Invasion: Colorado (23 page)

The plan was simple. The best ones usually were. Massed long-range guns would turn Greater Denver and the outlying cities into rubble. The Tenth and Fifteenth Armies would then smash their way in through costly but time-effective wave assaults. That would be inelegant, he knew, but he would turn what would otherwise become a draining slugfest into a fast siege. He’d support it through massive air power, choking the Americans of reinforcements and supplies. He could afford an attrition battle on one condition. He had to make sure the Americans didn’t receive any replenishment—more soldiers. They could always airlift a trickle, of course. He had to prevent a flood.

Liang sipped his tea. He’d welcomed the needed rest the rains had forced upon the Third Front. It had given the mechanics time to repair the tanks, the trucks and the IFVs in that order. It had given his commanders time to reorganize and rest their soldiers for the next great push. The speed at which Tenth and Fifteenth Armies had shed their tank corps and accepted more infantry divisions proved their renewed zest.

With a click, Marshal Liang set his teacup into its saucer. He rose and stepped to the window. Through the falling snow, he spied four Mobile Canopy ABMs. They waited on specially-built rail cars, having arrived this morning.

Each MC ABM was massive, bigger even than an American Behemoth tank the Chairman dreaded. The Behemoth weighed three hundred tons. The MC ABMs weighed twice as much. Of course, they were not battlefield weapons in the strict sense like an IFV or hovertank.

He could put these to good use. In fact, their arrival had convinced him of the rightness of his idea. He would risk his air power in the next few days. These MC ABMs would mightily strengthen his anti-air defenses, giving him a strong fallback in case of an aerial disaster. He didn’t expect a catastrophe, but he was Marshal Liang, the commander who left nothing to chance.

Liang’s eyes went blank as once more he thought about what Marshal Wu had told him, how General Cho Deng’s death had persuaded the Chairman of the need for haste north.

It was clever of the Chairman to understand what General Cho Deng’s death signified. Liang would miss his best hovertank commander. It still was incredible to him how the Americans had gone to such fantastic efforts to kill him. How had they known General Deng would inspect the supply group that night? That implied a spy ring inside the Chinese military. The thought was sobering indeed.

But the point of the assassination meant something critical. The Americans hadn’t assassinated any other generals, just Cho Deng.

Many on his staff believed the Americans were violent barbarians, given to emotionalism. Countless of the Chinese higher command thought of Americans as Mongols from China’s past. Liang did not agree with the assessment. These Americans could be shrewd and were often cunning. Sometimes they were brilliant.

The assassination of General Cho Deng was one of those times. To Liang, it showed the spy ring was larger and more intrusive than he would have believed possible. How otherwise did the Americans know about General Deng’s influence? Other commanders had carefully listened to Deng’s theories. By killing him, the Americans slew the strongest proponent of relentless tank and hovercraft breakthroughs and exploitation drives. Cho Deng had not only practiced those drives better than others did. His words and example pushed other commanders to do likewise.

Chairman Hong paid lip service to the ideal of deep penetration drives, but did the Chairman truly understand what must be done to defeat the Americans? Liang had his doubts. The order ten weeks ago to divert Third Front’s armor to help the South Americans captured the enemy around Oklahoma City had hurt the Americans, but it had been wrong nevertheless. Chinese and Brazilian arms had won a great operational battle. Instead, they might have struck a strategic deathblow by driving north harder and deeper and trapping an even greater number of enemies, perhaps shattering the entire Midwestern American Front.

The key to this continental campaign was speed. They needed to drive fast and deep so the Americans never had a chance to recover their poise. The grueling summer battles had been a mistake. Liang would have sent a massive and potent tank Army Group straight up the middle of the prairies. Drive deep and deeper still, spreading out behind the American lines and destroying all communication and higher command. Instead, there had been vast battles of attrition, a slow grind through New Mexico and Texas.

Marshal Liang put his hands behind his back. His right shoulder protested as a half-healed muscle strained at the pull. In less than three hours, the Denver assault would begin. It would fix American attention on the front door, right where he wanted it. With the massed wave assaults, the Americans would no doubt believe the Chinese meant to grind the Denver-defending soldiers to death. He would catch them by surprise, therefore, with his end-run air assault.

The key to taking Denver was the high-altitude I-70 corridor, the thin ribbon of road and rail through which most of the Americans’ supplies would have to thread. If he could destroy I-70 as a supply route, Denver would die on the vine.

His gaze moved again to the MC ABMs. Each vehicle possessed a twelve-man crew. It was a linked system, three rail cars pulled by a massive tractor. One of the trailers held gigantic batteries and chemical fuel storage tanks. Another was a magnetic-propulsion turbine. The last was the laser focusing system. It could project a beam of near strategic strength.

That meant several things. They could shoot down American satellites from the middle of their country, if the enemy was foolish enough to loft any. Even better, he would soon have a nearly impenetrable anti-air and anti-missile umbrella. In a week, several more MC ABMs would arrive.

He would have to compose a poem to Marshal Wu for the man’s thoughtfulness of giving him these strategic assets. Because of them, he would badly surprise the Americans and he might even surprise Chairman Hong.

I leave nothing to chance
.

That was his secret. He thought deeper than his fellow marshals did and much deeper than the Americans. Part of the secret was that he had gathered a brain trust of brilliant officers. Outthinking the enemy and beating him with an economy of force made the best use of what he possessed. It would give China the victory despite the un-strategic folly of attempting two variant goals at one time.

Liang’s soft smile hardened. He had the greatest concentration of Chinese power in North America. That meant he had the greatest concentration of military force ever deployed against an opponent.

Now I’m splitting my power at the orders of that worm in Beijing
.

Fortunately, he knew his enemy. The Americans were near the breaking point. The loss of Denver’s soldiers and the loss of the cities here might well shatter what was left of enemy morale.

It was good to know he was going to win spectacularly. First, fix American attention on the front door. Then when the back door attack came, it would surprise them even more and destroy what little confidence they had left.

CASTLE ROCK, COLORADO

Private Jake Higgins of the Eleventh CDM Battalion hugged the bottom of his foxhole. The whole world seemed to be on fire. It shook and huge deadly explosions made speech impossible. Several times already, he’d peeked out of the foxhole in a homeowner’s front lawn. Each time more of Castle Rock was flattened, more of its structures turned into rubble or reduced to skeletal remains of reinforced girders and smashed concrete.

The Chinese had unleashed a massed artillery barrage on them. His father had loved telling him war statistics. In WWII, artillery had caused fifty percent of the casualties in urban areas. It had been even higher in deserts.

I can see why
.

Jake endured as the explosive shells hammered the city and their position. Unfortunately, he’d arrived just in time for the great Chinese offensive.

The Eleventh CDM Battalion was full of untested wannabes. In Jake’s opinion, it was a crime to place them out here at the very front. Army HQ should have first given them time to learn their trade. Militia units already had a bad reputation for breaking under fire. Two of the reasons was lack of training, and lack of time to get used to this hellish punishment. High Command shouldn’t treat them like a penal battalion, even if that’s what they were. It was wasteful of American lives.

We’re just a tripwire for the enemy
.

Jake curled into a ball and plugged his ears. The noise was too much. The blasts, the shaking, the dribbles of dirt on his helmet—
men weren’t born to take this
. It was enough to drive him mad.

Jake didn’t know how long it lasted, but there came a moment when it finally stopped. Tentatively, he unplugged his ears. Soon, he sat up. With the caution of a wary gopher looking out of its hole, he climbed to his feet and peeked over the lip of his foxhole. He’d dug his deeper than anyone else’s foxhole, but he bet that would change now.

Much of Castle Rock burned. The small city was to the south of Greater Denver on I-25. North from here the freeway led to Castle Pines and then to Centennial where the Mexico Home Army waited.

The stink of gunpowder and burning flesh mingled with oil and gas. The destruction…one had to see this to believe it. This was like being in Dante’s Inferno of brimstone and fire, and fumes kept billowing up from Castle Rock to feed the black cloud above.

Slowly, it dawned on Jake that he heard voices and whistles. The Detention Center people loved blowing the shrillest noises. Officers appeared, with their silver tools between their lips or clenched teeth like high school football coaches. Soon officers began shouting, and one used a bullhorn. He pointed south in the direction of the worst destruction and the leaping, crackling flames.

These officers were former Detention Center guards. They didn’t look too happy, either. Few of the former detainees—the Militiamen grunts—had yet to get out of their foxholes.

Jake climbed out of his. So did others of his squad.

“We’d better line up,” Jake told them. The others looked pale or trembled. A few had obviously been crying. They must be wondering now why they’d ever volunteered for this insanity. Punishment drills or even the isolation cells back in the Detention Center had never been as bad as this.

I must have been an idiot to leave Lisa
.

It took ten minutes, but finally the rest of the Militiamen circled their lieutenants and sergeants. Jake listened as theirs told them they were heading forward to drive off the invaders. Enemy artillery had demolished the forward posts and buried the luckless spotters and heavy machine gun teams. During the tail end of the bombardment, Chinese infantry had roared up in their IFVs, unloaded and were already crawling into Castle Rock to claim it. HQ wanted the Eleventh CDM Battalion to drive the Chinese out, or at least buy Division time to reorganize and get a full-scale counterattack going.

Frightened Militiamen glanced at each other. The uncertainty and fear in their eyes made Jake realize this was a stupid plan. Militiamen might hold their ground in foxholes, but advancing to meet the enemy after this hellish artillery pounding—

Whistles blew. It was a shrill sound and seemed to drive arrows of noise into Jake’s ears. Officers shouted and a few screamed, threatening a return to the Detention Center for cowardice in the face of the enemy.

“Come on,” Jake said. “The sooner we get to our new positions, the sooner we can dig in.”

In a ragged group, they started forward into the burning city. Some of the Militiamen shouldered M-16s. Others carried Javelin missile-launchers. Jake belonged to a heavy machine gun team.

Jake carried the Browning M2 .50 caliber. It was heavy on his shoulder. He noticed once again that none of the ordinary Militiamen wore body armor, just the officers. It hadn’t been that way in the Seventh in Texas. There, the officers had tried to make soldiers out of them. They seemed to have cared about the troops in their care. These guards–turned-officers had the feel of angry men taking it out on those below.

Machine gun fire started ahead, cannons barked. There were screams, bloodcurdling things. Everyone around Jake slowed down. Taller buildings with huge concrete chunks taken out of them blocked their view of what happened up there and made everyone imagine the worst.

“Double time it!” the captain shouted.

The lieutenants and then the sergeants began whistling. If they’d had whips, the officers and NCOs would probably have been lashing them.

Jake found himself jogging. Each pound of his feet made the Browning dig against his shoulder. The thing was frigging heavy.

Then everything changed as two drones appeared in the sky. They looked like giant, angry wasps dropping down out of the black cloud. They must have been enemy craft, because machine guns opened up in the noses and rockets whooshed from under their wings, slamming down with fierce explosions. Concrete flew and so did humans, some tumbling in grotesque somersaults. Other Militiamen began screaming in agony and falling over, spurting blood. One poor sod tried to shove his guts back into his ripped stomach.

Jake hit the ground, throwing the machine gun ahead of him so it wouldn’t land on his body. He crawled for what must have once been a building. It was a jagged scar of masonry now, a tombstone of a memory of a better time. His squad remained with him.

“What do we do now?” the tallest one asked, the corporal and nominally in charge of the M2 Browning.

Crouched behind the tongue of a wall, Jake looked up as he kept hold of his helmet. The two drones had left, or at least he couldn’t see them anymore. Maybe the operators figured they’d done enough here. Looking back, Jake saw some Militiamen running away down the street they’d just come up. None of them had their weapons. There was a litter of M-16s and grenade launchers on the ground. A few of the officers and NCOs ran, too. They weren’t blowing their whistles either, just sprinting as if they wanted into the Olympics. On the street groaned the dying, a few shrieking horribly and held onto their ribs or their groins. The dead lay silent, making it much easier to take.