It is one of the most inaccessible and well-defended regions of mainland China and right now it was the focus of a great deal of activity.
Twelve ‘Long March 4’ boosters were in various stages of assembly, whilst a thirteenth and fourteenth sat on their individual pads. The facility held six launch pads but was using only two, although launches would be separate events, so as not to alarm the West as to exactly what was going up.
The Swiss Embassy in Beijing was notified that over the next 48hrs, the PRC would be launching ‘weather satellites’ in order to monitor the effects of the nuclear weapons detonated in the Atlantic ‘by the warlike western powers’.
The Swiss passed on the word to NATO but at USAF’s hardened space command bunker in South Dakota, they watched closely via a low orbit satellite as the Chinese vehicle broke through the clouds. Everything indicated that it was a normal operation to lift a satellite into low orbit, as did the remaining twelve over the next few hours.
No one seriously believed that the Chinese needed thirteen weather satellites to monitor the exceptional cloud cover that now covered a larger portion of the planet than ever previously recorded. Best guess was that they were increasing their stocks of orbiting communications and surveillance satellites, since the US had started knocking them down. When Russia also put another eight satellites up, without warning but at hourly intervals, the same thoughts applied there too. However, once all twenty-one were aloft they began radical manoeuvres, using up irreplaceable fuel at an extravagant rate.
Although rocket scientists were involved, it did not take the brains of one to work out that the ‘weather satellites’ were far from harmless instrument packages.
The President was in the middle of a videoconference with the European leaders when Joseph, his CSA interrupted him.
“Mr President?” he said from out of camera shot. When the President looked around, the CSA made a zipping motion across pursed lips before making thumbs down gesture.
“Gentlemen… General Shaw is going to sit in for a minute or two whilst I take a call in the next room.”
The ‘next room’ in this case was the bathroom that adjoined the videoconferencing suite. “Joseph, even married guys with kids get talked about if they follow other guys to the john… what’s the problem?”
“Sir, Russia and China today launched twenty-one satellites between them, we assumed they were in response to our anti-sat missions, thickening up their available units, however they are now moving into positions which we predict will allow then to intercept our own.”
“Killer satellites?”
“Yes Mr President, either particle beam or kinetic energy weapons, an attack on our satellites is now in progress… space command has already started altering orbits. It takes up one hell of a lot of computer time to work out new ones where they can still do the job for us.”
“What’s the bottom line Joseph?”
“The bottom line sir is that we are going to lose some assets up there… either to their weapons or simply by running out of fuel through playing kiss-chase in outer space.”
“So which ones are they going for,” asked the President. “Surveillance or communications?”
“Surveillance sir or our RORSATs to be specific. There’s a lot less for the other type to look at since Grease Spot. I think we will see more launches before long, they will come for our COMSATs next.”
“Do our allies know?”
The CSA nodded in affirmation. “Yes Mr President, right now the low orbit above this planet resembles the freeway filled with drunk drivers.”
TSC-16 was an old satellite inasmuch as its fuel tanks were dry; it could no longer stave off the pull of the earth’s gravity by adjusting the height of its orbit. Operated by La Marine Nationale, the French Navy, it was sweeping across the Atlantic when it ran into a wall and died three months earlier than its operators expected.
Stalingrad-05 had launched just three hours before and had the easy task of destroying the French sitting duck. The Russian satellite was little more than a shotgun with a single shot capability, radar, remote control, fuel tanks and manoeuvring jets strapped on. The ‘buckshot’ was in the form of 10,000 tiny cubes of aluminium that were fired into its target's predicted path by the self-destruction of the Russian satellite. The cubes of aluminium did not need to be weighty, as indeed they weren’t.
Stalingrad-05 had matched orbits with TSC-16 and rotated about its axis to point its business end at the French satellite 400 miles behind. 9,997 pieces of buckshot in the gradually expanding cloud of metal missed TSC-16 completely, but the quarter-tonne satellite was travelling at 38,000mph when it impacted with three, one half-ounce cubes, and disintegrated in rather spectacular form.
CHAPTER TWO
However things were going in space, the Pacific or the rest of Europe, it was all of little interest to the Belarus armed forces. Having worked out a rather bold plan with the Poles, they were now in dire straits.
The loyal Belarus numbered seven under-strength motor rifle regiments, and three armoured regiments, shadows of their former selves, plus artillery and engineers. Three divisions worth of men and equipment lay wrecked and mangled, dead and burnt out between their present positions, and the banks of the Dnieper.
Since the battle on the Dnieper at the start of the war, they had fought one other major battle, which had been in defence of Minsk, the capital. That had been a delaying action, allowing as many as possible to flee the city, but it had cost them dearly.
Poland had agreed to come to their aid in a plan devised by the Belorussians, which called for the Belarus forces to make a fighting withdrawal southwest, drawing the enemy on as they did so. It had been a running battle interjected with counter-attacks to cause the most hurt to an enemy superior in number.
The Poles were then meant to punch out due east, outflanking the enemy before curling around to the southwest to strike them in the rear, severing their logistical support train as they did so. It would probably have worked too, had not an enemy covert operation decapitated the Polish government and High Command.
Polish forces had crossed the border, but under the command of men who knew the names, addresses and whereabouts of every member of every Polish soldier’s family. The Polish troops could either fight their former allies or their loved ones would die.
The Poles were to the west and northwest of the Belorussian army, the Ukrainians to the south and the Russians were rolling in from Minsk, to the northeast. The Belorussians who had gone over to the other side at the outbreak of war were also present, but they had been incorporated into the Russian ranks after heavy losses at the hands of their countrymen.
The remains of the Belarus army were now centred on the tiny hamlet of Zditovo, with three lakes in a roughly triangular pattern, providing flank anchors.
Major Johar Kegin, a pilot without an air force, was now a foot soldier in command of an infantry platoon, a post that called for a lieutenant’s rank, but the battalion commander was never going to let him run anything larger. Kegin had a professional to do the real thinking, Sgt Topl, a career infantryman with no apparent sense of humour. All Johar had to do was look confident and encourage the troops, the sergeant at his elbow told him what to say and do.
Johar’s platoon was part of the 11th Motor Rifle Regiment, and they with the 6th MRR were dug-in facing slightly north of east. On the northwest side of the triangle the 7th MRR and 19th MRR had the narrowest frontage, but the boggiest ground to defend. The widest was held by 4th, 23rd and a composite regiment comprising the remnants of 2nd, 10th, 12th MRR, 1st Airfield Defence Regiment and the gunners of several batteries that no longer had ammunition for their pieces. Every unit there also had cooks, drivers, air force personnel and civilian volunteers in their ranks.