Day of the Hog

US Air Force Photo

"I'm not buying it, it just seems too pat. I mean we've got the bastards on the run and suddenly agents from Taiwan show up? It stinks to high heaven." Ida Kasparian said to her husband as they walked out to the tool shed behind the house. Yesterday's Chinese visitor had been picked up a few hours after their arrival by a civilian helicopter. Jack Bishop and Frank Teller had stayed overnight and were still asleep after a long day.

Billy stopped walking and turned to Ida, "I never thought of that, I was just happy to think that we weren't alone out here. But yeah, what you say makes sense. I wonder where that Ye person was going next. Damn it!"

"Calm down Billy, Ye is legit. Right Jack?" Frank Teller had seen the woman's identification papers, they were real, or the best forgeries he had ever seen.

Jack Bishop sat on his cot, he looked terrible. He hadn't slept much in the past week. He wanted the Chinese woman to be legit, Hell, he needed her to be the real deal. But Ida had a point, did they believe her because they wanted to? A plant from the Chicoms wouldn't really be a stretch. The debit cards they'd received, it struck him, how the Hell were they supposed to use those? What was there to buy in this area that they needed those sort of funds for?

"We need to run some checks on this lady, Ida's right, this is just too convenient."

The General Atomics MQ-9 Reaper was loaded with two Hellfire missiles. It could carry four, but the Guard didn't have that many to go around. With two other drones airborne, both loaded with two missiles each, they wanted to keep the remainder of their missiles in reserve. All the intel they had received indicated that the Chinese wouldn't, in fact couldn't, reinforce their remaining units in New York. The Canadian forces were in open revolt against their government and were hounding the Chinese forces in Canada to death.

1st Lieutenant Marcia Hopkins was watching her screen intently, she moved the drone with deft, subtle movements on the controls. She had been selected to fly fighters in training, then the government decided that it had enough F-16 pilots, so she went to fly drones. Yes, she hadn't liked that at all, but like her Dad always said, "Don't get what you want in the Air Force? Keep fighting, don't let the bastards get you down." He, and his backseater, had died when she was still in high school when an engine died on takeoff in his fully loaded F-15 Strike Eagle.

"Hey Charlie, are you seeing this?"

Her intel analyst took a closer look at the screen, "Looks like a PGZ-04, late model from the looks of it. Just the one?" MSgt Kirk Bellows wondered what a UN peacekeeper force would need with antiaircraft weaponry. No doubt that vehicle had been smuggled into the country. So the odds were, there might not be many more.

"Yup, I didn't see any others. Great vis today, it doesn't look like the Chicoms are exercising really good camouflage discipline. Which seems suspicious all by itself."

"We're maybe seeing what they want us to see?"

Hopkins thought for a minute, then said, "F**k it, I'm gonna kill it."

The commander had wanted their vehicle moved closer to where the base's ammunition was stored, he was worried when reports had come in of American ground attack aircraft being reported at one of the American air guard facilities. With their logistics line to Canada having been cut, the commander was losing sleep over his ammunition and fuel reserves.

"Have you found the problem?" the sergeant was getting impatient with the driver. The vehicle had stalled when they were moving it from its original camouflaged position over to the ammunition dump. The driver had crawled into the engine compartment to figure out why.

"Ah ha, loose cable!" The driver connected it and climbed back into the driver's seat and cranked the engine, which started right up. As he poked his head up to tell the sergeant that the vehicle was ready to proceed, he noticed that the sergeant was running towards the nearest cover. Looking up, in the last moments of his life, the driver saw the exhaust from an American AGM-114 Hellfire missile.

The men going about their duties on the Chinese base, which the Americans called Fort Drum, heard the explosion and wondered what was happening. They had been ordered to prepare for both of two possible courses of action. They were to prepare defensive positions against a ground attack and to prepare to be ready to withdraw back to Canada at a moment's notice.

A number of the units had drawn their reserve ammunition and fuel to be ready for either eventuality. The one thing they weren't prepared for was an attack from the air. One man had seen one of the American drones up above because he had happened to be looking in just the right direction when the drone had fired a missile.

Word spread quickly around the base that they were being attacked by drones. As the men hunkered down, and stayed clear of any worthwhile targets, like anti-aircraft positions, of which there had been three, all of which been taken out by the drone-fired missiles, above the sound of explosions a few men heard an odd droning noise.

"There do you hear that, it sounds like a turbofan engine, doesn't it?" Corporal Wu listened and sure enough, he could hear it. As the noise of missile explosions faded, to be replaced by the sound of flames and secondary explosions, the sound of what had to be aircraft engines became more obvious.

"Anti-air positions! Incoming hostile aircraft!!" Wu screamed at his squad.

Major Josh Topher lined up on his target, all he had other than his cannon ammunition were four old AGM-65 Maverick missiles. On his display was what had to be a munitions dump.

"Boozer, I'm on an ammo dump, watch my six."

Captain John Walker replied, "Two." Then watched as his lead launched his missile. Expecting a streak of flame as the missile was pushed away from the rack, he sighed as it simply fell to earth, the rocket motor had failed to ignite.

"Camel, negative ignition on your Maverick."

"Copy, firing another."

This time the forty year old missile actually worked.

Captain Luo Shuren saw the two aircraft on their run, he saw something fall away from the lead aircraft, then saw the streak of fire as the aircraft launched a missile.

His duty station was in the ammunition storage area. Much of which had been pulled into the open for issuing to the troops. He realized in an instant that the missile seemed to be heading directly at him.

Luo, a secret Christian, began to pray in the last few seconds of life left to him, he prayed for forgiveness.

General Liao Yong knew that the People's Liberation Army's North American Expeditionary Force's time in America was coming to an end, at least in New York state. "Contact the Americans." he ordered his adjutant.

"Which Americans? The puppet government in Albany? The government in Washington, who are apparently being held captive by their military? Who do I contact, Sir?" Colonel Peng Yu wanted to know, he genuinely had no idea who to contact to open negotiations.

"Contact their military headquarters in Washington, the Pentagon. The duty officer there will know who we need to talk to." General Liao wondered if he would live to see his homeland. If the Americans didn't kill him, surely his own government would.