Invasion: Alaska (33 page)

The Snapping Turtle amphibious boats were the armored personnel carriers of the assault. Each displaced thirteen tons and was eleven meters long. It had a three-man crew and carried twenty-five grim-faced naval infantry ready to charge ashore. The main assault was coming.

***

Sergeant Byers of the Alaskan National Guard manned a TOW2 launcher. He hunkered in his foxhole, hidden under an anti-radar tarpaulin. Wide-eyed, with his hands on the foxhole’s dirt, he surveyed the wreckage around him.

There were overturned and burning Humvees and M2 Bradleys. One flipped Bradley had crushed a soldier, with his lone hand sticking out of the wreckage. Men and body-parts were strewn here and there. One headless corpse still clutched his grenade launcher. The Chinese radar and advanced EW had badly outclassed American technology. The heavy ordnance from the ships offshore, air-to-ground missiles from the helicopters and napalm from the bombers had smashed the defense to smithereens.

Byers had large welder’s hands, they were dry and had cracks and seams in them like a man twice his age. He was one of the few survivors of the murderous and multi-layered bombardment. There had been two others with him in the foxhole. They had fled, and died in the shockwave concussions of five-hundred pound bombs. Byers stared out of his foxhole. The stink of napalm, the pork-like stench of burnt humans and the sting of explosives in his nostrils was a nauseating smell, one of bitter defeat.

Where had everyone gone? Were they all dead? Was he the last American defending Homer?

Byers scanned the water. His reward wasn’t long in coming. Twenty-three amphibious personnel carriers, Snapping Turtles, churned through the gray waves. They headed for Homer’s beaches with their lumps of coal and American dead.

Byers knew there were enemy minesweepers out there, enemy carriers, cruisers, destroyers and cargo vessels. Chinese air patrolled everywhere. This was a catastrophe. No one defended the landing zone anymore. After rushing here from Anchorage and working day and night—the Chinese were getting a free ride onto Alaskan soil.

Sergeant Byers shook his head. Maybe not altogether a free ride. He was still alive. Taking a calming breath, Byers studied the amphibious landing craft. The waves were low today. He doubted any of the Chinese riflemen were seasick.

Far out in the distance, Byers made out the silhouette of several Chinese warships.

I wonder what happened to our fleet.

He shrugged after a moment. None of that mattered anymore. He squeezed his eyes closed and with a flick of his fingers, he turned on the TOW2 system. There was a frozen smile on his face as he activated the controls and targeted the nearest amphibious boat. There was a popping sound. Then the missile whooshed into life, and it zoomed across the waters at a Chinese amphibious carrier.

Mentally, Sergeant Byers counted the seconds. Then an explosion over the waters showed him where the missile demolished the amphibious carrier and its invasion squads.

“Boom,” Byers whispered.

He reloaded and targeted another amphibious carrier, launching a second missile. It hit and destroyed another invasion craft. Sergeant Byers reloaded a third time and was busy targeting his third amphibious carrier when he heard a deadly
whomp-whomp
in the air. He glanced up over his shoulder. A Chinese attack chopper roared at him.

Small-arms fire popped around him. There were other Americans left. They fired at the armored chopper.

Breathing hard, Byers turned back to his controls, targeted another amphibious carrier—

The attack helicopter’s chaingun whirled into life. Before Byers could launch this third missile, steel-jacketed bullets, over two hundred of them, obliterated him, his launcher and the rest of the missiles. Afterward, the helicopter hunted the Americans firing at it.

Because of the helicopter, Byers missed the initial landing. He missed the amphibious craft roaring onto the coal-dotted beach. He missed the front gates crashing open. He missed the Chinese as they waded ashore. The naval infantry wore dinylon-armor jackets and most held assault rifles. In the watery distance came the second wave hot on the heels of the first. The corpse of Sergeant Byers saw none of these things, although one Chinese soldier emptied a magazine of bullets into his bleeding body.

The invasion of Alaska had begun in earnest.

PRCN
SUNG

An angry Admiral Ling, the commanding officer of the invasion fleet, sipped hot tea as he watched his bank of intelligence officers. They typed information into the operational battle screens.

The OBS took up one wall of the room in the supercarrier
Sung
, the largest carrier in the world. The big screens showed the Kenai Peninsula. The first amphibious assault at Homer had succeeded brilliantly, almost without cost. The second assault to take Seward at a different location on the peninsula had been botched by the Vice-Admiral in command of operations there. The Vice-Admiral was the Chairman’s nephew, however. Even now, the man was untouchable, and that galled Ling.

One-armed Admiral Ling frowned as he watched the last Chinese helicopter over Seward crash. He set his teacup into its saucer and rubbed the right side of his face, the good side that still had feeling. The attack had destroyed American Strykers defending Seward, but not all of them. The town was still in enemy hands.

Ling glanced at Commodore Yen, a tall man in his fifties wearing a VR monocle. The Chinese media loved interviewing Commodore Yen because of his good looks and military bearing. In the service, Yen was known for his political caution, always testing before making any statement. Perhaps it was the reason the Party let the media interview him so often.

“Do the Americans have our communication codes?” asked Admiral Ling. “Is that how they achieved their success in Seward?”

Commodore Yen shook his head. “Our intelligence operatives are too good to have allowed such a thing to pass to the enemy. No. I think fate aided the Americans in Seward. For reasons I cannot fathom, our helicopter assaults—”

“There was a total lack of coordination between the attack and carrier helicopters,” said Ling.

“Some unseen incident must have interrupted the good planning,” Yen said, as he glanced meaningfully at the bank of intelligence operatives at their stations.

Ling adjusted the empty left sleeve of his uniform. Then he turned on Yen. “The piecemeal attacks were a practice in stupidity.”

Commodore Yen said nothing.

Ling scowled. He had several items on his mind. The American ASBM attack had struck and destroyed two large fuel tankers. Maybe the guidance systems in the ballistic missiles had noted the large size of the tankers and assumed they were carriers. Unfortunately, the Chinese Navy only owned a few fleet tankers. Fortunately, there had been a solution.

These days, much of the world came to China for oil, and some of the trade was moved in Chinese bottoms. The Navy couldn’t use crude tankers, those vessels that hauled crude oil. It needed
product
tankers, those that carried refined petrochemicals. However, the nation’s oil barons had fiercely fought the Navy’s demand for commercial tankers. In the end, the oil barons, who were high in the Party hierarchy, had allowed a few of their product tankers to join the expedition, lending the Navy several of their largest. The Navy had added UNREP gear to them, defensive guns and military electronics.

Despite the size and strength of the Chinese Navy, it only had a few of its own fuelling ships or replenishment oilers as they were called. Initially, China had built a short-range coastal fleet. Only in the last decade had they truly attempted to form a blue-water navy. They hadn’t yet built-up the support ships necessary for maintaining a long-range war. One of the more critical lacks was enough replenishment oilers.

Several days ago, Admiral Ling had desperately defended his supercarriers from the ASBMs. It was almost as bitter a blow losing two product tankers as it would have been losing another carrier with its accompanying fighters and bombers. Too much of the invasion’s fuel requirements were afloat in several huge tankers. The loss of those tankers meant that the invasion’s reserves were lower than he liked. Already he’d sent word back to Admiral Qingshan of the Ruling Committee on the need for more tankers, for more fuel. Ling wanted to build-up larger stocks, larger reserves. Naval Minister Qingshan had told him that the Chairman had declined the request, saying the invasion fleet had quite enough fuel to achieve the task.

Ling had decided he would have more than enough reserves if he could get his hands on American fuel, particularly the big storage depots used for the luxury cruise-ships in Seward. Most of the Navy ships used diesel, as did the vast majority of the ground combat vehicles. Now the Vice-Admiral had botched his first attempt to grab Seward and its fuel. Couldn’t the man achieve the simplest tasks?

“Sir,” a communications captain said, looking up from his computer. “The Vice-Admiral would like to call off the assault on Seward for today. He wants assault helicopters and cargo-carriers sent over so he can coordinate a new assault tomorrow or the day after tomorrow.”

Admiral Ling glanced at Commodore Yen. “Why can’t the Vice-Admiral ever achieve his tasks with grace and efficiency?”

“I would remind you that he is the Chairman’s nephew,” the Commodore said in a low voice. “…perhaps it is ill-advised to so publicly admonish his valiant efforts today.”

“No doubt you speak the truth,” Ling said. He picked up his teacup and sipped the cooling liquid. He frowned. He wanted hot tea, not this tepid drink. Setting the cup back in its saucer, he thought to himself that assaults were like tea. You needed to drink them while they were hot. You needed to strike fast and do it well the first time. His frown deepened as he told Yen, “I want that fuel in Seward. I want to raise our reserves to higher levels.”

“Do you have a premonition, sir?” asked the Commodore.

Admiral Ling turned to the communications captain. “Explain to the Vice-Admiral that I expect his naval infantry to control the town and the fuel depot by nightfall.”

“As you wish, sir,” the captain said, lowly speaking into his communication device.

“Is that wise?” the Commodore whispered.

“We must be in Anchorage before the cold sets in,” Admiral Ling said.

“Is there any need for worry? We have time before the worst weather hits.”

“The glaciation has changed the weather patterns,” Ling said. “Bad weather begins a month earlier here, maybe even six weeks earlier than twenty years ago. This is a terrible time of the year to begin an invasion.”

“Sir,” Yen whispered, shaking his head.

Ling stared at the OBS. “I fear that more ill-fortune waits for us. Therefore, I desire Seward, its fuel and the rail-line to Anchorage. If we can split the American defense, one attack starting from Homer and another from Seward—”

“The Vice-Admiral will capture the town, sir.”

“He hasn’t yet.”

The Commodore leaned nearer. “Sir, for you own safe-keeping, I wish you would send the Vice-Admiral a congratulatory note on his hard fighting.”

“Do you call losing all your helicopters hard fighting?”

The Commodore glanced around before he whispered, “Our men hurt the enemy. You can congratulate the Vice-Admiral on that.”

“How did he achieve this miracle?” Ling asked. “By dropping his helicopters on them? No. I will congratulate the Vice-Admiral when he does something commendable. Until then, let him strive as we ordinary mortals have learned to do. Maybe in this way he can learn from his mistakes.”

Tall Commodore Yen with the VR monocle frowned at those words. “It is always wise to remember who his uncle is, sir.”

Admiral Ling could never forget. Why had they saddled him with the Vice-Admiral? The man was rash, given to impulses. In war of this sort, careful attention to detail won the day. Just how hard could it be to capture one of these small Alaskan ports?

ANCHORAGE, ALASKA

A National Guard captain named Jones stared at Stan Higgins. In regular life, Captain Jones ran a manure factory. He was balding, with red-veined eyes and missing the last three fingers of his left hand. He’d lost that in a compactor twelve years ago. Jones’s uniform was baggy and he slouched, but he was good at administration and belonged to General Sims’s staff. Sims was the C-in-C of Alaskan defense.

Stan and Jones were in the National Guard Armory, a huge garage with ten Abrams M1A2 tanks inside. Outside in the yard were Heavy Equipment Transporters, HETS. The tractor hauled the trailer, able to transport seventy tons worth of equipment. They’d been designed to haul the heavy M1A2 Abrams tank at sixty-two tons plus gas and shells. The HETS could also accommodate the four crewmen of the original M1 design.

Sitting at a table, Captain Jones lifted the screen of his laptop. With the touch-screen, he showed Stan the Kenai Peninsula, with Anchorage up in the middle top. The peninsula guarded Anchorage, with Cook Inlet to the west and Prince William Sound to the east and with the Gulf of Alaska filling in the south. The Kenai Peninsula looked like a triangle, with the base butted against Anchorage and the farthest tip pointed to the southwest. The Kenai Fjord National Park guarded most of the south of the peninsula with incredibly rugged terrain, with glaciers everywhere. Butted next to the Exit Glacier was the town and ice-free port of Seward.