Invasion: Alaska (64 page)

Enemy, barrage missile-launchers added their rockets. Stan could tell by the sound. The rockets were lower velocity than the shells and therefore had lighter casings, able to add more high explosive per projectile. The missile launchers also saturated an area faster, hitting a place in seconds what would take an equal amount of artillery six minutes to achieve.

It was a sweeping, pounding attack, and it lasted a half hour. Afterward, Chinese shells created dense clouds of smoke between the American defenses and the Chinese. Through experience, Stan knew the clouds would last twenty minutes or more. They would also shield the Chinese from thermal sensors.

By his radio, Stan heard the word from a surviving CP. All across the front, the Chinese naval brigades were moving. Marauder tanks led the charge, with IFVs following behind.

Now an American artillery company began to fire. They had arrived from Texas via air to Fairbanks, and had taken the train to Anchorage. Their gun tubes fired artillery-emplaced minefields. The tubes fired and moved to a new location, hopefully before the Chinese counter-artillery could zero in on them. The Americans rained the selected approaches with mines, both anti-personnel and vehicle.

Stan stood up and checked his assault rifle. He had to get back to his tanks. Big oily clouds of smoke billowed before him.

The Chinese charged against a thin crust of American defense located in the outskirts of the city. By the sounds, some of the attackers moved through the emplaced minefields. Others emerged from the choking smoke, looking unscathed.

At that point, the true battle took place. Remaining National Guardsmen, Militiamen and U.S. Army soldiers fought the battle-hardened naval infantry from the East. The Americans hid behind rocks. They waited in buildings and foxholes. The Chinese crawled across the snow or they raced from rock, to shell-hole, to the ruins of a Burger Palace and then to a clump of scarred trees, firing all the time.

Each side had a bewildering array of weapons. Soldiers fired assault rifles, light machineguns, heavy machineguns, threw and fired grenades. The whoosh of recoilless rifles mingled with the sharp retort of exploding mines, often launching the Chinese attackers into the air. The whine of falling trench-mortar rounds, the roar of RPGs, LAWs rockets and the loud slamming noises of ATGMs added to the horror of long, squirting jets of fire hissing from flamethrowers. When the Chinese finally reached American strongpoints, desperate men fired pistols. They stuck enemy soldiers with bayonets. They swung spades whose edges were sharper than axes.

Stan gripped a bloody entrancing tool, having helped clear a trench of attacking Chinese.

Into the tangled mix came helicopters and bombers. Defensive lasers stabbed into the gray sky. Red Arrow shells zoomed upward. Wyvern missiles exploded and the last of the Blowdart tubes expelled their deadly cargos. The caldron of war boiled in Anchorage.

The final battle had begun. The defenders fought for their homes, their mothers, fathers, children and wives. The attackers surely yearned for an end to the icy campaign. Stan knew that many thousands of young Chinese sought marriage permits via the fastest manner possible in China: through martial feats of madness. It was war in the worst sense, man killing man, with the fate of a continent resting on the outcome.

***

Later in the day, the Chinese broke into the city, but the Americans still fought with bitter tenacity. They used the concrete buildings, firing from rooftops and windows. The tactic took a grim toll on the Chinese, until finally the remaining T-66s clanked into battle.

So far, they had been kept in reserve. Now an approach had been cleared to the city and the monstrous, tri-turreted tanks moved. Previous shells and near-miss rockets throughout the weeks had scarred each. From captured enemy soldiers, American Military Intelligence and then Stan had learned that many T-66s had received emergency repairs. An entire Chinese Army regiment had been shipped to Alaska, forty units of the once experimental tank. Like most such tanks, there had been teething problems only discovered in the heat of battle. Weeks of war had brought wear and tear, and that had caused many mechanical breakdowns. Day and night, the mechanics had slaved in order to fix the problems.

It was late in the campaign and after a grim arctic storm. Now, fifteen of the big tanks clanked to add their weight to the Chinese assault. That fifteen came was a testament to Chinese technological effort and hard work.

Fifteen monster tanks used together in close coordination began to blow apart the concrete buildings. American ATGMs scored hits, but no kills. Any Army Rangers trying to crawl near with land mines received a hail of gunfire. The Chinese advance moved deeper into the city.

***

“Are you ready?” Major Philips asked Stan.

During one of the lulls, Stan had made it back to his tanks. Now, several blocks ahead, the fighting was intense. Back here in the financial district, Stan’s three Abrams waited beside five smaller Strykers. Three of the Strykers were armed with grenade launchers. The last two had TOW2 ATGMs.

Stan had expected to work with Ramos, but Philips had informed him the brigadier was presently engaged elsewhere.

Stan hated the T-66s, but he had tasted greater victory against them than anyone else in Alaska still living. “I don’t know about ready,” he said, “but I’ll fight.”

“You won’t fight alone,” a man said.

Stan turned, and he blinked in surprise. It was Sergeant Jackson of the Anchorage Police Department. The police officer wore durasteel body-armor with a combat helmet. An assault rifle was slung on his shoulder.

“What’s going on?” asked Stan. “What are
you
doing here?”

“The same thing as you,” Jackson said. “I’m fighting for my home.”

“The police are trained at riot control,” Philips said. “It means they’re trained in group action. That should make them better at this than just a group of Alaskans picking up their hunting rifles and taking potshots at the enemy.”

“I know you and I have had our differences,” Jackson said. “That’s over now. We let your dad go along with others. He immediately volunteered.”

“Volunteered for what?” Stan asked.

“It was Brigadier Ramos’s idea,” Philips said. “He spoke last night with General Sims. Afterward, Ramos asked for volunteers among his surviving crews and Militiamen. There weren’t enough. So he went to the jail looking for others. The brigadier is taking a makeshift ferry and crossing over to Hope.”

“Why do that?” asked Stan.

“Both Sims and Ramos agreed that a behind-the-lines raid might hurt the enemy supply situation enough to slow him down,” Philips said. “At this point, anything is worth a try. I also think Ramos went because he hates city fighting and much prefers to maneuver against the enemy.”

“Tell me about my dad,” Stan said.

“Sims learned about a huge supply convoy crawling up the Number One Highway,” Philips said. “Our jets won’t be able to fight through the Chinese combat air patrols to get to it. Ramos believes that we can still hit them guerilla-style. Since it was his idea and it’s his specialty, he felt obligated to lead the attack.”

“My dad went with them on this one-way mission?” asked Stan.

“He didn’t have to go,” Jackson said. “We let him out and he was free to go anywhere. He said he wanted to fight.”

Stan thought about that. After a time, he nodded. “That’s my dad,” he said. Mack Higgins was a fighter.

“Okay, Sergeant,” Stan said. “My dad pointed a gun at you once. You could have held that against him. Instead, you let him go. Thanks.” Stan held out his hand. With the Chinese in Anchorage, it was time to bury their differences with each other.

Sergeant Jackson accepted and they shook hands.

“Let’s stop the Chinese,” Stan said.

“I second that,” Jackson said.

“Here’s how we’re going to attempt it,” Philips said.

***

It took a half hour before Stan’s radio crackled, “Here’s our chance.” It was Philips calling.

“Ready?” Stan asked his crew.

“Roger that,” said Jose from the gunner’s seat.

“Heck yeah!” Hank said, his fingers flexing at the Abrams’s steering controls.

“Let’s do it,” Stan radioed back.

“Head up Lincoln Street,” Philips radioed. “It’s coming fast. The T-66 is chasing several Anchorage PD.”

“Okay, this is it,” Stan told Jose. “We have to get close, almost on its ass,” he told Hank.

“I’ll remember to thank a police officer the next time he writes me a ticket,” Jose said. “I wouldn’t want a T-66 on my butt.”

Stan shoved up out of the hatch. He had his commander’s microphone jutting in front of his mouth. He wore durasteel body-armor, and he listened to the Abrams’s heavy clank as the tank moved into position. City buildings rose all around them. The M1A2s were great tanks—twenty years ago. Now the T-66 held the technological edge, and it was coming up Lincoln Street toward them.

Through his microphone, Stan shouted orders to the other two Abrams as they took up ambush positions nearby. Farther behind on the street, Philips’s Strykers waited to act as further bait if needed.

Then three police officers in combat gear sprinted around the corner. Stan was close enough to wave to Sergeant Jackson. The officer clutched his assault rifle as total concentration filled his face. Behind him—Stan heard heavy treads crushing pavement. Then the side of an old brick building exploded masonry. A monster tank burst into sight.

“Inch us back,” whispered Stan.

Hank did, moving the Abrams behind a building and taking the T-66 out of sight.

What happened next was hidden from Stan as he waited. Chinese machineguns chattered. A man shouted in English, no doubt an Anchorage police officer. Then a TOW missile streaked up the street. By the sound, it splashed against the T-66’s heavy armor.

“Come on,” Stan whispered. “Keep attacking.”

Then he heard the enemy tank. It fired two 175mm guns. They were two deafening booms. The shells whooshed past his ambush site and down the street at the Strykers.

At the Stryker bait
, Stan thought. He didn’t hear the sound of exploding vehicles. So maybe Philips’s bait had moved quickly enough to survive.

“It’s coming,” Stan heard Philips say through his headset.

“Get ready!” Stan shouted through the hatch.

Seconds later, a huge stone gray-colored Chinese T-66 moved in front of them. Stan slid down the hatch and slammed the steel lid into place. At the same moment, Jose fired a sabot round. A terrific explosion rocked the Abrams.

“Are we hit?” Stan shouted, his ears ringing from the sound.

“I don’t think so,” said Jose.

Stan thrust his forehead against his scope. He peered at a burning T-66.

“You killed this one from point blank range,” Philips said over the radio. “But there’s another two coming, so you’d better move. We don’t want to lose your Abrams just yet.”

“Let’s go,” Stan told Hank. “We’re moving to live again and fight in another place.”

“Roger that,” said Hank, as he began revving the M1A2’s engine.

“Major Philips,” Stan said over the radio.

“Yes?”

“Tell Sergeant Jackson and his fellow police officers that they did good, very good.”

“Will do,” Philips said. “Now let’s get moving to the next ambush site.”

JUNCTION ONE/ NINE, ALASKA

Under Ramos’s command, a few Army soldiers, Alaska Militiamen with hard-case State prisoners took a ferry and crossed the trickery Turnagain Arm of the Cook Inlet. In jeeps, snowmobiles and four-wheel drive pickups they overwhelmed the few Chinese soldiers in Hope. Then they moved down Highway One to the Junction of Highway Nine and Moose Pass. There they met the lead elements, including snowplows, of the giant supply convoy heading for Anchorage.

***

“Where do they come from?” shouted Wang.

First Rank Lu Po lay in the snow beside his friend. Behind them, trucks and transports burned. Chinese helicopters were on their way. On the hill before them, American TOW2s continued to flash across the distance and hit yet more munitions trucks, causing tremendous explosions.

“We earn our glory now,” Lu told his White Tigers in their combat suits.

“There’s no more glory here,” said Wang. “High Command will skin us for allowing the supply convoy’s destruction.”

“Nonsense,” said Lu. “The Americans hit part of the convoy, not all. We must give them enemy heads or High Command will demand ours. We will fade into the trees and flank the hill.”’

“By that time the convoy will be destroyed,” said Wang.

“Follow me,” said Lu, as he rose in a bent crouch and sprinted for the trees.

***

Brigadier Ramos heard the Chinese bombers. He leaped off the altered pickup truck and sprinted for the trees.

The truck was called a
technical
. The term had been derived in Somalia during the 1990s when certain non-governmental agencies had paid gunmen to protect them. The gunmen were paid out of a
technical assistance grant
. The chief fighting vehicles were modified Toyota pickups, and soon the word technical came to be applied to any machinegun-carrying truck. Such technicals had been used to great effect by the nomads of Chad when they’d fought the Libyans. The Libyans had used Soviet tanks and hardware. The Chad militiamen primarily used Toyota pickups with an M2 Browning, a recoilless rifle or a light anti-air gun bolted on. In the Sahara Desert, the light trucks with their great mobility had given the Chad militiamen the victory. That victory had caused many to dub the fight the Great Toyota War.