Invasion: California

likely.

Paul lay still like one dead. A Chinese soldier kicked him in the helmet, but Paul never flinched. He waited. He couldn’t do anything more now. He waited as the soldiers moved past. Like a beast, a deadly wolf playing a last trick, he bided his time.

Then some instinct rose in Paul. He grabbed his assault rifle and lifted up to one knee. Enemy soldiers had their backs to him. Without hesitation, Paul opened up, cutting down the wave assaulters. Beside him, Romo did the same thing, together with the Lieutenant and a handful of others. Paul lobbed grenades and shot the enemy.

“We’re doing it. We’re—” Those were the Lieutenant’s last words. He crumpled, torn apart by machine gun fire.

Time seemed to slow down for Paul Kavanagh. He whirled around. One of the battle-suited soldiers was less than fifty feet away. The man’s armament was crazy. The machine gun was perched on the armored shoulder. The muzzle blast made the Chinese killer take a step back, and that produced a whine of motorized power.

It’s powered armor. Paul didn’t have any more time to think. He acted. He picked up his last RPG and didn’t even bother with the iron sights. He did this the natural way by feel, and he pulled the trigger. The backblast felt good. The shaped-charge grenade did its trick. It blasted the powered-armored soldier and tore him apart.

* * *

Captain Wei of East Lightning flew backward, blasted off his feet by the crazy American with the RPG. His chest was wet and the world spun out of control.

Is this you, Maria Valdez? Is this your curse?

Then Captain Wei died, his soul headed to the next world, there to learn one of the most terrible truths of existence.

* * *

In El Cajon, among the littered dead, Paul Kavanagh and Romo crawled through gory rubble. Enemy machine gun fire from the surviving battle-suits sought to end their lives. Like hardened rats, like junkyard dogs, the two soldiers fled from superior armaments and firepower. The Chinese had broken through here, killing everyone in the Anaheim Militia Company except for these two interlopers, two killers who were turning out to be harder to butcher than an old governmental tax.

-9- Amphibious Assault

PRCN SUNG

Old Admiral Niu Ling commanded the invasion fleet from the supercarrier Sung.

The ship was massive, displacing one hundred and eight thousand tons. It was seven years older since the last time it had been in battle during the Alaskan War. The supercarrier had missed the Battle of Oahu in the Hawaiian Islands where the Chinese had annihilated the last American flattops. Instead, the super-ship had been near the coast of Australia with the waiting Chinese invasion fleet.

During the Alaskan War, Sung held ninety modern fighters, bombers, tankers and electronic warfare planes. This time, it held one hundred and sixty smaller UCAVs, giving it nearly double the punch it had seven years ago. There were five other supercarriers in the invasion fleet, giving China six altogether and a heavy influx of air power. Each floating airfield had its escort of cruisers, destroyers, supply-ships, submarines, helicopter-tenders and other necessary vessels.

Admiral Ling was old and he was still missing his left arm, as he’d rejected a prosthetic replacement. He’d lost the arm many years ago in a flight accident while he had attempted to land his plane on a carrier. The left side of his face was frozen flesh, although he had a new eye that gleamed with hideous life. Ling had found that the eye intimidated people more than his rank or age did.

He presently stood in the ship’s command center, watching via screens as his UCAVs swept the San Francisco coastal regions, particularly the shores along Monterey Bay. The last time he’d led an invasion fleet against American territory, the enemy had launched Anti-Ship Ballistic Missiles (ASBMs) against his vessels. It had been a terrifying experience. This time, his fleet was better protected against such an attack. He wondered if the Americans realized this. Perhaps it was the reason why they had not yet launched a mass missile-assault against him.

The greater protection was due to new, laser-armed cruisers. Destroyers still used the SM-4 missiles and the fleet possessed COIL drones with chemical lasers that could shoot down incoming ballistic missiles. The cruisers were the latest in ASBM protection, their lasers heavier than the tactical variety used by the Army. These were midway in size and power between the strategic lasers for continental defense and the mobile lasers beaming targets on the battlefields of Southern California.

Even so, Ling’s stomach churned with worry. He was far too old for this, but the Leader had insisted he command the assault. Now Ling had to risk his reputation one more time. Maybe if he had been younger, he would have liked the idea of a rematch against the Americans. All he could think about now was what a failure would mean for his son and grandson.

Yet how could he fail? The American Fleet of old was a dinosaur of the history books, its brittle bones littering the bottom of the oceans. From its glory days of invincible power, the vaunted American Fleet had become little more than a handful of fast attack boats like the Iranians used to use, and the still potent but far too few submarines. Yes, the Americans had air power, and they could surely gather it here in overwhelming strength and drive him away. But those airplanes and drones fought in Southern California in a life-or-death match or they waited in Texas and Florida for the great hammer to fall.

Ling smiled bleakly as he watched the screens. Chinese UCAVs blasted runways and destroyed radar installations. He watched a missile enter a large shack through the window and explode. The radar disk rotated wildly in the air before landing and shattering into pieces. The UCAVs shot down the few enemy drones that came up to challenge Chinese air superiority. Even better, they hunted for mobile military hardware to destroy and concentrated on American SAM and laser sites.

“The enemy appears to be defenseless before us, sir.”

Ling didn’t bother glancing at the Commodore who stood beside him. It was a younger, newer man, not his old friend who had been with him in Alaska. This man was far more political and lacked wisdom.

Still, Commodore Wu spoke truth. They had caught the Americans with their pants down around their ankles. Hmm, perhaps it was even worse than that for the enemy.

“Do you think this is a trap, sir?”

“No,” Ling said.

“But why are they conceding—”

Short Commodore Wu failed to finish his thought as Ling turned his gaze upon the man. It was the left eye, of course. It gleamed with a metallic color. Worse, it moved like a twitching eyeball. It was a video recorder. In his quarters at night, Ling often downloaded the video and watched what had occurred around him during the day. It meant, in effect, that he had a photographic memory. It also seemed to terrorize his underlings as if he was a superior being, or as if perhaps he was a demon.

The knowledge gave Ling cold comfort. At least it stopped the otherwise endless chatter from these younger officers. Far too many of them had gained rank through political connections and knew how to scurry for favor. Too few of them had a warrior’s instincts. Too few cared to risk an independent comment. Instead, they sought to figure out how he felt about a situation and then parrot it back to him.

“Where are their lasers?” Ling asked.

“Shipped south to the cauldron,” Wu suggested.

“Or waiting until our amphibious boats, hovers and helicopters race for shore,” Ling said.

“A grim possibility,” Wu agreed.

Admiral Ling watched the UCAVs. His carriers were far too close to shore, but they had to be in order to give full air support to the landing. This was the most dangerous operation of war: landing on an enemy shore. So much