Our initial suspicion was that the men below us were Captain Eddie’s. He knew we were up here somewhere. Surely he’d regrouped, assembled a small army, and managed to get his men stationed here.
After a couple nights and early mornings of scouting, Danny determined that wasn’t the case. There was no sign of the giant captain. The troop below seemed to be entirely from the Middle East. No Africans. While that news, in and of itself, was cause for some relief, it did beg the question: Where was Eddie?
FORTY-ONE: “The New America”
After several weeks of frenetic construction, the new Qi Jia government had fortified and completely shut off Colorado from the other states. The Great Wall of Colorado was rapidly nearing completion. Huge iron gates were set up at every main entry road into the state. Smaller roads were redirected along the walls to the larger entrances and anywhere from twenty to forty soldiers were encamped at each gate.
Qi Jia set up its command headquarters in Denver. They hadn’t been able to penetrate NORAD in Colorado Springs, but there had been no missile activity there. Either there was no one inside, or there were no missiles left to fire. Qi Jia’s forces had wired all the area silo openings with explosives, just in case. If they were opened, they would blow up whatever was inside, providing an entry into the otherwise impenetrable Cheyenne Mountain Bunker tunnels. Beyond NORAD, there was no threat to the Denver command center. No one anywhere else in the world would be able to attack without it being visible from far away. Any launched attack would first have to make it past Qi Jia’s missile and military posts up and down the coastlines, as well as across the northern and southern borders of the former U.S. The Seven commanders didn’t believe there was a force still out there in the world with this capability. They were permanently secure in Colorado, and this fortress, here in the middle of America, was the idyllic perch to rule from.
Qi Jia’s troops had completed two tours back and forth across each state and a large portion of Canada. Qi Jia had no real interest in Canada, but went five hundred miles north of the border in their sweep to cut off any fleeing Americans and wipe out whatever residential presence remained. Their men pushed up towards Alaska where they met up with the Russians. The Russians had come in from the west and worked their way south and east. When the two forces met they each turned back. The Qi Jia army headed south towards Denver and the Russian forces spread out across the former state of Alaska.
Most of Qi Jia’s naval fleet had been assembled down the former Southern California and Baja coastlines. That fleet consisted of preserved American ships—a half-dozen destroyers, an aircraft carrier, and a few dozen former Coast Guard vessels. The third wave claimed hundreds of thousands of casualties on the American side. Impressively few from the Qi Jia army. The entire plan had been executed nearly flawlessly. In America at least. The same couldn’t be said for back home. Other than Mexico, the native lands of The Seven commanders weren’t at all supportive.
Word had spread rapidly across the continents of what these seven leaders had done, and most of the world was furious. Qi Jia’s attack on America would have been hard enough to endorse on its own. The United States’ commitment to assisting the needy was generally and genuinely appreciated by many nations. America’s defensive countermeasures were understandable, but had tragically decimated the planet. And it was that decimation that had the planet vowing to cut off the seven commanders. They had sacrificed a billion innocent lives selfishly and unapologetically. That was unacceptable. The commanders and their men were now outcasts, powerless back home, and would be imprisoned or killed if they ever tried to return to their native countries. That, admittedly, was an unfortunate result to the Qi Jia commanders. They had incorrectly anticipated having more support from the countries America hit back. But, in truth, it was also inconsequential. The commanders had no intent of returning to their homelands, or allowing any of their men to do so. Thanks to America’s counterattack there were no countries on the planet with nuclear arsenals or military numbers greater than theirs was here. This was their home now. North America was all theirs.
While true that there were no stronger forces left in the world, there were a few countries that were not targeted by any of the attacks or counterattacks. The United States still had a few strong military allies in the United Kingdom, France, Brazil and Australia. Those nations began immediately broadcasting to any American tourists—or survivors who could escape—that they would be granted asylum and even dual citizenship in their countries. Israel, the United Arab Emirates and even Switzerland had similarly pledged their financial support to surviving Americans. So much for neutrality, eh? Qi Jia couldn’t afford for their own troops to know about the sentiments back home. It could easily divide the ranks and derail the grand agenda.
Qi Jia had successfully managed to take over the entire American communication grid. From Denver they controlled every message on the airwaves. They had traced a few military codes to a remote part of Montana and killed the source. No one in America was going to be telling their soldiers, or any remaining Americans, any message other than the one The Seven commanders wanted out there. “We are almost done. America must pay for killing our families. Keep up the great work!”
Down the road, those few countries America hadn’t retaliated against would have to be dealt with. The Seven commanders worried that splitting their focus and forces now could undermine their mission. “North America first, then the world.” But these other nations were giving them plenty of cause for concern. They had built walls along their borders, similar to the one around Colorado, and had sealed themselves off from their neighbors. They were communicating with each other and could soon begin planning together and pooling their resources. They were the only countries that still had airports, militaries, and functional economies. That was unacceptable. There could be no other world power. Should they be allowed to exist and someday merge, they just might pose a threat to Qi Jia and potentially try to take America back. The Seven commanders needed to make sure that never happened. Taking over NORAD’s bunker, and Hawaii, were the means to that end.
The Qi Jia government had re-divided the fifty former United States and Canada into eight new, more regional states: New York, Florida, Texas, Dakota, Colorado, Alaska, Canada, and Washington. Each nation owned a share of the Qi Jia Capitol, Colorado. Russia had moved two hundred thousand troops into Alaska a few days before the first wave of chemical attacks. When most of Russia was destroyed by the American retaliation launch, the coastal land from Alaska to the Washington state line became “Alaska” and belonged to Russia exclusively. The Pacific Northwest was now merely “Washington” and belonged to North Korea. Mexico laid claim to “Texas”—formerly New Mexico, Arizona, Nevada, California and the Longhorn state. China took the rest of “Canada,” Japan took the upper Midwest—“Dakota,” Libya took the southeast—“Florida,” and Colombia took the northeast—“New York.”