The Second Civil War- The Complete History

by Adam Yoshida

  The Russian President now stood up, raising his glass to offer a toast.

  “Ladies and gentlemen,” he said, “we stand at the opening of a new era for Europe, one where the traditional divisions and distrust between Russia and her neighbors will fade away and we will enter a new era of unity. To one Europe.”

  The other European leaders joined the Russian President with raised glasses and uneasy hearts.

  “Of course,” continued the Russian President, “in the spirit of openness, I believe that we must frankly admit our own mistakes. Our involvement in the American civil war was, I believe, an error. One born of benevolence, but an error nonetheless. I can tell you now that the Chancellor and I have undertaken, on behalf of the Union, to open communication with the American Department of State about the repatriation of such European forces as remain on American soil…”

  Democratic Union, Temporary Office of the American Commissioner, Chicago, Illinois

  “Mr. High Commissioner,” reported Minister Gerald Ransom, “I must tell you, having come directly from a meeting with the High Command, that I do not see any military scenario that results in anything resembling victory. The contribution that our European partners were making by the end was slight, to be sure, but General Wesley reports to me that, with the European forces being ordered to hold in place and to willingly surrender to the U.S. Military… Well, morale among what remains of the Federation’s forces is very low. I believe that the General described morale as nearly non-existent at this point in time. The only people who are determined to hold on until the end are the political fanatics, very few of whom were soldiers prior to the war, and those whose freedom and lives hinges upon some sort of victory here. The former undocumented immigrants and those given amnesty for criminal offenses and the like.”

  “So,” roared the Justice Minister, “have you turned into a defeatist traitor as well?”

  The High Commissioner sighed.

  “That isn’t helpful,” he said.

  “Randall won the election and Randall will negotiate a peace rather than see endless bloodshed. We can still save something of our progressive revolution,” insisted the Justice Minister.

  “With all due respect,” said Ransom, “that’s not exactly the position of Mitchell Randall at this point in time. All that he’ll say is that, once he has the power to do so, he will work to bring the war to as quick an end as possible. Perhaps he’ll offer us modified surrender terms, but it’s pretty clear that he’s happy to let Rickover beat us to death first.”

  “When the Unified Army Group gets to Chicago, we’ll have nearly three hundred thousand soldiers available to us, won’t we?” asked the High Commissioner.

  “On paper, maybe, sir,” said Minister Ransom, “but not in reality. Given our present rate of desertion and other losses, I would say that it would be somewhere in the range of 200,000. And we’re losing nearly a thousand people a day. They just melt and walk away.”

  “Two hundred thousand is still a lot,” said the High Commissioner, “enough to get us some kind of a deal.”

  “If the Unified Army Group can even reach us here. Which I’d put at a 50/50 proposition.”

  “Well,” said the High Commissioner, “I’ve won when people said that I couldn’t before. I’ll take a coin flip.”

  “Yes sir,” said Minister Ransom.

  “See to it, Minister,” said the High Commissioner as he glared at the Defense Minister.

  On leaving the High Commissioner’s office, Minister Ransom immediately headed to the parking garage, where an old Chrysler 200 that he’d acquired had been sitting for the last month and a half. After taking a quick look in the trunk to make sure that the bag he’d carefully packed was still there, he pulled out of the garage and took the first entrance onto a highway that he could find that would take him to Wisconsin.

  Beijing, People’s Republic of China

  The Japanese Prime Minister wore a thin smile as he shook hands with President Sun Lei in front of the world’s media.

  “I am glad that together we have reached a just compromise with regard to the final disposition of the Diaoyu Islands,” said the Prime Minister, using the term officially embraced by the People’s Republic of China for what the Japanese had heretofore known as the Senkaku Islands.

  “Yes,” agreed President Sun, “I am glad that we have reached a compromise that recognizes the legitimate Chinese ownership of this territory, but which ensures that China’s friends in Japan are justly compensated for the work that they have done while they held these territories in trust for China for many years.”

  The Japanese Prime Minister shuddered as President Sun twisted the knife. Still, he hoped that the Japanese people would understand. What else could he do with the United States drawn so inwards and with them now owing so large an economic and moral debt to the Chinese? There was nothing he could do, at least not now. If, on the other hand, he was given a few more years of power he was sure that he could find a way or two to make the Chinese pay for this particular embarrassment.

  “Thank you for those kind words, sir,” he said to the President.

  200th Infantry Division, Near Kingston, Ontario

  Brigadier General Evan Dunford felt a little bit of pity for the straggling and struggling soldiers who made up the tail end of the FNASA column. All the way from Montreal the 200th Division had pushed their battered old Merkavas hard in an effort to catch up with the fleeing enemy soldiers. The men and women who they were chasing were worn and tired and had been harassed through their entire journey by the increased air power that was now at the disposal of XII Corps. Indeed, with enemy forces now surrendering en masse all over the country, there were actually more aircraft available in the theatre than there had been even in the last moments of the Battle of the St. Lawrence.

  The newly-promoted General watched via a drone as the leading tanks of his formation engaged a handful of enemy armored vehicles with their main guns. The HEAT rounds simply blew apart the old APCs that they struck and served as a signal to everyone involved that worse was still to come. The broken-down vehicles that made up the far end of the FNASA convoy now attempted to speed up. Here and there a few broke down under the strain, leaving confused men to wander the road. Some of them, sensing the futility of the task in which they were now engaged, simply threw up their hands and surrendered to anyone who they could find, including television news crews in a few cases. These people were, of course, spared. Others, however, made the unfortunate choice of attempting to flee on foot during a chase between armored vehicles. The lucky among those on the road and caught between the armored giants were simply shot and killed instantly. The less fortunate where mangled in much more-terrible ways, run over and ground up under the treads of tanks or otherwise mutilated in the sort of way that humans can only be when they are confronted with the immense and indifferent destructive power of machinery.

  The less well-versed among the fleeing soldiers probably felt a small sense of relief when the tanks that were pursing them came to a halt. The more-experienced (or simply the pessimistic), however were well-aware of the falsity of that relief. The only reason why the tanks had come to a halt was to ensure that they were not the victims of friendly fire when a group of Arizona National Guard A-10 Thunderbolt IIs came in and strafed the enemy column with their 30mm main cannon.

  The powerful depleted uranium rounds fired by the A-10s tore through armored vehicles and left them burning on the road. The ANG attack aircraft followed up their strafing run by coming back for another pass over the enemy force where they simply dropped ordinary unguided 500lb bombs on them.

  General Dunford watched the events with a strange mixture of fascination and illness.

  “Order the battalion to resume the attack,” he finally said.

  Randall-Schmidt Transition Headquarters, Washington, DC

  The President-elect’s team had managed to snag some prime Washington office space for a song. That was hardly surprising, given
both how many Federal bureaucrats and assorted hangers-on had cleared out of the city in the face of both angry irregulars and Federal prosecutors. Furthermore, almost everyone was eager to suck up to the new boss, given that no one was really sure exactly who would staff the White House and the rest of a government run by a Republican-turned-independent who had been elected with the support of both what was left of the Democratic Party and elements of the far-right. In other words there were good reasons for anyone, except possibly for the handful of die-hard Rickover loyalists in Colorado Springs, to hope that they would be able to obtain employment in the incoming Administration.

  “I am amazed,” said Julia Collins, who had already been tapped to be the next White House Chief of Staff, “to see that Rickover is planning on not only continuing the offensive underway - even though what’s left of the Federation Army is on the run and substantially broken - but that he’s planning to undertake further attacks, particularly on the Chicago front, that may carry on even through Inauguration Day. No wonder he couldn’t even win his half-rigged election.”

  Collins’ words brought general nods from around the table.

  “Indeed,” added Kevin Dawson, a senior foreign policy advisor who clearly believed himself to be the next Secretary of State, “while we are somewhat-constricted in the sort of public stance that we can take during the transition, I think that we should - at a very minimum - get some back-channel word out abroad to the effect that we don’t support this and it isn’t our policy.

  Everyone at the table seemed to agree with that.

  “Mr. President-elect?” said Collins, turning to face Senator Randall.

  “No, I don’t think so,” said the President-elect.

  “Sir? said the Collins.

  “I don’t think that we should do anything,” said Randall, “the election is over.”

  “But all of this has profound implications for us going forward, Mr. President-elect,” said Dawson with the condensing tone of the university professor that he’d been before the war.

  “Yes, you’re right, Kevin,” replied Randall, “but let’s look at the facts on the ground at this point in time and set aside the politics of the campaign that’s just passed. I agree with you that I don’t want to throw away unnecessary lives or anything of the sort. But the Acting President is determined to carry through with his policy regardless of the opposition that we offer. In fact, I would expect that any effort to stop him would simply cause him to re-double his efforts. So whining doesn’t really solve anything, does it?”

  “The Acting President is a lame duck,” said Collins.

  “To be sure,” replied Randall, “but he’s still the Commander-in-Chief. And, anyways, if he wins, won’t he save us all kinds of trouble?”

  “So you want to support this?” said Collins.

  “I think it would be more appropriate to note that, now that the campaign is over, silence is better until we have the reigns. Like FDR with Hoover. We don’t want to commit or restrict ourselves. Or, for that matter, to accept blame if things take a turn for the worse.”

  Army of Northern Virginia Headquarters, Columbus, OH

  “…my assessment would be no, General,” said the G2 in response to a question from General Mackenzie.

  “Looking at these reports, the forces that they possess are still quite formidable in terms of overall numbers,” said General Mackenzie as he flipped the pages of the latest estimates that had been passed to the his headquarters.

  “On paper, perhaps, General,” said the briefer, “but those numbers are, in my opinion, likely to be severely overstated. As I said, I don’t think that they’re even going to make it across the pre-war Canadian-U.S. border at the rate things are going, let alone make it all the way to Chicago.”

  “But if they were to make it there, they would be a substantial threat to this force’s plans and would greatly bolster the ranks of the defenders there, would they not?” asked the General.

  “I guess,” said the G2 with a shrug.

  “Then it falls squarely within the parameters of our orders to engage and destroy this enemy.”

  “That would involve crossing into the area of operations presently occupied by XII Corps,” said the G3.

  “Let me worry about that,” snapped Mackenzie. The General got up and walked to the front of the room.

  “Yes,” he said, as much to himself as to anyone else who was listening, “the forces there are going to be a major concern and a threat to our own forces moving towards Chicago. Therefore my orders are to stop them. I must ensure that this is done.”

  The General turned to face the rest of the men and women in the briefing.

  “Dispatch the 4th Infantry Division to the north in order to engage the Unified Army Group in order to prevent it from passing into our zone of operations. Please also inform General Kahn that I intend to be present on the scene personally to ensure that he gets everything that he needs in order to complete the operation victoriously.”

  Unified Army Group Headquarters, Toronto, Ontario

  The passage of the remnants of the FNASA through Toronto and its suburbs had managed to give them a brief respite from American air attacks. Though some portions of the army that had fallen behind had already been destroyed by the pursuing forces of XII Corps, General Wesley still possessed a force of nearly 60,000 soldiers as of the moment that he entered Toronto.

  Toronto’s Mayor had, of course, been rather wary of allowing the army to pass through his domain but, as General Wesley had pointed out to him, it wasn’t as though he had any real way of stopping him. The Toronto Police were a reasonably formidable force in their own way, but they were hardly sufficient to arrest an entire army.

  “Chicago reports that the Minister of Justice had taken on responsibilities as the Acting Minister of Defense as well,” said Colonel Chernow as he strode into the building that served as the UAG’s temporary headquarters.

  “Her?” asked Welsey incredulously.

  “Yes,” said Chernow quietly, “apparently she was the most senior official who was wiling to serve after Ransom took off.”

  The General hung his head for a moment.

  “Is there even a point to this?” he asked.

  “General?”

  “We’re losing men and women along the road every single day. We still have hundreds of miles to go. Can anything be accomplished by continued resistance? I am seriously asking the question,” said General Wesley.

  “I think, if we get to Chicago and if we can hold out there for a little while, we can get a better deal. Especially if we can make it through January 20th,” said Chernow.

  “Especially with the U.S. Government putting officials of the Federation on trial for treason and other crimes,” noted the General.

  “Yes,” agreed Chernow, “it’s possible that Randall will be softer about those sorts of things at least.”

  No. 10 Downing Street, London, United Kingdom

  The new Prime Minister wasn’t quite sure what to think about the young American Admiral who stood in front of him.

  “You invaded sovereign British territory, but you also fought alongside our Navy,” said the Prime Minister to Rear Admiral Olivia Collins.

  “Yes, Prime Minister,” said the Admiral, “it was a confusing time.”

  The Prime Minister, a former Mayor of London, had been appointed directly by the King pending elections that would be held as soon as one could be certain that the government, especially its administrative branches, had been purged of all DU influence and all political prisoners could be released. As if that wasn’t enough for one man, one his primary tasks would be ensuring that, in spite of all of the recent difficulties, the “Special Relationship” between the United States and Great Britain could be fully restored. This was especially critical in light of the unremitting hostility of the reconstituted and Russian-led Democratic Union towards Britain.

  “Well, what matters is that we are all in this thing together now,” said the
Prime Minister.

  “Quite,” agreed Collins.

  “Alright then,” said the Prime Minister, “shall we get on with it?”

  .

  The Prime Minister, followed closely by Admiral Collins, Admiral Childers, Captain Welch, and Wing Commander Hennessy all walked out and into the carefully laid-out room that had been set up at Buckingham Palace. Prince Henry, wearing his heavily be-medalled dress uniform, was already waiting for them amidst the cameras of the world’s media. It had been decided that there was no better way to show the unity of the British and American people than ensuring that proper honours were laid upon those who had contributed to the most to the freeing of Britain during the late difficulties.

  “You go first, Dame Collins,” whispered the Prime Minister to the Admiral as they stepped into the bath of light set out by the cameras.

  XII Corps Headquarters, Markham, Ontario

  “That motherfucker,” said General Jackson as he read the latest updates from his own G2.

  “Sir?” said Colonel Benson.

  “Mackenzie,” replied Jackson, “that motherfucker is trying to come in here at the last minute - with the main body of the FNASA on the verge of surrendering, and he’s trying to steal all of the Goddamned glory. He thinks that they’ll find the Goddamned Fourth Infantry Division in their path and throw in the towel.”

  “Hmmm…” said Benson as she reviewed the map, “that seems quite possible. Can we do anything to stop him?”