Battle Born

of confirmed hits on just thirteen Chinese main battle tanks and nine artillery pieces. Our weapons list was in excess of two hundred Maverick missiles, forty antiradar missiles, and over one hundred sticks of gravity weapons. Our surviving forces are rearming and refueling.”

“Those losses are completely unacceptable!” Minister of National Defense Kim Kun-mo shouted. “Five percent! Five percent of our strike fleet was destroyed or damaged in just the first wave! How can we expect to drive out the enemy with losses such as this?”

“Sir, we are gathering more tactical reconnaissance and rebuilding the target list,” General An Ki-sok, chief of the general staff, replied. “But the Chinese Air Force has simple numerical superiority over Chagang Do province right now. The Chinese fighters do not engage our F-16 fighters — they merely shoot and run, shoot and run. They do this because they know there are four or five more fighters entering the battle for every one that retreats. Why risk being shot down in an engagement with a superior force?”

“What are you planning on doing about it, General?” Kim asked.

“We can do little at night without better photo intelligence,” General An replied somberly. “Only one-third of our F-16s can carry Maverick missiles, and they cannot do their job very well if we do not control the skies. In daytime, we can use the F-5 Chegong-ho fighters for air defense and the Hawks and Mohawk planes for attack.” He paused, then looked at his commander with a painful expression. “But it will do little good, sir,” he admitted. “China’s Air Force is qualitatively far inferior to ours, but they will have the numbers on their side no matter how good our pilots are. We may never get control of the skies over Chagang Do province.”

“This is unacceptable! Completely unacceptable!” Kim shouted. “We have struggled too hard and have come too far to be turned back. If we cannot defend our own land from attack, what good are we as a nation?” The hot line phone began to ring. Kim ignored it for several long moments, and a stern glare warned General An not to touch it either. Finally, Kim answered it:”

“What is it?”

“This is the president,” Kwon Ki-chae said angrily. “What is going on? My staff tells me we are attacking the Chinese troops!”

“I had no choice, Mr. President,” Kim said. “I assembled a strike package and executed a conventional weapons attack against the spearhead of the Chinese armored units. I also conducted a probe to try to determine what kind of air defenses they had set up in Chagang Do province.”

“This was completely without authorization!” Kwon shouted. “You will launch no more attacks tonight! Is that understood?”

“Sir, we lost eleven aircraft to the Chinese,” Kim said bitterly. “They continue to move south and are threatening to break out of Chagang Do province. By this time tomorrow they can have four brigades of tanks on the outskirts of Pyongyang. If we do not stop them, they will be knocking on your door at the Blue House in three days.”

“General, don’t you realize we cannot hope to defeat the Chinese People’s Liberation Army by military means?” President Kwon asked incredulously. “Don’t you realize what happened here? We achieved a major victory over the Communists not by the use of force, but by the use of reason and truth. North Korea fell because the people threw off the dictatorship that was slowly killing them, not because we used our military might to subdue them.”

“I am well aware of how we defeated the Communists, sir,” Kim said, his voice a low monotone.

“Then under what delusions of grandeur are you suffering, General Kim?” Kwon asked. “Did you think that just because we captured some jets and artillery pieces and nuclear weapons we can scare China? The smallest military district in China has twice as many men, planes, and tanks as our entire country!

“We are a nation of peace, Kim, not because we are small and defenseless, but because we are Koreans, bred for peace,” Kwon went on. “We do not have an offensive striking force because we never wanted one! We should have given those special weapons away. We never should have kept them!”

“And let China overrun us again?” Kim asked. “Did we fight to win reunification, only to roll over and die just a few short weeks later?”

“This is a different world than that of 1895 or 1945,” Kwon said. “Don’t you realize this? The conquest of land is less important than technological and economic competition. China never wanted our land. But you — we — acted as if the Ming dynasty ruled China, or the Imperial Japanese warlords wanted to annex us again. The Chinese would have been perfectly happy to wait and watch to see if stability and peace would take over the Korean peninsula — as long as they were not threatened by nuclear weapons. When we kept those weapons, we became a threat to them.”

“Sir, we kept those weapons because they were to secure our borders and guarantee our security against the Chinese People’s Liberation Army,” Kim retorted. “We knew we could not defend ourselves against China’s overwhelming numerical advantage. China is stupid enough to risk the lives of millions of its citizens and soldiers just to take Chagang Do province — well, that was their mistake. We have no choice now, sir.

“We have to back up our threat to use weapons of mass destruction to stop the Chinese. I am requesting your launch codes for our nuclear, chemical, and biological weapons force.”

“You… you are insane, Kim…”

“I am realistic, sir!” Kim exploded. “I am trying to save Korea, not watch it destroyed! I am in the command center directing our troops to try to drive the invaders out, not sitting in my cozy office or in some underground secret bunker wringing my hands and hoping for peace. I have ordered twelve Scud-B and six Nodong-1 ballistic missiles targeted against the Chinese brigades in Chagang Do province and inside Jilin province in China. I have also targeted air bases in Dandong, Fushun, and Shenyang, the tank base at Linjiang, and the naval bases at Luda and Qingdao. In addition, I have targeted two Nodong-2 missiles at the People’s Liberation Army command center…”

“Beijing?” Kwon said in horror. “You… you have targeted Beijing with nuclear weapons?”

“I know this seems a drastic and inconceivable act, sir,” Kim said with amazing calmness, “but if we have any hope of stopping the Chinese war machine from sweeping across Korea, we must do this. I need your execution codes, sir, and I need them now. You must read them off to me over the phone — I can send someone over there immediately to help you compute the codes if you wish. The senior controller here will copy them down and authenticate them. Combined with my codes, we can proceed with the attack.”

“I will never agree to give you those codes, Kim!” Kwon shouted. “Do you honestly believe I would authorize an attack that could kill hundreds of millions of persons? You are insane! I order you to leave that command center immediately, or I will have you placed under arrest! I am dismissing you from your post.”

“You cannot do that!”

“It is done already,” Kwon said. “You are no longer minister of defense. I will issue the order immediately.” And the line went dead.

Kim Kun-mo’s head was spinning as he hung up the telephone. The bastard, he thought angrily, he actually fired me? We are in the middle of a war with Communist China, and he fired me? “He can’t do that!” he shouted. “I can’t let that happen.” He picked up the telephone to the senior controller.

“Sir?”

“Seal up the command center, General,” Kim said. “Go to full nuclear-chemical-biological protection mode. Full EMP protective measures. Hard-wired analog communications only.”

“Yes, sir,” the senior controller responded. “Switching to internal power, canceling digital and high-gain communications inlets.”

Moments after an announcement was made, the lights flickered, then died except for a handful of battery- powered safety lights. The air also smelled different — mustier, dry like the inside of a coffin. They were on the air recirculators now, completely cut off from outside air; they were also on internal batteries that would be recharged as long as outside power was still available, but would instantly switch over to internal-only power if a nuclear blast erupted outside.

Kim got up from his desk and looked down below to the floor of the command center — it was almost