by Adam Yoshida
"They're going to dash north and try to land somewhere behind our lines?" asked the High Commissioner.
General Wesley shook his head.
"We don't think that they'll try that, sir. Most of their ships aren't suited for amphibious operations and, in any case, our air power in the Northeast is strong enough to make such a project incredibly risky. We think that they'll land their ground forces somewhere in their own territory and then use the fleet to support a general advance."
"Well, then, what would you have?" asked the High Commissioner.
"We need to engage them farther out at sea, instead of waiting for them to fall upon us here. By the time that we get into a fleet-to-fleet engagement somewhere off the Eastern Seaboard, it'll be too damned late," said General Wesley.
"That's reasonable enough in theory," replied the High Commissioner, "but we don't, for all intents and purposes, have our own navy. The fleet that's coming our way may be depleted, but it's still massive."
"Four supercarriers," said Ransom.
"Right. They have four supercarriers and a shit ton of other ships. More than we have even with the whole of the Democratic Union's fleet - plus the Russians - here," said the High Commissioner.
"We can't confront them directly," said Wesley, digging in his heels, "at least not in a pitched battle. But we can start attacking them. Wear them away by attrition with submarines, and perhaps some missile attacks."
"This has already been decided," insisted the High Commissioner, "at the highest levels of the Democratic Union. We wait until we have throw everything - the submarines, the surface fleet, and our land-based air power in at once."
"But that strategy is now obsolescent," said the General, "because it was dependant upon the notion of a fleet that was moving slowly and tied to all of those big merchant ships that they were escorting. If that's not the case, then they can land the part of the Third Army that they've kept around wherever that they'd like - and then they can move away and strike us almost at will."
"I think that you're over-dramatizing things, General," said Minister Ransom, "I mean - they're going to be a big force. To be sure, they'll be faster than they would have been otherwise, but these are ships we're talking about, not supersonic fighters."
"At the very least, I think that we should try and force them to peel off some more escort ships and send them to support the part of the fleet that's taking the southern route," said Eugene.
The High Commissioner rubbed his chin.
"And could we do that?" he asked.
XII Corps Headquarters, Cedar City, Utah
Lieutenant General Jackson poured over the latest reports of the movement of the three heavy divisions that made up his newly-reinforced Corps. The 200th Infantry Division (Mechanized), which had served as General Jackson's primary strike force, back to its time as the First Armored Division on the Western Republic Army was lagging behind, forcing the 42nd Infantry Division and the newly-reactivated 2nd Armored Division to slow down and wait.
"What's the fucking hold up now?" Jackson asked Colonel Evan Dunford, still serving as his Chief of Staff, as he walked into the room that was serving as the General's temporary office.
"If it isn't one thing, then it's just another and then another," said Dunford, "right now the 2nd Battalion of the Third Brigade is stalled, because they've had not one, not two, but three of the Merkavas break down along I-15."
"Those tanks have been through a lot," said Jackson, softening his tone.
"Yeah. I mean, if we had enough M1070s for everything to be moved at once, it'd be another story - but putting these things on the road means a lot of wear. And burning a lot of fuel."
"It can't be helped, Colonel," replied the General, "there's just too much stuff to move all at once and we're at the back of the line, quite literally."
"That's part of it," said Dunford, "a lot of the men, sir, they don't think that we'll be in the next fight. A lot of them don't even think that there will be a next fight at all."
The General returned to his reading for a moment and then set the tablet down on the desk in front of him.
"How far from here are they stalled?" he asked.
.
The air in Utah was growing cooler, though the last days of the summer had not quite passed. It was cold enough after sunset that General Jackson put on his field jacket as an aide drove him and Colonel Dunford out to the site where one of the Israeli-made tanks was sitting idle in the middle of the highway.
As the General and his Chief of Staff approached the disabled tank, the men working on the vehicle took notice, stopped what they were doing, and turned to salute.
"No need to stand on formalities right now, gentlemen," said Jackson as he returned the salute of the men.
"How's the tank?" he asked.
"She's pretty beat up, General," replied a Sergeant who was examining a part of the engine with a flashlight.
"The old girl was at Thunder Bay, Pueblo, and Yuma," continued the Sergeant, "and we're going to see her through to the end. But she's getting a little temperamental with age."
"I know that an awful lot has been asked of you," said General Jackson, "it isn't just the tank that was at Thunder Bay, Pueblo, and Yuma, am I right Sergeant?"
"That would be so, General."
"I know that everything and everyone is tired," said Jackson, "and I know that the last few years have been hard. Harder than I think any of us imagined at the outset. And you should also know, despite what anyone tells you or what the scuttlebutt around the camps says, that this isn't over. Your war - our war - isn't over just quite yet."
"Oh, we know that," said the Sergeant.
"How can I help?" asked Jackson.
"Could you hold the flashlight?" asked the Sergeant.
"Sure," replied Jackson.
RAF Mount Pleasant, Falkland Islands
Wing Commander David Hennessy sighed deeply as the cockpit of Eurofighter Typhoon FGR4 popped open upon the runway of RAF Mount Pleasant in the Falkland Islands. Even before the RAF flier had managed to actually stand up, a young Flight Lieutenant had already rushed to greet him.
"Wing Commander," said the Flight Lieutenant as he offered a salute that Hennessy automatically returned, "new orders have come in from London."
"Just let me get my bearings for a moment, Flight Lieutenant," said Hennessy after a quick glance at the man's rank insignia. He took a breath and shook his shoulders, trying to stretch after so many hours trapped in the cockpit of the fighter during a journey that had taken him and the rest of his squadron from their bases in Britain to Africa to Ascension Island and then, finally, to the Falklands, where they were ostensibly being rushed to deter Argentina from taking advantage of the unsettled world situation to make yet another play for the Islands.
"Very well," said Hennessy, "you may resume."
"Sir," explained the excited young man, "the latest intelligence says that the American fleet that was moving into the Atlantic broke into two groups. One of them is headed north and we can't do anything about that from here. But the other is headed our way."
"Our way?" asked Hennessy, raising his eyebrows.
"Not exactly our way, but in our direction at any rate. They're going to sail within range of the forces that we have here."
"Mighty considerate of the Argies to make trouble at just the moment we might be needed here otherwise," said the Wing Commander.
"Yes sir," replied the Flight Lieutenant.
"Give me that message," said Hennessy, as he snatched the paper away from the young Lieutenant's hands.
USS Cape St. George (CG-71), The South Atlantic Ocean
Rear Admiral Olivia Collins cursed as she reviewed the latest report to cross her desk. The USNS Benavidez , one of the three Bob Hope -class roll on/roll off cargo ships that was part of Task Force 47, continued to be troubled by her unreliable diesel engines. The ship, which had suffered major damage in an accident nearly one year earlier that hadn't been ever fully repai
red, continued to be temperamental and to slow down the entire movement of the fleet.
"Tell the engineering crew on the Benavidez ," said Collins, "that if they don't get their fucking ship back up to speed, I'm going to put a torpedo into the fucking thing myself. The Navy can court martial me later for losing 30,000 tons of cargo if we can get the rest back home safe."
"I don't think it's fair to blame the crew of the Benavidez ," said Sarah Gilmer, the Captain of the Cape St. George , "that ship should have been put into dry-dock for major repairs ages ago. Like most of what we have here."
"I know," replied Collins, "but I'm at least half-serious. If some of these ships can't pick up the pace soon, we're going to have to start thinking about leaving some of them behind and, given that we don't know exactly what DU or other hostile forces are out there, if we do that I'm going to have to scuttle them to prevent them from falling into enemy hands. It's not like we've got anywhere to unload a ro-ro short of the West Coast."
"General Quarters, General Quarters," came a sudden call over the ship's intercom system, "all hands to General Quarters."
"...the fuck?" asked Captain Gilmer as she got up and walked towards a shipboard phone. The Executive Officer of the Cape St. George had only been supposed to be serving in the role temporarily and had a tendency to be at least a little bit jumpy.
"XO, what's going on?" asked Captain Gilmer. She listened intently for a moment and then hung up the phone.
"We have to go to the bridge," she said and, without waiting for the Admiral to respond, she immediately headed out the door with Admiral Collins close behind.
"We have incoming aircraft," explained the Captain as she and the Admiral hurried down the narrow corridors of the Cruiser, "at least half a dozen."
"Whose planes are they?" asked Collins.
"I didn't ask," replied the Captain, and she and the Admiral slowed down and then confidently walked into the bridge.
"Captain on the Bridge," announced the Command Senior Chief as both Gilmer and Collins stepped into the controlled chaos of the Cape St. George 's bridge.
"Update me," snapped Gilmer.
"We now have twelve distinct radar contacts approaching from the northwest. CIC has designated them as Raid-1," reported the XO, "they're approaching us at barely-subsonic speed."
"Any idea who they belong to CIC?" asked the Captain.
"Negative," reported the Tactical Action Officer, speaking over the intercom from the CIC, "but they're certainly not ours."
"Should we signal 5th Fleet?" asked the XO.
Admiral Collins shook her head, but remained silent.
"It wouldn't do any good, XO," replied the Captain, "they're too far away by now - and we're both supposed to maintain radio silence."
"TAO, you are authorized to engage," ordered the Captain.
"Vampire inbound!" called out one of the radar operators in the CIC at the Cape St. George's SPY-1A detected a missile launch by the incoming aircraft.
"Raid-1 is turning away," reported the TAO, "they're not going to cross within our range."
"We have twenty-four vampires inbound," reported the CIC, "repeat: twenty-four missiles inbound. Engaging now."
"Roger that," replied the XO as the men and women on the bridge began to watch the missiles begin their approach.
"Kh-22s?" asked Admiral Collins.
"CIC," said the Captain through the open intercom, "what have we go incoming?"
"Our systems say that those are Perseus missiles, Captain," reported the TAO.
RIM-174 Standard ERAMs, more commonly known as the SM-6, began to burst forth from the Mk. 41 Vertical Launch System cells of the Cape St. George .
"Sioux City , Manchester , and Coronado all signal that they are prepared to engage if the missiles enter their range," reported the communication officer.
"Let's hope that it doesn't come to that," said Captain Gilmer. The three Littoral Combat Ships that had been detailed to accompany Task Force 47 largely on account of their negligible military value in a real confrontation. Their longest-range air defenses consisted of a handful of RIM-116 Rolling Airframe Missiles, which had a range of just nine kilometres. If the Task Force was forced to engage with those, combined with the Evolved Sea Sparrow Missiles that were held in the VLS cells of the Cape St. George , then the Task Force would be in serious trouble.
"Seven missiles still incoming. Range is now fifty km," reported the TAO.
Another seven SM-6s erupted from the deck of the AEGIS Cruiser, soaring forth and and taking down the incoming supersonic anti-ship missiles one at a time. This round reduced the number of total incoming missiles to two, as the Standard Missiles found their targets and the range of the remaining missiles ticked to just under twenty kilometres.
"Hold on the Standards," ordered Captain Gilmer.
"Hold on the Standards aye," came the response from the CIC. The Task Force would engage the remaining incoming missiles with point defense weapons only. Within seconds the first of the quad-packed RIM-162 ESSMs launched from the deck of the Cruiser. Four missiles were launched, two for each of the incoming anti-ship missiles. One of the missiles was struck instantly and its remains fell harmlessly into the ocean. The final missile continued on its course, causing tension to ripple through the officers and crews of Task Force 47. This was broken moments later when one of the RAMs launched from the Coronado, which was positioned forward of the main body of the fleet, managed to strike and destroy it.
"Jesus," breathed the XO, breaking the silence that hung over the bridge, "where did that come from? What was that?"
"Perseus missiles," said Admiral Collins, "those are European weapons."
"Right," said Captain Gilmer, as she began to look at the map of the region that was spread out on a table in front of them, "and they were launched from the air."
The Captain traced her hands across the map, before bringing them to a rest about two hundred miles to their northwest.
"Well," said Admiral Collins, "they do have an airbase there. I mean, there's been one for ages but they've kept at least a small actual force there ever since their war with the Argentinians."
"They'd have to have reinforced the base," said Gilmer.
"Last I heard they only kept four Eurofighters there. Twenty-four missiles inbound would mean at least twelve there now. The Argentinians are too broke to be a serious threat - they must have sent them there for us."
"Then we have a problem," said the Captain, "because they could have flown planeloads of missiles to the place and we just used nearly a third of what's in our magazines dealing with a single raid."
Bravo Troop, 2nd Squadron, 7th Cavalry, 1st BCT, 2nd Armored Division, Near Bismarck, North Dakota
Captain Andy Dumont jumped out of the HUMVEE that he was riding in and walked towards the approaching man on a motorcycle.
"A dispatch rider?" asked the Captain incredulously, "are they going to start sending us our orders via the fucking Pony Express next?"
The weary-looking Second Lieutenant dismounted and walked over to the Company Commander and saluted.
"Lieutenant," said Dumont, returning the salute, "what's this all about? Do you have any orders for me?"
"Captain," I am relaying orders from directly from the Corps Commander himself. You are ordered to prepare to alter your your. When you hit the intersection with the I-29 at Fargo, you are to take follow the I-29 northbound."
"Right," said the Captain. The Lieutenant turned away and began to walk back towards his motorcycle and Dumont pulled out his tablet to take a look at the newly-assigned route.
"Wait a second!" shouted Dumont after the Captain, "that route is going to take us up into the Western Republic and fast!"
The Lieutenant waved him off.
"I'm just a messenger," he said as he jumped onto the bike and sped off into the distance.
USS Ronald Reagan (CVN-76), Mid-Atlantic Ocean
Vice Admiral Quentin Layton took a moment to catch his breath as soon
as Admiral Collins finished explaining her plan.
"You do realize," he said, "that we simply cannot send you any support. We are too far out of range and, in any case, this fleet's strength is going to need to be conserved for when we are called into action here."
"I fully understand that, sir," replied Admiral Collins over the video chat.
"And, further, you realize that the situation is such that if you were to fail in this plan, you would suffer the single greatest defeat in the history of the United States Navy? You - or whatever Lieutenant Commander onboard one of the LCS who was still alive - would have little choice but to surrender nearly fifty-thousand American soldiers to a force hundreds of miles away."
"I do, Admiral," replied Collins.
"Well then, fight your ships," replied Layton with a smile.
RAF Mount Pleasant, Falkland Islands
Wing Commander David Hennessy was at lunch when the young Flight Lieutenant came running in.
"Flight Lieutenant," he said stiffly, "you're going to have to slow down. If you go rushing about everywhere, you'll be nothing more than a pack of nerves and quite useless when the moments that call for the real expenditure of energy come."
"Sir," explained the Flight Lieutenant, "the American fleet has changed course."
"See," said Hennessy, "there's no need to panic: we expected that they'd do exactly that, for whatever good it'd do them. Since, after all, they've only got the one AEGIS Cruiser and we have plenty of missiles..."
"No, Wing Commander," continued the Flight Lieutenant, "they've changed course to head directly towards these islands and they're doing so at maximum speed."
"With a bunch of broken-down cargo ships, a gimped Cruiser, and the rejects from the main body of the fleet?" asked Hennessy incredulously as he took the tablet from the hands of the Flight Lieutenant and began to examine the pictures and maps that it contained.
"Well... Well, this is lunacy," said the Wing Commander.
