by Adam Yoshida
“But they’re not moving,” noted the General.
“No. They’re not doing much of anything,” replied Dunford.
“I imagine that their command situation is rather confused at the moment,” said the General, “and they don’t see much point in trying to assault us if they’re just going to end up in possession of a ruined town that they’ll lose within a matter of days, at most.”
“Why don’t they withdraw then?” asked the Colonel.
“After what the Navy pulled against the 40th Division? I mean, they don’t know our capabilities. You’re familiar with the Highway of Death, aren’t you, Colonel?”
As General Jackson spoke, a flurry of lights began to streak across the sky, soaring over the heads of the assembled rebel troops on the ground. The Colonel and the other exhausted officers on the ground.
“Ah, yes,” said Jackson, pointing up to the sky, “Santa Claus asked me if I had one wish and I asked for a couple of Multiple Rocket Launch Systems.”
Near the National September 11 Memorial & Museum, Manhattan
Roman Moore normally wasn’t one for faint hopes, but this seemed to be one worth fighting for. He steadied his XM-109 and fired his first shot from his perch on the 10th floor of an office tower. The bullet hit its target directly, passing through the leading Foreign Legionnaire and felling a second man behind him.
New York City, Moore reflected, was pretty much a sniper’s paradise at least so long as the number of soldiers on the streets remained relatively low. The only real ways to counter someone like Moore would have been with counter-sniper fire from other tall buildings or, alternatively, with readily available air support. The French soldiers on the ground had neither of those things. Without them, they’d have to identify the building that he was in and then conduct a search. By then, God willing, he’d be long gone.
Moore fired again. This time his bullet was a clean miss, flying some five feet in front of the young man targeted.
“Fuck,” muttered Moore to himself. He tried to slow down his breathing. He fired again. Another miss. This time the shot sailed clear over the French soldier’s head. This one wasn’t purely a waste as it did manage to strike and kill someone else, but Moore was unsatisfied nonetheless.
Mack Dallas came up next to Moore and plopped down a handful of candy bars.
“Of course there were no actually restaurants open,” said Dallas, “but I shot open a vending machine on the fifth floor.”
Moore fired off one more round. This one struck the soldier he’d missed twice in along the side. If Moore had been using a lesser weapon it’d probably have simply nicked him. The XM-109, however, was not a lesser weapon. It blew a large hole in the man’s side. Moore set the rifle down.
“I think that I’ve earned a chocolate break,” he said.
.
“It’s a Goddamned shame we didn’t think to bring more explosives with us,” said one of the Privates with Colonel Durham as he worked on rigging up a Ford F-150.
“Well, nothing for this particular purpose anyways,” replied Durham, “but us Marines have always improvised.”
The French soldiers who had landed in Lower Manhattan weren’t all that eager to move. Instead, they’d set up a series of roadblocks and begun to fan out in order to cut off all possible avenues of retreat for the Marines. Without air, artillery, or armor to provide the 1st Battalion with support, Durham had been forced to look for alternative measures that might prove effective. As he’d been walking down the narrow Manhattan streets, something that he’d learned a long time ago came back to him: anything can be an impact weapon in the right hands.
Fortunately for Durham there were more than a few among the Ninth Marines who had some definite ideas on how to steal a car. In fact, they’d managed to steal fully a dozen of them in a span of just under half an hour. It had taken less time than that, once they’d acquired the cars, to fight their way back onto Church Street, where the Foreign Legion force had already set up defensive positions.
“When I give the order, run” ordered Durham to the two hundred Marines who were still on the street with him.
Durham looked at the line of vehicles and listened to the revving of the engines.
I should have considered relative acceleration times, he thought, but it’s too Goddamned late for that now.
“Let’s roll!” he shouted as he took off at a run. The Marines released the vehicles that they were controlling and sent them flying down the street. In accordance with his last-minute prediction, a few of the trucks and vans sent wildly flying off with their gas pedals stuck down proved to be faster than the others, causing two spectacular collisions. Worse still, one of the Marines involved in the setup took a wrong step, tripped, and was crushed by three different vehicles.
Durham and the rest of the Marines set off down the road, following closely behind the mass of vehicles. As the speeding cars and trucks approached the French barricade the Legionnaires attempted to engage the oncoming threat.
In equipping themselves for this particular mission, the Foreign Legionnaires had not anticipated facing anything that would require weapons more sophisticated than small arms. They quickly came to regret that failure of imagination as the massed fire of their rifles did nothing to stop the approach of the onrushing wave of trucks and vans. As the lead van approached the barricade, a pair of brave Legionnaires among the front ranks managed to shoot out the tires of the van. The damaged van turned abruptly and then executed a spectacular flip, rolling over at a speed of close to eighty miles an hour. The two brave Legionnaires were pulped by the weight of the van.
The impacts of the vehicles shattered the barricade, forcing the soldiers manning it to either run for their lives or die where they stood. Behind the vehicles, two hundred shouting Marines charged forward firing on the fleeing French soldiers with wild abandon.
Colonel Durham quickly made it to the site where the collision between the vehicles and the barricade had occurred. Just a few hundred feet ahead a group of Legionnaires were attempting to rally and create another strongpoint. The Colonel raised his M-4 rifle and fired, striking at least one. Another Marine, this one carrying an old-fashioned Squad Automatic Weapon, raced up next to the Colonel and opened fire wildly against the emerging French position. The Marine with the SAW had a plentiful ammunition belt and did not hesitate to deploy it against the French, spraying their position with fire as the rest of the Marines charged up the sides of the street.
The French soldiers tumbled dead in the streets one-by-one. The Legionnaires had been caught wholly by surprise by the incoming fury of the Marines. They had expected to be called upon to do little more than to accept the surrender of a group of exhausted men. Now they were being slaughtered.
After a retreat that measured several blocks, the Legionnaires were reinforced. A group came charging up the street looking to rally the survivors of the initial barricade. As soon as the Legionnaires stopped to fire, a pair of snipers hidden in the surrounding buildings struck. The snipers fired off shots with great rapidity with the bullets plunging from above to kill the French on the street below. Durham pushed forward and inserted a new magazine in his rifle. He and the other Marines maintained a steady drumbeat of fire against the Legionnaires, killing nearly fifty of them as they attempted simply to get their bearings.
Several of the savvier Legionnaires dropped to the ground, using the bodies of their fallen comrades to shield themselves from the bullets of the Marines and their supporters. From their defensive positions they raised their own rifles and began to return fire. To both the left and right of Durham Marines were struck and fell wounded upon the street. In the second after a Marine five feet to his right was struck and killed Durham raised his rifle and fired directly at one French soldier who was attempting to crawl about discreetly among the bodies of the dead. Durham’s bullets crashed directly into the top of the young man’s skull.
Within seconds the forward momentum of the Marines had carried them
to the edge of the gruesome improvised defensive work being used by the Legionnaires. Behind them, the French were simply running. The shocking assault by the Marines had breached two lines of defenses that had been hastily set up and given the Americans direct access to the assembly areas of the entire Second Parachute Regiment.
“Keep going!” shouted Durham as he and the other Marines charged forward into the outdoor area that surrounded the National September 11 Memorial and Museum. The equipment scattered by the French sat almost everywhere, abandoned in haste upon the approach of the Marines. Here and there the French fought - largely as they were cornered - but the unit as a whole continued to be almost wholly unprepared for the ferocity of the Marines’ assault.
As he approached the giant waterfalls set up over the footprints left by the collapsed towers, Durham could still hear the sounds of combat even though he could no longer see any fighting within his field of vision. He stopped to catch his breath and to wipe off his forehead.
“Take that, Motherfuckers!” he screamed at the top of his lungs.
USS Michael Monsoor (DDG-1001)
As soon as the orders for the strike on Yuma had arrived, the USS Michael Monsoor and half a dozen other surface ships had been detached from the main body of the Seventh Fleet to form Task Group 11.2. This detachment had been ordered to sail to the east at maximum speed, though initially her commanders had been kept in the dark about the exact nature of their mission.
Of course, every sailor onboard the ships of TG 11.2 were well-aware that their magazines were stocked with some 366 Tomahawk Cruise Missiles. Nevertheless, the use to which those weapons were to be put to use had remained a surprise until almost the last minute.
“These targets appear to be a little bit strange,” noted Commander Bryce Stanford, the Michael Monsoor’s Executive Officer.
“Ours not to reason why…” replied her Captain, Sam Fitch.
Seconds later, the first of the Tomahawks began to burst forth from the Vertical Launch Cells of TG 11.2, their air-sucking engines taking them off on an easterly course.
“Where are they going?” asked one of the sailors on the bridge, finally breaking the silence.
“Mexico,” replied Fitch.
Temporary Seat of the Government of the United States, Colorado Springs, Colorado
“Yes, I’ll hold,” said Acting President Rickover with a cheery voice.
Rickover placed his hand over the receiver.
“They’re getting him on the phone,” he said. The Acting President calmly tapped his fingers against the table as he waited.
“Hello?” came the voice of Pablo del Rio, President of the United Mexican States, from the other end.
“Hey Pablo,” said Rickover, “how’s it going?”
“I don’t know why I should talk to you,” said the Mexican President, “you’re a rebel, not recognized by the international community. You should at least show proper respect.”
“Fuck you,” replied the Acting President, “this is a courtesy call being made to a man who has invaded my country. This is as respectful as I am going to get.”
Silence hung across the line.
“You’d probably better stay on the line, Pablo,” said Rickover, “because I’m going to give you an opportunity to save lives that you won’t have later.”
“Go on,” said the Mexican President.
“We’re e-mailing you a list - to your private e-mail, don’t worry about where we got it or what else we’ve read for the time being - of places that you’d probably better evacuate right away. You’ve got some time. At least half an hour. More in some cases. But you’d better get on it.”
“Evacuate?” said the Mexican President. Frantic typing could be heard on the other end.
“I’ll give you a minute or two to read,” replied the Acting President.
“These…” said del Rio as he paged through the multi-page list, “these are civilian installations. Attacking these would be a war crime.”
“Now, Pablo,” replied Rickover, “you and I both know that what is and isn’t a war crime is typically a matter for the winning side to hash out. Anyways, they’re not really civilian installations, are they? They’re all the property of the man who almost single-handedly funded your entire campaign.”
“What do you want?” said the Mexican President.
“I want you - and everyone else who thinks that they can divide and destroy the United States of America - to understand the consequences of their actions. We are going to win this fight here and then we’re coming for you. All of you. Pass it along.”
“We can be civilized about this. We can negotiate,” said del Rio.
“No,” replied Rickover, “I’d rather not be. Not yet anyways. After we’ve finished killing your army in the desert, then perhaps.”
National September 11 Memorial & Museum, Manhattan
As soon as the 1st Battalion had managed to secure the main plaza of the 9-11 Memorial, Colonel Durham had called all of his officers together.
“That was great work,” he said, “but our best guess from what we observed is that the enemy landed an entire battalion here. At the most, that’s a platoon or a platoon and a half worth of the enemy lying dead on the ground - and the Cubans are still advancing from the north.”
“I am ordering you to disperse. That order applies doubly to those who didn’t land with the 1st Battalion today. You represent, collectively, the armed forces of the United States in New York City. The day will come when the government of the United States retakes this city. But it will not be today.”
“Myself and and the 1st Platoon will stay behind here and try and hold them off as long as we can. The rest of you get yourselves somewhere from which you can help to win this war. Dismissed.”
Some of the Marines had hesitated for a moment, unsure as to whether they ought to volunteer to remain with their commander. Durham raised his rifle into the air and fired.
“Go!” he ordered with tears in his eyes. The Marines and handful of others around him had hurried away, off to meet their own rendezvous with destiny someday.
A few minutes passed before Durham heard the first shot. He hit the ground as the first was followed by first a few and then many others. It took a moment for him to realize that the fire was coming from behind him, from the south.
The rate of fire intensified with each passing second. Durham raised his rifle, turned around, got up and fired. He only managed to get off two bursts before he was forced to crash back to the ground in order to avoid the intense fire of the enemy.
There were others among the approaching forces now too, wearing no uniforms at all. The Mayor’s personal little army, it seemed, had finally gotten into gear. Or, perhaps less charitably, they had waited until it was almost over to join the fight.
Bullets continued to rain down upon Durham and the rest of the Marines manning the improvised defensive works they’d placed upon the street. Some of them, the Colonel, realized were coming from the other side now. He got up, along with several of the other Marines, and fired at the forces coming at them from the north. A volley of return fire quickly claimed the lives of several of the Marines standing alongside him.
Weary and exhausted, Durham could see no point in prolonging the inevitable. He stood up and began to rapidly fire at the nearest concentration of the enemy - a group of Cubans who now stood just a few hundred feet away from him. A single bullet struck Durham dead center, winding him for a moment. Somehow, summoning up a burst of energy, he managed to push on through the pain. He fired one more burst before another shot stuck him. Once again his body armor absorbed some of the shock, but the impact was enough to knock him down.
Slowly, the Colonel got up and attempted to raise his rifle. He was shot again. This time one of the bullets struck him in an unprotected area, penetrating his arm. The wounded Colonel managed to stay on his feet and staggered backwards. Another shot sent him reeling once again. He fell backwards, leaning back again the gra
nite the bordered the edge of the great waterfall. He was still there when a final bullet struck him in the head and ended his life.
Yuma, Arizona
Acting President Terrance Rickover could smell the lingering scents of smoke and death from the moment that the MV-22 Ospery serving as Marine One hit the ground.
“A Loyalist brigade tried to hold on here, Mr. President,” explained General Jackson, “even after the main body of the force was forced to surrender. They continue to fight until we bombed them for the better part of a day. There were about two thousand left alive at that point. But our medical resources were pretty strained. We took around fifteen hundred prisoners.”
The Acting President nodded solemnly as the General took him across the landscape.
“You did fine work here, General,” replied the Acting President, “I’m sorry that we couldn’t get you the help that you needed sooner.”
“We understand, Mr. President,” replied Jackson, “we appreciate that you came.”
“They’re ready for you, Mr. President,” said Chief of Staff Ira Skelton, tapping the President gently on the shoulder.
“You’ll have to excuse me,” said Rickover as he walked over to the makeshift platform that had been set up.
“Ladies and gentlemen,” said the Press Secretary, “the President of the United States.”
The small crowd, a mixed group of soldiers, citizens, and journalists, applauded the Acting President wildly as he stepped up to the podium.
“My fellow Americans,” he said, “our country has won a great victory. The battle fought here - not only at Yuma but across the entire State of Arizona - was a great triumph for our nation and for the cause of liberty. Our forces continue to advance across California and we hope to be able to report to you good news from there very soon.”
“The days of this battle were also the days of the transformation of our cause. When future generations look back at our actions, what will they say? Will they believe that this war was brought about by the pettiest of causes - by disputes about taxes, debt, and spending - or will they say that we fought for a higher purpose? I hope that it shall be the latter. Too much blood has been shed already for anything less.”
