Pacific Command HQ
Joint Base Hickam Pearl Harbor, Hawaii
The Admiral rose to his feet as General Braverman entered his office.
“Tom, good to see you. Apologies I have been so busy lately.”
After shaking The Admiral’s hand, Braverman took the indicated seat. “Thank you, sir. We have all been busy.”
“I haven’t seen you since you got back from Vietnam. Excellent work there.” The Admiral thumped his desk for emphasis.
“Thanks again. I have to say I didn’t think it would be easy but the Vietnamese are very pragmatic. Being able to pledge an entire wing of F-35’s made the mission relatively easy.”
“Heh, there is that.”
“I am actually more impressed that you were able to sell Long Snap to the Koreans. After all, they will actually be doing some of the fighting, unlike the Vietnamese.”
“It was just lucky timing. Their government tends to swing back and forth on the North. A few years back this would not have worked. The current administration there is more of the ‘kill ’em all and let God sort them out’ types.”
Braverman’s eyes widened in surprise. “I had no idea.”
“Yes, our intel was a little off.” The Admiral sighed. “I am glad it was off on the conservative side but it’s still scary to see what politicians are willing to do when you take them off the chain. Some of them seemed almost giddy at the prospect of taking out the DPRK.”
Braveman shook his head. “Ours are no better. Any more pressure from SecDef to invade Taiwan?”
“Gladly no. I think that dossier from the red team on the projected casualties finally made it through the president’s head. Over a million civilian casualties is not something you can take lightly. They have backed off and are letting Long Snap play out.”
“And if Long Snap doesn’t work?”
“Then God help us all.”
Did the Chinese take over Taiwan ?
No, there is an invasion underway. We’ll get back to Taiwan in a bit.
As the question from Dwwolf suggests, it is getting hard to piece together “the big picture” and interweaving timelines from the action snapshot vignettes scattered around the theatre of operations. I assume that they are in time sequence, but even that isn’t always clear. Not to gripe about the free entertainment, and I certainly couldn’t do nearly as well myself, but if there were a way to help readers put together an overview of the military situation, it would be great.
Hmm. Will try harder.
is ping pong dead? she was one of my favorite characters nooooo