Invasion: China (Invasion America) (Volume 5)

by Vaughn Heppner

  “Can’t he see reason?”

  “He sees his strengths,” Anna said. “He owns Mexico. With the five million troops there, he realizes it’s a powerful card to play against us. If Russia backs out of the China War…America can’t defeat the country on its own.”

  “At least not without our ICBMs.”

  “Do you believe in mass murder?”

  “Only if that’s the only option,” Levin whispered.

  Before Anna could utter a rebuttal, Levin moved away. She watched him merge into the crowd. The aroma of coffee caused her to stare at the cup. Steam rose from it. She took the handle and sipped. Hmmm, it was good. Yes, it was better than what David used to serve.

  Why had Levin brought Hicks? Why did armed majors stick close to McGraw? Did they plan a coup, or fear being knocked out of the triumvirate? Harold had tons of Militia guards down here. He was the king. It struck her as foolish for the others to attempt a coup in White House Bunker #5.

  She sipped again. A coup—how did that compare to the possible beginning of full-scale nuclear war?

  TAIYUAN PBW STATION, SHANXI PROVINCE

  From the launch in Montana, through Low Earth Orbit and space-dropped down into Shanxi Province, five miles off target was the next thing to precision. Paul scowled as he thought about that. The precision had cost them nineteen out of one hundred and forty-six Marines so far.

  His right knee throbbed, but the painkillers worked after a fashion. He felt the wound, but it didn’t travel up to his groin with near-crippling agony anymore.

  The men raced down a slope, bounding toward a giant clamshell on a nearby hill. Huge block buildings surrounding the particle beam station. The thing was like a circular granary, squat and powerful. The clamshell’s firing mechanism shield was built like a soldier’s visor. When it lifted, the particle beam cannon aimed into the heavens. Presently, the thing was shut tight, with five tri-turreted tanks clanking out to do battle with the Americans.

  Using magnification, Paul spotted enemy soldiers on the roofs of the block buildings. They would be the last line of defense. The five tanks would be the final A-team the Marines had to tackle.

  Even as he thought that, the first tank fired one of its cannons—a tongue of flame appeared. The penetrator screamed with speed, and it hit a man, killing the American as it blew him and his armored shell backward.

  The platoons were out of nuclear missiles, but that wasn’t going to matter this time.

  “Use your ramshell launchers,” Paul said. “If you don’t have one, keep jumping.”

  He had one. He’d taken it off a dead Marine. Once more, Paul skidded to a stop. He lifted a long launcher, activating it. Kneeling, he raised the tube so it rested on a shoulder. Then he picked a target.

  Vaporized butane fuel filled the launch pipe, injected ahead of a special depleted uranium penetrator. The smoothbore launcher was an inside-out ramjet. His helmet beeped. He had lock-on. Pulling the trigger released a small propellant charge in the penetrator, getting it going. The charge sped through the air-fuel mixture, using ramjet power to build incredible velocity, over 6000 meters per second. Because this thing was a recoilless weapon, a giant fireball appeared at both ends. The 40mm penetrator roared toward the targeted T-66.

  All across the slope, other fireball blooms appeared with the velocity of low-end coil-guns. Instead of needle-like penetration, the penetrators struck with hammer blows.

  The tri-turreted tanks fired back at their tormenters, taking out three more Americans, but that was it. The ramshell launchers worked to perfection—there were too many shells at once for the enemy’s defensive fire to knock all of them down. It happened in a matter of seconds. Hatches blew from the one-hundred-ton monsters. Flames licked out of them and one big tank flipped onto its side as the treads continued to churn.

  Paul shouted orders as he stood up. He reloaded his ramshell launcher. Now he targeted the nearest block building and then he fired his first round at it. After that, he shot another penetrator every nine seconds.

  Other Marines did likewise. The Chinese defenders over there used light machine guns to shoot back. They might as well have used peashooters. Chunks of building exploded away. One entire side crumpled, taking a dozen riflemen with it.

  Paul saved the last ramshell, and he ordered the rest to do likewise. Then he bounded at the structures. So did one hundred and nineteen other Marines. They stopped before the ruined outer buildings. One wall took that moment to slide down, sending up billowing dust. After the dust cleared, more fireball blooms appeared. A dozen ramjet penetrators opened as many holes into the PBW Station.

  “Let’s finish this,” Paul said. “No mercy. Kill everyone inside and then we demolish the place.” After that, he would radio a place in Manchuria and tell them, “Mission accomplished.”

  -15-

  Hypervelocity Missiles

  WASHINGTON, DC

  Anna watched with awe and growing trepidation. The big screen showed a satellite map of China. The last PBW station winked offline. They were gone, all of them. Despite everything the Chinese could do, the powered armored Marines had worked as well as hoped, maybe even better. She prayed the men could escape on their lifters and reach American lines. It would be a pity if they died now.

  Everyone down in the bunker stood and cheered, including Director Harold. She’d never seen him this animated. The Chinese no longer had any particle beam cannons to protect themselves. Well, she took that back. The Chinese Navy still had three battleships that mounted PBWs. Those weren’t going to stop America’s hypervelocity missiles, though, so they didn’t really count.

  Was this truly the beginning of the end of civilization? If America used its ICBM arsenal to burn China, wouldn’t that start a nuclear winter, worsening the global cooling even further? This was terrible. Hong would launch his ICBMs in retaliation. He had to. Some of those missiles would get through America’s strategic defenses. The ABMs had never been designed to be perfect, just to stop most of the enemy’s attack.

  Anna watched Director Harold. He lowered the fist he’d been pumping into the air. He straightened his tie before turning to his comm-chief. “Give the order,” Harold said. “Tell them ‘Code Linebacker Three.’”

  Anna shivered. The end was near, very near. She couldn’t believe this was happening.

  DAOYIZHEN, LIAONING PROVINCE

  With an assault rifle in his hands, Sergeant Jake Higgins walked the perimeter of their defensive area. Destruction loomed everywhere he looked, miles of rubble, of ruined buildings. At least the oil cloud was long gone. That had been bad. He’d dug black snot out of his nose for days.

  The sun appeared from behind a cloud. Jake realized it was going to be another hot and muggy day in southern Manchuria.

  He shifted his body armor, thinking about taking it off for once. No, that’s not a good idea. The Chinese might bombarded them with artillery just for kicks or maybe to make sure they were awake. For the past few days, it had been quiet. But you never knew. He wondered when the fighting would heat up again. For sure, he’d like a break from it, maybe for another fifty years or so.

  He heard a crunch of gravel, and the shift of a boot. “Do you hear that?” Chet asked from behind.

  In fact, Jake did. He looked up, turning toward the American back area. Holy cow, would you look at that. Someone launched a big one, a sleek missile roaring flames as it headed up.

  “Why’s it so near the front?” Jake asked.

  “Who knows?”

  They watched the big missile. The thing climbed fast.

  “Never seen one that looked like that before,” Jake said.

  “Doesn’t matter,” Chet said. “A missile’s a missile.”

  “You sure?”

  “Of course I’m sure. Nothing ever changes.”

  Jake shielded his eyes from the sun, watching the missile climb into the clouds. He didn’t know why, but he had a feeling that Chet was dead wrong about this one. The missile felt different. I
t felt…pregnant with possibilities.

  He shook his head, and he shifted his body armor, beginning to scratch his chest. Just how long would this war last? With a twist of his head, he tried to spot the missile, but it was gone, going to whatever destiny lay in store for it.

  HENAN PROVINCE, CHINA

  The TRX-3000 Hypervelocity Missile Jake had seen lift off reached Mach 18 as it flew for its target. Chinese ABM radar arrays easily gained lock-on. Heavy antiballistic-missile lasers speared true, touching the skin of the TRX-3000. The laser systems failed to move quickly enough, however, to keep the hot beam on target. The laser slid off the fast-moving missile, unable to heat the surface enough to produce a telling effect.

  The TRX-3000 continued on its flight path, too fast for anyone to get a real grip. Sonic booms littered its way. There was nothing quiet or easy about the missile. Speed, baby, the thing moved at the speed of final justice.

  Panic raced through the Chinese Missile Defense network. They had to get this Mach 18 vigilante and the others just like it. If they didn’t—

  BEIJING, CHINA

  In horror, Shun Li watched the wall image. Chinese technology showed the ABM lasers as red light, although in reality they were invisible to the naked eye. The beams could hit the missile, but never for long enough to destroy the thing.

  “It’s too fast,” the chief technician told the Chairman.

  Hong paced back and forth before the wall image. The Lion Guards watched him, and Shun Li detected nervousness among them. Clearly, the guards feared a highly agitated Leader.

  With a snap of his fingers, Hong turned around. His eyes seemed to shine as he said, “I have it. We must explode nuclear weapons before them. That will do something. It must.”

  No one said a word.

  Hong pointed at his chief military aide. “Alert the—” He frowned. “Who should we call?”

  The military aide stammered.

  “We must call someone!” Hong shouted. “We must launch nuclear weapons and knock down these missiles with the blasts.”

  “P-Perhaps if we use tactical nuclear weapons—” the aide said.

  “Yes, yes,” Hong said. “Find the locations of the tactical launchers and order the officers to time the nuclear ignitions so the warheads explode in front of the hypervelocity missiles. I can’t think of anything else that will work.”

  “At once, Leader,” the aide said, tapping his console and sending the messages.

  WUHEN STRATEGIC ABM STATION, HUBEI PROVINCE

  The TRX-3000 Hypervelocity Missile first launched in Daoyizhen, Liaoning Province, screamed for its targeted destination.

  Antiaircraft guns put up a withering blockage of exploding shells, dotting the flight path with black marks in the air. A piece of shrapnel got lucky, striking the warhead cone of the descending TRX-3000. That destroyed the triggering mechanism, making it a dud nuclear warhead.

  At Mach 18, the TRX-3000 proved to have excellent targeting precision. The giant missile stuck the generating plant of the ABM laser station. The impact blast of the speeding missile shook the concrete housing. It began a friction fire as wires and generating equipment began to burn with intense heat.

  For the moment anyway, the strategic ABM laser system lacked power. It would take weeks of frantic work to rebuild a new generating plant. But it was repairable instead of an irradiated pile of rubble. The antiaircraft guns had saved the main laser housing, but it would be offline for quite some time to come.

  GUIYANG STRATEGIC ABM STATION, GUIZHOU PROVINCE

  A nuclear fireball from a different TRX-3000 obliterated the Guiyang Strategic ABM laser system. The defenses there failed to destroy the American missile. Thus, it too went offline, and it would stay so until someone built an entirely new plant.

  TAIYUAN, SHANXI PROVINCE

  “Ready?” Paul shouted. He’d opened his faceplate so he wouldn’t have to use the radio. The knee didn’t hurt so much now, as the painkillers numbed the agony.

  He, Romo and others gripped an upside-down lifter. The Taiyuan PBW Station had ceased to function. They’d left it, backtracking to the landing zone, using markers to the dropped lifters. This was the last one.

  “One, two, three—heave!” Paul shouted. Together, the Marines lifted the side of the vehicle with their strength augmentation. It went up, threatened to stall and come crashing back down, but it made to the tipping point, crashing against the ground right side up.

  “Oh-oh,” Romo said.

  “What now?” Paul asked, turning toward his blood brother.

  Romo’s faceplate slammed shut. The radio crackled in Paul’s headphones. “Helos coming from the east: looks like three gunships and four troop carriers.”

  “Why do they care now?” another man radioed.

  Paul ordered his faceplate closed. He brought up the HUD display. “Are you kidding?” he answered. “We’re the prize because we’re the best thing anyone has ever seen on a battlefield. We’re specimens of war, and they want to capture us for study, if nothing else.”

  “What do we do, First Sergeant?” a Marine asked. “If they nail our lifter, we’re stuck in China, likely for good. Our suit batteries are at one-quarter power.”

  “Anyone have a ramshell round left for his launcher?” Paul asked.

  No one spoke up, so apparently no one did.

  “Right,” Paul said. “So we’ll do this the easy way.” He began to explain his plan.

  Soon, he and Romo bounded like crazy to the left. Others fanned out, everyone heading toward the helos coming for them.

  “They spotted the lifter,” a Marine radioed.

  Paul saw it, too. Three air-to-ground missiles raced from the gunships straight at the readied lifter. If one of those disabled the craft…and he didn’t see why the missiles would miss…

  “Proximity timed grenades,” Romo said.

  “Listen fast,” Paul said. “Singh, Chavez and Jones, you’re going to use your grenades.”

  “I only have a dozen eggs left,” Chavez said.

  “So you’d better make them count,” Paul said. “I want you to knock the missiles off course. Use the grenades like antiaircraft guns.”

  It all took place in seconds. The air-to-ground missiles streaked for the lifter. The three designated Marines tracked and the grenade launchers perched on their shoulders swiveled and lobbed. Proximity fuses ticked and explosions threw shrapnel in front of the missiles.

  The first missile exploded, and that caused the second following close behind to slam down into the ground, furrowing dirt. Then it also exploded with a geyser of debris. The last one burst out of the cloud of smoke caused by the detonations and flew for the lifter.

  A second round of grenades lobbed. This was it—now or never. Paul held his breath, and the last missile broke apart, the pieces raining around the lifter, but leaving it in one piece.

  “Thank you, God,” Paul whispered. On a wide channel, he said, “Make your shots count, Marines. We have to finish these bastards before they do that again.”

  The gunships lead the way, three helicopters like metal wasps. Behind lumbered the troop carriers.

  Raising his gun arm, Paul sighted the lead gunship. It had armor. He had the best targeting computer on the planet, and he had one powerful anti-materiel rifle.

  “Magnification twenty,” Paul subvocalized. The targeting dot rested on the armored glass of the front of the nearing gunship. Paul began to fire one round after another. Holes appeared in the armored glass, while the helicopter’s rotary cannons began to whirl and spew bullets.

  Masses of dirt fountained as they raced toward Paul, but he didn’t move. If they didn’t kill these helicopters, it was all over anyway. He had no interest in prisoner of war camps, not with Chinese torturers.

  The fountains of dirt almost reached him. Before they did, the gunship abruptly dove for the ground. It didn’t appear to be a trick. Paul knew he’d won when the wasp-helo plowed into the earth and exploded.

  Romo l
aughed over the radio. “You’re the best, amigo. It was a pleasure watching that.”

  The others took down their gunships and finished the troop carriers before the enemy could get away.

  Paul stood there, and he nodded. “Good shooting, Marines. Now let’s get back to the lifter and load up. I want to get out of this country before more of them show up.”

  WASHINGTON, DC

  As the cheering died down in the underground bunker, Anna watched Tom McGraw march to Director Harold. The general wore boots instead of shoes.

  McGraw stood at attention and saluted crisply. “Director,” he said, with a huge grin plastered across his face. “We have destroyed all the Chinese PBW stations and seventy-six percent of the ABM laser systems. As far as our ICBMs are concerned, the Chinese have their pants around their ankles and their butts in the air.”

  Harold nodded slowly as if he savored the moment.

  “I suggest, sir,” McGraw said, “that you call Chairman Hong.”

  “Wait a minute,” Chairman Alan of the Joint Chiefs said. “I have a question before we proceed. What does it mean if he surrenders? How do we enforce the surrender if Hong decides to back out of it later?”

  McGraw faced Alan.

  “It will take time for the Chinese to remove their army from Mexico,” Alan said. “During that time, the people in China could rebuild the country’s strategic defenses.”

  “What do you suggest we do?” McGraw asked.

  “The Chinese Army in Mexico must surrender to the Mexican Army or to us,” Alan said. “They will have three days to do this, possibly four. Then the ex-Pan-Asian Alliance soldiers must march to designated camp sites and await transfer to China.”

  “In the interests of self-preservation,” McGraw said, “the PAA soldiers might not agree to this.”

  “Then we will have to launch the ICBMs into China,” Alan said. “That is the only credible threat we possess.”