by Rosone,James
Many of the scientists involved in Operation Pegasus were single, career-minded individuals who were able to leave for some time and easily explain their absence as business trips. Dr. Karl Bergstrom, who would be the lead geological astronaut in charge of planning the excavations on the surface of the Moon, did have a wife and two children. He felt horrible about it, but he had led them to believe that he was in the CIA; it was the only way to really explain why they were also being assigned Secret Service protection. His wife Amy, who was an independent and adventurous sort of woman, decided that the best way to handle this intrusion in her life would be to move to a more remote town in the mountains, where she could homeschool the children and work on her botany experiments in peace. While she didn’t know the full truth of the situation, Amy did know that her husband’s sacrifices were for the good of the nation; that was enough to keep her going.
The communications were a bit spattered (no Skype or FaceTime sessions would be available for them, even during the training period while he was still in the United States), but Karl did the best he could to send messages back home, and he would even sometimes create videos of himself reading books to send back for the children. Every time he would come back home, he would be surprised by how much his children had grown; these sacrifices were deep (like many made by members of the military and their families throughout generations), but they were crucial to ending the conflict in the world. Karl dreamed of a day in which his children would no longer live in a planet at war.
*******
To further hamper the American war efforts, the Chinese continued to unleash wave after wave of cyber-attacks across all aspects of American life. Since the Chinese’s successful attack against the American communications grid at the outset of the war, the government had quickly broken the energy grid down into dozens of smaller nodes to ensure that no one node or group of nodes could cause a cascading event that could spread across the entire nation. The Chinese had continued to target the grid on multiple occasions; some nodes had been taken down, temporarily knocking out power to a single state (or a portion of a state), but that was it.
The US was also waging a cyber war against China; however, they were not having even a shred of the amount of success that the Chinese had been having in disrupting the American way of life. So, to play to their strengths, the U.S. was trying another way to combat these attacks; whenever an opportunity presented itself, the US Navy would launch a series of Tomahawk cruise missiles at the locations where the cyber-attacks were originating from. In some cases, they were successful and hit the targeted compound, but at other times the cruise missiles were shot down before they hit their mark.
*******
The Navy’s Swordfish Underwater Drones (SUDs) were also starting to have a greater influence in the Pacific. The Navy still only had a small number of these underwater drones, but they began to seek out and hunt specifically for PLAN transports, fuel tankers and cargo ships. The four SUDs in operation were sinking (on average) nine ships a month, which was starting to have an impact in the volume of supplies and equipment the PLA was receiving in Alaska.
While the Americans had introduced the SUDs in the Pacific, the Russians had introduced a very similar type of underwater anti-ship drone in the Atlantic. Like the SUDs, the Russians only had a limited number of these underwater vessels, but they were becoming extremely effective in finding enemy ships and sinking them. This was starting to cause a shortage in materials and other essential equipment needed for the war in Europe as key transports were starting to be sunk.
The war in Europe had become bogged down in Germany; the Russians had captured large portions of eastern Germany, while the Allies sustained their hold on the rest of Germany, as well as the region down through Austria, Slovenia and Croatia. The Russians continued to train hundreds of thousands of new soldiers, and kept the pressure on the Allies; they had not been able to force a breakout since their initial attack that captured Berlin and nearly captured Hamburg.
Smart and Bored
16 September 2041
National Security Agency
Neven Jackson was a twenty-three-year-old computer hacker who worked for the National Security Agency (NSA). He was not here by design; he had hacked the FBI database as a prank when he was a freshman at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), and he had been caught. He thought he had shielded his activities, but he had missed something, and as a consequence, he was arrested and given a choice--either work for the government as a paid hacker, or go to prison for a very long time.
Neven, preferring a life outside of barred walls, had chosen to go to work for the NSA, and he had spent the last several years playing defense against Russian and Chinese hackers who were becoming more and more sophisticated in their attacks. Since the start of the war, he had been transferred to the “Red Team” and been given full permission to hack in to any sector of the Chinese economy and military systems and cause as much havoc as he could. This opportunity was like a dream come true. During the first several months, he had successfully shut down the power in two provinces for several days, caused the ATMs in one city to empty all of their money, and completed a number of other malicious activities.
Today, however, was a special day. Two weeks ago, he had been assigned the task of infiltrating the Chinese exoskeleton combat suit program, and yesterday he had successfully found a backdoor in to the source code (it was too bad that the Russians used a different operating system, or else they would really have something going). He had spent the better part of the day writing a zero-day code to be placed in the exoskeleton suits’ operating system. Once the update was sent out by the program developers, this code would be dispersed to all of the combat suits that received the update. The code would then lie in wait, ready for it to be activated. Upon sharing his discovery with his superiors, they had worked with him to develop a special surprise. The next time the PLAN infantry attacked the Americans using these suits, they would suddenly find that the entire left or right side of the suit had been essentially disabled. This would confuse the ranks, making them think that the suits were experiencing mechanical problems, and throwing the scent off away from the real issue of a software problem. When the PLAN infantry did attack, their entire attacking force would suddenly find themselves stuck in malfunctioning exoskeleton suits at the worst possible moment. Of course, this attack could only be used once so finding the best opportunity to use it was going to be critical.
Trying to See Eight Moves Ahead
17 September 2041
Washington, DC
White House Situation Room
The President was becoming nervous after reading through the various intelligence reports and summaries of the numbers of Chinese troops arriving each week and their grand totals. As of that moment, there were nearly one million enemy soldiers on American soil. Now there were reports that millions more were on the way, and President Stein was unsure if even the mighty Third Army could stop them; they were still close to sixty days away from being fully ready for combat after their R & R and training, and no one knew how many more Chinese soldiers would be on American soil by then. General Black (the Second Army Commander, and overall Commander for all US Forces in North America) was doing his best to keep the Chinese bogged down. Thus far, his efforts had kept the Chinese from being able to break out of Alaska, but that would only last for so long.
The President sat at the head of the table with the rest of his National Security team and his senior military advisors trying to ascertain what their next move should be. “General Scott, what is the DIA’s assessment of what the Chinese may do next?” asked the President, wanting to get a better picture of the Pacific and Asia.
Lieutenant General Rick Scott prepared to speak. He had been the Director for the Defense Intelligence Agency for nearly three years; however, he and the President had a very checkered past. He had nearly been fired in the opening days of the war with China because of his disregard of what his other inte
lligence departments had been warning him about with regards to the Chinese. LTG Scott had believed (like many others) that the Chinese had too many economic ties with the US and Europe to risk an open war. Like everyone else on that ill-fated date, he was proven wrong when the Chinese launched a massive surprise cyber-attack against the American communications grid, taking AT&T, Sprint and many other internet and cable providers down for nearly two months. Verizon was the only internet and data provider who had survived the Chinese cyber-attack; they had essentially prevented the entire government and country from what would have been a full economic collapse. The CIA and the Joint Counterterrorism Task Force (JCTF) had also missed the warning signs of an imminent attack by China; it was for that reason alone LTG Scott was not relieved on the spot--that and his ability to work with British Telecom and Verizon to quickly get America’s cell phone and data providers back online in two months. He had been redeeming himself ever since.
LTG Scott finished his preparation as he brought up some images from his tablet to the holographic map at the center of the table for everyone to view. “Mr. President, there are two items of concern. The first is the massive troop movement we are seeing in the North China Sea; it would appear they have assembled a convoy of nearly 280 troop transports. Each transport can carry 3,000 troops; if they load them up with only troops, then they will be bringing 840,000 fresh troops to Alaska.”
Audible sighs and groans could be heard throughout the room. “The second area of concern is the activity we are seeing in Hawaii. The Chinese have spent the last two months doing a lot of repairs to the facilities there, and they have repaired all of the runways on the island. They presently have a garrison of 20,000 PLA soldiers there, and they were just augmented by 30,000 PLAN infantry. The PLAN is currently moving their entire amphibious assault capability to Hawaii, along with four of their five carriers from Alaska. They have started a massive airlift of their PLAN infantry from the Mainland to Hawaii as well,” LTG Scott explained as he showed more images of what was transpiring.
“Are you suggesting that the Chinese are planning another amphibious assault, possibly against California or somewhere along the West Coast?” asked the SecDef Eric Clarke.
“Yes Mr. Secretary, it would appear so.” Scott replied.
The President looked around the room and asked, “Any suggestions on where they may be heading and what we should do about it?” He was hoping to hear some good ideas from his brain trust.
Patrick Rubio, the Director of the CIA, chimed in, “If I were a guessing man, I would say they will look to land their troops in the Pacific Northwest, most likely in Oregon or Seattle. This would put them in position to cut off our entire force in Alaska and put our guys in to a terrible position for retreating.”
“You don’t think they would go for Los Angeles?” inquired General Branson, curious to know his logic in his assumption.
“No, I think they would like to avoid the urban areas and focus more on defeating our Army rather than capturing a symbolic trophy. We can trade land for time and maneuverability; they are most likely going to look to defeat our armies and then have free range.” Director Rubio said.
The President asked, “Can we shift our SUDs to focus more around Hawaii and help to keep that amphibious group from going too far?”
Admiral Juliano, the Chief of Naval Operations (CNO) spoke up, “We can, Mr. President, but I doubt it will make that much of a difference; we just do not have the numbers. Personally, I do not believe the Chinese are going to launch another amphibious assault. I know the intelligence says otherwise, but the logistical capability of the PLAN does not support it. The PLA is chewing through resources in staggering numbers in Alaska. The PLAN support ships are having a hard enough time trying to keep up with them. Throw in another 840,000 soldiers into that mix, and they will be thoroughly overwhelmed. They just do not have the logistical capability to support two landing zones like that.”
“So you think this is a diversion?” inquired the President.
“I do. I believe they are going to send their PLAN infantry to Hawaii and train them hard for a few months, making us think and believe they are going to launch another landing. In doing so, they will force us to tie up hundreds of thousands of soldiers and precious materials on the West Coast, as opposed to having them engaged in the fighting in Alaska. They know we rotated the Third Army in, and this is their attempt to neutralize General Gardner by having him chase a ghost invasion that will never happen.” The CNO was very matter-of-fact in his response.
Director Rubio interjected, “Mr. President, I have to disagree. If we do not take this threat seriously, they could potentially cut our entire force off in Alaska, and if we send General Gardner’s army in as well, then we have little in the way of forces that can be used to defend the West Coast.”
The Admiral quickly cut in, “I understand your concern, Director Rubio, but the logistics do not lie; they could land those forces, but they would run out of fuel and munitions within a week. Then they’d have a large amphibious force on the ground with no ammunition. This is meant as nothing more than a distraction to tie our forces down.” The Admiral was speaking with great force and conviction to hammer home his point. “Furthermore, it’s not your people who are going to have to do the fighting Director. Our intelligence does not support the information the Agency has been pushing, and we categorically disagree with it as fiction.” This last point was made in quite a sharp tone towards the CIA Director, to a point that the room suddenly filled with awkward silence.
Lately there had some friction between the Services and the Intelligence Community (IC). The CIA and DIA had really fouled up the intelligence about the IR prior to their sneak attack, and then again had been completely wrong about the Chinese. The Services had developed a real dislike for the IC outside of their own intelligence channels, and often brushed their assessments off or disregarded them entirely. The Army, Navy and Air Force shared intelligence seamlessly as they fought hand-in-hand; this intelligence sharing stopped or was reluctant when it came to disclosing anything with the CIA. Despite the fact that the NSA and DIA were military-run organizations, the Services still did not trust them because of their ties with the CIA. This distrust of each other’s intelligence was becoming more apparent during each of the National Security Council meetings, and it was going to need to be addressed.
The President raised his hand to stop the parties from bickering further. “I agree Admiral; the PLAN logistics do not support a second large-scale invasion. However, that does not mean we can just ignore the PLAN infantry build-up in Hawaii either. For right now, we will not shift men or material around to the West Coast; we will move some air assets to attack their ships if they venture away from Hawaii, but that is it. Our main focus has to be on stopping the Chinese in Alaska and pushing them into the Sea,” the President spoke with force and conviction in his voice, which commanded respect and attention from both parties. “I want one of our two F41 flights to be focused on defending the West Coast and harassing the Chinese efforts over Hawaii, while the other flight continues to stay engaged in Alaska. As soon as the third flight of F41s is complete, they are to head to Europe. We may not be able to commit a lot of ground reinforcements to Europe, but we can send them additional air support as it becomes available.”
Shifting in his seat before continuing, the President redirected, “I want to discuss Japan and India next. I have a feeling more is going on between China and India than we would like to believe, and frankly, I’d like to know what the heck the Japanese are doing as well.”
Director Rubio pulled some information from a folder on his tablet and brought it up for the group. “With regards to India, we do believe there is more going on. Since the non-aggression agreement was signed, the Indians have started construction of 86 new troop transport ships, 19 amphibious assault transports, 46 new attack submarines and two supercarriers. All of these appear to be of Chinese design and specifications. In addition to the naval
ships, they have started manufacturing the Chinese main battle tanks, infantry fighting vehicles, munitions and other tools needed for war.”
LTG Scott added, “Their ground forces have also started a series of training exercises. Most of them appear to be armored and urban warfare exercises, which leads us to believe the Indians may not stay as neutral in this war as we had hoped. Albeit, we have not intercepted any information suggesting they are going to join the Chinese, or obtained any human intelligence on that matter just yet, but their training cycle, type of training, military manufacturing and increases in the size of their military suggest that they are at least planning on a future military engagement.”
The room sat silent for a minute digesting what they had just heard. Could it be possible that India would join Axis powers and turn on the Allies?
The President made a sour face before adding, “This information about India is troubling to say the least. The last time I spoke with the Indian PM, he was short and curt with me. He had expressed his outrage at our use of nuclear weapons against the IR. He further voiced his anger at the fallout that was landing across India. When I communicated with our Ambassador to India last week, he said they had seen a massive uptick in anti-American demonstrations. I believe we should plan on the Indians joining the Axis at some point, and continue to pray they do not. We should look at using cyber-attacks against any manufacturing production that is being used to support the Chinese war effort. No need to let them off the hook entirely.”
