The lieutenant poked Gunther in the shoulder. “You’re a GD sailor. Act the part, mister.”
Gunther put his hands on the controls trying to overcome the growing static.
“Is that it then?” General Kaltenbrunner asked.
Gunther didn’t know if the general meant the end of the attack or the end of the armada. Maybe the admiral didn’t know what Kaltenbrunner meant either.
“General?” the admiral asked.
“Those red splashes we’re seeing,” Kaltenbrunner said. “How many nuclear strikes can the fleet take?”
The admiral chuckled softly.
“Are you mad to laugh at a time like this?” Kaltenbrunner asked in a thick voice.
“No, no, excuse me, please,” the admiral said. “I’m relieved.”
“Talk sense,” Kaltenbrunner said, angrily. “We’ve lost ships, far too many ships.”
“General,” the admiral said. “I think I know what happened. The Americans must have also attacked with regular ASBMs.”
“What?” Kaltenbrunner asked.
“With non-nuclear ballistic missiles,” the admiral said.
“The Americans destroyed more ships?”
“Yes,” the admiral said. “I should not have chuckled. We have taken losses. Many good men and women died just now. I am relieved that the Americans failed to destroy us as a fighting force. The realization of our success—I’m afraid I laughed out of nervous relief. Please, forgive me.”
“Failed?” Kaltenbrunner asked. “They just destroyed over… How many ships did we lose?”
The admiral accepted a slip of paper from a major. The small officer glanced at it, crumpled the slip and let it drop to the deck. Then he looked up at Kaltenbrunner. “As of now, sir, we’ve lost twenty-five vessels. Two of those were carriers, and that is a terrible blow. One of the lost vessels was a battleship and one was a major troop ship. The rest were minor ships. The Americans made their great assault, General Kaltenbrunner. They made it and failed to hurt us significantly enough to halt the invasion. While I mourn the loss of twenty-five good GD vessels, I still realize that we’re about to end this campaign in glorious victory. And you are going to spearhead that victory with your ground troops. Congratulations, General Kaltenbrunner.”
The admiral held out his hand. In a bemused fashion, Kaltenbrunner took it, and the two commanders shook.
“History,” Gunther whispered to himself.
Gunther wanted to caw with laughter. He felt so relieved to be alive. He had just survived a nuclear attack against the fleet. It was the first nuclear naval attack in history, and now, they were going to make the Americans pay for attempting it.
-13-
Annihilation
From
2040, July 16-18. Invasion New York. In Southwestern Ontario between Windsor and London, the two forces were locked in bleak, attritional warfare. The Americans used blood, artillery and extensive jamming to whittle down GD Army Group A. Holk staved off the increasingly heavy push in the south as he battered his way east into the Niagara Peninsula. US Fifth Army vainly tried to stave off Holk’s attack as Zeller’s two corps attempted to shut the door at Buffalo. It had become a wrestling match as the Fifth Army paid in blood to extricate itself out of Buffalo and fight its way south toward Pennsylvania.
Meanwhile, US XI Airmobile Corps and the first smattering of Canadian troops fought savagely on the approaches to Syracuse. It proved a losing fight against GD Twelfth Army, but the American soldiers were buying their country time. Zeller asked Mansfeld for Kaisers and Leopard IV tanks in order to spearhead his assaults along the interstate.
On the high seas, General Kaltenbrunner’s GD Army Group D left Cuban ports and headed for the selected Atlantic invasion beaches of New York-New Jersey. The great trap neared completion…
Jake Higgins didn’t know anything about ICBMs or GD armadas. He was dirty, sore, bleeding across his left eye so he had to keep wiping it to clear of blood and he was hungry like a junkyard dog.
The enemy pounding had been going on for some time. He was in a basement with the others, with Charlie, Lee, the lieutenant and MDG Sergeant Dan Franks. There were others of the penal battalion, a pittance compared to their beginning numbers.
After the survival of no-man’s land, he and the others had retreated until they’d found the lieutenant. It had been a nightmare since then. The GD poured everything at Fifth Army, particularly the AI Kaisers and the dreaded Leopard IV tanks, together with air sweeps and missile bombardments.
They had fought their way to St. Catharines along the shore of Lake Ontario. The city burned, with oily fumes churning into the sky. Fifth Army was dying, and the penal battalions along with it.
The lieutenant had said something yesterday about those in Buffalo holding open a corridor long enough so the rest of the Fifth Army could escape the GD trap. It didn’t look as if they would be part of the escapees. This was reminding Jake more and more of Texas last summer.
As dawn rose to another brutal day, the rear guard in St. Catharines was supposed to fight its way free of the enemy and hurry for Buffalo. Yeah, that was a good joke.
Jake wiped blood out of his left eye and peered out of a basement window. A marauding Leopard tank clanked into view past piles of rubble. Behind the tank followed crouched-over GD infantrymen in their high-grade body armor.
“But sir,” Sergeant Franks was saying, “if we attack now, they’ll attack us. If they attack, they’re going to get help from the offshore artillery. They’ll demolish us down here. This will become our grave.”
The lieutenant stubbornly shook his head. “We’re fighting for our country, Sergeant. Maybe it means we’re going to die for our country, but that’s every soldier’s lot in war. Now set up the machine guns. We have to kill those infantry.”
Sergeant Franks bit his lower lip. Clearly, he didn’t like the order, but to disobey a direct command…
There wasn’t much difference now between the penal militiamen and their jailers. Everyone was in this together.
Franks bellowed and he pointed at militiamen, telling them to hurry.
Jake heaved, lifting the .50 caliber into position. Charlie helped him. Lee waited behind the weapon.
“Fire!” the lieutenant said, as he peered out his own window.
Jake glanced at the young man. There was a fanatical fire in the lieutenant’s eyes. These past days hadn’t diminished the man’s resolve, but hardened it. If he had to die fighting, so be it. The lieutenant clearly planned to kill Germans, as many as he could.
Lee pressed the butterfly triggers. The .50 caliber jackhammered its bullets at the enemy. Jake watched. The GD infantrymen had great body armor, but at this range, it meant nothing. They tumbled to the cement, some in a bloody spray.
The Leopard tank’s treads stopped churning far too fast. Its turret swiveled, the huge cannon swinging around toward their building.
“Get down!” Franks shouted.
Jake, Charlie, Lee, the lieutenant, everyone hit the tiled floor of the basement, taking their weapons with them.
A thunderous roar sounded from outside. A shell exploded inside the building on the first floor. That still had an effect down here. Masonry flew everywhere, raining in upside-down geysers. Militiamen fell as cement chunks struck them. A few disappeared, buried under rubble. Dust billowed. Militiamen choked, coughing with hacking sounds.
