Somewhere in the Pacific Ocean, between California and Hawaii
The Chinese Admiral stared ahead, into the fog just barely coming up over the horizon. He was the commander of Red China's one and only aircraft carrier, the Red Dragon. The massive carrier was surrounded by 13 battleships, 16 destroyers and 19 cruisers. Together, this powerful naval force marked fully 2/3rds of Red China's 'blue-water' navy.
Not for long, though, for 2 miles away lay the USS Daggerfish, a nuclear powered and nuclear equipped submarine, one of the few that survived the destruction of the US Pacific Fleet. Its captain was one of the many US military leaders who had welcomed the newest order from Washington DC.
Weapons Free. The order that had never been called. In effect, Weapons Free meant any US commander with a certain code could use nuclear weapons at his or her discretion. Captain James Mitchell was one of those commanders. The order was given and three 40-kiloton-tipped torpedoes shot out of the forward torpedo tubes.Less than three minutes later, what was left of the Chinese fleet was quickly sinking to the bottom. The USS Daggerfish, safely riding out the triple blast wave from its position under the surface, turned smoothly and began hunting again.
June 16, 2002 AD
Sierra Nevada Mountain Range, United States of America
The hills were moving. Or at least, that's what seemed to be happening. What was really happened was the deployment of seven of the most powerful machines of war the planet Earth had ever seen. The Shiva Mark IIs were well over 170 feet tall, with 12,000 horsepower engines and insanely powerful guns.
It was enough to make tears come to the eyes of Colonel O'Brien, veteran of the six Battles of Denver. The Colonel smiled as he finished inspecting his own Shiva II, named "Bun-Bun", grinning wider when he saw the two-story-tall picture of a gray and white rabbit wielding a switchblade and shouting "Let's ROCK, Chink-boy!"
Jumping into the cockpit, O'Brien aided his gunner with the final checklists. The mighty Shiva gun rolled forward a few feet more and halted. Then, at precisely 3 in the afternoon, all seven Shiva IIs raised their massive gun barrels, aiming at the Chinese lines close to 75 miles away. At 3:15, they fired.
The dominating blast echoed through the entire mountain range, causing rockslides and avalanches on several Chinese positions. Then, it got worse for the Chinese. The Shiva II shells were each 15 feet long and each was packed with 100-kiloton nuclear bombs. The resulting detonations and concussion waves knocked the entire Chinese front line from Canada to Mexico out of commission.
17 divisions of M1A1 tanks, the most powerful tank ever made, roared through the gaps, followed by 25 divisions of crack US troops. All the while, the mighty Shiva blasted anything too dangerous that got into range. The Chinese were broken and ahead lay the Pacific and the western states, soon to be theirs again.
The Americans, for the first time in the war, were taking the offensive.
The Last Half of 2002 AD
Elsewhere, the Chinese were also falling back hard. With their homeland having suffered 26 nuclear strikes in two weeks, many soldiers began to question the war. Mass desertions became common in the Western United States as the rebuild and reinforced American Army crushed the battered and broken Red Chinese Army.
When Americans retook the Panama Canal in September of 2002, the US Atlantic Fleet also made its appearance. All Chinese shipment to their forces in the US dropped to nothing. With no supplies or ammunition, the remainder of the Chinese Army in the Western US surrendered on November 19, 2002.
The Russians had also made a comeback, hurling their massive army against the Chinese lines. With the assistance of their own nuclear weapons, the Russians had also completely forced the Chinese out of Siberia by December 1.
The German/Nationalist Chinese alliance had paid off enormously. With Red China's army spread so thin, the combined force was too much for the Communists to contain. Like a tidal wave, they spread across Southern China, sweeping aside all resistance with minor support from Germany's nuclear stockpile. By December 15, it seemed the war was about to end.
Then came The Winter. The sheer amount of nuclear devices detonated in such a short time had drastic consequences for Earth's climate.
The winter of 2002-2003 seemed mild at first. The dropping temperatures were mainly in the frozen wastes of Siberia, Alaska, and Canada at first, and no one took notice. Then it came, on the night of December 16, 2002. The coldest temperature winds ever recorded in those areas lashed the Eurasian and North American continents, reaching down into the single digits on the Fahrenheit scale.
As fuel supplies ran low, all of the warring governments were forced to stop all military engagements in order to keep enough fuel to heat their nations. The Germans called it the Eiskrieg, or frozen war, a term soon picked up by news station all around the Earth.
In the dead of The Winter, February 6, 2003, representatives of the Allies and the ComIntern agreed to a nuclear cease-fire. Nuclear weapons were again off the table.
But still The Winter dragged on . . .
2002 Nuclear Use Summary: 102
Total Allies: 90
America: 45
Germany: 16
Russia: 24
Nationalist China: 5
Total ComIntern: 12
Communist China: 10
Japan (occupation gov't): 2
Other: 1
Britain: 1 (non-combat thermonuclear weapons test in South Atlantic)
A/N: Kind of short, I know, but bringing this war to an end is a little tougher than what I originally thought. Oh well. The next chapter will update you all on the PPG and the status of (ex?) President Utonium.