Jim Castle sat there, silently pondering that question for a moment before he responded. “My gut says no, but I believe the proposal should be studied a bit more by my staff. I don’t want to dismiss it out of hand either, because I can also see the value in moving in this direction. My concern is, what happens when we lose our window into the PLA’s communication apparatus? That intelligence data has saved the lives of countless thousands of Allied forces. We may not have been able to establish the foothold in mainland China had it not been for the inside access to their troop deployments, attack plans, and everything else we’ve been able to see. Hell, if we’d had this access at the outset of the war, we would have already defeated them.”
Tom McMillian, the National Security Advisor, chimed in. “It’s a huge risk, Mr. President. We’ve already loss nearly ninety percent of our commercial and military satellites since the PLA turned everything over to their new UAV communications platform. I’d hate to lose the tactical advantage we have right now in hopes of broadcasting a series of messages from President Hung Hui-ju. On the one hand, it may work — she may be able to help foment a popular uprising against the war that ultimately leads to the collapse of the PRC. On the other hand, it may cost us our access to their ongoing war plans and troop movements. We’ve only had this advantage for roughly six weeks. In that timeframe, we’ve devastated the Chinese military. I’d almost be more willing to try this in two or three months, once we’ve further destroyed the PLA with it.”
“The casualties are starting to become appalling. We can’t ignore that,” asserted Admiral Meyers, the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs.
As President Foss looked at Admiral Meyers’s face, he noticed new wrinkles and gray hair he hadn’t seen the last time they’d met. “The poor guy has aged ten years in the span of a year from the stress of his position,” he thought. “I wonder how much that’s happening to me?”
The President rubbed his eyes with his hands as he tried to figure out what to do. He knew they were winning the war, but at what cost to the country and the world? The global economy was coming to a screeching halt with the loss of most of the world’s satellites. Then there was the complete and total cyberwarfare the Chinese were waging against every Allied country. Dozens of Allied nations were having their utility systems, transportation networks, and banking systems hacked. By and large, most of them were holding up pretty well. Cybersecurity had been increased exponentially since the start of the war and a lot of redundancy systems had been established to prevent a complete black out or economic collapse, but that didn’t negate the impact these attacks were still having on the general population.
Then there were the casualties. In the last three months, the US alone had sustained over 71,000 killed in action, with nearly three times that number wounded or missing. The country was almost numb at the number of losses they had been sustaining since the start of the summer. The President knew it couldn’t go on for much longer. Something had to be done to bring an end to the war, a just victory the country and the Allies could accept.
The President looked back at the men and women at the table. He didn’t have a good answer — he didn’t feel he could make a good decision with the information he had. Knowing he needed to say something, he finally said, “All right, I want you to begin testing messages from President Hung with the PLA prisoners we’ve captured and within the occupied territories. If you can show that her social media messages can work, and the intelligence community can’t figure out any other means of pumping out these messages to mainland China, then I’ll authorize you to go forward with this plan.”
With the decision made, the President examined the faces before him. He saw a mixture of hope, dread, and a determination to win, no matter the cost.
Chapter 20
Breaking Point
“Grenade!” shouted one of the Rangers. Several of them jumped out of the trench just as it blew up.
Pop, pop, pop.
Sergeant Price fired at the next wave of Chinese militiamen charging them. Bullets zipped and cracked past his head and body as he rolled himself back into the protective cover of the trench.
“Holy crap, that was close,” he thought. There was no time to dwell on the danger though; he stood back up to fire at the enemy.
“They just keep coming!” shouted another Ranger as he unslung another belt of ammo for the M240G gunner, who was busy raking the charging enemy soldiers.
“Frag out!” shouted another soldier. Several of them began lobbing grenades at the charging enemy.
Crump, crump, crump.
“Keep shooting!” Price yelled to the men near him.
As the enemy reached thirty meters away from their trench, one of the British Gurkha soldiers detonated one of the Claymore mines.
BOOM!
He reached for the second clicker to set the next one off, but half his face imploded as a couple of enemy bullets found their marks. One of the Rangers pushed the now-dead soldier over so that he could get at the Claymore clickers. Grabbing the three remaining detonators, he started depressing them as quickly as he could.
Boom, boom, boom!
Bands of enemy soldiers were turned to pink mists as hundreds of steel ball bearings exploded in their faces.
The machine gunners continued to fire to the point that their barrels were starting to noticeably change colors from the heat of the constant shooting.
When the smoke cleared from the Claymores, the machine gunners finally relented when it became clear there was no one left to shoot. The few remaining enemy soldiers fell back, shattered and stunned from yet another assault repelled by the Allies. With the enemy fading away, the remaining soldiers in the trench line and bunkers breathed deeply, relieved they had survived. Now came the time to tend to the wounded and get ready for the next Chinese attack.
Turning to look down the trench line, Sergeant Price shouted, “I want new Claymores set up ASAP!”
Price didn’t waste any time. Now that the enemy attack had been broken, they had to rush to get ready for the next one. The Gurkha and 3 PARA units they’d come to help were practically broken as combat units; after nearly six days of combat, they had been ground into the dirt by relentless attacks. Even after sending two companies of 82nd Airborne paratroopers to reinforce them, they’d still had to call in a Ranger company to shore up their positions.
Price wasn’t sure how much more they could take. They were killing the enemy wholesale, but they just kept coming. Even a well-trained and disciplined soldier would break down at some point if this level of slaughter wasn’t stopped.
Brigadier McCoil and Colonel St. Leo were looking at the map of the area when the various combat outposts began to report in. The COPs had all successfully held off another multihour human wave attack by the PLA, but at great personal loss. Despite having been on the ground for only about forty-eight hours, the American units were down to sixty-five percent strength. The Ranger battalion was down to fifty-two percent strength — they had seen the worst of the fighting as they were being shuffled from one COP to another, depending on where the enemy was looking like they might break through.
“How much longer do you think we can sustain these kinds of losses?” asked Brigadier McCoil in a hushed voice only St. Leo could hear.