It was believed that within three weeks they should have enough armored vehicles and infantry to push any American Forces in the area back and consolidate their gains. With an invasion force on the West Coast, the Americans would not be able to send any additional reinforcements to fight the Chinese and Russian army in Alaska. This would ultimately result in the collapse of the Alaskan front and open the entire top half of America to the invasion.
As Admiral Kawano’s task force began to get closer to the Hawaiian Islands and the PLAN task force, they made contact with the American Navy, who was still oblivious to what was about to happen to them. They began to coordinate the positions of their SUDs with the Japanese so they could “best attack the PLAN task force.”
As the SUDs began to move in to firing position against the PLAN fleet, Japanese anti-submarine helicopters (which had been following the SUDs from the air) dropped a series of torpedoes on the SUDs in an attempt to destroy them. They used Chinese torpedoes in order to mask that they had been dropped by the Japanese.
Two of the SUDs were completely destroyed, while the other two SUDs managed to evade the Chinese torpedoes. Chinese submarines, which had been lying in wait, also fired their own torpedoes at the surviving SUDs, quickly destroying them (but not before two of the Chinese submarines were destroyed by the SUDs). Unbeknownst to the Chinese and Japanese at the time, there had been a fifth SUD in the water, which had been lurking further behind the Japanese task force in hopes of identifying any Chinese submarines that might appear and try to attack the Japanese capital ships. Their surveillance caught the sheer betrayal on the part of the Japanese.
The SUD operator immediately signaled for one of his superiors to come to his station so he could report what he had just seen and recorded. As they were putting together information and reviewing it for the fourth time, the building they were operating out of in Bangor Trident Base, Washington State, was blown up before they could send their report to anyone.
As it turns out, the cleaning crew at this building (who had been cleaning the facility every night for years), were actually Chinese spies, who had been waiting patiently to carry out one specific mission. They had smuggled in a liquid explosive (not hard to do among all of the standard cleaning products) and assembled a device under the flooring panel in the center of the room, near one of the garbage cans they would frequently empty. A timer inside the device would remove the separation between the two active chemicals, creating a volatile mixture that was primed for explosion. A second timer would detonate the device. The Japanese had fed these Chinese spies all of the intelligence they would need about exactly when the attack on the SUDs would occur; their hope was to destroy the building and all of its personnel at the same time as the attack in Hawaii. The Chinese had already carried out a number of sabotage attacks in Washington State the previous week; this would help to belay any suspicion of Japanese involvement.
Once Admiral Kawano confirmed that the first wave of cyber-attacks and the sabotage against Bangor Naval Base had been completed, he immediately ordered his fleet to change course and head towards their intended targets at flank speed. All that mattered now was making sure they were in position at the right time to carry out the next phase of the attack.
He also had his operations center contact the Americans and send the following message, “May Day! May Day! We are breaking off our attack. The PLAN ambushed us and destroyed a large number of our aircraft. We are headed at full speed toward the American shore, so that you can provide friendly air support, if needed.”
The US Navy sent their reply, “Acknowledged. We are ready to provide whatever support is needed.”
Admiral Kawano smiled. He knew that it would not be long now before the American communications were taken down in the next wave of cyber-attacks. However, they were not out of the woods yet. At top speed, it was going to take them at least a day before they were in striking distance of US military installations, and closer to two days before they could begin to land their forces. He would try to position his ships as close as possible to the West Coast before revealing the true nature of their arrival.
Mirages
One of the majors monitoring a mirrored NORAD radar screen that was set up to watch the West Coast nearly jumped out of his seat, yelling for his superior to come quickly to his workstation. A Colonel walked over to his desk, annoyed that one of his young majors had made such a scene by freaking out over whatever he had seen.
“What the heck is the problem, Major?!” the Colonel barked, then looked down at the screen, and his eyes became wide as saucers.
“Get me the General, immediately! Major, have you confirmed this with NORAD yet?” he asked, clearly shaken by what he was seeing.
Several other officers and senior NCOs came over to the station, just as the Major brought his screen up to the wall projector for everyone in the room to see. What they saw was incredible. Somehow, the Chinese had managed to get an air armada of nearly three hundred transport craft and hundreds of fighters less than a hundred miles west of San Diego, and they were heading right for the coast.
The commanding general of the watch came out of his office and immediately took charge of the situation. “Get on the radio with our airbases on the West Coast, and scramble all available fighters to San Diego. Also, get on the F41s to head in that direction now.”
Immediately, officers and NCOs in the room began calling various military installations in the area directly to warn them of the impending attack and to see what they could do to get ready.
A captain signaled to the general that he had the base commander at Pendleton on the phone. He grabbed the line. “This is General Sheldon, the watch commander at the Pentagon. We are watching a massive air armada of Chinese airborne troops heading towards San Diego from the west. You need to mobilize as many Marines as you can, as quickly as you can, to head to San Diego and engage those airborne troopers. We can’t lose the naval facilities in San Diego, do you understand?” Despite being in complete shock at the situation, the general spoke with a firm controlled voice. This was no time for uncertainty.
The base commander paused for the briefest moment, processing what he had just heard before replying, “Yes, Sir. We will get everyone on the road within the hour. I’ll be in touch.” He hung up the phone.
General Branson walked in to the room with his aides and other staff. “General Sheldon, what in the tarnation is going on?”
“We are still compiling all the information, but from what we can tell, the Chinese somehow bypassed our detection so far, and they snuck a few hundred transports and fighters right past us and are flying them right for San Diego. They are on path to drop their airborne over the naval facilities, between Pendleton and the City. We are still trying to piece this together with the report we got from the Japanese task force and the loss of our SUDs,” General Sheldon said, scratching his head.
Just as they were trying to piece everything together, the computer systems throughout the Pentagon and the rest of the Department of Defense went down. Then the communications systems went down, further adding to the confusion.