General Richardson stepped down from her Osprey and surveyed the situation. Already there were thousands ashore and more coming in. So far, because of the bombardment, there had been no air strikes and the local forces were, as predicted, stationed along the border with Turkey. It turned out that Jeffers had been right. The Russians considered the Black Sea their lake and had never dreamed that an attacking force would come from that direction. She turned to one of her deputies. “Kelly, have the Turks moved yet?”
The Brigadier nodded. “Just came in. They crossed the border not thirty minutes ago. The paratroops slammed into the Russian lines about the same time. No word yet on casualties, but the Turks are about three hundred yards in right now. The Russians are fighting hard,” he said.
“As I would. They have no place to go so they will fight down to the last man,” she said. “Is everything ready to move inland?”
“All set. We have enough to wheel and deal with another few battalions more on the way. The supply people have got everything set up from what I see, so I recommend we push off,” the Brigadier said. A Bradley fighting vehicle pulled up and the back opened. Richardson motioned for the Brigadier to follow as she climbed inside.
Inside the vehicle, the “star wars” displays told her everything going on for a four hundred mile radius. “I can’t believe they have so few troops down here,” Richardson said. “But I’m not going to look a gift horse in the mouth. Give the orders to start moving west. We go as fast as we can. Station troops and equipment to keep what we take, but don’t give them a minute’s rest,” she ordered.
Almost immediately, the Second Marine Division began moving across the plains toward the Caspian Sea. The First Marine Division would follow. For the first time in decades, the Marines had made an amphibious landing on hostile shores. It was their specialty and they were going to prove that in a war, you don’t mess with the Marines.
Watching from flag plot, Hustvedt was amazed. He had expected some heavy casualties by this point, but the Russians had been caught totally off guard. The 82nd and 101st had slammed the door on the Russians at the Turkish border and the Turks were blasting through the lines to meet up. Russian air defenses had been stopped by long range bombardment and so far no other sorties had appeared from other areas. Of course, that would change.
He looked at Jeffers watching the displays intently. Everything he had thought about was actually coming true before his eyes. Hustvedt could not imagine what he as feeling at this point. He noticed that Jeffers was switching back and forth between the eastern and western Black Sea. He leaned over and spoke. “Don’t worry, they will come out. They almost have to. My worry is the air strikes that will come from some of the northern bases out of our range. You saw how I positioned the carriers? They will be ready for anything that comes at them. All it will take is one call and we switch from ground attack to air defense in a matter of minutes. Since they can’t see us with their radar, we hold the upper hand,” he mentioned.
“Yes, sir,” said Jeffers. “But if they launch a few hundred missiles, it may not make much difference. The probabilities go way up,” he said.
Hustvedt grunted. “That’s why they pay us the big bucks, to take those kinds of risks. Right now, I like the odds, so unless somebody does something stupid, we should come out of this with a fair chance.”
Jeffers let out a long breath. “I wish I had your confidence,” he said. Something caught his eye and he pointed toward the screen. “Looks like they are coming out,” he said.
On the monitor the two men saw a formation of ships leaving Sevastopol and turning toward the eastern Black Sea.
“See there, I told you,” said Hustvedt. “And that’s why we put these ships right here,” he said pointing to three contacts. One was labeled USS Iowa.
Rhodes saw the ships leaving as well. Sitting in Strike, he saw the formation form up and move east. Already he had told his chief engineer to light off all eight boilers. Iowa was going to be ready for anything that might come up. His orders were to wait in the Western Black Sea until orders came. But what he anticipated made him excited. In the Russian formation was what the Russians had boasted as their own dreadnought. Known as a Kirov class, she weighed 28,000 tons and carried 20, SS-N-19 Shipwreck missiles, 14, SS-N-14 Silex cruise missiles, 96 anti-air missiles, 168 point defense air missiles, along with anti-submarine weapons. She had some armor plating and was powered by nuclear reactors. Her top speed was around 32 knots. Because of her size and firepower, she was very similar to the battlecruiser concept employed in World War One. The Pyotr Velikiy had been the last one build and had all the bells and whistles.
Rhodes knew the small Russian force was going to take on the landing fleet. More than likely, the ships would stand off and fire their weapons from a long distance. The SS-N-19 along could hit targets nearly 400 miles away and flew above Mach one. He was ordered to let them go by. Rhodes only hoped Hustvedt knew what he was taking on. Of course, it would be hard to target them since these new Maxwell plates made even the Iowa invisible. The crew had started calling them their “cloaking device” of old Star Trek shows. Then again, anyone could get lucky. He turned to his operations officer. “Signal the others a turn to the northeast. Keep us at the same speed for now.”
Up on the signal bridge the message was bent on the halyards and the colorful signal flags relayed the orders. When executed, all ships made a turn toward the northeast.
“What do you mean we have been invaded!” screamed Borodin. “Our forces are still deep within Poland. Our supply lines are secure. Where are they hitting us?” The news had arrived just an hour before and Borodin had a hard time getting in because of the protests outside the Kremlin gates.
“An amphibious force entered the Black Sea last night and they began landing forces in Georgia this morning. We also received word that paratroopers landed along the line here,” the general said pointing along the border of Turkey. The Turks then advanced across our borders as well. It is a major force,” the general said.
“But we have troops there to defend our borders. Why have they not engaged?” asked Borodin in a panic.
“They have. But we estimate at least four American divisions and five Turkish divisions have attacked our force of only two. We didn’t see them coming, we never planned on any major fleet in the Black Sea,” the general almost pleaded. He knew his job was on the line. “But that is not the only place. We received word that the Americans also landed on Sakhalin Island. There are practically no troops there at all,” he said.
“And why not?” Borodin demanded.
“Because we have had to pull many of our outlying troops to the western front for the Polish operation that was supposed to be over weeks ago. This plan we adopted didn’t take into account the kinds of weapons we have encountered so far. They have drones that attack us day and night, they have crippled our communications, they kill our senior officers at the front and they are now attacking us with aircraft and ships we cannot see,” the general said becoming indignant.
“Come now, what do you mean we cannot see? Our radar systems are some of the best in the world!” Borodin argued.
“And just this morning the front was attacked by a flight of B-52 bombers. We didn’t even see them coming on radar and they usually paint a picture like a 12 story building! I know they were B-52s because my most senior fighter pilot happened to get a photo of them. Even his radar couldn’t see them! They have somehow found a way to make their planes and ships invisible,” Air Force General Leanov said.