by Adam Yoshida
"This morning, as for some days past, it seems exceedingly probable that this Administration will not be re-elected,” he began, “then it will by my duty to so cooperate with the President-elect, as to save the Union between the Election and the inauguration; as he will have secured his election on such ground that he cannot possibly save it afterwards.”
“Mr. President?” said Secretary Preston.
“Lincoln,” said Ira Skelton quietly.
“In the late summer of 1864,” explained Rickover, “Abraham Lincoln wrote that out and asked his Cabinet to sign it without reading it. It was, in effect, his emergency plan for the salvation of the nation. Well, gentlemen, I think that today we find ourselves in pretty much the same place. Senator Randall is now ahead in the polls and the people are wild for peace, even if it damns the nation.”
“Lincoln was re-elected,” pointed out Secretary Simpson.
“And we will hope for the best - for our own taking of Atlanta, as it were - but we must now prepare for the worst,” said Rickover.
The Acting President turned to face General Monroe.
“General,” he said, “I know that you don’t like what we’ve got planned here, but I’ve got to go with my own best judgement. Both of these operations are approved, with one additional element.”
“Mr. President?” said General Monroe.
“I want it timed so that both begin simultaneously. And, as soon as possible after that, I want the rest of our forces to move against Washington and then Chicago.”
USS Ronald Reagan (CVN-76), South Atlantic Ocean
“Well, Admiral,” said General Dylan MacKenzie from the Combat Information Center of the USS Ronald Reagan, “this is going to be your show for a little while. Get us home and I’ll see it that they make you a Fleet Admiral and award you the Navy Cross.”
Admiral Layton looked at the General quizzically.
“If they made me a Fleet Admiral,” said Layton, “I’d outrank you, General.”
The General smiled and slapped the Admiral on the back.
“Don’t worry about that, Admiral,” he said, “if we win, I am certain that I will be more than adequately taken care of in that regard.”
“Admiral Layton,” said the senior communications officer, “Admiral Collins is on the line for you.”
“Very well,” replied Layton as he picked up a phone.
“Sir,” came the voice of Rear Admiral Olivia Collins, who was flying her flag from the USS Cape St. George, an aged Ticonderoga-class Cruiser, “Task Force 47 stands ready to depart on your orders.”
“Task Force 47 is authorized to change course and commence its mission,” replied Admiral Layton.
“I wish that we were going with you, sir,” said Admiral Collins quietly.
“I wish so as well,” said Layton. He hated to lose both Collins, who was a fine officer, and also to lose the Cape St. George, whose 122 Vertical Launch System cells the fleet could badly use. However, the portion of the fleet that was going to head further south and then cross into the Pacific was going to need a good officer to lead it - for there could very well be enemy submarines and other threats lurking across the South Atlantic - and the gas turbines that powered the Cape St. George had proven to be problematic at best in recent months, making her the major combatant that could most readily be spared from the main body of the fleet.
“Good hunting, sir,” said Collins.
“Thanks. I’ll see you back home,” said Layton.
“Task Force 47 departing,” reported one of the officers in the CIC.
“Admiral,” said General MacKenzie, extending his hand, “I’ll leave to to your work. I know that we’ve had our differences, but I trust you to see us through.”
“General,” replied Layton, accepting the offered hand, “we’re going to make this happen together.”
MacKenzie nodded and turned to exit the CIC as Layton turned to face the rest of the officers around him.
“Ladies and gentlemen,” he ordered, “take us home.”
Democratic Union, Temporary Office of the American Commissioner, Chicago, Illinois
“Mr. High Commissioner,” explained General Eugene Wesley, “with all due respect, these reports are not meaningless and they must cause us to reconsider several elements of our strategy as contemplated.”
“General,” replied the High Commissioner, “as you know, I am not a novice at these things…”
The General held his tongue on that one.
“…and you are not the first officer to come to me with reports of imminent catastrophe unless we make a sudden and radical alteration in our plans. I understand that these are challenging times, but I don’t think that anything whatsoever is served by sudden or precipitous panic.”
“Mr. High Commissioner,” said Minister Gerald Ransom, whose stature has been enhanced by the change of government in the East and the role that he had played in that upheaval, “I don’t think that General Eugene is arguing that we ought to take sudden or ill-considered action. We must, as always, be careful in all things that we do. But, at the same time, we can hardly ignore the suggestion that the enemy has made a major alteration in their own plans.”
“Well,” said the High Commissioner, “what would you have me do? Kevin Bryan let you military people talk him into launching a spoiling attack against an offensive by the rebels and look what happened to him: today he’s effectively a prisoner and he will go down in history as the last President of the original United States.”
“I don’t think that anyone is arguing for a pre-emptive attack of that nature this time, sir,” said Ransom, “but that, instead, people are arguing against any sense of complacency. Our strategy is to sit back and wait for the Colorado government to throw its punch, to absorb that blow, and wait for the political calendar to do the rest of what must be done for us. I still believe that’s a viable strategy, but a sufficiently hard blow by the U.S. Government could also cause our entire arrangement here to unravel or, alternatively, it could buy Terrance Rickover just enough popularity to stay in office at which point, short of a nuclear war, this thing is finished.”
“Well,” said the High Commissioner thoughtfully, “what would you have?”
“Our best intelligence,” explained General Wesley, “is that the United States fleet in the South Atlantic has split into two parts. One part we have gathered, largely by their efforts to retrovision via South America, appears to be headed into the Pacific. We don’t presently have an exact location on the other part, but our best guess - the only reasonable inference - is that it headed to the north and that it is probably moving very fast. Faster, in fact, than any of our planning to date has anticipated.”
“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 confr
ont 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 repaired, 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.”
&n
bsp; “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.”
