The Battle for Houston...The Aftermath by T. I. Wade Read Free Book Online Page A

that the 18 C-130s, two Gunships and seven tankers would have tailwinds for at least the first couple of hours to help them get the range into Alaska. It was touch and go with the heavy choppers aboard.
    On board, General Patterson acted much like General Allen had done before him. He contemplated every fact, and then phoned people to get their input and give orders.
    No, nobody knew what was happening in San Antonio. No, there were absolutely no flyable aircraft in the whole of Texas. Even the Laughlin Air Force Base commander said that he had nothing flyable. Everything was north feeding people. The commander had 3,000 men on the base and had heard over his satellite phone about the attacks 200 miles to his east in San Antonio. No, he would not go and see what was going on. He had 3,000 men versus hundreds of thousands. He was going to stand and defend his base and wanted backup.
    It was same at Dyess, Goodfellow and Shepherd Air Force Bases in the rest of Texas. There were less than 12,000 men at these three bases, no flyable aircraft and nobody knew who the attacking army was.
    General Patterson’s brain was working as fast as it could while the pilots flew northwards enjoying a 50-knot tailwind for the first three hours. They would make it.
    Refueling was completed six hours later, halfway to Elmendorf in Alaska. General Patterson phoned Carlos in California, who was now able to send orders to the satellite via the observatory from “The Cube” near San Francisco.
    “How long before you get our observation satellite back over Texas?” he asked Carlos.
    “It took two weeks to redirect it from Kansas to directly over Hawaii. I think we will have visuals back over western Texas in about ten days,”
Carlos replied.
    “Do you need to be there? Can Lee do your satellite commands for you, Carlos? I need you in Texas,” replied the general.
    “Give me another day and I’ll be ready to leave.”
    “Good, you still have the AC-130 Gunship
Pave Pronto
with you don’t you, Carlos?” the general asked. Carlos acknowledged that he did. “Get her refueled and head for McConnell Air Force Base in Wichita, Kansas once you are done. I want you to phone Preston’s farm and order the Super Tweets airborne and get them over to Kansas within 24 hours. I’m scrambling the F-4s and F-5s and they will be heading into McConnell today. We are at war, it’s going to take us 24 hours to mobilize our aircraft and base ourselves in that area for our next battle. Get there fast, I have 18 of the attack helicopters aboard and will fly them into Edwards; get the choppers out of our holds and to our technicians to get them operational again, and then fill our 130s up with Marines. It will take 48 hours from now for me to get out of Edwards, and then we should be able to see what we are up against. I’m sending a couple of Cessna 210s south as spotters, and we should have eyes by tomorrow. Call me when you get to McConnell. Fly safe!”
    Next the general called other bases and scrambled all the jet aircraft at the bases. It wouldn’t take them long to get to Kansas and he would brief them once somebody knew what the hell was going on. He couldn’t fight a war blindfolded.
    Fifteen hours later he landed in Edwards and hundreds of extra technicians at Edwards, flown in by small civilian aircraft from the surrounding bases, began taking the Chinese helicopters out of the thirsty C-130s which were immediately refueled. The first flight of 18 C-130s and three of the six gunships, which had brought in the Marines from China 48 hours earlier, were ready to go with a few of their bellies full of soldiers.
    Another 2,200 Marines from the 1st Marine Division were picked up at Camp Pendleton, They had only returned from Europe a week earlier and were still getting used to Pacific Time. The total number of Marines from this division now numbered 4,000 and the C-130s, like a swarm of birds now with five gunships also full of soldiers, headed for