The two officers had crawled to an overpass, using special trench telescopes to peer over the earthen lip and study the enemy line beyond.
“Are you sure you have your history right?” Stan asked.
“What do you mean?”
“The Germans almost drove the Russians out of Stalingrad. They were about to win the fight, when the Russians launched their biggest assault yet. The Russians smashed the Rumanians and Italians holding the extended front leading to the city. The Russians thereby encircled and trapped the German army fighting
“Are you saying we can’t win?” Ramos asked.
“No. I’m just not sure I like your analogy.”
Ramos was quiet for a time. Then he glanced at Stan. “Intelligence says the Chinese have four to five times our number in fighting men. It’s probably just a matter of time before they take the city and send for Army formations from mainland China.”
“What does HQ say?” asked Stan. “Have they spotted new Chinese troop convoys crossing the Pacific?”
“Not yet. But it seems inevitable.”
Stan pulled down his trench scope and rolled onto his back. He wiped his mouth with his gloved hand. “We have problems, but so do they.”
“How do you know that?” asked Ramos, who continued to use the scope. The scope had a right angle at the top and was similar in principle to a submarine’s periscope, thus allowing a man to study the enemy without exposing himself to direct fire.
“Military history tells me that,” said Stan. “We just see our problems because we’re so focused on them. Our problems here are big, no doubt about that. But the enemy has his own set of problems. Sometimes it’s just a matter of whose will fails or whose nerves crumble first.”
“My nerves are close to shot,” said Ramos. “We don’t really have anything that can handle the T-66s. Fortunately, the Chinese don’t seem to have a lot of them, and that’s something. But I’ve read the reports. It seems the Chinese have scoured each battlefield, dragging any wrecked T-66 to the repair vehicles. That’s a serious problem when fighting a rearguard action as we’ve been doing for weeks. We always leave the battlefield in their possession. Their repair vehicles can pick up the broken tanks while we leave ours behind.”
“I’ve been thinking about those T-66s ever since we faced them in Cooper Landing,” Stan said. “I think the answer is obvious. We lure the monsters into the city and try to separate them from their infantry. Then you let my tanks take them on one at a time.”
“The T-66s will crush your Abrams.”
“In time they will,” said Stan. “So we have to make sure we take them out first.”
Ramos lowered his scope. “How can you sound so confident? I don’t get that, Professor.”
Stan shrugged. “It’s simple. If seven tri-turreted tanks come after me, I have to destroy seven tanks. If I destroy six, I lose. So I’ll try to destroy all seven and win.”
“If you’d told me that a few weeks ago, I’d have agreed,” said Ramos. “Now….”
Stan glanced at Ramos. The man still had dark circles around his eyes. The general had fought hard, bitterly hard in Moose Pass and later, but now he was exhausted from the endless battles.
“Have you even been home to sleep?” asked Stan.
“Didn’t have the time. There’s too much to do.”
“You ought to take a little time off this morning. The Chinese won’t attack yet. My guess is they’ll start by pounding us with artillery first. Use that time to recoup. We need you at your best, sir, not filled with morbid doubts.”
Ramos breathed the cold morning air. “Let’s get back to our vehicles. Then I’ll see.”
Admiral Ling spoke to the Chairman via his computer screen in the supercarrier’s ready room. Commodore Yen sat out of sight to the side.
The Chairman appeared angry. Ling was weary and his bones ached this morning.
“I do not understand this delay,” the Chairman was saying. “The Army’s cross-polar taskforce has achieved its first objective: the town of Dead Horse and its accompanying oilfields. With the deep discoveries, it is presently the largest single oilfield in the world. The Navy with its lavish fleet and precision-drilled naval infantry has crawled these past weeks through an American wildness playground. Unlike the cross-polar soldiers, you have modern roads to carry your supplies, near total air superiority and more numbers of trained soldiers than the enemy has. Yet what do I hear? You constantly plead for more ships, more munitions, more soldiers and more fuel, always more, more, more.”
“I am pleased with the northern victory of Chinese arms,” Admiral Ling said. “Yet if I could point out, sir, they had enough fuel to—”
“Don’t speak to me about fuel!” the Chairman said. “A nuclear-tipped torpedo struck the polar taskforce. Snowmobile raiders afterward hit other supply dumps. Percentage-wise, I am told they’ve lost much more of their reserves than you ever had.”
“Sir,” said Ling, “most of our fuel requirements go to the fleet. The land—”
“Why haven’t you protected your tankers better?”
Admiral Ling hesitated. This was an odd situation for the richest oil-nation in the world. Because of Siberia, Chinese oil refineries brimmed with petrochemicals: diesel, kerosene and gasoline. What the Navy lacked was enough transport tankers to bring those fuels across thousands of kilometers of ocean to the battlefield. The Chinese merchant marine was too small and until only a few years ago, the Navy had never been designed as a blue-water fleet. As it was, the supply line had been stretched. Then the Americans had continually destroyed tankers, zeroing in on them with ruthless efficiency. That had created real difficulties. The torturous land route through the Kenai Peninsula only added to the supply nightmare.
“I have tried to protect our tankers, sir,” Ling told the Chairman. “The Americans are cunning, however. They have attacked our fuel transports, preferring to destroy them to carriers. Through espionage, CIA spies must have learned about our fuel troubles.”
“I hope you are not accusing anyone, Admiral.”
“Sir?” asked Ling, wondering what the Chairman was driving at.
The old man in the wheelchair leaned forward, staring at Ling through the screen. “My nephew has spoken to me.”
“My nephew has informed me that you gave him the toughest route and yet you withheld the needed soldiers,” the Chairman said.
“Sir, I must object. It is your nephew’s incompetence that has cost us dearly.”
“What are you saying?” the Chairman asked ominously.
Commodore Yen shook his head, but the bile in Ling from the Vice-Admiral’s blunders welled up in a rush.
“Your nephew first lost all his helicopters trying to storm Seward,” Ling said. “Next, his drive up Moose Pass has become a study in wasteful frontal charges. I could use those dead soldiers now as we attempt to grind down the remaining Americans. Then his bungling charge through the Junction that entangled our troops at the precise moment I—”
“I have heard enough,” the Chairman said. “This slander mars your reputation. You will not
“I would rather that you send me fuel first, sir.”
“Bah!” the Chairman said. “My nephew has assured me he could take Anchorage like that.” The old man snapped his fingers.
Admiral Ling’s eyes bulged. He opened his mouth.
“Sir,” whispered an obviously worried Commodore Yen.
Admiral Ling turned to his friend and advisor, noticing the worry on Yen’s face. Ling closed his mouth, even as
