Chapter 5: Lock up your Daughters - the Navy is in Port

(June 12 — Day 21, Emmonak, Alaska on the Yukon River)

It was another night drop on the tundra as the Airborne Rangers dropped silently around the villages of Emmonak and Alakanuk on the Yukon River. Harvey Kline was rousted from his bed at 5 a.m. with an M-16 stuck in his face. He started to shout the alarm but most of his pirates were already dead. As Harvey reached for his pistol, the young Corporal thrust the bayonet into his throat. It was no more inhumane a treatment than he and his henchmen had doled out in the days before in Alakanuk, Emmonak, Mountain Village, and were enroute to do to St. Mary's the previous morning, when they were ambushed by the residents at Pitka's Point.

When it was all over, five of his men claimed to have been abducted and forced to participate by threats made against their families. A tribunal was held with the five, and the people they supposedly were forced to protect declared they lied. Those men had killed the women's husbands. The Captain lined them up and had a firing squad execute them.

In the pre-IT days, the news media would be all over it, and demand accountability for the barbaric act of the execution. Now there was no media to leak secret information, or to be offended by how the criminals were mistreated. The five men were given a trial, found guilty, and sentenced to death. The sentence was carried out at no extra expense to the taxpayers, of which at the moment, there were none! With justice being swift and sure, the next pirates would have to consider the consequences of their actions when they were caught.

(June 14 - Day 23, Cook Inlet, Port of Anchorage, Alaska)

The USS Ronald Reagan Carrier Battle Group entered Cook Inlet for the port of Anchorage. General Brubaker and his aides met Rear Admiral Kitchens via helicopter, and had a meeting to discuss their combined resources. When they met, Kitchens outranked Brubaker by being an O-8 to Brubaker's O-7. Brubaker did not disclose the additional forces that had been arriving almost daily, nor about the underground system. Brubaker simply let Kitchens know that he was welcome to take on food, fuel and provisions, before heading back to sea, as the Admiral made it known that he was going to do.

Kitchens agreed that the Pipeline, and the Port of Valdez and the terminal would be critical to the survival of civilization, as they knew it. His ship had double its aircraft component with those from the Nimitz and Washington. He needed to offload those, because getting a strike force airborne would take far too much time. Thus the aircraft from the other two carriers, and the pilots in excess of what he needed, were sent to Kodiak Airport to reestablish a base there until he needed the replacements.

The admiral had already dispatched two destroyers and two supply ships to Prince William Sound. His Battle Group was combined with the remnants of the Nimitz and George Washington's. The Washington and the Nimitz were lost in an overwhelming air assault in the China Sea, along with two cruisers, a destroyer, and a frigate.

As the results of the war trickled in, the only foothold that the Chinese were able to get was the closed Naval Base at Long Beach, and at San Diego, California. Air strikes from the Abe Lincoln left the ports unusable, but there weren't enough Chinese left to form a street gang when they were done. The Battle Group had repaired the radios to communicate between the ships, and had picked up the transmissions from Alaska. They just didn't answer because they thought so much traffic was a hoax. Admiral Kitchens wanted to see for himself. Dispatched aircraft could have been considered hostile and fired upon, but there was no mistaking the floating armada that now filled Cook Inlet.

Brubaker offered, "Admiral Kitchens, the first thing we need to establish is that we are still on the same side. We will provide you with food and fuel, and what munitions are interchangeable between our aircraft that we can spare. Understand that we still don't know the extent of the enemy's surviving forces. Our reconnaissance shows that anywhere closer than five hundred miles to Mainland China is too radioactive to operate and expect to survive. If they went underground, it will take them months to dig out."

"We lost Pearl Harbor to a nuclear strike from a Chinese submarine that was subsequently destroyed," the Admiral informed Brubaker. "That took out Hickam and Wheeler too. A few of the F-18's and two F-15's made it to Hilo on the big island, but the pilots haven't been heard from since. We passed by last week to look for survivors and there were none. We brought the three Hornets on board, and they can stay on Kodiak until we need them. We were going to leave the F-15's at Hilo, but I thought better of it. We stripped them of everything interchangeable and made them unusable to the enemy or anyone else for that matter."

Gen Brubaker in formed the admiral, "We have a wing of F-22's and two wings of F-35's at our disposal, so we shouldn't miss two Eagles that much. Not enough to risk the radiation for. I suggest you store them out on the Aleutians somewhere, and don't be around here with radioactive planes very long."

"Trust me General," said Kitchens, "they are not radioactive. We checked them over, and they were fine. Besides, I am taking this war back to our enemies, and not playing babysitter to a few thousand civilians."

"Very well, Admiral Kitchens," replied Brubaker, "Someone has to keep the pumps flowing. You shall have your fuel and food as fast as you can get it loaded. It will start arriving within the hour. Good luck on your mission Admiral."

The general saluted, and they parted ways. With the cruisers, destroyers, frigates and subs from the remnants of the two battle groups left to protect the shipping lanes and ports came another O-7 Rear Admiral from the Guided Missile Cruiser, USS Leyte Gulf of the Washington CBG. Admiral Charles Grover had been evacuated from his carrier before it went down. The other high-ranking Naval officers consisted of 14 captains, 8 commanders, 7 Lt commanders, and several lieutenants and ensigns. The Marine contingencies had a major, nine captains, and eleven lieutenants.

Admiral Grover paid the visit to Gen Brubaker at Elmendorf Air Force Base, from Valdez by way of helicopter. Grover was less independent than his Reagan counterpart, and clearly understood the need to protect the oil supply and refineries. He even suggested basing the remaining Washington Air Group at Valdez, with his Marine contingent when they arrived. The Sea Bees joined with the AVWCC in setting up the base and homeport construction. The new Navy contingent made plans for homeports in Seward, Whittier, and Valdez in Prince William Sound.

The Nimitz CBG chose the historic Navy Base at Dutch Harbor on the Alaska Peninsula, and would patrol the Bering Sea north to the Arctic Ocean, and base the remainder of the Air Wing from Dutch Harbor and Adak, under Capt Meyers. Without their floating cities and air bases, the Aleutians would do quite nicely to base the Air Group. After the men had two days of shore leave in a friendly port, they were ready to deploy to their new bases.

(June 16 - Day 25, Port of Anchorage)

Once the aircraft from the sunken carriers, four destroyers, two guided missile cruisers, a frigate, an amphibious command ship, and two attack submarines were detached to defend Alaska, Admiral Kitchens went back out to sea, after taking on fuel for his planes, non-nuclear powered vessels, and replenishing food stocks with fresh seafood. The Admiral had the new Bio-weapon, and he was determined to deploy it wherever he found resistance. Admiral Kitchens was not in defensive mode or seeking survivors, he was on the hunt for an enemy. Below deck were over 400 men that he had picked up with the others along the coast, only to be pressed into the service.

Out of the almost 900 survivors the CBG had picked up along the coast, 365 were civilian women and children. The older men were put ashore with them in Anchorage, and the men of fighting age were forced to replace as many of the women aboard his ship as they could. The ones repatriated in Anchorage were told that if any mention of the conscripts were ever made then they would be executed. They were told before they were set ashore, that Admiral Grover and Capt Meyers would follow that order.

"War is for men, not girls," Kitchens opined to his CAG, as the CBG left Cook Inlet and sailed once again into the Pacific. "We will put the women ashore, and let them be defensive. I am not going to wait here for the Red Chinese, Russians, Arabs or anyone else to attack. I am going to hunt them down and rid the earth of them so we don't have this kind of thing happen again."

The CAG smiled, and nodded in agreement. Then he added, "From what I heard onshore, it looks to me like they are going to try to form a government in a few days. We don't have to answer to anybody right now, and I don't see that a game of 'mine's bigger' with Brubaker would get us anywhere. I love my Hornets, but I don't think we want to go against those F-22 Raptors and F-35's. The F-15's and F-16's are bad enough, but you can at least see them coming."

The Reagan Battle Group was headed to the Sea of Cortez in Mexico to once again engage the Red Chinese. A coordinated plan with Gen Brubaker would have been good, but Admiral Kitchens was a seagoing Custer, out for the glory for himself. His Battle Group had all but wiped out the Chinese Navy, and sank most of their submarine fleet, and all but the smallest ships in the surface fleet. To himself, Capt Forrest thought about the similarity between Kitchens and Custer, and hoped they didn't end up trapped in enemy waters and picked off one by one.

(June 18 - Day 27, Anchorage to Dalhart, Texas)

At 4:35 a.m., Al Bateman and Jim Sampson took off for Dalhart, Texas in the Beech Super King Air 350, with two men from the 172^nd Infantry Division. Their mission was to check the status of his family, his herd of cattle, the neighbor and his chickens, and any military bases on the way that they might encounter. They would also set up a radio to transmit what they found back to Anchorage.

Their intended fuel stop was Mountain Home Air Force Base, where an inventory team had been sent underground, but when pilot Sampson contacted the I-team, he was told to avoid the base as it was in Militia hands at the moment. They pressed on and found a small airport at Preston, Idaho to refuel. There they found the fuel tanks locked up and were forced to scavenge the 160 gallons they did find from another turboprop commuter airliner before the sentry spotted six trucks speeding their way. Everyone hurried back aboard and the plane quickly roared off into the mid-day sky.

They knew there was an I-team at Hill Air Force Base near Ogden Utah, a short hop to the south, and they managed to make it there for fuel. What unnerved them somewhat was the stenciling on all of the planes at Preston that read, "Republic of Idaho". In a way that was not much different than what Alaska was trying to do with the Commonwealth measure on the ballot. In other ways, they learned, the ROI was a dictatorship, declared by the Militia Commander Clancy Rector.

The first part of the I-team at Mountain Home AFB was taken prisoner soon after they set foot on the Base Ops site from the underground access. They were freed two hours later by a Ranger Company, and were now in negotiation with the ROI Militia Commander himself, who was taken prisoner in the turn-about. Major Rick Teasdale informed Clancy Rector that what he was taking as his own was not his property.

Teasdale stated, "Right now, we are consolidating in Alaska and we have a viable Army, Navy, Air Force, Coast Guard and Marines. We are like you, forming an Independent Commonwealth by an election just a week away. We have common enemies, and we are looking for trading partners."

Rector replied, "We have what we need here. You will only try to take us over, and as for our common enemy, your ranks are peppered with OUR enemy, if you get my drift?"

"Whatever racial prejudices you hold, Mr. Rector," Teasdale observed, "We have a greater enemy among us. As we speak, the Arabs control parts of Washington, and Oregon, and Red Chinese occupy California. Mexicans and Venezuelans were taking over Arizona and New Mexico, and God only knows who else is in this with them. They don't want to negotiate, only to kill us all out, and possess our land."

"We don't negotiate either Major and it's GENERAL Rector to you," Clancy demanded. "How about you tell me how you got a whole company of men on MY base without being seen?"

"Silent black, stealth helicopters, General," Teasdale lied. "But we plan to leave in those two C-17's parked on the ramp. Now you have turned this encounter into a rather unpleasant meeting, and I have no choice but to take you and your officers here with us. I just have a really bad feeling about how you came to power, and until we know more about you, and your band, you are now my prisoners."

"We have a Patriot Missile Battery," Clancy boasted, "You'll never get off the ground."

Teasdale remarked, "If you are referring to the one at the south end of the field, my Special Forces Team took control of it ten minutes ago. I am sure that you have heard about the lovely new Denver International Airport, and all of its underground accommodations? Well today is your lucky day. You win an all-expense paid vacation to see it first-hand."

After the twenty-five Militia member and their leader were taken into custody, Maj. Teasdale called for a complete Recovery Company, to remove all useful materiel to a new location, not subject to radical Militias that rule by force, and kill those whose skin color doesn't match. Two of the Idaho Militia members were on the way back to headquarters to muster an attack to save their leader. By the next morning, when 600, armed Militia stormed the gate; the R-team had successfully moved Rector and all of the items of value to Hill Air force Base for temporary safe keeping. Below Hill AFB was a cavernous underground hangar, where several F-15, and F-16 fighters were stored. Five C-17's, three C-130's, a C-5 and several were based there. The remaining B-1-B was flown to Elmendorf from Mountain Home. Most of the surviving pilots were women, with just two male pilots and six men total out of the 112 surviving personnel and seven civilian women at Hill from the surrounding area.

When refueled, the King Air took off again for Dalhart, Texas, and Al Bateman's Ranch. Three and a half hours later, they touched down at the abandoned airport, and the pilot and one of the soldiers stayed with the plane to refuel it. The phones were out, and there was no electrical power. Since Al lived just six miles from the airport, Private Wells suggested they just walk it. In late June it was already well over 90 degrees and it would be dark by the time the out of shape Bateman made it there. Realizing that was not an option Wells then located a car with the keys locked inside.

Well found a rock and smashed the rear window out to gain entry. Al Bateman then drove them to his ranch. As they pulled up the long dirt driveway a puff of dust erupted in the tire track ahead of them. "Stop!" exclaimed Wells, "someone just shot at us."

"That's far enough," the woman's voice came from behind the door, "Turn around and go back where you came from."

Al shut the car off and stepped out, "Melva, is that you?" he called out. The door flew open and the woman ran out to greet him, followed by two young girls, sixteen, and fourteen years old.

"I thought you were dead," sobbed Melva as she hugged her husband for dear life. "You are okay, thank God!"

As they returned inside, Melva explained that renegades had taken six of their steers, and raided the Horton's chicken house on a daily basis. She understood that people had to eat, but so did they. Al then explained how in Alaska they had electricity and clean water and how he was in charge of the drilling platforms in Cook Inlet, for the recovery. Al assured her that law and order prevailed, and how he had come back for them, and for the cattle to start a beef herd to feed the people.

Melva and the girls were scared, and wanted to leave, but they couldn't until the transports arrived to pick up the cattle. Al told them to pack a few things, and he would stay with her, while Wells went back to the Airport to get on the radio to Hill AFB so that the transports could be brought in. By six that evening, the three C-17 transports arrived at the Dalhart Airport with men to help herd them from the ranch to the airport and guard them overnight.