“First,” Mansfeld said, tapping Rochester, New York, “you should realize…” He proceeded to outline his plan and show them that he had everything under control.
From Military History: Past to Present, by Vance Holbrook:
2040, July 7-10. Beachhead. General Mansfeld carefully readied the assets needed for the daring Lake Ontario amphibious invasion. He lacked the shipping to move the entire GD Twelfth Army at once, and would need to control the lake for extended voyages and for supplies. Despite a large number of hovers, the majority of the men, machines and materiel would cross on impounded Canadian and American freighters, ore haulers, tugs and recreational craft. Some historians believe Mansfeld now operated on the old SAS maxim: Who dares, wins.
Despite hard weeks and months of war and constant attrition, a large number of Beowulf short-range ballistic missiles heralded the assault, striking targets along the American Lake Ontario shore and farther inland. In the predawn hours, the bulk of the GD XIV and XV air corps lofted, flying constant sorties and providing CAP protection for the ad hoc fleet. GD stealth craft and UAVs challenged several critical US strategic lasers. The UAVs took substantial losses while the stealth craft inflicted surprising damage to the sites.
Several hours after the barrage and led by daring Galahad hovers, the lead elements of GD Twelfth Army headed for the Ontario Beach Park shore of Rochester.
Captain Penner of the Canadian Air Force flew low over the lake’s water. At this height, his plane had a horrible tendency to dip. It forced him to concentrate harder than normal. He didn’t want to plow into the water.
GD ballistic missiles had cratered the runway in Buffalo. Others had destroyed several F-22s and a squadron of V-10s.
The captain flew an F-35A2, with advanced Harpoon missiles attached. Lieutenant Aachen was his wingman. They stayed low—a mere thirty feet above the choppy waves—and kept their radar off. Far to the rear flew American AWACS. This was suicidal being out here tonight. The sky was full of Germans, and the enemy hunted for aircraft like his.
An air controller gave Penner the word: finally, he was going to strike back. Penner popped up to one hundred and thirty feet before he flipped a switch. A moment later, a Harpoon Block II cruise missile deployed. It was an upgraded AGM-84. Since this was an air launch, the Harpoon lacked a solid-fuel booster. After leaving the Lightning II, the turbojet engine turned on, and the 12.6-foot missile with its three-foot wingspan shot across the waves. The Harpoon was a sea-skimming missile with active radar. It sped for the Canadian ore hauler forty miles away. The ship carried Sigrid drones and a few GD crewmen.
“I’m ready to launch another,” Penner told the control officer.
“Negative,” the air controller said. “We’re waiting to see if your Harpoon’s guidance system can crack GD ECM.”
“Roger,” Penner said. If the Harpoon failed to pierce enemy ECM, they would have to abort the mission or move closer into the heavily defended sea corridor.
Lieutenant Teddy Smith sat at the controls of his new Galahad hover. His radar and towed sonar array searched the predawn darkness for possible American targets of opportunity but more critically, he searched for American missiles heading toward his charges. Sergeant Holloway waited at weapons controls, his face as bleak as ever.
The sun would be up soon, and they weren’t even halfway across the lake yet. He still couldn’t believe his bad luck at getting shepherd duty for these wallowing tubs. The mismatch of Canadian ships carried a battalion of Sigrid drones along with a battalion of infantry. Their little flotilla was going to have to make several runs today, and C Troop would have to escort them to each shore.
Instead of a regular shell in the cannon’s chamber, they had an antiair round.
“Still all clear,” Smith said.
Holloway didn’t answer. He never did during combat unless it was absolutely necessary.
Well, at least he had a Galahad again. Smith had taken a lot of ribbing about losing a hover to a Great Lake’s sub. That was like losing it to the Loss Ness Monster.
I’d sure like to meet that sub again, Smith thought. It would go differently this time, I tell you the truth.
Smith twisted his neck and heard something pop. At the same time, his air screen pinged an alert.
Behind him, Holloway sat up.
Smith stared at his air screen. “Do you see that?”
“Cruise missile,” Holloway said in his clipped way. “It must be a Harpoon. It’s heading straight for the ore hauler.”
Lieutenant Smith of C Troop shouted into the comm-unit and alerted the rest of the Galahads. Where was the air cover? The Americans shouldn’t have been able to get a Harpoon-launching platform this close to the transports. And they certainly shouldn’t have been able to do this so soon in the lake crossing. Was the mysterious sub out there, sniping at the fleet?
“Put up a curtain of steel!” Smith shouted. The cruise missile flashed toward the flotilla at 537 miles per hour.
Holloway moved methodically and with deceptive calm. He directed the targeting computer and put the hover’s machine gun on interlocking fire with the other Galahads. Then he fired the first antiair round from the cannon.
The other Galahads did likewise.
This was an advanced Harpoon and not one of the ancient ones. The thing jinked and popped off a flare, and then a second one. The flares generated intense heat. The hovers’ antiair rounds fixed on those hot signals and headed for them instead of the Harpoon.
“It’s moving straight for the ore hauler,” the Troop’s commander said. “Fugal, it’s in your sector.”
“Destroy it,” Smith said under his breath.
Their Galahad shook as the 76mm gun fired another antiair shell.
The enemy cruise missile was good. Worse, it seemed to have locked on target. At the last minute, Smith saw that he was wrong. The Harpoon readjusted, no doubt making the course change because of something its internal guidance system saw. The missile veered away from the ore hauler that sat low in the water. Instead, the Harpoon smashed against a Galahad of C Troop.
Each of the hovers had been fitted with an emergency emitter, to give off decoy signals. Command said it would help to save the more important troop transports. Command also believed it would make the hover crews more intent on destroying the incoming missiles if the hovers themselves became the targets.
This time the target was Lieutenant Fugal’s hover. The cruise missile’s 488-pound warhead exploded, killing the pilot and his gunner. It also destroyed the Galahad in a flash of light and burst metal and plastics, the pieces raining onto the lake, plopping into it like hail. The sacrifice had saved an ore hauler and half a battalion of Sigrid drones.
“Well?” Captain Penner asked in his F-35, now forty-two miles away from the action. “Did we get lucky?”
“Negative,” the air control officer said. “Incoming data suggests we splashed a decoy instead of the target.”
“Damnit,” Penner said. He hated the German Dominion. He’d lost his brother and an uncle to them earlier this year. They had both been officers in the Canadian Air Force. His family lived in Manitoba, and he knew they would be next if the Germans captured a large chunk of northeastern America.
“Let me go in and get them,” Penner said. “I’ll skim right up their back end and put the Harpoons where the sun doesn’t shine.”
The air controller took his time answering. “We’re still assessing the situation.”