Cyber Warfare and the New World Order

Hold the Line

“Captain Thornton, Colonel Lee was looking for you,” said one of the sergeants as he walked into the operations room.

Thornton nodded and began to walk towards the door leading to the parking lot helipad. It had been three and a half hours since they landed in Rudong, and things were still very chaotic. His company had secured a suitable landing zone and expanded the perimeter enough to allow follow-on forces to continue to arrive. Helicopters were landing as fast as they could and offloading dozens of soldiers, munitions, water, food and other supplies that they would need. So far, two full battalions of Marines had landed at his landing zone (LZ), and were pushing further into the city. The eight Wolverines that arrived thirty minutes ago were already heavily engaged just a few blocks away.

As Thornton approached Colonel Lee, he could see that he was apprehensive about something. “Captain, there you are. I have some disturbing news….” he started.

Joe sighed. Then, sitting next to the colonel along the brick wall some of his soldiers had used for cover a few hours ago, he asked, “What’s coming our way?”

“Intelligence intercepted a message from the PLA district commander, directing the Chinese 14^th Army to head to Rudong and Nantong. They also intercepted some additional orders to the local PLA militia units. I’m not sure why we were not warned earlier; apparently, they intercepted these orders three hours ago. The brigade recon team sent a FLASH message saying they had spotted a massive troop movement heading towards us. Here’s the video image they sent,” he explained, passing a tablet to Thornton.

Looking at the screen, he saw multiple side streets and alleyways crawling with militia. There had to be thousands of them. Thornton handed the tablet back and asked, “How far away are they?”

“They are approaching the brigade perimeter right now. We have several airstrikes inbound right now that will hopefully thin them out. I’ve asked for several additional Wolverines to be dropped. We are going to need a lot more firepower to beat back that mob. Their sheer numbers could overwhelm us if we are not careful,” Colonel Lee stated.

Thornton nodded. After a pause, he asked, “What do you want me to do, Sir?”

“I’d like you to have several heavy machineguns moved up to the roof of the surrounding buildings overlooking the LZ. See if you can’t get a few more barricades built near the perimeter and have them start placing a lot of claymore mines out there. I’m confident they won’t break through our main lines, but we need to be ready to hold the landing zones and ports. I’m going to move to Delta Company’s position next and make sure they are doing the same. You and Bravo Company have the two closest LZs to the frontlines right now.”

Before the colonel could leave, Thornton asked, “When are we getting some heavy armor from the ports?”

“Soon. They should be arriving with the next wave of transports, along with nearly 100 Wolverines. I would expect them to start showing up in a couple of hours, but until then, it’s going to get a bit dicey around here — so be ready,” Colonel Lee said as he got up and walked over to one of the armored trucks, hopping in.

Thornton quickly walked into his command center and began to look over the digital map as it was being updated with the data from the various drone feeds and intelligence reports. The colonel was right; it was not looking very good at the outer perimeter. He immediately called his platoon leaders and sergeants, gave them an update on what was coming their way, and issued new instructions to get their perimeter ready to repel the enemy should they break through the lines. It was imperative that they keep the air bridge into Rudong open.