Escalation; August 28th

Andrew paced his headquarters, sipping a coffee. Eyes bloodshot, more and more reports continued to pile in. each bringing grimer and grimer tidings. The advance was slowing, no one was trying to deny it. More undead had survived the barrage than anticipated. Thousands of the damn things had been underground in the subways and sewers. Now they were spilling out of them like they were spawning pools.

I'd caught some sleep through the night… likely not enough. Deep bags had formed under my eyes and the normally disgusting coffee I was sipping on didnt taste that bad anymore. Major ivan walked over, giving me a concerned look. "Sir, go get some more sleep, I'll manage this for a few hours."

I glanced at the map and sighed. "Yeah… I'll try to catch some sleep. Wake me if something important comes up"

I put the mug on the table and walked to a quieter part of the building where some cots had been set up. Dropping into an empty cot I stretched and turned a bit. I briefly wondered what Veria would be up to at this time of day. The food drives most likely, though with the Premier's industrial programs and almost everyone having work… eh whatever…

I just want to be with my wife, her soft soothing voice. Far from this field headquarters, overseeing the steady destruction of an entire city. Fuck! Maybe just lead a normal life… but that wasn't going to happen now was it?

I was in charge of what felt like an infinitely growing military. I tried to delegate as much power and authority away from myself but it always seemed to come back to me… I need a vacation. Me and my wife, a long quiet week on a beach in the middle of nowhere…

I felt a smile creep over my face as tension eased from my shoulders. I felt the wondrous call of sleep finally being answered when a hand tapped my shoulder. "General, Major Ivan said you should return to the headquarters."

I barely stopped myself from launching into the ceiling, I stared around. Light was streaming through the windows. I glanced at my watch… 0736… so i'd gotten at least an hour of sleep then. I nodded to the lieutenant and grabbed my cap from where I'd dropped it and followed the young officer back to the headquarters.

Strangely Ivan wasn't by the map, only a few privates and sergeant that were updating unit positions. I looked around, seeing him hunched over a radio operator, Ivan was red, a rare sight.

"Major, what's going on?" I asked as I walked over.

"Intel relayed late sir… God, I'm going to skin Ivanov when I see him again…" he growled, his tone bristling with anger.

"Alright, what is it?" I asked slowly, trying to placate the major.

"Two days ago the Premier received a report from our Ambassador, 7th fleet returned to Hawaii. She was given a warning from Admiral Reichert yesterday that we were to completely withdrawn from San Francisco within 24 hours."

I bit my lip but didn't comment, letting the major continue. "Anyway their deadline passed, the Ambassador has already boarded a flight back to LAX, our spies confirmed that both carriers put to sea around midnight this morning."

I nodded. "Where's Gena? Is he aware?"

"Ivanov informed him half an hour ago, currently Gena is aboard the Slava heading for Los Angeles to replenish munitions. Last I was aware the fleet was passing south of Monterey."

"Get a hind to this location time now, tell Gena to board his fucking helicopter and meet me in the headquarters as soon as he arrives… time is not on our side…" I said as the command center began to buzz with activity again.

Within twenty minutes a hind was touching down outside. I looked at the squad of Spetsnaz that would accompany me and turned back to Ivan. "Ivan I trust you to continue overseeing this battle, I'll be in LA, inform me if the situation goes sour." the major saluted as I boarded the hind.

I leaned back in my seat. I'd wanted to wait until after San Francisco was wrapped up to deal with Hawaii. Damn it Reichert. I thought we had an understanding… maybe they'd somehow gotten in contact with the California national guard? I didn't have much in the way of a reserve force available… 3rd division was clearing out the final parts of the LA metro area, 2nd division was mostly tied up escorting supply convoys and the siege of bakersfield. 1st and 4th divisions along with most of 1st VDV were engaged in San Francisco… The naval infantry division was still spread all over the Pacific coast.

God damn it… could they have given me a bigger problem at a worse time? Now I had to account for the entirety of the US Pacific fleet as well as all my other foes? Why can't I catch a break?

I anxiously waited the few hours it took before the Hind set down on the roof of my headquarters. Quickly disembarking the helicopter lifted off and flew north as I made my way downstairs.

Gena greeted me at the door to the stairwell. "General Reichert."

"Commodore, I need a full status on the fleet, conditions, supplies, locations." I said while walking into the war room.

"TF-North is returning to Los Angeles, they should enter the harbor by midnight. TF- Pacific has already been ordered to withdraw from the Leivitan operation, they are currently 700 nautical miles from the channel islands."

"TF-South is still split between San Diego and Ensenada, the pair of USN destroyers sent to San Diego were forced to leave, their last reported positions were here, 25 nautical miles south of San Clemente island."

"Any other confirmed or suspected Hawaiian ships?" I asked, a growing feeling of dread.

"While not yet known, I would not be surprised if a Los Angeles is trailing the Slava, and several others lurking off our other harbors. Other than that… just those two carrier strike groups that left Hawaii last night." he replied as Ivanov entered the room.

"So against the might of the pacific fleet we have a Slava, half a dozen Udaloys, a dozen Krivaks, and an extra large handful of corvettes and patrol ships" Ivanov asked. Dropping a file on the desk.

"General, we're short of SA-12s for our Udaloys, you'll need to purchase more." Ivanov turned to me. The man looked haggard, as if he'd not gotten sleep in days.

I nodded, turning to Gena. "For whatever reason, the system doesn't seem to restrict the size of my fleet. Make a shopping list, what do you want? What do we need to turn this clusterfuck around?"

"What's my options sir?"

"Anything cruiser sized and smaller, and diesel subs too if you want those." I replied, sharing a glance with Ivanov. Making a budget was kind of a laughable idea at the moment. This was going to be more of a blank check and a prayer that we could restore the San Diego docks to repair whatever survived the beating the fleet was about to endure.

"Well… damn… anything I want sir?" Gena asked. Ivanov and I nodded as I pulled up the system store. Now was not the time to be stingy. Gena was the expert here in naval matters, if he said he needed it to face the USN then I'd believe him.

"In that case… another three Slavas, seven more Udaloy destroyers, eight Sovremenny Destroyers, twenty krivak 2s…" 

"diesel submarines…" Gena mused while I started adding everything to a list.

"The only real option is the Kilo isn't it… we'll go with nine of them for now. Does your system prevent you from purchasing the aviation cruiser General?" Gena asked.

"What are they called? I'll see if they are in the cruiser listings…" I flipped back to the page.

"I'd like a pair of the Moskva helicopter cruisers and one of the Kiev class if possible."

"They are… how the hell does the system classify Kiev as a cruiser?" I muttered to myself. The damn ship was huge, practically a carrier in all but name.

Let's see… 3 slavas 4,800 credits… 7 Udaloys 7,350 credits… 8 Sovremennys 8,000 credits. 20 Krivak 2s 11,000 credits. 9 Kilo class diesel electric subs, 4,500 credits… 2 Moskva helicopter cruisers, 3,600 credits, and 1 Kiev aircraft cruiser… 2,800 credits. A small sum of 42,050 credits before I started purchasing extra munitions.

Grab a few hundred extra of every missile in the fleet currently used, then a few hundred more of the missiles the new ships will use…that price tag quickly rose to a modest 778,950 credits…

"Well Gena, you want anything else… or do you think your bucket list can beat the United States Pacific fleet?" I asked after a low whistle. The man closed his eyes for a second.

"Sir, if it comes out to too much we can scale it back…" Gena said quietly.

"Oh, you weren't there for the last expansion, cost isn't an issue Gena, just whether or not you think you'll need more… I could buy this current list about a hundred times… no idea what we'd do with all that though so let's not go that overboard…"

Gena heaved a sigh of relief. "No sir, the proposal I gave you should be more than enough to fight if we have too."

"Alright, let's head up to the roof for a minute." I led the three men and a group of curious onlookers up to the roof. I hit the purchase button, my account drained that familiar blue semi circle faintly appeared, I ignored the purchase notification as I looked at the large, mostly empty harbor devoid of shipping.

A massive blue circle appeared over the harbor. Causing people across the Firebase to stop, staring at the large floating circle. Slowly the large fleet began to materialize, cluttering the harbor with the number of ships now within its confines.

The towering superstructures of the Slavas and Kiev would be hard for anyone to miss and those upon the harbor front could spy upon the dozens of other ships between the walls of containers still on Terminal island. Glancing at terminal island I could see thousands of crates of munitions stacked between the containers already there

I glanced over at Gena. "Congratulations Admiral, it's time to get to work."