The Fiery Trial

by Adam Yoshida

  "Now, there are those who accept this. These people are within our own ranks. And they point out that the government of the United States, as reconstituted here in Colorado, now controls the majority of the states and portions of most others. They point out, quite correctly, that the majority of the nation's resources and its productive populations are within our hands. They argue that we should take what have and set the rest adrift, to leave the rest of the nation to suffer for its own sins.

  "But that, ladies and gentlemen, would be an example of all of the things that we aren't. We're Americans. We don't leave our people behind. Not a single one of them. Even in the most ignorant and benighted places in our country, there are still citizens who love liberty and are willing to stand up for it. All across America, both free and that controlled by the criminal Washington regime, there are little islands of liberty swimming the oceans of ignorance. America – all of it – will be one again. America – all of it – will be restored to liberty. That is my promise. That is what we, together, must set out to achieve.

  "But how are we to achieve this? In recent months you will have seen lurid dramatic and journalistic depictions of the future: of tanks on the streets of our great cities, of massive bombing raids, even of nuclear war. In truth, I plan nothing of the kind. What I intend to do, as the Acting President of the United States, is to resume the normal business of the government. We will get our economy going again. We will begin to make some sense of the awful financial situation that our country is in. And, finally, we will begin to enact political reforms as a way of finding a permanent resolution to the troubles that have afflicted us in so many recent years.

  "In particular, I am calling a special session of the United States Congress. In one month's time the Congress will assemble here in Colorado in order to consider certain matters arising out of the conference of State Governors that was recently convened. In particular, I expect that this special session of the Congress will be asked to deal with petitions from several states seeking the blessing of the Congress to allow the division of those states into two. As well, I know that several members of the Congress intend to introduce Amendments to the Constitution designed to clarify the spending and taxation authority of the government as well as who qualifies to vote in Federal Elections. I hope that the Congress takes swift action on all of these measures.

  "Now, there may be continued fighting as the illegitimate government of the impeached former President attempts to hold out in Washington. In our fight for liberty, there have already been deaths and losses. I am sorry to say that there will be more before this is over. We regret that fact. We mourn for those who have been lost and will for those who will be in the future. But Americans have risked all for liberty before. With God's help, we will do so today. And we pray that we may do so for all time."

  The Situation Room, The White House, Washington, DC

  "The rebels talk a good game," General Hall began his briefing to the so-called Emergency Committee that had taken up residence in the White House and OEOB, "but the truth is that they are woefully unprepared for sustained operations of any sort."

  The General hit a button and changed the slide behind him.

  "The Pacific Fleet is docked at Pearl Harbor, but the small Marine contingent that they have on hand is left, in effect, as an occupying force in the State of Hawaii and the damage our forces did to the facilities there mean that they are unable to use any of them to maintain or repair their fleet."

  He changed another slide.

  "They have some air assets, but they have minimal air infrastructure. The leadership of the Strategic Command came over to them along with most of our remaining nuclear assets, but they have pledged that they will not use any of them in this conflict. In fact, they are using them to maintain our national strategic deterrent throughout this process.

  "The active-duty army was either largely deployed to the Middle East, where it remains, or was badly damaged during the uprising. The forces that they do have are short on every single major supply category and, for the time being, lack the ability to replenish. Where do you – beyond limited local stocks – get parts for an Abrams tank in the Far West?

  "They have raised volunteers, to be certain, but beyond the Canadian mercenary formation, they are largely restricted to being armed with rifles and grenades. And even military-grade rifles are in short supply, I might add. A lot of the new rebel units are armed with personal weapons."

  The General moved around the table and changed slides again.

  "Yet, at the same time, the forces we possess are weak as well. The majority of the active-duty Army, Marine Corps, Air Force, and Navy either joined the rebels, went home, or are in posts that are not fully under the control of either side, such as in the Middle East. Fewer than 100,000 pre-war active-duty service members are affirmatively under the control of the government at the current time. Those are supplemented by volunteers, of course, in various states of training and readiness as well as the forces of our allies. We're stronger than them, but not by a large margin."

  "And what if we sent the forces that we have on-hand, both American and Allied, against the main rebel forces in and around Colorado?" asked the Secretary of State.

  "Well, the balance of probabilities on paper would favor us," said General Hall, "but battles are so much more than what's down on paper. It would be impossible to predict the outcome with confidence."

  "So I take it, General," said Senator Dianne Dawson, "that you do not want us to assault the main rebel army at this time?"

  "That would be correct, Senator," said Hall.

  "What is the alternative course that you are proposing?" asked Dawson.

  "First," said Hall, leaning against the lectern, "we need to recognize that this is going to be a long war. Potentially lasting a number of years."

  "Ok," said Dawson.

  Hall walked over to the map.

  "Roughly speaking, the country has been broken into three geographical pieces. The Federal Government controls the majority of both coasts, except for most of the South, and the rebels control most of what's in the center. That confers advantages and disadvantages upon both sides.

  "The rebels have the advantage of having a central position and also holding a lot of terrain well-suited for defensive operations. Their primary disadvantage is that they don't have a decent outlet to the sea or to supplies from abroad.

  "The Federal Government, on the other hand, controls most major port cities and a majority of the population. This is both an advantage and a disadvantage, as a large part of the population residing in the territories still under Federal control are not of significant military or economic utility.

  "Also, we need to recognize that we have effectively lost control of the sea – at least in the Pacific. Now, the rebel fleet has and will have serious supply and maintenance problems in the future, but they are still a very dangerous force. We control the Pacific Coast, but the rebel fleet will be able to mount a blockade there. I also would not rule out that they might attempt a landing somewhere on the coast. If we want to supply the states on the Pacific Coast – as I imagine we must – then we are going to want to route those supplies through Mexico via land. Or, possibly, to carve a corridor through the Southwest, though that means fighting our way through rebel-held territory in Oklahoma, Texas, Arizona and, to some extent, in New Mexico as well."

  "And then what?" asked Dawson.

  "Resupply, reposition, and rearm," answered Hall. "Launch limited offensive operations to de-stabilize the rebel government, but largely hold the line."

  "I think..." began Secretary of Defense Gerald Ransom, stopping suddenly when something flashed across the corner of his eye. Everyone in the room rose to their feet as President Kevin Bryan strode on in.

  "No, no, be seated ladies and gentlemen," said the President, waving his hands dismissively.

  "Welcome back, Mr. President," said Secretary Ransom.

  "Thank you," said Bryan, flopping into his s
eat at the end of the table.

  "Now," said the President, "I have read all of the briefing materials for this meeting and others that have taken place recently and I must say that I consider what I have seen to be wholly unsatisfactory."

  "I am sorry that you feel that way, Mr. President," said the Secretary of State stiffly, "but we have been confronting this situation on a day-by-day basis for months and perhaps..."

  "Yes, Mr. Secretary," said Bryan, "I think that perhaps you have gotten a little bit too close to – a little too absorbed in the details of – this problem."

  The President took his tablet out of a jacket pocket and slammed it down upon the table. Its screen featured a headline about the proposals to be considered by the session of the Congress that had been summoned in Colorado.

  "In twenty-seven days," said the President, "the rebel Congress will meet at Colorado Springs. When they do, they will pass sweeping new laws and changes that will be almost impossible to control and stop, because many of them are actually popular. Have you seen this polling? Therefore, the rebel Congress must not meet at Colorado Springs. In twenty-seven days that place must be in the hands of the national army."

  The President stood up and began to move around the edge of the room.

  "Mr. President," said Secretary Ransom, "with all due respect, making such an attempt would be tremendously risky. We've been studying this problem for some months..."

  "Risky, to be sure," said the President, "but possible, yes?"

  "Possible," nodded General Hall, "but not advisable."

  "What happens to this country if we go through a whole year with the sort of riots and disruptions that we've seen practically every day?" asked the President.

  "It's not pretty," conceded Senator Dawson.

  "But it's doable," emphasized Secretary Ransom, "we've done the math. Yes, we will need to resort to extraordinary measures – even take in some international aid, especially food aid..."

  "For which arrangements have already been made abroad," noted the Secretary of State.

  "No," insisted the President, "we're not going to do that. Prepare for offensive action against the rebels."

  "Mr. President," insisted General Hall, "I believe that this is a very grave mistake."

  "Look at the map!" hollered the President, stomping over towards the wall.

  "We outnumber them now. Do we not?"

  "Yes, Mr. President," said Hall, "but many of our soldiers are half-trained, at best. Their military value will be doubtful."

  "Will we still outnumber them in six months or a year, when they've been able to pull their forces together?"

  "That's a difficult question to answer."

  "And what if they organize their forces. If they were to join up their forces in the South with their forces in Texas, would we be able to stop their offensive?"

  "I believe so, Mr. President," answered the General.

  "Believe so, but could you guarantee it?"

  "Nothing is certain in war, Mr. President."

  "No ladies and gentlemen," the President shook his head, "nothing is certain. But I believe, with every bone in my body, that waiting will avail us of nothing. We go. Now. That's an order."

  Fort Drum, New York

  With most major training facilities located either within states under the control of the rebel government or vulnerable to an immediate assault from such a state, the Department of Defense had decided to relocate its training activities almost wholly within the Northeastern United States, the one region in which Federal military power remained pre-eminent that was also fairly easily accessible. With a majority of active-duty soldiers still loyal to the Bryan Administration being used as training cadre, the Federal Government had issued a call for a million volunteers.

  Fort Drum, which had remained in the hands of the Washington-based government, had become the basic training facility for the new Army of the United States. Certainly it was a place that Sarah Watkins, a woman raised in liberal California and trained to be a schoolteacher, had never expected to find herself.

  "The word is that we're going to be moving out," whispered her friend, Maya Robinson, as they worked on cleaning the floor of their barracks.

  "Moving out?" said Watkins incredulously, "we're barely halfway through the individual portion of our training."

  "Regardless," said Robinson, "they've got the European troops and the handful of old units that they held together and they want to go."

  "That's crazy. Most of us can barely fire a rifle."

  To the surprise of many, the Federal Government had been able to find a great number of recruits. They had done it largely through the intensive use of the individual-targeting capabilities of the Democratic Party, using voter lists and social media to find loyal Democrats willing to place themselves at personal risk in the name of the cause of a greater tomorrow. The downside of this was that the majority of those recruited were singularly unsuitable for military service.

  "Yes, but we can fire our rifles," said Robinson pridefully, "and that alone will be a shock to the rebels."

  "But they can shoot us too," said Watkins quietly.

  U.S. Central Command Forward Headquarters, Jerusalem

  General Dylan Mackenzie and the rest of the soldiers under his command had walked a careful line in the days since the Great Mutiny.

  "I am not a politician," Mackenzie had explained in a short statement to the press, "I am a soldier and I have a job to do. I will continue to do that job until I am ordered to do something else. Then I will do that."

  While it had been a constant struggle for the General to maintain a face of neutrality in public, it had paid off so far. To date, both the Bryan Administration and the Rickover Administration had decided against forcing the General who commanded the majority of the intact units of the United States Army and a substantial portion of both the Air Force and the Navy to make a firm and final decision as to where his ultimately loyalties lay. This expedient solution had been facilitated by the willingness of both the Loyalist and the Rebel Departments of Defense to issue the same orders to the General – hold your position – and to overlook any minor variations in procedure when it came to the actual implementation of those orders.

  Still, given the presence of Augustus King and other officials of the Praetorian Corporation in close proximity to the leadership of CENTCOM, most people were pretty sure that they knew which side the force there was going to land on whenever the time for a final decision arrived. On account of this, General Mackenzie and his staff were prepared to be betrayed by the Bryan Administration at any given moment and were wholly unsurprised when the appointed hour arrived.

  "Fucking Russians?" asked General Mackenzie incredulously as he scrolled through then latest intelligence report that had been set down upon his desk.

  "That's about the size of it, General," said Colonel Ryan Casey, CENTCOM's intel chief, "we put the size of the force at eight divisions in transit based upon what we've been able to put together, even with our direct access to a lot of satellite-based intelligence cut off."

  "But no formal word about it?"

  "No," confirmed Casey, "not from anyone."

  "What about you?" asked Mackenzie, looking in the direction of Lieutenant General Avidgor Aronov of the Israeli Defense Force.

  "Well," said Aronov, "our intelligence assets are not what they once were. But, yes, I've consulted with Colonel Casey upon this and it does definitely appear that the Russians are moving in some force and leaning upon a lot of the Central Asian republics. I definitely concur with his report."

  General Mackenzie turned to face Augustus King.

  "Well," said Mackenzie, "we've waited here for months, just like you wanted, and now we have motherfucking Russians coming our way, presumably instigated by our supposed leaders. Does your plan account for this?"

  "Yes."

  "Yes?" asked Mackenzie, "you anticipated that we'd have crazy motherfucking Russians moving our way?"

  "We
are playing for incredible stakes, General," said King, "and we always knew that our enemies were resourceful and clever. But we are clever as well."

  Spokane, WA

  Word of the movement of Loyalist forces from the East spurred Governor Mitchell Randall to action earlier than he'd expected. The members of the Washington State Legislature who had assembled in Spokane didn't quite constitute a quorum, but the Governor was quite confident that the Congress at Colorado Springs would be willing to overlook any process-related irregularities.

  "Members of the Legislature, fellow citizens, I come before you this evening to ask that you recognize a physical reality and that, acting upon that, you pass the most momentous act to ever been considered in the history of this great deliberative assembly. Tonight, ladies and gentlemen, you have the chance – even as war is upon us – to begin the process of healing our country.

  "The great majority of Americans do not want war. We are still one country. But we find ourselves at a crossroads because for many years our national government has been in the grips of a handful of ambitious men and women who have abused and distorted the work of our Founders in order to assure the accumulation and centralization of power for their own personal and ideological gain.

  "As a result of the corrupt and, yes, evil acts of these individuals our nation was transformed into a place where every individual strived to extract as much as they could from others instead of seeking to do as much as they could for themselves. Because the human soul is naturally repelled by thievery, they tried to cloak their acts with rhetoric. In this twisted vision of the world those who stole, not those stolen from, became the victims. The recipients of charity became entitled to all that they received, instead of the beneficiaries of the goodwill of others. This twisted the soul of America. America became a place and our government became an entity by which most people sought to take from others instead of creating for themselves. This became not only morally acceptable but, in fact, celebrated. And this was as true on Main Street as it was on Wall Street.