Colonel Richter, General Gardner’s aide, asked, “Do they have the sealift capability to support such a force?”
“That is a good question Colonel; as of right now no. They can only support about 160,000 troopers at a time. Everyone accuses China of being a cut-and-copy nation- and frankly they are. They took our designs for our Marine Expeditionary Force, our amphibious assault ships and vehicles, and replicated them. They virtually hit us with our own equipment. They are expanding the capability rapidly. We just learned the other day that China and India have officially signed a non-aggression-pact, freeing up hundreds of thousands of soldiers and equipment they had been holding back in case they needed them against the Indians. To further complicate things, the Indians are going to start producing ships and other materials that the PLA needs for their war.”
General Wade snorted. “Why would the Indians support the Chinese and not the Allies? The Grain Consortium is selling them tens of millions of tons of food stocks a week.”
“Because their economy is still a wreck, and the orders the Chinese are able to place are going to be a huge economic boon to the Indian government. We are actively working with them right now to see if they will sever that activity and support the Allies instead, but we doubt they will,” said the SecDef angrily. “The loss of the Fifth and Seventh Fleets mean we have virtually no naval force in the Pacific or Indian Oceans, so they view China now as the dominant power in the region and want to stay on their good side.”
“As long as they do not actively join the war on the Axis side, I think we can handle it; there are ways for us to slow down their economy if need be (such as cyber-attacks). The main thing is, we cannot afford a war with two nations whose population is above two billion people. China is bad enough,” said General Wade.
Looking at his watch, the SecDef interjected, “Generals, I have to meet with the Israelis, and I need to prepare for that conference. I am going to leave you all to your tasks and new orders; please implement them immediately. General Gardner, I look forward to seeing you back in Washington, D.C. soon. You’ll be bouncing back and forth between your Command HQ in Washington State and DC for a bit, so you may want to invest in some airplane pillows.” The SecDef chuckled as he got up.
With that, the various commanders left for their commands to begin implementing the President’s orders and directives. General Gardner began the immediate task of identifying the units that would stay behind.
Raptor Rapture
The 3rd Marine Expeditionary Force (3rd MEF), were finally relieved of their position in Damascus following the IR surrender. The entire 3rd Marines had been selected to stay with General Gardner’s Army and rotate back to the US for a rest and refit before moving north to attack the Chinese and drive them back to the sea. For the men of the 3rd Marines, this decision could not have come at a better time. They were tired, dirty, beat up and downright ready for a long-overdue break. They had been fighting for nearly a year, first in Mexico and then rapidly deployed to the Middle East for an incredibly fast and intense war, resulting in several million people killed in direct combat.
1st Lieutenant Thornton had started the war as an E5 Sergeant; he was given a battlefield promotion to E7 Gunnery Sergeant, and then given a battlefield commission to 1st Lieutenant as the leadership in his battalion had been nearly wiped out. He had just gotten done with a staff call with Major Lee, the battalion commander (well, technically, he was now Lieutenant Colonel Lee, since he had just recently been promoted).
“Thornton, I know that you are getting ready to have some time off, and it is well-deserved, but we are going to need for you to complete an officer familiarization course after your leave. Lest you think we are singling you out, all of the battlefield-promoted officers and NCOs will be attending one of these courses. Even though the 3rd MEF may only be returning home for a short time, now we need to normalize some of our more traditional training.”
“Also, congratulations are in order. You are being promoted again, this time to Captain; your new rank will be more befitting of your position as Company Commander. With the Corps still dangerously short on officers and senior NCOs, you are also going to be functioning as the battalion executive officer (XO) in case something happens to me or I need to be taken offline.”
“Yes sir, thank you sir,” replied Captain Thornton. He had made the mistake of making a less-than-grateful response to a promotion once before; he wouldn’t make that error again.
Once he digested his own promotion, Captain Thornton had to pass along some news to the rest of the company.
“Listen up ladies and gentlemen. You all know that we are going to be headed out of this hole and headed home for some R & R.”
Whoops filled the room.
Thornton signaled for the room to quiet down. “Well, we are all getting 30 days at our homes of record. Following the R & R, we will reform up and start attending two weeks of various professional development training courses. Then we have four weeks of intensive training on the new Raptor combat suit, and finally a two-week field training exercise (FTX) in the new suits. From there, the 3rd MEF will continue to train at our home station for another month before deploying forward to California to await further orders.”
The men of the Company were excited; they had just survived a horrific year. Many of their friends and comrades had not been so lucky, and now it was time to return home, rest and recuperate before preparing for a new fight. This fight would be different from the others; it was a fight to defend the actual homeland on U.S. soil. Many of the Marines were ready to go fight the Chinese now; the adrenaline junkies inside them were chomping at the bit to get back into the fight.
Most of the longer combat veterans, however, knew the war would still be there waiting for them after their leave, so they were more focused on enjoying the downtime before the killing began again in earnest.
DARPA
Once the Chinese main army reached the American defensive positions at Cooper Landing in the south of Alaska, and Susitna in the north, they established their own lines of defense and began to settle in while the rest of their army and equipment was offloaded. The PLAAF continued to establish more manned and fighter drone airbases across the captured portions of Alaska, while the Russians continued to fight for control of northern and central Alaska. Because the U.S. Marines had established a wide network of firebases all throughout key strategic areas of central and northern Alaska, it was forcing the Russians to have to take them out one at a time if they wanted to continue to advance further into the interior of Alaska.
The reprieve from the continuous Chinese assaults was both a blessing and a curse. It provided US Forces the time needed to bring in additional reinforcements and refit General Gardner’s Third Army, but it also meant the Chinese had more time to offload hundreds of thousands of soldiers and armored equipment. The PLA forces in Alaska now stood at 950,000 soldiers, with more arriving each week.