Already on board was Leach’s personal adjutant, Lieutenant Commander Lyle Waller. “Good evening, sir,” said Waller, saluting. “I believe you’ve met this boat’s skipper before, Lieutenant Torrance?”
“On several occasions, yes,” said Leach, returning Torrance’s salute. “I’m sorry to lumber you and your crew with my presence tonight, Lieutenant, since I know you’d rather be fighting those Jew-loving pirates out there than baby-sitting the big skipper, but unfortunately somebody had to draw the short straw.”
“It’s an honor to have you aboard and to have One-Five-Seven play a part in history tonight, Admiral,” said Torrance in a firm, quiet voice. He gestured to three men standing at attention behind him on the deck. “This is One-Five-Seven’s crew, sir. My first mate is Petty Officer Jim Vance, this is Torpedoman Al Briggs, and Seaman First Class Mike McCluskey.”
“Good to be sailing with you tonight, men,” said Leach. “All that gear set up in the pilothouse? Sorry about the tight squeeze.”
“It’s all up and running,” said Waller.
“You remember all that techie stuff TWD taught you in case it goes down, Lyle?” asked Leach.
“Yes, sir, I know, we decided against the extra weight of a technical crewman,” said Waller. “Sure you wouldn’t have preferred to run the show from one of the destroyers out of Bremerton? They at least have a proper galley.”
“We’re going to need the few destroyers we have for sub-hunting,” said Leach. “There are two missile subs out there in that task force that we’re not going to be able to do a damned thing about from a TAC boat or a punchie, so long as they stay submerged. I don’t want them creeping into the Puget Sound and launching a missile at point blank range that those Bluelight things may not be able to stop. We know the Harriet Tubman and Jesse Jackson are equipped to fire nuclear warheads. We have to find them and make sure they don’t.”
* * *
Eddie Horakova’s 75-millimeter field gun was dug into a small scraped-out embrasure among some straggly pine trees, about eight hundred yards from the Black Buffalo Bridge over Grasshopper Creek. The emplacement was shielded from direct observation from the front by a small roll of terrain that was too minor to be called a ridge, but provided a good solid shield of rock and earth against ground fire.
The noise was incredible, like nothing any man there had ever experienced, or any modern Tolstoy could have described in writing. The Northwest artillery literally shook the ground, as did the incoming shells of the American tanks and cannon, some of which had struck and destroyed NDF positions. An aid station had been set up back behind the ridge, and medevac Heeps with red crosses were crisscrossing the battlefield on the western side of Grasshopper Creek like angry beetles, sometimes taking fire themselves and rolling over as they wrecked. The thousands of small arms sounded like rain or hailstones rattling a tin roof that encompassed the entire sky. Eddie looked up from his semi-covered position, and before the sun went down completely he saw against the deepening blue sky a strange gray or brown shimmering in the air, almost like aurora borealis. It took him a while to realize that what he was looking at was a sheet of thousands of rifle and machine gun bullets whipping through the air.
There were NDF gun emplacements off to his right and his left, and behind him a self-propelled 88 had taken up a firing position on the crest of a hill, from which the crew blasted away. “That crew’s pretty exposed, don’t you think, Sarge?” asked Corporal Eckhart, jerking his head back towards the 88.
“See those guys hunkered down in the bushes off to the right and left?” said Horakova, nodding. “They’re SAM teams. They’ve put that 88 up there as bait in case the helicopters come back, offering them a nice juicy target to lure them within range of the missiles.”
“What about enemy artillery?” asked Gunther.
“You’re a gunner, you ought to know how hard it is to hit a target right on a ridge line,” said Eddie. “Your first shells almost always overshoot or fall short. Those guys are counting on us to take out any American guns before they make the range. Let’s make sure we do.” They already had done; in the first minutes at Grasshopper Creek, General Herb Smith, the American commander, had confidently sent forward his Abrams Tanks, his self-propelled M101 guns, and his 105-millimeter howitzers to try and cover his infantry from the deadly small arms fire, so they could break through the Northmen’s center. So far, they had failed. It seemed the Americans could no longer hide behind plates of thick armor any more than they could hide in the sky.
The Americans had not only failed, but although the NDF men stretched out along the ridge and now in the woods along either side of the 4th Mechanized Brigade could not know the full extent of the damage, the enemy had been clobbered by the flight of twelve Luftwaffe Songbird dive-bombers that had hit them twenty minutes before. The Songbird was a twin-engined propeller-driven plane slightly larger than the old German Stuka, but with a much tougher and more flexible construction that allowed for far greater wind shear resistance, g-force resistance and stress on the wings. They could land or take off on runways as short as 800 feet, and they could come in on a bombing dive at a screaming 300 miles an hour, drop a 250-pound SuperSem bomb down a chimney with pinpoint accuracy given a properly trained and skilled pilot, and pull out on a dime fifty feet from the ground. It was true that American F-15s or F-22s could have taken them out with ease, but thanks to Bluelight, no such American aircraft were available. Although dead slow by 21st century aviation standards, an airplane traveling at 300 miles per hour is still quite hard to hit with ground fire, as the American troops were discovering. The Songbirds had unloaded 24 250-pounders on the Americans, scoring a hit with each one, and the winding Valley Road as it descended from the hills toward the creek was now littered with burning Abrams tanks, artillery pieces, and trucks, not to mention dead GIs. General Herb Smith surveyed the damage done in the two-minute air raid up and down along the road with horror.
Ed Horakova and his crew relied for fire control on directions from the Eighth Battalion’s forward observers, who were now lying in prone positions up ahead studying the small valley with their specially calibrated binoculars, which helped them to estimate distance. Eddie knew the head of the team personally, Sergeant Joachim “Dago” Degenkolb, because in civilian life he was a technical draftsman at the Northwest Steelcor tool and die plant where he and his father both worked. “All right, she’s cooled off now,” decided Horakova. His gun had been resting after the first 100 rounds fired for the mandated ten minutes in order to let the barrel and the breech block cool down, and also so they could stock up on more shells. A Ground Hog with a special suspension and shock absorbers had chugged up during the break, and the crew had helped the truckers unload case after case of 75-millimeter combat shells, four rounds per case. These they then broke open, and loaded the shells into their own side racks behind the cannon. The 75’s combat rounds were lighter than the old World War One version, because in the interest of less weight the cases were made of special hardened plastic, almost like big shotgun shells. There had been a debate over weight versus reloadability versus the amount of brass and steel necessary to use metal casings, and the General Staff had finally compromised. Practice rounds for the artillery range were made of brass and were reloadable, while the combat rounds were made of biodegradable plastic and disposable, thus increasing mobility and reducing the workload of troops on the battlefield who didn’t have the time or the transport to pick up and haul thousands of empty shells back to the rear lines.
Horakova took off his fatigue shirt; even though it was almost dark, it was still hot as an oven. He kept his garrison cap with the eagle and swastika on, and over his ears the muffled headset that both contained his radio and muffled the sound of the shells firing so as to keep him from going deaf. He slammed a shell into the breech and got on his radio to Sergeant Degenkolb. “Fire control, this is two-eight. We’re back up. Give us some niggers to shoot at.”
“Sounds good, two-eight,”
came Degenkolb’s voice over the radio. “We’ve got another self-propelled 101 coming out of the woods blasting. Two gun, lay on at 34 degrees azimuth and four degrees left from your position, adjust three clicks to the left, and give me a spotter round.”
“Thirty-four up, four left, click three left,” called out Horakova. Corporal Eckhart made a few adjustments on the weapon’s battery-operated hydraulic aiming system. The gun barrel moved slightly up and to the left.
“Up!” he shouted back.
“Fire!” ordered Horakova. The gun gave what sounded like a heavy thud that vibrated through the ground to the crew, all of whom were wearing earplugs so as not to be totally deafened. Horakova waited for a few second and said, “How’s that, Dago?”
“Damn if you didn’t clip one of his treads off!” crowed Degenkolb. “Okay, Eight Battery, all weapons, let’s finish this bastard off! Give me five rounds of rapid fire from your present declensions, all of you!” The Eighth Battalion guns, three 75s and two 88s, sent 25 shells downrange in a matter of a few seconds. They were rewarded by a dull rolling thud that they could hear even over the noise of battle. “Got him!” yelled Degenkolb into the microphone. “Nothing left but burning scrap!”
From his observation post behind a large and now bullet-scarred spruce tree further down the ridge, Colonel Alfred Packer got on his radio. “Okay, the sun’s down. Right and left wings, are all battalions in position?”
“Affirmative, sir,” came a chorus of reassurances over the radio.
“Sergeant Sedley, can our bird still see anything over there, or is it too dark?” asked Packer.
She shook her head, looking at her laptop. “The heat signatures from all the weaponry have been obscuring everything for a while, sir, but—no, wait, sir, I can see what looks like major heat moving to the south and north from the Valley Road. The Americans may have decided to wait until dark to try and begin their own flanking movement to get around us.”
“Yeah, well, they’re in for a surprise. They’re gonna find us waiting for them in those woods and hills.” Packer got onto his radio. “Right and left wings, looks like they’re coming to you. Move forward and engage.”
* * *
The inside of the pilothouse of TAC-157 was dark, with only the lights from the instrumentation for illumination. The whole fleet was running dark through the inky sea, with only two small running lights on the bow and stern of each vessel, absolutely necessary to prevent collisions between the Kriegsmarine vessels in the pitch-blackness of the moonless night. The sea was calm, which was a blessing because it enabled the attacking fleet to stay together and stay on course. “We couldn’t do this in January or March,” Lieutenant Torrance had commented once during the trip. All around them the men in the pilothouse could see the firefly-like running lights bobbing and occasionally dipping in the trough of a wave, and the long, low gray shadows of the TAC boats themselves. TACs were deliberately built low in the water, to keep their radar and gunnery profile as low as possible. The MACs were bringing up the rear.
The Operation Sea Lion assault fleet had crossed the deadly Graveyard of the Pacific, the Columbia Bar, with no difficulty due to their vessels’ shallow draft, and was now about 45 miles out, halfway to the American fleet ahead of them, moving toward the enemy at a fairly steady twelve knots. There were around 225 TAC boats, many of them newly rushed off the dry docks at Bremerton and Portland in the past few months since the NAR had learned of the impending American invasion, with green crews and barely any sea trials. There were almost a hundred of the smaller MAC boats, some also with new crews.
Eight of the TAC vessels carried no torpedoes, but were specially equipped with Bluelight projectors and crews, a last minute innovation in an attempt to prevent the fleet from being torn to pieces from the air. There had been no testing because at the time, the American satellite surveillance system was still up and running and the NAR didn’t want to give anything at all away about Bluelight. Leach didn’t even know for sure if the seaborne projectors would fire.
At the same time, the fleet had departed to attack Task Force Soaring Eagle, almost three dozen U-boats, small submarines roughly the size of their ancestors of World War One, had departed from their pens at Newport, Hammond, and Westport, and were now sailing southward towards the California coast. The submarines were too slow and easy for the American destroyers to sink to engage in open battle against the might of the U.S. Navy, but they could fulfill their traditional role as commerce raiders and start taking out some of the great Chinese container ships that kept Aztlan supplied with cheap manufactured goods of the kind they could not make for themselves. A dozen of the larger U-boats were headed even further south, to blockade the western approaches to the Panama Canal and cut into container ships from China and India headed for ports on the American east coast. Mighty Mart would soon be running low on unnecessary plastic objects.
On the downside, after much consultation and mental anguish, Leach and Basquine had decided not to risk any of the Luftwaffe’s precious jet fighter-bombers on the American naval targets after all. The American ships’ computer fire controlled chain guns and their variety of surface to air missiles would simply render the whole exercise a pointless act of hara-kiri. There would be enough sailors dying tonight in head-on attacks against the floating fortresses, without adding the Republic’s few jet combat pilots as well.
“Third Squadron is in contact now, Admiral,” said Lieutenant Commander Lyle Waller. “Commodore Dalen’s compliments, so forth and so on. They’re about two miles off the port side.”
“They made good time from Newport,” commented Leach, drinking black coffee from a thermos flask. “Tell them to fall in. We’ve all practiced this maneuver on nights this dark and in worse weather, so they should be able to do it nice and smooth.”
“They’ll have to cut loose their MACs,” said Waller. The TAC boats from the more far-flung bases had towed the missile-launcher boats from their bases so as to preserve the smaller vessels’ limited methane fuel tanks.
Lieutenant Torrance spoke up. “Still, Phase One has been accomplished without a hitch, sir. We’ve managed to rendezvous over three hundred vessels, at night, in pitch darkness. And no sign of the enemy.”
“Oh, they know we’re coming, Lieutenant,” said Leach grimly. “Or if they don’t, they soon will. There are at least two AWACs planes on those carriers, and unless Warner is a blithering idiot he’s kept one of them in the air at all times. Oh yes, they know we’re coming.”
“ETA within striking zone of the enemy in about three hours, sir,” said Lieutenant Commander Waller. The long lines of low gray shapes continued to plow through the wine-dark seas, their methane engines rumbling into the deep.
On board the American flagship John F. Kennedy II, named after the carrier that had been destroyed and sunk in the Bremerton Navy Yard by the NVA during the War of Independence, Vice Admiral Hiram Warner listened to the report of his AWACs radar plane with some concern. “Say again? How many?” he demanded.
“Over three hundred small vessels, sir,” came the voice of the AWACs pilot.
“Damnation!” muttered Warner. He turned to his XO, Captain Alvin Larsen, and said, “That’s a lot of torpedo boats coming at our asses. How many F-14s and F-18s have we got left, Al?”
“Four on this vessel, three on the Partman, five on Kitty Hawk,” said Larsen. “If we had our full complement and they didn’t have those damned space alien ray gun things, we could gobble them up like sharks.”
“Scramble our remaining planes and get them out there sinking as many of those nasty little bastards as they can,” said Warner. “I hate to waste a fifty million-dollar Sidewinder on what amounts to a glorified motor launch, but I don’t want all three hundred of those things coming at us at once. Tell the pilots to use depth-charged bombs as well as their missiles and strafing guns. Then once the planes are launched, begin dispersal and evasion maneuvers for the task force.”
“We’re running from a bun
ch of cheap-ass little boats that should be hauling tourist excursions across some bay, sir?” exclaimed Commander Rufus Washington, a large, very black, very nappy-headed man who was Soaring Eagle’s RSM—Required Senior Minority officer, who had to sign off on all decisions made by the fleet commander and fleet executive officer.
“There are thirty-six vessels in this task force, Commander,” said Warner patiently. He hadn’t gotten where he was in the United States’ service without acquiring the delicate but vitally necessary art for all Caucasian personnel of explaining himself slowly and clearly to bone-headed niggers and other minorities who had the power to impede and negate his work. “We are outnumbered over ten to one, by much smaller vessels, true, but each of which has at least one device on board, be it a torpedo or missile, which is capable of inflicting serious damage on our own ships and possibly sinking them, including the one we’re standing on now. Evading a hostile enemy with the capability to destroy us in order to preserve the command and save American lives hardly counts as cowardice.”
“What if the Nazis have those ray gun things on their torpedo boats now?” asked Larsen.
“Then we damned sure run!” said Warner. “We keep underestimating these people, like that stupid n… like General Rollins did at Sunset Beach,” he hastily amended, remembering the presence of Washington. “I don’t care how it looks. Three hundred of them on us all at once, they’re bound to sneak a few torpedoes and missiles past us and get some hits. Our mission is done here; our aircraft went out and most of them didn’t come back, and if those computer jockeys in the Pentagon won’t let us go ashore with our Marines and Seals and a naval land force and open a fourth front, then we’re useless. I’d rather have a hasty and undignified exit on my record than the loss of an aircraft carrier.”
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