Shanghaied - 2ACW

85 – Total Recall

US Secretary of Defence General E. John Ferdinand was a big fan of dropping pop culture references into briefings to politicians and the media. His nods to films, songs and video games weren’t always either well received or even got by those whom he spoke with. The SecDef had popularised the Shanghaied reference when it came to the DAR’s expansion from its initial size to what it became ahead of the shooting starting. That had been a success. In an off-the-record briefing to a friendly journalist, one from the New York Times whom he had a good relationship with so he could ‘prepare the public’ for important matters, he said to her that there would be an announcement covering a Total Recall of almost all of the overseas deployed elements of the US Armed Forces to fight at home. She’d never seen either of the films – the original nor the remake – and it didn’t go over with her well. When she attributed her online piece to ‘an anonymous, high-placed Pentagon source’ to break the news of what was going to be done after only a few days of war, she left what Ferdinand said there out. Na, she had told herself, that just didn’t fit with what happened. It wasn’t even an accurate reference when she looked it all up!

Ahead of the fighting starting with the Democratic American Republic, the Pentagon had brought home from Eastern Europe elements of the significant US Army and US Air Force military presence there. There had too been the removal of a portion of the US Navy deployed in the Indian Ocean as well. What came out of Europe was only part of what had been sent there since the new Russian president had tried to incite a favourable situation inside the Baltic States so he would have a pretext to invade and liberate oppressed ethnic Russians there. Alongside NATO partners, the United States had filled those three small countries, plus Poland too, with a fully-equipped combat force not to act as a tripwire but to go toe-to-toe with President Makarov’s armies should he have chosen to follow deniable acts of state terrorism with an invasion. That was a big deployment, one which had come not long after the United States had been forced into a humiliating ceasefire-cum-defeat against the Chinese during the Taiwan Conflict. President Walsh had forced the Europeans to fully commit themselves alongside his nation and not just provide token forces to be stationed in the region as well. The Baltics were to be defended against any form of Russian attack in a manner so that should Makarov do that, he would take his country to war against the United States too. Airlifted out of Eastern Europe right before Operation Shining Sword started against the DAR had been two brigade-sized combat units: they’d flown home alongside an over-sized wing of combat aircraft too. The British, French and Spanish had all sent extra forces into the region to make up the difference – in numbers anyway, not so much in terms of capability – and that was a real stretch for them due to the already large European (and Canadian) commitment. Within hours of the New York Times running that story, and with President Roberts’ chief-of-staff Sara Keating giving a similar heads-up off-the-record to another journalist at a second publication, Ferdinand announced his Total Recall of the vast majority of elements of the US Armed Forces overseas… he once more used that pop culture reference.

On the ground in Eastern Europe, there was the US V Corps with two full combat divisions (1st Armored & 3rd Infantry) and corps attachments including the 2nd Cavalry Regiment as well as multiple combat support brigades of artillery, aviation, engineers and so on. The V Corps was coming home, the American people were told, to fight to help liberate the West. Two regular air wings of F-35s along with a mission-specific expeditionary wing of aircraft including F-22s & A-10s were likewise recalled back from out of Europe. The air strength removed from Europe to be returned to America was more than two hundred front-line combat aircraft: transferred with them were supporting aircraft and plentiful ground personnel including air special forces units. A composite wing of MQ-9s was also given the same ‘come home’ order. What Ferdinand didn’t mention was the US Navy carrier groups. Two of them were at sea in the North Atlantic and a third was in the Med. (with an attached amphibious flotilla containing a Marine Expeditionary Unit) in another big commitment. Just because they weren’t close to the Baltics, it didn’t mean that they weren’t part of the available on-hand force ready to fight to repel a Russian invasion of Eastern Europe. Ferdinand said nothing about them on purpose: he wanted the Kremlin to be unaware of the intentions there. Moving on after those recall announcements, Ferdinand briefed the media about the progress being made with the New Army being built at home. Starting within hours of Roberts’ inauguration, following pre-drafted plans, reservists and recalled service personnel not assigned to existing combat units were being formed into new combat formations for all elements of the US Armed Forces. Ferdinand spoke of the ‘soon-to-be-ready’ US I Corps with its trio of combat divisions ready to join US Army forces fighting against the ‘illegal regime in Las Vegas’. It had been more than a week since that had started when Ferdinand spoke from the Pentagon about the New Army (which included elements from all uniformed services) but it was known to everyone that it was going to take a lot more than a week to see any real progress with all of that. He knew that like media commentators did, but he delivered an upbeat message on that and gave no timeframe. There were no questions asked by journalists as it wasn’t a press conference type setting though the SecDef did address matters discussed in the media about the New Army ahead of that briefing. He once again made it clear that the recall to service for those returning to uniform was set for a duration of at least a year, maybe longer depending upon Congressional approval. It didn’t matter if the DAR collapsed that evening and the fighting ended, the US Armed Forces would need a long period to recover its strength and those in the New Army would be there to allow that to happen. He didn’t say what had been said by retired generals acting as talking heads on cable news channels where they spoke of all of the losses being taken as the US Armed Forces went head-to-head with a peer-level opponent for the first time since the Second World War and thus immense losses would need to be made up for. Ferdinand didn’t say it because everyone else already had. He did talk though about the immense effort being put in by arms and munitions contractors into speed producing weapons and ammunition for the ‘national need’ while at the same time downplaying the reports that had come out of Fort Worth about the damage done at Air Force Plant 4 where F-35s were manufactured. Everything was fine, there was no problem according to the SecDef. That certainly wasn’t the case at all: the DAR air strike had been followed up by one with two dozen plus Tomahawks.


NATO partners had been informed of what was going to happen ahead of the behind-the-scenes briefings to the media and then Ferdinand’s Pentagon appearance. In Ottawa, London, Paris, Berlin, Brussels and so on, heads of governments had been spoken to by Roberts, Vice President Mitchell, SecState Renzi & Ferdinand. They had been told that almost everyone in US uniform in Eastern Europe – barring some specialists tied right in with allies – was going to be recalled home like they were. An immediate video conference was had between the key people involved in that and it had included the EU’s President too despite the EU itself not being part of NATO as many of its members were. There wasn’t much surprise because it had been something expected. From out of Washington even before the 49th President took office, there had been assurances that the situation was never going to get that bad that it would require what was done at the end of January 2029. Those hadn’t been believed. It wasn’t thought that the Americans were lying to them but instead there was just a shared feeling that the situation with the Second American Civil War was going to get worse and worse. Leaders of the United States’ allies recognised that those promises of no abandonment of Eastern Europe were made in many ways for the domestic audience in the United States as the Roberts Administration tried to claim it had a handle on the situation and would crush the secession/rebellion rapidly. It didn’t take a genius to see that that wasn’t going to be the case though. It had been said within the United States too by people outside of the US Government that no near-instantaneous victory was likely. There was only surprise in how long it took for Roberts to make the decision.

Canada and the UK were helping the United States in an official capacity as part of the Anglosphere’s Five Eyes intelligence network gaining information on the DAR in diplomatic and also military matters. Other NATO countries, as well as further American allies outside of that alliance, were unofficially conducting their own operations either with the approval of DC or, especially in the case of both the French and the EU, without their overt knowledge. There were exchange officers at military headquarters and diplomatic personnel reporting home. So much of what they did came from open source intelligence rather than anything secret they had to go out of their way to obtain. What had been realised before the shooting started was that the DAR was capable of putting up a real fight. In the end, defeat would come, but it was something projected to take far longer, and be more costly, than the sunny predictions – everything is all okay here – coming out of the Roberts-led White House and the Pentagon with Ferdinand back there. The strength of the available air power in the hands of the DAR had been one of the first things noted by America’s allies. All of those training units, naval aviation units and aircraft taken from AMARG in Arizona (the plentiful F-15s, -16s & -18s) had added up. The same information was available to the Pentagon yet they didn’t seem to take as much notice of the implication as that as those overseas did… or maybe they did but there was no outwards appearance of as much concern. A Canadian exchange officer assigned to US NORTHCOM saw for himself, and passed back to his government, details on losses inflicted in terms of personnel and equipment by both warring parties. Britain’s GCHQ ‘stumbled’ across similar information too where those numbers weren’t being shared by the Pentagon with allies and those in Las Vegas were also keeping quiet. The sums were done and the consequences were shocking. Those figures were looked at in two manners. First there was the understanding of how long the fighting was capable of going on for and what it was going to cost the United States once that major ally was finally reunited as a whole again. Secondly, there was naked self interest too: all of that American military strength was being lost to their defence as well! Since the end of the Cold War especially, grumble after grumble had come from inside the United States about how it extended itself to the defence of allies when they didn’t provide the same commitment to their own. Allegations were thrown about by detractors of the immense American military spending with regard to NATO in particular with it being said that rather than spend proportional amounts themselves, those allies would rather have left-wing social programmes. Unfair that was, but it was a widespread belief in the United States. European governments had long got complacent under the American military umbrella. When the Americans got their backsides handed to them by the Chinese, fear gripped defence ministries across Europe – Canada a bit too, though not as much –, that the fabled American giant was about to tumble from its role of their protector. Russia was no China but once Makarov was in power, the fear of what he might do against the United States in a shooting scenario caused concern. That concern didn’t translate into any real increase in defence capability though. Here and there in a slap dash fashion there was some new equipment but a lot of what happened was hot air in announced defence terms. In came the US V Corps in large numbers to Eastern Europe to ease some concerns too. The Chinese could target US Navy aircraft carriers and shoot down US Air Force stealth bombers, but what could the Russian Army do against the might the V Corps backed up by similar forces to be flown in to follow?

The UDI made by those in Las Vegas and then the beginning of the fighting to crush that independence illegally gained made allies sit up and take notice. They had to. Knowing that Americans were eventually going to recall all of their overseas deployed forces did knock some sense into many. Plans were drafted and preparations made. Back to the United States went that first, smaller wave of forces ahead of everyone knowing that the rest would go after them. ‘NATO Without The Americans’ became a term used by some to describe the situation that America’s allies in Europe would face when facing off against Russian territorial designs on the Baltics. What governments in Canada, Britain and on the Continent wanted was for Makarov to see sense rather than decide that war was what his country needed. A conflict with NATO where there was an invasion of the Baltics, probably part of Poland too in support, would mean economic damage of massive proportion to Russia too. The EU wouldn’t do nothing either: the Baltics were fully-integrated nations within that bloc. Makarov would have to be a fool to do that. Still… they had to be prepared for Makarov to make a gamble and think that without American forces in Europe, the furthest-flung portions of the continent were up for grabs.


In London, the Chancellor had been pressed by the Defence Secretary to release emergency funds to the Ministry of Defence. Not wanting to do that without good cause, the woman who was sitting ready to become the next Prime Minister when the sitting on moved on – it was expected that that would happen during 2029 – had kept the purse strings tight. The MOD wasn’t given the money required to spend big and fast until Mitchell called the Prime Minister (they had a good relationship) and told him about Ferdinand’s Total Recall ahead of that going public. The PM had the Treasury fork over what the MOD wanted. It was a big spending spree that the Defence Secretary went on. It was pre-planned and a great deal of it done out of the public eye at the outset. Parliament would be told later on and there would be many questions asked about where some of that money went. The emergency defence spending didn’t go on long-lead items like new warships or aircraft. It was instead focused in the manner of a rapid build-up of short-term capabilities for the UK Armed Forces to be able to fight – alongside allies but without the Americans – against a Russian attack in Eastern Europe. Tanks were broken out of storage alongside other weapons long removed from front-line service. Ammunition was ordered in bulk and so too was other military equipment in an off-the-shelf fashion. Some of the cash from the ever-tight Treasury went towards funding a partial mobilisation of Britain’s reservists. Their costs had to be covered and that wasn’t anything insignificant. That was done in public when the PM spoke to the country to announce a military call-up in light of the ‘worrying international situation’. In private, journalists were briefed about the Russia threat though in public that wasn’t said. Everyone knew though what it was all about. That all came at a time when there was an ongoing domestic political scandal in the country concerning Russian influence.

For decades, rich Russians had been buying themselves parts of the country and using soft power to influence the government of the day. There had been spy scandals and the murders – using radiological and chemical weapons even – of enemies of Russia inside Britain. Promises had been made to do something. It wasn’t until the middle of 2028, after the PM had led his Conservatives to their sixth election victory (‘10, ‘15, ‘17, ‘19, ‘23 & ‘28), that something real was done. Russian influence was gone after. Blowback came though, orchestrated from out of Moscow against that. The Foreign Secretary had been shown to have underhand ties to Kremlin-supporting businessmen and it took several months for him to resign. There were other political casualties yet those weren’t all for the PM’s party. Labour, almost two decades out of power and fighting a challenge from the Green-Red Union to push them into third-party status, had been caught up in the same issue of Russian cash being doled out for influence among two members of their Shadow Cabinet. For more than six months, right into 2029, the scandal continued as revelations kept on coming. The UK media was nipping at the PM’s heels as they tried to tie him into some of that too. The net had been cast to the financial sector and academia but he was the big prize for an increasingly hostile UK media. Finally bringing him down was what was wanted by his many enemies and the Russia issue seemed to be the thing to do that.

On the night when the PM made his announcement concerning partial mobilisation of the Army Reserve, the Foreign Office (under a less-controversial minister than the previous one) issued a press release meant to be low-key about the refusal of entry into the country of a certain person. Jessica Toomey, that former US Ambassador to the EU under the 47th President who had been so vocal in her support of the Democratic American Republic, was denied permission to enter Britain from out of the EU. She’d been all across Western Europe and attempted to go to the UK to attend a planned anti-war march in London that organisers wanted to see go towards the US Embassy. The government banned the march and kept Toomey out. She was in Amsterdam when that happened and made a massive deal out of it, attacking the ties between London and DC, and crying foul about British undemocracy. There were political figures in Britain who spoke up on her behalf, claiming that denying her entry was an affront to British democratic standards. While the Foreign Secretary didn’t want it to be a big deal, the PM didn’t mind. It reminded the United States once more of his stern support for their fight against secessionists – he’d done that himself in shutting down the Scots so determinedly – and also took media attention away from their very hard look into his own past financial dealings with suspicious Russians. He spoke with Mitchell about how his country shut Toomey out, without having to say that other supposed American allies on the Continent didn’t, and then also raised the issue with the Vice President about DHS Secretary Miller and the PUDDLEFOOT/Panda matter. That set off a fire on the other end of the trans-Atlantic connection!

87 – Win big

The new commander of US Army North had cancelled the planned III Corps assault westwards across the Rio Grande in southern New Mexico upon assuming command. Going head-on into a prepared enemy defence while at the same time as ignoring what was going on on the right flank, elsewhere in New Mexico, was something that he had informed his superior at US NORTHCOM was the height of foolishness. That was not how he was going to fight the war he had been tasked to prosecute against the traitors in the DAR Army. Lt.–General Lambert sent a good portion on the III Corps northwards the following night, late on January 29th. The Texans with their 36th Infantry Division stayed where they were to keep the enemy across the river in-check while he used the 1st Cavalry & 48th Infantry Divisions to take DAR Marines defending the approaches to Albuquerque from the flank. That attack by two complete divisions was complimented by the II Marine Expeditionary Force’s own US Marines pushing forward themselves. The aim with the night attack, which went on into the next morning too, was to finish off the enemy in a manner which he wasn’t expecting and defeat them on the eastern side of the Rio Grande rather than see them pushed back deeper westwards as General Fuller’s forces traded space for time. In they couldn’t be all beaten in the field, Lambert wanted them pushed north into the wilderness and far out of the picture: though that was the second option. A trio of attack helicopter battalions all with the latest AH-64E versions of the Apache were joined by dozens upon dozens of Gray Eagle armed UAVs as immediate air cover. Lambert had the US Air Force providing distant support, not on top of his own forces. Too many recent friendly-fire incidents had occurred for his liking yet, there was the additional non-need for them on the night-time battlefield either. He wanted the fast-movers elsewhere, pounding the enemy’s reserves and keeping them busy, while he used his snakes to do the dirty business of wiping out those former brothers-in-arms who had turned against the United States.

Operation Lobo (named after a near extinct species of wolf native to the Chihuahuan Desert across which the offensive ran) was a roaring success for ARNORTH forces. They’d seen victories won in previous days, in Colorado especially, but the gains made from Lobo were really needed as a morale booster. DAR forces had previously defended New Mexico so well when making a fighting retreat back to better defensive positions when faced with a head-on attack. Lambert gave them something that they weren’t expecting though, his opponents had become too complacent and believed that the III Corps in particular was a hollow force. Those helicopters and drones flying low over the desert did sterling work. They blasted a path forward for the III Corps which included opening up access to a crossing over the Rio Grande in the Socorro area. Where Interstate-25 ran through New Mexico, it went across the river, to run either on the eastern or western side, several times. Lambert didn’t have the III Corps use the freeway as their route of advance but it was to be the main supply route for them. To be on the other side of the river with his tanks and infantry carriers over there also threw the HQ of the New Mexico Corps into more of a panic than they were in because they worried about the implications of an immediate westwards dash towards Arizona. Lambert intended to take his forces into Arizona, and onto California, but in the long-run. The DAR Armed Forces didn’t know that and assumed the worst, all to the US Army’s benefit. The opponents which stood in the way of the III Corps at the very top of the Chihuahuan Desert were part of the 7th Marine Regiment. In DAR service and attached to their 1st Marine Division, that brigade-sized force had been busy beforehand keeping the 2nd Marine Division (in United States service) from rounding the bottom of the Manzano Mountains and attacking the Albuquerque area from the south just as the III Corps went and did. They had tanks, armoured vehicles, heavy artillery & air support on-hand. A strong force they were, before the III Corps got at them. Out in the open and faced with what they were hit with, in a such an expected fashion, they were wiped out. By the time the lead units of the 1st Cavalry Division reached the DAR Marines, they found few survivors left after the Apaches and Gray Eagles had struck. Still, many of those marines, damn fine fighters, put up resistance despite the odds. The US Army soldiers involved had to be careful due to worries over friendly-fire issues with US Marines on the flank who looked damn alike but they did what they were tasked to do. The last of the 7th Marine Regiment’s tanks – M-1A2s – were knocked out of action following multiple hits by M-1A3s. It took an Abrams to kill an Abrams… and still wasn’t easy. Many of the Gray Eagles were carrying Stinger short-range air-to-air missiles (as well as Hellfire anti-armour munitions) and used them to engage DAR Marine Corps AH-1Z Viper helicopters who tried to intervene. All of that top-of-the-range heavy equipment engaging each other came alongside close combat between US Army soldiers and DAR Marines. Many of the latter had to be pinned down and taken on before they could be overcome. There was fighting in trenches with bayonets used at times. One of the 1st Cavalry Division’s brigades got too involved in that and wouldn’t be pulled out: going up towards Albuquerque in their place as the first wave was the heavy brigade from the 48th Infantry Division.

Tanks and infantry carriers with the 155th Armored Brigade (national guardsmen from Mississippi with Kentucky attachments) went through Kirtland AFB. Their US Army comrades were on the western side but they were in the shadow of the mountains on the approach to that expansive air facility that the DAR Air Force had been making so much use of before they arrived. Kirtland stretched far away from where the runways were – used also by Albuquerque’s civilian airport – with munitions storage areas including those of the stockpile of nuclear weapons which the DAR had seized upon that new country being formed. The DAR Air Force had ground personnel who put up a fight. Brave men and women armed with personal weapons, and what few light vehicles hadn’t been attacked from above, did what the marines to the south did. They were overcome just the same. Abrams’ and Bradleys went through their attempts at resistance with haste and then into the major airbase facilitates north of the runways. There were enemy personnel everywhere yet few of them were armed with anything more than an M-16. Those weren’t combat troopers either which the attacking national guardsmen encountered. Surrenders came aplenty from ground crews who had been doing all that they could to try and see a rapid evacuation of air power from Kirtland but were in no state to fight against the opponent which came storming into the airbase like they did. Hands went up as weapons were dropped.

Outside of Albuquerque itself, two brigades of the 1st Cavalry Division engaged the DAR’s 11th Armored Cavalry Regiment. It was another big clash of armour and one which the US Air Force joined in with ahead of the fighting moving far too close to civilian areas than anyone would have liked to have seen. The Blackhorse Cav’ had for several days preformed the ‘fire brigade’ role across the north of New Mexico and beat up portions of the 4th Marine & 28th Infantry Divisions in US II MEF service. That training unit which had been at Fort Irwin in California was a fine force who had experience of doing that in live fire exercises to the unprepared. The 1st Cavalry Division wasn’t unprepared though. Friendly Vipers (those with the US Marines) joined the Apache gunships in getting at them first before there was another major clash of tanks near to a small, private airport outside of the city in wide open ground. A-10C Thunderbolts showed up in the middle of the fight, those in DAR service who’d got through the fighter cover promised to the III Corps to stop that, and they almost turned the tide of the fight for the Blackhorse Cav’. However, not once but twice, friendly-fire incidents saw those tank-killers cause serious losses to allies on the ground rather than the enemy. That really made a difference. The Blackhorse Cav’ fell backwards as they made a retreat away from Albuquerque away to the north. In doing so, as they pulled away from a strong and lethal opponent who gave chase, those serving with the 5th Marine Regiment (also part of the 1st Marine Division) were left abandoned behind when the Blackhorse Cav’ departed. They were at that time positioned to hold the Sandia-Manzano Mountains against the US Marines but the US Army had just taken them in the rear so well. Cut-off with the enemy all around them they ended up being when hours beforehand they had been on the side of the victors with a seemingly sure-fire winning position.


The advance came to a halt the next morning in the Bernalillo area, some distance away from Albuquerque. DAR forces – the Blackhorse Cav’, the last remaining regiment from the 1st Marine Division and volunteer New Mexico national guardsmen – blocked entry towards the wider Santa Fe area on better ground for a defence. They did so in conjunction with healthier air support than they had had during the hours of darkness. By then though, the III Corps had achieved its objectives. Kirtland had been overrun and Albuquerque surrounded: other national guardsmen with the 48th Infantry Division, lighter units, went into there slow-and-steady. Fighting took place on the western side of the mountains which had protected Albuquerque at first but it didn’t last that long when the DAR Marines there gave in once it was clear that all was lost. Interstate-40 was thus opened up as another MSR like I-25 was, though from behind when all previous indications had been than any frontal assault to do so through the Sandia-Manzano Mountains would be a blood bath. Albuquerque was taken without any real drama to it. Military police units joined the soldiers and marines who moved into there. Like had been seen up in Denver a few days beforehand, some fools wished to fire guns against ‘armed federal invaders’ but they were no more than a nuisance in the end. Albuquerque had a criminal gang problem yet it wasn’t one which needed to be solved with tanks and attack helicopters: a lighter touch did it.

Kirtland was a massive loss to the DAR. It had been used by all sorts of aviation assets due to its good size and excellent location. In terms of combat aircraft, the Nevada Air National Guard had been flying F-15E Strike Eagles from there (the 152nd Wing operated ex-USAF strike-fighters since 2026) alongside the mixed 451st Air Expeditionary Wing that had contained several units from the Fighter Weapons School at Nellis AFB sent to New Mexico. Two of the F-22A Raptors were caught on the ground alongside twice as many F-15Es with that unit and also a trio of EA-18G growlers flown by DAR Navy reserve pilots. Other aircraft – including F-22s – had been in the air when the airbase was forcibly entered by national guardsmen from Mississippi or managed to get aloft in time. Just like what had been seen on the first day of major combat operations elsewhere in New Mexico, down at Holloman AFB, the DAR had lost many aircraft on the ground though in addition to all of the supporting infrastructure which didn’t get away. That was of more importance: all of that equipment, supplies and personnel. US forces took what they needed, out of the hands of Fuller’s control.

The nuclear weapons which had been at Kirtland when the Democratic American Republic was formed, and likewise from elsewhere in the West stolen by Fuller to make his new country a nuclear power, were almost all absent from the secure bunkers when military intelligence personnel went into them. Just over half a dozen warheads were found: no more. There was already information that the DAR had been emptying them from Kirtland and sending them to Nellis where another major stockpile was in their hands yet more than just seven had been thought to have been left remaining at Kirtland. The removal from Kirtland had been going on for some time before the 155th Armored Brigade rolled in like it did. There had been an incident with the ‘Broken Arrow’ codename as part of that when a C-130J Hercules in DAR Air Force service had crashed in Arizona. Nineteen weapons had been spread over the wilderness with DAR recovery efforts afterwards to locate them. That secret was known about only to those at the very highest positions in the two governments at DC and Las Vegas. The general public in both countries had also not been informed about the fact that the DAR was a nuclear power. US forces had strike missions planned against the DAR should it employ weapons of mass destruction first, and vice versa under Fuller’s direction, but neither side was of either mind to fight a nuclear conflict on their own soil against fellow Americans. It was a very strange sort of situation, one kept quiet as best as possible. Intelligence operations with a mind to at some point seize all of those DAR nukes at Nellis were something that the Pentagon had underway yet there wasn’t much enthusiasm to give that a try with all of the worries over what might go wrong in an attempt. Those seven warheads taken back into US custody at Kirtland were soon on an aircraft heading back east.

As to Operation Lobo, Lambert and ARNORTH had gone on the attack to win big. That had been achieved. The fight for New Mexico wasn’t over after that engagement but the tide had decisively been turned, just as it had been up in Colorado too. Eyes were cast ahead as to what was up next for the liberation of the West and the destruction of the DAR. However, in the afterglow of the victory at Kirtland/Albuquerque some absolutely shocking news came out of DC. It left those who heard it either dismayed, dumbfounded or ecstatic. Someone had died there, someone rather important.


End of Part Four

Thankfully, we aren't going to see any of that!

Part Five – No surrender


89 – Operational Pause

It appeared in the immediate aftermath that that amount of people who believed that the death of President Roberts had been a simple domestic accident as said could be counted on just the one hand. That news of the demise of the 49th President in such circumstances just wasn’t something that Americans, whichever side of the divide during the civil war they were on, could accept as the truth. His ten days in office were cut short in a manner reported that just didn’t hold water. It had to be an assassination, it had to be a conspiracy, it had to be a lie! Vice President Lee Mitchell took the oath of office before Roberts’ death was announced to the American public. The revelation gave further fuel to the idea that there was something more to the story of what happened to his predecessor. There was nothing more though. The Physician to the President, Commander Anthony Ford from the US Navy, gave a detailed briefing on the accident alongside the United States Sturgeon General that laid how how the tenth president to die in office had lost his life. Ford explained what had happened and how all efforts to save the life of Roberts had failed. No one at the top of the US Government, nor Congressional leaders either, came out and said anything in opposition to the official cause of death. Whether they believed differently behind those comments was something that no one could know for sure yet did think was certain.

Mitchell, the former US Army Ranger who previously held elected office first as a senator from and then governor of North Carolina, was the 50th President. When he addressed the American people in his first instance in that role, he assured the nation that the war against the Democratic American Republic would continue. Illegal secession would be crushed and the West liberated with a return to democracy in those states & regions of the country under the rule of an illegitimate regime. He too intended to continue all other aspects of the national policy announced under the Roberts Administration. His remarks on race relations and social cohesion came from a man who had been the only one of four Caucasian males who had been in the ‘top four’ (presidential and vice presidential candidates for the Democrats and Republicans) at the previous year’s election. A noted campaigner against racism he had long been yet there were many who had believed those things more when they came from Roberts rather than Mitchell. Regardless, such were his promises to the country to which he was the head of state of. Within hours, several news networks ran stories concerning Commander Ford. That doctor was accused of personal inappropriate behaviour unbecoming of a serving military officer and there were questions over his competency. There had been leaks to the media from his personnel file with questions asked as to whether he should really have been the man to be at the president’s side. Those allegations, and they were only that, had in theory nothing to do with what happened with Roberts but they came tumbling out. Ford was a California native too, something that was brought up intentionally to point to a possible motive for him not giving the best possible medical care to the president. What had happened with Roberts choking to death during a midnight snack when he was alone in the residence had been quick and he had died before Ford could get to him yet that didn’t matter to those making the allegations. Mitchell’s spokeswoman – she kept her job from the Roberts Administration – was harassed for comment about all of that but affirmed that the new president would be keeping Ford in his post. Asked about other members of the government appointed by Roberts and as to Mitchell would keep them on, Cabinet-level posts especially, there was less certainty in her remarks there than there were about Ford. Political commentators moved to discuss whether Mitchell would be ‘cleaning house’, especially on the national security side of things where there had been (unproven) leaks from out of DC in the days ahead of Roberts’ untimely demise that Mitchell was unhappy with how so many of the appointments had turned out when it came to prosecuting the war against the DAR.

Out in newly-liberated Denver, the news of the change of presidency threw a spanner in the works for Jennifer Webb’s plans to see a return of ‘loyal’ civilian government to Colorado’s state capital. As lieutenant-governor, she’d been forced out of Colorado at gunpoint when that state had seceded yet upon her return, she had declared herself governor after David Rowan had ‘run away following his treason’. Governor Webb wanted to make a big media appearance in Denver while Governor Rowan was out in the Rockies somewhere. There were military police units as well as national guardsmen (the latter from Florida, not Colorado) on the streets of Denver who had put an end to the civil unrest. A big show was intended to be put on for the benefit of the media with Webb planning to show off her credential as a ‘real Coloradan’ and ‘real American’. With flags ordered at half-mast across the nation in light of Roberts’ death and a period of official national mourning announced, she couldn’t justifiably do all that she had wished to do. Still, Webb, a Democrat who had been sternly opposed to how the 2028 presidential election had turned out, yet not enough to commit treason, carried on with her move to show that Colorado was returning to the union which was the United States. Roberts had never been a legitimate president in her heart but she kept that to herself when making her opening remarks in a speech from the State Capitol building. Webb asked for a moment of silence and reflection with Coloradans asked to think of him and all of the other dead who had lost their lives during the fight against secession. She even bit her tongue and wished Mitchell well in his leadership of the nation. Like so many other Democrats who had disassociated themselves from those fellow members of their party who had turned their back on the United States, whom Webb had joined with others in calling them ‘Jacobeans’, she wanted to get re-elected in the future: voters would be reminded by the media and the Republicans of who was ‘on-side’ and who wasn’t.


Roberts had made one of his executive order appointments to a position which would usually require Senate approval when he made General Kathryn Dowd the Chair of the Joint Chiefs of Staff. Dowd was the first woman to hold that post. It was very likely that she would have been confirmed via the Senate yet the process for that was something that Roberts had believed could be held up. Walsh’s entire contingent of post-holders on the Joint Chiefs of Staff had resigned during his final days in office and there hadn’t been much faith in their temporary replacements. Dowd was someone known to Roberts and had occupied the post of CENTCOM commander: she’d been at the centre of the American military presence in the Middle East, a highly sensitive role. Picking a woman was said by critics of Roberts to be a cynical piece of political posturing. Both Mitchell and Secretary of Defence Ferdinand had spoken openly of their trust in Dowd as the holder of the position as the nation’s senior-most military officer. If others appointed by Roberts might have feared getting the chop in the early days after Mitchell assumed the reins of national leadership, Dowd wasn’t one of them. He spoke with her early on into his presidency to let her know that he wished for the strategy to put down the secession in the West what was being followed was one he wished to stick with. Problems aside, the West was being liberated – Denver and Albuquerque had both fallen to federal forces – and Mitchell wanted that to carry on. After giving him her thanks for his confidence in her ability to command, one questioned by many others just because of her gender, Dowd had reminded her president that Winter Storm Ted was about to hit. The Operational Pause discussed the evening beforehand at the White House, in the last meeting of his National Security Council which Roberts had chaired, was still going to happen. Mitchell acknowledge that. Ted wasn’t something that he nor anyone else could do about and Dowd was to proceed as planned with the necessary slowdown of military operations against the DAR while Ted did its worst.

The effects of weather on military operations is often overlooked by amateur critics and armchair generals. Because combat operations are often undertaken in bad weather with equipment and training to do such a thing, it was assumed that ‘a little bit of snow’ couldn’t cause that much disruption to either Operation Shining Sword nor DAR defensive efforts to protect their independence. Winter Storm Ted had been watched as it built up its strength and written off by those who didn’t know any better as no more than an inconvenience. Those who did know the difference and saw its certain impact ignored the foolish remarks and prepared for its impact. Meteorological analysts in military employ on both sides of the conflict raging in America gave warning to their political masters and senior uniformed personnel that Ted was going to be quite something. Everywhere west of the Mississippi was going to get blanketed in deep snow. The wind and the cold would be quite exceptional. There would be several days during which any serious military operation beyond those at the tactical level where it was absolutely necessary to carry on was going to be impossible. Ted was going to have a major civilian impact too, further disrupting the war effort. In addition, the same weather people pointed to a second powerful system forming up in the north over Canada too: what they were calling Winter Storm Ulysses. It was hypothesised the Ulysses would strike after Ted or maybe even combine with Ted in a worst case scenario. Up to a week of major disruption was foreseen ahead of time. It would be worse than the two winter storms which hit in mid-February 2021, what was then deemed a ‘once in a generation event’. United States forces had pushed those of General Fuller back into the Rockies and over those mountains it was going to be pretty bad yet there too would be snow from the Pacific coast to the Mississippi. The rest of the country east of that mighty river wasn’t going to get off lightly either though how bad that would be depended upon what Ulysses did after Ted unleashed its fury. The projected impact would hit everything, far away from where the fighting was. Aircraft wouldn’t be able to safely fly, roads & rail links would be blocked and there would be the need for military aid to be given to the civilian authorities to help save lives.

Unbeknown to one another, yet in something that was generally suspected would happen on the other side, both Dowd and Fuller spoke to their political masters ahead of Ted barrelling down from the north about a need for a pause in military operations. Their forces and those on the other side would be unable to fight while that epic storm, and likely the one behind it too, did all that it was capable of doing. Criticisms of the need to halt the fight came. In DC, the first reaction from those unschooled in such detailed matters, those who had built their careers on sound-bites for the media, was to claim that the DAR would take advantage on the battlefield to recover from the recent defeats inflicted upon them in both Colorado and New Mexico. There was additionally fighting being down in the bad weather of January and that hadn’t stopped due to a little bit of snow. Members of the Council of Thirteen, few of them with any real concept of military operations, claimed that they would get an opportunity to reinforce their positions on both the battlefield and politically too: there was talk of how they could point to a United States ceasing of forward attacks as a sign that the DAR had won. The Chair of the Joint Chiefs of Staff and her opposite number the DAR Armed Forces Commander-in-Chief successfully fought back against that ill-advised political desires to intervene in military matters in the face of a weather onslaught like Ted was due to bring. Not much could be done under such conditions on the battlefield. As to the political implications… that wasn’t for them to intervene in. All that they could do was have their deployed forces batten down the hatches and prepare themselves as best as they could for what was coming their way.

However, there were military advantages for each side during the interruption that Ted brought with it. The decision by the Roberts Administration to withdraw almost all military forces from Europe was one stuck with by Mitchell. Getting them home was to carry on regardless of all of that bad weather and it gave what Dowd considered to be a head-start in terms of bring them home while the front-lines didn’t move. Moreover, Lambert’s assumption of the command of ARNORTH had come with his many complaints against what his predecessor had been doing with the US Army North fighting to liberate the West: the new commander had won several fights yet needed time to rearrange his forces. That would take time under bad weather yet there would be time to play with, one free of enemy interference. Fuller informed his political masters that rushing reinforcements forward en masse during what he called ‘the Reign of Ted’ was impossible yet he still attempted to do some of that despite what he said. Fuller was managing expectations there. He also wanted to see the opportunity which came about by a general stand down used for a rest period for some of his forces, especially air crews. The DAR Air Force had been flying mission after mission where the significant number of available aircraft had made the difference on the battlefield where in terms of ground troops, the DAR Army was seriously outnumbered: in the air, there was almost parity with United States forces yet only through the mass commitment of flight-time. A rest was needed as accident rates had been astronomical.

Winter Storm Ted hit during the afternoon of January 30th 2029. What a storm it was. The snowfall was exceptional and just as deep and widespread as feared. Ferocious gusts of wing blew and temperatures dropped as the Arctic air came in. Flying operations came to an end in all but the most serious emergencies. Civilian power grids and telecommunications for both them and the military were affected. Ted’s Fury was unleashed. Eyes were cast towards what Ulysses would do behind it too. The Operational Pause in military activity began, to the fury of a lot of people who didn’t understand why that was the case for just a bit of snow! Nonetheless, despite that orders from on high ending most of the fighting, some of that, in isolated places, even where the weather was at its worst, still went on due to the particular circumstances of each incident. The fighting and dying thus didn’t come to a full suspension.

Some more fighting under Storm Ted up next, the a massive airlift of US forces out of Europe after that.

There is a reason I did that, for later on in the story. Basically, Mitchell is a real baddie and that can only come to pass with him as POTUS.

Ah, it is six presidents in the 2020s.
Trump (until early 2021) > Biden (dies Valentine's Day 2023) > Harris (loses primaries in 2024).
Then the fictional Walsh, Roberts and now Mitchell.