by James Rosone
As their ships approached the coast of California, they received the order for them to suit up and move to their landing craft. They were going to be hitting the beaches of Camp Pendleton before the end of the day. For some reason, there was a lot of urgency to get the ground troops ashore; the Admirals must have known something they were not willing to share with the rest of the men.
Chang looked over his platoon and saw a lot of green faces. He also saw a lot of hardened combat veterans who had fought in Alaska and lived to tell about it. This would be their third beach assault of the war, and hopefully their last. The platoon loaded up into the landing craft, and soon they were on their way to the beach. From what Chang could see, the beach looked like it was not prepared to repel an invasion; this was good news. They might land unopposed. No sooner had that thought crossed his mind than the whistling of artillery could be heard as artillery shells began to explode all around their landing vehicles. As they got closer to the beach, they could start to see the silhouettes of Marines moving into fighting positions along the top of the rise, about two hundred meters away from the shore.
Using his binoculars, he could see these Marines were also equipped with their exoskeleton suits, though theirs looked to be a fully enclosed suit. As they neared the beach, they could start to hear the familiar sound of machine gun fire intermixed with explosions and yelling. Lots of yelling. Suddenly, the landing craft hit the beach and the rear ramp dropped. The platoon immediately began to run through the back ramp and headed towards the low rise at the end of the beach.
Chang also began to run towards the beach, yelling at the soldiers in his platoon to keep advancing and secure their objectives. The platoon ran as fast as they could, ducking and dodging as best they could through the hailstorm of gunfire being rained down on them. Dozens of soldiers were being hit, some getting back up and firing back at the Marines, others just simply dropping to the ground, dead. Chang raised his rifle as he ran and began to fire at the Marines. Suddenly, dozens of claymore mines were triggered and nearly three platoons of soldiers in front of Chang’s group were shredded to pieces.
He dropped to one knee and sighted in on a small group of Marines manning a heavy machinegun. He fired several rounds, hitting one of the Marines in the face, killing him instantly and wounding the other two Marines near him. Without missing a beat, those two other Marines he had hit got right back up and began firing at him and the men around him. He thought to himself, “Their armor must be stronger than we thought. This is not good.”
One of the Chinese destroyers came closer to the shoreline and began to provide direct fire support, hitting several of the Marine heavy machinegun locations and other strongholds that the PLAN infantry was having a hard time securing. Chang’s platoon made it to the edge of the beach and proceeded to fight several of the Marines who stood their ground in hand-to-hand combat. He shot one of the Marines several times in the chest, only to see that Marine pull out his pistol, shooting and killing two of Chang’s men. He put several bullets into the Marine’s face shield, finally killing him.
That first wave of Marines lost the beach quickly; they did not have nearly enough time to prepare a proper defense that could stand up to the PLAN infantry like the American Army soldiers had done in Alaska. Chang looked back at the beach and saw bodies everywhere. Then he saw the second and third wave of Marines starting to move towards the beach. Just as the PLAN soldiers began to run up the beach to reinforce his men’s position, the soldiers started to stumble and fall. At first it was just one or two, then it was everyone he was looking at. He thought for a second, “Maybe the Americans just hit us with some sort of chemical weapon.” However, as he looked around, the men weren’t dying, they just could not move in their suits. Just as Chang went to stand up and try to help some of them get to cover, his suit suddenly stopped responding. He couldn’t stand. In that moment, he knew something bigger was going on.
Zero Day Arrives
26 December 2041
Ft. Meade, Maryland
NSA Headquarters
Neven Jackson was drinking his second 16 oz. Rip It energy drink and eating some chicken wings when his boss, Colonel Jeff Blount, walked in and interrupted his blissful meal. “Neven, you need to be ready to activate your zero-day virus on the Chinese exoskeleton suits soon. The Chinese are going to be launching a massive beach invasion along several points in California. It’s go time.”
Colonel Blount escorted him and another hacker to the command center that was monitoring the various landing sites. As Neven walked into the room he couldn’t help but be impressed (this was the first time the colonel had brought him into the command center). He quickly showed him and his friend Milo two open seats near some of the airmen who were controlling the various drone feeds that were bringing up real time images of the invasion on the beaches. As Milo and Neven took their seats, they saw explosions taking place across the shore. In between the various blasts, they could see what appeared to be soldiers being thrown into the air like rag dolls. Some of them had legs or arms simply ripped right off.
Milo asked one of the sergeants, “How many people are in each of those landing vehicles?”
The sergeant replied, “The armored vehicles carry ten soldiers and have a crew of three; the landing craft can carry as many as thirty men, and the larger hovercraft can carry close to one hundred people, or several armored vehicles.”
As they watched the scenes unfold, Neven couldn’t help but realize he was witnessing the death of hundreds of Chinese soldiers. In the past, Neven had never seen the results of his hacking actions, just read about them. Now he was going to witness the entire scene live.
Colonel Blount turned to Neven and Milo and said, “It’s time to activate the virus.”
Neven’s fingers began to tap away on the keypad in front of him; he was opening various windows while Milo began accessing the backdoor they had established so Neven could begin dropping in the various activation codes. Glancing up from his monitor, Neven saw the first wave of Chinese soldiers hit the beach; he was amazed at how fast the enemy soldiers moved across the beach in the exoskeleton suits. He was also appalled to see how fast many of them were being killed by the Marines trying to defend the beach.
“Neven, when the second wave of soldiers hits the beach, we need you to activate the code. Our Marines are going to get wiped out if you guys cannot turn their suits off.” Jeff was normally a big tough guy, but as he spoke, there was genuine concern in his voice.
Neven and Milo could tell the situation was very tense. These men and women were scared that the Chinese might succeed--what would that mean for the war? Though Neven had never really been scared before, he was starting to feel a bit nervous.
As Milo opened the backdoor, Neven brought up the files and execution codes that would disable the exo suits. They saw the second wave of landing craft and vehicles hit the beach and thousands upon thousands of new soldiers began to rush up the beach. It was scary to think that so many men with guns were storming an American beach, trying to kill Americans.
Colonel Blount turned to Milo and Neven, directing, “It’s time gentlemen. Turn their suits off.”
With that, Neven hit the enter key on his computer and saw that the code had been accepted. He looked up at the monitors and waited to see if the suits would turn off. At first nothing happened. Then, sporadically a couple of suits started to fail, then seconds later all the suits began to seize up. At first it was funny to see the soldiers simply fall over as their suits were disabled. Then after a few minutes, it appeared the Chinese figured out the suits were not going to work so they began to climb out of them. They once again resumed their charge up the beach to join the rest of their comrades.
Neven looked at Colonel Blount and said, “Sir, I thought this would stop them. What did I do wrong?”
Colonel Blount responded with uncharacteristic compassion in his voice, saying, “Neven, you did not fail. What you just did is give our guys a fighting chance t
o win. We knew the Chinese would leave the suits and continue to fight, but without their suits the odds of our guys winning went up significantly. Now the Chinese must fight as regular old-fashioned infantrymen while our Marines and Soldiers attack them using the Raptor suits.”
Neven felt better that he and Milo had not failed, but as they sat there together in silence watching the battle unfold on the monitors, he couldn’t help but feel sick to his stomach as he watched thousands upon thousands of Chinese and American soldiers battle it out, in some cases engaged in hand-to-hand combat.
As the battle raged on, a new drone feed was being shown. This one was looking at the Port of LA and Long Beach, which showed dozens of large transports and container ships offloading tanks, troops and helicopters. These were clearly Japanese soldiers that were also a part of the invasion. The drone zoomed back out, and they got a glimpse of smoke and fire in a number of different locations. There were two ships near Santa Monica Island that were on fire and not moving and then there were hundreds of smaller little fires throughout LA and the surrounding cities.
Milo leaned in towards Neven and whispered nervously, “It looks pretty bad out there, do you think we are going to lose California?”
“I’m not sure Milo, but it seems like they might. If we do, I think America is in serious trouble.”
Breathe Through the Pain
26 December 2041
Apple Valley, California
Third Army Headquarters
General Gardner’s left hand was throbbing; the medic had asked if he wanted some pain medication for it, but he had declined. He needed to keep his wits about him, so he would have to endure the pain for the moment. General Gardner had relocated the headquarters element of his command to a National Guard Armory in Apple Valley after Twenty-Nine Palms had been hit by a dozen cruise missiles. The Command Post he had been working out of along with Lieutenant General Peeler had been hit; the attack killed a number of his staff and General Peeler’s staff as well. His Marine Commander had been seriously injured, and was taken to the base hospital while General Gardner tried to have the XO located so he could take over command of the Third Marines.
The missiles that hit Twenty-Nine Palms had devastated the base. Several columns of Marine tanks and infantry fighting vehicles had been destroyed, along with 32 Razorbacks and a lot of the ground support aircraft. The Air Force lost 109 aircraft at March Air Force Base alone. The Japanese cruise missiles had also hit Nellis Air Force Base in Las Vegas.
Gardner had to admit, the Japanese had really blindsided them. As he tried to plan what the next possible actions were, he was distracted by his own pain. “My hand is really throbbing,” he thought. “I may need to take a pain killer just so I can focus…I think I might even lose that finger.”
Snapping himself out of these thoughts, General Gardner barked at his operations officer. “Colonel Mason, what is the status of the beach invasion at Pendleton and San Diego?” (Colonel Mason had been the J3 executive officer or XO when they arrived at Twenty-Nine Palms. His boss, Major General Pina, had been killed during the cruise missile strike, so for the time being he was General Gardner’s J3 or Operations Chief.)
“Sir, the Base Commander reports the Chinese have broken through the beach and are currently fighting all throughout the base. He has been slowly moving most of his troops to Oceanside, where they are going to make the Chinese fight house-to-house. He has also established the blocking force you requested at Pala Mason and I-15.”
Showing a new image with data overlaid on it, Colonel Mason moved to San Diego, “Sir, the PLAN infantry have secured most of the naval bases in San Diego and the harbor. There is currently sporadic fighting taking place throughout the downtown area and around the Navy SEAL training facility. The SEAL Commander there said they should be able to hold out for a while, so long as the Chinese do not bring any heavy naval gun support.”
“I hope those SEALS are able to hold out; unfortunately, I doubt we are going to be able to get them any reinforcements any time soon. What about downtown LA? How are things going?” asked Gardner.
Colonel Mason grimaced slightly as he pulled up the latest reports. He explained, “Things are not nearly as good as we would like to have seen by now. The problem we are running into is the mass number of residents trying to flee the city. We have over one million people, either in vehicles or on foot, all trying to use the main highways and the side roads leading away from the city. Meanwhile, our armored vehicles and soldiers continue to try and get to the port. To make matters worse, the JDF carriers are now in range of using their aircraft and they have been strafing the civilians who were trying to flee. I’m sure they are doing this in part because they know that our forces will stop to render aid and it further slows our progress.”
An idea seemed to pop in Colonel Mason’s head, and he changed topics for a moment. “A suggestion that came from that one of my NCOs was for us to temporarily stop the advance into the city and just focus on using our transport trucks and helicopters to evacuate as many people as possible to get them out of our way.”
“Hmm, that is a thought. However, we cannot leave our forces already in the city to die on the vine while we work on relocating hundreds of thousands of people,” Gardener responded. He turned to his Air Force LNO, “Colonel Drewing, how soon can we gain air superiority?”
Colonel Drewing looked at General Gardner with a disappointed looked, saying, “Sir, I would say maybe another day, two tops. The Navy says the JDF carriers are starting to head south, so if that’s true, then the number of enemy aircraft over the city will drop significantly. We lost a lot of aircraft at March, Nellis, and the naval air station in San Diego. We’ll get air superiority, but it won’t be for at least twenty-four to forty-eight hours.”
Gardner took a deep breath, during which time he seemed to process millions of possible scenarios in his mind. “All right. Here is what we are going to do then. Colonel Drewing, what aircraft we do have, I want them to focus on hitting the enemy air defense systems they have established. We need to take them down so our helicopters have a better chance of survival. Colonel Mason, have our soldiers dismount from the trucks and move into the city and reach their objectives on foot. Use the trucks to move as many civilians as possible to San Bernardino. We need to get them out of our way so our tanks can get through. Second, I want to get our Razorbacks to start ferrying in as many soldiers and marines as possible to their objectives (or as close to them as they can). We have to get at those ports or we are going to be up a creek without a paddle.”
“Yes, Sir,” both colonels replied.
General Gardner looked down at the holographic map again. “Mason, how soon until the Blackjacks arrive?” (The 2nd Armored Brigade from the 1st Armored Division also known as the Blackjacks was the closest heavy armored brigade General Gardner had, and he wanted to get them into the fight soon. The Marines had several battalions of Pershing main battle tanks, but the Blackjacks and the rest of the division had 900 of them--more than enough to steamroll through whatever the JDF and Chinese had on shore.)
“The lead elements are about six hours away; the rest of the division should arrive in San Bernardino in about 16 hours. They will be ready to advance into the city in about 24 hours.”
Gardner grunted an acknowledgement. “What’s going on with our forces near City Hall and the downtown area? Also, have we been able to get some eyes on the ports yet?”
“Unfortunately, Sir, we lost City Hall and the surrounding area. Our troops put up one hell of a fight in the city, but just as we thought we had the enemy on the run, two battalions of heliborne troops from the JDF Marines arrived and reinforced their troops on the ground. We did shoot down seven troop helicopters and four attack helicopters--”
The Air Force LNO interjected, “--We also lost five F38A fighter drones and two A10 Warthogs in the battle as well.”
General Gardner let out a quiet groan.
Colonel Mason continued with his brief. “
Sir, what’s left of the soldiers we sent in have fallen back several blocks further to the east and are hunkering down and waiting for reinforcements. They took some pretty heavy casualties.”
“Why are we not sending more Razorbacks into the city to provide our guys with more support?” asked Gardner huffily.
“We have, Sir. We’ve lost thirteen Razorbacks in the last three hours alone, bringing more troops into the city and evacuating casualties out,” Colonel Mason said, exhaustion dripping from his voice.
Seeing the frustration and exhaustion on the faces of his officers around him, General Gardner said, “Look, I know everyone is tired and frustrated right now. We are going to have to deal with this one problem at a time. You all know what needs to be done, and I know I cannot snap my fingers and make things better. What I need from you is to take a deep breath, calm yourselves down and put your thinking caps on. We need to reason through this problem; come up with ideas on how we are going to get more troops into the city in a coordinated manner and defeat this invading force. Intelligence says there are over forty freighters and transports lining up to unload their troops and tanks at the port. Time is not on our side. Just focus on the task at hand and do not let your anger or frustration get the better of you. I need to go call General Branson and see if we can get some additional help. In the meantime, execute the orders you’ve been given.”
