Invasion alaska ia 1, p.48
Invasion: Alaska ia-1, page 48
part #1 of Invasion America Series
A missile flashed from the helicopter’s wing.
“Ave Maria,” Ramos said, as he watched the missile streak at him. Then their technical exploded, and the two men died.
PRUDHOE BAY, ALASKA
Paul Kavanagh waited with Red Cloud in a gully on Cross Island. Before them was a wide expanse of pack ice. Behind were low mounds of frozen tundra, with deceptive dips and gullies everywhere. A cold wind blew, although Paul was immune to its bite just now. Particles of snow blew like sand across the desolate ice. It hurt visibility, but it was nothing like a whiteout. Cross Island, along with several other small pieces of rock and tundra, guarded the approach to Dead Horse.
A Marine lieutenant had found them and the other American who had survived the hovertank pack-ice attack. The lieutenant had slipped out of Dead Horse with five hard-bitten Marines. He had rendezvoused with the last two helicopters. Instead of flying away, the lieutenant had landed on the ice, giving Kavanagh and the others badly needed supplies. Then he’d recharged their fighting suits. Afterward, the lieutenant had sent one of the choppers north, hunting for the enemy. It had never returned. Before its destruction, however, the helicopter crew had radioed the lieutenant information. They’d found a battle-group of snowtanks heading for Dead Horse. The enemy advance would take them to Cross Island. Likely, the Chinese commander wanted to reach tundra as soon as possible so he could get off the ice, even if for a little while.
“I know this is a risk,” the lieutenant told Paul two hours ago. “But this is critical. The Chinese hold Dead Horse, but not in strength. The approaching snowtanks would triple Chinese combat power there. So I think we should hit them now and keep them from joining.”
Paul glanced at Red Cloud before he told the lieutenant, “Captain Bullard said he’d give me a link to California once this was over.”
“Bullard’s dead, but I’ll see what I can do. Just give me a few more days. I know this is your specialty. The Corps needs you.”
That’s how Paul had let himself be talked into this desperate plan. Crazy. They were just a handful of weary men—less than fifty against thirty snowtanks, accompanying infantry on sled-carriers and supply caterpillars. Neither side appeared to have air, other than the lieutenant’s remaining helicopter. Paul and his men did have these Arctic fighting suits, and fully-charged again.
“I see something,” Red Cloud said. As he lay on his stomach, the Algonquin used a thermal tracker. “It’s the Chinese.”
Paul slid to the M220 Launcher. They had taken it off the sled and set it up here in the gully.
“Wait,” Red Cloud said. “They’re stopping and they’re still out of range.”
“What are they thinking?” Paul asked.
“Nothing good,” Red Cloud said.
More than ever, Paul wanted to crawl to the helicopter and fly out of the Arctic Circle. He wanted to see sunlight again. The Marine lieutenant thirsted for revenge, however. All he could think about was killing Chinese. With two helicopters, they could have been ferrying the survivors to somewhere on the coast. Instead, Paul found himself laying in the Arctic darkness in a gully, facing thirty snowtanks with infantry support. He hated these odds.
“Come on you bastards,” he said. “What are you waiting for?”
His fingers itched as he touched the TOW launcher’s firing mechanism. The Arctic night was a lonely world. Murphy must have been lonely those last hours lying in a cold snowcat. Paul still couldn’t understand why the Chinese had to gun-down oilmen working a rig. That had been murder.
“What are they waiting for?” Paul asked.
“We will find out soon enough,” Red Cloud said.
* * *
Lieutenant-General Bai was in charge of the Chinese taskforce stopped on the ice. He had fled from the main base on the pack ice four hundred kilometers north of Alaska. That base had vanished in a mushroom cloud of radioactive destruction. The Americans had used another nuclear-tipped torpedo.
Bai had fled in a tracked sled, much like a giant snowmobile. He had coolly considered his options. If he returned to Siberia, he would no doubt take the blame for the base’s destruction. He had been the officer-in-charge. He should have defended the base better. He considered General Nung, who had fought his way into Dead Horse. The general had little logistical ability, yet Nung had consistently advanced in rank. It was then that Bai knew what he would do. He’d gather the survivors of the nuclear attack and join the thirty snowtanks heading for Dead Horse. He would re-supply General Nung. Perhaps the brash general could produce another miracle. Nung had done so before. Yet in order to produce a miracle, Nung needed more troops. These troops Bai brought him.
“We are awaiting your orders, sir,” the officer in charge of the snowtanks radioed him.
In his command sled, Bai fretted. He was a logistics officer, not a combat fighter. There were American soldiers on the island. The soldiers could spot for another submarine. On all accounts, Bai knew he must get his troops onto dry land and off the pack ice. After seeing the mushroom cloud expand in the Arctic darkness, Bai had come to dread the possibility of a third nuclear-tipped torpedo.
“Sir?” radioed the commander of the snowtanks. “It is inadvisable to just sit here and wait.”
Bai knew that a bad order given strongly was better than dithering back and forth. “Dismount the infantry,” he said. “They will clear the way for your tanks.”
“Yes, sir!” the snowtank officer said.
Bai nodded to himself. The snowtanks had to crawl over the ice. Their weight was too great for them to move at speed. If they did, the tanks would create violent wave-action under the ice. If the waves moved too violently, they would crack the ice and the tanks would fall into the freezing water. That limitation had been one of the debilitating factors of the trek from Siberia to Alaska. Once the snowtanks reached the tundra, however, they would easily be the most powerful vehicle in this nightmare land.
I hope I have made the correct decision, Bai thought. I must give General Nung the means so he can achieve another battlefield miracle.
* * *
“You know what this is?” Paul asked.
“Tell me,” Red Cloud said.
“A Chinese wave assault.”
Paul and Red Cloud lay in their gully, both men using binoculars to scan the pack ice. On it approached more than three hundred Chinese soldiers. They were spread out on the ice, with weapons ready. Behind them followed more Chinese soldiers.
“They mean to storm our island,” Red Cloud said.
Paul cradled a grenade launcher. It had advantages over a heavy machine gun. The biggest was that firing it wouldn’t give away their position. The enemy was still much too far out of range.
“We need some mortars,” Paul said.
“The lieutenant has the mines.”
They had been busy two hours ago, placing mines in the ice.
“Look there,” Red Cloud said, pointing to the left.
Paul turned his binoculars to where Red Cloud pointed. Snowtanks circled the island. His stomach curdled. The Chinese were trying to trap them by flanking around.
Paul’s headphones in his helmet crackled. “We have to do something now!” a man shouted.
“We will,” Paul said. “We’ll do one thing at a time. The trick now is to kill Chinese.”
“Roger that,” the lieutenant said over the radio. “We let them bastards get close. Then I’ll trigger the mines.”
“What about the tanks circling us?” a man asked.
“One thing at a time, like Kavanagh says,” the lieutenant answered. “So don’t crap your pants. Just get ready.”
“Yeah,” Paul whispered to himself. He gripped his grenade launcher and lay on the cold soil, watching the three hundred Chinese soldiers. Particles of snow like sand drifted across the ice, mingling with the mass of Chinese.
They waited another twelve minutes. By that time, Paul didn’t need binoculars. He could make out the red stars on the helmets of the approaching Chinese. The walking soldiers had drifted into squads. There were about forty Chinese moving directly toward him. A second wave followed in the distance.
“Get ready,” the lieutenant said over the radio. “…now,” he whispered.
Several seconds passed. Then loud explosions occurred on the ice. The fiery blasts of the mines sent Chinese soldiers flying, those of the second wave. The mines took a frightful toll. The explosions caused many of the first wave to turn around.
“Here we go,” Paul said. He aimed the grenade launcher and fired. The round was magnetically ejected, and it flew as a dark object. It landed between the nearest Chinese and exploded.
* * *
“We need the tanks!” an infantry commander shouted over the radio to Bai. Bai was still in the command vehicle, with the majority of the snowtanks in his vicinity.
During the infantry advance, the snowtanks had crawled forward, staying outside of TOW2 missile range.
“Our soldiers are exposed out on the ice,” the tank commander radioed Bai.
Bai clutched the receiver. If the tanks moved too fast, they would create wave-action under the ice. But it was a short hop now to the island. General Nung would order the tanks to charge. Some might fall into the freezing water, but most would make it to land.
“Attack,” Bai said.
“Sir?” asked the tank commander.
“You are to charge the island. Help the infantry kill the Americans.”
* * *
“We must retreat inland,” Paul said as he ducked down into the gully.
Enemy bullets caused frozen tundra to spit into the air. The surviving Chinese infantry on their part of the battlefield had spotted them. The enemy soldiers lay on the ice and fired light machine guns.
“The snowtanks are coming,” the Marine lieutenant said over the radio.
Paul glanced at their TOW2 launcher. There was no way they could fire it now. Chinese infantry had gotten near enough to lay down suppressing fire. It would be suicide to try to do now what they’d done to the hovertanks days earlier.
“Leave the TOW,” Red Cloud said. “Take the LAWS rocket.”
The LAWS rocket was old. It fired a shape-charged round. It was a one-shot disposable tube. They had two LAWS.
Paul didn’t argue. He crawled along the bottom of the gully. Behind him, Red Cloud followed. It was too bad they hadn’t placed the TOW elsewhere along the gully. But they couldn’t think of everything in advance. At least the mines had worked.
Soon, Paul stood hunched over. He carried the grenade launcher and the LAWS, a strap around each shoulder. Behind, on the ice, snowtanks roared for the island.
Paul and Red Cloud ran up a slope and slid behind it. The snowtanks came from many directions.
“Look,” Red Cloud said.
Paul saw it. A TOW2 missile streaked across the ice. Several seconds later, it hit, and there was one less Chinese tank. More TOWs fired.
“Ha!” the Marine lieutenant shouted over the radio.
“What happened?” radioed Paul.
“The Chinese tanks are moving fast,” the lieutenant informed them. “I just saw the ice open up under one, and it disappeared.”
“It would be good if that happened to all of them,” Red Cloud said.
Paul cursed and slapped a hand on Red Cloud’s shoulder. Then he pointed. Three snowtanks approached the island. No infantry had made it here. Those had been some of the flanking tanks.
Explosive sounds occurred, and on the ice under the first tank appeared a zigzagging crack. The Chinese tanks kept coming.
“Open up,” Paul whispered. “Break apart.”
It didn’t happen. Instead, the three snowtanks made it to Cross Island, leaving the pack ice to clank over tundra. Each snowtank was made up of two separate sections or cabs, linked together by an articulated joint. On the first section was the main tank gun. The second section had heavy machine guns and an ATGM launcher.
“Our luck has run out,” Red Cloud said.
“We’ll have to make our own luck,” Paul said. “Come on, this way.”
They had the combat suits. It muffled their thermal and infrared signatures, and they were white like ghosts. Paul crawled. Red Cloud followed.
The snowtanks clanked up the slope and then turned toward the Chinese infantry. The two teams were likely going to link up. Tanks with infantry support would be almost impossible to kill on the island with the weapons they had.
“This is it,” Paul said. He got up, and he ran down-slope toward the three tanks. Red Cloud followed.
The clanking-rattle sound of the snowtanks was ominous. The hovers were the king of the ice. The snowtanks would rule on the tundra. If they reached Dead Horse….
Paul threw himself onto his belly, and he flipped up the sights on his LAWS. “This is for you, Murphy.” Paul squeezed the trigger.
A second later, the LAWS whooshed, and the shape-charged round sped at a tank. It hit the front section and exploded. There was a loud squeal, and the tank stopped.
Paul crawled like mad. He slid into a gully just as the tank’s machine guns opened up at him.
“Are you ready?” Paul asked.
“Roger,” Red Cloud said, who had stayed behind.
Paul got up and ran in a crouch.
“There’s two on your tail,” Red Cloud radioed.
Paul sprinted with everything he had. It felt like his football days. A tank appeared at the top of the slope behind him. Paul dove and rolled behind an outcropping of soil. At the same moment, a kneeling Red Cloud fired his LAWS, and it scored a hit, stopping the enemy tank.
Paul thrust himself up, and he kept moving inland toward the center of the island. His suit cooled his sweat. That helped. He sucked on a water tube. That helped more. His side began to ache, but Paul kept running over the tundra, Red Cloud right beside him. The last of the three tanks must have joined the infantry.
“I wonder…how our side is doing,” Paul panted.
Red Cloud didn’t answer.
After that, Paul concentrated. Fourteen minutes later, they spotted the helicopter. The blades were slowly turning and the big bay door was still open. A man in a combat suit was climbing in.
Paul was exhausted. The pain in his side was agony. But he’d been through this before. He ignored the pain and concentrated on pushing himself. The helicopter was life. If he could reach it, he could go home again. If he failed, he died or became a prisoner of the Chinese. Beside him, Red Cloud faltered.
“No,” Paul whispered. He grabbed the Algonquin and kept him going.
Soon, they crawled into the helicopter. Helping hands yanked them in. The blades were turning faster now, and the Marine chopper lurched as it lifted off the cold ground.
Paul’s eyes glazed over, and he waited, wondering if the Chinese would shoot them out of the air. It didn’t happen. They raced out the back of the island, a handful of men: seven to be exact. The lieutenant never made it, leaving the pilot in charge.
“Where next?” asked Paul.
“Far away from here,” the pilot said as they climbed into the night sky, heading west so they wouldn’t run up against the Chinese air defense in Dead Horse.
* * *
Lieutenant-General Bai technically won the small action at Cross Island. But he had taken appalling losses: fourteen snowtanks and half his infantry either dead or wounded. When his men counted the number of enemy dead, it frightened Bai. These Americans were tigers.
“What now, sir?” the tank commander asked.
“Now we dash to Dead Horse and add our numbers to General Nung.”
It was bold talk, but Bai knew now that Nung wouldn’t achieve greatness with the addition of these paltry forces. They would need more soldiers and more tanks, many more, if they hoped to conquer the rest of northern Alaska.
PRCN SUNG
As night fell over the fleet, Admiral Ling sat in his ready room, staring at a screen showing an aerial three-dimensional map of Anchorage. His ground commanders had driven a deep wedge into the city, but they were fast running out of fuel.
There was a knock at the door.
“Enter,” said Ling, as he continued to stare at the computer screen.
Commodore Yen slipped in. He took a chair before Ling and waited in silence.
“The American pickup-attack against our land convoy was a brilliant move,” Ling said quietly.
“We have more soldiers,” said Yen.
Ling shook his head. “We’re almost out of fuel. Now our ammo situation is deteriorating. If we could move all that we have on the beachheads to the front, it would be a different story. But these Americans….”
“One final push led by the T-66s can still reach the Anchorage refineries,” said Yen. “Then all will be well.”
“Tomorrow, we shall see,” said Ling.
“You must beg the Chairman for more supplies. Our naval infantry can dig in as they wait for greater reinforcements.”
“Will the Chairman send us more with winter nearing?” asked Ling. “Winter-fighting in Alaska will bring us more blizzards of the type we just endured. I fear that we began the campaign in the wrong season.”
Commodore Yen said nothing to that.
After a time, Admiral Ling continued to adjust the computer screen.
ANCHORAGE, ALASKA
It was mid-morning of the second day of the Battle for Anchorage. Stan crouched beside Major Philips’s corpse. Police Sergeant Jackson had dragged the body out of a destroyed Stryker. The vehicle hadn’t moved fast enough this last time.
During these two days, Philips, Jackson and Stan had lured, ambushed and destroyed three T-66 tri-turreted tanks.
Stan glanced at the smashed Stryker, inhaling the stink of machine oil and hot metal. A large building loomed over them. Shattered glass, piles of black snow and rubble littered the sidewalks and paving. Looking up the street, Stan inspected the wrecked T-66. Chinese corpses lay around it, the tanker crew trying to escape their crippled monster.
The sounds of war reverberated from hundreds of buildings. Chinese artillery boomed outside the city, sending shells screaming into the concrete jungle. There was constant rifle fire, vehicle cannons and hammering machine guns. Anchorage looked like old war footage, with gutted grocery stores, smashed banks and demolished retail outlets.
