The luminous trails from space had already dissipated. The Americans had found a way to harness meteors. It was amazingly brilliant and cleverly done, and it had just annihilated his chances of ending the campaign in a crushing German victory.
On the screen Mansfeld watched yet another enemy cruise missile. The sleek thing skimmed over the waves.
It’s going to hit a troop transport. I can’t afford that.
True to the prediction, the missile stuck and blasted a surviving troop transport at the waterline. The transport began to list. Mansfeld watched as panicked sailors and infantrymen jumped overboard into the sea.
That’s the wrong thing to do. You must keep your head. That was the only way to survive a disaster.
Another cruise missile skimmed the sea. It destroyed a hover-carrier holding a large number of Sigrid drones.
A disaster, this is a disaster. The Americans have broken the closing jaw. I cannot believe this.
A hard knot of anger washed through General Mansfeld. This technologically advanced blow could ruin his hard-won reputation. Historians would pen down that he had miscalculated. Instead of a great victor—the greatest of modern times with far-seeing vision and—
“No,” Mansfeld said. He turned to stride away into his study, but he realized he needed to rally his command staff.
Clearing his throat, Mansfeld said, “The Americans have done well. It would be petty to say they haven’t. But this will not save them. Nothing came save them from their coming dismemberment.”
“General?” one of the staff members asked. “How…what will we do now?”
Mansfeld forced heartiness into a mocking laugh. “Why, we will close the trap, Colonel.”
“But we needed those ships. We needed those soldiers.”
“Oh,” Mansfeld said. “I admit this will make things more difficult, to be sure. But the Americans have already shown us their panic by using the ICBMs.”
“Maybe we should use some of ours on them, sir,” the staff officer said.
Yes, maybe we should at that. I will have to contemplate the possibility. Who expected space weapons from the Americans? They abandoned space long ago.
“We badly needed those troops, sir,” the staff officer said.
“Yes,” Mansfeld agreed. The man spoke truth. It was always good to see the truth, no matter how harsh it was.
“You will instruct whatever ships survived the disaster to head out to sea,” Mansfeld said. “Get away from the American air. Afterward, we’re going to swing the troop transports around and bring them down the Saint Lawrence into Quebec.”
The staff officers gazed at him like dumb bovines. The nearest had glazed eyes and a slack mouth, looking as if he’d been hypnotized. It was clear they couldn’t perceive just yet. They let a disaster shake them. But disasters happened to everyone, even to geniuses of war. He would recover from this and find his victory that much more gratifying. Enough of that, though. He needed to galvanize these men.
“We must salvage what we can from this,” Mansfeld said. “A single defeat does not a war lose. We have the enemy on the run, gentlemen. This would have been the deathblow, to land Kaltenbrunner’s soldiers in New Jersey and New York. Now we’re going to have to finish this the conventional way. We’ll trap the US Fifth Army in the Niagara Peninsula and, and…”
“Will a reduced Twelfth Army be able to break through Syracuse, sir?” the staff officer asked. “Can the Twelfth Army smash through Albany and race to New York City, all while keeping the line intact and sealing the enemy in our trap?”
“I’m well aware of the odds,” Mansfeld said. “We need reinforcements across Lake Ontario. That’s why we’re swinging the surviving transports wide east and then to the Saint Lawrence. We’ll use those troops in New York yet.”
“Begging your pardon, sir,” the staff officer said. “But maybe we should consider pulling out of New York State. Maybe we should cut our losses before the Americans—”
Mansfeld strode to the defeatist staff officer. Normally, the man was a brilliant colonel of logistics, a real go-getter.
In a cold voice, Mansfeld said, “You are dismissed and relieved of your position.”
“Sir?” the staff officer asked.
“I will not countenance defeatist talk,” Mansfeld told him. “What you gentlemen have witnessed is a single American success. They will not get any more. I will personally see to that. Therefore, I will not tolerate even a hint of a defeatist speculation. We have the enemy on the run. That is the time to ride him down and stick a spear in his side.”
We’re on the tiger, and you cannot stop such a monster and climb off. No, we must stay on until the very end. There is no turning back for any of us, especially not for me.
The staff colonel must have seen something in the general’s eyes. He did not argue. Instead, he saluted crisply, turned and marched out of the operational chamber.
“What about the rest of you?” Mansfeld asked. “Is there anyone else who wishes to spout defeatist talk?”
The staff officers shook their heads.
“Very well,” Mansfeld said. “Carry on and make sure you get the surviving transports headed east first and then north to the mouth of the Saint Lawrence. We’re going to need all the troops we can…gather.”
He almost said, “Scrape together.” That would have sounded wrong. This was a time for confidence. This was not a time to panic and to lose one’s head.
General Mansfeld strode for the door to his inner office. What am I going to do? This is a disaster. What will the Chancellor say?
Mansfeld didn’t bother shaking his head. The Chancellor might panic. Well, he would cross that bridge when the time came. Right now, he had to push the attack on Syracuse and the Niagara Peninsula. The Americans must be congratulating each other right now. He would give them something to worry about, and then he would give them a surprise that would wipe away this bitter sea defeat.
-14-
Operation Narva
“Captain,” First Mate Sulu said. “Captain, wake up. They’re here.”
Darius Green lifted his head off his arms. He’d fallen asleep while on watch. He could not believe it. He rubbed sore eyes and eased crossed arms off the command panel. He’d had a dream that he had been with the Prophet in a cavalry charge across a desert. It had been glorious. On a giant warhorse, Darius had ridden beside the Prophet. Their cloaks had billowed in a dark desert breeze as they shouted a war cry, with their scimitars flashing in the moonlight. Ah, that would have been an adventure. This sulking underwater as the two of them sought freighters and ore haulers to sink…
“What did you say?” Darius asked.
“They’re outside, Captain,” Sulu said. “They’ve brought us more Javelins.”
In the red-lit interior of the submersible, Darius grinned. He had spent the past few days hunting enemy ships, sending them to the bottom either with a single or with two Javelin missiles. Many of the stolen freighters and ore haulers sailed in convoys with hovercraft or fast attack boats accompanying them. Those, Darius left alone. He went after the single ships, the stragglers of the pack.
So far, he and Sulu had sunk four ships with ten missiles. Some vessels had escaped wounded. That was because Sulu would spot approaching UAVs speeding toward them. Too many times, they had cut off the attack to dive out of danger and escape for another try.
Lake Ontario was a German sea, but Sulu and he were doing their part to whittle away at the enemy. SEALs in a rubber dinghy had come from the northern end of Lake Ontario, which was still under American control. The commandos brought them more Javelin missiles.