Fortress Breached: January to November, 2056
The Interstellar Age, S01E04
The year 2055 was far from peaceful. The British Isles continued to suffer under air, missile, and drone attack. The war in Israel came to an end in July, as Russian and Chinese reinforcements finally rescued the struggling Iranians, and reduced the last IDF strongholds on the coasts. The Israelis, unable to evacuate major forces either by air, or through an enemy-controlled Mediterranean, had little choice but to capitulate.
The two sides conducted special forces raids on the others’ territory, and battle continued on the seas, as the contending navies sought control over important sea-lanes. Axis forces waged brutal counterinsurgency campaigns against the growing resistance movements in occupied Eurasia. But, 2055 was as placid as a mountain lake compared to the bloodshed that would follow in 2056.
General Zhao Jiang’s Southern Army Group, reorganized after its successful conquest of Southeast Asia, had been rebased to the Philippines and Indonesia over the course of 2055. Allied intelligence detected the movement of Chinese air, drone, and missile groups to the islands, but assumed these were intended only to launch another long-range strike campaign against Australia. The movement of multiple PLA army corps, including two from Central Army Group in Japan, was disguised as the transport of civilian personnel and equipment intended to take over the Indonesian and Philippine governments, and begin implanting the population with behavioral control chips.
An increasing volume of military-band signals in the region through February warned Allied Command that something big was coming–but it was only when PLA fleets were sailing through the Banda Arc that they realized it was an invasion.
The PLA diverted only a single regular infantry division to land in New Zealand. As an effectively non-military power, the New Zealand government had little choice but to declare the entire country open, and evacuate with its small military forces to Australia. The Australians then hastily assembled their armies to defend their country, even while the battle opened in their skies.
The main PLA landings occurred in northern Australia. Southern Army Group landed at Darwin; their primary objective after taking the city was to advance down the highways of the sparsely populated Northern Territory and Queensland to attack the main cities of Melbourne, Canberra, and Sydney in the country’s southeast. The two Central Army Group corps landed at the smaller Port Hedland, intending to drive down the west coast and capture Perth before advancing east toward Port Augusta and Adelaide.
As in Japan, Allied forces–this time, consisting almost exclusively of the Australian armed forces, along with the New Zealand military-in-exile–were unable to conduct a significant coastline defense due to overwhelming enemy firepower. Port Hedland fell to the PLA within hours, mostly intact. Darwin held out longer, but the simultaneous Chinese landings near the city itself, and across the bay at Wagait Beach, frustrated Australian attempts to disrupt the landings. The city had been fortified in preparation for an assault; it held for three days before collapsing, devastated.
The only real success at Darwin was the sabotaging of the port facilities, which served to further delay the PLA advance inland. Chinese engineers proved up to the task of repairing the port, but its destruction perhaps bought the Australians another week to retreat and prepare defenses further south. The first test of the new-pattern Allied armies had been a failure–but the true test was yet to come.
In Europe, Allied Command suspected that the long-awaited invasion of the UK was about to begin as well. Bao Gong’s Western Army Group had remained in Europe for the last year, only diverting a small force to assist in the conquest of Israel. By April 2056, it appeared to be preparing for a massive cross-Channel invasion.
In fact, this was an enormous deception operation. In addition to Bao’s Western group, Northern and Central Army Groups were also in Europe–-namely in Spain and Morocco. Only a small force had been left in the Netherlands and Normandy to simulate preparations for an invasion of England. These huge PLA forces debarked from ports across the Atlantic coast in May. On-the-ground observers assumed they were headed for a link-up with forces to launch across the English Channel, or possibly to conduct a simultaneous landing in Ireland.
Instead, these forces changed course, taking advantage of known gaps in the denuded US satellite network to link up in the mid-Atlantic. Only when the fleets failed to arrive off the coast of the British Isles did Allied Command realize what must be occurring. The invasion force could have only one logical target–the Americas.
Allied ground and air forces prepared to defend the major ports along the US, Canadian, Mexican, and Brazilian Atlantic coasts, while the Allied Atlantic Fleet sailed out in an attempt to intercept the invasion force at sea. Reconnaissance efforts were concentrated on sea-lanes the enemy fleet would use if they intended to make an opposed landing at any of these ports.
But the PLA and their Axis partners were not intending to make such a landing. Instead, they slipped past Allied reconnaissance to make unopposed landings at friendly ports in Venezuela and Argentina, which now declared themselves for the Axis. PLA forces stormed ashore only in neutral Guatemala, quickly seizing control of the country’s ports and highways. Elements of Feng Gao’s Central Army Group landed in both Venezuela and Argentina, along with several reconstituted augmech units from Russia’s Western Military District; together with native Venezuelan and Argentine forces, they began an invasion of Brazil from both north and south, immediately putting the large Allied nation on the back foot.
The majority of Western Army Group, meanwhile, landed in Venezuela, while elite storm units quickly overran the tiny Guatemalan military and secured their government’s surrender. The bulk of the Axis force then quickly advanced through neutral Colombia and up the Isthmus of Panama to a union with their spearhead force, which after securing Guatemala immediately began an invasion of Southern Mexico. Mexican forces, left out of position by the feigned coastal invasion, scrambled to respond to the attack–but despite their huge numerical advantage over the PLA spearhead, they were hopelessly outclassed and outgunned. By the time the main body of Western Army Group arrived, Mexican forces had already been pushed back, and US forces scrambled south to respond to the invasion were only just arriving in Veracruz and Oaxaca.
Throughout the rest of North America, Allied forces formed into battlegroups and prepared to move south; despite the fact that Mexico was hard-pressed, and Brazil effectively surrounded and cut off from reinforcement or support, there was some hope in Allied command that the enemy had blundered. The PLA seemed to have effectively channeled themselves into a narrow band of ground attack far from their home base; while their new South American partners and conquered neutral states could provide them with some resupply, the Allies now had the advantage of interior lines of supply and communication, in their own industrial and military heartland. If the PLA could be slowed or even stopped in Southern Mexico, they might be positioned to, finally, suffer a major strategic reverse.
But the last surprise of the summer of 2056 had not yet come. The Allied intelligence picture over enemy territory in South America was patchy, thanks to still highly effective Chinese cyberwarfare, and an intense concentration of anti-satellite resources in the orbital space above the region. Fragments of signals and imaging intelligence did suggest that Chang Liao’s Northern Army Group, which had debarked from Europe a week later than its comrades, had landed in Venezuela and Guatemala, and was beginning its march up the Central American Coast as of mid-June.
This, however, was a ruse within a ruse, the last great deception the PLA would pull off in this terrible year for the Allies. After leaving late from Europe, Northern Army Group had remained at sea, evading Allied reconnaissance for some time. Once Allied attention in the Western Hemisphere was focused decisively on the southern invasion through Mexico and Brazil, Chang made his move. PLA air and missile strikes blasted Allied defenses from out of the blue, paving the way for augmech forces landing at Halifax and Saint John’s in Eastern Canada.
Virtually no Allied plans had anticipated an invasion of Canada, especially not on the east coast. Even the most dire pre-war predictions had theorized a landing in British Columbia, since few had also foreseen the Chinese overrunning Europe. What few modernized forces the Canadians had committed to defending their eastern ports had already started to withdraw in anticipation of heading south to join what seemed to be the main fight.
The forces that remained crumbled under the massive Axis assault. Halifax and Saint Johns fell within 36 hours; 48 hours after that, another combined Sino-Russian force sailed up the now undefended Saint Lawrence River to attack Quebec City. The historic city was defenseless; it was declared open and surrendered to the enemy, its port facilities undamaged.
It’s difficult to overstate the depth of the disaster this represented for the Allies. Canadian forces were horribly outnumbered and outgunned by their PLA and Russian opponents, woefully unprepared for an invasion of this scale. The mobile forces which had been dispatched south were immediately recalled, rushing back to defend their home country. Canada urgently appealed to their American allies for aid. The US military only had three corps left in reserve, with the remainder committed to the fight developing for their southern border. Two were sent north to aid the Canadians - but these were soon redirected, thanks o a sudden PLA landing in Maine. This attack would prove to be a diversion, but only after it achieved its objective. For the time being, the enlarged, but still relatively small Canadian military would be on its own - at least until US-Mexican forces were able to check the PLA advance in the south.
Unfortunately, as in 2054, the PLA proved too quick for their enemies. The Allied line in southern Mexico collapsed before major US reinforcements could reach the theater. Allied commanders elected to form a new defensive perimeter in and around Mexico City - but the PLA refused to oblige them in another bruising urban fight. Instead, Chinese augmech units disappeared from Allied reconnaissance, and then scythed into the distant flanks of the Allied lines, blasting through the poorly equipped Mexican forces holding Poza Rica and Ciudad Altamirano.
With these taken, the Chinese drove hard north for Guadalajara and San Luis Potosí. To avoid being surrounded and destroyed, US forces had no choice but to withdraw from Mexico City and scramble north to establish a new defensive line protecting the routes into Texas, New Mexico, and Arizona. But with the demoralized, disorganized Mexican military beginning to crumble, the US chiefs of staff doubted such a line could be established in Mexico itself. Allied forces made preparations to withdraw into the United States to make a stand.
The PLA’s Northern Army Group, under General Chang Liao, split in two after taking Quebec City. Chao dispatched several corps south, to invade Maine and make for Massachusetts, while his main force drove southwest toward Montreal and the Canadian capital at Ottawa. A smaller subsidiary force of two infantry divisions struck west, likely heading toward the rare earth mineral rich regions of Northern Ontario. If the war were to drag on, the loss of these resources would hamper Allied cybernetics development.
The Canadian military could spare no forces to oppose this northern drive. Instead, they concentrated all their strength to protect the capital region. Even this, they recognized they had no chance of doing without reinforcements. Unfortunately, significant Allied forces had already been based in the UK to oppose the expected invasion. They were now essentially trapped there by the Chinese navy - and in any event, with Canada’s Atlantic ports all under enemy control, and most of the north Atlantic ports in the US under threat, these UK-based forces would have had nowhere to land.
With the US Army already hard pressed defending its homeland, Allied command decided to detach the main elements of the European militaries-in-exile in the US and send them north, while similar elements of the Japanese military, along with some of the Canadian Army’s most elite units, that had been based in Western Canada to guard against possible invasion there were rushed east. It would be a race to the Ottawa region between these Allied reinforcements and the Axis.
Meanwhile in Australia, Australian forces attempted to make a stand near Tennant Creek, at the junction of the two major highways the PLA would need to use to continue their advance into New South Wales. The Aussies were defeated, but inflicted significant casualties against the PLA, specifically targeting their logistics capabilities, before beginning a fighting retreat south.
On the western coast, Australian forces halted their retreat at Perth. Chinese forces reached the city in September, but surprisingly, found they lacked the strength to take it by immediate assault. At the same time, surrounding the city and then proceeding east was not an option; Perth’s port facilities would be required to supply a major drive toward Port Augusta. So instead, the two Chinese corps settled in for a siege.
At the same time, the situation in the Southern US was fast deteriorating. PLA forces in Northeastern Mexico broke through the US border into Texas, and drove toward Austin in early August. The region was defended by the US 2nd Army, which had thus far made a poor showing against the PLA during the retreat through Mexico. At the beginning of July, its commander had been dismissed for incompetence by the Joint Chiefs.
He was replaced later that month by Titus Langworth. Langworth had commanded the 5th Armored Division during the Battle of the Fulda Gap before later on being promoted to command of the US IV Corps. His corps had performed well in difficult circumstances during the retreat through Mexico, repeatedly slowing the PLA advance and then escaping encirclement. It was this performance that earned him command of 2nd Army, just in time for that unit to face its greatest test yet.
The fighting in Mexico had accomplished one thing at least: buying the US military time to fortify its positions in Texas and the other Southwestern states. General Langworth ordered 2nd Army to form a multilayered defense in and around the city of Austin, using tactics he had learned both from his own experience fighting in Germany and by studying the Battle of Hiroshima to counter the advantages of PLA augmechs.
The defense was based around a series of outposts within supporting range of one another stretching several kilometers beyond the outskirts of the city, “manned” mostly by drones and automated weapon systems. The purpose of these defensive lines would be to slow the advance of the PLA while the evacuation of civilians from Austin continued. Well to the rear, Langworth collected all of 2nd Army’s artillery, plus several brigades of guns he was able to secure from other units in less engaged sectors. The plan was to take advantage of the interior lines of supply to blanket the entire area south of the city with heavy artillery fire directed by these outposts, dropping rounds directly on each outpost as it was overrun.
As a major road and rail junction as well as a military base, General Bao had hoped to capture Austin rather than simply surrounding and circumventing it. The initial phase of the defense worked perfectly, slowing and attriting the PLA as they moved toward the city. Casualties continued to mount for the Chinese once they began fighting through the suburbs and into the urban core. Langworth employed a similar defensive system within the city itself, mixing in fully manned defensive positions with booby trapped structures and underground passageways.
Bao’s advance ground to a halt near the end of August. He was eager to continue the drive to capture the city–but he was overridden by Chief of Staff Fang Wenyan, who ordered his Western Army Group to hold positions on the outskirts of the city, then continue the drive past it to overrun 2nd Army’s artillery and attempt to take Houston. To aid in this objective, Fang diverted additional forces to the western drive, routing US-Mexican forces at the Battle of Chihuahua, and paving the way for an invasion of New Mexico, Arizona, and Southern California.
At the Battle of Montreal that same month, Canadian forces did not fare as well as their American allies in Austin. They held on for two bloody days under a massive Axis assault before being forced to retreat. As at Quebec, the city was declared open following the retreat; this time, however, the Chinese ignored the decree and bombarded large sections of the city, killing thousands and destroying swathes of historic neighborhoods.
Canadian Prime Minister Sanjay Lévesque had come to power only a year prior, following a no confidence vote against the previous Prime Minister, Natalie Pullman. Pullman had been blamed, fairly or not, for the country’s military unpreparedness in the years leading up to the war, and its disastrous defeats abroad in 2053 and 2054. As opposition leader, Lévesque had railed against Pullman’s inactivity, and spent years delivering Philippics against the PRC and the Axis. Swept into power after the no-confidence vote, Lévesque threw himself fully into revamping Canada’s military to prepare for the battles ahead.
With that temperament and political history, Lévesque was reluctant to abandon Ottawa to the enemy. But his generals convinced him that with the forces they had available, prospects for defending the nation’s capital were grim. The plan decided on was a perimeter defense on the city’s outskirts to buy time for civilians and the government to escape, followed by a withdrawal west, in the hopes of later linking up with reinforcements rushing eastward.
The Battle of Ottawa in early October was another humiliating defeat for the outnumbered, outgunned Canadian army. The battle lasted three days, but as at Montreal the city was outflanked and forced to surrender. Again, Canadian forces were reluctant to fight a brutal urban battle in the historic capital, and Prime Minister Lévesque declared the city open; again, Axis forces, frustrated by the badly outmatched Canadians’ refusal to submit, bombarded the city anyway, destroying the Parliament Buildings that had stood for almost two centuries. Canadian anger built as their reinforcements finally began to arrive from the east and south.
As the retreat continued, Allied planners waited to see which way the main body of Axis forces would advance: west, toward the resource and agriculturally rich provinces of Manitoba and Alberta; or south toward Toronto, the financial and population center of Canada, and the gateway to the United States’ northern industrial regions?
In mid-October, the bulk of Chang’s forces turned south, sending only a few reinforcements to the corps detached earlier, to capture the rare earth mineral mines in Northern Ontario and threaten an advance into Central Canada.
Canadian and Allied forces marshaled all their strength to the east and north of Toronto, the country’s most populous and dense urban area. As at Montreal and Ottawa, they formed a defensive line in the city’s suburbs - but this time, the mood was different. Prime Minister Lévesque ordered that the city should be held for as long as possible. As civilians fled the city for the United States, Canadian and Allied troops began to dig into the urban area itself. If the Axis were likely going to destroy the city anyway, they might as well have to fight for it.
“Besides,” as soldiers from the region joked, “it’s Toronto - if the city’s under construction for the next 20 years straight, who’ll notice the difference?”
In the south, PLA forces advanced toward Phoenix, Albuquerque, San Bernardino, and Dallas, outflanking the stronghold at Austin. These advances all proceeded apace, but Allied planners began to hope that the Axis might overextend themselves. Venezuelan and Argentinian forces had been stripped away by this point, tasked with occupation duties and suppressing resistance in Mexico and Brazil. Combined PLA supply lines in the south would start to get longer the more simultaneous advances they attempted.
The Battle of Toronto began in November. Canadian troops were again able to hold the outer perimeter of the city for only a few days before retreating. This time, though, they retreated into rather than around the city. Chinese and Russian forces attempted to encircle and bypass the dense urban core, but its massive sprawl proved difficult to circumnavigate under continuous Allied artillery and air attack, while Canadian ground forces struck out of the city at the PLA as they tried to pass by.
With its significant garrison, strategic location, and its economic and symbolic importance, PLA high command ordered Chang that the city must be captured. Axis forces advanced, immediately getting bogged down in vicious urban combat. Toronto, like Austin, finally proved that the Allied military redesign was paying dividends, however costly. Allied infantry armed with a mix of old and new weapons systems were able to dig themselves in; like armies in the 20th century, the Axis quickly found that leveling entire urban areas only provided a more numerous enemy better places to hide and fight from. The improved mobility and other capabilities of their augmechs proved less useful in the cramped and ruined environment, and they began to take heavy casualties. The battle for the city began to fall increasingly on the PLA’s automaton-like implanted infantry, who threw themselves against Allied lines, pushing the Canadians back - but at horrific cost to themselves.
As the end of 2056 loomed, the Allies were still either besieged or in retreat on all fronts. But for the first time since the war began, there was some legitimate reason for, if not hope, then grim determination. The Allies had no choice but to win the battles that loomed in Canada, the Southern United States, and Australia. If they failed, their last remaining industrial and population centers would most likely be lost to the enemy, dooming the cause of freedom and democracy around the world.
But if they won, they might finally get the chance to not just hold, but throw the enemy back. And on each of these three fronts, they were grimly determined to win, or die trying.