Li tapped the reassuring weight of the 9mm he kept on his hip. Always there. Even in the shower or asleep. This particular batch of recruits had been training for three weeks. With the URA’s desperate manpower needs, that meant they would graduate in just two more days. Surely they must have received their orders by now. Which was when things tended to get ugly. After those combat assignments were handed out… well, the whole situation tended to get real. If trouble was coming, now would be the time.
His gut was dead right about trouble, just the wrong threat vector.
At the edge of the field, two hundred yards from the trainees fiddling with ropes, yet two hundred yards from the maintenance bay full of equipment, Li enjoyed a moment of rare quiet in this bustling base.
That’s why he heard the faint jet roars before anyone else. There were precious few rebel aircraft not on the front lines, and these particular ones came in low and fast. Not a good sign.
Li dived into a shallow drainage ditch next to the gravel road ringing the parade grounds. A second later, four F/A-18’s flashed across the clear sky. They didn’t have any ordinance slung underneath.
“I got to lay off the pills.” Li could have sworn the planes had maple leaves painted on the tail fins. He sat up and laughed at himself. Maybe he should see someone about his paranoia. Even after all he’d been through, Li thought he had a good grip on his PTSD. Perhaps his hold on reality wasn’t as strong as he believed.
A split second later, he instinctively melted into the earth as hundreds of small explosions peppered the parade field. Over the popping cluster bombs to his left, several massive shockwaves rolled in from the right. Li waited 30 seconds for the shrapnel to stop zinging around him and the body parts to stop flapping down. Only then did he raise his head.
In his chemically induced mellowness, Li could only marvel at the destruction. Some part of his soul, having nothing to do with the drugs, remained detached as he pondered the URA’s losses. His mind refused to let him get worked up over the devastation. It wasn’t as if this had happened to his army.
Wailing from the maintenance bay nagged on his heart though. Those kids didn’t deserve this. Turning his back on the field and all the flaming bits of barbeque where a hundred recruits used to be, he ran towards the burning vehicle depot. The crying and screaming was dying down, but he might find someone left to save.
Before he could help, several utility Humvees came barreling down the road. The little convoy squealed to a stop. Li glanced up at the first truck, packed with a dozen panicked kids. His CO waved a steel hand at him from the front cab seat. “Sergeant, mount up! Fed paratroopers are dropping all over the base. I need every fighter I can get!”
Li chuckled and downed two more pills in front of his boss. He had hoped for a more dignified medical retirement, but this would have to do.
Sergeant Li strolled towards the Humvee. “No you don’t. You need some commonsense. It’s over, sir.” He whipped out his sidearm and rested it casually on the doorframe. The CO didn’t even bother trying to beat him to the draw.
Li stared up at the draftees. One or two pointed their rifles at him, but most had a deer-in-the-headlights look. “For the first time, you folks get a choice. Do you want to play army or stay alive?” Li glanced over his shoulder at a low-flying C-130, only a few hundred yards away, pooping out dozens of brown parachutes.
He stepped back from the Humvee. In one smooth motion, he dropped the magazine, cleared the chamber, safed the weapon and tossed it away. Li gave his CO a quick salute, spun on his heels, and hobbled towards the federal troops with his hands held high.
Li idly wondered if this counted as suicide. Fifty paces later, instead of a bullet to the back, his captain ran up alongside him.
“You’ll need this.” He shoved a white t-shirt strapped to a radio antenna into Li’s hand. The unarmed captain peeled off his Kevlar helmet and kissed a photo strapped inside. “See you soon, girls.”
Sergeant Li turned around and smiled at the scores of men and women racing to catch up, each with their arms clasped over their heads. For the first time ever, he didn’t see a trace of fear anywhere.
“Goddamn! That was close, sir!”
General Stewart’s driver couldn’t take his eyes off the rearview mirror. The sprawling UAV production campus behind them was invisible through all the smoke. Even six hundred yards away, the shockwaves from several 2,000-pound bombs had blasted out their back window. “Christ. If we had left just one minute later…”
“Shut up already and stay focused. This is no isolated raid.” General Stewart went back to yelling into two cell phones at once.
“I know they’re Canadian bombers. I can see them out my fucking window! The real question is what’s in all those transports heading south? Are those Feds or Canucks?”
He switched to the next phone as his driver slammed on the brakes. They barely missed rear-ending a bunch of gawkers clogging the intersection. “Where’s my police escort? We’ll never make it to Fort Lewis without them!”
“Two minutes sir. Just hold tight where you are.”
General Stewart grunted and hung up. His boring inspection tour just got interesting. He turned his attention back to the map on his lap, detailing the positions of all URA forces in a 100-mile radius. It didn’t take long to read.
Not much was there.
With a nearly 2,000 mile long border to defend and a historic offensive to launch, garrisoning Seattle was the lowest priority for the URA military. The city was as far away from the conflict as possible. That’s exactly why the region served as the most crucial hub for high-tech military manufacturing and troop training. This place was even home to the URA’s entire drone program. General Stewart peeked in the mirror at the multi-acre fire behind him. Used to be, at any rate.
Seattle’s safe haven status should have been unassailable. Most of the URA’s naval assets patrolled to the west and kept US cruise missiles at bay. Combined with a neutral nation to the north, and a thousand miles to the nearest federal airfield in the east, and Seattle was one of the few sites in the entire URA invulnerable to US air power.
Canadian air power threw that calculus out the window.
He didn’t know that while the Canadian leadership reluctantly agreed to provide air support for this scheme, Ottawa firmly ruled out any “boots on the ground.” Which was perhaps even worse, since they allowed free passage of US troops instead.
General Stewart tried to call the commander of the nearby Fort Lewis base again. He had at least 15,000 partially trained recruits that could be mobilized. That should be enough to buy time for reinforcements to arrive from somewhere. Of course, someone had to get down there and take charge first.
“Finally!”
Two police cruisers flashed their lights and parted the crowd. Instead of falling in behind and ahead of the general’s SUV, they simply blocked the road. Four officers strolled towards them, entirely too relaxed. General Stewart slid out the .45 he always kept handy, but held it low. Something wasn’t right.
While the cops tried to appear nonchalant, their flitting eyes choreographed their movements. General Stewart waved like a friendly fool and lowered his window, but hissed at his driver. “Get us out of here.”