“Yes, Sir,” they replied in unison.
Within an hour, the airwing of both carriers was heading towards San Diego and the enemy transports. Commander John Buckley (“Bucky”) was leading his squadron of F35s in the direction of the enemy transports. As they neared their targets, they saw dozens of enemy ships queued up, waiting for their turn to dock at the port and offload their cargo. They also saw half a dozen enemy destroyers and frigates, which immediately began to engage the F38B drones as they began to make their combat runs against the ships. Dozens of anti-ship missiles began to streak away from the attack drones heading towards the enemy destroyers and frigates guarding the fleet.
Missile after missile began to leave the various frigates and destroyers as they tried to intercept the incoming anti-ship missiles and counter-attack the American drones. Shortly after the conflict began, a swarm of Chinese J20s began to gather over San Diego and started to head towards the American fighters. Bucky briefly saw the J20s show up on his radar from the AWACs controller before they disappeared. The J20 was China’s version of the American F22 stealth fighter and was exceptional in combat. Like the American aircraft, it was also a stealth aircraft, only visible when taking off or landing, making it very difficult (although not impossible) to track once in the air.
Bucky got on his coms to call his squadron. “I want you all to gain altitude and put some distance between yourselves and the fighter drones. I just saw a group of J20s taking off; let’s use the fighter drones as bait and get them to give away their position while they are engaged with the fighter drones. Each time you locate one of those J20s, I want you to lock onto that target and attack them with your long-range air-to-air missiles.”
“Yes, Sir,” the squadron replied.
The enemy fighter drones began to engage the American drones, and within minutes, drone aircraft on both sides began to fall out of the sky. The enemy J20s heavily outnumbered Bucky’s squadron, but he needed to at least try and thin them out. The fleet was going to be moving his direction soon, and they needed to do their best to gain some sense of air supremacy.
Had the fleet intelligence officers known the enemy air strength, they never would have recommended the carrier airwings attack. They were heavily outnumbered, and not likely to succeed in their mission. It was unfortunate as most of the carrier fighters and ground attack drones would be destroyed during the battle.
After a while in the air, Bucky concluded that their situation was not very optimistic, and got back on his coms to change up the plan. “OK everyone, here is what we are going to do. We have four missiles each; everyone is going to be assigned a target by our AWACs. Once you have a target for your missiles, launch and then immediately go supersonic back towards the fleet. Don’t stick around to see if your missiles were successful or get in closer to engage with the Sidewinders. I want everyone back to the safety of the fleet as quickly as possible.”
The fleets air combat controllers in the AWACs had linked their screens to the C3 surveillance drone that was high above the fighting. The C3 had monitored the takeoff of the J20s and had been tracking them ever since. Using specialized heat scanners, the C3 fed the AWACs controllers the enemy coordinates, and they in turn fed the data to the targeting computers on the F35s. Once all 64 missiles had been assigned intended targets, Bucky’s squadron of 16 fighters began to send the volley of missiles on their way. Within seconds, the J20s (whose radar had spotted the launch) began to fire their own air-to-air missiles at the F35s. Now it was a race to see if the F35s could get back to the laser and missile defense screen of the fleet or not.
As Bucky’s squadron retreated to the safety of the fleet, their 64 missiles scored 19 hits; the remaining missiles were either evaded or ran out of fuel while the J20s performed evasive maneuvers. Bucky’s squadron lost only one aircraft from the enemy missiles before they made it back to the safety of the fleet’s missile defense system. As his squadron landed, they learned that most of the attacking F38Bs had been destroyed during their attack run, and half of the F38As has been shot down while trying to provide air cover for them. The fleet had effectively lost half of their airpower during the battle.
However, they had managed to destroy the remaining enemy frigates and destroyers and sink seven of the 22 transport ships they had engaged. Unfortunately though, if the fleet was going to interdict the remaining enemy cargo and transport ships, they were going to need to get in range of the battleships’ main guns and laser batteries.
Brazilians in Germany
General Eduardo Temer had been the second-in-command of the Brazilian Army when the Americans began to develop the South American Multination Force to fight the Russian and Chinese forces. After being sent to America to participate in several general officer training courses, he was then deployed to Germany to observe and assist General Black and General Gardner’s staff for three-month rotations. The experience was designed to give him a sense of the enemy his army would be fighting, and to gain some experience from working with these two dynamic generals.
Now he had finished training up his MNF, and they had finally been deployed to Europe to bolster the NATO lines. It took nearly a month for the Americans to move the bulk of their military equipment and troops from South America to Hamburg, Germany. After nearly three weeks of unpacking and reorganizing their equipment, they began their preparations to move towards the frontlines. Many of his soldiers experienced a rude awakening when a major snowfall blanketed the countryside; a lot of them had never even seen the cold fluffy flakes in their lives, and now they were going to be asked to fight a war in it.
The NATO lines had stabilized along the German/Polish border one week after the New Year. However, the Russians had been moving men and equipment back to the European front now that they had accomplished everything they set out to achieve in Alaska. With the arrival of the MNF force, the NATO forces were now planning on launching a winter offensive to recapture most of Poland before any Indian reinforcements had a chance to arrive from Russia. The latest intel suggested that the Indian Army would arrive in Poland sometime around April, bringing close to 600,000 soldiers with them.
In Europe, it had taken the better part of a year to recruit and train a sufficient army to stop the Russian advance. Now France, Spain, Germany, Italy and the UK had the troops and equipment needed to retake the lands captured by Russia early in the war. Shortly after arriving in Hamburg, General Temer was flown via helicopter to Brussels to meet with the NATO Commander and other political leaders. The Allies were going to hold a war council to devise the end-game strategy for the war, much like the Allies of World War II had during the meeting between Roosevelt, Churchill and Stalin at the Yalta meeting.
As it turned out, Brussels was not his final destination. Once General Temer arrived at the military base, he was ushered into a blacked-out vehicle that drove him to yet another airport. Then he was scurried onto a plane that flew him to a small French island called Saint Anne, not far from the French coastline. This sleepy little island had been taken over by the military just four hours ago, in preparation for the arrival of the leaders of the Allies, so they could meet face-to-face for the first time in nearly a year. Saint Anne had been chosen because of its remoteness and the fact that it could be easily guarded and secured for the twelve-hour meeting. At the end of the gathering, everyone would be flown back to their respective countries to continue with their activities.