[b]HMS [i]Fearless[/i][/b]

	[i]Capitaine[/i] Fillion was busy puking her dinner out over the railing of the HMS [i]Fearless[/i] when she sensed someone approaching from behind. She finished with the last of a dry heave, barely saving herself from collapsing over the thin chain barrier as the ship bounced over yet another whitecap in the cold, rough seas of the North Atlantic. Wiping her mouth and catching her breath, she shakily turned around to see [i]Stabshauptmann[/i] Arthur Kohl chuckling at her as he lit a cigarette in the chilly air. Under combat conditions, smoking was technically not allowed on the ship’s exterior: [i]Stabshauptmann[/i] Kohl simply pretended not to understand whenever a British sailor told him off for it.

	“You don’t like the ocean?” he asked, prodding her. Fillion shook her head, sweeping hair out of her face and trying to tuck her bun back together.

	“I can’t sleep, I can’t keep any food down, I can’t do anything!” she complained. The taste of vomit in her throat almost made her sick again, but she knew she had nothing left to throw up.

	“We should be done soon. Maybe a day or two,” Kohl said. “The new order is being published: we’re scheduled to land at dawn on the twenty-seventh.”

	“And getting shot at is preferable to sea sickness?” wearily asked Fillion.

	“Seems to be for yourself,” chuckled Kohl.

	Fillion scowled, but a sudden crack in the sky stopped her before she could say anything else. A pair of twin-engine jets with swept-back delta wings screamed across the cloudy grey sky, leaving behind a sonic boom that shook the Army officer to her vulnerable stomach. They raced west towards the coast, seeking targets that had been identified in the days prior to the invasion.

	The Mirage fighters, painted a slick light grey and launched from the [i]Charles de Gaulle[/i] carriers trailing behind the troop vessels in their own OTAN battlegroups. The Mirages were advanced fighter-bombers, derived from years of the Dassault company’s aviation developments. Painted green for the [i]Armée de l’Air[/i], they flew over thick jungles and vast deserts to deliver precision strikes against terrorists and insurgents in Vietnam or Mali. Painted grey for the [i]Marine[/i], they carried long-range missiles designed to hunt and kill both American and Soviet ships. These latter planes were carrier-borne, designed and customized specifically for the newest French carriers.

	The [i]Charles de Gaulle[/i] class, constructed quickly during the 1980s, represented the bleeding edge of France’s power projection capability. Weening from American naval might, OTAN required the Europeans to fill in the gaps. Almost immediately, the naval question was actioned by the high command. French military industry expedited planned designs of novel warships and carriers, feverishly pushing their shipyards to the limit with requests and funding for new hulls in an arms race against the Americans. A new emphasis on combined naval task forces emerged, the French Navy and the Royal Navy were now the combined backbone of OTAN’s mission force.

	The Mirages didn’t have to fly far beyond the fleet to find what they were looking for: Canadian radar installations, built and jointly integrated into the American NORAD system, were built in the fringe tundra wastes of the east coast. With a good anti-radiation missile, these airspace defense radars were easy targets. The Mirages coasted for a few minutes, carefully validating their targets, before letting their payload loose and immediately breaking back east to return to their fleet. The missiles dropped from the wings, their own rocket engines bursting into a roaring flame, and raced towards their targets.

	Like clockwork, the missiles hit their targets. On the ground, nobody was hurt: the sparsely populated bases maintained only a few watchstanders at most and far away from the physical location of the radars. But they saw the missiles impact, shattering the immaculately crafted and sensitive radomes in a careless ball of fire and shock. Millions of dollars of investment vaporized as the French missiles decimated the radars’ heavily engineered facilities. One by one, the Canadian air defense radars were disabled. In command centers across the country and in NORAD itself, phone lines begin to ring.

	The Canadians knew that the Americans were coming, of course. The mobilization of dozens of ships was far too obvious to miss. The knockout of radar capabilities obscured the tactical movements of French jets as they sought to maneuver to more specific points of military significance. Controlled by technicians on ground, in the air, and in orbit, the [i]Armée de l’Espace[/i] launched a simultaneous disruption attack against Canadian and American satellites. The risk of escalation was significant and the orders had come down from higher: no lethal force was authorized.

	Reconnaissance satellites were targeted by lasers and optical blinding devices from French attack satellites. Aboard [i]les Quais[/i], [i]Armée de l’Espace[/i] personnel mobilized for their first combat mission: they proved pivotally important in launching small spacecraft and shuttles posturing themselves to aggressively disrupt American satellites. In a game of strategic chicken, the manned French shuttles won and forced the adversary’s satellites to redirect orbits and camera views while the fleet crossed the Atlantic. The battle in orbit played out bloodlessly and harmlessly: even the laser dazzlers were tuned to not permanently damage equipment. The OTAN fleet below was clouded by the fog of war once more.

	[i]Capitaine[/i] Fillion watched the fighters sailing off over the horizon. The delta-wing fighters disappeared into the Atlantic’s misty fog. She sighed again, steadying herself against the barrier. Turning to Kohl, she gestured that they should both go inside. Her stomach demanded the outdoors, but she knew there was nothing left to do except sit and wait for the OTAN force to start their operations. It became a purgatory, stuck on a rocking ship with nothing to do. They watched movies on the berthing’s VCR player or played board games or worked out in the gym, but the soldiers could do nothing but wait.

	The OTAN fleet neared the coast within the next twenty-four hours, its task forces splitting into the planned sequence of attack. The landing sites chosen in the east of Nova Scotia and New Brunswick had access to highways and small airports to immediately facilitate the military convoy towards Quebec City and Montreal. The problem, however, was the appearance that running military equipment through the “Anglo” portions of Canada would violate the OTAN mandate on Quebec. This politically sensitive maneuver had been discussed at echelons far higher than [i]Capitaine[/i] Fillion’s staff shop, and the plans had come back down.

	Canada’s east was divided into two areas of responsibility: the primary area, encompassing all of Quebec, was led by French military commanders supporting the Quebecois government in exile. The second, a supporting area, would be under the direct control of British units. The British had been surprised by OTAN’s offer of dual command and took up the mantle in stride. As a result, the British were first off the ship to secure the land needed for the French. Once the British Army made its rounds and secured vital infrastructure, the French would merely need to offload at the landing sites and drive themselves into Quebec itself.

	In a makeshift command post set up aboard the HMS [i]Fearless[/i], Fillion and Kohl stood and observed a digital map with blinking icons move slowly further towards the Canadian coast. Each icon was named and numbered according to their nationality. British battalions, a few French brigades, and supporting units from the Belgians and West Germans: OTAN solicited support from everyone to prove its multilateral commitment to Canadian security. It helped obfuscate the French desire to put its Quebecois allies back in charge in the province.

	One by one, the units began moving. Clambering into big hovercraft and landing vessels, the first of the Royal Marines slipped away from their amphibious assault ships. Even below in the well deck of the [i]Fearless[/i], troops were piling into ships and speeding out of the stern to their formations. The map controller zoomed in, the GALILEO GPS transponders broadcasting their every move. Battalions were split into the more accurate location of companies, and then into the individual discretized landing craft. Their green icons blinked against the black screen, casting a sickly glow on the command post. Radio communication blared on speakers in the background.

	The British reported their positions and sped forward under the cover of helicopter and close air support. The planes swept the coast, firing their afterburners and cracking sonic booms across the landscape. Helicopters kept watchful guard with thermal optics, seeking out their opposition. But nobody came to meet the British at the beach, despite their predictions, and the first Royal Marine vehicles rolled onto the rocky and pebbled beaches of New Brunswick without incident. They spread out and rolled slowly yet deliberately off the beach, infantry trailing behind in light jogs as they used their armored tracks for protection.

	The landings continued unopposed all day, the Canadian military conspicuously absent from any suspected lines of contact. British formations maneuvered out to establish security as the rest of the OTAN troops landed. [i]Capitaine[/i] Fillion led her own section onto the beach by mid-afternoon, with her landing craft dropping ramp at low tide. In a cargo truck towing a tent trailer, she sat in the passenger seat. The body armor and helmet she wore felt awkward and heavy: she hadn’t been to the field since she was a company commander back in France. In between her legs awkwardly balanced between her rucksack and the dashboard was her service rifle. Hopefully she didn’t need to fire it.

	The truck grumbled, its engine thrumming as the truck drove off the landing craft and onto the beach. Ahead was a traffic lane marked by bright orange and pink panels with spray painted arrows directing them to the assembly point. A military policeman started to wave vehicles off with brightly lit batons, a glorified traffic cop in the early stages of a new war. On Fillion’s truck, a trailer held an OTAN command post that was to be set up later. Her driver, a young private, shifted the gears on the truck’s transmission and they both heard a loud hiss of air as the pneumatic brakes disengaged. Slowly, they rolled forward off the landing craft.

	Around them, the beach looked like any other beach in France. Vibrant green forests lay ahead of them, a well-kept grassy park lay to their right. Military vehicles lined up in vacant parking lots, personnel running between them to check with each other. Troops in combat uniforms slinging rifles over their shoulder meandered about, performing their duties in the logistical chaos of an amphibious landing. Now on the beach, Fillion’s truck crunched the grey pebbles below its heavy-duty tires. As they traveled off the beachhead, a musing came to her. It didn’t look like a great place to take a family out, that’s for sure: the beach looked far too sharp and cold.