The door opened again, and the Marine major stepped in, saying, “The President of the United States.”
President Clark strode in, followed by the Secretary of State in a rumpled suit. The two men took their seats and the meeting began.
General Michael Alan, the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, began to outline the military situation. As he did, one of his aides changed the video images on the computer-scrolls above the conference table.
“Reconnaissance is spotty, Mr. President. The Chinese have destroyed our spy satellites and they continue to knock down high-altitude UAV cams. We believe the ASBM attack destroyed one of their carriers and several ancillary vessels, but we failed to halt the invasion.”
“They’ve landed?” asked the President.
“Not yet, sir,” General Alan said, “at least not in any numbers. Let me explain. The Chinese first struck military installations in the Aleutian Islands. Afterward, they landed recon teams, but we don’t believe they landed any fighting infantry formations.”
“How do you know this if the satellites are down?” the President asked.
“We still have assets, sir.”
“That doesn’t answer the question,” the Secretary of State said.
General Alan adjusted his glasses. He was a thin man and seldom smiled. “There were survivors in the Aleutians who radioed what they knew before White Tiger Commandos hunted them down. The Navy continues to launch UAV cams and we have weather balloons—”
“We’re using weather balloons to gather intelligence?” the Secretary of State asked in disbelief.
“They’re proving invaluable,” General Alan said. “They’re high-altitude and have a negligible sensor signature. That means the Chinese are having a difficult time smoking them out. Unfortunately, the balloons are at the mercy of the winds.”
“We can hammer out the details later,” the President said. “Right now I want to know the worst.”
“Yes, sir,” said General Alan, who glanced at an aide before continuing his speech. “The Chinese have caught us by surprise and now they’re maximizing their advantage. They’re keeping the carriers bunched tight and swarming our defenses with mass bombing attacks. If you’ll notice, the majority of their base attacks are with fuel-burst bombs.”
Anna looked up at a computer-scroll. Jets streaked across the scene, dropping bombs. Seconds later, the entire scroll turned orange with explosions.
“Their military intelligence is excellent,” General Alan said. “They’ve attacked almost every installation outside the umbrella of our strategic ABM laser stations. Naturally, the Chinese aircraft come in low, which lessens the line-of-sight of our pulse-lasers. Most of those strategic lasers are inland and they were built to destroy stratospheric ICBMs. That means a crafty use of enemy air assets can negate much of an ABM laser’s use.”
“Wait a minute,” said Clark. “Are you saying that even with seven supercarriers, the Chinese won’t be able to gain complete air superiority over Alaska?”
“Not as long as we keep the pulse-lasers intact, mass our tactical laser batteries with our SAMs, and rush fighters to Alaska,” General Alan said. “The problem, however, is that our air-transportation system is already straining at the breaking point. That’s made worse by the presence of the seven carriers. Because of them, we have to fly through the Yukon. There are terrible snowstorms raging, and our air-transport fleet is badly outdated.”
“Use commercial flights for some of the Army’s needs,” the Secretary of Defense said.
“That will cost us money we don’t have,” the Treasury Secretary said.
“We’d better find a way to pay it,” the Secretary of State said.
“You spoke about aging transports,” the President said. “No. That’s not quite right. You said the transport system is nearly broken.”
“Yes, sir,” General Alan said. “Maybe if I outlined the problem in detail….”
President Clark nodded.
Putting his slender hands flat on the table, General Alan said, “We’re all familiar with the ongoing military shrinkage. Year after year, we’ve demobilized Army, Navy, or Air Force formations. Often, we left equipment at old bases. We put machines into storage or parked a thousand vehicles in an abandoned lot. Much of that equipment simply rusted away and turned into junk. Sometimes, however, we donated the old equipment to various National Guard formations. The Alaskan National Guard possesses some M2 Bradleys, but almost no heavy armor.”
“We know all this,” the Secretary of State said.
General Alan blinked at the larger man. “Let me put it like this then: the Alaskan National Guard has outdated equipment. The Army possesses two skeletal brigades there. Without the Alaskan Militiamen to bolster our numbers, the Chinese would swamp us. We need everything up there at once. We need more Wyvern surface-to-air missiles, more armor, more fighters, more laser batteries, more warm bodies—”
“We understand this is an emergency,” the President said. “You’ve made your point. We lack many things, but hopefully we have enough in place to stall them.”
General Alan frowned. “That depends, sir.”
“On what?”
“Their goal.”
“The Chairman has already told us what he plans to do,” the President said.
Anna perked up. This was news to her.
“When did he tell you this, sir?” General Alan asked.
President Clark sat back as his eyes narrowed. “I spoke to the Chairman after our ASBM assault. I warned him against invading American soil. He said the Chinese invaded in order to right past wrongs. He pointed out the Northeastern Area as a case in point.”
“I’m not familiar with that, sir,” General Alan said.
Clark hesitated. Anna wondered if the President failed to realize what the Chairman had meant by that.
“The Northeastern Area was former Russian land, particularly around Vladivostok,” Anna said. “Several dynasties ago, the territory belonged to China. The Russians took it….” She faltered as everyone in the chamber stared at her, many with incomprehension.
“This is Anna Chen, our China expert,” the President said. “She tried to warn us of the impending attack.”
Green looked up in alarm.
The President chuckled, although there wasn’t any humor in his voice. “Did you think to keep that hidden from me, Colin?”
“Uh, no, sir,” Green said.
The President folded his hands on the table. “The Chairman claimed the U.S. stole Alaska from the Siberians. I told him the Russians had discovered Alaska and we bought it from them. That’s when he launched into a historical lesson. He said the Yakuts—the Siberian natives—discovered Alaska when they crossed the Bering Strait during former ice ages. The Chairman told me he was weary of the Anglos having stolen land all over the world. The day has come where China will liberate Alaska from the imperialistic Europeans and return it to its native peoples. He promised to protect Alaska, giving the Eskimos—the Inuit—Chinese guarantees of sovereignty.”
“That sounds just like Aztlan propaganda,” the Secretary of State said.
“Bah!” Green said with heat. “There isn’t any land anywhere in the world worth taking that someone hasn’t taken from someone else. It’s a fact of nature that the strong take from the weak. The Native American tribes did it to each other before any Europeans came. Foxes and wolves steal territory from each other.”
“I’m not sure I like your implication,” the Secretary of State said. “We didn’t steal land from anyone. Alaska is sovereign U.S. Territory.”