Some soldiers fled. Many fired back. That’s when the Chinese helicopters dropped into attack mode. They looked like armored insects, with stubby little wings with missiles attached. The armored choppers were ugly things that could spew death better than any old-time Apache helicopter. They hung in the air, launching missiles, destroying the remaining Bradleys and Humvees. At that point, they roared forward as their 25mm chainguns hosed the remaining Americans brave enough to fire heavy weapons up at them.
As attack-choppers hunted for anything moving, Chinese infantry-carrying helicopters flew over the beach and the town. They stayed higher up and looked heavy and deadly. None landed on the beach. None landed in Homer. The big choppers flew past the old town and soon disappeared over the mountains. They would spill their cargoes farther inland, cordoning off the amphibious-assault landing zone.
The chief control officer out at sea now ordered the first amphibious wave. A swarm of the landing boats, all carefully lined up, steamed for the coal-littered shore.
The Snapping Turtle amphibious boats were the armored personnel carriers of the assault. Each displaced thirteen tons and was eleven meters long. It had a three-man crew and carried twenty-five grim-faced naval infantry ready to charge ashore. The main assault was coming.
Sergeant Byers of the Alaskan National Guard had several FGM-148 Javelins. He hunkered in his foxhole, hidden under an anti-radar tarpaulin. Wide-eyed, with his hands on the foxhole’s dirt, he surveyed the wreckage around him.
There were overturned and burning Humvees and M2 Bradleys. One flipped Bradley had crushed a soldier, a lone hand sticking out of the wreckage. Men and body-parts were strewn here and there. One headless corpse still clutched his grenade launcher. The heavy ordnance from the ships offshore, air-to-ground missiles from the helicopters, and napalm from the bombers had smashed the defense to smithereens.
Byers had large welder’s hands—they were dry and had cracks and seams in them like a man twice his age. He was one of the few survivors of the murderous and multi-layered bombardment. There had been two others with him in the foxhole, one of them the ammo bearer of their two-man Javelin team. They had fled…and died in the shockwave concussions of five-hundred pound bombs. Byers stared out of his foxhole. The stink of napalm, the pork-like stench of burnt humans and the sting of explosives in his nostrils was a nauseating smell, one of bitter defeat.
Where had everyone gone? Were they all dead? Was he the last American defending Homer?
Byers scanned the water. His answer wasn’t long in coming. Twenty-three amphibious personnel carriers, Snapping Turtles, churned through the gray waves. They headed for Homer’s beach, with its lumps of coal and American dead.
Byers knew there were enemy minesweepers out there, enemy carriers, cruisers, destroyers and cargo vessels. Chinese air patrolled everywhere. This was a catastrophe. No one defended the landing zone anymore. After rushing here from Anchorage and working day and night, the Chinese were getting a free ride onto Alaskan soil.
Sergeant Byers shook his head. Maybe not altogether a free ride. He was still alive. Taking a calming breath, Byers studied the amphibious landing craft. The waves were low today. He doubted any of the Chinese riflemen were seasick.
Far out in the distance, Byers made out the silhouette of several Chinese warships.
He shrugged after a moment. None of that mattered anymore. He squeezed his eyes closed and picked up the Javelin launcher, almost fifty pounds in weight. With a flick of his fingers, he turned on the system. There was a frozen smile on his face as he activated the controls and targeted the nearest amphibious boat. There was a popping sound as the missile made a soft launch. Seconds later, the Javelin roared into life. It was a fire-and-forget missile, and it zoomed across the waters at a Chinese amphibious carrier.
Mentally, Sergeant Byers counted the seconds. Then an explosion over the waters showed him where the missile demolished the amphibious carrier and its invasion squads.
“Boom,” Byers whispered.
He readied another missile and targeted a second amphibious carrier, launching again. The Javelin hit and destroyed a second invasion craft. Sergeant Byers readied a third time and was busy targeting his third amphibious carrier when he heard a deadly
Small-arms fire popped around him. There were other Americans left. They fired at the armored chopper.
Breathing hard, Byers turned back to his controls, targeted another amphibious carrier—
The attack helicopter’s chaingun whirled into life. Before Byers could launch this third missile, steel-jacketed bullets—over two hundred of them—obliterated him and his launcher. Afterward, the helicopter hunted the Americans firing at it.
Because of the helicopter, Byers missed the initial landing. He missed the amphibious craft roaring onto the coal-dotted beach. He missed the front gates crashing open. He missed the Chinese as they waded ashore. The naval infantry wore dinylon-armor jackets and most held assault rifles. In the watery distance came the second wave, hot on the heels of the first. The corpse of Sergeant Byers saw none of these things, although one Chinese soldier emptied a magazine of bullets into his bleeding body.
The invasion of Alaska had begun in earnest.
An angry Admiral Ling, the commanding officer of the invasion fleet, sipped hot tea as he watched his bank of intelligence officers. They typed information into the operational battle screens.
The OBS took up one wall of the room in the supercarrier
One-armed Admiral Ling frowned as he watched the last Chinese helicopter over Seward crash. He set his teacup into its saucer and rubbed the right side of his face, the good side that still had feeling. The attack had destroyed American Strykers defending Seward, but not all of them. The town was still in enemy hands.
Ling glanced at Commodore Yen, a tall man in his fifties wearing a VR monocle. The Chinese media loved interviewing Commodore Yen because of his good looks and military bearing. In the service, Yen was known for his political caution, always testing before making any statement. Perhaps it was the reason the Party let the media interview him so often.
“Do the Americans have our communication codes?” asked Admiral Ling. “Is that how they achieved their success in Seward?”
Commodore Yen shook his head. “Our intelligence operatives are too good to have allowed such a thing to pass to the enemy. No. I think fate aided the Americans in Seward. For reasons I cannot fathom, our helicopter assaults—”
“There was a total lack of coordination between the attack and carrier helicopters,” said Ling.
“Some unseen incident must have interrupted the good planning,” Yen said, as he glanced meaningfully at the bank of intelligence operatives at their stations.
Ling adjusted the empty left sleeve of his uniform. Then he turned on Yen. “The piecemeal attacks were a practice in stupidity.”
Commodore Yen said nothing.
Ling scowled. He had several items on his mind. The American ASBM attack had struck and destroyed two large fuel tankers. Maybe the guidance systems in the ballistic missiles had noted the large size of the tankers and assumed they were carriers. Unfortunately, the Chinese Navy only owned a few fleet tankers. Fortunately, there had been a solution.
These days, much of the world came to China for oil, and some of the trade was moved in Chinese bottoms. The Navy couldn’t use crude tankers, those vessels that hauled crude oil. It needed
