by Adam Yoshida
“You’re telling me,” the Secretary of State challenged Hall, “that there’s nothing in place that can defend the capital of the most powerful country on Earth from just one battalion of tanks?”
“That’s exactly what I’m saying, Mr. Secretary,” said Hall, “no one anticipated that something like this would happen. The ground forces that we have in and around Washington are small and largely ceremonial. Putting them into the field would result against a full-on heavy cavalry battalion would result in enormous casualties. Further, under the present circumstances, the handful of small units that exist would be of dubious reliability. There are some National Guard and Reserve forces in the region, but they wouldn’t be able to mobilize in time even if they would respond to the call... And I’m not sure that they would.”
“So...” said the Secretary of State, “what you’re saying is that we’re defenseless?”
“Not exactly,” responded the General, “we’re only getting spotty acknowledgements from other units back at the Pentagon right now. But one unit that is responding is the 4th Fighter Wing from Seymour Johnson Air Force Base in North Carolina. The commander there tells me that he has a group of F-15Es ready to go. They’ve been fighting it out for control of the base, but he’s got some of them ready to go. I’d rather not use them, but if we’re going to stop an attack on Washington... That’s the weapon that we have on hand.”
“You want the President to order an air strike on American soil?” said the Secretary of State with incredulity.
“”Want” is the wrong word, Mr. Secretary,” answered Hall.
The Capitol
“The latest reports that we’ve had passed on to us are that they’re attempting to generate an air strike against us out of Seymour Johnson AFB down in North Carolina,” explained Preston.
“Can we do anything about that?” asked Acting President Rickover.
“Well... We’ve begun to generate a map of which installations have definitively come over to our side,” answered the Secretary of Defense, “it’s spotty, because we don’t have full communications. But my understanding is that the 20th Fighter Wing out of Shaw Air Force Base in Sumter, South Carolina announced for us. Likewise, the Governor of Virginia has recognized you as the legitimate President. So has the Governor of North Carolina. That gives us some options.”
“Such as?” asked Michael Nelson.
“Well, we don’t have any real air assets that we wholly control in the greater DC region. My understanding, though this was as of a few hours ago, is that there’s a standoff between the Air National Guard and the Federal forces at Langley. But I think we might be able to mobilize some ground units in North Carolina and use them to neutralize the 4th Fighter Wing. Or at least the elements loyal to Bryan. But that might take a bit. The faster option is to order the F-16s out of Shaw to launch a strike against Seymour Johnson.”
“You want the President to order one Air Force base to attack another?” asked Theresa Rowan.
“I want us to get out of this in one piece,” shot back Preston.
“Can we get a message to them in time?” asked Rickover.
Joint Base Langley–Eustis, Hampton, VA
The 116th Infantry Brigade Combat Team traced its lineage back to the famed “Stonewall Brigade” commanded by General Thomas Jonathan Jackson during the First Civil War. Per the orders of the Governor of Virginia, the elements of the brigade had been mustered at Staunton, Virginia and ordered to prepare for action. Their mission was to descend upon Hampton, VA in order to support elements of the Virginia Air National Guard as well as U.S. Air Force in seizing control of Joint Base Langley-Eustis on behalf of the new Federal Government.
As a result of the first attempt to storm the Capitol, fighting had broken out for control of the base itself. However, between the 633rd and 733rd Security Forces Squadrons, the base commander had managed to keep the majority of the facility in the hands of the Bryan Administration. Members of the Virginia Air National Guard who had attempted to take the field had been repulsed and rebellious members of the US Air Force had been successfully placed under arrest. Now the soldiers of the 116th were supposed to change that.
There were no serious forces in place to oppose the two companies of the 1st Battalion as they raced across Virginia and then down the peninsula towards Hampton. However, the combined base defense forces possessed roughly six hundred well-armed men and, furthermore, the base would be of little use to the Congressional Government if it was destroyed. Certainly, the destruction of the base was preferable to it – and the F-22 fighters housed there – falling into the hands of the Bryan Administration, but that would be a sub-optimal outcome.
Furthermore, during these early days, most fighting was conducted with a profound sense of disorganization, with almost all conventional doctrines being discarded. There wasn’t time to move the whole brigade across Virginia or to organize a proper plan of attack with the correct support elements. The result is that the Stryker vehicles of the Stonewall Brigade simply came roaring across the state and through an adjacent golf course, crashing through the fence that separated the runway from the road with the gunners on the vehicles wildly blazing away at anything that attempted to oppose them with their .50 caliber M2 machine guns.
Though no video or audio evidence exists to support such claims, survivors of the Air Force base defense forces that remained loyal to the existing Federal Government claim that, without any substantial warning, the Stryker vehicles of Company A simply crashed through the fence and laid down massive suppressive fire while dropping their rear hatches.
The base security forces were equipped with individual rifles, grenades, and even a handful of crew-served weapons. They had done a first-rate job in dealing with the sporadic resistance of a handful of renegade pilots and ground crew members who had tried to seize control of the base with their personal weapons in the morning. But they were no match for the overwhelming fire of two trained companies of infantry.
One brave Air Force sergeant attempted to hold a strongpoint where a machine gun emplacement existed. When he made the mistake of standing just a little too high and allowing his head to become visible over the concrete barrier, a trio of 5.56mm bullets fired from one of the National Guardsmen’s M-16 rifles struck him squarely in the helmet, knocking him to the ground. If the trauma of that wound was not fatal, the two rifle-launched grenades that landed in close proximity to him in the following seconds certainly were.
Twenty-six Air Force personnel were killed in the initial assault on the perimeter of the base. Once word of what was happening reached those personnel laying siege to a mix of rebel Air Force and National Guard personnel who were holed up in some of the base’s buildings, they signaled their immediate surrender.
Stepping onto the scene a few minutes later, the commander of the 116th Brigade, not bothering to disguise the tears in his eyes, called the Governor of Virginia to tell him that the deed was done.
The Pentagon
“Langley is gone,” reported a Colonel who talked into the National Military Command Centre to hand General Hall a sheet of paper.
“Take it off the list,” ordered General Walker.
General Hall looked at the large display with trepidation. Events such as those at Langley were happening across the entire world. Fifty-two minutes earlier, the commander of the USS Abraham Lincoln had simply dumped a thousand crew members considered to be politically suspect at dockside and then sailed off after declaring for the Congressional Government. The latest reports said that the commander of Ramstein Air Base in Germany had requested permission from the Commander of the European Command to ask for the intervention of the Bundeswehr in order to suppress what he described as a “rebel uprising” at the headquarters of the United States Air Force in Europe. That request had been kicked up to the Secretary of Defense and, by extension, the President. That was, of course, presuming that President Bryan was even in the physical or emotional shape to make a decision at this poin
t in time.
“What about Seymour Johnson?” asked Hall.
Technically speaking, the U.S. Army Chief of Staff had no business issuing instructions to the Air Force, but in the midst of the chaos of the day, it seemed as though that had been forgotten. In any case, General Hall had been, as a result of the Secretary of Defense’s suspicions as to the political loyalties of the Commander of the Northern Command, been given temporary operational control over all U.S. military forces worldwide.
“They’ll be in the air in a few minutes,” reported Brigadier General Jamie Wainwright, the U.S. Air Force officer seconded to Hall for the duration.
“Get them here quickly. The latest reports have the rebel force closing on Washington damned quickly.”
“What’s the next step?” Walker asked Hall as he bent over a map of all of the military units and installations in the continental United States.
“We need to get in touch with as many men and women who we trust as we can. That’s the broad theme here – for the most part, units are following their commanders. That’s not universal – there’s definitely grumbling and we’ve had reports of fighting between individuals and small units all over the place – but it’s the best control lever that we have. If we can keep the leadership of the military together, than this can be sorted out politically... Somehow. Between you and I, Martin, I think we’ll need a compromise of some sort... Perhaps a different Acting President and a special Presidential election. Perhaps even a Constitutional convention. I don’t know. I’m not a politician. I just want to keep the military together.”
“When those Strike Eagles tear that Cavalry squadron a new asshole, there’s going to be a lot of pissed off people.”
“I didn’t start this,” replied Hall.
Near Seymour Johnson Air Force Base, NC
A dozen F-16Cs of the 55th Fighter Squadron roared through the sky in three quadruple formations. There had been no time for sophisticated or subtle planning. They were simply going to go straight for the jugular.
Lieutenant Colonel Raymond Spenser watched as his aircraft made their final approach. They’d tried to warn the people down on the ground there at Seymour Johnson to get the hell away from the runways through every means that they had. He prayed to God that that had worked – a lot of the people on the ground down there were his friends and he bore them no ill will.
The F-16s out of Shaw AFB had made their way into North Carolina at maximum speed, ignoring all of the frantic shouts from the civilian air traffic control system. There had been no time to do anything more than to outfit the dozen fighters with four JDAMs each and to hope that they’d be able to disrupt runway operations.
“Bengal 1,” signaled Colonel Spenser, “you are authorized to proceed.”
The first flight of F-16s dipped slightly away from the other two, making a sharp turn towards Seymour Johnson AFB’s runways, where they would hope to strike a temporarily crippling blow.
The Fighting Falcons reduced their speed and dove lower in order to bring themselves within range of the base. By the time that they defenders on the ground realized what was happening to them it was much too late and the first sixteen thousand-pound bombs had been released and were already on their way towards their targets.
“Alright,” said Spenser softly to himself before speaking into the radio, “Bengal 2, good to go.”
As Spenser’s flight continued to circle the second group of fighters changed course and made their way towards the air base below, releasing their bomb loads with a devastating effect upon the targets below.
“Ok. Everyone left, on me,” ordered Spenser as he swung his F-16 to the right and began a sharp descent. The Colonel and his wingmen brought their aircraft to a lower altitude and slowed so as to allow their GPS-guided cargos to land on the target. The plane shuddered as it released one bomb after another against the runway below.
The bombs weren’t the best munitions to be used against an air base – the ideal would have been to use cluster munitions that would have disrupted flight operations until bomb disposal squads could clear the runways – but for the time being it was necessary for the 55th to make do with what they had on hand. One bomb after another impacted the runway and the surrounding area. In total, some forty-eight thousand pound bombs found targets on the North Carolinian ground.
“Fuck,” radioed one pilot as the squadron turned and began to make its way back to base, “I didn’t see signs of flight operations on the ground. Did you?”
“Negative,” replied Spenser, “I’m not sure if we were early or late.”
Fairfax, VA
The tanks and armored fighting vehicles of the Third Squadron had finally disembarked and were now making an oblique approach towards Washington itself.
“I have to admit – to you and no one else here,” General Starnes told Colonel Robinette, “that I’m no longer really sure of what’s going on.”
He took his smartphone and waved it in the air.
“I was in the middle of the fucking desert in Iraq, commanding a tank platoon, with no communications immediately available beyond my radio and things were a whole lot clearer than they are now, with all of the Goddamned information in the world at my fingertips.”
“Rumor versus truth is pretty much impossible to sort out at a time like this,” agreed Robinette, “I was a brand new Lieutenant at the Pentagon on 9-11 and I remember all of the crazy things that people said were going on, almost all of them untrue.”
“If we can get to the White House... We can end this today.”
“Can we?” asked Robinette.
“If we can get the government back into Constitutional hands. Well, we can get a good start on everything that needs to be done, at the very least,” said Starnes.
“I’m not so sure, General,” said Robinette, “remember – the people elected the bunch that’s in the White House. They didn’t know everything that they’d do, how far they’d go, or how much they’d violate the Constitution... But they Goddamned well ought to have. But they voted for them anyways.”
“Hmmm...” said Starnes, looking at the latest location reports on his map.
“The low-information voters will still be with us tomorrow. Truth be told, they might very well be for us tomorrow and against us the next. But they’re doing the country no favors.”
A massive explosion rocked the command vehicle, sending it up several inches into the air before crashing into the Earth.
“Fuck,” said Starnes quietly.
“That was fast-movers, Liberator 1,” signaled Colonel Smith from his own command vehicle, “we have casualties.”
Another pair of thunderous explosions rocked the vehicle as the driver sped up and attempted to evade the bombs being dropped upon the Seventh Cavalry by the flight of Strike Eagles out of Seymour Johnson.
Yankee Flight, Near Fairfax, VA
“Fox 2,” called out Yankee 1 over the radio as the lead F-22 in a group of six launched by the rebel forced out of Langley loosed an AMRAAM in the direction of the Strike Eagles over Fairfax.
The first missile raced towards its target at four times the speed of sound. As soon as the Lightnings launched their first wave of missiles, the F-15Es over Fairfax broke off their attack on the Seventh Cavalry below and began to accelerate and execute evasive maneuvers. The rebel F-22s pressed onwards, taking advantage of the vast technical superiority of their aircraft by moving at faster than the speed of sound without using their afterburners, and fired again on the fleeing Strike Eagles.
In just seconds, the first air-to-air engagement of the Second Civil War was over with the victory having gone decisively to the Congressional forces. The F-15Es out of Seymour Johnson had never stood a chance against a group of fifth-generation fighters coming practically out of nowhere. Their only hope once the F-22s had emerged was to survive somehow. Knowing that it was impossible for them to outrun their opponents, the F-15s had sought to evade attack by moving as low as possible with the hope that a c
ombination of low attitude and speed would allow them to slip away from the conflagration in the confusion.
The Pentagon
“Slowed, not stopped,” reported General Walker as he read the latest report to be passed up to General Hall.
“That’s what they say ground the ground. The air attack managed to get off more than a few bombs, but they were disrupted and largely destroyed in an air-to-air battle. The reports from the ground didn’t get a good visual or videos, but I’d bet that it was F-22s out of Langley,” said Hall.
“Fuckers,” said Walker.
“Alright,” said Hall, tapping the table, “they’re coming this way. How do we stop them?”
“We’ve got what forces we could scrape together from Fort Myer – though there’s still some fighting going on there,” noted one officer.
“The 29th Division is just gone. We think that it was the Virginia National Guard that took Langley,” noted another.
Hall walked over to the board tracking the movement of troops.
“As I see it, the nearest major formation reporting itself as ready to come to our aid is the... 10th Mountain Division? Fort Drum, New York.”
“That’s what we’ve got now,” agreed General Walker, “but a lot of those other formations haven’t really joined the rebel forces either. A lot of them are just immobilized in confusion. The only real rebel forces in the field, at the present time, appear to be part of the Third Infantry Division – the force that’s moving on Washington now – and we’re guessing that part of the Virginia National Guard is actively fighting as well. Like I said, that’s what we’re inferring from what happened at Langley.”
“How do we stop them, General?” asked one officer as Hall gazed at the board.
