Invasion: China (Invasion America) (Volume 5) (16 page)

He’d joined the Canadian Air Force to stop foreign aggressors. He could do that just as well down here as up north. The world ganged up on Canada and America. Okay. It was his turn to pay the piper. He’d made it through the Germans. The Chinese played a different game, more rugged. No. That wasn’t right, more brutal.

With a knot in his gut, Penner cut speed and banked hard. His anti-G suit barely kept him from blacking out. The growling in his headphones was louder than ever.

He saw an enemy drone
. He hated their very shape, looking like little flying saucers with weird alien wings. With a flick of his thumb, he activated his cannon. He kicked in the afterburners once more, roaring at the enemy, centering the drone on his targeting grid. He felt his fighter shake as several shells exited the cannon.

An explosion
in the air made him snarl. “Got you, you little prick.”

More drones appeared.
They just kept on coming. They were maneuverable little devils, able to turn tighter and faster because AI systems didn’t have to worry about blacking out. He retargeted, and the cannon spewed shells.

The growling quit for a moment, and he tracked on his radar. Something fast
flew down low below him.

He cursed. It was a cruise missile, a Red Dragon. It was happening. He hoped
a particle beam could nail it. Then he didn’t have any more time to worry about that. He was too busy fighting for his life, hoping some American V-10s would arrive and give him a hand.

TOPEKA, KANSAS

As the Chinese cruise missiles sped toward destiny, Captain Bo Green’s Reflex interceptor settled into attack position miles above the ground.

A couple of years ago, the North American Defense Net kept the interceptors in groups of three. Now the interceptors worked alone, since there was so much extra area to cover.

Thirty such craft
remained up at all times around the continental US and here in the gut in the Midwest. Each interceptor loomed larger than a C-5 Galaxy cargo plane. Each carried an ultra-hardened mirror on the bottom of the aircraft, the
reflex
of the strategic battle system.

Giant
antiballistic missile posts ringed the country and now dotted the center too. Their task was to stab the heavens with powerful lasers and burn down incoming warheads. The stations made an ICBM exchange between the North American Alliance and China nearly impossible.

In 2038, President Sims had used the strategic ABMs to destroy every enemy satellite the lasers could reach. No one was going to monitor the US or use space mirrors to fire enemy lasers down into America if he could help it.

Instead of ICBMs, the danger these days came from cruise missiles and low-level stealth bombers. The strategic ABMs could not hit those unless the enemies were in direct line of sight to the particular station. The Reflex interceptor changed the equation, as the ABM station could bounce the laser off the plane’s mirror and hit a low-flying target. The trick was making precise calculations and getting the Reflex high enough and in exactly the right position.

“We have target acquisition,”
Captain Green said.

“
You are weapons free, I say again, weapons free,” a NORAD major ordered.

The strategic ABM station in
Topeka aimed its giant laser at Green’s belly mirror and fired its pulse. The powerful beam flashed upward. Like a banking billiard ball, the ray struck the airborne mirror and sped toward Oklahoma. The first pulse stabbed the lead Red Dragon cruise missile, destroying it with intense heat.

“Good work, Captain,” the
NORAD major said. “Reposition now.”

Thirty seconds later, a
nother pulse-beam from the Topeka station struck his reflex mirror. The ray bounced and traveled at the speed of light, missing the next Chinese cruise missile.

Before NORAD could comment, a
warning light flashed on his control panel. Green studied the readings. The mirror had taken damage, too much according to instrument. With each extra pulse-strike, the odds would increase of a burn-through against the plane.

“My mirror had degraded
seven percent beyond the safety limit,” Green said.

“
There’s no one else to take your place, Captain,” the NORAD major said. “I don’t have to remind you that this is a nuclear attack.”

Green nodded.
He used to wonder if this day would ever come. Now the wondering was over. “Moving into position,” he said. After a full minute had passed, he said, “Ready.”

For a third time, the Topeka ABM station fired at the Reflex mirror on the belly of the interceptor. The instrumentation proved faulty, or maybe Captain Green’s odds were just bad
today. The ABM laser struck the belly mirror and reached out, destroying another Red Dragon. Then the laser burned through the degraded mirror and stabbed into the guts of the interceptor.

Alarms rang
in the cockpit. In Topeka, they shut down the laser, but it was too late. The giant interceptor split in half, sliced apart by the giant beam. Captain Green didn’t have the opportunity to eject, as the laser burned his body, killing him with intense heat.

His sacrifice helped take down an extra nuclear-tipped missile, but the
remaining Red Dragons continued their attack.

FORWARD EDGE OF THE BATTLEFIELD, OKLAHOMA

Captain Penner glanced at a gauge. He was running low on cannon shells.

The rest of his teammates were gone, dead or drifting to the Earth as they dangled from their parachutes. The American V-10s were almost here, but that wasn’t going to matter to him.

Even as Penner lined up another Chinese UAV, the rest raced for the Behemoths and particle beam platforms.

An annoying beep told him the enemy had guidance radar lock-on. A Chinese antiair missile zoomed at his plane.

Penner turned on afterburners, expelled chaff and tried to
break the radar lock. None of it helped. He watched his HUD. The damn missile barreled for him. Nothing should fly so fast. Why couldn’t it all be cannons and gunnery like the aces of WWI? That would have been a war. The Canadians had been on the winning side that time.

Will we win this one? Not if the other side is nuking us.

Barely before the antiair missile stuck, Penner reached down and grasped the twin ejection handles, pulling hard. The canopy blew away so wind howled around his helmet, and his seat violently ejected from the aircraft. It felt as if a giant shoved him down into his chair. As he lofted, he witnessed the strike. The enemy missile took out the rear of his fighter as it exploded. Shrapnel billowed in a deadly cloud. Any of those pieces could kill him. He watched, watched—
This time his anti-G suit couldn’t keep him from blacking out. He came to…maybe seconds later, drifting down on his seat, with a gigantic parachute overhead. For him, the battle was over.

Guess none of the shrapnel got me. That’s something, at least. I’m still alive and kicking.

He began watching the ground
. It was still far away. He hoped he could make a soft landing.

PARTICLE BEAM BATTERY I-35, OKLAHOMA

Far below the air battle of Captain Penner and many miles south, a PBT-2 battery on I-35 targeted the lead Red Dragon cruise missile.

Data from a
SR drone fed its Waylander tracking system. The Waylander AI reviewed the speed, altitude and behavior of the target.

In seconds, in the Engagement Control Station, the TCO
analyzed the speed, altitude and trajectory of the track. He authorized engagement and told his TCA to go from “standby” to “operate” mode.

At that point, automated systems took over. The computer determined which battery’s
beam cannon had the highest kill probability. Generators roared, pumping power to the plant.

The
nearest Red Dragon’s internal systems realized the enemy had radar lock-on. Its AI could learn, and it had from the Reflex lasers, radioing the data between missiles. The other Red Dragons deployed chaff and began to jink.

The
Waylander system quit relying on the SR pickup as the cruise missile flew into its line of sight. The radar gave ratios to the various imagines, highlighting the highest probabilities. Alarms sounded in the PBT-2 command center. A second and third Red Dragon now appeared.

“
Are they’re saturating us?” the TCO asked.

As
the latest cruise missile headed for Sixth Behemoth Regiment, a PBT-2 system accelerated particles. Then it fired a burst, which raced at nearly the speed of light. The particles struck, and then heated the targeted Red Dragon to an intolerable degree. The cruise missile exploded.

At the same time, the second battery fired at the second cruise missile,
taking it down.

The third battery malfunctioned, whining out of control as it accelerated particles, unable to fire
them.

The first battery targeted the
next Red Dragon. The second PBT-2 cannon took that moment to destroy another missile.

“We’re doing it,” the TCO said.

More cruise missiles kept coming. The initial Chinese targeting chief must have realized the Americans would go to extraordinary lengths to guard their prized Behemoth regiments. It seemed the Chinese used blizzard tactics.

Now
, however, the Behemoth tanks got into the action. Their fire control systems were just as good as the particle beam platforms, and could hit at longer ranges.

“The
Chinese don’t know who they’re messing with,” the TCO said.

Maybe he was right.

BEMEHOTH TANK, OKLAHOMA

It was hot inside the green glowing insides of the tank. With the outer hatch shut and the heaters pouring, there was no cold air at all.

Jake
Higgins unbuttoned the top of his shirt. He sat in the commander’s chair, his underarms slick with sweat. He knew the odds. They all did. The colonel had just radioed them with the information. The Chinese sent nuclear cruise missiles, and they were almost here.

The super tanks no longer traveled for Oklahoma City.
HQ had radioed for them to circle into a defensive laager, with their rail guns elevated skyward. The colonel had other ideas.

“I don’t care what nuclear defensive strategy says. We split apart to present fewer targets.”

The Behemoths did exactly that, radiating outward, traveling away from the central particle beam platforms. Each tank was still plugged in the PBT-2 net, their radar systems providing linked coverage.

“The farther apart we are,
the wider our radar net,” the colonel said.

Jake didn’t know if that was right or not. Maybe it was just good BS for doing what they already did.

The Red Dragons roared at them from treetop level. Chinese UAVs barreled down out of the sky. Some US V-10s tried to engage them. The Chinese drones weren’t playing along. Obviously, their objective was the particle beam platforms. The drones also added to the number of enemy targets. Only one set counted now—the cruise missiles.

Jake
swayed in his seat as he watched his crew going about their tasks. With his regular intensity, Chet tracked. Grant kept up a constant chatter with the PBT-2 net and Simons drove fast, with a white-knuckled grip on the controls. Jake kept debating whether he should tell Simons to take it easy. Despite the advanced hydraulics, at this speed, the rail gun would lack precise stability.

There were no two ways about this.
Nukes frightened Jake. Sitting here, waiting—
If I’d let the Detention Center goons take me away, I wouldn’t be in this mess.

“Corporal,” Chet said.

“I see it,” Jake said
. “Simons, slow it down.”

The driver ignored or didn’t hear him.

“Simons!” Jake said.

“What?” the driver said.

“Slow it down, I said.”

The long-faced
Simons cast Jake an angry look, but he slowed the tank.

Jake shook his head.
The nukes were wrong, maybe even evil. They’d beaten the Chinese fairly. This tank could take anything the enemy could throw at them…conventionally speaking, of course.

I
s this what it had felt like for Comanche warriors back in the day? The Comanches had been the best light cavalry in the world. No one could compare to their horsemanship and daring. Imagine thundering at US soldiers the first time. A brave would have yelled at the top of his voice, shaking his lance with battle joy. Then US soldiers would have stood up, raised their Winchesters and shot down the brave with advanced technology.

I guess nukes trump Behemoth tanks. Actually, I’m surprised the toe to toe fighting lasted this long.
Jake scowled. He should have talked to his mom more often, phoned or written a letter at least. No one wrote letters these days, just sent texts or emails. He hadn’t even done that much with her.