Cyber Warfare and the New World Order

Another Beach Invasion

Corporal Chang had recovered from his wounds during the beach invasion of Anchor Point and was once again back with his old unit. He had also been promoted to Sergeant and now commanded the entire platoon, along with a lieutenant who had just been assigned to their company. Word had it they were going to be the lead element landing on the beach near the Marine Base, Camp Pendleton. Chang had never fought the American Marines before. He fought the American Army soldiers in Alaska, and they were tough as nails. He had been told the Marines fight like devils. He thought that hard to believe because the Americans he fought in Alaska fought like men possessed, and they were Army soldiers. If the Marines were supposed to be tougher, then he was not sure he wanted to meet them.

As their ships approached the coast of California, they received the order for them to suit up and move to their landing craft. They were going to be hitting the beaches of Camp Pendleton before the end of the day. For some reason, there was a lot of urgency to get the ground troops ashore; the Admirals must have known something they were not willing to share with the rest of the men.

Chang looked over his platoon and saw a lot of green faces. He also saw a lot of hardened combat veterans who had fought in Alaska and lived to tell about it. This would be their third beach assault of the war, and hopefully their last. The platoon loaded up into the landing craft, and soon they were on their way to the beach. From what Chang could see, the beach looked like it was not prepared to repel an invasion; this was good news. They might land unopposed. No sooner had that thought crossed his mind than the whistling of artillery could be heard as artillery shells began to explode all around their landing vehicles. As they got closer to the beach, they could start to see the silhouettes of Marines moving into fighting positions along the top of the rise, about two hundred meters away from the shore.

Using his binoculars, he could see these Marines were also equipped with their exoskeleton suits, though theirs looked to be a fully enclosed suit. As they neared the beach, they could start to hear the familiar sound of machine gun fire intermixed with explosions and yelling. Lots of yelling. Suddenly, the landing craft hit the beach and the rear ramp dropped. The platoon immediately began to run through the back ramp and headed towards the low rise at the end of the beach.

Chang also began to run towards the beach, yelling at the soldiers in his platoon to keep advancing and secure their objectives. The platoon ran as fast as they could, ducking and dodging as best they could through the hailstorm of gunfire being rained down on them. Dozens of soldiers were being hit, some getting back up and firing back at the Marines, others just simply dropping to the ground, dead. Chang raised his rifle as he ran and began to fire at the Marines. Suddenly, dozens of claymore mines were triggered and nearly three platoons of soldiers in front of Chang’s group were shredded to pieces.

He dropped to one knee and sighted in on a small group of Marines manning a heavy machinegun. He fired several rounds, hitting one of the Marines in the face, killing him instantly and wounding the other two Marines near him. Without missing a beat, those two other Marines he had hit got right back up and began firing at him and the men around him. He thought to himself, “Their armor must be stronger than we thought. This is not good.”

One of the Chinese destroyers came closer to the shoreline and began to provide direct fire support, hitting several of the Marine heavy machinegun locations and other strongholds that the PLAN infantry was having a hard time securing. Chang’s platoon made it to the edge of the beach and proceeded to fight several of the Marines who stood their ground in hand-to-hand combat. He shot one of the Marines several times in the chest, only to see that Marine pull out his pistol, shooting and killing two of Chang’s men. He put several bullets into the Marine’s face shield, finally killing him.

That first wave of Marines lost the beach quickly; they did not have nearly enough time to prepare a proper defense that could stand up to the PLAN infantry like the American Army soldiers had done in Alaska. Chang looked back at the beach and saw bodies everywhere. Then he saw the second and third wave of Marines starting to move towards the beach. Just as the PLAN soldiers began to run up the beach to reinforce his men’s position, the soldiers started to stumble and fall. At first it was just one or two, then it was everyone he was looking at. He thought for a second, “Maybe the Americans just hit us with some sort of chemical weapon.” However, as he looked around, the men weren’t dying, they just could not move in their suits. Just as Chang went to stand up and try to help some of them get to cover, his suit suddenly stopped responding. He couldn’t stand. In that moment, he knew something bigger was going on.