“Not a problem, Captain. Been wanting to pull that shit out anyway, just to say we did it. Now we can forget about it.”
“What do you mean forget about it? Don’t you have to do this every so often?”
Patnaude eased up and spoke in a more hushed tone. “Actually Captain, there’s a citric acid bath we use to do the same thing. You fill a shit can with one container of the powder and water. It gets the deck just as clean looking by just swabbing the deck,” he said with a twinkle in his eye.
Hammond started to laugh. “Oh, they’re going to hate you.”
Boats huffed. “Like I give a shit. They better be glad I don’t have ‘em doing this shit every week,” he said with a grin. Several of the Deck Department Chiefs were standing around him with huge smiles on their faces. Obviously they were in on it.
“I defer to your wisdom,” Hammond said. “See you later, guys,” he said as he turned and made his way aft.
“Congratulations, Comrade Chairman,” beamed Minister Lu Chen. “I have just received news the enemy stronghold of Seoul has fallen.”
Kim Sung Nua sprang from his seat with the news. His face wore a broad smile. Lu Chen had not seen a smile on the Chairman’s face since a few weeks after the campaign started. “This is good, Comrade Minister. It seems our forces will be able to achieve a victory,” Kim said with an only slightly biting tone.
Lu Chen bowed slightly. It was not good to spoil such information. “The word just reached us that our forces broke through and forced the remaining enemy back to the sea. It appears that once we had the upper hand, they fell like a house of cards,” he said reassuringly. The last of the American forces have been rounded up and are being sent to our prisoner of war camps. Our political officers are already beginning the process of unification with the population.”
The Chairman looked at the man with a gleeful eye. The capture of larger numbers of Americans would be a major bargaining chip at the conclusion of the war. It could bring in money, equipment and other things necessary for his government. It could also be used if the tides of war changed. “What about the air base south of the city?”
“It too is in our hands. Our nuclear strike disabled their planes so they could not be used, as you know. Unfortunately, the Americans destroyed the remaining planes, equipment, and ammunition before they fell back. The good news is that the base remains intact. We should be able to land our planes on it today,” Lu Chen emphasized. He knew the Chairman wanted a few of the planes serviceable for additional trading chips in dealing with China. “I have already given orders to concentrate our forces on the southern air bases in a move which should allow us to obtain some of their aircraft.”
Kim smiled again. At least the man was making the effort, he thought. He held up a finger to emphasize the point. “Just remember it is politically imperative we obtain copies of the American designs so that we may share our discoveries with our communist allies,” he said forcefully but while smiling. Then the smile vanished. “Now when will we achieve a final victory?”
Lu Chen knew this was coming and he was prepared, but he still began to sweat. “Very soon now, Comrade Chairman. Our forces are within thirty miles of Pusan as we speak. Each day we gain more and more ground. Our forces are now markedly superior in numbers and each day our enemies are becoming weaker. I shifted efforts more toward the western half of the country so we may subdue their airfields quickly, but that will mean we have the chance to sweep around them from the west instead of from the north. We hold them in one place, while we stab them in the side. The only thing left to do is allow them to bleed,” he said confidently.
Of course he didn’t allow any part of his report to dwell on the horrendous casualties the North had suffered along the way. They had lost nearly 200,000 men in the campaign so far and the progress was being paid through the deaths of thousands more. He also didn’t mention that none of his submarines had returned after beginning operations and some of his airplanes were not returning to base.
The worst part was the loss of their armor. At the beginning of the campaign it was decided to use the older equipment first, saving the newer machines for future operations. They deployed over 400 of the old Soviet T-34s they had in inventory. While the trusty tank had been the mainstay of the Soviet Union during the Great Patriotic War, they did little more than protect the soldiers inside from the bullets of ordinary guns. More modern artillery and hand held rockets went through the old machines as if they were made of paper. Out of the 400 deployed, less than one quarter of them were still serviceable.
Lu Chen needed to leave on a higher note. “One thing I have been able to do, Comrade Chairman, is to have our scientists and engineers go through the air base we overran and start bringing out parts, materials, and intelligence that was not destroyed. Even the remains of the aircraft are valuable for intelligence purposes. Once everything has been gathered, I will provide a report of what we have and its importance. You may do with the information as you wish for the glory of our nation,” he said bowing slightly.
The Chairman thought about it a moment. Yes, that would be a good thing. Anything he could provide that the Chinese had not been able to obtain would be leveraged in the future. He smiled again. “Very good, Comrade Minister. And to share our joy over the fall of Seoul, we shall have a celebration in the Capital. There shall be military parades, fireworks, and feasting. You shall join me in the reviewing stand,” he said. Now send in my secretary so the Party may begin its celebration plans.”
“Yes, Comrade Chairman,” Lu Chen said as he saluted and quickly left the office. The fall of Seoul had been a blessing in that it put the Chairman in a good mood and he was able to forget the endless delays in completing the campaign. This celebration could be a nice diversion. It might mean pulling some troops back for the parades and the expenditure of several weeks’ worth of food rations, but his people needed a slight break anyway. He would hold on the southern advance and shift units west to sweep around the lower half of the peninsula. The planned capture of the Kunsan Air Base would bring the Chairman more happiness culminating in the final downfall of enemy opposition. The objective was now in sight and he was reaching for it.
The giant ships arrived on station late in the evening. Their arrival was not marked with any fanfare, signals, or even a wave from some passing sailor. Instead it was met with total silence, which was what these ships had been built for. Originally, they were supposed to lie deep and await a signal that would spell Armageddon for any nation that opposed them, but over the years their mission changed. Like the battleships of old, their names represented states of the Union; in this case, Ohio and Michigan. In the early part of the century they had been overhauled and remodeled to serve in a new function. Instead of carrying submarine-launched ballistic missiles, these updated ships carried 157 conventional or nuclear tipped cruise missiles each. The two ships had been at sea when the EMP took down the rest of their sisters. Now they were on station and ready to show that, although hurt, the United States could still bloody a nose.
In each control room, the exercises were run again and again so there would be no flaws in the launches. Timing was crucial. The plan was everything would happen at once. Launches were backed down to fit the schedule. Although the Global Positioning Systems in the Tomahawk cruise missiles were no longer functioning since the satellites were silent, the terrain mapping functions for the missiles was working perfectly. The targets had already been fed into the missiles with only a few untargeted to be used for new opportunities.