by Adam Yoshida
“I’ve put together some plans to either exact or reinforce 1st BCT, General,” said Dunford.
Jackson waved his hand in the air.
“No, no,” he said, “we need to be thinking about the bigger picture here, not playing small-ball. We’ll do our best to help 1st BCT, to be sure, but we need to be thinking about this in a whole-theatre perspective. Have the rest of the Corps continue to the north and have the G3 put together a plan to use all of our air assets to drop those bridges and to give those staging areas a real pasting.”
96th Bomb Squadron, Over Montreal, Quebec
Major Roger O’Neill wasn’t quite sure what he thought about the mission that he’d been assigned. On one hand he was a student of military history who had written his Masters’ thesis about the US Army Air Forces’ strategic bombing campaign against Germany, specifically arguing the contrarian position that it made a major contribution to Allied victory in the Second World War and he had always been curious what it would have been like to fly a true strategic bombing mission. On the other hand, he was reasonably sure that what he had been ordered to do was a war crime. It was tough to make up his mind.
The squadron of twelve B-52 Stratofortress bombers represented the primary strategic strike power that was available to support XII Corps. The war years had not been kind to the old bombers. With the Great Mutiny having severely disrupted the supply of spare parts, even with the full utilization of the great treasure trove of military surplus that had been recovered from the Arizona boneyard, it was proving increasingly-difficult to keep military aircraft flying. Each of the bombers was loaded up with sixty 1000 pound guided bombs.
Targets had already been selected in advance. The FNASA commander who had ordered his forces into downtown Montreal hadn’t been too particular about where the forces would actually sit. They must not, O’Neill thought, have believed that their American opponents would dare to strike them directly there. They must not have spent very much time researching General Jackson.
One by one the bombers reached their release points and began to drop a curtain of bombs. The bombs fell one after another, a total of three hundred and sixty tons of them. Every visible assembly point was targeted, with parking lots being blanketed in high explosives that destroyed both tanks and civilian vehicles with a sense of complete impartiality. O’Neill kept his hands steady on the controls as the bombs fell, the plane vibrating slightly with each release and beginning to handle noticeably better as it was relieved in a space of just under two minutes of thirty tons of cargo.
Of course, even the most technically advanced machines must have some possibility of error. That is simply inherent in anything that has even been created by men and it multiplied by some significant factor when you are dropping those machines out of the sky. Some of the bombs failed in their primary mission and instead struck buildings and other random objects that had interposed themselves between the bombs and their targets. One struck the roof of an office building, caving it in, destroying two floors, and spreading loose paper about an area the size of several city blocks.
Another bomb managed, in a moment of notably bad luck, to strike the entranceway of a Metro Station. Like much of the infrastructure of Montreal, this particular Metro station was old and in a state of disrepair. The explosion of the bomb itself caused tore away the surface and caused the collapse of a staircase. As the station was being used as a temporary shelter by those unfortunate enough to find themselves on the streets of the city when the American bombers had come, this was problematic in and of itself. Later investigations would estimate that fourteen people were instantly killed in the moment of the blast itself. However, the damage caused by the explosion was much wider than it appeared at the first glance. It had cracked a key pillar that provided structural support for much of the station. A second pillar was either weakened by the explosion or already in poor condition and, once the first pillar fell away, it crumpled as if it were constructed out of paper. The loss of two key support pillars was more than the rest of the structure could bear and, within seconds, the street above began to collapse onto the train station below. This had adverse consequences for the three hundred and eighty-six people who were in it at the time, but it also made the careers of two BBC cameramen who happened to be nearby.
740 Park Avenue, Manhattan
“For far too long,” the Minister of Justice explained from the stage that had been set up along East 71st Street, “we failed to deal with the root causes of injustice here in New York and in the rest of America. We have always believed that the great disparities of wealth that exist and have long existed are simply a natural feature of the landscape, to be accepted passively even though, here in America, we have never accepted that something is impossible just because the land looks as if it is so. We did not hesitate to build great roads across the continent, to construct the Erie Canal, or even to send people into space. So why have we failed to deal with the great concentration of wealth?”
The audio system being used for the event was loud enough that Roman Moore and Mack Dallas could hear her speaking unassisted from across the street.
“Barely even a security sweep,” said Moore, “they’re getting fucking arrogant. We almost took this city.”
“Insurgent activity has fallen off,” Dallas pointed out.
Moore raised his rifle and carefully aimed.
“…this building could house ten times the people that it has, in a city where thousands went homeless even before this terrible war came upon us. Yet they did nothing. This ends here and now,” the Minister continued.
“This is such a terrible idea,” said Dallas, “we’re going to have real support here any day now.”
“Shut up,” said Moore, attempting to concentrate.
Moore took his shot. The bullet flew forth at the same moment as the Justice Minister made a dramatic forward-swinging gesture with her arm. The momentum of her angry gesture was just enough to carry her outside of the range of the shot. Moore took a second shot, but this also missed as the Minister dived behind her podium.
Moore began to re-aim, this time intending to fire through the podium. However, in the millisecond that it took him to adjust his fire he was in turn struck by a bullet fired by a counter-sniper. Dallas didn’t even have time to process what had happened before Moore fell dead to the ground, with a hole in his head serving as the origin point for a growing pool of blood on the floor.
Dallas didn’t have time to think. Gripping his MP5 submachine gun, he immediately ran out the door and to the stairwell. He had descended just five flights of stairs when he heard an angry voice rumbling from several floors below.
“Stay where you are!” came the voice. Dallas kept on running.
“Halt!” repeated the voice, drawing closer. Dallas had no idea who they were or what they wanted and he quickly decided that he didn’t have time to find out if he wanted to save his own life. He raised his weapon and continued to run down the stairs. In seconds he caught sight of the source of the voice, an obese middle-aged man in a uniform. He was probably, Dallas decided in a split-second assessment, a security guard. But he also had a gun. Dallas didn’t hesitate before firing a three round burst right into the man’s chest. It was a textbook example of how to carry out such business, the man fell right to the ground, struggling for breath and trying to decide which of his three chest wounds he should use his two hands to try and block.
Dallas jumped over the wounded security guard and kept his weapon at the ready. It wasn’t a suppressed model, so the odds were better than zero that someone had heard him fire his shots. Before taking up their firing position he and Moore had reconnoitred an escape route out the back of the building via a service entrance. He decided that was still his best bet.
The staircase took him to a basement level. He opened the door and took off at a sprint. Attempting to assassinate the Justice Minister had been entirely Moore’s idea. Dallas had hoped to lay low until the time came to take back New York
City, but Moore had insisted on the grounds that she - in her dual role as both Justice Minister and the Federation Minister responsible for oversight of the region - was doing harm every single day had been enough to gain Dallas’ acquiescence, especially with her Soviet-style plan to start forcibly settling people in other people’s homes.
Dallas reached the back entrance and slowed before he opened the door, hiding his gun under his heavy coat and attempting to walk out with as calm a demeanour as possible.
CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT
Disengagement
Sioux City, Iowa
“What purpose is served by such great slaughter?” asked Representative Hank Ramsey to the general agreement of the crowd.
“Now, I - like the majority of you - stood behind Mr. Rickover when he decided to take measures to stop the continued crimes of a government that had become tyrannical. But what does that - what does preserving the freedoms of the American people - have to do with killing protestors on the streets of Montreal? What does that have to do with dropping bombs that crush civilians hiding in subway stations? Why have we become the oppressors?”
“The Acting President provides no rationale for our efforts beyond that we need to preserve “all of America”. If that is the case, then why exactly should we have an army now marching through Canada?”
“In this time of troubles, we must rest our votes upon some foundation more secure than mere party interest. I am a Republican, Mr. Rickover is a Republican, and the man who I am about to introduce is also - whatever it says upon the ballot - a Republican. However, the question isn’t who can represent partisan interests, it is who can represent the the collective interest of the whole American people. Those interests are primarily peace and prosperity and those two things are linked. We will not have prosperity again until we have peace. Not a peace that can be fairly described as appeasement or surrender, but an honest and honorable peace.”
“Mr. Rickover could have given us this months ago. Perhaps he could have done it even earlier if he would have taken the initiative. We do not know how many have died needlessly during that time. He could do it, but he will not do it. So we need a President who will.”
“Ladies and gentlemen, the next President of the United States: Mitchell Randall!”
The crowd began to cheer wildly as the Washington Senator began to bound up to the podium, his right hand raised into the air.
“Thank you, thank you!” said the Senator as he took the podium.
“Thank you Iowa!”
“Thank you for that very warm reception. Now, we’ve had some positive military news in recent days. It seems certain that any day now we will be hearing the announcement that Washington, DC is once more in the hands of our armies and I welcome that. I believe that both our fine fighting men and women and the Acting President deserve credit for that. Let’s give them a hand.”
The crowd offered a modest and subdued cheer.
“But, my friends, I think that’s where we should stop. Today we’ve also seen slaughter on the streets of Montreal. Now, I’m not going to jump to conclusions about what happened there - or what is likely to continue to happen as the advance of our army in the north continues. I will await the results of the independent investigation on that front. But here is what I do know: regardless of who fired first or the details of what happened in Montreal, I know that there would have been no occasion for anything to happen whatsoever there had we not continued the fighting in this conflict beyond its natural end and spread the fighting beyond its natural boundaries.”
“I supported - and I continue to support - the goal of ensuring that all freedom-loving Americans are allowed to live in one nation, under God and liberty. But I believe that, having cast off the oppressive shackles of the old government, we should have stopped right there. Instead, however, the Acting President has embarked upon a radical course of action whose effect has been to throw us into what appears to be an unlimited war.”
“I believe in America. I believe in freedom. So does everyone else here. Let there be no division or confusion on that point. That is not what we are debating here today. Instead, the reason for this campaign - the reason to vote out a President who has done some very good things for this nation - is simple and clear: Terrance Rickover has gone and will continue to go too far. He’s gotten and is going to get a lot of people who don’t need to die killed. It’s really just as simple as that.”
“But, in just one week, we can vote for something different. We can vote to bring this madness to an end. We can vote for a right and just peace.”
Temporary Seat of the Government of the United States, Colorado Springs, Colorado
“For God’s sake, General, they were pulling children out of that subway station!” said Secretary Preston as the face of General William Jackson looked back at him impassively from a video screen.
“Yes, I’ve seen the footage,” said the General, “and I’ll remind you that they were using the entire area as a staging ground for attacks on American troops. I have around five hundred dead American soldiers sitting in morgues right now, plus twice that number of wounded to deal with. So let’s not get all high and mighty about this. It’s a war.”
“General,” said Xavier Monroe, clearly making an effort to restrain himself, “I don’t think that anyone here denies that there were enemy forces in the area, or that you were within your rights as commander to order an attack upon an area, even a civilian area, from which a threat was posed to our soldiers. The question now is quintessentially political.”
“We’re a little over a week from election day. Does he realize that?” said Ira Skelton from the corner of the room. The Defense Secretary shot him a look.
“Well, I don’t know what you want me to say now,” said General Jackson, “the troops assembling in that area posed a threat to our soldiers and so I used the forces that had been delegated to my command to end that threat. End of story.”
“Ok,” said the Acting President, tapping his hands on the table. Everyone else in the room turned to look at him.
“Mr. President?” asked Secretary Preston. Rickover turned to face the video camera that was broadcasting back to Quebec.
“General Jackson,” he said, “can you defeat the forces against you?”
“Provided that I have a free hand, yes,” said Jackson.
“Ok, then. Do it,” said Rickover.
“Mr. President…” began Ira Skelton, “there are a lot of things to consider here…”
“Our forces are about to enter Washington, are they not?” asked Rickover.
“Yes, they are,” said Skelton.
“And this,” asked Rickover, turning to face General Monroe, “is the last major mobile force that is in the field?”
“Yes, Mr. President,” said Monroe.
“And our other force is now, what, two days away from its target? Our Atlantic force?”
“Yes, Mr. President,” replied Admiral Wahl.
“Americans love a winner and will not tolerate a loser,” said the Acting President, “all of you need to take a breath. This isn’t the first time that civilians have died by accident when they were thrown into the middle of a combat zone by our enemies. The DOD must have, buried somewhere, a standard operating procedure for dealing with the press when these things happen.”
“Something like that, Mr. President,” said Secretary Preston softly.
“Then do that,” he said to the Secretary before turning back to the video camera.
“Break them, General,” he ordered.
1st Battalion, 8th Infantry Regiment, 3rd Brigade Combat Team, 4th Infantry Division, Washington, DC
It was hard, reflected Lieutenant Colonel Ivan Rankin as he watched the leading Strykers of his division roll down Pennsylvania Avenue, not to be a little cynical about the cheering crowds that had turned out to greet the arrival of the United States Army in the nation’s capital. How many of these people, he wondered, had only yesterday been perfectly willi
ng to accept the benevolent rule of the Federation of North American States but now were here to cheer on the Stars and Stripes?
That, he decided after another moment’s reflection, was too much. Yesterday these people would have been frantically searching their attics and closets for Old Glory as the last units of the FNASA fled the city. They had to have changed their loyalties at least the day before.
Still, it was good to be back in Washington, a place that the United States Army hadn’t been able to openly set foot in in over two years. There was still some scattered fighting here and there, mostly resistance by partisans who weren’t officially affiliated with either side. However, the streets of the city were now safe enough for the soldiers to move outside of their armored vehicles, walking and waving at the crowd. The D.C. Police - at least what was left of it - tried to keep the throngs of people clear of the soldiers themselves, but here and there one or another burst through and hugged or kissed one of the soldiers. As Rankin paused to take a look at them, he began to slightly reconsider the source of their excitement. A lot of the people looked to be hungry and dirty, even more than could be accounted for by the relatively-brief siege that had occurred. Perhaps things in the Federation were actually as bad as the propaganda claimed.
Derwood, Maryland
The Groves family had tried to remain in Washington as long as they could, even after the fighting had started. Part of this was simply a matter of practicality: they didn’t know where else they could go. Sure, they could get in their car and run, but there were no organized refugee camps and they had no family anywhere nearby.
