Stan’s eyes narrowed and he scooted forward on his chair until he felt the edge against his butt. If he moved forward any more he’d slip off. The heat in his chest now leaped onto his tongue, igniting it. “You’re a coward, Wilson. You hide behind your rank and use rules to gloss over your mistakes. I’ve read about your kind. Now I’ve seen your kind in action. What you need is a life. Look at this office. Why is everything so perfectly set? Imagine the time it takes to worry and fuss with all that.”
Wilson leaned back in his chair, tapping his chin with his two index fingers pressed together.
“I always knew you were a fake, Captain. The Medal of Honor, it was a prop a former President used to hide…I’m still not sure what he was hiding. But I know it was something.” Wilson shrugged. “It doesn’t matter that you wish to scamper away at this time, you still have obligations.”
“I’ll stay until my replacement is sent out,” Stan said. Would Wilson try to keep him against his will? Had the President signed a new order about such things?
“I will expedite the matter, of that you can be sure,” Wilson said. “The Army doesn’t need your kind. Good riddance to you, I say.”
Stan nodded, turning from Wilson. I can’t believe it. We’re acting like boys, not men. The Chinese won’t attack, I can’t afford for them to attack.
“Ah. I see that your time is up, Captain. Or should I say, Mr. Higgins?”
“No, it is still Captain for a few more days,” Stan said.
“Hmm,” Wilson said. “Good day then, Captain. Be sure to fill out the proper paperwork and to finish your report on the X1 Five. Dismissed!” he said, standing.
Stan stood too, feeling more defeated than ever.
Marshal Nung’s right hand ached. He had signed hundreds of operational orders today. The bureaucratic procedures needed to move masses of munitions and troops stole precious time from reflective thought. Two millions soldiers and their support troops all carefully coordinated into one—
Nung shook his head. He sat at his desk surrounded by his staff, all of them busily at work. The rustle of cloth, the tapping of screens, typing, breathing, sipping drinks, munching on snacks added to the hive-like quality. Nung imagined himself as the chief ant in a vast colony, issuing orders that would send thousands of scurrying couriers onto their motorcycles to various divisions and corps headquarters. Most of his orders were personally given by hand, making it impossible for the Americans to intercept or decode them. The little things like this often won a diligent commander immortality on the battlefield. In the end, it was worth taking such pains. Even old Marshal Gang had seen the wisdom of that.
Gang…Nung shook his head. He didn’t want to think about Kao’s intriguer. He had more important things to spend his time on.
We’re busy ants. Nung grinned. He used to watch ants as a child outside Shanghai. He would catch a fly in their house, with his little and quite grubby fingers on the window. Once caught, he’d carefully pulled off the fly’s wings. The fly’s legs crawling inside his cupped hand used to make him laugh because it tickled his skin. He’d taken the wingless fly and dropped it onto a busy ant hole. How the ants had swarmed upon the struggling fly, biting its squirming legs and then its head. That’s what he wanted to do to the Americans, immobilize them so he could pick them to pieces. The Blue Swan missiles would be like his little fingers pulling off the wings. That would leave the Americans defenseless against his massed ant assault.
It had been so much easier as a child catching the fly on the window glass as it buzzed to escape. Today, his eyes hurt from reading endless reports and his back was stiff from sitting in this chair too long.
He wished to lead from the front again, driving in a command vehicle as he raced with his troops to the objective. Exhorting exhausted and dispirited soldiers had once been his specialty. Drive, drive, drive toward the enemy, smashing anything that dared stand in the way. He’d done that in Siberia and on the North Slope of Alaska. Could he exhort his front to do the same thing in California?
There was so much to do, and his troops needed to do it secretly, or as secretly as possible.
Can we fool the Americans?
Clearly, six million Chinese on the border made it impossible to surprise the enemy in a true sense. Yet there had been endless American alerts these past two years. East Lighting had discovered that much at least about the enemy. The alerts, the crying wolf, had sapped the American populace and perhaps the enemy generals. Now it was a matter of moving hundreds of thousands of troops in a chess game along a thousand mile border. A technological surprise could give him the needed edge. A hidden massing in the critical sector would ensure the surprise obliterated a million or more American soldiers and give him California. Perhaps it would give China the entire West Coast.
Would Blue Swan work as advertised? It had succeeded during the tests in the Gobi Desert. Had those been genuine tests or had some aspects of the tests been rigged so the person in charge would look good on a bureaucratic report? That was a problem. He had to trust others to do their job well.
He rubbed his throbbing hand, digging a thumb into the sore palm. It was a good plan, but it would demand competent execution by his troops. If he could lead each of the critical attacks from the front, ah, then he would win because he knew how to make soldiers fight. Now he had to trust others to act as he would, to act in an aggressive manner. He had worked hard these past two years weeding out the cautious commanders in his Front. He had prepositioned mountains of supplies and his troops had trained endlessly these past five months.
The Americans have their own problems. You must remember that.
In the old days, both sides would have watched the other through satellites. Those days were over for both of them. Chinese satellites watched much of the world, but not wherever the enemy ABM lasers could reach. The Americans didn’t have satellites, at least not for more than several hours after launching. Chinese lasers or missiles took them down. The American drones, on the other hand, were still a problem.
Marshal Nung blew out his cheeks. He would have to decide later today how many Chinese drones to use to study the American defenses. Too many would alert them of an attack. Too few would leave his army open to defensive surprises.
I must think carefully. At all costs, I must gain tactical surprise and hopefully operational surprise as well.
If only he could read the enemy’s mind. Nung grinned mirthlessly. War was the ultimate contest and in a week, in nine more days perhaps, he would initiate the greatest battle in human history with a full-scale invasion of California.
Cracking his knuckles, Nung picked up the next thing to sign. Hmm, penal battalions, he needed more East Lightning commissioners to ensure discipline. This could be a delicate topic.
Nung made a face as if sucking on a lemon. He had little love for East Lightning, particularly learning to hate them from the assault across the Arctic ice seven years ago. Still, the police had their uses, and he would need more penal battalions, especially during the initial attacks. He lacked enough special infantry. The Leader had promised him more, but they had not been forthcoming. Gang had sent back a negative dispatch to the Ruling Committee concerning the need. The Marshal had interfered against him, and it likely wouldn’t be the last time, either. Only an observer—Nung understood that Kao meant Marshal Gang as a threat to take over the First Front if he failed. He could never give Marshal Gang that reason.
Hmm. Perhaps penal battalions would have to take the place of special infantry.