The Fiery Trial

by Adam Yoshida

  The soldiers picked up momentum as they moved forward. With the sun having set, they found themselves moving through near-total darkness, guided largely by the sound and fire of the guns ahead of them. As they finally approached the enemy position, Colonel Henry charged forward, firing his rifle and letting loose a sound that no one had ever thought they'd hear on American soil under such circumstances again: the Rebel Yell.

  U.S. Central Command Forward Headquarters, Jerusalem

  "What the fuck?" said General Mackenzie after a long pause as soon as he and Augustus King entered his private office.

  "Well," said King, "basically, we sold Iran and Iraq to China."

  "Sold?" said Mackenzie incredulously.

  "We're playing for keeps here, General," said King, "and it was never going to be merely enough to empower the Israelis and the Saudis. In fact, what we really wanted to empower them to do was to resist the Chinese. But, if we're going to save America then we need a lot of things. We need ships. We need bombs. We need bullets. The dollar is pretty much worthless. We had to buy them with something."

  "That's not the kind of thing that Americans do!" shouted the General, his face turning red as he got up and walked around the room, sweeping aside his uniform jacket.

  "Do you know how many Americans have bled and died so that we could give freedom to those people?" said Mackenzie.

  "I do, General," replied King, "I might remind you that I was one of those soldiers."

  "...and what? You flew to Shanghai or Beijing or wherever, and you sat down with a map and said to the Chinese that you'd trade them the freedom of a hundred million people for a few shiploads worth of bombs and spare parts?"

  "It came rather more dearly than that," said King.

  "That's not the kind of thing that Americans do," said Mackenzie.

  "No, General," said King, "that's the kind of thing that Americans need to do now. I bled to liberate those Iraqis and, God willing, someday we will make certain that they are free again. I don't know how, but I'd be for it. But I know what's at stake today. If we lose liberty in America today, then it's over. It's not just truncated or reduced: it's over. Perhaps for now. Perhaps for a thousand years. Maybe forever."

  "Perhaps you can't live with that reality," continued King, "but I can. I can and will sacrifice everything – everything in the entire world – so that we can preserve liberty at home. That means making hard choices and living with them. Perhaps it is and shall be the case that those who can make those hard decisions won't be the ones who actually get to enjoy the future of freedom. But perhaps we'll be allowed to step to the edge of the promised land and peek inside."

  General Mackenzie sighed deeply.

  "Now what?" he asked.

  "We pack up. Then we go home and liberate America."

  The Situation Room, The White House, Washington, DC

  "General Walker reports that he is ordering a withdrawal across the whole front," reported General Hall.

  "Why?" snapped President Bryan.

  "The rebel bombing assault broke both the 42nd Division as well as the French unit that was attempting to pass through its lines," said Hall quietly, "they can't possibly hope to break through now. And, furthermore, the 1st Division in the north is pretty badly shattered – they hadn't expected to face an Airborne Division."

  "Fucking cowards," the President slammed his fist against the table, "motherfuckers!"

  "Mr. President..." said Secretary Ransom.

  "The attack will continue," emphasized the President.

  "It just isn't possible, sir," said the Defense Secretary, "I have to concur with General Hall and General Walker."

  The President didn't say a single further word. Instead, he got up and walked out of the room, leaving his advisors behind in an uncomfortable silence. Finally, the Secretary of Defense spoke up.

  "I think," he said, "we have to consider what kind of leadership will be needed to get us to the other side of this."

  United States Air Force Academy, Colorado Springs, CO

  Acting President Terrance Rickover was glad to be outdoors. In the month since the Battle of Colorado had been fought, the Loyalist forces had been forced to fall all the way back to Illinois. This had allowed the government of the United States to emerge from its secure facility at Cheyenne Mountain and begin the long process of reconnecting with the American people.

  "There's so much still to do," said Michael Nelson as they walked the grounds of the Air Force Academy, now converted into office space for the Federal Government, "this is supposed to be an election year. Hell, they're holding a New Hampshire primary right now – whatever that means under these conditions."

  "Yes," said Rickover, "we'll have to make sure elections take place and all of that."

  "It's one thing for us to have survived," said Nelson, "but we still control, at the most, half of the country."

  "In the Revolution," said Rickover, "only about a third of the people supported the cause."

  "Four thousand six hundred and two," said Nelson quietly.

  "Hmmm?" replied Rickover.

  "That's the latest estimate of how many people died in the fighting here in Colorado. How many will die before this is over? How many lives is it worth?"

  "I don't know," said Rickover, "I just know that we were presented with a choice between freedom and slavery and we made a choice. I don't regret the one I made. Do you regret yours, Michael?"

  "No," admitted the House Majority Leader.

  "Well," said the Acting President, "then we can't dwell upon the cost. We didn't choose that. The people who presented us with the impossible choice made that decision for us and for future generations. Our great task now is to ensure that liberty is assured to all Americans. This fight will not be over until all of America is liberated. And then, when that is done, we will remind the entire world of who we are and what we're for because, if there's anything that we will gain from this experience, it is that we are going to have to relearn that for ourselves."

  "And how are we going to do that?" asked Nelson.

  "Simple," said Rickover, "we fight and we keep on fighting so long as there's something worth fighting for."

  About the Author

  Adam Teiichi Yoshida is a columnist and blogger whose work has been published in multiple forums, including the National Post , Washington Times , Insight Magazine , and The American Thinker . He is the author of "The Blast of War", "A Land War in Asia", and "A Thousand Points of Light", which have been collected as "The Third World War: A Narrative History."