“If so, then we need to be on our way too, Jace,” said Jenny, her face grim.
“I know, honey,” he said. “What’s that?” He shielded his eyes, looking at the sky to the south. It was a sunny day, but for several minutes, there seemed to be some kind of eerie light show far southward like lightning flickering in the distance, with blue lines nipping into the sky and fireflies winking and blinking high in the stratosphere. The Mama Bears continued shepherding their young charges onto the bus, and in a matter of minutes, they were all seated.
“We better roll, Jace,” his wife said. Then all of a sudden, the sirens stopped and there were three long honks, then three more, and then a final three. “What?” she exclaimed. “The all-clear already?”
Jason’s phone bleeped and he opened it. He was hooked into the special high-echelon command tweet. “Well, I’ll be hornswoggled!” he said with a grin of joy and relief. “Looks like that new anti-aircraft weapons system we’ve heard about works! Thirty-four planes and missiles headed for Missoula are now headed for the dirt! Looks like out of their whole first wave targeting this area, not a single one of the sons of bitches got through! Hot damn!”
“Oh, thank God!” said Jenny with a small sob. She looked up at Jason with tears in her eyes. “Jace…”
“We’ve been here before, Jen,” he said softly, kissing her forehead.
“I know. And it was always hideous, back then too. Never knowing if this was the last time.”
“We always met again, honey. We will this time, too,” he assured her.
“Sure,” she said with a wan smile. “But I thought the bad times were over there for a while. I really did. I convinced myself that they would leave us alone.”
“They can’t do that,” said Jason. “Free white men are a flaw in the pattern they cannot abide. Our very existence is an affront to them. It drives them insane. We’re living proof that their way is wrong, wrong, wrong, and every day that our society succeeds while theirs fails is another nail in history’s coffin for them. They had to try this someday.”
“I know,” said his wife, her eyes hardening. “But I will never, ever forgive those Zionist scum for making us go through this again!”
* * *
About five miles away, a group of around eighty men and boys in uniform was assembling on the tarmac at the Missoula airport. Half of them were aging or downright elderly men wearing NDF camouflage and collar tabs bearing the letter B. The other half were kids and gangly teenaged youths wearing dark green fatigues and garrison caps with green and blue neckerchiefs. This group included several twelve and thirteen-year-olds. In front of them stood a chunky yet fit-looking man in his early sixties, with a shock of white hair. “All right, come on, form up there!” he snapped at them. The two groups got into ranks. “Attention!” Both groups snapped to a passable attention. “Stand at ease!” They did so. The man spoke to them.
“For those of you kids who don’t know me, I am Sergeant First Class Eli Horakova, Northwest Defense Force Category B Reserves. That’s us old farts. For you old farts who don’t know these youngsters, this is C Troop of the Missoula Battalion of the Young Pioneers. Their troop leader is my son Thomas.” He pointed to 17-year-old Tommy standing in front of his troop. “Tommy just graduated from Missoula High School a few weeks ago, and normally he would be headed for the Labor Service and then on to basic training, but given the present emergency he and the rest of his troop volunteered to become part of the NDF’s Military Auxiliary Corps, otherwise known as the Cradle and the Grave.” There was laughter. “For the record, we are now Company A of the Third Battalion, Fourth Army MAC.”
Eli went on, “My other son Ed is with his own army unit down along the Bitterroot someplace. My daughter, my daughter-in-law, and my grandchildren are being evacuated by the EFPS as we speak. Our family fled to this country after Longview with nothing but the clothing on our backs and with the Chicago cops hot on our trail over a small matter of a dead nigger. We’re not going to run away again, and neither will any of you, or I’ll shoot you myself.
“I know we’re not full-blown soldiers, although some of us have been in the past, including some of our B-Specials who fought with the NDF during the Consolidation, and more of us who were with the American imperial forces in the Middle East. I myself did two tours in Iraq back in the day, and some of these older guys have campaign ribbons from there and Afghanistan and Iran and Gaza. You young men from the Pioneers, remember that. Some of us old guys got that way because we made it through a couple of wars. Listen to us, because we know what the hell we’re doing. You B-Specials, don’t be afraid to make use of the Pioneers’ youth and strength. We may not be over the hill, but we’re on the downward slope, and we need to face that fact. Don’t any of you give yourselves a hernia or a heart attack lifting something that’s too heavy for you or doing something you’re no longer up to physically, because you want to play iron man in front of the youngsters. Like any military unit, we have to work as a team. Everything we have in the world depends on it. We will be assisting the NDF basically as gophers, doing all the little odd jobs that need doing, here, out in the field, wherever they send us. Everything from directing traffic, to KP and serving chow in the mess tent, to running messages, to counting buttons and acting as supply clerks, to driving ambulances or trucks, anything that will free up one more combat soldier for the actual fighting itself.”
“Will we be issued weapons, Dad—I mean sergeant?” asked Tommy.
“Affirmative,” said Horakova. “Not Excaliburs like the line units, but M-Sixteens from the older stock the NDF has kept stashed away. They have tens of thousands of them, and plenty of five point five-six ammo. Just because we’re supposed to be support personnel doesn’t mean we may not have to fight. All of you who aren’t Middle East vets from back in the bad old days have had at least some training, either through the B-Cat course or the Pioneers, and all of you should be familiar with the Sixteen. God knows, I remember it well. That’s what we’re going to do now, get issued with weapons, magazines, ammo, and cleaning kits. Then we spend the rest of today guarding the perimeter around the airport and digging foxholes for shelter during the bombing attacks that are on their way, although maybe not. I was just informed before I came out here that the first wave of enemy bombers and guided missiles that was launched at Missoula has been completely destroyed by some new kind of ray gun that our National Mad Scientist Doctor Joe Cord came up with.” Cheers and rebel yells rang out along the tarmac
Eli went on: “When you’re out along the perimeter here, you will notice two groups of vehicles, including some flatbeds with funny electronic gear on them, things that look like satellite dishes and big movie projectors. That’s them. They have been assigned to protect the airport against aerial attack, although so far they haven’t been needed because our guys further south and east of here have already stopped the enemy aircraft from reaching Missoula. Each of those units will have NDF regulars assigned to guard them. Do not approach these vehicles, engage in any conversation with their personnel, or ask any questions. These weapons are still top secret, and as far as you are concerned, they do not exist. They’re just part of the scenery. Are we clear on that?” There were some nods and mumbles of agreement. “I can’t hear you!”
“Yes, sergeant!” shouted the men and boys.
“Good. Now we march over to Hangar Twelve like as if we were proper soldiers, which we are, where we will be issued our own weapons. Company, tenhut! Left face! Forward, march!”
* * *
At six p.m. Eastern Daylight Time, President Hunter Wallace, attended by certain Cabinet and White House staff members, took his first official briefing from the Joint Chiefs in the White House Situation Room. The mood was somewhat less than ebullient. Bluntly put, the first day of the invasion had been a disaster, and it wasn’t over yet. “The first thing I want to know is what the fuck happened to our satellite communications?” snapped the president. “Why am I still turning on CNN and fi
nding nothing but a picture of me with my mouth open, barking like a dog?”
“The enemy have uploaded some kind of computer virus onto the onboard hard drives and telemetry systems of every one of our birds, and they’ve not only knocked out our entire orbiting surveillance, they’ve wrecked almost the entire world satellite communications network,” said Admiral Hector Brava. “Every American and European orbital communications and ground surveillance satellite is out of commission, and that barking dog shot of you is now the only thing on hundreds of millions of television and computer screens from here to London and Johannesburg. The only exception are the Russian satellites, whose orbitals appear to still be functional. In view of their cozy relationship with the Northmen, that comes as no surprise.”
“Mr. President, could we please establish some conversational protocols for our meetings?” demanded an exasperated Janet Chalupiak, Secretary for Northwest Recovery. “The use of the term Northwest American Republic is bad enough, since it implies that we are dealing with some kind of actual country, but ‘Northmen’ is just as bad, because it gives the impression that these people are a real nation. They are not. They are a small group of racist, fascist and homophobic white male sociopaths who have been engaging in a criminal conspiracy against the lawful authority of the United States for the past seventeen years, and that’s all they are. We must not allow them to control the narrative with this absurd notion that they are a legitimate nation.”
“How about we just refer to them as those guys out there in the north woods who are kicking our ass?” suggested Vice President Hugh Jenner. He had just enough Oregon left in him to find Chalupiak’s patronizing political correctness and insistence on controlling the narrative herself for them all to be irritating.
“With all due respect, Mr. Vice President, that’s a damned lie!” said Marine Commandant Louis Battaglia. “United States Marines don’t get their asses kicked, not by anyone.”
“I think the late Delmar Partman would disagree, general,” said Jenner acerbically. “Wake up and smell the coffee, ladies and gentlemen. In under ten hours we have lost almost four hundred American air crews and six hundred aircraft, if we include Cruise missiles. We have inflicted only minimal damage on the enemy. In fact, so far as we know, we have destroyed not a single designated target. I fail to see how that can be spin-cycled into victory. We’re damned lucky most cable TV is out, otherwise the talking heads would be crucifying us!”
“Wait until our boys get their boots on the ground, Mr. Vice President, and then you’ll see,” said General Albert Scheisskopf.
“Speaking of which, do we have a single soldier inside the border of the racist entity yet?” demanded President Wallace.
“Not yet, sir,” replied Admiral Brava. “Because of your—because of the advancement of the schedule, it’s going to take a lot longer for the ground forces to get where they’re going. More distance to cover on their Baghdad Boogie. Group South was already in its staging area around Billings when you moved the mission forward this morning, so they’re set to roll, but Group Center is way out of position. They were supposed to start their push on Kalispell from the staging area on the Belknap Indian Reservation, but now the cat is out of the bag thanks to our lunatic CIA director, they have to begin their advance from Minot, North Dakota, which will put them almost three days behind. Group North will be even further behind, because they will be starting their northward flanking movement through Canada from Fargo instead of from Minot.”
“But Group South is in position?” asked Wallace. “Great! At least one of the columns will be on schedule! Order them to begin their attack right away, Brava! We can spin that, can’t we, Angela?” he said, looking at his press secretary.
“Sure,” said Angela Herrin confidently. “Fog of war and all that. The other two columns are a little behind schedule, but no biggie. We just tell them to step on it. I mean, they’re going to be rolling down paved highways, not route-marching over mountains.”
Brava and Scheisskopf looked at one another, appalled. Scheisskopf spoke first. “Mr. President, we’re talking about armies numbering hundreds of thousands of men and countless thousands of vehicles, not a vacation excursion in the family RV! Troop movements on that scale are complex maneuvers that have to be planned and organized like clockwork. But more than that, the whole crux of the plan as far as the ground invasion goes is that all four columns, our three and the Aztlan Mexicans, must strike together! We are going up against at least several million men on the western and northern fronts, and we have to advance on them simultaneously so that they can’t concentrate their forces on each column one by one. Otherwise, without our air power, we risk defeat in detail!”
“Did you say ‘defeat,’ general?” snapped Wallace. “Now that is a word that I will not hear in any conference or report again. Is that clear?”
“Speaking of the fourth column, how are our Mexican friends doing?” asked Jenner hastily. “Have they crossed the border from California yet?”
“Not yet,” said General Scheisskopf. “They were caught even more off guard by the abrupt move forward of D-Day than we were and they’re, uh, a bit more slow off the mark than we are. I think most of their troops are still down around Redding.”
Brava was staring at his laptop computer. “Not good,” he said. “I’ve just gotten an e-mail from our military liaison in Aztlan, Brigadier General Batista. He confirms that as of twenty minutes ago, V-3 Flying Bombs began falling on Sacramento and San Francisco. Some of them were high explosive warheads and have left impressive craters in the downtown areas of both cities, but others appear to be chemical and biological weapons. There are already reports of civilian casualties from what appears to be poison gas.”
“Where the hell are our Patriot missile batteries?” shouted Marlon Bagwell, the Secretary of Defense. “We gave them to the Aztecs to reassure them that wouldn’t happen!”
“The Patriots are firing and they have taken out a number of incoming V-3s without difficulty,” said Brava, “But apparently, the North—excuse me, the racist entity had a lot more of them than we gave them credit for. Bad intel again. Batista says there are hundreds of the damned things coming at them. Not too surprising since we figure a V-3 costs roughly half a million dollars to manufacture, whereas one Patriot now runs about fifty million, what with the damned inflation driving up costs by the month. The Patriots were designed to intercept and destroy intercontinental ballistic missiles carrying nuclear warheads coming out of the stratosphere at supersonic speeds, not repel what amount to spitball attacks by low-flying junkheaps coming at them almost at ground level in mass waves like a cattle stampede, and they simply can’t stop all the damned things. It takes time to reload each Patriot missile into the launcher, and they’re simply overwhelmed.”
“A harbinger of things to come,” said General Bellows of the U.S. Air Force. “We’re going to have hundreds of those nasty little Nazi torpedo boats coming at Task Force Soaring Eagle as well, thousands of those propeller planes and attack copters coming at our ground troops, and hundreds of battalion-sized units attacking our advancing troops.”
“That wasn’t supposed to happen!” cried White House Chief of Staff Ronald Schiff in alarm. “The bombing and Cruise missile strikes were supposed to take out all their rocket launching platforms and their airfields and naval facilities with the first few hours! What if they decide to attack Vancouver, Canada? There are over a hundred thousand Jews living there, many of them Second Holocaust survivors from Israel who are already terribly traumatized by the idea of rockets falling on them!”
“Do we have any idea how the hell they managed to get to our planes and missiles?” demanded Wallace.
“Apparently, some kind of laser or plasma ray weapon,” said Brava. “Not many of our pilots came back from the first wave, but those who did saw something that looked like beams of blue light coming up from the ground. Probably why the enemy call it Bluelight.”
“Maybe Kanesha was right a
bout the space aliens being on the Nazis’ side,” muttered Schiff. “Maybe she’s not so crazy after all.”
“I rather doubt it, Ron,” said Wallace acidly. “What about the second wave?” he asked Brava.
“We didn’t send in the second wave, of course,” said Brava. “I’ve also put the seaborne assault from the carriers in Task Force Soaring Eagle on hold as well, since we have no idea what we’re dealing with, and…”
“Son of a bitch!” shouted the President of the United States. “You mean we haven’t actually lost control of the air war, we’re just conceding it because we took a few losses?”
“Eighty percent casualties and over six hundred aircraft and missiles shot down is not a few losses, sir!” said Bellows sharply.
Wallace glared at him. “I’m no military man, but I know this country’s military history. Even I can see that we’re sending the cream of the United States Army and Marine Corps into combat against an enemy that outnumbers them by possibly as much as ten to one, and if we do not establish complete control of the air and start inflicting serious damage on the enemy’s strength and capability this could turn into a nightmare! What about the parachute drops? Did you abort them as well, Admiral Brava?”
“Sir, these things can take down B-52s, F-15s and F-22s five and a half miles up, not to mention Cruise missiles, and some of those aircraft were traveling at supersonic speeds!” protested Brava. “What the hell could they do to lumbering C-130s and other transport planes and copters flying slow enough and low enough to drop paratroopers? They’d be massacred!”
“So you’re sending three army groups in on the ground, blind in the sky and with no way to even tell where the enemy are, to be massacred instead?” demanded Wallace. “No, gentlemen, we have to turn their own trick on them. We have to overwhelm these ray gun things with sheer force and numbers! We have to get those bombs falling on their targets and get those paratrooper boots on the ground seizing their objectives and holding them in the Nazis’ rear! We especially have to start hitting their major industrial and population centers, even if only as retaliation for their goddamned Flying Bombs on Frisco and Sacramento! And above all, we have to get those satellites back on line, so we can see what the hell we’re doing and what they’re doing, and get that goddamned picture of me barking like a crazy mutt off people’s TV screens! What the hell do you think that does to our national morale, never mind mine? Admiral Brava, you will now do three things. First, you will immediately send orders for the second wave of bombing and missile missions to take off and hit their objectives like they should have done hours ago. Secondly, you will immediately order the planes from the navy carriers to take off and begin their attacks on the urban areas and enemy infrastructure along the old I-Five corridor, as they should have done hours ago. Finally, you will order the airborne assault planes to take off and drop those paratroopers. We will get this show on the road, dammit!”
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