It had been a long series of battles since the Junction of Highways One and Nine. Stan was sick of retreating. His eyelids drooped. He yawned. He badly needed sleep. Everyone did. The soldiers marching to Anchorage…even now one stumbled and slumped on the snow. The man didn’t move. No one helped him. Few had the strength to do more than march.
“We’re not going to hold the city with soldiers like that,” said Jose, his head sticking out of the gunner’s hatch.
Stan was too tired to reply. He was sick of retreating and he was sick of seeing men die. He just wanted this to end. He wanted to lie down and sleep for a year, maybe two.
The big guns boomed again, flashes of red. It was all that was holding the enemy back.
For the first time in thirty-four years, Admiral Ling was feeling seasick. He sat at a table in the operations room of his carrier. He could no longer study the detailed map of the Kenai Peninsula. Shoved by the raging sea, the ship tilted violently back and forth.
“We must move the fleet out of this,” Commodore Yen said beside him.
Ling felt his age today. Yen looked worse.
An Arctic storm howled upon his fleet, an ice age blizzard with sleet, hail and near hurricane-force winds. Everyone in here could hear the hail striking outside, and everyone in the operations center felt the monstrous waves heaving the carrier in giant swells.
“What will this do to our drive on Anchorage?” asked Ling. He’d been worrying about this ever since the fleet’s weathermen had told him about the direction of the approaching storm.
“Ships can’t attack in this kind of weather,” said Yen. “I don’t know about soldiers.”
Admiral Ling shook his head. “We’re close to victory. After weeks of fighting and bloodletting, we’re near our objective. Once we have Anchorage and its airport and the surrounding towns—”
“And the Anchorage storage tanks,” said Commodore Yen.
“And those as well,” said Ling, “if the Americans don’t destroy them first.”
“What then, sir? What if the Americans blow those storage tanks as they did in Seward?”
“I am not so troubled by that now. Once we break into Anchorage, we have the victory. Then our superior numbers can finally spread out to attack the Americans all at once and at many different points. Then at the Navy’s leisure, we can sweep the mines from Cook Inlet and ferry our supplies directly into the city. Once we have metropolitan Anchorage, the Chairman will understand that victory is ours. He will release the rest of the fuel tankers.”
Commodore Yen nodded thoughtfully as he studied the OBS.
Admiral Ling did likewise. It had been a bitter fight through the Kenai Peninsula. The battle for Portage had been extremely difficult. Now the naval infantry fought through Girdwood. Afterward would begin the direct assault upon Anchorage, the great and glittering prize of the campaign.
The nine naval infantry brigades used in the invasion—each twice as large as an American brigade—had taken losses to get to this place. However, China had men, far too many men. Ling didn’t like losing so many soldiers, but that wasn’t his great fear. The fuel supply had approached a critical situation. The constant pinprick partisan attacks had made things even worse. The planners should have foreseen that, given the American love affair with guns. According to his charts, the patrols—especially the White Tigers—had killed countless partisans and destroyed vast quantities of civilian weapons. Yet these Alaskans kept popping out of their woods and were always well-armed. It had become so bad that his commanders used combat vehicles to patrol the main supply route of the Highway One. The fuel used in the patrolling vehicles and helicopters had eaten into the campaign’s remaining stocks.
Admiral Ling shook his head. The Kenai Peninsula was mostly mountains and endless trees, making a thousand ambush sites. With everything taken together, his ground forces only had several more days of fuel while operating at full combat capacity. Every ounce of that fuel needed to get to the front so the ground commanders could keep the pressure on the battered Americans and smash through to Anchorage. Even if the Americans blew the vast storage complexes, the naval soldiers could use the airport and receive fuel via air-tankers, maybe even straight from China.
The ground commanders at the front kept reporting that victory was in their grasp. Their battle-weary soldiers saw Anchorage now. The soldiers saw the fantastic mountains beyond and realized in this amphitheater there was a chance to regroup and redeploy. Once the city was in their grasp, every soldier realized that China could pour Army formations into Alaska, making it impossible for the Americans to think of ever trying to drive them out. The seen prize urged on the tired brigades and their soldiers. All the expended sweat, tears and blood would have meaning with the conclusion of this final push that would give them victory.
Tall Commodore Yen studied the OBS beside Ling. Yen stirred, adjusting his uniform as if he was before yet another TV camera. The man acted as if the political officers were recording every one of his actions and pronouncements for review. “The heart of the storm will hit our formations. Will that hurt our chances for victory?”
Another pang of worry filled Ling. To have come so far—they could not fail now. It was inconceivable. He shook his head. “Whatever this storm does to our soldiers, it will also do to the enemy.”
“If it halts the fighting, it will give the Americans time to rest. You’ve read the reports, sir. Some of our soldiers have stormed the latest trenches and found every American fast asleep. The enemy desperately needs a respite, and now it looks as if this storm will give it to them.”
With his single hand, Admiral Ling rubbed his forehead. For weeks, his ground commanders had used meat-grinder tactics to pulverize the Americans, exchanging gallons of Chinese blood for American blood. Now a thin crust of Americans kept him out of Anchorage. The Americans fed the fight by airlifting reinforcements to Fairbanks and sending the troops by rail to Anchorage. Yet his naval infantry needed rest, too. The Chinese brigades had relentlessly flung themselves against the scrambling Americans. If it wasn’t for the bad fuel situation….
“We will move the fleet,” said Ling. “Our ships can’t take much more of this pounding, and we’re only at the fringe of the storm. Before the storm descends on our ground forces and afterward, we will send every fuel truck to the front for a final push. Radio the ground commanders. Tell them to attack and to maneuver for the best advantage. I can feel the victory, Commodore. Tell them that after they have done all these things, that they are to smash through to the city no matter the cost in men and vehicles. One more push, and we win. We cannot fail now.”
“It will be as you say, Admiral,” said Commodore Yen, as he signaled the communications officers. “Our coming victory will add to the greater glory of China.”
An Arctic whiteout blanketed Anchorage. It covered everything in South Central Alaska, including the Kenai Peninsula. A red-eyed and exhausted Stan Higgins stood in the National Guard armory with his gunner Jose.
Outside, hail, sleet and snow battered the armory. It was one of the worst storms Stan had ever witnessed. It had brought everything in the city and at the nearby front to a standstill as temperatures plunged fifty degrees below freezing.
“Can you imagine what it’s like out there?” asked Stan. He meant for the enemy, for the Chinese who kept coming and never gave up.