily Briefings.”

The CNO looked like he’d just bitten down on a sour lemon at the question. “Well, Madam President, I can’t speak to what the CIA’s been briefing you on. What we’ve been told by the NATO task force is they didn’t encounter any Iranian ships until the day after the main battles happened between them and the Chinese. As the task force moved along the coast of Yemen and then Oman, that’s when they started to encounter more Iranian naval forces.

“The main battle that appears to have kicked things off happened when the task force was moving to the Said Bin Sultan Naval Base in the Gulf of Oman. They were going to take on provisions and conduct some repairs before moving further into the Indian Ocean. That’s when the first of a series of attacks occurred, roughly six days ago. Then, the day before you were sworn in, the German, Italian, Dutch, and Greek warships went on the offensive. It’s been a bit of a hot mess the last forty-eight hours. I believe General Yeager might know more about what NATO as a whole plans to do next.” The CNO paused to see what questions she might still have.

The President blew some air out of her lips as she canted her head to the side. “So, let me get this straight, Admiral—the Europeans defended themselves from an Iranian attack that sank a couple of their warships. That subsequently led to an escalation with the Iranians, resulting in them sinking half their navy. The Iranians then went after more of their forces wherever they could find them, and NATO now finds itself in a full-blown war with Iran, which, according to Article Five, means they are at war with us as well. Good grief—what a way to start my first term as President. War in the Caribbean, Middle East and Asia all at the same time.”

None of the military members said anything in reply to her statement. They sat there straight-faced and stoic for the moment. For most of them, this was only the second or third time they had even met her. Everyone was still waiting to see what kind of commander-in-chief she was going to be.

Seeing that none of the generals appeared to be adding anything to the conversation, Blain felt he should add something. “Madam President, up until the day you were sworn into office, Secretary Riley had been attempting to get all sides to agree to a cease-fire. That obviously didn’t happen. Once the new Secretary of State is officially confirmed, they can probably finish pursuing where she left off.”

“Thank you, Blain. That’s probably worth doing. We should try to limit the number of nations involved in this war, not expand it. Admiral, what’s the situation in the Caribbean? What threats do the Chinese and/or Venezuelans still pose to us down there?”

Admiral Lawrence changed a couple of slides on the PowerPoint presentation to bring up the Caribbean. “Madam President, with the help of the British, French, and Spanish navies, we have forced the remaining enemy warships to positions near the Venezuelan coast, where they now operate under an umbrella of antiship and air-defense systems. It’s not a large force, but until we can clear more of the ground-based systems, we can’t finish off the remaining warships.”

“Fair enough, Admiral. What are your suggestions for how we go about doing that?”

“I’d like to make use of our subs, for starters. Let them try and get in close and sink a few of them. Also, I think it may be time to look at leveraging the Archangels. They were built specifically to go after difficult targets like this. I mean, even if we use our Loyal Wingman UCAVs, we’re going to lose a lot of them just trying to thin the area out of SAMs.”

President Delgado furrowed her brow. “Archangels?”

Blain blushed. “You and I have a briefing about that program after this meeting has concluded, but the admiral is right. This is the perfect mission for them. I’ll explain what they are during our meeting so we can continue on here.”

The President nodded. She didn’t press the issue. She turned to the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs. “Admiral, once these Archangels are deployed, will our forces be ready to secure the skies over Venezuela and the island territories the Chinese have recently captured?”

Admiral Thiel hesitated for just a moment. Blain saw that the President noticed his hesitation too.

“If you give us the order, Madam President, we’ll execute it,” Thiel finally replied. “However, I would like to recommend we hold off just a couple of months and wait. Aside from giving you more time to get your cabinet appointed, both the Air Force and the Navy are in the process of fielding some new weapon platforms that will change the dynamics of the air war.

“As you are aware, both the Navy and Air Force took a beating during the first weeks of fighting over Cuba. We lost a lot of irreplaceable aircraft, namely F-22s and more than a few dozen F-35s.”

“That’s a bit of an understatement, Admiral,” President Delgado interjected. “I don’t want to dwell on that right now. But I’d sure like an explanation for how that happened later. In the meantime, why don’t you tell me what we’re doing to address this problem?”

Clearing his throat, Admiral Thiel explained, “The Air Force secretly fielded our sixth-generation stealth aircraft just prior to the war—that’s what Archangel is. It’s called the F/S-36 Archangel, and it’s going to revolutionize air and low-earth orbit warfare. We didn’t deploy them during the Cuba campaign as we needed to gain a better understanding of what kind of air-defense systems the Chinese had, and we’re still fine-tuning the aircraft.

“In regard to the Chinese air-defense weapons, we knew they’d created their own version of the Russian S-400 and even S-500 systems. What we did not know was exactly how effective they were. It appears they’ve found a way to see through our current generation of stealth aircraft, which is why we took a number of losses to the F-22 and F-35s.”

“How exactly did they do that?” the President pressed, leaning forward.

“Stealth doesn’t mean invisible,” Thiel countered. “It just means that instead of the aircraft showing up on radar as a plane, it has the signature of a baseball. That’s what makes it hard to track. In the case of the F-22 and F-35, they show up more as the size of a golf ball or maybe a ping-pong ball. Moving at their speeds, altitude, and distance, it’s incredibly hard for a radar to obtain a lock on them. If our aircraft encounter a single search radar, then chances are they won’t be found, but when the Chinese placed dozens of these radars in a tight cluster, they were able to use the different radar locations and varied frequencies to triangulate roughly where our aircraft were. They then knew where to look and turned on some additional high-powered systems that found them.”

Wilson saw the President cross her arms and figured he’d try to intervene before they went down a rabbit hole of questions. “The way we’re countering this, Madam President, is we send a lone aircraft in to attract the enemy radars. Once we locate where they are, we use one of our B-2s a couple hundred miles away or a destroyer off the coast to fire a standoff missile to take the radar site out. As soon as we started implementing this new strategy over Cuba, the tide of the air war changed decisively in our favor over the course of a week.”

Delgado smiled. “You read my mind, Mr. Wilson, thank you. I was going to ask how we planned on overcoming that problem, but it appears you guys have already figured it out. So, that brings me to my next question. Do we address what’s going on in El Salvador first, or tackle Venezuela?”

Admiral Thiel turned to Wilson. “Do you want to go over some of the options we had been working on this past week?”

Wilson nodded; he knew the President best. The options might be better presented by him than the service chiefs, who were still learning their way around the new administration.

“We’ve been going over a number of different options on who to deal with first and how to best go about it—what we’ve settled on is a bit of a multipronged approach,” Wilson explained. “We know we need to go after the surface-to-air missile threat in Venezuela and begin recapturing some of the islands they’ve seized, but we also know we’re not ready for a full-on invasion of the country.”

Standing up, he walked over to a map of the area on the wall and pointed to a few locations. “Our recommendation is we have the Navy and Air Force begin to use the Loyal Wingman program to start going after the enemy air defenses and whittling them down after the Archangels have flown a few sorties over the area. While that’s taking place, we can work to support the French and British as they look to liberate a few of their territories that were recently seized.

“It’s going to take us some time to get ready to launch an invasion of Venezuela. In the meantime, we’d like to recommend we move to liberate and remove the Chinese forces from El Salvador before they’re able to expand their footprint in the area any further than they already have.”

The President steepled her fingers. “OK, so if we move in this direction, how do you propose we tackle El Salvador while not getting ourselves bogged down and unable to support operations against Venezuela?”

“We’ve thought about that as well, Madam President. It’s going to take us some time to go after the Chinese surface-to-air defenses so we can support a ground operation. While that’s happening, we want to move III Corps to Cartagena, Colombia, where we can offload the bulk of their tanks and heavy equipment at the ports. Then they’ll link up with the Colombian forces near their shared border. This will give us a ground force to invade with, in addition to a likely seaborne assault.”

Wilson pointed to a position on the Caribbean side of Honduras and Guatemala. “We’d like to deploy the 101st Air Assault Division to Honduras. El Salvador is a mountainous country. A helicopter division makes the most sense to leverage. We’d also recommend deploying the 10th Mountain Division into Guatemala, pending they allow us to base out of their territory. If they won’t, then we’d recommend using the Marines II MEF to carry out an amphibious invasion of El Salvador from the Pacific.”

President Delgado lifted her coffee cup to her lips and took a long drink. Wilson figured she was probably trying to buy some time to think about what to do next. These were some big decisions they were throwing at her. And to think, this was only her second day on the job.

“You know, when I ran for office, I largely ran on a campaign to address a number of lingering domestic issues,” she said. “Leading a global war wasn’t something I had campaigned on. But now that I find myself in this unenviable position, I want to end this war as quickly as we can, gentlemen. We are not going to allow this war to linger and persist one administration after another like the last wars. So, start figuring out now what needs to happen to make sure we finish this war before the end of my first term, if at all possible.”

She then looked at Mr. Wilson and Admiral Thiel, who were sitting next to each other. “Do you both agree that this proposal to tackle El Salvador first while we take some time to build up around Venezuela is the best approach to end this war and bring about the victory our nation is going to demand?”

Admiral Thiel lifted his chin up as he replied, “There are always going to be risks to whatever approach we take, Madam President. Given what we encountered in Cuba, we have to assume the Chinese have a similar setup waiting for us in Venezuela. Worse, this super-AI has likely learned a lot from the Cuba campaign and integrated those lessons learned with their forces in Venezuela. Taking a short pause from ground operations to give the Air Force and Navy time to reduce the enemy air defenses is the best approach. It also gives our industry time to produce more of the tools needed to win this conflict.

“Our intelligence indicates the Chinese forces in El Salvador are not nearly as numerous or as robustly built up as they were in Cuba or Venezuela. Going after El Salvador now continues to apply pressure on the Chinese there, while it gives us time to prepare to deal with Venezuela. It is my opinion and that of the entire Joint Chiefs that we move forward with this approach.”

President Delgado bit her lower lip and nodded thoughtfully. She rubbed her chin before asking, “You agree with this as well, Blain?”

“I do, Madam President,” Wilson replied confidently. “Achieving some quick wins and removing the Chinese from our sphere of influence early in your presidency I think is paramount to restoring order both here at home and abroad. We need to show our allies this AI supercomputer can be defeated.”

No one said anything for a moment as they observed the new President, waiting to see what she would say or do next.

“What about Asia?” she asked without rendering a decision on their proposal. “What’s going on over there?”

Admiral Thiel was quick to answer. “Honestly, it’s a bit of a mess right now. We have a substantial force on Guam and a naval force in the vicinity to protect it. We don’t believe it’s in danger of being invaded—at least not anymore. Our forces in Japan are essentially stuck in place, but again, they’re no longer in danger of being invaded. The same is true with our forces in South Korea. From the perspective of our position, I believe we’re in decent shape. The Japanese, however, are a different story.”

The President interjected, “This morning, during my daily intelligence brief from the CIA, they told me about a massive naval battle between the Chinese Northern Fleet and a joint Japanese and South Korean force. They said our allies don’t really have much of a navy left. How is that going to impact our operations?”

“That report should also have said the Chinese Northern Fleet was essentially destroyed as well,” Thiel replied rapidly. He sighed. “Madam President, we have to pick and choose where we want to fight. Our forces are just not big enough to be everywhere, especially after the first day of the war. The attacks by those merchant raiders really hurt the Air Force and the Navy. We lost a lot of ships and aircraft in the first hours. Those ships and aircraft can and will be replaced, but it will take time and an enormous level of industrial effort on our part to replace them in the time we need them to fight and win this war.

“We’re doing what we can to support our allies in Asia, but right now, there isn’t much we can offer in the way of help. When we’ve defeated the enemy here, in the Caribbean, we’ll be able to shift our forces to support our allies in Asia.”

Wilson felt he should add something. “He’s right, Madam President. This AI supercomputer has engineered all sorts of conflicts to take place all over the world. I think it’s hoping we’ll try to deal with them all—that we’ll split our forces. It knows if we do that, then it’ll be able to defeat us piecemeal. It’s why we’re allowing the Germans, Dutch, and Italians to lead the NATO Indian Ocean task force. It’s why NATO has agreed to work with Russia to counter the Chinese threat.

“I know this is your first couple of days on the job—I recommend we organize an emergency meeting with the defense industry groups and hash out a plan for how we can mobilize our entire economy to fight and defeat this AI. If this machine is half as smart as we believe it is, then you can bet it’s already retooled the entire industrial capability of China to a war footing, which means we’re already way behind the eight ball on this one. I firmly believe we can defeat this artificial intelligence, but we need to get moving fast before it completely overwhelms us.”

The President took a deep breath in as she surveyed her generals and advisors. She still didn’t have her full team. Yet here she was, already having to make life-and-death decisions that could have a profound impact on whether her administration would lead the nation to victory or defeat.

She made eye contact with Admiral Thiel, and then Mr. Wilson. “OK. Thank you for bringing me up to speed. Let’s move forward with El Salvador. But, gentlemen, that mission needs to be swift and violent. I want that operation concluded promptly—hopefully before we begin operations in Venezuela.

“Now, Blain, I believe you and I have a meeting to discuss this new Air Force plane, followed by a meeting with the Director of the FBI.”

The President then stood and left the Situation Room before anyone else could say something or pose a question. Mr. Wilson stood as well and hurried after her.

*******

Presidential Study

When Maria had first seen the presidential study, she’d immediately fallen in love with it. It wasn’t a particularly large room, but it was private and intimate. For this first meeting with her FBI Director and her newly appointed Acting Director of Homeland Security, private and intimate was exactly the type of setting she was looking for.

The group had just shared lunch together. It was more of a “get to know you” kind of meal than anything formal.

Maria had never met the FBI Director. She also had a serious dislike and distrust of the FBI in general. Several recent missteps and fumbles on their part hadn’t exactly done anything to repair the FBI’s tattered image. One of the former directors had thought himself the new J. Edgar Hoover, believing he could blackmail presidents into giving him unfettered power and autonomy. It hadn’t ended well—two administrations from opposite parties had repeatedly used these actions as a club against the agency.

Delgado got right down to business, turning to her FBI Director first. “John, what’s the status on finding and rooting out these domestic threats? My understanding is we have a host of small Special Forces and paramilitary organizations causing havoc in the American heartland right now. What’s your agency doing to stop that?”

Director John Reardon nodded at the question. “This has been a challenging problem, but one I believe we’re finally getting our arms around. The previous administration had embedded a small Joint Special Operations Command element to help assist us. Obviously, we can’t be everywhere, so their increased assets and personnel has been a huge help to us—”

Delgado interrupted, “What kind of assets have they provided?”

“President Alton had authorized JSOC to lend whatever military force we needed to augment our operations. To keep things legal—you know, leveraging US forces on US soil and sometimes against US citizens and all—we always had at least one or more members of the FBI’s own hostage rescue team on every raid or activity. The HRT members are all federal agents, and technically, they were the ones in charge of the operation. As to JSOC, they had lent us SEAL Team Two. That gave us eight platoons to disperse around the country. The Air Force provided us with 27th Special Operations Wing for transportation and surveillance support. So far, it’s been working out well. We managed to track down and deal with six Chinese Special Forces units, along with three paramilitary units they had been training.”

“Damn. Did we really have a lot of Americans joining their ranks?” the President asked in shock.

“Madam President, most of the Americans were recent Chinese immigrants. It’s entirely likely they had been placed in the country over the last decade or two for this exact purpose,” Reardon explained as he tried to downplay their significance.

Joy Radcliff, the incoming Director of Homeland Security, then interjected to add, “John, if I may—in light of the war and what all’s been going on, how is this impacting the other operations at the FBI? Your white-collar crimes, federal investigations, counterintelligence operations, and background investigations?”

Reardon squirmed in his chair a bit. He probably remembered the rhetoric spoken during the campaign about the evils of the FBI and how the new President and many of her acolytes had demanded massive reform—some had even demanded the outright dismantling of the agency.

“Thank you for your question, Director Radcliff,” he replied. “With the war going on and foreign agents and Special Forces still running around inside our country, a lot of those other functions you talk about have been put on hold or fallen to the wayside. As the head of the FBI, my executive team and I believe it’s far more important that we focus on finding these foreign actors and stop them from causing further damage to our infrastructure and people.”

“Please, John, just call me Joy. I’m still waiting on my confirmation hearing to make my appointment official. You know, when President Delgado ran for office, she campaigned on bringing dramatic reform to both the FBI and DHS. There’s a lot of redundancy in our two agencies that needs to be corrected. We’re wasting resources having competing programs, something we certainly can’t afford to do now, given the economic outlook of the country—”

“I know about the rhetoric of the campaign,” Reardon retorted. “I don’t think it’s wise to implement any sort of radical change to either of our organizations while our nation finds itself in the middle of a world war.”

President Delgado then brought out a document she wanted them to talk about. “John, you bring up a good point. I, too, fought in a war. When Mr. Wilson and I”—she nodded towards him before resuming—“served in Iraq in 2005, the country was in the process of tearing itself apart through sectarian fighting. We suddenly found ourselves playing monkey in the middle and whack-a-mole.

“During my second tour in Iraq, I was a major. I was still working in public affairs with Special Forces when I was assigned to work on General David Petraeus’s staff as he led the surge. Our military was knee-deep in a bloody and costly war, but General Petraeus saw a change was needed if we were going to win. Our strategy at the time wasn’t working. I feel we’re in the same kind of situation right now…with the FBI, among many other organizations—”

Reardon interjected, breaking protocol as he interrupted. “How so, Madam President?” he pressed. “I’d like to think the organization is doing just fine. In less than three months of war, we’ve already found and prosecuted more than a dozen Chinese soldiers and agents.” He was clearly trying to keep his cool, although it was obvious he wasn’t happy with where this discussion was headed.

“Yes, and meanwhile, the rest of what your job is supposed to focus on is falling by the wayside,” Joy shot back angrily. “Like, why haven’t we figured out how the Chinese were able to crash our cellular network the day the war started, or how they managed to infiltrate some sort of malware that spoofed our early-warning radars? These are massive security breaches, and the FBI is supposed to be the lead counterintelligence agency in the country. We’re ten weeks into this war, and we don’t even have a lead on how this happened, let alone have anyone in custody. For all we know, there are many more Easter eggs waiting to be discovered.”

“So, what are you proposing?” Reardon fired back.

Maria placed a hand on Joy’s arm to signal she’d take the lead now. “First off, John, we’re doing a massive reorganization of Homeland Security. It has way too many organizations trying to work under it, and it’s become too cumbersome. I won’t bore you with the details of how that reorg is going to work, but I will tell you what we’re going to do with the FBI.” She then laid the paper on the table between them with the new organizational chart of the FBI—at least, it was the version of the FBI she’d like to see materialize during her administration.

Reardon scanned it briefly. “You have to be kidding me, Madam President. This has nearly half of our functions being taken away from us.”

“Don’t look at it like that, John,” Maria said soothingly. “Look at it as an opportunity to get back to focusing on what the FBI does best—what has always been a traditional FBI mission.”

She didn’t want to go to war with her FBI Director the first week of her administration, but if this guy thought he could run over her like he had the previous two administrations, he was in for a surprise.

“I don’t know if this one is even legal,” Reardon responded, pointing to one of the bullet points. “The CIA isn’t allowed to spy or collect intelligence on US soil.”

“Moving the counterintelligence mission to the CIA only makes sense since they monitor and track foreign agents abroad,” Delgado explained.

“You’re taking like fifty percent of the FBI’s current mission and moving it to the CIA and Homeland. I don’t think this is a wise idea,” Reardon countered, clearly a bit exasperated by the proposed changes.

The President swiveled in her chair and leaned forward. “Look, John, these changes are going to happen. What I’d like to know from you is, do you want to take over as a Deputy Director at Homeland to be in charge of the FBI functions being transitioned there, or do you want to still lead the refocused and retasked FBI?”

Reardon had a deer in the headlights look for all of two seconds as he thought about what had just been offered to him. She hadn’t fired him, but she’d made it clear he only had a couple of choices: accept the changes and lead a new agency or retire.

The FBI Director took a deep breath in as he replied, “Madam President, I’ve spent a large part of my FBI career in counterintelligence and counterterrorism. I suppose this is why I was most taken aback by your moving these functions out of the FBI. That said, I would like to transition, then, to DHS to work with Director Radcliff and help ensure these mission-critical tasks have enough time and roots to really get established within DHS. To that end, I’d like a guarantee from you both that I’ll have tenure, at least until the end of your first term, to make this a smooth transition and establish a new recruitment and training pipeline for this department. Could that work?”

Delgado looked up at the ceiling. My first win, she thought. She’d expected more resistance.

“From my perspective, John, I don’t have an issue with that, and I think you bring up a great point about getting the training and recruitment pipeline established within DHS. I suspect a number of FBI agents will transfer over with you, but we’ll need help in building a training program to keep that newly created department staffed well into the future.”

The President then turned to Joy, her longtime friend and political ally. “What say you, Joy? Can you work with John as one of your deputies?”

Joy didn’t hesitate in the least as a broad smile crept across her face. “John, I’d be happy to have you on the team. As a matter of fact, I would like to have you on my leadership team within the department as well. I’m going to need someone with your experience to help as we reorganize this behemoth of an organization.”

As the meeting concluded, Delgado pulled Wilson aside. “Blain, stay put, if you will. It’s time for you to bring me up to speed on a few things.”

John and Joy exited the room, leaving just the President and her Chief of Staff, who’d been like a fly on the wall, just silently observing everything. The lone scribe in the room had also left, so it was just the three of them.

“Do you think I was too tough on John?” asked Delgado.

Blain shook his head. “No, Madam President. The FBI has grown too powerful as of late, and I agree with you. They’ve abused the public trust and their power for far too long with no consequences. A change needed to happen. I think this a brilliant move you just made.”

Noah Medici, the President’s Chief of Staff, asserted, “I agree with Blain, Madam President. We can’t restore trust in the FBI unless the public sees a dramatic change in how they function and operate. What I recommend we do now is find an incredibly well-known and well-respected person to lead the FBI’s newly focused criminal justice aspect of the agency—but this isn’t why we’re here to talk with Mr. Wilson.”

“You’re right, of course,” said Delgado.

Blain Wilson was clearly confused.

“Relax, Blain, you aren’t going anywhere,” Noah said with a chuckle. “The President has told me a lot about you, and I’ve done a lot of digging on your background prior to your being appointed the NSA by President Alton. Everyone on both sides of the aisle says you’re a straight shooter. You tell it like it is, no matter what the politics are. A senator, who shall remain nameless, said you were an excellent pick for NSA because you didn’t bring any political baggage to the position.

“I’ll admit—I wanted Maria to pick someone else, but she was insistent that we keep you around. She said you two had served together in the Army and in Iraq, that you two had a bond that only soldiers knew. My only request, Blain, is don’t screw this up for her. Aside from being the first woman elected President, she has a lot she wants to accomplish this first term. I’ve been brought on to help her achieve those aims. I’ll make sure you always have access to her; just don’t do anything to impede her goals, OK?”

Blain nodded, a serious look on his face. “You can count on me, Noah. My only goal in life right now is to defeat those who attacked our nations and bring about a swift and just end to this war.”

“OK, boys, now that you two have that out of the way, let’s talk about this new proposal, Project Meteor Halo, that Admiral Thiel put on my desk last night for some light reading,” said President Delgado jovially. “And let’s not forget this next-generation air-dominance fighter plane you guys brought up during the briefing earlier.”

Blain almost grimaced at the mention of Project Meteor Halo. His expression didn’t go unnoticed by Noah or the President.

“I take it you aren’t a big fan of this Project Meteor Halo?” prodded Noah with a raised eyebrow.

“I understand the need and purpose for it,” said Blain. “I’m leery of the consequences of pushing forward with something like this.”

The President leaned forward in her chair. “Why don’t you go over your concerns, then?”

Blain sighed. “First, we have this uneasy détente of sorts with the Chinese in regard to satellites. Neither side wants to move us back to the Stone Age of communications. At the same time, we know the Chinese super-AI is thriving and probably only getting more powerful by having access to the satellite network. Removing it would, in theory, limit the AI’s power, reach, and growth.”

“So, what’s the problem?” Noah pressed. “All of this sounds like a good thing to me.”

“The problem is, once we start taking out satellites, they’ll take ours out as well,” Blain explained. “It’s to be expected. But what it will also mean is we’ll have created a massive cloud of debris up there—debris that will spread and grow, debris that will eventually hit everything up there. The folks at NASA call it the Kessler effect or Kessler syndrome. Once that cascading effect happens, we won’t be able to stop it. We could create a debris field so large that it might prevent us from reestablishing a new satellite constellation or ever traveling back to the moon once this war is behind us. It also means we’ll almost certainly lose GPS, satellite communications, weather satellites, and anything else that relies on satellite use.”

President Delgado didn’t say anything but seemed to understand the gravity of everything she’d just been told.

Blain added, “I’m also very concerned with how this will affect the nation’s economy, our infrastructure, and our supply chains if we lose GPS and satellite communications.”

No one spoke for a minute. Noah shared a nervous glance with Maria. He finally said, “That is an interesting predicament, Blain. When I looked over the project, the part of it that fell under Halo mentioned the use of ground-based lasers as a means of trying to mitigate the mess they knew they’d be creating in space.” He paused. “I thought I had read somewhere about some project back in the 1990s that mentioned the same thing—essentially using lasers to act almost like a brush to cause the debris to spin or cause it to fall into the earth’s atmosphere, where it would get burned up.”

President Delgado turned to look at Noah with a raised eyebrow. “Wow, talk about a piece of useless trivia that suddenly might have some value. Where did you hear about something like that?”

Noah laughed at the compliment. “I used to watch a lot of Jeopardy! I also read a lot about a lot of things.”

“I read that in the report as well,” Blain stated. “I’ve been putting together a very long and detailed request for further information for the Meteor Halo group to answer before I’d presented the idea to you. I had hoped to have that fleshed out a bit more before you became aware of it, but clearly the military did an end-around on me to get you to action it. They’ve been pushing to get aggressive with this AI for a while.” Blain was clearly a bit frustrated that they’d gone around him.

Delgado saw his frustration and reached a hand over to touch his. “I’ll speak with Admiral Thiel and tell him these kinds of things need to get vetted through you first before they hit my desk. I’ll make sure they know all roads to me lead through you.”

Blain smiled, nodding at the show of support.

“OK, Blain, you’ve brought up enough points that I think this needs to be further vetted before we move on it. Let me know when you have the answers you’re looking for, and we’ll talk about it then. In the meantime, what can you tell me about this new aircraft?”

Blain grabbed a folder he’d been carrying in his satchel. Placing the folder marked Top Secret on the table, he opened it and began to explain. “This new aircraft is called the F/S-36 Archangel.”

“F/S? What do you mean by that?” Noah asked before Blain could go much further. He snatched up the photo of the sleek-looking plane to examine the image more closely.

“Uh, sure. So F denotes the aircraft as a fighter. A means attack, kind of like the F/A-18 means it’s a fighter-bomber or how the SR-71 meant Strategic Reconnaissance. In this case, the F/S means fighter spaceplane,” Blain explained. “It’s listed as such because the aircraft has a maximum altitude of roughly one hundred thousand feet, which places it in the lower middle of the mesosphere of the atmosphere. The Archangel is the first such aircraft that’ll be able to operate at those kinds of altitudes. More than that, this thing is a hypersonic aircraft that also leverages hypersonic weapons.”

The President lifted an eyebrow at that. “So, this plane will basically be able to fly above the enemy surface-to-air missiles and drop bombs on them from near space?”

Blain smiled. “It’s a bit more complicated than that, but essentially, yes. The plane can carry bombs, but that’s not what it’d be using. A while back, there was a program called ‘Rods of God.’ It basically involved placing these twenty-meter-long rocket-assisted tungsten rods on a satellite in space. We could then have the satellite aim at a hardened underground bunker or a target that was heavily defended and release the rod from space. The rod would fall through the atmosphere, gaining in speed. Once in the upper atmosphere, a rocket on the back would power up and help the rod accelerate to speeds of up to Mach 20 or roughly fifteen thousand miles per hour. When it hit the target, it’d be like hitting it with a three-hundred-kiloton nuclear warhead, only without any of the nuclear fallout.”

Noah just shook his head in amazement as Blain explained how the weapon worked.

“The Archangel has a similar weapon called Thor’s Hammers. They’re roughly three and a half meters long and twenty-four inches in diameter. They’re also rocket-assisted. However, because they aren’t being dropped from space, they won’t reach speeds of Mach 20 like the original Rods of God program. They will, however, still hit speeds of seventy-five hundred miles per hour. It’s still like hitting a target with a small nuke or a very large bomb. However, the real value of the Archangel isn’t so much the kinetic free-fall weapons as its ability to fly through heavily contested airspaces and deliver a precision strike.”

Blain passed out some photos of what the Thor’s Hammers looked like, along with some other images of the aircraft. “What Admiral Thiel was mentioning earlier in the briefing was us utilizing the aircraft to start going after the enemy’s surface-to-air missile platforms, particularly the ones that are protecting the remaining Chinese naval ships. Once those ships have been destroyed and we’ve thinned the air defenses out using this aircraft, then we’ll be in a position to oust the PLA once and for all from our sphere of influence.”

“Damn. This sounds like the game changer we’ve been looking for,” President Delgado remarked.

Chapter Twenty-One

Mass Mobilization

One Week Later

White House

Washington, D.C.

Blain sat on the couch closest to the President. She was seated in the chair between the senior political leaders of the nation. Judging by the looks on everyone’s faces, the gravity of the situation Blain had just briefed them on had finally sunk in.

“How is any of this even possible?” the Senate Minority Leader asked as he looked up from the briefing notes Blain had provided in disbelief and shock.

“I think the bigger question to ask is what can be done to turn things around and right this ship before we all go under?” the Speaker of the House opined.

The President’s Chief of Staff, Noah Medici, put his notes down and looked at Blain. “Mr. Wilson, as the previous president’s National Security Advisor, can you explain to us why the previous administration hadn’t done more to deal with this threat and prepare the nation for war? It’s as if he simply gave up the last couple of months he was in office.”

Blain winced at the accusation but held his tongue. He knew Noah was under an immense amount of pressure right now. The Senate Minority Leader didn’t hold back in her response as she accused the previous administration of pursuing a utopian domestic agenda instead of preparing the country to stand up against the rise of China.

Before the political leaders could dig their heels into their partisan positions, Blain tried to intervene. “Excuse me—if I may say something. Can we please keep in mind that this war we now find ourselves fighting is a war that has been planned and orchestrated by the world’s most advanced supercomputer? While I understand the desire to blame the previous administration and I am certainly not going to make excuses for President Alton, we have to collectively understand that this AI has engineered everything that has happened up to this point to bring us to this very position—”

The Congressional Minority Leader interrupted, “I still don’t fully understand how any of that is possible, Mr. Wilson. I know you’ve gone to great lengths to explain it, I just don’t understand how a computer could have done that.”

President Delgado finally weighed in. “Regardless of how we got here or whose fault it is, we’re here now, and we have to deal with this problem. Blain has explained the seriousness of the situation and what needs to happen to turn this thing around. It’s now up to us as the heads of the government to make the tough decisions. The economy is obviously ravaged from the virus—an intentional position this Chinese super-AI placed the world in. Couple that with their unprecedented surprise attack on our military during the opening hours of the war, and that brings us to where we are now. While some may disagree, I don’t think the previous administration could have done much better, knowing what I’ve come to learn about how this AI Jade Dragon appears to work. What I’m asking all of you to do right now is put aside your political differences and come together as one voice to lead our country back to victory in this war.”

Blain saw the President pause just long enough to look each of the political leaders in the eye before she looked at him. She gave him a subtle smile before continuing. “Mr. Wilson, would you please go over your suggestion for what we should tackle next?”

He nodded. “Madam President, with regard to the war, I have to agree with the Joint Chiefs about a full mobilization of our country for war. I recommend you give a live broadcast to announce a national call to arms and request for every person that’s physically able and willing to answer the nation’s call to volunteer to join the armed forces. We should set a goal of raising a military force of ten million people.”

Blain held a hand up to forestall the immediate objection he saw coming and then continued. “Ten million is the higher end of what Admiral Thiel recommended, but it got me to thinking that we could use this large force for more than just defeating the Chinese. Of the ten million soldiers, I’d like to recommend that one million of them be designated to support domestic operations here.”

“What do you have in mind, Mr. Wilson?” asked Senator Andrew Hordestead, the leader of the Senate.

“The virus ravaged our first responders, leaving us with a critical shortage of EMTs, paramedics, LPNs, and police officers. I believe a portion of the people we’re going to draft could be placed into civil affairs units designated to help fill in and augment the gaps in our inner cities and rural communities,” Blain explained.

“That’s actually a brilliant idea, Madam President,” Medici confirmed. “It would go a long way towards meeting the needs of the two areas of the country that have been hit the hardest by the virus.”

Speaker Tony Isaacs stuck his chin out as he spoke in his thick New Englander accent. “I can see the merits of this proposal, even if I think it’s a slippery slope to use our military like this. What I’d like to know is how are we going to pay for it all?

“Our nation is essentially bankrupt. Look at the insurance industry. In our country alone, COVID-24 has now killed sixteen million people. My son works at a life insurance company and he was telling me the amount of money that has been paid out for all these deaths is going to put many of these firms out of business. We’re talking firms like MetLife and Liberty Mutual, multibillion-dollar businesses. Then you add in an unemployment rate of fourteen percent and a population that’s still scared of catching this virus even after they’ve been vaccinated—I’m just not sure how we can fund this massive military mobilization while still keeping the lights on.”

“You bring up a good point, Speaker Isaacs,” Medici confirmed. “However, I think now is the time for us to move boldly with some of the ideas that both you and Senator Hordestead have both spoken about in the past. If there were ever a time for us to make radical economic and political change, it’s right here and right now.”

Blain saw the President lift an eyebrow at her Chief of Staff’s comment. Delgado didn’t hesitate for a second. “I think Noah is right. Our two political parties have argued over some of these third-rail items for decades, and as a result, we’ve never solved them. So let’s start solving them now so we can position the country to win this war.”

She stood. “It’s noon. Let’s break for lunch and then resume our conversation. Blain, if you’ll stay back for just a moment.”

Noah then led the congressional leaders and some of the White House policy team to another room, where everyone would have lunch together and continue their discussion.

*******

Once the room was clear, Delgado turned to Blain. “If we move forward with this massive mobilization and revamping of our financial and economic system, do you think we can still stop this Chinese juggernaut?”

Blain saw a look of real uncertainty and concern on her face. It was a rare expression for her, and it caught him by surprise. When people saw her on TV, on the campaign trail or working a room, she always exuded confidence and strength. It had been a key aspect of her campaign too. But at the end of the day, she was, after all, only human.

Blain took a breath in before he replied. “If I were talking with President Alton or Vice President Vicki Jackson, then I would be a lot less confident in our ability to beat this machine. But I think you’re the trump card the AI wasn’t counting on. During the campaign and the height of the pandemic, you kept your cool—just like you did all those years ago in Iraq, when our convoy was ambushed.”

Blain looked away for a moment. There wasn’t a day that went by where he didn’t think about the two other soldiers that had died in that Humvee.

Steeling his nerves, Blain narrowed his eyes as he looked at his commander-in-chief. “I think we can stop this AI, Madam President. But it’s going to require our country to sacrifice and work together at an unprecedented level. You may need to use your executive powers and the Defense Production Act to get Boeing and the other aerospace and automakers to halt civilian production for a few years to focus solely on military manufacturing. If our intelligence folks are right about China’s next move in Asia, then we don’t have much time left to begin preparations to protect ourselves, let alone help our allies.”

The President sighed audibly. It was just the two of them. She reached over and grabbed his arm and squeezed it. “We’ll figure it out, Blain. You just keep doing your best and help me guide this nation through this perilous time.”

Blain smiled. “You can always count on me, Maria. We just need to get the economy turned back on and our people mobilized. We can do this.”

The two of them walked towards the exit to join the others for lunch. Before they entered, she whispered to him, “Tell Admiral Thiel to move forward with the Archangels. I’ll handle the country and the politicians; he just needs to win this damn war before the end of my first term.”

*******

Soto Cano Air Base

Comayagua, Honduras

The Bell V-280 Valor sliced silently through the dark sky over the Honduran jungle. As the minutes ticked by, the twelve soldiers and single airman of ODA 7322 were now only minutes away from touching down.

The crew chief turned to look at Captain Thorne. “We just crossed the El Salvadorian border. We’re three mikes out.”

Nodding at the news, Thorne turned to his guys and held up three fingers. They each nodded and held up three fingers in return.

When Thorne looked forward into the cockpit of the helicopter, he saw some instrument panels lit up and the two soldiers at work. One guy, probably the copilot, was looking at a map and then comparing it to the digital readings he was getting.

Thorne wasn’t sure why, but he felt a strange sense of peace seeing these guys working a regular paper map and then comparing it to what their computer was telling them. These guys weren’t relying on the machine to tell them everything—some things they were still doing the old-fashioned way.

Then the Valor’s engines changed pitch. Not that he could hear the roar of these engines like he could on a Blackhawk or an Osprey, but he certainly noticed the difference in pitch. The nose of the helicopter pulled up as it bled speed off rapidly. In moments, the Valor had gone from airplane mode to helicopter mode.

The pilots found the clearing near the hilltop that had been identified as a good place to insert and start their stalk. At this point, the rest of the team was strapping their rucksacks on and readying their rifles.

Thorne caught a glance of an M4 strapped in behind the pilot—a reminder of how not everyone in the Army had the new rifles just yet. A few more years, though, and they’d all have them.

When the tiltrotor touched down, the operators leapt off and immediately went into a 360-degree defensive position. The team’s lone special reconnaissance airmen had their coms up and running, letting headquarters know they’d arrived. “We’ll spend the next twenty minutes listening and watching to make sure we weren’t spotted on our way in,” he concluded.

Once Thorne felt they’d inserted undetected, then the team would move out. They’d enter the Montecristo Trifinio National Park and begin their reconnaissance work, along with four other ODAs being inserted at different points to cover more ground.

The park itself was situated largely in El Salvador, with parts of it crossing into Honduras and Guatemala. It had several major ridges and a few low-lying mountains, all covered in a dense double-layer jungle canopy. It was incredibly difficult for satellites, drones, or even aerial images to get any kind of a read on what sort of PLA activity might or might not be going on under the thick tree cover.

What little intelligence they had of the area indicated this would likely be just like the large PLA military buildups they had seen in Cuba. Rather than try and defend the entire country or even a few key or critical cities, the Chinese had learned it was more effective to build some incredibly tough fortress redoubts into the landscape and force the Americans and their allies to root them out on foot.

Thorne looked at Chief Miller and Master Sergeant Altenburg and gave them the nod. “Gentlemen, it’s time to go hunting.”

From the Authors

Miranda and I hope you’ve enjoyed this book. If you’d like to continue the action of The Monroe Doctrine, you can preorder your copy of Volume III by clicking on the following link. In addition to the military thriller series you’ve been reading, we are also producing new books in our military sci-fi series, The Rise of the Republic. You can join that series by clicking on the following link to purchase Into the Stars.

If you like to listen to audiobooks, we have several that have recently been produced. All five books of the Falling Empire Series are now available in audio format, along with the six books of the Red Storm Series, and our entire World War III series. Interview with a Terrorist and Traitors Within, which are currently standalone books, are also available for your listening pleasure.

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As a bonus, if you sign up for our mailing list, you will receive a dossier for the Rise of the Republic Series. It contains artwork of the ships we’ve written about, as well as their pertinent stats. It will really help make the series come to life for you as you continue reading.

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We have really valued connecting with our readers via social media, especially on our Facebook page https://www.facebook.com/RosoneandWatson/. Sometimes we ask for help from our readers as we write future books—we love to draw upon all your different areas of expertise. We also have a group of beta readers who get to look at the books before they are officially published and help us fine-tune last-minute adjustments. If you would like to be a part of this team, please go to our author website, https://www.frontlinepublishinginc.com/, and send us a message through the “Contact” tab.

You may also enjoy some of our other works. A full list can be found below:

Nonfiction:

Iraq Memoir 2006–2007 Troop Surge

Interview with a Terrorist (link to audiobook here)

Fiction:

The Monroe Doctrine Series

Volume One

Volume Two

Volume Three (available for preorder, estimated release date September 21, 2021. This book may be released earlier)

Rise of the Republic Series

Into the Stars (link to audiobook here)

Into the Battle (link to audiobook here)

Into the War (audiobook currently in production)

Falling Empires Series

Rigged (link to audiobook here)

Peacekeepers (link to audiobook here)

Invasion (link to audiobook here)

Vengeance (link to audiobook here)

Retribution (link to audiobook here)

Red Storm Series

Battlefield Ukraine (link to audiobook here)

Battlefield Korea (link to audiobook here)

Battlefield Taiwan (link to audiobook here)

Battlefield Pacific (link to audiobook here)

Battlefield Russia (link to audiobook here)

Battlefield China (link to audiobook here)

Michael Stone Series

Traitors Within (link to audiobook here)

World War III Series

Prelude to World War III: The Rise of the Islamic Republic and the Rebirth of America (link to audiobook here)

Operation Red Dragon and the Unthinkable (link to audiobook here)

Operation Red Dawn and the Siege of Europe (link to audiobook here)

Cyber Warfare and the New World Order (link to audiobook here)

Children’s Books:

My Daddy has PTSD

My Mommy has PTSD

The End.

Abbreviation Key

AA              Anti-Aircraft (guns with range of roughly 0–10,000 feet)

AAA           Anti-Aircraft Artillery (strikes aircraft above 10,000 feet in altitude)

AGS           Advanced Gun System

AI               Artificial Intelligence

AOR           Area of Responsibility

AP              Armor-Piercing

APC            Armored Personnel Carrier

ASROC                Anti-Submarine Rocket

ASW           Anti-Submarine Warfare

ATACMS             Army Tactical Missile System

BCT           Brigade Combat Team

CAG           Commander Air Group

CAS           Close-Air Support

CBU           Cluster Bomb Unit

CDC           Centers for Disease Control and Prevention

CGI            Computer-Generated Image

CIA            Central Intelligence Agency

CIC            Combat Information Center

CMC          (Chinese) Central Military Commission

CNO           Chief of Naval Operations

CO             Commanding Officer

COB           Chief of the Boat

COMSUBPAC      Commander, Submarine Force, US Pacific Fleet

CP              Command Post

CSAR         Combat Search and Rescue

CSM           Command Sergeant Major

CT              Computerized Tomography

CTE            Commando Tropas Especiales

DDoS         Distributed Denial of Service

DHS           Department of Homeland Security

EMT           Emergency Medical Technician

Eng            Engineering Officer

EU             European Union

FAA            Federal Aviation Administration

FBI             Federal Bureau of Investigation

FDC           Fire Directional Control

FLIR          Forward-Looking Infrared

FOB           Forward Operating Base

GDP           Gross Domestic Product

GI              Government Issue (member of the United States Armed Forces)

Gitmo                  Guantanamo Bay

GLUAS                Grenade-Launched Unmanned Aerial System

GPS            Global Positioning System

HARM                 High-Speed Anti-Radiation Missile

HE             High-Explosive

HEAA                  High-Explosive Anti-Armor

HEAT         High-Explosive Anti-Tank

HIMARS              High Mobility Artillery Rocket System

HQ             Headquarters

HRT           Hostage Rescue Team

HUMINT             Human Intelligence

HVAC                  Heating, Ventilation, and Air Conditioning

IR               Infrared

J2               Joint Intelligence Officer

J3               Joint Operations Officer

JBCC          Joint Battle Command Center

JD              Jade Dragon

JDAM         Joint Direct Attack Munition

JLTV           Joint Light Tactical Vehicle

JSDF          Japanese Self-Defense Force

JSM            Joint Strike Missile

JSOC          Joint Special Operations Command

KCT           Korps Commandotroepen

KIA            Killed in Action

KSM           German Combat Swimmers

LMG           Light Machine Gun

LNG           Liquid Natural Gas

LPN           Licensed Practical Nurse

LT              Lieutenant

LWMMG             Lightweight Medium Machine Gun

LZ              Landing Zone

MAAW                 Multirole Antiarmor Antipersonnel Weapon System

MANPADS          Man-Portable Air-Defense System

MARDIV              Marine Division

MEF           Marine Expeditionary Force

MOH          Medal of Honor

MRE          Meals Ready-to-Eat

MRI           Magnetic Resonance Imaging

MSOT                 Marine Special Operations Teams

NAS           Naval Air Station

NATO                  North Atlantic Treaty Organization

NCO           Noncommissioned Officer

NORAD               North American Aerospace Defense Command

NSA           National Security Advisor

NSW          Naval Special Warfare

ODA           Operational Detachment Alpha (Special Forces)

OP              Observational Post

PID            Positive Identification

PJ               Pararescuemen

PLA            People’s Liberation Army (Chinese Army)

PLAN         People’s Liberation Army Navy (Chinese Navy)

Pos             Position

PRC           People’s Republic of China

PTSD          Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder

R&R           Rest and Recreation

RAP            Rocket-Assisted Projectiles

RHAW                 Radar, Homing and Warning

Ro-Ro                  Roll-On, Roll-Off

RP              Rally Point

RPG           Rocket-Propelled Grenade

RTO           Radiotelephone Operator

RWR          Radar Warning Receiver

S1              Personnel Officer

S2              Intelligence Officer

SAM           Surface-to-Air Missile

SBU           Special Boarding Unit

SCIF          Sensitive Compartmented Information Facility

SEAD         Suppressing Enemy Air Defenses

SEAL          Sea, Air and Land Crew (Navy’s all-terrain fighters)

SFC            Sergeant First Class

SIGINT                Signals Intelligence

SINCGARS          Single-Channel Ground and Airborne Radio System

SMAW                 Shoulder-Launched Multipurpose Assault Weapon

SOAR         Special Operations Aviation Regiment

SOCOM               Special Operations Command

SOSUS                Sound Surveillance System

SP              Self-Propelled

SpecOps              Special Operations

TAO           Tactical Action Officer

TEL            Transporter Erector Launcher

TIC             Troops in Contact

TOC           Tactical Operation Center

TOW          Tube-Launched, Optically Tracked, Wire-Guided Missile

UAV           Unmanned Aerial Vehicle

UCAV                  Unmanned Combat Aerial Vehicle

UFC           Ultimate Fighting Championship

UK             United Kingdom

USF           University of Southern Florida

USMCA               United States-Mexico-Canada Agreement

VA              Veterans Affairs

VR              Virtual Reality

WP             White Phosphorus

XO             Executive Officer

ZBD           Type of Chinese infantry fighting vehicle

ZBL            Type of Chinese armored personnel carrier

Table of Contents

Chapter One: Ranger Ho

Chapter Two: Decisions

Chapter Three: Survivor’s Guilt

Chapter Four: Behind Enemy Lines

Chapter Five: Screamin’ Eagles

Chapter Six: This Ain’t Khe Sanh

Chapter Seven: Operation Tricorne

Chapter Eight: Gray Wolf

Chapter Nine: Hospitalization

Chapter Ten: Jade Dragon

Chapter Eleven: The Grenadines

Chapter Twelve: War of Attrition

Chapter Thirteen: NATO Plus One?

Chapter Fourteen: Hamburger Hill

Chapter Fifteen: Battle of the Red Sea

Chapter Sixteen: Viva Cuba

Chapter Seventeen: Transition Team

Chapter Eighteen: Empire of the Sun

Chapter Nineteen: New Opportunity

Chapter Twenty: First Day

Chapter Twenty-One: Mass Mobilization

From the Authors

Abbreviation Key