This Mighty Scourge

by Adam Yoshida

  "You know," said Mancini, "this is going to taint all of us when they write the history books."

  "Yeah, well principles are all good and maybe they keep you warm. But they don't feed my kids, or the kids of these guys whose salaries aren't even being paid half of the Goddamn time now,"

  "You'll get the money," said Mancini.

  CHAPTER FIVE

  Unravelling

  Memphis, Tennessee

  The fact that the Randall campaign had chosen to stage their announcement of the Vice Presidential pick in Tennessee had instantly set off a flurry of speculation. Both of the state's Senators were moderates, but one of them was over eighty and the other had never been prominent in either Washington or Colorado Springs. The state's Governor was new and not particularly distinguished. The late pick was unusual in and of itself. Technically the Randall campaign had missed the ballot deadline in several states and had filed, instead, with "dummy" Vice Presidential candidates listed. Owing to the unusual nature of the situation and the expressed desire of the Acting President to avoid the perception that he had won for "technical" reasons most states were expected to waive any deadlines and ensure that whoever Randall picked was allowed on the ballot. Given this (and the fact that the election was currently more or less deadlocked) everyone expected a surprise of some sort. No one, however, predicted what they got.

  "I present to you the next Vice President of the United States: Governor Robert Schmidt of Arizona!"

  As Randall spoke the words, there was a near-silence from the crowd. The jaws of the reporters in the room were practically on the floor. Randall was the moderate candidate in the race, after all. He was the sort of Republican that the "effete corps of impudent snobs who characterize themselves as intellectuals" that made up much of the media and the urban elites of America could work with. He had gained the support of Hollywood and the other surviving bastions of liberalism that remained in Terrance Rickover's America and now he had picked for Vice President a man who had openly speculated to the press that one day there would be a "cure" for homosexuality. That had been just two years earlier. Unsurprisingly, the initial applause was mild as the Governor took the stage.

  "Thank you, Senator Randall," said Schmidt, "and thank you to all of you, for that very warm and generous reception."

  That got a few laughs from the audience.

  "I know that I'm probably the last person who you expected to see here today and I know my reputation. I'm the Cowboy Governor - the Neanderthal from the Southwest. Maybe I deserve some of that. Maybe I even deserve a lot of it."

  "But let me tell you why I'm here today and why I - despite our many differences - agreed to serve alongside Senator Randall, who I am going to work to make the next President of the United States."

  That got some applause from the Randall supporters in the crowd.

  "I went into law enforcement when I was a young man. I did it because I believed in protecting people and I believed in saving lives. Now, I know that I'm a little bit rough around the edges - but that's what I always tried to do when I was the Sheriff of Maricopa County and it's what I do as the Governor of Arizona."

  "Now, many years ago, when I was a young Deputy, there was this one house that I used to always get called to. It was always one thing or another. A young couple lived there. I don't believe that they were married, though I could be wrong on that point. This could be an easy story - one where every time I went to that place, the woman had more bruises. I know how to deal with that, at least where I come from. Eventually if you see that sort of thing enough times, even if the lady doesn't want to report, you know that the guy just needs a good ass-kicking and you also know that that kind of bully doesn't need much provocation to provide any cop worth his salt with an excuse to give one out. But this isn't that kind of story."

  "They both hit each other. I arrested both of them on various occasions. Both of them were wrong. But, no matter what happened, the next day the other one would be down at the station bailing the other one out. This went on for around a year or two."

  "Finally, one day, I get a call out to the now-familiar address. Slightly weary, I headed on down there for the same old thing. Only, instead, I find the lady of the house on the front porch rocking back and forth with a gun. She's crying and so I go up to her and ask what's wrong. She says that Jack is dead and inside the house. So I take a few steps in and, sure enough, Jack is dead in his big rocking chair."

  "I asked her why she shot him, if it was in self-defense or anything like that. She just shook her head and said that she'd had enough. Was it the violence, I asked? She laughed. Laughed. Said that she hit him at least as much as he hit her. Her lawyer tried to take the same tack. Didn't work. Now he's still dead and, so far as I know, she's still in prison."

  "Now, I don't know if either of them were bad people - but I know that they didn't belong together and that trying to stay together is what led to that sad ending."

  "And that's what's going on in this country today. I like and respect President Rickover. I know how much he's done for us and, frankly, he's done a lot for me personally. But he's trying to make something work that just ain't going to work."

  "Do Mitch Randall and I have difference? You bet that we do. But we're united on one point. We have problems here at home that we need to take care of and we're not going to be able to deal with any of them until we end the fighting and stop the killing. We're not going to be able to solve a damned thing for anyone if we're busy fighting insurgents and involved in European wars. It's enough. It's just enough death and destruction for anyone's lifetime."

  "You've seen the pictures, but do you really know how things in Arizona are these days? A lot of our infrastructure was bad even before multiple armies rode roughshod all over it. Now it's all wrecked. People are hungry and desperate and there's not enough money for anything. That's a lot of America these days and it's going to be until we can get things back to something more like normal."

  "You may not like some of the things I've said in the past and I respect that. You might not believe some of the same things that I do and I understand that. But I think that all of us here today - and I hope a majority of us out in the country - are in agreement on one very important point: we've had enough of war."

  When the crowd began to cheer this time, they weren't forcing it at all.

  Along the Manitoba-Ontario Border

  The units of the Federation of North American States that had been sitting along the border between Ontario and Manitoba, which some wag had named the "Inner Canadian Border", had consisted mostly of troops that had formerly belonged to what was left of the Canadian Forces in the aftermath of the conclusion of the Canadian Civil War. These troops had been largely poorly-led and were badly-disciplined. Given this, General William Thomas Jackson had taken a particular joy in beginning his part of the United States' great offensive by unleashing an extraordinary artillery barrage against the two brigades that were stationed along the border.

  Some officers, both within the ranks and within the higher echelons of the Army, had objected to the firing plan submitted by the General. Ordinary procedure would have called for commencing artillery preparation only when the primary body of the force was actually ready to commence its attack. Jackson had instead authorized a plan where fully eight batteries of towed M777 Howitzers, supported by two batteries of M270 Multiple Rocket Launch Systems would open fire upon the Federation's positions even before the first of the armored and infantry units that were now being deployed for combat actually reached their own jumping-off points. This, in theory, would leave the artillery units extraordinarily vulnerable to a ground-based counter-attack. Jackson argued that this was a wholly theoretical concern, since he was certain that the Federation Army would not dare to mount a land-based counter-attack in such a short window of time and that, in any case, such an attack could and would be turned back by the application of massed helicopter support should it come to pass.

  Most of the air p
ower that the United States possessed was still being reserved for the central offensives in Illinois and Virginia. The small portion of the available air support that had been allocated to the northern front was being reserved for deep interdiction missions designed to facilitate the general advance. However, thanks to Chinese support, standard 155mm artillery ammunition was now extraordinarily plentiful and General Jackson was more than prepared to make a very liberal use of it.

  The Federation's units along the ICB were mostly strung-out in little pockets. They consisted primarily of small outposts designed to guard the massive border that existed between the two new nations against smuggling and insurgent activity, as opposed to repelling a conventional invasion. During the weeks leading up to the commencement of the final American assault, small teams of American and Western Republic special forces had carefully mapped out their exact locations and coordinates. Now that information was being put to a very good use.

  155mm shells began to slam into the Federation formations in impossibly-rapid succession at just before 4AM. The shells burst over the fragile Federation outposts one after another, showering the soldiers below with shrapnel. Even though the forces throughout the region had been reinforced in anticipation of offensive action by the Americans and the Westerners, they were simply wholly unprepared to deal with the use of force on such a scale as this. The better soldiers among the bunch hunkered down in the best shelters that they could find and prayed that they would not suffer the effects of a direct impact. In more than a few cases, however, the morale of units broke under the pressure of the shelling and the men simply fled. This proved to be a fatal mistake, as the US Army's planners had anticipated exactly this development and marked out killing fields that would allow their artillery to strike out at anyone exposed and out in the open. Drones and observers in the field allowed the artillerymen to expertly adjust their fire. Anyone out in the open was cut to pieces by the accurate American fire. Fields and hills across the border between Manitoba and Ontario were quickly covered with the almost-unrecognizable remains of shattered men and women who had lacked the good sense to simply stay put.

  The complete manoeuvre element of the FNAS army along the border consisted of just two armored battalions that were held well behind the front lines towards Kenora, which had also been the scene of fighting during the Canadian Civil War itself. The AH-64D Apache helicopters that had been assigned to XII Corps swept forward, covered by the handful of older F-16s that had been allocated for primary air support, and began to engage the enemy forces with Hellfire missiles. The panicked tankers collided in the night as they tried to move out of their encampments. In order to complicate matters further, a single squadron of F-16s swept low over the bases along the frontier and dropped CBU-100 cluster bombs.

  XII Corps Headquarters, Near Winnipeg, United Western Republic

  Colonel Dunford hurried into XII Corps Headquarters and handed his tablet to General Jackson.

  "They don't seem to have been prepared for the violence of the assault at all," he reported, "we caught most of them asleep. Our artillery and air strikes caught them by surprise. Our estimates of the casualties are massive. They've suffered losses of up to a third in some units."

  The General took the tablet from the Colonel's hands and flicked through the figures himself.

  "They is very fine," he said, "order the Second Armored Division to accelerate its timetable for the capture of Thunder Bay. I want them in Thunder Bay by tomorrow."

  "That's more than six hundred kilometres in a day, General," said Dunford.

  "I can read a map, Colonel," replied the General sharply, running his hands through his hair.

  "They'll have to refuel in enemy territory, perhaps more than once," said the Colonel.

  General Jackson walked over to a map spread out on a table.

  "I've got it worked out already," he said.

  "1st Squadron, 102nd Cavalry and 2nd Battalion, 113th Infantry from the 42nd Division will, together with a Tank Company from 3rd Brigade, 200th Infantry Division, form Task Force Reup. They're two Stryker units combined with a Merkava unit. We'll send them to this open space 50 clicks to the east of Dryden along the Trans-Canada Highway. They're going to do the run at full speed and we'll use the aviation assets to support them if we need to. That amounts to a light brigade of troops. We'll blow past anything that tries to stop us and out logistics people will set up a fuelling station there. Two hours later, the Second Division will come roaring in at maximum speed, refuel, and then they'll take Thunder Bay at a run."

  "Ok," said Dunford with a nod, "we can do that."

  "Colonel Benson," said Jackson, "I want you to put out a statement on my behalf. Demand that the Federation Government declare Toronto to be an open city, say that we don't want to fight for the city, want to spare lives, etc."

  "I guess we're finally going to go all the way to Toronto, eh boss?" asked Colonel Dunford, recalling that the advance of the Western Army was stopped well short of that city during the last war, the mere threat of an assault upon it being enough to start the upheaval that had destroyed the last Canadian government.

  "We are going to keep our options open, Colonel," said Jackson, "I want you to organize a second Task Force that will follow our Thunder Bay operation and jump ahead to Nipigon, where the highway junction is. I want them to take the city and to be prepared to support a further advance from there in any direction."

  The Kremlin, Moscow, Russian Federation

  Admiral of the Fleet Boris Stepashin wished that he'd taken a drink before arriving at the Kremlin. When the President of Russia summons the commander of the Navy hours after word arrives that a substantial portion of the fleet has been lost in a major sea battle, the welcome could hardly be expected to be warm.

  "The President will see you now," said the dead-eyed aide who was guarding the door. Silently, the Admiral got up and walked in. As he walked he said a silent prayer that he wasn't living in Stalin's Russia. He would only be disgraced, not killed. At least, that was what he hoped for.

  The President was sitting down at his desk, with the commanders of the Russian Army, Air Force, and Strategic Rocket Forces already sitting in the room.

  "Admiral," said the President, not bothering to look up from the paper he was reading, "please have a seat."

  The military commanders looked at one another nervously as the President continued to write something. All of them had been peremptorily summoned less than an hour earlier. The Minister of Defense also sat nervously in the corner of the room as through he also had no idea what exactly was going on.

  The President coughed, set down his pen, and then looked up.

  "Well, gentlemen," began the President, "obviously we have had some very shocking news today. The clash with the American fleet was unexpectedly violent. We have lost many fine men today."

  "And yet," asked the President rhetorically, "has this not also been a glorious day? After all, our gallant Navy did something that everyone else said was impossible: they have disabled and possibly even destroyed one of the vaunted American Carriers. Yes, we have lost ships, but ships are not built to remain safe in a port."

  Admiral Stepashin relaxed slightly as the other military commanders continued to look at one another in confusion.

  "Not to say, of course," continued the President, "that there must not be a greater price paid by the Americans for what they have done and the lives that they have taken. That goes without saying. But, that being said, there are more immediate opportunities ahead of us."

  "Gentlemen, when we reached our understanding with the Europeans, it was that we would participate in their intervention in the American civil war and that, in exchange, they would give us more flexibility in our dealings with those territories that were once properly a part of our sphere of influence. This understanding was, of course, quite vague. We are going to make it less so."

  The President stopped for a second and then looked straight ahead before continuing.

/>   "It is my understanding that there have been regrettable - most regrettable - anti-Russian disturbances in the Baltic States during recent weeks."

  The Generals and Admiral looked at one another for a moment. There had been a bomb attack on a Russian-language school in Riga two weeks ago and a gunman in Vilnius had gone on an anti-Russian rampage that had killed seventeen people some four days either. They knew that the President would be very well-versed about all of this.

  "There certainly have, Mr. President," said Admiral Stepashin after a long pause.

  "Yes," said the President, "it is most regrettable indeed. I am afraid that Russia will be forced, with the utmost reluctance, to utilize the Motherland's armed forces to ensure that no future anti-Russian pogroms occur."

  The President returned to the papers in front of him and resumed writing. After a moment he looked up.

  "That will be all, gentlemen," he said.

  Élysée Palace, Paris, France

  "This isn't what we agreed to at all!" raged the German Chancellor over the speakerphone.

  "No, it is not," agreed the French President, "and yet here we are."

  "I wasn't a party to whatever discussions did take place," said the American High Commissioner contemplatively, "since those took place before I was invited into these particular councils, so you would have a better understanding as to what does and does not accord with your previous understandings. But it simply seems to me that the Russians do not understand that we live in the twenty-first century and that these sorts of things just aren't done."

  "Ah, yes, High Commissioner," replied the French President, "perhaps if we had had your particular charm and powers of persuasion on our side at some earlier juncture, you might have won yourself another Nobel Prize."

  Just hours earlier the first Russian tanks had poured across the borders of Latvia, Lithuania, and Estonia. The invasions had come as a complete surprise to the world's intelligence agencies, which were focused almost-entirely either upon the unfolding drama in the Americas or the spiralling chaos in Asia where an aggressive China was flexing its muscles.