Civil War

Chapter 11

Chapter 11

(October 29, 2026)

As the sun is setting over the lands of Texas, it is setting on a land gearing itself up for war.

Over the last few weeks, since the defection of General Brown and other key American military officers to Texas, all of Texas has become aware of the danger they are faced with as Brown and General Smith have conveyed all the details regarding the planned assault on Texas that they knew prior to their defection. The movement of loyalist military units to positions in Louisiana for an assault on their country has roused the people of Texas, and they are ready to fight.

Thousands of individuals from across Texas have swarmed into military recruiting officers to enlist in the Texan military. The level of dedication shown by citizens of Texas being willing to stand up for their new country has surprised even some in the government. One incident that was being used as a propaganda point happened when a millionaire and avid plane collector offered to join the fledgling Texas Air Force with his private P-51 Mustang to serve as a counter-insurgency or close air support plane. While he had been gently denied, he was now being employed by the government to travel the state with his P-51 to help promote the cause of Texas' freedom.

The arrival in Texas of so many key officers had really given Texas a fighting chance in the coming fight. General Mingus and General Poppas had together been put in charge of planning the defense of Texas from the coming attack. Overall, they had over three divisions worth of troops and equipment at their disposal. Texas also had not only the aircraft stationed on their territory when they declared independence, but aircraft that had defected to Texas since the news of General Brown's and the others' defection reached the public. Several aircraft had actually been shot down by loyalist forces before they could reach Texas, but many more had made it. This included 30 more fighter aircraft, multiple transport planes, a few B-52s, and, most valuable of all, an E-3 Sentry and a B-2 Spirit.

However, the biggest boost to their military had come not on land or in the air, but on sea. In the immediate aftermath of the declaration of independence, the branch of the military that the government was most worried about was the navy. Since the US Navy had no vessels of any kind based in Texas, the fledgling Texas Navy was limited to possession of four small Coast Guard cutters, really only useful for law enforcement actions and stopping any intrusions by small boat. However, there were also five warships that had been brought to Brownsville for scrapping in the months leading up to the declaration of independence: the cruiser Vella Gulf, the minesweeper Champion, the littoral combat ship Freedom, the amphibious assault ship Peleliu, and last of all the old supercarrier John F Kennedy. While the Kennedy was considered likely to be out of shape for Texas to realistically reactivate within a reasonable and useful time frame, President Abbott had decided to offer the carrier up for sale to foreign countries as a way to help finance their acquisition of more modern military equipment to help their war effort. Already, there were a few countries that were interested in the old carrier. The other four warships, however, were going to be refurbished and updated to serve as the fledgling fleet of Texas' navy. President Abbott had also ordered shipyards in Texas to begin work on a new class of warship that they could begin building to augment the fleet.

However, as it turned out, Texas would not have to wait long for a fleet. About a week and a half after General Brown and the others had defected, the government in San Antonio received a message from Rear Admiral Kavon Hakimzadeh, the commander of Carrier Strike Group 2, the carrier strike group centered around the aircraft carrier Dwight D Eisenhower. CSG 2 had been on a deployment south of Yemen to deal with piracy and terrorist activity in the region for the last few months and was on its way home when it got the news. A native of Texas who had also fled Iran after the revolution in 1979, Hakimzadeh was not about to let his home state fall under the same kind of authoritarianism. So, under his command, the entire strike group made a decision to defect, with those crewmembers of the ships of the group who did not wish to being held in the brigs of their ships until they could be sent back to the US.