Power Games: Operation Enduring Unity I (36 page)

15 April: 1500

Admiral Zheng He, rising star of the People's Liberation Army Navy, lowered his parka’s hood. The artic wind nibbled at his exposed neck, but he only grinned. Zheng drank in the freezing air from the bridge of his flagship and peered over his shoulder. Attu Island, which the Japanese briefly overran during the early days of WW2, lay over 1,200 miles behind him. His historic fleet should just now be entering the Gulf of Alaska.

Anchorage was still four hundred miles north, but the thrill of impending action warmed his soul. Even the Japanese, at the height of their power, weren’t able to get an invasion force so close to the US mainland. Probably because they weren’t half as motivated as the People’s Republic of China.

The economic disruptions of the last few months removed the most important safety valve in US/China relations: being major business partners. Competing nationalistic and ideological differences could be held at bay and defy the historic odds, so long as both sides worked towards a shared purpose. Without the common goal of making a quick buck, these two extremely ambitious peoples were inevitably going to butt heads. The only thing surprising is that it didn’t happen earlier.

China had their back against the wall. The US, their biggest export market, was rebuilding a real manufacturing base at the same time demand from the rest of the world slumped in the worldwide economic crisis. A young, new Chinese middle class watched their jobs disappear as fast as their hopes for a better future. After getting a taste of the high life, of all the luxuries and security a bit of money could provide, they’d be damned if they’ll meekly go back to sustenance farming.

China’s top power brokers read the writing on the wall of the new world order early on. The Politburo in Beijing were nothing if not pragmatic. They’d do whatever it took to protect their comfortable place in the world.

Facing the greatest internal unrest since Tiananmen Square, China’s leadership was desperate. When the US snatched Alaska back into the Union with a lighting airborne strike, Beijing pounced at the opportunity. Official Chinese outrage rivaled that of the URA. The UN firmly rejected their offer of sending in “peacekeepers” to prevent more bloodshed.

The Politburo insisted and mobilized their forces anyway.

Zheng gazed into the dark, wondering how best to leverage his pending conquest. The oil and abundant natural resources in Alaska were mere bonuses. The real prize the Politburo needed was the fighting itself. Nothing pulls the people together like an external war. The threat from “the others” was always good for a lot of mileage. Sure wouldn’t harm his career, either.

The ship’s captain drew far too close to the admiral. Even dared to look him right in the eyes. The junior officer’s improper familiarity betrayed his nervousness. “Sir, we’re passing the last control point. Still no recall order from Beijing. Should we break radio silence and request confirmation before we attack?”

Zheng was too pumped up to reprimand the naïve captain. It was, after all, his idea to tell the officers and enlisted men this was all a political show of force. That was the great irony. Only the sailors and troops involved in the invasion were shocked. Despite all the secrecy the Chinese tried to maintain, mainly out of habit, there was little surprise for the enemy when their fleet finally sailed out of Guangzhou harbor late at night. In the age of satellite surveillance, the PLA Navy didn’t waste time trying to obfuscate their route once at sea. Tracked by the world, the force made a beeline for the Bering Strait. Beijing stalled or simply ignored one sternly worded diplomatic protest after another by the United States.

“Unfortunately, Captain, the invasion is no military exercise. The barbarian province of Alaska must be secured to protect the land of our ancestors from further American aggression.”

The captain’s stoic face tightened, but he didn’t move. Admiral Zheng raised an eyebrow. “I imagine you’re quite busy with the final airstrike preparations. I strongly recommend you focus your attention on that and leave politics to the politicians.”

His thinly veiled threat snapped the captain out of whatever disloyal fantasies he toyed with. “Yes sir. Right away.”

Zheng returned his salute without even looking at him. There was no reason to worry. Only the most loyal personnel were aboard the thirty transports and thirty more warships in his flotilla. He beamed over the railing at the crowded flight deck below. The centerpiece of his armada.

The PLAN’s only real aircraft carrier, his
Liaoning
short-deck carrier, bought dirt-cheap from the Ukraine years ago, would spearhead the assault. China spent a small fortune renovating and modernizing her, but that investment would pay off in spades today. When not carrying any helicopters and loaded down exclusively with fixed-wing aircraft, she could launch all 46 J-11 multi-role fighter-bombers China had, some of the best jets in their inventory.

That was just the tip of the iceberg though. He scanned the skies, hunting for his escorting hunters. Somewhere up there, all 24 of the Air Force’s ultra-modern SU-35 fighters, flown by the best pilots in the PLAF, waited to pounce on any threat. It took every midair refueling tanker China could scrounge up to keep them on station, but they’d make the US Air Force think twice about interfering.

The point of all this heavy metal was simply to deliver the fleet’s human cargo: 18,000 of China’s best marine, Special Forces and airborne troops. The cherry on top of the cream of the crop. According to their intelligence, they easily outnumbered the federal occupation forces by at least 3 to 1, and probably matched them in quality. Most importantly, with Canada’s stubborn neutrality and URA forces tying the USA down, there was no way for the Americans to reinforce their oil-rich outpost.

Zheng sucked in his gut, swelling with pride. The ships, planes and troops under his command represented a mere fraction of China’s complete strength, but these forces came from the only fraction that mattered. On paper, the People’s Liberation Army was an unstoppable, two million-man behemoth. In practice, not all men were created equal. Most of the military, with its poorly trained and educated conscripts armed with obsolete equipment, was little more than a welfare program. Worthless in a modern war against a high-tech foreign power and unreliable, at best, against internal rebellion.

The Politburo derived their real hold on power from the small core of professionals inside the horde. Only that loyal contingent of well-paid, well-trained and modern-armed troops mattered worth a damn. It was this same irreplaceable elite the PRC leadership entrusted to Admiral Zheng in their little game of Risk.

One of those young pawns opened the bridge door and shouted into the wind. “Admiral, we have our first radar contact. Looks like a recon flight of two drones. Bearing 68 degrees, coming in high altitude, but subsonic.”

Zheng sneered. How arrogant of the round eyes to send two measly aircraft against his armada. Well, perhaps it was desperation. Most of the still-loyal American Navy and Air Force were busy patrolling the inter-US border or blockading the rebellious West Coast.

According to Chinese intelligence, not a single US naval vessel operated within 600 miles of his force. If a US submarine or two lurked undetected nearby they might present a problem, but American air power was the last thing on his mind. Not with so many escorts and all his ships clustered together to provide overlapping defensive fire.

The admiral raised his field glasses along the azimuth the sailor suggested. Time to educate the barbarians. Four missile trails from his fighter cover already lanced out at the American recon flight. He savored the victory appetizer, knowing full well the meal would come just as easily.

Despite his vantage point and high-powered binoculars, Zheng didn’t see the interception. Mainly because the brilliant sunbursts from both targets seared his retinas, blinding him for the rest of his life.

All five seconds of it.

Zheng dived inside the armored bridge as the air around him boiled. He yelled at the silent crew he sensed were somewhere around. “Sound collision! Lock down-”

The blast wave nearly capsized his 1,000-foot carrier. A long black train of overpressure sheared off the entire command island of the ship and chucked it playfully overboard. Only a few twisted girders remained of the massive steel structure. All the hundreds of personnel on the flight deck were simply erased from existence, nothing but permanent shadows flash-burned on the deck marked their final resting place.

Both 176-kiloton nukes, detonating exactly three miles apart and 25,000 feet high, were seen all the way across the Bering Strait. Mainly because the Russians were looking for them. Moscow, like every other nuclear capable nation on earth, received about five minutes advance notice of the US attack. Never a good idea to spook your ICBM-armed neighbors.

The high-altitude air bursts reduced fallout to a mere local weather phenomenon, but the real benefit was to maximize “ground-level overpressure.” The techy way of saying the end of the world.

While the blast disintegrated every plane orbiting the fleet, only five of the sixty Chinese ships were sunk outright. The blast vaporized a missile cruiser and a roll-on/roll-off transport, loaded down with a thousand marines, directly below ground zero. Three more small destroyers not too far away also capsized, but everything else stayed afloat.

The dead were the lucky ones. Forty more ships, including Admiral Zheng’s carrier, were left floating derelicts. The few lightly damaged vessels, and the rare unscathed ones, rushed in to pick up survivors. A noble, but fruitless gesture.

Modern warships are not the steel-clad floating fortresses of old. Such ships might have given some protection from the radiation. The thin aluminum vessels employed nowadays provided little more radioactive shielding than the skin of the crew inside.

Any of those sailors, airmen or troops in the core of the fleet blessed enough to survive already received lethal doses of neutron radiation. Even more gamma rays radiated from the ashy fallout coating their ships... and clothes. It might take minutes or it might take days, depending on how well shielded they were, but their end was never in doubt. They were dead men walking.

Deadly men walking, when the relatively “clean” ships farther from ground zero rushed in to help.

The rescue ships sprayed out thousands of gallons of radioactive seawater in self-destructive attempts to put out the fires. That only spread the radiation as fast as all the contaminated refugees they shuttled on board. None of them glowed in the dark, but throwing the survivors into the ships’ showers sealed everyone’s fate. No ship’s water recyclers were prepared to filter this type of poison.

By the time the remnants of the flotilla eventually limped back to within sight of the mainland, only five overloaded ships were still afloat. After ten days of unfathomable hell, the scabby and mostly hairless survivors cheered weakly as they neared home again. Constantly updating higher command of their plight had paid off. The first rescue ships approached them still 50 miles from the coast.

Those coastal defense vessels launched two Silkworm ship-to-ship missiles into each contaminated vessel without so much as a “good bye” over the radio. Several helicopters thudded overhead to machine gun any survivors in the water. From the perspective of what was left of the Chinese government, this embarrassing little incident was finally over. Time to move on with their much bigger problems.

*

“It’s done, sir. Near total destruction of the PLA task force. Seventh Fleet is standing by. Are we a go for phase two? The window of opportunity is closing fast.”

The president tried to stand, but he didn’t trust his wobbly legs. Instead, he crossed them and stared down the situation room table. Every one of his new generals and admirals nodded back at him. He cleared his throat three times before his voice caught.

“History is watching. This is your last chance. Speak up now. All it will take is one voice of dissent and I’ll shut this down right now. Anyone?”

A few of the officers and senior cabinet members shifted their gaze briefly, but no one stood up. After fifteen seconds, the latest Chairman of the Joint Chiefs spread out his hands.

“Sir, once we committed to repelling any foreign invasion with nuclear weapons, you knew we’d have to go whole hog. This conventional strike is already a risky compromise. I stand by my recommendation of a first strike on China’s nuclear arsenal. It’s not too late to modify our plans. Mr. President, with nuclear arms, there’s no room to half-ass things. Nuclear war has no scalable options. Now that strategic weapons are in play, we need to hit all of the enemy’s counterattack ability hard. Immediately. Anything less is naïve and, frankly, dangerous.”

The president closed his eyes and counted to ten. He wasn’t going to have this debate again. “Ok then. If no one has anything original to add, then let’s proceed. Release all units.”

Sixty seconds later, on the other side of the world, the placid East China Sea gave birth to 36 cruise missiles. A North Korean patrol ship spotted the smoke trails originating from the open ocean, but since they were all heading northwest, towards the Chinese mainland, it wasn’t their problem. They didn’t even bother reporting the incident. Who wanted to be the bearer of bad news in a dictatorship?

None of the three American attack submarines launching missiles would ever be caught, though everyone knew they were operating in the area. A fourth sub, which lobbed twelve more cruise missiles towards a target in Shanghai, likewise escaped. With the best of the PLA Navy deployed out of theater, the Chinese had limited options to hunt them all down. Their second string naval forces weren’t exactly chomping at the bit to take on the best of the US Navy.