Waiting; Ch. 21

After the excitement of the anti-satellite missiles, the two countries simmered down in what would be the calm before the storm. In Russia all was quiet and under control, meaning there was no doubt over the war. Everyone was still confident in their nation’s abilities. Though they were given orders to set up defenses the soldiers, like the citizens of Russia, didn’t think the Americans would make it past their fleet and so there was no hurry or anxiety. Instead they worked and then partied the night away. They had forgotten the nuclear explosions in England and New York. There lack of caring about these events came from either the fact that neither was recorded and televised, or that they simply didn’t care and the vodka helped to ensure that. Those that did pay attention to the news actually joked about it.
“Ivan, did you hear?”
“Hear what?”
“The yanks across the ocean nuked themselves! If they have to nuke themselves to win a fight this defense, if they get here, should be easy!”
“What?! How many dead?!”
“You act like you care! Ha, well anyway, the Americans are weak; they retreated when we came at them in the Middle East!”
“Were you there Igor?”
“Yeah, hell I’ll tell the story! Hey you, French bastard behind the counter, a round of vodka for my friends!” he allowed them to take a sip first and continued.
“So, anyway, this was the Battle of Jerusalem, their last stand. We basically stalked them from a distance and pestered them with fighters along their retreat, so they weren’t expecting any heavy armored attacks. At about five in the morning we noticed them packing their helicopters and fighters. With that we knew they were giving up…and defenseless. Most of their men were actually in civilian attire and boarding the ships. All that remained was a few tanks in downtown Jerusalem. At six am we decided to move into the city. Another thing you may find interesting is that we loaded only napalm shells into our tanks. As we moved through we burned and destroyed everything on the way…to ensure that we wouldn’t get ambushed from the sides of the streets.”
“Wait how did you destroy their tanks? An American tank can take a lot and a napalm shell wouldn’t even shake it.”
“Ah for that we called the air force. They flew in with Bears and MiG-29’s. The Bears carpet bombed the street the tanks were on and the MiG’s came in and cleaned up with AT missiles.”
“So, is Jerusalem even there anymore?”
“Yeah, just missing a few streets now. Anyway we moved through the city to the harbor like a hot knife through butter. Once we got to the port the ships were finished loading and heading out. So, we lined up on the coast and fired repeatedly at the ships with the napalm shells. We had orders to not destroy the ships, so we just gave them a nice fire to deal with. Like pests we toyed with them. Every two minutes an Su-34 would fly low and strafe them. I was watching one man on a ship through my binoculars. He got on a machinegun, but chickened out when the Su-34 hit the deck and headed for the ship. He ran across the deck and BAM! The Su-34’s 30mm cannon slammed him right in the head!...worthless coward!”
“So, the Americans, are they really that bad in combat?”
“At the site of our tanks they run in fear and apparently now they nuke themselves at the site of our parachutists! There is nothing to worry about comrades!”
“Huh, if what you say is right then this is basically just going to be a massacre when they hit the beach…”
“That’s the idea!”
“But what did the US ever do to us?”
“They attacks us at Tehran remember?”
“I thought…oh well, doesn’t matter either way we must fight…”
“Fight? I’m sure our navy will rip them a new one!...They are cowards!”

Igor was wrong about the Americans being cowards; they were anything but that at this point. Every American was ready to fight to the death. The navy was also ready to fight to the death. Every hour five fighters with Anti-ship missiles flew fifty miles ahead of the fleet to find the Russians. Without satellites it would be difficult but feasible. After all they did it in WWII, right?

After a week at sea they found nothing. The crews began to slack off, thinking they would just float on the Atlantic the rest of their lives looking for a Russian ghost fleet. They only thing that kept them awake was the thought of what would happen if the Russians found them first. Even if they were found and destroyed there was another part of the fleet off somewhere else. The purpose of having two fleets was to have organized waves for the invasion. Also, it was to confuse the Russians about numbers. This was fruitless, because the Russians still had satellites. However, luck was on their side with a constant overcast. And in a few weeks NASA would have satellites back up.

"Wow I'm glad I didn't join the navy this is really boring."
"Yeah almost too boring...makes ya wonder"
"Oh boy you're not comparing this to that Russian chic are ya? Wondering about her, because you haven't heard anything for a while."
"You'll never give that a rest will you?"
"Nope, not 'til something happens...you need a girlfriend and quick 'cause your acting crazy"
"Crazy?! What?!"
"Yeah, so long as you point down range I don't mind. Take it out on the Russians!"
"Oh yeah on that...I don't think we're going to win..."
"Wow you're optimistic! Why wouldn't we?"
"I'm in intelligence and well their technology is past ours..."
"I blame liberals; they always say, 'oh we don't need new a military we need socialism!', they're crazy!"
"Yeah and well those Black Eagle tanks scare the crap out of me. Have you ever seen one?"
"No but I hear they're pretty serious."
"They're huge, black as coal, and have a peculiar sound...they sound like death...anyway they're heavy and wield a 152mm gun and a 12.7mm gun on top...it can take out aircraft with that! It's armor is insane AT rockets are useless. We'd have to call in air strikes every time we see one!"
Sergeant Paul's mouth dropped along with his certainty of winning the war.
"...no joke? They really have something like that?"
"Yeah, now we're the nation with inferior technology. Kinda sucks and yeah I blame liberals too..."
Suddenly an alarm sounded on the ship. It was the order to get to battle stations. The waiting was over.