Invasion: New York

-4- Annihilation

From Tank Wars, by B.K. Laumer III:

In the opening days and weeks of the war, the German Dominion had a decisive advantage in EW equipment and practice. The heavy GD dependence on drones, UAVs and droids, and on the AI-run Kaisers, demanded a superior communication network. The GD military needed the electronic link so their operators could control their vehicles and so the commanders could order and monitor what the semi-independent AI tanks were doing.

GD High Command believed in the old adage: a good offense was a good defense. Therefore, they practiced intense ESM (electronic surveillance measures). The critical component to this was keeping track of the Canadian and American electronic devices on and near the battlefield. Because of this, the GD EW services kept a continuously updated common operating picture of Allied aircraft, ships, army units and ground vehicles. Every vehicle possessed a particular electronic signature. These signatures the GD specialists found and watched better than their Allied counterparts did theirs. ESM warfare included picking up enemy transmissions. The key advantage lay in the obvious truism: once one knew how the enemy equipment operated, one could jam or deceive that equipment.

The GD Expeditionary Force had more and better active and passive sensors and smarter and quicker ECD (electronic control devices). An example of the latter was the GD Sleeper mine, artillery-fired before advancing or behind retreating enemy vehicles. The Sleeper mine was sensor-controlled and contained powerful microprocessors. Depending on the setting, the Sleeper mine waited until a certain number of vehicles passed before popping up to attack. The GD automated devices worked with greater precision and reliability than American automated devices of similar types.

Lastly, GD ECM (electronic countermeasures) were better and more powerful than the American measures. Jamming enemy equipment at the right frequency was the most obvious form of ECM.

Both sides also used ECCM (electronic counter countermeasures) and EDM (electronic deception measures). One form of ECCM was to crank up the transmitter and burn through enemy jamming. The last, EDM, could involve setting up a transmitter to fool the enemy by simulating the presence of a unit of where it was not.

All together, these advantages proved decisive for the GD in the race to the Great Lakes. German Dominion EW specialists gained target acquisition through sensors, ESM and signal processing identity, pinpointing the activity, strength and position of enemy units. This gave the GD military the most lucrative targets at the earliest opportunity.

The GD EW specialists worked hard to disrupt enemy command, control and communication, causing American and Canadian commanders to lose track and control of their vehicles or men.

The last offensive component to electronic warfare came from deception. Particularly in the first weeks, EDM helped to deceive the North American soldiers about true GD intentions. When the GD hammer fell, it often came as a grim surprise and shock to the Allied forces.

There were voices. Then metal clacked from outside, a latch probably. The railroad car’s side door squealed open on rusty sprockets.

Jake Higgins blinked at the bright light. He sat up, pushing aside the worn Army jacket he’d used as a blanket. A rolled up shirt had been his pillow and the hard railroad car floor his bed. Other Militia detainees raised their heads or rolled onto one of their elbows to see what was going on. Thirty of them were in here with Jake: dirty, tired and hungry men.

It stank in the railroad car and several buckets to the sides held last night’s feces. None of them had been out of the car for over twenty-four hours.

“Outside!” a muscled, Militia Detention Guard, or MDG, sergeant shouted.

The man must have used steroids just as Jake’s friend in Denver, the lieutenant, once had. The sergeant had an extraordinarily thick neck and sloping shoulders. He wore a white helmet with the letters “MDG” stamped on the front. The man had heavy features to match his neck, making him a bull with flaring nostrils. Jake wouldn’t have been surprised to see a ring in the nose. The sergeant had a carbine slung on his left shoulder and a nightstick dangling from a thick black police belt. Other MDG personnel waited for the threadbare detainees. The white-helmeted men fanned out in a semicircle behind the first sergeant.

He eyed the detainees with distain, with a sneer twisting his practically lipless mouth. Then he said in a loud voice, “Get your sorry asses out here before we drag them out.”

The detainees stood, as did Jake, and they moved toward the door. Jake put on his coat and waited his turn. He’d been traveling by railroad car like an old-time hobo. At each stop, another political detainee or two joined the growing throng. They ate crusts of bread, drank bottled water and used the outdoors when they could to relieve themselves. This was unbelievable treatment, as if they were Russian POWs during WWII.

“Get out,” another MDG snarled at Jake.

“Out!” the muscled sergeant shouted.

Jake jumped down, and he landed hard on gravel. There must have been hundreds of various railroad tracks here. There were hundreds of railroad cars and engines waiting or being loaded or unloaded, and there were long sheds everywhere and sounds of busy forklifts revving.

Jake felt a hand grab his collar, heave, and he faced the sergeant with the thick neck.

“A double troublemaker, huh?” the sergeant asked.

Jake shook his head.

The sergeant must not have liked that or not liked something about Jake. The man let go of the collar, slid the carbine from his shoulder, grabbed it two-handed and slammed the butt hard against Jake’s gut.

The surprise blow caught Jake hard. His air whooshed out and pain blossomed. His knees unhinged on their own accord and he dropped, slamming down onto his shins. He doubled over as he clutched his stomach in agony. What a bastard.

The sergeant gripped Jake’s hair and forced his head back. The man shoved his own face near and blew bad breath on Jake on he spoke:

“You look at me wrong, you piss wrong, I’ll stomp you flat. You’re a filthy traitor, and I hate traitors, and that means I hate you.”

Jake hurt too much to reply, but this was his first meeting with MDG Sergeant Dan Franks. They were destined to spend much time together.

“Get up,” the sergeant said.

While clutching his gut, Jake struggled to his feet, shuffling over gravel to join the others. The rest of the MDGs marshaled the detainees into a physical training formation. Apparently, the sergeants didn’t care if they formed up in the middle of the famous Chicago rail yards. One of the detention people began taking roll call.

When the man finished, the muscled sergeant who had struck Jake marched in front of the group.

“Look at you sorry traitors,” the sergeant said, in his sneering voice. He had re-slung the carbine tight over his right shoulder. He faced them with his legs spread in an arrogant stance.

“I’m Sergeant Dan Franks!” he roared. “I’m the Militia Detention Guard who is going to make sure each one of you fights and dies for the greatest country in the world. For you worthless dregs that don’t know: that’s the United States of America. It seems you dissidents can’t ever get it right. Well, guess what. We’re not in college now with your communist professors to hold your faggot hand. No, sir, you’re down here with us regular Americans who actually love our country.”

“I love it, too,” one of the detainees said.

Sergeant Franks stopped speaking, with shock on his face. He scowled, and he zeroed in on the speaker. “Bring that lying piece of filth to me,” Franks said.

Jake kept himself from looking directly at the sergeant. There was something wrong with the man’s eyes. They were too close set, and they were too shiny. Was the man high or drunk? Or did Franks get off on pushing others around? Maybe the answer was yes to both.

I can’t believe this is happening to me. When am I going to learn to keep my mouth shut?

Two MDGs hustled a skinny man to Franks. The detainee wore a threadbare coat and nearly useless tennis shoes. The man looked to be thirty-five, but could have been younger. He had a three days growth of beard and sad, tired eyes.

“Did you say something to me, maggot?” the sergeant asked the man.

The skinny detainee looked around.

With a powerful grip, Franks grabbed the man’s face, with his thick fingers tightening against the cheeks. “Look at me when I’m talking to you, Detainee. That’s what an American does: he meets another man’s eyes.”

The detainee swallowed hard. Maybe he was finally getting it in his mind that he was in trouble. He stared at Franks, and those shiny eyes must have frightened him. The detainee quickly lowered his gaze.

“I asked you a question, maggot,” Franks said. “Did you say something before?”

“Yes, sir—”

Crack! Franks let go of the detainee’s face and slapped him, leaving an angry red welt. “Pay attention, you traitorous scum. I’m not an officer. I’m a sergeant. Besides, I don’t want a dickhead piece of filth like you calling me sir. I feel soiled by it.”

“Yes…okay,” the detainee said.

“Are you afraid?” Franks asked.

Jake knew he shouldn’t say anything. He told himself to keep quiet. He could see the skinny man was a youth, someone younger than he was. The youth didn’t seem as if he’d ever been in the military or the militia before. The kid was pure terrified. The slap in the face must have capped it for him. Most people were shocked the first time real world brutality struck them.

“I asked you if you’re afraid,” Franks shouted.

“Yeah,” Jake said. “He’s afraid. Are you satisfied?”

For a moment, Sergeant Franks froze, perhaps out of amazement. Ever so slowly, he turned from the detainee and to Jake.

While looking at Jake, Franks asked, “Who spoke to me just now.”

Jake knew he should shut up. He realized he’d made a bad mistake. He was weary, hungry and fear kept tugging for his attention. He was also pissed off, royally angry for the rifle butt in the gut a minute ago. He knew he shouldn’t, but Jake raised his right hand.

Franks glanced at another MDG. “It looks like we have a funny man among us, Leary.” Facing Jake, Franks said, “Step out here with me, funnyman.”

Jake marched to the head of the formation and then two steps farther. He held himself at attention and kept his eyes forward. He felt Sergeant Franks move toward him. He heard the crunch of gravel, and his stomach throbbed. He didn’t want to get struck in the gut again, but it didn’t matter what he wanted. The rifle butt smashed him in the same place as before. Jake groaned, and he crumpled to his knees.

“Do you feel funny now?” Franks asked, the sergeant looming over him.

Jake shook his head.

“Speak up. I can’t hear you, funnyman.”

It came to Jake that maybe the MDGs could beat a few of the detainees to death. According to the tribunal, he didn’t have any American rights left. He was a penal detainee, a supposed traitor to his country. Jake saw himself as one of the last real patriots, a man who tried to speak truth to power. The Detention people would hate someone like him. The sergeant had already told Jake he hated him. Maybe this was it. Maybe he was about to die. Jake wanted to act tough, but his stomach hurt and the fear of death…

“I do not feel funny, Sergeant Franks,” Jake said.

Franks stared down at him, finally saying, “I guess you been in before, huh?”

“I have, Sergeant Franks.” Jake could smell the alcohol on the man’s breath, not a lot, but it was there.

“Well you know what. I don’t care two cents about that. You’re in my penal platoon and you’re going to do things my way. There’s an emergency going on, and our country needs warm bodies to charge the damn Germans. I’m guessing someone upstairs will actually give punks like you an M16. It doesn’t really matter, one way or another. You’ll probably piss yourself the first time a Kraut shows his face. Isn’t that right, you piece of filth?”

“No, Sergeant Franks,” Jake said. “I want to fight for my country.”

The sergeant didn’t say anything, and finally, Jake dared to look up. He saw Franks staring down at him, sneering.

Franks hawked phlegm in this throat, gathered it and spit in Jake’s face.

Jake should have known better. Lately, he’d received hard life-lessons on the advantage of keeping one’s cool. He should have kept his cool now. Instead, something snapped in him. Militia Detention people had screwed him over just one too many times. Now this bully of a sergeant spit in his face. Jake didn’t roar with rage. He simply moved faster than Sergeant Franks must have expected. His nearly ruptured stomach didn’t slow Jake any, either. Jake moved like a leopard, from his knees, scrambling to his feet and tackling the MDG by the knees.

Jake didn’t realize what he was doing until he had Sergeant Dan Franks on his back, slammed the man’s helmeted head against a railroad tie twice and then he whaled three solid shots to the sergeant’s face. Madness and rage reigned during those few seconds. None of the other MDGs had moved by then, either. On his own, Jake stopped the whaling, and he jumped off Franks, took two steps back and stood at attention.

Franks groaned, and he raised his head, with blood trickling down his nose. Several of the other MDGs drew batons from their belts, and they approached Jake with death on their faces.

Jake saw them approaching. He trembled from rage, and he silently berated himself for having fallen into their trap. Maybe he should have just tried to kill Franks. But he didn’t hate the man, as such. He hated the system that gave men like Franks the room to haze those weaker than him.

Before the first MDG reached him, before Jake went berserk and went down fighting, a sharp whistle blasted through the air.

Jake turned his head. The sergeants faced the same direction as he did. After a half second, they warily lowered their batons.

A Militia Detention lieutenant climbed out of a jeep. He strode to them, glancing at the MDGs with their batons and glancing at Sergeant Franks with his bloody nose. Finally, his gaze locked onto Jake.

The lieutenant kept walking at Jake, and he no longer glanced at the MDGs. They quietly began to holster their batons and stand at attention.

The lieutenant reached Jake, and he asked, “Did you do that to him?”

The lieutenant was regular-sized, had a longish neck, sandy-colored hair and freckles across his nose. He looked like a Staples salesman or a computer programmer.

“Yes, sir,” Jake said.

“Why would you attack one of my MDGs?” the lieutenant asked.

“He spit in my face, sir,” Jake said.

The lieutenant blinked as he took that in. He didn’t turn to ask the MDGs if it was true. Obviously, if it were true, they would lie about it. Everyone knew that, even this young, geeky lieutenant.

“An American doesn’t take an insult like that, sir,” Jake explained. “He fights back. He uses his fists. At least, that’s what my father taught me.”

“And who might your father be?” the lieutenant asked.

“Colonel Higgins, sir, of the Behemoth Regiment. He won the Medal of Honor in Alaska in 2032.”

“What’s Colonel Higgins’s son doing in a penal battalion?” the lieutenant asked.

Here it was. Here was the question Jake had been asking himself for some time. His mind moved at laser speed. He had been that close to death. Likely, the sergeants were going to see him dead, one way or another. He had to outwit them. One thing he’d learned so far: they all believed he was a traitor, and likely, nothing he said would change their opinion of him. Therefore, he needed to work within the limits they would accept.

“Sir,” Jake said, “Colonel Higgins’s son is learning some hard lessons.”

“Give me a for-instance,” the lieutenant said.

“I’m learning that privilege doesn’t mean anything when it comes to my country,” Jake said. “All that counts is action.”

“What does that mean?” the lieutenant asked.

“That I can’t rest on my father’s laurels,” Jake said. “I have to prove my love for America by my own actions.”

“Do you love America?” the lieutenant asked in a quiet voice.

“Yes, sir, I do,” Jake said. “But I’ve gone about it the wrong way. If I can, sir, I want to hurt the enemies who have come here to rape and steal from us.”

“Why are you here?” the lieutenant asked.

“Because I had a bad attitude before, sir,” Jake said. “I said some things that no one should ever say.”

“What kind of things?”

“I spoke against the Director of Homeland Security.” Jake shook his head. Everything I said was true. You’re all jackbooted thugs, and you hate people speaking their minds. “I don’t think I understood how we have to all pull together for the good of the country. We can’t—I can’t expect to rest on the privilege of being a war-hero’s son.”

“Hmm,” the lieutenant said. He turned to Sergeant Franks. “Did you hear that? He’s a war-hero’s son. No wonder he kicked your butt so easily.” The lieutenant’s gaze took in the other MDGs. “I want Jake Higgins to survive training. If he can thrash Sergeant Franks like that, imagine what he can do to the Germans.”

“Sir,” Franks said.

The lieutenant held up a hand. “I want him to survive our short training schedule. Have I made myself clear, Sergeant?”

The muscled man hesitated, but he finally said, “Yes, sir.”

“Good. Now carry on.” The lieutenant surveyed the lined-up men once, glanced again at Jake and then strode to his jeep, kicking up gravel at each step. One stone struck the vehicle a second before the lieutenant opened the door and slid in, leaving them in another crunch of gravel.

Sergeant Dan Franks wiped his bloody nose. Then he marched in front of Jake. Every eye was on them. Franks halted an inch from Jake, staring at him from the side.

Jake didn’t move. He waited to see whether he would live or die.

“This isn’t over,” Franks whispered.

Jake said nothing, as there was nothing to say to that.

“I obey orders,” Franks whispered. “You’re going to survive training, unless you do something really stupid. But I wouldn’t hold too tightly to your chances of surviving combat.”

Jake still said nothing.

“Get back in formation,” Franks said.

Jake marched to his spot, and the MDG who had taken roll call before began their calisthenics soon thereafter. It lasted for three hours. Only after five detainees fainted did Franks call a halt for food and water, a chance to go to the latrines and then a return into the railroad car. They were on their way east to the war, but that’s all any of the detainees knew, other than that only a few of them would survive the coming battles.

Anna Chen sat up late with the President and with General Alan in the Oval Office.

As could be expected, David Sims looked much different in person than he did on TV. The propaganda team had made him seem stern and collected on the tube, an older uncle that everyone could trust. In person, the President tended toward the heavier side, with most of his extra weight in his gut. He wore a well-tailored suit jacket that hid the extent of his stomach, but he’d gained another seven pounds since the GD invasion. Wispy blond hair barely covered his bald spot in front. He had pale blue eyes that scanned a report as he moved back and forth on his rocking chair. It creaked abominably.

The Chairman of the Joint Chiefs—General Alan—was gaunt with sunken cheeks. He took off black-rimmed glasses and rubbed his eyes. Putting them back on, the general took a sheaf of papers from the sofa he sat on and began paging through them.

Like the other two, Anna read reports on various secret projects. They searched for ideas, something to help America stem the tide of GD conquest. A thing like this was really better left to experts. Those experts could tell them about the best projects during a briefing. In Anna’s opinion, the President needed to save his mental energy in order to remain sharp. That way he could okay the right decisions and nix the bad ones, not waste his precious time with these rabbit-hole searches.

Anna had told him so many times before. But since David had once been a Joint Forces Commander in Alaska, he liked to get his hands dirty in the military details. Maybe this was a form of relaxation. Lord knew he needed it.

Anna helped, or she tried to help tonight. She was distracted as she read. She kept wondering if she should tell the President about Max Harold. Of course, she should. But wouldn’t that be playing into the director’s hands? To keep silent, though, might be worse.

If David can’t handle the truth, maybe he should step down. Was that a treasonous thought? Or did it show she loved him more than his position, or hers, for that matter?

Anna lowered her reading device and stared out of a window into the darkness. The city lights shined in the background. A blinking red light showed one of the antiair blimps over the city. How long until the Germans neared DC? A foreign power hadn’t occupied the city since the War of 1812. The British had burned the Capitol buildings then. Would the Germans reach here almost 250 years later?

I have to tell him. I should have already told him. Now the question was: should she wait until Alan left or would it better if the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs heard this?

“What’s this?” the President asked.

Anna looked over from her chair and General Alan looked up from the sofa.

The President had stopped rocking and held up his reading device. “Do you know anything about the THOR Project?” he asked Alan.

Gaunt General Alan blushed, and he nodded, almost reluctantly.

That’s an odd response, Anna thought.

“It’s says here this thing is a space weapon,” the President said. “I didn’t know we had any space weapons left.”

“We don’t exactly have one, sir,” Alan said, seeming to choose his words with care. “The THOR Project is still in the experimental stage, the early phase of testing.”

“So this is new?” the President asked.

“It’s an old idea that’s never been implemented before,” Alan said. “Otherwise, yes, it’s new.”

“I’ve never heard of it.”

Anna glanced at the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs. She wasn’t sure, but his body language, the way his face seemed blank like a good poker player… Had Alan wanted to keep the project under wraps for now? If so, why would he keep it secret from David?

“Explain it to me,” the President was saying. “I’m interested. It says here the missiles will strike from space, literally like lightning from Thor’s hammer. That can’t be correct, can it?”

Alan cleared his throat. “In essence, sir, the missiles of the project act in a simple manner.” He frowned. “First, before I tell you any more, you should know that the missiles in question are the size of crowbars.”

The President pursed his lips. “What kind of warhead are we talking about?”

“None, sir,” Alan said. “The object is the warhead.”

“You’d better explain that one. It’s beginning not to sound like much of a missile to me.”

“Mr. President, I wouldn’t place much hope in these THOR—”

“Just tell me how this thing is supposed to work,” the President said, with the hint of an edge to his voice. “I’ve never heard about the project and I’m curious, very curious, in fact.”

Alan nodded, and he glanced upward. He did it as if searching for the answer, the extreme tops of his pupils disappearing for a moment.

Or maybe he’s been dreading this moment, Anna thought. I can’t see why, though. What’s so awful about the missiles that he wouldn’t want to tell David?

After a moment’s contemplation, the general said, “Let me begin by saying that a satellite two hundred miles above the Earth’s surface has to travel seventeen thousand five hundred miles per hour to balance it against the gravity trying to pull it down. You see, its speed and orbital capacity are important for several reasons.”

The President closed his eyes, maybe to envision the data. Upon opening his eyes, he said, “I understand. Please, continue.”

“At seventeen five hundred miles per hour, the satellite completes an Earth orbit every ninety minutes.”

“That’s fast,” the President said.

“Yes,” Alan said. “I, um, should point out that the basic physics of orbital motion would give the U.S. global coverage with these. At least, it would with several thousand of them. We only have a few up at present.”

“What?” the President asked. “That’s amazing. We actually have satellites in orbital space? You should have told me the moment it happened. But I’m confused on one issue. China and the German Dominion and Russia, too, all have strategic laser defense stations. We have strategic laser defense stations to shoot down enemy satellites.”

Every important country had strategic lasers, Anna knew. It’s what kept the ICBMs from launching. If China fired thermonuclear intercontinental ballistic missiles to help with their invasion, the U.S. could shoot down the vast majority of them with the strategic lasers. It worked the other way, too, if America launched at China. Due to strategic lasers, big nuclear exchanges were a worry of the past. The lasers could take down anything in Near-Earth Orbit that they could see in a straight line of sight. With spaceborne mirrors, they could bounce the beam and reach even farther. That was one reason why each side’s ground control kept a constant and desperate watch on orbital space.

“We actually have a few satellites up there,” the President said, sounding bemused. “I didn’t think anyone did, at least not for very long. China has some in geosynchronous orbit over China, but that’s about it. How do you propose keeping our satellites up there for any length of time? Have we made some fantastic breakthrough in stealth technology?”

“No, sir,” Alan said. “There aren’t any breakthroughs.”

“Then how?” the President asked. “What’s our secret?”

“First, these are small satellites, bundles of crowbars, as I’ve said.”

“None of this makes sense,” the President said.

“It will in a minute, sir, if you’ll just bear with me.”

“I am, I am,” the President said. “Continue.”

Alan cleared his throat. “Under normal conditions, enemy radar stations could locate the satellites. But the conditions do not stay normal as we heavily wrap the satellites in stealth foam.”

“You’re kidding me, right?” the President asked. “Foam?”

“No, sir, I’m not kidding,” Alan said. “That’s exactly what we do. We wrap the satellites in special foam, making them incredibly radar-resistant. It’s extremely hard to get a visual on them, as well. The foam will also protect the satellite from a strategic laser, at least for several seconds, meaning the enemy has to keep on target for more than a microsecond burst. The foam would, of course, protect the missiles from any nearby nuclear blast.”

“Has anyone used nuclear bombs in space that I don’t know about?” the President asked.

Alan looked uncomfortable. “We know the Germans have plans in that regard.”

The President shook his head. “How long can these foam-wrapped satellites stay out of enemy detection?”

“That’s one of the things we’re testing, sir.”

“And?”

“Apparently, no one has spotted any of the packages yet.”

“This is unbelievable,” the President said. “I can’t understand why you haven’t said anything about this before now.”

On her device, Anna searched for the THOR Project. This sounded interesting.

“The project is in its infancy, sir,” General Alan said. “There are bugs, plenty of things that can go wrong with the system. It might not work as expected is what I’m trying to say. We have too many other projects that will work for us to spend too much time with these, um, impractical ideas.”

The President appeared not to hear the last part. “Didn’t you tell me the missiles don’t have warheads?”

“That is correct, sir.”

“Okay,” the President said. “That means they’re not nuclear, correct?”

“Yes, sir,” Alan said. “Nuclear-tipped missiles orbiting Earth are against every space treaty we’ve ever signed.”

“What a minute. You’re telling me these orbital missiles aren’t against international law?”

“That is correct, sir.”

The President laughed, but sobered a moment later. “So what good are they if they lack warheads? You do mean they don’t even have any conventional payloads.”

“That is correct, Mr. President.”

David frowned. “So…do they operate off kinetic energy?”

“Yes, sir,” Alan said. “That’s exactly right. It’s a kinetic strike.”

The President grinned at Anna. “That’s one you don’t have to worry about where the world turns against us in outrage.”

It took Anna a moment to understand what he meant. “Because they’re non-nuclear missiles?” she asked the President.

He nodded.

“There’s nothing remotely nuclear about them,” Alan said. “I’ve already said that, but it is one of the project’s strongpoints, at least when considering international law and worldwide public opinion.”

The President chuckled, a throaty, almost sleepy sound. “No doubt, Max would urge me to use them immediately. He’s been pressing for nuclear strikes. He’d know I couldn’t drum up an objection against using these.”

Anna’s chest tightened. Did David already know about Max’s challenge to his authority?

“How do these things operate?” the President asked. “Keep explaining it to me.”

“First,” Alan said, “I should point out that one of our biggest drawbacks is the lack of communication and guidance satellites. Those have all been destroyed. We tried putting two up in secret, but the GD spotted one and beamed it to smithereens. The Brazilians destroyed the other one. So we know our enemies are still searching space for anything we put up.”

“Hmm,” the President said. “We can still use AWACS and high-flying drones for geo-data, right?”

“They’re not really the same thing, Mr. President. Geo satellites are much better for our purposes, and we need the comm satellites to message the THOR bundles if they happen to be on the other side of the planet.”

“We could use submarines to radio them,” the President said. “One or two of them would be in line of sight communications on the other side of the world.”

“Possibly,” Alan said. “It depends on their exact location at the time. Now it’s true we’re not utterly blind without geo satellites, but our THOR accuracy might be limited, and that’s crucial with these weapons. Accuracy is everything with a kinetic strike.”

“Spotters,” the President said. “Can you use ground spotters painting the target with infrared lasers to guide the missiles down?”

“That’s a good idea, sir. It’s also another one of the things Project THOR is testing.”

“You still haven’t told me how they work,” the President said.

The general stood. “Sir, this is a highly experimental project. You shouldn’t pin any hopes on it.”

“Get to the point,” the President said, testily.

A touch of color crept up Alan’s neck. He nodded, and like a schoolboy reciting his lesson, he began to speak. “We send a coded signal to a THOR satellite. The bundle uses attitude jets to orient itself. At the right time, rockets fire to deorbit the satellite. After they burn out, the bundle opens and individual missiles begin to target their victims. These missiles do not have blunt noses, but very sharp ones into order to slice through the atmosphere. In this way, they maintain most of their orbital velocity.”

The President laughed with glee.

They’re meteors, Anna thought to herself. The general is talking about manmade meteors. What an idea.

“Seconds before impact,” Alan said, “terminal guidance systems take over. Each missile strikes at four miles per second. What that means in reality is that a twenty-pound object will hit with the power of a two hundred pound bomb. When working as planned, it would be spectacular, and the attack would be over in five seconds. The project manager believes that the enemy would have no idea what had just occurred.”

“Would there be any telltale signs of an attack?” the President asked.

“Well, yes,” Alan said. “The missiles would leave luminous tails from space that would slowly dissipate.”

“Incredible,” the President said.

“Compared to other weapon systems,” Alan said, “the actual THOR missile is cheap. Launching them into space is another matter.”

“Is it really a missile?” the President asked.

“It’s a slender, dense metal rod,” Alan said. “And that’s it except for guidance systems and some control nubs. That means the missiles contain no explosives to go bad while they’re in space. In addition, on the positive side, there aren’t any firing mechanisms that might fail at the wrong moment. You simply aim and drop.”

“You said kinetic energy,” Anna said. “What are you talking about specifically?”

“Are you familiar with the shaped-charge grenade of an old TOW missile?” the general asked.

“I have an idea, yes,” she said.

“Okay,” Alan said. “When a TOW warhead detonates it produces a jet of metal particles that travel at the same velocity as a THOR missile. The TOW metal particles weigh a fraction of an ounce. Yet it can punch through the armor of most heavy tanks.”

“Not a Behemoth’s armor,” the President said.

“No, not a Behemoth,” Alan agreed. “In any case,” he told Anna, “the smallest THOR missile weighs twenty pounds, not a few ounces, but it travels as fast as the TOW particle jet. That twenty-pound projectile could punch a hole through a battleship and smash another hole at the bottom of the vessel. It could also destroy a Behemoth.”

“Or a Kaiser HK,” the President said thoughtfully.

“I should point out that there are various types of missiles,” Alan said. “They aren’t only meant to use against armored vehicles. One missile is made from depleted uranium. After punching through an ICBM cover, for instance, the metal produces an incendiary blast as the cloud of uranium vapor detonates. There are ways to use other compositions that would produce a shockwave that would flatten soldiers, ships and other targets. It would act as a fuel-air bomb.”

“This is a science-fiction marvel,” Anna said.

The general shook his head. “No. I assure you this is modern technology used in innovative ways. The trick is making a system the enemy can’t take over. That’s one of the biggest sticking points, and I find it utterly frightening.”

“Meaning what?” the President asked.

“If any of our enemies had our codes and radio frequencies,” Alan said, “they could order our own missiles to fall and strike us.”

“That must never happen,” the President said.

“It’s one of the things we’re testing and believe me trying to prefect,” Alan said.

“How many of the experimental satellites do we have in space at the moment?”

“I believe four bundles are presently in orbit, sir.”

“We need more,” the President said, “many more.”

“If they worked as predicted, I totally agree, sir. At the moment, however, we lack the launch facilities to send many more aloft.”

The President began rocking in his chair. He had a far-off look on his face.

After a time, the general glanced questioningly at Anna.

She shrugged. She’d seen the look before. It was a good sign. David was processing.

The general finally sat back down and began leafing through his papers. He licked the tip of his index finger every few seconds to help him. Anna went back to reading her device.

Maybe twenty minutes later, the rocking chair stopped squeaking. Both Anna and the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs looked up.

David eyed them. “I’m giving this priority one.”

“Sir?” Alan asked.

“The THOR Project,” the President said. “From now on it gets full priority ahead of everything else.”

General Alan balked. “But sir, we don’t even know if the missiles work yet. What I’ve just been telling you, it’s all theory. We can’t just dump what works for some pie in the sky project.”

“Hmm,” the President said. “There’s far too much that doesn’t work these days. We need a war-winner and we need it now.”

“I understand that, sir, but—”

“The Behemoth tank gave us part of the answer,” the President said in a rush. “The Jefferson tank is important, too. This might be another answer, maybe the ticket we need to finally beat these aggressors for good.”

“Or it might be a rabbit trail that wastes precious time and resources,” Alan said.

Anna watched David. She hadn’t seen him like this for some time. Normally, the flesh hung on his face and he gave monosyllable replies. Now, the skin seemed to have tightened, especially on his cheeks. There was something more about him than that hangdog look she’d been seeing…well, all of the time, lately. Hope shone in his eyes.

But is he clinging to a false answer like Alan suggests?

“Maybe it is a waste,” the President said. “You might be right, General. But I’ll tell you something. We need a break and we need it now. If this thing doesn’t work…” He shrugged. “I don’t know that it will have put us that much more in the hole than we’re already in to have given the THOR Project priority and it fizzles.”

I know what this is, Anna thought. He can’t let go of how the GD neutrality turned against us. He made the Faustian bargain, and it has bitten us hard. He’s looking for something to negate what he did.

“I’m not sure I can agree with you, Mr. President,” Alan said.

“Would you like my input on this, sir?” Anna asked.

The President tore his gaze from Alan and studied her. He must have seen something positive on her face. “Yes, I would like to hear your opinion.”

“You should do this,” she said. “You should give top priority to the THOR Project.”

“Can you give me a good reason why you believe this?” Alan asked her.

Because it gives David hope. She didn’t know if she could tell the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs that. Instead, she said, “We’re going to have to take a risk somewhere in order to win. Why not take the risk here?”

“Calculated risks,” Alan said. “We need to finish the tests before we waste precious rocket resources on these bundles. If the THOR missiles don’t work for whatever reason, those rockets will have been wasted. We need the rockets in order to replenish the number of our medium-range missiles. They were vital in stopping the Chinese this winter. They will likely be vital again to stopping the Germans.”

“I don’t disagree with that,” the President said. “But we do need the THOR missiles. We need something that works spectacularly like the Behemoths tanks did.”

It hurt Anna to hear the note of pleading in the President’s voice. Couldn’t Alan understand that they needed to keep David hopeful? Wouldn’t wasting a few rockets be worth that?

“We badly need allies,” Alan said. “That doesn’t mean we get them. We have to face the facts, sir. The truth of the matter is that a new weapons system always has teething problems. The THOR Project won’t be any different, no matter how much we want it or need it.”

“I realize that,” the President said. He looked away, and something hardened on his face. He turned back to Alan, and any hint of pleading had left his voice. “The THOR Project will get crash priority.”

The Chairman of the Joint Chiefs licked his lips. It was clear he planned to fight or at least to resist the idea further.

“That’s an order,” the President added.

Anna hadn’t heard such firmness in David’s voice for quite some time. It helped her decide about Max Harold. She wasn’t going to tell the President about the Frobisher meeting just yet. This new resolve…the President sounded like his old self. He needed time to strengthen his hope and build on this.

“And what if the THOR Project fails, sir?” Alan asked quietly.

“Then God help us,” the President said, as a haunted look entered his eyes. “Because I don’t know of anyone else who will.”

Sergeant Hans Kruger of the 10th Panzer-Grenadier Drone Battalion flinched as American artillery landed shells near the GD operational facility.

The crumps outside caused detectable vibration to the building and to the equipment in here. That definitely wasn’t supposed to happen now, or at least not happen for as long as it had been going on.

With the flick of his eyes, Hans checked the chronometer in his set. The shells had been inching toward the “shack”—as they referred to the concrete building—for nearly ten minutes. Where was GD counterbattery fire to silence these impertinent dogs? Command said they had the trapped Americans on the ropes, ready to perform the coup de grace and finish it. The battalion’s single Spaniard would have said it differently: “The Americans were ready for the matador’s sword.”

The barbaric Spaniards actually went to bullfights these days where they killed the animals. It was grotesque. Yet what could one expect from someone from that part of Europe?

Hans sat back in his chair and turned his head sharply. Neck bones popped. He rotated his sore shoulders, attempting to loosen them. It was incredible the number of hours a day Command had been demanding from them, week after week.

He sat with others of the 10th Panzer-Grenadier Drone Battalion. They had set up shop here several days ago, with a set for every operator. Twenty-four personnel hovered over twenty-four blue-glowing sets. Like Hans, each operator wore a headset with microphone, stared into his or her screen and minutely twitched manipulation gloves.

The set was Hans’s station, and he’d divided the screen into four equal quadrants, showing him four different camera angles from his panzer-grenadier Sigrid drone. One showed a flickering streetlight, as if couldn’t decide whether to keep working or not. His vehicle carried a 12.7mm tri-barrel heavy machine gun. The three barrels worked like a Gatling gun, helping to dissipate heat from prolonged fire as they shot in fast rotation. Since the ammunition was 12.7mm, it was slightly larger than a .50 caliber American bullet. That meant in a pinch the Sigrid could use captured US ammunition, but the Americans couldn’t fit a 12.7mm bullet into a .50 caliber machine gun. It was a good idea stolen from the old Soviets of the last century.

The box-shaped, armored vehicle was the size of a two-seat electric car, but had treads instead of wheels and had the one heavy machine gun mount. It was electric powered and therefore of limited endurance. The Sigrid had to come home after every engagement in order to reenergize and so the techs could reload it. Most of the guts held ammo for sustained fire.

Hans ran Sigrid Drone #72. Tonight, his company would join an AI Kaiser HK. They would supply the hunter-killer with backup and take care of any annoying infantrymen who tried to slither near the wonder weapon.

The battalion’s commanding lieutenant colonel stood up, and he blew a whistle. It was an old-fashioned silver whistle of Prussian design. No one else did things like that anymore, but no one cared to tell the lieutenant colonel that.

The commander was short, running to fat and was almost bald, but he wore a crisp uniform and his eyes flashed with authority. Anyone in the 10th who had ever failed in a procedure or brought shame to the battalion knew about his wrath. The lieutenant colonel was intent and he had run enough drills so every operator knew his duty to a nicety. The old man also made sure they switched the encryption codes every three hours. That was the great fear among Drone Command. That somehow the primitive Americans might break the encryptions, gain the right frequencies and take over the automated machinery.

Americans defeat German tech? Hans asked himself. I don’t think so.

“I have just spoken with division,” the lieutenant colonel said. “They have confirmed the rumor. The Americans are mounting a full-scale attack. It seems inconceivable for them to attempt such a thing now, as it is doomed to failure, but…” The lieutenant colonel scanned around the room.

For a moment, Hans felt the man’s stare. He quickly looked down. He’d never had a father, uncle or even a grandfather growing up. There had been no father figure of any type for him. Is that why the battalion commander unnerved him?

“The Americans have animal courage,” the officer was saying. “Luckily for us, they do not have the weapons or the GD mentality to properly employ what they do have. Still, we will take the attack seriously, and we will use it to kill as many enemy soldiers as we can.”

Finally, the lieutenant colonel quit staring at him. Hans took the opportunity to slide long hands out of his manipulation gloves. He put his fingers together and cracked them sharply.

Hans was twenty-five, born and raised in Munich and tall at six-three. He was also as thin as a pole. Hans had aptitude as a drone controller, as he’d spent most of his youth playing video games. For a little while, he’d had one girlfriend. The other times he had spent hard-earned euros at the government brothels. His favorite girls had been Turkish, and that for good reason. In his youth, Turkish gangbangers had caught him several times and given him a good thrashing. He hated Turks because of it. So every time Hans used a Turkish prostitute, he imagined it was one of those boys’ sisters. Later, at night while lying in bed, he’d liked to think about what he’d tell the thugs of his neighborhood. “I used your sister, Kemal. She was good, sucking me off like a pro. She must have done you at home a lot, huh?”

The Turkish bullies would have gone crazy at his words and pulled out their knives. They were into that, and Hans hated knives. A thug had held a blade under his nose once. He’d been sixteen at the time and three other Turks had watched the interplay, laughing at him. It had taken all of his bodily control that night to keep from urinating in fear.

He’d never forgotten the incident or the smell of knife oil. Sometimes, when his Sigrid’s heavy machine gun obliterated Americans, he imagined they were the knife-wielding Turks of his youth.

Bavaria was so much nicer, cleaner and civilized without all those Turks and other foreigners living there. Hans approved of Chancellor Kleist and he wholeheartedly agreed with the slogan and motto of Bavaria for Bavarians and Normandy for Normans. Let the Turks stay in Turkey. It was big enough. If they quit having so many children all the time, maybe the Turks could feed everyone in their country.

Shoving his hands back into the manipulation gloves, Hans knew that he would never have kids. Women used children as a money trap. The courts backed up the women, too. No, no, he’d seen to it that he’d never fall for the money trap. He’d had a vasectomy long ago and he firmly believed in paying for sex instead of trying to build a so-called relationship. It wasn’t that he needed to pay to get the release with a woman, but by paying for sexual services, he could leave the woman afterward and not have to worry about offending her.

Offended women…Hans shook his head ruefully. Freda had almost trapped him four years ago. She’d gotten pregnant, but he had used all his cunning and sweet talk, promising her the world if she would just get an abortion. They could have children later. She could see that, right.

Hans was still a little ashamed of his behavior that day… But what was a man who loved his free time supposed to do? He’d brought Freda to the clinic, helped her fill out the forms and watched her go through the door to the operating room. He well remembered the door closing behind her. He’d exhaled all the air left in his lungs. Before he could think about it too much, and knowing he would miss Freda—no one could give backrubs like her—he’d turned around and walked out of the clinic.

She’d phoned him afterward, but he’d never answered. Later, Freda had tried to take him to court for abandonment. His lawyer had talked to her lawyer and they had agreed on a one-time lump sum payment. He’d taken a loan because of that lump sum. It was bigger than he would have liked, but the alternative—marriage—he’d paid the money to finish the drama. That was the main reason he’d joined the military. He was still in debt, but working toward paying it off. The other reason for joining was to get enough to eat. Most of the world was hungry these days. He might be as thin as a pole, but he ate more than anyone else in the battalion.

The silver whistle blasted again. The noise startled Hans with its high pitch. It hurt his ears. He hated the thing. The noise climbed higher before abruptly quitting, and the lieutenant colonel shouted, “Keep focused! They are poorly armed and their tactics are antiquated, but these Americans don’t know when to quit.”

Hans silently agreed to that. Therefore, he shoved aside his thought of Freda, shoved aside thoughts of Turkish prostitutes and debt. He focused. He knew how to focus on video games: mastering a Sigrid drone had been fun.

Switching to sound, Hans’s mouth twisted with joy and his eyes shined with delight. The noises came from around Sigrid #72 in the battle zone. The reverberations poured through his headphones and into his ears. As he listened to the booms, the tread squeals and ricocheting bullets, he watched the four screens, with his pupils darting from image to image. Beside the screen was a radar display, giving him a larger game picture about what was going on around his vehicle.

By using night vision equipment, Hans watched American soldiers in body armor slithering through rubble toward GD lines. They came like a wave, a tide. They didn’t have a chance.

“Incoming,” the lieutenant colonel said in his loud voice. “No one should attack yet. Operator 63, what do you think you’re doing?”

Hans glanced at his radar set. A fool—it had to be the Spaniard—had already raced his Sigrid into battle. The machine now backed up fast. The superior would have the man’s head if the Spaniard lost the drone before the main fighting.

Over the set and into his ears, Hans heard GD quake shells striking the enemy. The artillery was on time, as usual. The shells exploded and shredded crawling Americans into bits and bloody chunks. The barrage lasted two minutes of hurricane bombardment. Then the GD artillery stopped.

“Advance!” the lieutenant colonel said. “Hunt and destroy.”

Hans twitched his fingers, the manipulation gloves moved and his drone lurched to the attack. What must it be like for an American soldier in the battle zone? His Sigrid’s treads churned. Over the headphones, he heard gravel crunch.

“Ten nineteen!” the company commander shouted.

Hans flipped visual to camera three—the other quadrants vanished. He pressed for zoom and saw them: five crawling Americans dragging a heavy machine gun and a Javelin launcher.

“No,” Hans told them. “You may not approach our HK.”

With skilled manipulation, Hans attacked, using the tri-barrel. He had infrared tracers, and watched through camera three. The heavy rounds tore into body armor and blew the Americans apart.

One of them lived, although the man’s left leg had ceased to exist. The soldier should be bleeding to death. Instead, the brute American tried to set up the .50 caliber.

Hans laughed at the foolishness of the attempt, and he charged the enemy soldier. He’d always wanted to do this. Instead of finishing off the man with a machine gun, he would crush him to death with the treads.

“72!” the company commander, a captain, shouted. “What are you doing?”

Hans flicked his fingers. Tri-barrels chattered in a burst, and the American died in a hail of bullets.

“I’m killing them, sir,” Hans said.

“This isn’t a game, Sergeant.”

“Yes, sir, I understand.”

“I don’t want you killing with treads.”

Hans scowled. Some of the others bragged about tread killing. The captain had gotten wise to that, and no doubt had orders to stick to procedure.

I have to get tread kills. But it will be harder now with the captain watching. Damn, Luger, how does he always think of these things first?

Sergeant Luger sat beside him, running Sigrid #71. He was sandy-haired with freckles and had buck teeth.

“Hey,” Luger said to him.

Hans glanced at his friend.

“Tough luck,” Luger said, grinning. “Maybe next time you can get one.”

Hans lifted a manipulation glove and gave Luger the finger.

“Sergeant Kruger!” the captain shouted.

Hans hunched his shoulders. The captain could be a prick sometimes. Scowling, he decided to take it out on the Americans. Look at them come. They raced to their deaths. Who could figure out the American losers?

The 10th Panzer-Grenadier Battalion proceeded to destroy the American attackers. What did the enemy commander think he was doing anyway? They should have stayed in their foxholes and kept hidden in the rubble. They could have lived another several days or possibly even a week that way. Hans couldn’t understand American thinking. Whatever it took to stay alive, that’s what you did. There were no exceptions.

“At least they’re making it easy on us,” Hans whispered to Luger.

“They’re idiots,” Luger said. “There’s nothing they can do to beat us.”

“Of course not,” Hans said. “They’re too old-fashioned, too stuck in the past to do anything more but scrape a little paint off our Sigrids.”

They both glanced at the company commander. He was busy speaking to the lieutenant colonel.

“How many have you killed tonight?” Luger whispered. “I’ve obliterated seventeen of them so far.”

“Fifteen,” Hans said, in an envious voice.

Luger laughed.

It made Hans double down and begin searching for more enemies. If he couldn’t tread any of these soldiers, at least he could chalk up a higher kill number than Luger. That might also help keep the captain off his butt and let him get a treading later.

Drone wars, Hans decided, were much better than a computer-generated video game. This was real life and real death, and it was a whole lot more fun because of it.

General Mansfeld stood in the GD Expeditionary Force HQ Operational Center. He watched the American assault in Toronto and he tried to decipher their reasoning.

Huge screens hung on the walls. It was like being at King’s Table in Dusseldorf during the soccer playoffs. Well, minus the odor of beer and the sound of drunken cheers every time the home team scored. At King’s Table, screens stood side by side and one atop the other on the walls. Everywhere one peered, one saw massed soccer. Here in Ottawa, it was mass walls of war as seen through the night vision cameras of Sigrids and HKs.

A major handed General Mansfeld a cup of coffee. The trim former Olympic athlete accepted the cup and sipped as he watched a screen. An AI Kaiser HK—a machine known as “Hindenburg”—supplied the images of this screen.

It showed a nighttime wasteland of rubble and the stumps of buildings. Smoke rose from the nearest. Once, this area had been the heart of Toronto’s financial district. Now, instead of accountants, enemy tanks approached. American infantry flanked the big machines. More soldiers on foot followed in back.

Three Kaisers to take on eight M1s and assorted GIs, Mansfeld mused. I didn’t know the Americans had so many tanks left in the city.

Mansfeld handed the cup back to the major. The general then eased forward and touched an operator’s shoulder.

The captain sitting before him stiffened and twisted his head around. The man had a small crossed bones earring. “Yes, sir?” he asked.

“Are you in communication with…with Hindenburg?” At the last minute, Mansfeld remembered that AI liaison officers liked to refer to their machines as people and certainly by name. It was odd. It was even a little disconcerting. But Mansfeld wanted information and knew that it helped to put these liaison officers at ease by complying with their rituals.

“Yes, I am communicating, sir,” the captain said.

“I’d like to hear the exchange,” Mansfeld said.

The captain paused for a half-moment, although he obviously kept himself from frowning. Mansfeld found both things interesting. AI liaison officers were like jealous Canine Corps handlers in the attachment to their creatures. Quite odd, if one thought about it. Finally, the captain moved a finger of his manipulation glove.

A speaker with a metallic voice came online. “Probability indicators show the M1A3s will tack onto grid 2-B-12. The first Abrams will commence firing in…six seconds. I wish them to—”

“Fire now,” Mansfeld said, bending down and speaking into the liaison microphone.

In shock, the liaison officer opened his mouth. “Sir, Hindenburg knows how to—”

“Fire,” Mansfeld said, with bite to his words. “I have ordered you to fire. Why do you delay?”

“I must confirm your authority,” Hindenburg said in its metallic voice.

“Confirm me,” Mansfeld told the captain.

The liaison officer tapped his screen. “Hindenburg, the commanding officer of the GD Expeditionary Force has given you a direct order. You will obey.”

“I am initiating battle zone override,” Hindenburg said. “If you will notice, please: the first M1A3 has stopped short, indicating the crew plans to fire. My prediction is off by two seconds, although the end results will be the same.”

On screen, a squat 175mm cannon roared with great effect. At the same instant, two other Kaiser main guns opened fire.

General Mansfeld watched with absorption. He mentally filed it away for later study the Kaiser’s possible insubordination. At present, the attack met with his approval.

The Kaisers were efficient and sudden death for the old American tanks. Once, the M1s had ruled the world through superior technology. There had not been a tank around able to compete against the Americans. Tonight, in Toronto, the Americans became like the Republican Guard of Saddam Hussein in the deserts of Kuwait back in 1991. Yes, most of the Abrams tanks fired their cannons once. Those shells did nothing, as the Kaisers intercepted each shell with a 25mm autocannon and a mathematically sound formula with the beehive flechettes. No, Mansfeld took that back. Three high-velocity shells found the armored hide of the lead Kaiser, of Hindenburg.

“My glacis has taken a twenty-seven percent hull hit,” Hindenburg informed them, “a thirty-three percent strike and a forty-nine percent. None has breached my armor.”

The AI meant how far each shell had gone into the glacis before stopping.

“I repeat,” Hindenburg said, “there was no penetration. I maintain a ninety-six percent capacity.”

The speed of the Kaiser’s turret and ability to elevate or lower its cannon amazed Mansfeld. He watched the salvos butcher the remaining M1s. At the last moment, two Abrams retreated through the rubble, racing to get behind two buildings. None of it mattered. The Kaisers blasted the last Abrams first, blowing its turret clean off, and they killed the second M1 moments later, leaving two smoke-billowing hulks.

In less than two minutes, the tank battle was over. It was a complete victory for GD arms.

“You can turn off the speaker,” Mansfeld told the liaison officer.

The captain seemed grateful.

“I will speak to you after the battle,” Mansfeld said. “I want to get to the bottom of possible AI insubordination.”

The captain licked his lips before saying, “Yes, sir.”

Mansfeld nodded in a reflective manner. What he’d just witnessed is what he had been talking about in Berlin. Not Hindenburg’s insubordination, but that GD equipment was one or sometimes two generations ahead of the American field equipment. The enemy could not compete with them. Oh, there were the Behemoth tanks. But as of now, those three hundred ton monsters remained in Oklahoma, facing the Chinese.

The enemy had courage. It was impossible to deny, nor did he want to. Yet Mansfeld suspected the courage was partly born out of ignorance. Once the Americans realized how inferior they were, their courage would wilt. This was going to be a hard lesson for the Americans to learn. The Chinese had mass and they had some good technology. The GD had vastly superior equipment and training. And the GD had him. He was the one general who knew how to take these superiorities and turn them into a devastating advantage.

Frankly, if he were the Americans, he would be doing everything in his power to kill him. He was the focal node in this campaign. With him, the GD would be grossly invincible and crush all opposition in the fastest time possible. Without him, the conquest would take longer. But the facts where the facts. The Americans and their Canadian allies simply didn’t have the weapons to compete with the GD.

After witnessing this, Mansfeld realized that nothing could save the Americans, nothing other than a supernatural event. But since supernatural events did not occur…

Mansfeld signaled the major, waving him near with a single finger. He wanted a fresh cup of coffee. The ease of the Kaiser victory gave him an idea. Yes… he needed to exploit the Kaisers better than he was doing.