Admiral Ling waved away the suggestion.
“I must hasten to add that the Chairman has declared us liberators,” said Yen. “We fight for the Eskimos and their freedom.”
“I’m too old for that nonsense,” Ling said, opening a drawer. He took out an old bottle of baijiu, clunking it onto his desk. After setting out two thick glasses, he poured a liberal splash into each. He handed one glass to Yen. The white liquor sloshed back and forth, as the room continued to tilt.
“The Vice-Admiral sulks,” Commodore Yen said, cradling his glass with both hands. “Your scolding a few days ago—”
“I didn’t scold him,” said Ling. “I berated the incompetent fool for losing the Seward depot. Now we’ve lost another of our fuel tankers to these cagey American submariners. We cannot lose more of these precious vessels or their cargos. Our fuel situation has become more than troublesome.”
“Please, sir, listen to me,” Yen said. “The Vice-Admiral has the Chairman’s ear. If he sulks, it means he is sending his uncle reports about you.”
Admiral Ling tossed the baijiu down his throat. It made the right half of his face twitch, which highlighted the left, dead half.
“The harder you berate the Vice-Admiral,” said Yen, “the harder the Chairman will likely come down on you for any…failures.”
For the first time, Ling looked shocked. “Do you think we will fail?”
“I think before we lost the latest tanker that our fuel situation was tight. Now it is much worse.”
“We have enough fuel for several weeks of combat,” said Ling. “That is long enough for us to reach and conquer Anchorage.”
“The Americans are fighting hard in Moose Pass. Maybe the others will learn to do likewise.”
“Do not expect anything from the Vice-Admiral’s men,” said Ling. “I know that I do not. It makes his blunders more tolerable.”
“Sir—”
Admiral Ling shook his head. Once he had Yen’s attention, he poured more baijiu for each of them. “I am unloading the Army vehicles.”
“The tanks?” asked Yen.
Admiral Ling nodded. “I will do more than unload them, but send them into battle.”
“The Army tanks guzzle fuel,”
Ling swirled the white liquor in his glass, regarding it. “We have a narrow window for victory. That is my belief. The Americans must know about our fuel shortage. Why otherwise destroy the storage facilities in Seward and trade their submarines for a tanker’s destruction?”
“Maybe it was luck on their part.”
“No,” said Ling. “I do not believe in luck of that kind. It was strategy. Unless the Chairman sends more tankers, fuel will be our bottleneck. We have enough for now, enough for several weeks of hard combat. Therefore, we will drive even harder at the Americans, even using the Army tanks to force breaches—given that the American defenses become firm. Soon, the Americans will surely bring greater reinforcements from their homeland. Maybe Canadian forces will add their weight to the enemy defense.”
“The Chairman has tricked or scared the Canadians into neutrality.”
Ling nodded. The Chairman’s brilliance in these matters never failed to impress him. Why couldn’t the Chairman’s nephew prove even slightly competent? The Vice-Admiral….
“My point is this, my old friend,” said Ling, trying not to think about the Vice-Admiral. “We will drive for Anchorage. I do not care about the causalities. We have more than enough men. I am not certain, however, that we will have enough time or enough fuel. Therefore, we will spare nothing now to pour through. If winter comes early here, it could strand us while the enemy gains reinforcements.”
Commodore Yen’s thoughts seemed to be elsewhere. Then he spoke about the tanks, revealing his preoccupation. “I had thought you were going to save the Army tanks for the actual storming of Anchorage.”
“I can no longer afford that option. Since we failed to capture Seward’s storage depot, we must reach Anchorage before the real cold descends on us. Once we take the city, then the state will fall to us like a ripe pear.”
Commodore Yen sipped his baijiu. “I suspect your analysis is correct. You took Taiwan for Greater China. Now it is time to take Alaska. You will win.”
“I will win,” agreed Ling, “provided we continue our advance at the present speeds. I will keep a fire lit under the ground commanders. Whatever the price, we must reach Anchorage in two—and no later than three—weeks.”
The two clinked glasses, drank and listened to the hail battering the great ship.
The weather must hold. Ling shook his head. Whatever had possessed the Chairman to attempt this invasion now, this near winter? It was risky, and it was simply another reason why they needed to proceed with all speed.
The National Guard armor company left Anchorage with Stan Higgins, their modified M1A2s riding piggyback on the Heavy Equipment Transporters. Unfortunately, they never made it to the main line of defense near Tustumena Lake, which had been shattered in a night of deadly combat. Two days of journey brought Stan and his tanks to Highway One before Cooper Landing. The shattered remnants of the western front of the Kenai Command had reached a new defense line. Here, bedraggled Airborne, National Guardsmen and Militiamen—many half-frozen and too many with black toes or frostbitten noses—found themselves formed willy-nilly into ad hoc formations.
Stan knew it was no way to run a defense. Already, however, he understood a hundred historical military incidents better because of what he’d gone through. War was chaos. The actual U.S. military term was “friction,” the physics kind that caused an object to slow down and stop. If you pushed a piano, say, friction made it nearly impossible to move unless it had wheels. If you attempted to move your company of tanks on HETS, friction made it hard to get anywhere. A hauling cable snapped, meaning wasted time as mechanics installed a new one. A tire blew. Time passed as men put on a spare. One of the haulers ran out of gas. They towed it to a gas station. They took the wrong route at Portage, where a massive traffic jam had halted Militiamen trying to get to the battlefield in their battered pickups and sedans. Friction grew the more soldiers and vehicles one attempted to move from A to B.
It was a good thing friction hurt the other side, too. Stan recalled a saying. Battle was easy, except that war made the easy difficult. An army that was fifteen percent effective wiped the floor with an army only seven percent effective.
The Chinese naval infantry were well-trained and had good morale, at least the ones coming up Highway One did. The Chinese had the element of surprise and more aircraft. The Alaskans knew the terrain better and they had lived with snow and ice all their lives. Most of the Militia and National Guardsmen had hunted or fished in the Kenai Peninsula at least once before.
If we don’t hold somewhere, we lose.We have to slow them down. It’s only one hundred and nine miles to Anchorage from here.
The Chinese had first landed at Homer. From there by road, it was two hundred and twenty-six miles to Anchorage. In this past week and a half, the Chinese had already traveled half the distance to the city. Historically, that was a tremendous daily advance.
The HETS unloaded the tanks and returned to Anchorage. Later, Stan and his tankers briefly contacted the enemy. The tanks waited in a flattened corral as Stan and his men used the latrines in some old buildings nearby. Bill came sprinting to them. His militiamen had been attached to their company as scouts.