“We are also working on developing another project called Thor, which is essentially placing special laser-guided projectile spears in space and then guiding them as they reenter earth’s orbit to hit enemy positions anywhere on the globe,” he said with a devilish grin.
The room sat in silence for moment as they sat there in awe of some of the weapons that were being developed, marveling at how far things had come in just the last few years.
The President was first to speak, “This is amazing, Dr. Gorka. Between you and Professor Rickenbacker, we have developed some of the most advanced weapons ever seen. We are going to need them if we are going to win this war, that is for sure. Thank you for the update, are there some other weapon systems you would like to bring us up to date on?” asked the President eager to see if his director of S&T had anything else up his sleeve.
Dr. Gorka nodded, and brought up an image that again silenced the room.
The Secretary of Defense spoke up first. “What the heck is that thing? A rock?” The picture at the moment did appear very much like a rock, but with a million tiny triangles all over it.
Dr. Gorka smiled that devilish grin of his. “What you are looking at is the dormant position of our newest fighters. This appearance allows us to catch the enemy completely off guard.” Then he clicked a button to continue the presentation. The “rock” transformed into what appeared to be a weaponized werewolf, complete with fangs and glowing red eyes. Several of the advisors actually gasped — the psychological impact of the metamorphosis was truly fear-inspiring. “This… is the next generation in combat infantry. Like our flying drones, they do not require a pilot to be seated inside of the device, which allows us to reduce casualties. We have based this model off of the Russian werewolf legends, and are calling it the Bodark. It is made out of very strong alloys, and has been designed with claws and crushing mechanisms that can even cause damage to a tank at close range. For distance, the Bodark can use the lasers embedded in the eyes or the hands to attack. Should the battery begin to run low, it can return to the dormant rock shape to recharge with its micro solar energy cells.”
National Security Advisor, Mike Rogers, whistled. “Holy….”
The President’s eyes were wide. “Dr. Gorka, this is truly impressive. Back when I was fighting in the Second Iraq War in the 2000s, we used to dream about the day that we would have unmanned drones fighting, but we never thought of anything like this.”
Mike Rogers had contained his shock, and asked the practical questions, “So, how soon until it is ready? And how many of them can we produce?”
“Normally, we would do a years’ worth of testing and evaluation; however, we plan on skipping that and just field testing them in actual combat. Right now we have five prototypes. We plan to begin testing in Alaska in January. Once we make sure they work as they should, which we’ll know within the first couple of outings, we can start to ramp up production. A lot of the manufacturing can be done using 3D printing, which will help immensely. We should be able to field the first 500 of them by the end of February and about 1,000 a month starting in March. It will take close to a couple of weeks of training with each operator before they will be ready.”
The meeting continued on for another hour as they discussed more details. They eventually finished their briefing, and the President asked if everyone would like to join him and his wife for dinner-it was last minute, of course, but it was coming up on supper time and Henry thought to himself, “Why not reward everyone with food and a social hour with the Commander in Chief? They’ve certainly earned it. ”
The month of December was going to be a pivotal month for the Allies, one that might make or break the war. Tonight was a time to put all of that aside and just enjoy each other’s company.
Sinking SUDs
Admiral Tomohisa Kawano was the Task Force Commander for the Japanese surprise attack that was heading towards the American West Coast. Two months ago, he had been a Vice Admiral and loyal supporter of the Prime Minister-after discovering the fleet admiral would not lead the navy to attack the Americans, he suddenly found himself in command of the fleet. The Prime Minister said the future of Japan was in his hands; they had to succeed or things with China might not turn out so well for Japan. Admiral Kawano was loyal to Japan and to the Prime Minister, but he had a bad feeling about attacking the Americans. He had trained for nearly two decades with the American navy, and had quite a few American friends. He had always enjoyed working with the Americans. He also feared the retaliation the Americans would unleash on Japan (especially after the nuclear holocaust they released on the Islamic Republic). That was truly barbaric what they had done.
He knew America might be down right now, but they certainly were not out of the war, despite what the Chinese may think or say. The Americans always seemed to find a way out of a tough situation and emerge stronger and meaner than ever. He just hoped that in delivering a devastating surprise attack, he might be able to help secure a quick victory and perhaps a ceasefire. Their objective was to sink the American SUDs as soon as they identified them and then turn the fleet towards Los Angeles and support the landing of the 30,000 troops he was escorting.
Because Japan was still an ally of the US, they had access to certain US Defense systems used specifically by the US Navy. Leveraging this access, Chinese and Japanese cyber experts were going to launch a new wave of cyber-attacks against the American Department of Defense. The first thing they were going to do was black out the American satellites and communications over the Pacific. They needed to blind the Americans and then trick their computers into believing that a great air battle had taken place over Hawaii and that the Japanese had lost. Then they would turn tail and rush towards the American shoreline and the “protection” of the American airpower.
The next wave of cyber-attacks would be against the communications system on the West Coast. They would shut down cell and internet service, hampering communications. This would be followed up with a fake mobilization order for the Marines at Camp Pendleton to deploy their forces to San Diego to repel a fake Chinese airborne assault. The few military computer systems that would be allowed to stay online would be tricked in to believing that somehow the Chinese had snuck in hundreds of transport aircraft and were dropping thousands upon thousands of paratroopers around the San Diego area. While the Marines would be in transit and moving away from their base, the Japanese battleships would launch a devastating cruise missile attack against them, catching most of them out in the open as they moved to engage the fake Chinese paratroopers.
The battleships would then launch a second barrage of cruise missiles at Camp Pendleton, with the aim of destroying the remaining soldiers in garrison there. The PLAN would have their amphibious assault force hit the beaches at Pendleton and move to destroy and then secure the last vestige of Marine power on the West Coast. The Japanese would land their ground force in Los Angeles and move to secure the major ports and airports before moving on to control the various valley entrances leading into the city. Their objective was to hold the area until the second wave of Chinese soldiers would be able to land. With full control of the airports, the goal for both China and Japan would be to transport thousands of soldiers quickly via commercial aircraft to bolster their force before the Americans could react.