Weird World War: China, page 31
I want to give you a heads-up on the WARNO that’s about to drop from PACFLT. You’re getting tapped for Freedom of Navigation in the South China Sea. I know the new missiles deployed on those little Chinese artificial reefs make FON trips a little sporty, but there’s no intel indicating any intent to actively interfere. There’s too much domestic tension on the Chinese mainland, and the insurgency in occupied Taiwan is sucking up all their bandwidth for the moment, so we might as well take advantage of it. I’m not a fan of the O-O going solo, so we’ll have a sub shadowing you.
Now here’s the fun part. White House wants Commander USINDOPACOM to make a point about Chinese smuggling. It’s the usual: endangered species animal parts. Add in illegal over-fishing, drug precursors, fake electronics, environmentally unfriendly fossil fuel burning equipment, the works. State fears this might escalate tensions, so they’re not so happy about this, but there you have it.
So, by the time you get to the South China Sea, this certain Chinese supertanker, the Luck Dragon, will be ready to leave port from Macao and head to Tonga, with a few stops along the way. Pick up and drop off stops. I’ve attached an intel brief for you and your command team.
When she reaches international waters, you will rendezvous with one of the new Coastie cutters.
Both of you are to shadow the supertanker and then . . . . . . DATA LOST
(NOTE: I’ve been trying to reconstruct this for two years now, still no luck —NILES)
* * *
Air Force One Recording, Entry #706
“So, what do you wanna do?” . . .
“I dunno, what do YOU wanna do?” . . .
“I dunno, what do YOU wanna do?” etc. COL, US Army, (DIA) describing the way OUSD(S) (Undersecretary of Defense for Strategy) develops and implements their strategies.
* * *
TOP SECRET
POTUS: “. . . no honey, I won’t be home this weekend.”
VOICE 1: (Military Assistant? - UNK —NILES): “Madam President, we have an emerg—”
POTUS: “Can’t you see I’m busy?”
VOICE 1: “Ma’am, the Chinese sank the Occasio-Occasio.”
POTUS: “DON’T CALL ME ‘MA— I’m sorry what?”
VOICE 2: (SECDEF most likely —NILES): “It’s true. The O-O, along with one of our Coast Guard Green Environmental Enforcement Cutters intercepted that illicit supertanker we discussed at the PDB (Presidential Daily Brief) a month ago. We boarded the supertanker and found a jackpot. Broadcast some of it live too. You should see the ratings.”
POTUS: “What about the O-O? SECNAV must be beside herself.”
SECDEF: “The Chinese must have had a sub escorting it. Torpedoed the O-O. Left the cutter to pick up the survivors. They scuttled the supertanker. We picked up the Chinese sub only after it fired.”
POTUS: “I can’t even begin to count the norms they just violated!”
SECDEF: “Well, you know I’ve got just the thing.”
* * *
Audio File #7
“I’ll be right back. I have to go pound my nuts flat . . .” Lt Col, USAF, (EUCOM) after being assigned a difficult tasker.
* * *
Hello, Niles again. It’s been about three weeks since I touched this. Picked up some upper respiratory thing while cleaning the algae separators. The Level II Public Servant Clinic said it was a new coronavirus variant. I’ll add that one to the list. It hit me bad for about two weeks. Cricket paste doesn’t taste so bad when you can’t taste anything. I burned through a lot of social credits for food, fuel, and water while I couldn’t work. The good news is the pod is no longer a mess, I had plenty of time to clean it while my pod mates were temporarily relocated for quarantine.
Apparently, Counterintelligence interviewed them while I was on the mend. I think someone might suspect my little history side project. If it’s who I think it is, I’ll see them later this week. We might have a little “chat.”
That’s not what this entry is for though. For my hypothetical future reader, I want to set up what comes next on the road to ruin.
So, we’re not at the “and then they fired all the missiles” part yet. First, there were a lot of diplomatic démarches. Everybody got a démarche. And there were sternly worded letters read by stern-looking diplomats at the United Nations.
The New European Union strongly condemned the Luck Dragon Incident. Just the incident, they didn’t come out on one side or the other. Since reestablishment, they tended to keep their mouths shut on anything important, and member states were locked into Chinese mercantilism. Their recovery from the previous bout of wars and environmental tragedy was still in a precarious state. Rocking the boat could have proved disastrous for them and their large populations of displaced refugees. Tensions between those groups and NEU native populations were always high.
Poland-Lithuania (it was an odd year, during even years it was Lithuania-Poland), was a bit more belligerent. They chastised China for a whole raft of wrongdoing. The P-L/L-P Commonwealth had a long history of Russian, and now Chinese economic exploitation they wanted payback for, especially when it came to disastrous deforestation, Chinese guest workers who were very poor guests, and with flooding their markets with cheap electronics made with some nasty carcinogens.
Russia pretended it was still important, but they were on their third president and government-in-exile in as many years, so it was all rather confusing, since the other two Russias also issued statements. Russia is a big enough landmass, even with rising seas and the year-round lack of Arctic ice, that it fits three Russias. They don’t much care for each other, let alone anyone else.
The Japanese and Koreans mined their ports, but their rather muted responses had a bit of the “well here we go again, again” feel to it, and seriously, who could blame them?
The American response? Things escalated quickly. First, the President was caught on a hot mic referring to mainland China as “West Taiwan” after a press briefing, and then . . .
* * *
White Presidential House Situation Room, National Security Council Transcript, Artifact #15
“Let’s face it: Africa sucks . . .” Department of State representative (Bureau of African Affairs) at a conference on Africa.
* * *
TOP SECRET
POTUS: “Well, I think I made them mad. How much damage are we looking at?”
SECSTATE: “Oh yeah, it’s sanctions and embargoes all the way down. Rare earths, they know they got us there. And they sank our destroyer ‘in self-defense’ of course, and we ‘committed an act of war,’ yadda yadda. So far, the only ones supporting them in the UN are Russia and Nicaragua, and the New EU is abstaining.”
POTUS: “Wait, which Russia?”
SECSTATE: “All of them.”
DIRECTOR OF NATIONAL INTELLIGENCE (DNI): “We did get one of their subs too, lost with all hands, but they won’t admit to it, and I think we should keep that under wraps for now as well. The wrecks of both the sub and the supertanker are extraordinarily deep, but there may be a chance we can recover some intelligence before the Chinese can mount a recovery.”
NATIONAL SECURITY ADVISER (NATSEC): “We’re backed into a corner, Madam President. We must hit the Chinese where it hurts them the most, and it must be in a way the American people can feel satisfied after the tragic loss of the O-O. They’re out for blood.”
POTUS: “Must be sweeps week.”
SECDEF: “I think we go public with the rest of the videos the boarding party and drones transmitted from that ship! It will give us all the justification we need.”
DNI: “I disagree. We do that, and someone will expose what we’ve been working on these last few years as well, and that’ll bury us.”
POTUS: “Where’s VPOTUS?”
P-HOUSE Chief of Staff: “In Australia. At a Greenpeace ‘Save the Platypus’ event.”
POTUS: “Yeah, those things are getting poached left and right, and the Aussies are getting pissed about it. Have zim hold tight. We might need zim to work some shuttle diplomacy between us and the Aussies, the Kiwis, the Indians, and the Sings.”
SECDEF: “If you’re ready for the briefing?”
POTUS: “You’d better have options for us. Why not one of the standing plans?”
SECDEF: “Madam President, since the last administration left office twelve years ago, the interagency and the Department have been working on some controlled escalation plans. The concept worked well enough with the Russians. Ukraine and Belarus will be habitable again by the end of the century, so we think the risks with China are acceptable.”
SECSTATE: “You know that’s why the most powerful country in Europe is now freaking Ultra-Catholic Poland-Lithuania, or are we on a Lithuania-Poland year?”
POTUS: “It’s an odd year.”
SECSTATE: “Got it. Those ’phobes can go to their make-believe hell!”
CHAIR OF THE JOINT CHIEFS (CJCS): “Mz. Secretary, I think we should move forward with the briefing. Depending on what the Boss chooses, we’ll need to backbrief the service chiefs and the combatant commanders immediately . . . Excuse, me, I’ll be right back, I need to check on something.”
(CJCS LEAVES THE ROOM.)
SECDEF: “Ma’am . . . dam, Madam President—sorry about that, shall we continue?”
POTUS: “Hurry up, this is a real election year, and I’ve got a full plate.”
SECDEF: “First, we need a robust naval and air flexible deterrence package in Asia and the Pacific, immediately. If VPOTUS can work the allies and partners, we’ll be good to go. I recommend we show them the entire boarding videos, the ones we haven’t shown to the public yet.”
DNI: “I still think that’s a bad idea!”
SECDEF: (Either didn’t hear the objection or didn’t care —NILES): “Here’s where things get tricky. We boost our deterrence in Asia. This messages to the Chinese that we can very quickly pivot and put a real hurtin’ on them. But the real name of this game is Africa. We’re going to do a little supply chain disruption of our own. We deploy a large counter-poaching and counter-economic exploitation peacekeeping force, at the invitation of the Organization of African Economies.”
POTUS: “Africa? We’re going to hit the Chinese by going to Africa. What the hell does Africa have to do with this? Africa sucks. For an NGO, the OAE is one hell of an organized crime ring. They only cut off the right arms. What, exactly, is your theory of success here?”
SECDEF: “Both us and the Chinese are dependent on rare earth elements for electric vehicles and military products, and they’re always trying to cut us out of the action. We need to cut them out instead. And we do that by going after their magic dick medicine.”
POTUS: “I’m sorry, what?”
SECSTATE: “I’m confused, there are no rhinos left in Africa. The Chinese stole, bought, or poached them by proxy years ago.”
NATSEC: “Actually rhino horn isn’t used to treat impotence or infertility in Traditional Chinese Medicine, and it’s racist to suggest that. But it is used to treat delirium, fever . . .”
DNI: “Do you really think this is time for this? Anyway, isn’t it tiger dick . . .”
(UNK VOICE): “Yeah, now it’s whale dick . . .”
POTUS: “CUT IT OUT! But if we ramp up deployments to Africa, that’s going to pull forces from the Tejas DMZ, and that’s leaves us short of Army forces for Asia.”
(LOUD INTERRUPTION)
CJCS: “Madam President, the Chief of Naval Operations called to tell me that they’ve recovered what might be the last of the O-O’s survivors!”
POTUS: “We got lucky there weren’t too many dead or MIA. Who is it?”
CJCS: “The captain, CDR Frasier Copeland.”
DNI: “They sure it’s him? It’s been almost a week.”
CJCS: “Positive ID due to . . . ummmm.”
POTUS: “To what?”
CJCS: “A distinctive tattoo.”
DNI: “Distinctive?”
CJCS: “On the captain’s penis, Madam President.”
POTUS: “Is it a feminine penis?”
(END TRANSCRIPT)
* * *
Chinese Communist Party Central Military Committee Archive, Item #78-65-01
“Is that a Navy or a Marine admiral?” MAJ, US Army, (EUCOM)
* * *
TOP SECRET
(NILES: I think my Mandarin holds up well, but I’m too worried about being caught if I use an online translating tool, so this is from memory.)
PEOPLE’S LIBERATION ARMY (PLA) GENERAL: “The Americans am idiots!”
COMMITTEE MEMBER: “Well yes, our understand this.”
GENERAL SECRETARY: “Gentlemen, pleasure calm yourselves. Currently, admiral, would do yours report pleasure continuity.” (Close enough —NILES)
PEOPLE’S LIBERATION ARMY NAVY (PLAN) ADMIRAL: “Yes, yours most esteemed translucent dental floss.” (Wait—that can’t be right —NILES)
“. . . we am the monitoring latest American surface active groups beginning to deploy originate our two-hundred-year planned Hawaiian province, and our intelligence also suggests that pending deployment for bomber aircrafts of that ‘show for force.’ planned is preparing that counterstrategy based in our four principles, six actions, two slogans, and twenty-five warfares doctrine, stemming originate yours benevolent guidance the upon lasted plenary council, and we . . .”
GENERAL SECRETARY: “Whereour issupercarrier? Why are is it don’t deployed?”
PLAN ADMIRAL: “Your excellency, our take deployed our autonomous robotic speedily attacked carriers already, fully embarked taking combat drones the and latest stealth sparkle heaven lit exploding phallus.” (NOTE: “missiles” —NILES)
“. . . our intelligent that would do be that suitable deterrent and shown for force, while capable of . . .”
GENERAL SECRETARY: “Where the is fucking supercarrier?”
PLAN ADMIRAL: “President Cao Cao is currently the touring ship taking several members the for government, our think it inauspicious and impolite to ended he is anytime early.”
PEOPLE’S LIBERATION ARMY AIR FORCE (PLAAF) GENERAL: “I the believable right honorable admiral means to said the this supreme president is praying the to lucky golden cat.”
GENERAL SECRETARY: “Gambling? Why are will himself be gambling?”
PLAN ADMIRAL: “Well due to budget shortfalls the for lasted few years, while then highly go to quarantine enforcement and sterilization, our come upon below of woman of overdue refit. Then, the while supercarrier were on drydock, some . . . arrangements . . . were make taking local businesses, to helped the fund worked and improved morale the for sailors and workers.”
PLAAF GENERAL: “He means an onboard casino, whorehouse, and opium lounge.”
GENERAL SECRETARY: “The president is late in he is a party dues anyway, and this is unacceptable. Sent that team to arrest himself and those for he is a cabinet engaged on such salacious and decadent imperialist counter-revolutionary actively. Have this ship ready to sailed immediately!”
PLAN ADMIRAL: “Yes, Yours Excellency, we’ll cleaned outward this den for iniquity, whores and junkies immediately!”
GENERAL SECRETARY: “Who say anything around cleaning it outward? cao cao go off to enjoyed himself and didn’t even cut my on the in active. Fuck himself prevent the kept casino!”
PLAN ADMIRAL: “Of course, Yours Excellency. Prevent should our waited until those finish the filming president’s episode for ‘Boats and Hoes’?”
* * *
Video File 14 (FRAGMENTARY)
“Things are looking up for us here. In fact, Papua-New Guinea is thinking of offering two platoons: one of infantry (headhunters) and one of engineers (hut builders). They want to eat any Iraqis they kill. We’ve got no issues with that, but State is being anal about it.” LTC, US Army (Joint Staff) on coalition building.
* * *
Niles here. Okay, my pod mates just left for their shift, so I have some time to myself. Things have taken an interesting turn over the last few weeks.
Wait one second . . .
Sorry, I thought one of them was coming back inside.
So, last week at the farm, I ran into a colleague of mine from Archival Sanitation. He’s a professional Disinformation Reducer. That means “censor,” but that word has been unremembered. He redacts sources, and marks documents and multimedia files for future classification review. Which means they disappear into a black hole forever. He hates it, and we got to talking about a few things. The point is, I think I can trust him.
* * *
Recording, United Nations General Assembly, New York, New York, Video File #15
“If we wait until the last minute to do it, it’ll only take a minute.” MAJ, US Army (EUCOM)
* * *
UNCLASSIFIED
CHINESE AMBASSADOR: “We absolutely and unconditionally condemn this vagrant act of American piracy and imperialism, of course that’s to be expected by the criminal regime in Washin—”
US AMBASSADOR: “Criminal? Oh, you want to talk about ‘criminal’? Check out these awesome selfies our Coast Guardsmen took onboard your smuggling vessel! Those cloned rhinos are what’s criminal! That skin color isn’t natural!”
CHINESE AMBASSADOR: “How dare you! You attacked a simple commercial vessel; you had no right to board and attack the crew! Your thugs fired the first shots!”
US AMBASSADOR: “MX. Secretary-General, may I draw your attention to the video I’ll now play.”
* * *
TOP SECRET
BREACHER: “GET DOWN ON THE DECK, NOW!”
(Incoherent shouting in Mandarin and English, and BREACHER’s camera shows multiple Chinese crewmen dropping tools, slowly lowering themselves to the ground.)
COAST GUARD 2: “Holy shit, dude, are those rhinos? They don’t look too good!”
(BREACHER’s camera briefly swivels to look at the rhino pens, just cheap chain link fences with linked concrete filled drums for barriers.)
