The Second Civil War- The Complete History

by Adam Yoshida

  “I believe that our goal should be to secure freedom for every American who wants it, but that none should be coerced to bow to the flag if they do not wish to do so. I believe in a republic of liberty, not a nation transformed into an empire by its determination to never yield even a single inch of ground. Those are the differences between the Acting President and myself.”

  “As President, I would deal with the established reality that exists upon the ground. If that means negotiations with and some limited recognition of the Federation, than so be it. I believe that we must live in a reality-based-community instead of expending precious resources and human lives in the pursuit of almost entirely-theoretical ideals. I think that we should get to work on rebuilding our economy and having our schools operate like normal once more. I believe that, however we make it happen, people should be able to drive through Illinois without fear of falling victim to a roadside bomb. I believe that we should re-establish regular order so that justice can prevail and the activities of vigilantes can be suppressed. I believe, in short, in a return to normalcy and we all know that we cannot have normalcy without an end to this war.”

  “Thank you, Senator,” said the moderator before turning to Rickover and saying, “go ahead, Mr. President.”

  “Thank you, Sean,” said Rickover, “and I’d like to thank Senator Randall for allowing this free and full exchange of views.”

  “My fellow Americans, as we speak, our armed forces are engaged in the final stages of a great campaign to ensure the freedom of all Americans. We are in action at many points, including along the St. Lawrence River where a major portion of our Army is engaging and defeating the largest enemy force that remains active in the field. We do not know if the resistance of the enemy will be prolonged once we have completed our victory there. It may be, but it may not be. Those who have sought to divide and defeat the United States of America must now know that their cause is lost. This enemy cannot defeat the United States: we will only be defeated it we defeat ourselves.”

  “Senator Randall offers up an outwardly-attractive vision. If, he says, we decide simply to put down our arms and concede the future of a part of this country to the control of the Federation - or whatever confused jumble of a government emerges from the chaos in its shrinking territory - life can quickly go back to normal in the rest of the country… Which, coincidentally, happen to be those areas that are going to actually be able to vote on Tuesday. Setting aside the fundamental immorality of abandoning tens of millions of our fellow citizens - and the property of tens of millions of others - inside of what would then become a foreign nation , it also isn’t a solution that will lead to peace. it is a solution that would, in fact, lead - as it has led elsewhere - to a state of permanent warfare and unrest.”

  “Where do you draw the borders of this new nation? How do you do it without leaving the homes of millions of loyal Americans on the wrong side? And what of those who would be left within our borders whose loyalties might potentially lie with whatever new and hostile new entity now exists within North America? I know that the Senator says that he has a plan for compensated emigration and immigration, but where has that ever worked? What the Senator proposes to do is to create a new version of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict right here in America.”

  “I have never said that this would be easy. Our country had fallen into such a low state in the years before the war and has been so terribly damaged by years of conflict that recovery will take some time. Indeed, the final reunion of our nation - whatever the military balance on the ground is and however it may change in our favor in the days and week to come - will not be the work merely of the next President and the next Administration, but rather the work of the next generation.”

  “Our aim must not simply be to restore peace - for we could have had peace without risk if we did not value our liberties and declined to resist their abolition - but to restore constitutional government. This is a harder and more important task than simply ending a war. We must have , as followed our last civil war, a new birth of freedom in this country.”

  “That is something harder than what the Senator wants to do. We can go back to our homes and we can have peace again, to be sure. But, if we choose the easy road now, then we will never fully recover all of our rights under the Constitution and all of this would have been for nothing. How can we ever hope to again be a free country if our first act in victory is to abandon millions of our countrymen to live under tyranny?”

  “This is not the first time that a free government has been challenged by the alternative model offered ostensibly well-intentioned but also fundamentally misguided people who believed that they could better provide for the people than the ancient constitution of the land. I have spoken before of Roman history and how our challenges today parallel those of the final days of the Roman republic, when a small band of politicians, motivated by a mix of sincere concern for the welfare of the people and their own private ambitions, decided to attempt to step outside of the constitution in the name of the greater good. In that case, those Romans who believed in their constitution resisted these people, even to the extent of open warfare, but the final result of years of convulsion was that it was impossible for anyone to ever restore the liberties of the Roman people. The best that they could settle for was the parody of the Roman constitution that emerged under the Emperor Augustus.”

  “There is, however, a happier example - and it is a part of our own history. When a series of English Kings claimed the authority to do away with both the independent power of the Parliament and to arbitrarily restrict the rights of the people, the people of Great Britain repeatedly rose in revolution and established a framework that secured the liberties of their own people. The model they provided extended to this country, where our own ancestors also rose up against arbitrary government and established, instead, a free government that ruled over a free people. They were able to do this because they had created governments and societies that were founded upon the will of the people. not upon the personality of their leaders.”

  “My fellow Americans: there are times in our lives when we are asked to choose. On one side lies a challenging and difficult path, but one which will restore our country, its liberties, and its self-respect. On the other is a path of temporary ease that we will regret until the end of our days for, once we have decided that the Constitutional liberties of Americans are not natural-born rights but rather gifts from the government that may be negotiated away for reasons of political and economic convenience, then we will have rendered our sacred Constitution to be nothing more than dead words written down upon a piece of paper. We have come far, but we still have a ways to go. I ask for you to join with me to complete the great task of our generation.”

  HMS Queen Elizabeth (R08), The Celtic Sea

  Admiral Childers checked the time. It was just after 2PM local time. He pulled up a new window on his computer terminal and checked his messages one final time. There was nothing there, aside from some new automated shipboard reports that he quickly, and quite by rote, deleted. He took a deep breath.

  “Captain,” he said, “send a signal to the fleet - to the British ships only - to change course to heading zero-nine-zero. Flank speed.”

  “New heading, zero-nine-zero, flank speed, aye,” replied the Captain crisply.

  The Democratic Union liaison looked at him blankly.

  “Why are we changing course, Admiral?” he asked.

  “Master-at-Arms,” called out Admiral Childers, “take this man away.”

  The senior rating smartly saluted and grabbed hold of the man from the Democratic Union, who could do little more than to look on dumbfounded for several seconds before he got his bearings.

  “Are you a mutineer too, Admiral?” he asked as he was dragged away.

  “What about following your orders!?!?” he shouted as he was pulled off the bridge.

  “Actually, sir,” replied Childers, “I am following my lawful orders, as I have always d
one.”

  He pulled a piece of paper from the interior of his uniform jacket and took another deep breath.

  Buckingham Palace, London, United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland

  King George VII of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland sat stiffly as he waited upon the arrival of the Prime Minister.

  “Damned rude to be late,” he said.

  “Well, you didn’t give him much time,” said the Press Secretary to the King.

  “Yes, quite,” replied the King as he coughed and cleared his throat.

  “Your Majesty, the Prime Minister,” announced the Private Secretary to the Sovereign as a tired looking Blunt came through the door and shabbily bowed to the King before stepping forward to shake his hand.

  “Your Majesty,” said the Prime Minister.

  “Prime Minister,” replied the King.

  Both stopped for a moment and looked at one another in silence.

  “I’m sorry, but I do believe that this is your meeting, Your Majesty,” said Blunt at last.

  “It is. I’ll come to the point, Prime Minister. The agreements that you have entered into and the actions that you have committed British forces to are intolerable. They now threaten to destroy the British nation as we have known it…”

  “Your Majesty,” said the Prime Minister, taken aback, “this is an outrageous assault upon an elected government…”

  “I have not finished, sir,” said the King.

  “Go ahead,” said Blunt with his eyes filled with rage.

  “Your actions have placed us at war with our closest allies and brought elements of the British people to blows with one another. You have undermined our ancient constitution in such a way that I do not believe that you, or your continuation in office, represents the genuine will of the British people. I recognize that this is an extraordinary situation and I believe that it requires an extraordinary remedy, before British independence is extinguished. Therefore I have decided that it is a legitimate and just exercise of the Royal prerogative to remove you from office.”

  “What?” said the Prime Minister, his voice raising so quickly that it broke.

  “You don’t have any right to do this! What in bloody fucking hell is wrong with you? How do you think?”

  “That’ll be quite enough, sir,” said the King.

  “Enough? Fuck you! That’s not nearly enough. You can’t do this!”

  “You are dismissed,” said the King coldly. He looked his Private Secretary in the eyes and nodded. The Private Secretary snapped his fingers and two Coldstream Guards entered the room and seized the former Prime Minister by each arm.

  “Hold him for the time being,” said the weary King. As the former Prime Minister was dragged from the room screaming he sank back into his chair.

  “I may have just destroyed the Monarchy,” he said sadly.

  “Or saved it, Your Majesty,” replied the Private Secretary.

  Alpha Company, Third Battalion, Second Brigade, 200th Infantry Division, Quebec City

  It was generally a poor practice, thought Colonel Evan Dunford, for a higher-echelon commander to sink down to the level of tactical command. That was what Lieutenants and Captains were for. Colonels and Generals ought to spend their time at their headquarters directing higher-echelon operations. That, he recalled reading, had been one of the flaws of the post-Vietnam army that had been exposed in Iraq and Afghanistan. Officers who had been exceptional platoon and company commanders had risen to become flag officers but, faced with the pressures of higher command, they had tended to gravitate to what they knew best. As a result, you often ended up with Generals effectively micro-managing small units. On the other hand, Dunford knew, there were also times that you needed to throw out the fucking rule book.

  The 200th Division had already been making good time when Jackson had sent him to take command. But the firing of the division commander and his replacement by a substantially lower-ranking officer had managed to put just a little more energy into the steps of every single career-minded officer. Everyone knew that this could be one of the last battles of the war and no one wanted to be relieved on the edge of the final victory.

  Given that the staff of the 200th Division seemed to know what they were doing and to greatly resent his presence - despite the fact that he’d once been one of them - the Colonel had elected to head into into the field with the troops at the sharp edge. He figured that at least he could be of some use there.

  The Israeli-made Mervaka tanks were on their last legs now. Dunford had been there at the beginning, almost two years ago, when they had first arrived from Israel. Since then they had been across Canada twice and fought in Colorado, Arizona, and California. They didn’t have much life left in them. All of them were battered, burned, and worn. But they were still fighting.

  He’d hitched a ride with a company that was headed towards the Quebec Bridge, where the soldiers of the 82nd Airborne were trying to hold onto control in spite of a furious assault by FNASA tanks. When they reached the bridge they found that there was already a single Abrams sitting at the western foot, presumably guarding forces that were there to destroy the bridge. The lead Merkava had managed to take the FNASA tank by surprise, dispatching it with a single HEAT round as the rest of the force barrelled forward.

  On the middle of the bridge there had been a handful of APCs together with some infantry. Two of the tanks, moving nearly side by side, had pushed forward and opened fire. They first struck the vehicles that were in their path with their weapons and then they followed up by using the bodies of their tanks. The enemy infantrymen and engineers on the bridge attempted to flee, running into the fire of the paratroopers who were attacking them from the other side. Some of them were shot in that process. Others were killed when they were struck by the vehicles that the Merkavas pushed contemptuously aside. However it happened (and it happened in myriad ways), within thirty seconds all of them were dead or seriously wounded. When the Merkavas reached the far end they found another Abrams tank, this one turning to attempt to face them. Two rounds were required to dispatch that one.

  When that was over with, the driver of the tank that Dunford was riding in swiftly drove onto land at the eastern side of the bridge and Dunford popped the turret. Already a small crowd of amazed paratroopers had gathered around them.

  “What unit is this?” he asked.

  “2nd Platoon, Alpha Company, 2nd Battalion, 501st Parachute Infantry Regiment, 82nd Airborne Division,” replied a young Lieutenant with a broad smile.

  HMS Queen Elizabeth (R08), The Celtic Sea

  Admiral Childers would later recall the events of this afternoon as, “the most distasteful duty that I was ever called upon to execute.” But, at this particular moment of time, recrimination and regret were still in the distant future. With all of the Democratic Union officials onboard the Royal Navy task force taken into custody, the Admiral now had the duty of speaking directly to the crew of Queen Elizabeth and those of the rest of the fleet. Before he opened his mouth, he said a silent prayer that this would work.

  “Officers and sailors of the fleet,” he began, speaking into a closed-circuit television broadcast, “you will have noticed that we have changed our heading. This is a deliberate act - and a legal one. I am in receipt of new orders. These orders were issued directly by His Majesty the King. They are simple and direct: we are to do the utmost to see that no harm should come to any subject of the King and, further, to preserve the national independence of Great Britain. To that end, I have directed that all officials of the Democratic Union onboard the King’s vessels should be taken into custody.”

  That brought a cheer that shook Queen Elizabeth.

  “Our hope is that we can rendezvous with our comrades from the Prince of Wales and come safe home without any blood being shed. We must, however, be prepared if the enemy - the real enemy - insists upon fighting us. Whatever it may be, we will save Britain together. All hands to Action Stations.”

/>   With that, Admiral Childers turned to his communications operators.

  “Do we have them?” he asked.

  HMS Prince of Wales (R09), North of the Azores

  Captain Derek Welch smiled as the face of Admiral Childers appeared on the video display in front of him.

  “Admiral,” said the Captain, “it’s terribly good to see your face again.”

  “Likewise Captain, likewise,” replied the Admiral, “but I’m afraid that we don’t have much time for pleasantries.”

  “Of course.”

  “We took a sharp turn away from the French task force a few minutes ago,” explained Childers, “but they must know what’s up by now. The force that they possess is substantial still. They need to be neutralized.”

  “We have a full compliment of aircraft,” said Captain Welch. He could see that Childers was surprised.

  “American Marines,” explained the Captain simply. Childers nodded.

  “Very good,” said Childers, “have them at the ready.”

  Charles de Gaulle (R91), The Celtic Sea