Invasion: Alaska

by Vaughn Heppner

  “What the heck?” Stan whispered.

  Another volley roared from American cannons, and another T-66 blew apart under a hammering hail of massed fire.

  “He’s killed two T-66s,” Jose said in awe.

  The third Chinese monster fired its three guns. WHAM! WHAM! Two of Benson’s Abrams flew apart, one in a ball of fire. The remaining tanks fired back, and the third T-66 was destroyed.

  “He did it,” Stan said.

  “And he’s advancing on them!” Jose shouted. “He’s attacking the enemy.” Jose whirled around in his seat. “We have to help him. Let’s hit them now, Professor. Let’s drive these Chinese out of Alaska.”

  It took Stan a moment. Then he gave the order, deciding they had to attack while they had the chance.

  At that moment, Chinese attack helicopters rose into sight. There were a mass of them. They launched ATGMs at Benson’s tanks.

  The massed M1A3s put up a hail of machinegun fire. From behind the trenches, American SAMs launched. Missiles, 25mm chaingun-fire and lead filled the air. Helicopters exploded, as did big Abrams tanks. Black smoke poured from other helicopters as they veered away. Abrams tanks raced in various directions. They used the terrain to try to duck out of sight of the remaining helicopters. It was confusion for a time, chaos. Once the last helicopter left the battlefield, more T-66s appeared. There were six this time, double the number as previously.

  Benson’s Abrams no longer fired in union, and now the big Chinese guns boomed. It was a bloodbath as the two sides continued to hammer at each other.

  MOOSE PASS, ALASKA

  Brigadier Hector Ramos leaned his elbows on the outer hatch of his nineteen-ton Stryker. Behind him on Highway Nine were the remnants of the 1st Stryker Brigade and his Militiamen. All his combat vehicles, including the Humvees, had scotch marks or holes. Ammo was low. Soldiers were exhausted. Before him at the Junction were the sounds of battle and the grim silhouettes of one hundred ton tanks. Behind him on Highway Nine that led to Seward came the Chinese of the Vice-Admiral’s brigades.

  “What do we do, sir?” asked Major Philips. “We’re caught between two forces.”

  Ramos stared at the Junction. He’d heard Philips by radio. The fight was almost over at the crossing. The National Guard and Army grunts…it was amazing they’d held out so long. A small trench line had been dug nine miles away on Highway One. It was supposed to be the new holding position. The way things looked here, however….

  “We could have used those Army Rangers to help stem the tide,” Philips said.

  “The Army Rangers and others are fighting the Eagle Teams in the airport,” Ramos said. “Everyone headed toward us has turned around to save Anchorage. They have to knock out those Eagle Teams before more Chinese land there.”

  “I know,” Philips said. “You’ve explained it to me. My question is: what do we do now? Our united front is just about smashed, with no reinforcements coming to help save our bacon.”

  Ramos scowled at the glowing red haze that was the Junction. He turned and scowled down Moose Pass. His brigade and Militiamen had been worn away. He had to save these weary men. He snapped his fingers. He had an idea.

  “What miracle are you going to produce today?” Philips asked.

  “Not me,” said Ramos. “But there might be one coming.”

  “What do we do?”

  Ramos pointed where the enemy T-66s roamed. “We roar through the Junction. The miracle lies there, with two enemy forces trying to use the same highway. It’s called a traffic jam. The Junction is a gauntlet now, and we’re going to lose men and vehicles. But in that direction lays our hope. Are you ready?”

  “Give the order, sir.”

  JUNCTION ONE/NINE HIGHWAY, ALASKA

  “That’s it!” shouted Jose. “We’re down to four shells.”

  Stan had circles around his eyes and the inside of the Abrams smelled like gunpowder. Outside the tank was bloody snow, shell-holes, corpses, burning Marauders, burning IFVs, Bradleys, an obliterated M1A2 and too many destroyed M1A3s. There were also seven wrecked T-66s. Some had lost treads. Others were smoking hulks. A few had engine failures and they had been swarmed and destroyed.

  “Go, Hank,” Stan said. “Just go.”

  The big tank lurched. A roar sounded. An enemy shell screamed past, but it missed.

  “Faster!” shouted Stan.

  At that moment, Strykers appeared from nowhere. Their M2 Brownings and the auto-grenade launchers added to the mayhem. The Strykers appeared, and they roared down Highway One. Humvees tried to do the same trick. Half of them exploded, flipped or the drivers pitched forward, instant corpses. It was another bloodbath, with Chinese vehicles and men firing into the cauldron.

  Stan’s tanks were the rearguard. They fired. The machineguns blazed, and the last Americans bolted from the battlefield. Despite Major Benson’s initial successes, it had been a rout and a battle of annihilation.

  This had happened before, but reinforcements had always been busying setting up another line of defense in the rear area. Those troops that would have done so were in Anchorage or they were heading back to help throw out the Eagle Teams at the airport.

  It looked like the way was open for an even faster Chinese advance, maybe to the very gates of Anchorage itself.

  -15-

  Deer Hunters

  WASHINGTON, D.C.

  The President strode into the conference chamber of White House Bunker Number Five. He approached his chair, stopped and scanned the expectant throng.

  Anna Chen watched from her spot at the table.

  A wintry smile twitched President Clark’s mouth. “I have an announcement to make,” he said. “It’s the first piece of good news I’ve had for some time.”

  “Sir?” asked the haggard Secretary of State.

  “I’ve just spoken with the Prime Minister of Canada,” Clark said. “The opposition Party threatened a vote of no confidence. They knew many of the Prime Minister’s Party members were angry with his do-nothing policy against the Chinese.”

  “Are the Canadians finally going to help us?” the Secretary of State asked.

  Clark frowned.

  Anna wondered if he wanted to savor the news before telling them.

  “Yes,” Clark said. “Even as I speak, Canadian fighters are heading for Anchorage. If we’re lucky, they’ll keep the Chinese from landing reinforcements at the airport.”

  “We must take the airport back!” the Defense Secretary said.

  President Clark sat down at the table. “The Canadians are rushing airborne troops there to help us do just that. They’re also airlifting defensive equipment.”

  “What kind of equipment, sir?” the Defense Secretary asked.

  “Canadian laser batteries and SAMs,” the President said.

  “Why did they wait so long?” asked the Secretary of State.

  Clark shook his head. “I don’t know. But we have a chance again. We have a window of opportunity to rearm Anchorage. The Chinese are grinding our Air Force down to nothing, but this infusion of planes will help us keep fighting a little longer.”

  “Thank God for that,” the Defense Secretary said.

  “Now if we could just get the Mexican government to loan us equipment,” Colin Green said.

  “It would help,” said Clark. He slapped the table. “The Canadians are keeping us alive. Now we need to do something to end this war. We need ideas.”

  “We need more troops,” the Defense Secretary said.

  Clark turned to General Alan. “What’s happening on the Northern Front?”

  General Alan cleared his throat and began to speak.

  SOLDOTNA, ALASKA

  Pastor Bill Harris lay on cold earth as he peered through his binoculars at a convoy of Chinese vehicles. They were big trucks, and they were full of supplies, using the Number One Highway. Pines grew tall on the other side of the road.

  “Well, Pastor?” asked the man beside Bill.

  Sergeant Bill Harris of
the Alaskan Militia lowered the binoculars. Over a week ago, he’d fought T-66s at Cooper Landing and barely escaped from his foxhole. His hearing was still lousy, with a constant ringing in his ears. Maybe as bad, his back hurt all the time.

  He opened a bottle of aspirin, pouring three capsules onto his palm. He’d run out of Advil several days ago. He popped the aspirin into his mouth and began chewing. They were dry and bitter, but they helped battle the pain.

  Bill lifted his bottle toward his friend Nanook, who sat nearby, deeper in the woods. The Inuit mechanic wore what looked like a turban. It swathed his face, with only his eyes showing. He had bad burns and he’d lost all his hair. Nanook shook his head. The man was a liability stuck out here behind enemy lines, but there was no way Bill was going to leave his buddy behind. He’d vowed to bring his friend home to his family.

  “Well?” asked the man beside Bill.

  Bill caped the bottle and shoved it into his pocket as he stayed on his belly. He wanted to go home to his wife and kids. He also wanted to stop the invasion.

  The blasts that had destroyed a T-66 at Cooper Landing had also rendered Nanook unconscious. Three Militiamen had dragged him out of the battle and hidden with him as Chinese infantry swept the area. Now the five of them remained free, although they were behind enemy lines. The Chinese advance had passed them a week ago.

  “We can still help our side,” Bill had told the others last night as they sat around a campfire in the woods. He had gotten sick of doing nothing.

  “How can we help?” had asked a man named Carlos Martinez.

  “Do any of you remember our invasion of Iraq thirty years ago?” Bill had been thinking about this for some time.

  “The first or second invasion?” Carlos Martinez was a bank clerk who loved hunting like Bill. Carlos was also a corporal in the Militia and a member of Bill’s church.

  “The second invasion on our drive to Baghdad,” Bill had said.

  “What about Baghdad?” Carlos was a thin man with bowed legs. In another life, Carlos had played basketball after church some Sundays with Stan and the others.

  Last night, Bill had told them what Stan Higgins had told him before. “We sliced through the Iraqi Army back then. Nothing could stop our tanks and APCs.”

  Carlos had watched him closely.

  “The great fear on our side was that Iraqi commandos or soldiers would hit our supply columns coming behind the tanks. The supply vehicles were thin-skinned, mostly Army trucks. The Iraqis hit a few, but never in any number. Well, we have a similar situation here. The Chinese aren’t just roaring through to Anchorage in a few days, but there’s not much to stop those T-66s for long. Luckily for us, the terrain gets rougher the closer they come to Anchorage. My guess is it’s a mess right now, if I know Stan Higgins. The Chinese are grinding through. That means they must be burning up lots of supplies, particularly ammo.”

  “What’s your point?”

  “We’re still stuck behind enemy lines, but we’re alive and we have weapons and enough .50 caliber ammo to do something. I say we start hunting Chinese supply vehicles. We do what Saddam’s Iraqis should have done to us.”

  “How do we stay alive at the same time?”

  “By judiciously choosing our time of attack.”

  “What do you say?” one of the other Militiamen had asked Carlos. “Do you think that’s a good idea? I want to get out of this mess. I don’t want to play the hero and end up dead.”

  Carlos had scratched his head, nodding after a time. “I remember my schooling about the American Revolution. Most people didn’t do anything back then. They just wanted to stay alive, a perfectly good thing, I might add. But that kind of thinking wouldn’t have won America its freedom. Maybe one third of the population was for American Independence. Even less fought for their freedom. Well, I want to be one of those who fights for liberty. I want to be free. Tell us what to do, Pastor.”

  “I don’t know,” the other Militiaman had said. “We’re just five men. What can five men do to change the tide of war?”

  “Men defend their home,” Bill had said. “Alaska is our greater home and we must defend it.”

  “I agree to that,” Carlos had said.

  Bill Harris swallowed the last of his aspirin now as he lay on his belly at the edge of the woods. He counted six big Chinese Army trucks heading up the road. There were soldiers in the cabs. The nearest section of road was a football field away from their position. Soldotna was only a few miles away from here. If they attacked, the Chinese military would have to react. The five of them would be hunted men after this.

  “It’s time,” said Bill, who crawled backward, a little deeper into the shade of the pines.

  Wearing his duck-hunting camouflage gear, Carlos crawled beside Bill.

  Nanook slowly climbed up from where he sat. “You need help?” He slurred as he spoke.

  “Yes,” Bill told his friend. “You help me and Carlos.”

  The three men picked up an M2 Browning machinegun. With the tripod, it weighed one hundred and twenty-eight pounds. They lugged it to the edge of the forest. The other two Militiamen wrestled a second M2 into position.

  “We’re only going to take one of these weapons with us once we’re done attacking here,” Bill told the others. “So you don’t need to worry about saving ammo for your gun. Aim low, and try to fire in bursts. Start with the front vehicle and make it stop. Then work back to the next truck. If you see any soldiers jumping out, and especially if they’re firing at us, kill them. Any questions?”

  No one had any.

  Bill took a deep breath. The big trucks took a bend in the road. He could hear them shifting gears as the trucks began to climb. Soon they would be in range. Why did his stomach have to clench so tightly? He’d been in combat before. He was a veteran, but he sure didn’t feel like one. Did a man ever get used to this?

  Nanook panted as he knelt beside the tripod-mounted M2. Carlos readied more ammo belts, ready to feed them into the death-dealing weapon. In World War One, machineguns like this had been the big killer.

  “If we cut the supply lines their army will wither away,” Bill said softly. “We’re not cutting that line here, but we are going to make them bleed. If we can make them bleed enough, the Chinese attack will collapse.”

  Carlos nodded.

  Bill waited as the trucks kept grinding up the rise, and his stomach churned even more. He didn’t want to murder men, and this felt close to murder. But the Chinese had invaded Alaska. He had a right to defend his country. The Chinese had better tanks, while their side had little to face the T-66 monsters. Therefore, he had to fight with what he had, but against Chinese he could beat.

  Taking a deep breath, aligning his sights on the lead truck, on the cab, Bill depressed one of the buttons with his thumb. The M2 Browning had a V-shaped “butterfly” trigger at the very rear of the weapon. With his thumb down, the M2 hammered out armor-piercing incendiary tracer bullets. It was a visible stream of death. Bill adjusted as he hosed the lead truck. Then the bullets began puncturing the cab. As they hit, the bullets smoked on contact as designed, helping Bill to know where he hit.

  A second later, the heavy truck slewed across the highway. Then it skidded. Bill could hear it from here. A moment later, the truck flipped onto its side because the driver must have cranked the steering wheel too sharply. The driver must have panicked or maybe he’d been dying.

  The other machine-gunner shouted wildly as crates flew out of the flipped truck.

  Now the other trucks stopped. Cab doors flew opened and Chinese soldiers jumped down onto the highway. They gripped assault rifles. Some dropped onto their bellies and began firing. A few ran for the side of the highway.

  Bill took his thumb off the trigger-button and swiveled the machinegun. He opened fire again, adjusting as the tracer rounds visibly shot over the enemies’ heads. Then running enemy soldiers began falling as he hit them. Those on their bellies must have seen the tracer rounds. They must have visibly
followed them back to their source, because the enemy redirected his assault-rifle fire. Bill heard bullets hissing past him, while bark flew off nearby trees.

  Bill began shouting as the .50 caliber weapon chugged away. It was better at long range than the assault rifles. Then an enemy bullet hit Bill in the chest. He tumbled backward and lay on the cold dirt breathing heavily.

  “Bill!” shouted Carlos.

  With a groan, Bill sat up and scrambled back to the machinegun. Looted durasteel body-armor had saved him from death. If the Chinese had fired .50 caliber bullets, the armor wouldn’t have saved him.

  “You okay?” shouted Carlos.

  For an answer, Bill gripped the machinegun and began firing again. He scowled fiercely, determined and shooting with bitter accuracy. It was grim work, and he began hitting Chinese lying on the road.

  “You don’t get to win this time,” Bill whispered. Suddenly, his machinegun went click, click, click.

  An enemy bullet whanged off a tree. Another shot hissed uncomfortably near. It made his chest throb where the enemy bullet had hit his armor.

  Carlos opened the machinegun’s latch. He slid in the next belt and chambered the first round. “Ready!” Carlos shouted.

  Bill began firing again. One of the trucks behind the remaining soldiers lying on the road exploded in an orange fireball. The M2’s incendiary rounds were made to ignite fuel tanks. Three of the nearest Chinese leaped to their feet.

  Bill cut them down. They fell in such a ragged way that it almost didn’t seem human. One of the Chinese pitched his rifle away in his death throes. Another of them curled up on the road like a burning bug. This was terrible, but Bill had to do it. He knew he’d feel guilty later. It made him think of Stan’s dad killing men in Afghanistan. No wonder Colonel Higgins’ mind had turned on itself. This was sickening, but it was better than dying himself.