“What in the blazes just happened?” asked General Branson to anyone who could hear him above the chaos.
A Major, who was manning one of the communication workstations, was first to speak up. “Sir, it would appear that we are under a coordinated cyber-attack. I’m bringing up the backup system right now, and we will get a better picture in a moment,” he explained as he pulled a secondary computer out of a case and plugged it into the system.
It took the major a few minutes to get his system up and running and start scanning the network. In the meantime, someone had gotten a hold of the NSA via one of the secured cell phones operating on a separate network for this very situation. The NSA was reporting a massive cyber-attack against the entire DoD communication system. The NSA Director told General Branson they should have the Pentagon and the rest of the DoD facilities back up and running within the hour, but it was going to take some time before they got things on the West Coast sorted.
General Branson signaled for everyone to quiet down so that he could speak to the room. “All right everyone, we should have our communications back up and running within the hour. What I want to know is-how are we going to get in touch with our forces on the West Coast right now? We need to alert them of what is heading their way.
A Colonel, who had just entered the room as General Branson began talking, spoke up. He was from the J6, which is the communications group within the Army, and so he had experience to draw from. “General, we had a similar problem last Christmas when the Chinese launched their surprise attack. After that happened, we had all of the military bases install some of their older ultra-high-frequency (UHF) radio systems as a backup. We have already made contact with General Gardner’s headquarters and told him what we were seeing. He is issuing orders to the various Marine divisions in the area to move to engage the paratroopers now. He is also having one of his corps move from Colorado to California as we speak.”
Turning towards the Colonel, General Branson replied, “Excellent work, Colonel. Make sure your guys are also in contact with the Situation Room at the White House and continue to keep them up-to-date. We need to figure out what the heck is going on and soon. General Sheldon, you are back in charge; I need to get to the White House and brief the President.” With that crisis on auto-pilot, General Branson didn’t stick around for the details. He turned and began to leave the room. He was on his way to the helicopter pad to take the short hop to the White House.
As General Branson exited the helicopter and walked towards the door leading to the entrance of the White House, he was greeted by Monty, the President’s Chief of Staff. The two walked while Monty talked. “General, we heard from the NSA that the DoD communications system is under a cyber-attack right now. We also heard that the West Coast appears to be getting hit a lot worse than the rest of the DoD. The President is in the Situation Room waiting for you and some others to get here.”
“I’m glad you guys are somewhat up to speed; I have more information being sent to the command post right now,” Branson responded as they turned the corner and came to the entrance of the briefing room. Other senior officials were also arriving from around Washington D.C., either via motorcade, underground tunnels or helicopter.
Walking into the room, he could sense the energy, excitement and anxiety of everyone in the room. They had been through this before when the Chinese launched their surprise attack against the US last Christmas and destroyed the Pacific Fleet. Within a few minutes, most of the senior staff were present and the President ordered the room sealed so they could begin.
“All right, I know we are under a massive cyber-attack-who can tell me where it’s coming from? How long is this going to last? What systems are being affected, and most importantly, what does this all mean?” spouted the President.
The Deputy Director of the NSA spoke first. “Mr. President, we have identified the attack as having come from Japan, though it appears their systems were breached by the Chinese and then they used their access to gain entry into our systems and hit us. As of right now, we know the attack against the DoD communications system is separate from the second attack that is taking place across the DoD on the West Coast.”
“The attack on the DoD communications system will be fixed within the hour. It was a simple attack, but will take a bit of time to purge the servers and bring everything back online. This attack was meant more to blind us for a short period of time. What the Chinese did not count on was our installment of UHF radios across our bases, specifically to handle a situation like this. The second attack, which is focused on the West Coast, is a bit more severe. That attack has issued hundreds of false deployment orders, FLASH messages and all sorts of other efforts designed to scatter our forces and cause a lot of confusion. We believe this is being done to support a large military operation that is currently underway. I believe General Branson can bring us up to speed on that better than I can,” the Deputy Director said as he nodded towards the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs.
All eyes turned towards the senior military man in the room. “Mr. President, I will start with what I know from the beginning, leading up to the cyber-attack. The Japanese began their assault on the PLAN task force near Hawaii. We do not have all of the details from the attack as the first wave of cyber-attacks began to hit us at the start of the fight. Our SUDs reported being attacked by Chinese anti-submarine helicopters operating in the area. Four of the five SUDs were destroyed, and before we could find out what happened from the data on the fifth one, the control room at Banger Naval Base in Washington State was blown up by an explosive device from within. It’s believed to have been a sabotage attack by PLA sleeper agents that the Trinity program must have missed. We received a message shortly afterwards from the Japanese task force commander saying they had been ambushed by a large number of submarines and enemy aircraft. He said they lost one of their carriers and a battleship and were abandoning the attack and heading for the safety of the West Coast. That was all we received before our entire communications grid went down,” Branson said.
Before the President could ask a question, General Branson signaled for everyone to hold on as he had more information to deliver. “Just before the systems went out at the Pentagon, our satellites had detected a massive air armada off the West Coast, near San Diego. We have no idea how it got there, or where exactly it came from. We had counted around 300 military transport craft, along with nearly that many fighter escorts. It looks to be about a 12,000-man airborne division and they are headed towards our naval facilities in San Diego. We have to assume the PLAN infantry in Hawaii are on the way to San Diego and this is the initial force to hold the area until they can arrive.”
Although no one groaned aloud, there was a palatable painful reaction to the general’s news. Branson charged ahead, “We have used the UHF to alert General Gardner of the situation, and he is aware. We also alerted the commander at Pendleton, and he said he would have his Marines on the way to San Diego as soon as possible. General Gardner was sending orders to Third Marines to start heading to LA. They are currently fielding the Raptor suits along with the Wolverine IFVs. They are the most combat ready and hardened group we have on the West Coast. He also ordered one of his corps from Colorado to immediately begin to head to California. It’ll be at least six days before their entire force arrives, but once they do, they will add about 350,000 soldiers.”