“I’ve been thinking about those T-66s ever since we faced them in Cooper Landing,” Stan said. “I think the answer is obvious. We lure the monsters into the city and try to separate them from their infantry. Then you let my tanks take them on one at a time.”
“The T-66s will crush your Abrams.”
“In time they will,” said Stan. “So we have to make sure we take them out first.”
Ramos lowered his scope. “How can you sound so confident? I don’t get that, Professor.”
Stan shrugged. “It’s simple. If seven tri-turreted tanks come after me, I have to destroy seven tanks. If I destroy six, I lose. So I’ll try to destroy all seven and win.”
“If you’d told me that a few weeks ago, I’d have agreed,” said Ramos. “Now….”
Stan glanced at Ramos. The man still had dark circles around his eyes. The general had fought hard, bitterly hard in Moose Pass and later, but now he was exhausted from the endless battles.
“Have you even been home to sleep?” asked Stan.
“Didn’t have the time. There’s too much to do.”
“You ought to take a little time off this morning. The Chinese won’t attack yet. My guess is they’ll start by pounding us with artillery first. Use that time to recoup. We need you at your best, sir, not filled with morbid doubts.”
Ramos breathed the cold morning air. “Let’s get back to our vehicles. Then I’ll see.”
Admiral Ling spoke to the Chairman via his computer screen in the supercarrier’s ready room. Commodore Yen sat out of sight to the side.
The Chairman appeared angry. Ling was weary and his bones ached this morning.
“I do not understand this delay,” the Chairman was saying. “The Army’s cross-polar taskforce has achieved its first objective: the town of Dead Horse and its accompanying oilfields. With the deep discoveries, it is presently the largest single oilfield in the world. The Navy with its lavish fleet and precision-drilled naval infantry has crawled these past weeks through an American wildness playground. Unlike the cross-polar soldiers, you have modern roads to carry your supplies, near total air superiority and more numbers of trained soldiers than the enemy has. Yet what do I hear? You constantly plead for more ships, more munitions, more soldiers and more fuel, always more, more, more.”
“I am pleased with the northern victory of Chinese arms,” Admiral Ling said. “Yet if I could point out, sir, they had enough fuel to—”
“Don’t speak to me about fuel!” the Chairman said. “A nuclear-tipped torpedo struck the polar taskforce. Snowmobile raiders afterward hit other supply dumps. Percentage-wise, I am told they’ve lost much more of their reserves than you ever had.”
“Sir,” said Ling, “most of our fuel requirements go to the fleet. The land—”
“Why haven’t you protected your tankers better?”
Admiral Ling hesitated. This was an odd situation for the richest oil-nation in the world. Because of Siberia, Chinese oil refineries brimmed with petrochemicals: diesel, kerosene and gasoline. What the Navy lacked was enough transport tankers to bring those fuels across thousands of kilometers of ocean to the battlefield. The Chinese merchant marine was too small and until only a few years ago, the Navy had never been designed as a blue-water fleet. As it was, the supply line had been stretched. Then the Americans had continually destroyed tankers, zeroing in on them with ruthless efficiency. That had created real difficulties. The torturous land route through the Kenai Peninsula only added to the supply nightmare.
“I have tried to protect our tankers, sir,” Ling told the Chairman. “The Americans are cunning, however. They have attacked our fuel transports, preferring to destroy them to carriers. Through espionage, CIA spies must have learned about our fuel troubles.”
“I hope you are not accusing anyone, Admiral.”
“Sir?” asked Ling, wondering what the Chairman was driving at.
The old man in the wheelchair leaned forward, staring at Ling through the screen. “My nephew has spoken to me.”
The Vice-Admiral, Ling thought to himself. Nepotism has crippled the war effort. I should have never agreed to this command while saddled with his fool of a nephew.
“My nephew has informed me that you gave him the toughest route and yet you withheld the needed soldiers,” the Chairman said.
“Sir, I must object. It is your nephew’s incompetence that has cost us dearly.”
“What are you saying?” the Chairman asked ominously.
Commodore Yen shook his head, but the bile in Ling from the Vice-Admiral’s blunders welled up in a rush.
“Your nephew first lost all his helicopters trying to storm Seward,” Ling said. “Next, his drive up Moose Pass has become a study in wasteful frontal charges. I could use those dead soldiers now as we attempt to grind down the remaining Americans. Then his bungling charge through the Junction that entangled our troops at the precise moment I—”
“I have heard enough,” the Chairman said. “This slander mars your reputation. You will not grind the enemy. That is not how you win. You must shock him, bewilder him by the power of your assault. Storm Anchorage with Chinese fury as General Nung took Dead Horse. Then I shall send you Army reinforcements.”
“I would rather that you send me fuel first, sir.”
“Bah!” the Chairman said. “My nephew has assured me he could take Anchorage like that.” The old man snapped his fingers.
Admiral Ling’s eyes bulged. He opened his mouth.
“Sir,” whispered an obviously worried Commodore Yen.
Admiral Ling turned to his friend and advisor, noticing the worry on Yen’s face. Ling closed his mouth, even as a vein on the side of his head pulsed with shame.
“Is there someone else with you in the room?” asked the Chairman.
Admiral Ling spoke in a mumble. “I shall take Anchorage, sir. I shall give China another glorious victory, another superlative feat of arms as I achieved in Taiwan.”
“…do you promise this?” asked the Chairman.
“It is already done,” said Ling, his humiliation turning to anger. Yet he was still practiced enough to contain his words. For the sake of his family in China, he must attempt to please this man in the wheelchair.
“Take Anchorage and all your sins will be forgiven,” the Chairman was saying.
“Yes, sir,” said Ling.
“Fail in your appointed task—”
“I have already said it is done, sir.”
Instead of anger at being interrupted, a slow smile spread across the Chairman’s face. “So you have, Admiral. So you have.”
In an instant, the screen blanked out.
Admiral Ling bowed his head. This was inexcusable. How could the Chairman speak to him this way? After all that he had done for China and done for the Chairman—no. This was unbearable, an insult. He turned to Commodore Yen. “That creature the Vice-Admiral….” Ling’s humiliation was too much now for speech.
“Sir,” Yen said, “You have given your word concerning Anchorage. How can you be so certain you can conquer the Americans?”
Admiral Ling ignored him. He adjusted his computer screen as he studied the situation. He kept noticing the huge fuel depots in Anchorage. The Americans had blown the Seward depot, but the ones here were different. These supplied the Americans. Therefore, the enemy could not afford to blow them. If he could capture the depots, it would solve his fuel problem.