Vaughn Heppner - Invasion - Colorado

“You want to let me in on it?”

With his thumb and forefinger, Master Sergeant Kavanagh wiped water out of his eyes and shoved them back against the field glasses. He was sick and tired of watching the American military retreat. He was sick of seeing good American boys lying dead in the mud.

The Arkansas River was behind enemy lines. The Chinese had taken Wichita and Kansas City and they were still pushing. Actually, it was more like crawling after the American Army. The U.S. formations slipped and slid like drunks on the mud, retreating and attempting to dig in and hold somewhere.

“We have to stop them,” Paul muttered.

“There’s nothing you and me are going to do about it tonight,” Romo said.

Paul turned to his blood brother, and there was fire in Kavanagh’s eyes. Despite his age, he was broad-shouldered, with lean hips. Once he’d been the hardest tackler on his high school football team. Lately a rage had been welling in him against the invading Chinese. What really ate at him was the growing sense of helplessness. He wasn’t used to the feeling. What had him so mad tonight was the radio message they had received five minutes ago.

Romo and he were LRSU. Originally, Paul belonged to Marine Recon, but now worked directly under General Ochoa of SOCOM. Their two-man team had slipped behind enemy lines to disrupt Chinese operations any way they could. They were also the eyes for the drone operators who would launch Precision Guided Munitions—smart bombs—on critical enemy chokepoints.

This pontoon bridge on the swollen Arkansas River was an ideal target. A traffic jam behind the bridge had already built up. If the drones could slip in and launch one, two or three smart bombs…

The message five minutes ago had aborted the mission. The reason it gave was simple. The drone operators had run out of smart bombs again and Ochoa didn’t want to try using dumb gravity bombs. Maybe if this had been the first time it had happened, Paul could live with it. But it wasn’t the first. This was the third time in two and a half weeks.

Three strikes and you’re out .

“See,” Paul said, in a deceptively calm voice, “I’m crawling closer so I can take a few potshots at some Chinese captain or major. If I’m lucky, I’ll nail me one, or maybe even a colonel.”

Romo was slow in answering. “I understand your anger, my brother.”

“Yeah?”

“Remember, they invaded my country first.”

“Yeah,” Paul said.

Six years ago, the Chinese had aided one side of the Mexican Civil War. That side won and more Chinese soldiers kept coming until there were millions of them. The Chinese said it was for protection against American aggression. Under Chinese influence, the South American Federation joined in the fun, adding another few million soldiers against America. This summer with the invasion of Texas and New Mexico…

Paul shook his head. He was done talking or thinking about it. He put away the binoculars and shoved up to his feet. He had an old M25 sniper rifle and decided tonight was a good time to use it. If the smart bombs weren’t coming, he could put a few smart rounds into where they would do the most good.

Wordlessly, Romo rose beside him. They’d been behind enemy lines for twelve days already. Sometimes, LRSU teams stayed out thirty days. A mile from here—two and a half miles from the pontoon bridge—two dirt bikes lay under a sodden tarp. It was their ticket home: one of the few vehicles other than hovercraft that could negotiate this muddy realm.

In the freezing sleet the two commandos, one American and one Mexican, trudged toward the traffic jam down by the river. There were big Chinese Army trucks, stolen U-Haul vehicles, jeeps, IFVs, and towed laser batteries, the kind used to knock down aircraft and drones.

With a slurping sound, Paul’s boots sank into the mud. It was a struggle each time pulling them back out. The Chinese were crazy to use a pontoon bridge in the dark. They must have laid down a blacktop road to here and forced their soldier boys and supply columns to keep moving. All across the Great Plains, Chinese and Brazilians led the drive against America.

Rain struck Paul’s head and hit him in the face. The water dribbled down to his chin and sometimes his neck. He shivered at the cold. The camouflage slicker made him look like a wet Arab sheik or maybe like one of their women in those black garments that covered them from head to toe. He could never remember what they called that sorry-looking garment.

“You are bitter,” Romo told him.

Paul had almost forgotten his friend was there. Bitter or not, he was hunting tonight. Maybe it was the open grave three days ago. The squawking crows had horrified him. The black-colored birds had been like an angry, squabbling blanket of feathers, feasting on American dead tossed willy-nilly into the hastily-dug pit. Or maybe it had been passing near Dodge City. With his binoculars, he’d seen American corpses hanging by their necks. The worst had been a little girl in red tennis shoes. The rule was simple under the Chinese and Brazilian occupation. If they found an American with a rifle, shotgun or pistol, they hanged the poor sod. Land of the Free—no, Land of the Enslaved.

Paul gripped his rifle. Romo had quoted him a good saying before. “Better to fight on your knees than to surrender, but even better to fight on your feet.”

People had been trying to disarm the American populace for a long time now. Even the U.S. Government had tried it a few times. There was an ancient truth about that. If you lacked weapons, you lacked freedom. In this world of tooth and claw, you had to fight or be willing to fight for what was worth keeping. Once you gave up your guns, you were a slave hoping your master was nice to you.

Paul’s nostrils flared. How could they have run out of smart bombs? He shook his head. Don’t worry about it, son. You have bullets. Use them, eh. Kill some sorry Chinese colonel and this little picnic will have been worth it .

“Look,” Romo said. “Look how they stick to the road like good sheep.”

“These sheep have fangs,” Paul muttered. “Let’s head over there. See it?”

In the darkness, they trudged through the mud to a higher spot—it was more like a pitcher’s mound in height. Paul flopped onto wet grass and made sure his slicker covered him from his head to his boots. Romo did likewise. Once more, Paul took out his night vision binoculars.

The rain had turned into a lighter drizzle and he began to scan back and forth along the line of vehicles. There had to be over one hundred trucks, most of them backed up in two lanes. Chinese soldiers smoked cigarettes. There were hundreds, many several thousand glowing tips. More than a few of them also used flashlights, although the vehicles all had hooded headlights. By the number of soldiers down there, he figured an infantry brigade must be hoofing it or maybe they’d hitched a ride with a supply company. He couldn’t figure why so many men were outside of the cabs soaking up the rain.

He’d been right about one thing. There was a blacktop ribbon snaking away into the distance. It was a new road of sorts. Bulldozers moved across the muddy shore of the river. In places, water surged over the pontoon bridge, washing across it. Only a fool would use it tonight.

Even as he thought that, Paul witnessed the first Chinese Army truck inching toward the gate. The driver took the vehicle onto the bridge and slowly moved across. Waves lapped against its tires, but a few minutes later, the truck reached the other side and climbed the higher bank.

“One bomb in the middle of the bridge…” Paul whispered.

Another big truck started across.

“You stay here,” Paul said. “I’m going—”