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An audible gasp was heard by several people in the room and the sudden realization of what this meant. General Lynch continued, with a slight tremble in her voice, “Our local radar systems identified the Chinese cruise missiles, and the laser and railgun systems immediately began to engage them. They destroyed nearly 96 % of the 540 cruise missiles the Chinese launched. What the radar systems did not detect was the 560 missiles that the Japanese fired — at least not until it was too late. They did manage to shoot down about 230 of the cruise missiles, but the rest got through—”

Admiral Juliano interrupted to add, “—I’ve just gotten another update while General Lynch was speaking. They’ve hit us hard, Mr. President. I have a partial report that says our facilities on Coronado were heavily hit. The Fleet headquarters on Naval Base San Diego has been pretty much wiped out. So was our naval air station on North Island. Fourteen of our ships in port have also been heavily damaged.” He sighed then blurted out, “They nearly wiped out our West Coast naval capability, Mr. President.”

General Lynch interjected to finish talking. “—Mr. President, before you respond, I do not have casualty figures just yet, but they are going to be high. My Marines were out in the open when the attack happened. They appear to have also hit Camp Pendleton pretty hard, but I have not received a full report of how bad it was.”

The President just sat back in his chair for a minute digesting what he heard. The rest of the room began to come alive with chatter as people began to check their tablets for additional updates and any other information being sent to them. Monty, the President’s Chief of Staff and personal friend, leaned in to be closer to the President asking him, “Sir, are you all right?”

His thoughts were swirling, “This is just too much information all at once. Crud, my migraine is starting to come back — I don’t have time to deal with a migraine. I need to take a break and lay down for a few minutes.

The President stood up, which got the attention of everyone in the room. “OK here is what we are going to do. The situation right now is too fluid and changing too fast for us to formulate a strategy and respond to this new situation. Right now, we are just reacting, and we need to start anticipating what they are going to do next and make them react to us. Clearly, we need more information to start making good decisions here.”

The President continued, “I don’t really see that I will be of use to you until we have some more information about what the situation is on the ground, so I am going to take a break from the meeting to go eat dinner with my wife while you sort some things out. In the meantime, I will have dinner brought down here while you continue to work and consolidate the information coming in.”

“I am going to come back down here in two hours, and I would like the following information to be ready. 1) I want confirmation that our cyber-attacks have been initiated and are underway. 2) I want the best possible damage assessment of this recent cruise missile attack. 3) I want to know where and what the Chinese and Japanese fleets are doing and what we can do to counter them. 4) I want a full report of what is going on in Oakland and LA… Please coordinate with whomever you need to and have this information ready when I return.” With his instructions issued, the President proceeded to leave the PEOC and let his senior military leaders and cabinet members to do their jobs.

Monty began to follow the President out of the room when the President turned and said, “Monty, I need to spend some time alone with my wife and rest for a short bit. I’m getting another migraine, which I absolutely cannot afford to have right now. I want you to stay down here and manage the information and workflow. Guide them if need be, but we need to right our ship quickly.” Henry spoke with confidence, knowing that Monty could fill in for him for the next couple of hours.

Monty was becoming concerned for his lifelong friend as these migraines appeared to be happening more often. “Yes Sir. Perhaps you should call for the doctor. We cannot afford to lose you even for a couple of days if something more serious is going on.”

“I appreciate your concern; I will set aside some time to talk with the doctor tomorrow and see what he has to say.” With that, the President left the PEOC to return to the residence and have a quiet dinner with his wife.

The information pouring in to the PEOC over the following two hours was nothing short of disastrous. The Marines had suffered some horrific casualties as they were mostly caught out in the open during the attack. Thousands of civilians had been killed by the cruise missiles as well. The Coronado bridge had also been destroyed, along with the police headquarters. The City of San Diego was a mess. Camp Pendleton had been hit extremely hard, killing thousands of Marine recruits and severely damaging the base facilities. In LA, two battalions of the Third Marines had been nearly wiped out by several cruise missiles and several buildings and the airstrip at Twenty-Nine Palms had been hit as well, killing several hundred additional Marines and soldiers and destroying dozens of Razorback attack helicopters and other aircraft.

When the President returned to the PEOC two hours later, he was feeling much better; although he was not one to take medication for a headache normally, his wife had convinced him that the state of the free world was at stake, and he had acquiesced. He was quickly brought up to speed and new orders were issued for the navy to dispatch the newly created Carrier Strike Group 12 (CSG-12 which was a consolidation of CSG-10 and CSG-11) to cross the Panama Canal and destroy the Japanese and Chinese carrier fleets.

This new strike group consisted of three Supercarriers: two of the newly designed Reagan class carriers and one of the older Nimitz class that had been reactivated from the Ghost Fleet along with a lot of other mothballed ships. The Reagan class carriers were enormous. At 1,350 feet in length with a flight deck width of 376 feet and 290 feet in height, the carriers displaced 140,000 tons, making them the largest warship in the world. The strike group also had twenty escort ships, including two of America’s newest battleships, the USS Iowa and the USS Wisconsin, named after the two famous World War II battleships. The President was not playing around.

Send in the Marines

24 December 2041
Riverside, California

The Japanese had succeeded in taking America by surprise. The Army and Marines were stretched thin in Europe and Alaska; the US Pacific Fleet had been destroyed a year earlier, leaving most of the West Coast exposed. People had been assured the Japanese would eventually come to America’s aid, then, just as they appeared to come to America’s rescue, they betrayed the U.S. and led the invasion of California. As the first Japanese tanks began to roll off those freighters, the LA police and Orange County sheriff tried to organize a defense; they were not going to lay down to this invading army without a fight, and neither were those civilians who owned personal firearms.

The 3rd Battalion of the 3rd Marines (or 3/3 as they called themselves), moved into Riverside, a suburb of LA. As they moved through the various neighborhoods, they could see some artillery and cruise missiles had already landed in the area. As Captain Thornton led his men through the area, he saw a broken swing set, lying on its side next to a blackened crater and several children’s bicycles. That’s when it hit him, “The homeland has been invaded, and nothing is ever going to be the same again.”