Location: Pearl Harbour, Honolulu, United States of America

Unit: Carrier Strike Group One, United States Third Fleet

Date: April 22nd, 2021 CE

"My fellow Americans," A voice muttered, "Earlier this morning, the US Government announced Marshall law in Washington DC along with several other states for some reason I have been asked not to share. However, I want the American people to know the truth of what happened today," the voice trembled, "In the next few minutes, I worry Washington will be nothing but rubble and I will be but a memory; I did not prepare this speech and I will not hide from the incoming attack. We have received information from the British Government, that they think they've discovered a plot to level several major cities including... Washington DC." The speech suddenly paused, revealing it was no more than a recorded TV broadcast.

"Get this shit off," a horrified voice said, "Why the hell are you watching the doomsday broadcast again?"

A United States Military sailor in a Khaki uniform stood in the doorway observing his friend who was just wearing casual clothes. He was quite a buff man, with slicked-back black hair and blue eyes who went by the name of Kilroy Housten.

"Sorry man," the man in casual clothes said, "Forgot you didn't like history."

Housten snarled at him, "I don't 'not like history', I just dislike that idiot; he got nearly three million people killed because of the lack of information given to the public, Joan."

The man in casual clothes was called Jonah Grain, he was also a sailor onboard the USS Carl Vinson and he and Housten had been childhood friends since as far back as First Grade, "I need to go out into town, anyway, be back soon."

As Grain exited the building he walked through the base lodgings towards his car.

Suddenly he heard the whizzing of jet aircraft as the rippling of a machine gun tore through the air sending shrapnel piercing the air and covering the once pure Hawaiian skies. With that, the building barely forty metres exploded as an unknown plane flew overhead.

"What the hell!" Grain yelled as small shards of steel shrapnel hit him square in the chest. He was sent flying into a car and his vision went dark.

***

As Grain got to his feet, his head whizzed and whirled, like it had been through a washing machine. He grasped his forehead trying to regain control of his unstable body. As he felt around he noticed something steel was sticking out the side of his cheek. He yanked it.

Screaming out in pain he collapsed onto his front, gripping his face, in agonising suffering. Blood trickled down the side of his cheek as he tried to stop it from leaving his batter body, but it was futile. He made the mistake of pulling a piece of shrapnel from his cheek causing a cut to open up and a red substance to burst out like an exploding dam.

His ears stopped ringing, revealing the sound of gunfire and bone-chilling cries from regular people. They were calling for help, calling for the firefight to stop. Who was shooting? Was it a terrorist attack? Or was it them?

The NZA.

Someone suddenly came into Grain's eyeshot, he was carrying a variant of the M16 and what looked to be a smaller pistol on his hip. He was dressed in partial marine woodland camo pattern gear and a small military cap.

Before Grain could react, the marine grabbed him by the back of his shirt and threw him onto his shoulder. Firing his M16 from his hip, he turned his head and yelled something that Grain couldn't hear before several more marines pushed forwards into the firing lines.

The marines quickly suppressed and routed out enemy soldiers in dark green military uniforms with lower face-covering masks connected to their helmets. Their helmets looked similar to something like medieval knight helmets in terms of design but were made from a low calibre resistant material enabling faster movement and the colour also matched the rest of the gear.

"You should be safe here," the marine said before placing down Grain behind a pile of rubble on the side of the road. He handed him an old M1911 sidearm and stepped away, raising his rifle to go back into combat.

Gunfire flew over the top of Grain's head narrowly missing him, but he was still a member of the US military; he knew his job. To fight.

Standing up he raised his pistol, but as soon as he had his weapon trained on any of the NZA forces they dropped dead from a sudden headshot from the marines. They were incredible, the skill difference was just too different. The US marines were hardened veterans who had been fighting for several years across the world while these forces looked like they had only seen maybe a few years of training.

Each marine was perfectly calm every time a bullet was fired but the enemy had sporadic breathing due to the breakdown in nerves. He could see their fierce breathing and some of the enemy were even hyperventilating. The US marines took advantage of this pushing further forward while dropping enemy after enemy.

Within less than a minute, the two four-man teams of marines had wiped out at least sixty attackers with zero losses. Only once they checked the bodies did they rally at the injured sailor. Grain was bloodied and had some of his clothes torn and cut.

The first marine came over and pulled around a large first aid kit from behind his back, "take off your jacket and lay on it I'll administer a temporary fix," he said.

Grain did as he was told, "What the hell happened."

"Its the NZA" the marine paused, "their fighter jets came from the sky and obliterated our ground forces along with most of the third fleet and US Pacific Fleet command."

At the start of the month, the third fleet was ordered to rendezvous at Hawaii and pick up extra marines and soldiers then meet the seventh Fleet in Japan before landing in China to assist the remnants of the Peoples Liberation Army before marching on the ex territories of Australia and New Zealand and basically ending the war before it could begin... that was the plan anyway.

"By God," Grain said, "What's the size of the enemy force."

The marines looked at one another before one pulled out a video on their phone, "Watch this."

The video showed a huge fleet probably double the size of the one that attacked Russia along with multiple railgun battleships as they were now being called. They were monsters straight out of fiction, capable of wiping out an armada of ships on its own just with a few shots. Everyone saw the videos spread all over social media. It was one of the NZA's mental warfare campaigns filled with propaganda and death to humanity mottos.

"That's not possible," Grain shook himself back into reality, "How didn't we spot them? Can we pinpoint the first mass expansion?"

"Zero clue, ask the government," A marine said.

"I'm Lieutenant Grains of the USS Carl Vinson," he paused, "Who would you be."

"Pleasure to meet you, lieutenant," the marine leader replied, "I'm Sergeant Regs, the boys call me popper though."

Grains smiled, "Popper? You get that name from excellent accuracy?"

He almost broke down in laughter, "Oh your gonna love this story, nope actually that's not how; I can pop a full-sized balloon just by flicking it once!"

Grains was speechless, "R-really?"

"Really."

Grains broke down into laughter, "That's too funny, anyway let's get going we need to get to a safer place and wait for evac."

The marine Sergeant nodded in agreement and offered to lift Grains, "Let's go."

***

The whole island had gone quiet, no one knew what was happening. The US had sustained two attacks in a month, it was unthinkable. Not even 9/11 or the original Pearl Harbour attack reached this level of horror for the American people.

A speaker played revealing the oh so familiar voice of the Oceanic Imperial Propagandist who had been broadcasting several messages over the past month, "Hello Americans! I'm back to share the good news of our survival against your nuclear attacks."

The formation came to a stop instantly, trying to listen to where the voice was coming from. To some, this voice was known as one of just a mad raving idiot trying to get his enemies killed, but others knew it as the voice of death. If his voice was ever heard on the battlefield it meant a large group of NZA guards were nearby probably consisting of a few members of their elite Death Squads. Death Squads were first encountered in Switzerland by a special forces division and it's said they wore skull masks and would execute civilians over killing soldiers. This was proved in China when videos surfaced of squads hunting down civilians with nothing but a knife and brutally murdering them.

They were monsters in human skin.

"Your governments have tried to hide this from you, but I'm here to tell you truth as your President did before his untimely demise!" The voice was giggling, "Your nation and its NATO allies tried to nuke us! However, none of those missiles hit!"

The marines looked at each other confused.

"Yes you heard me, our new Anti Ballistic Missile system shot down roughly a few hundred nuclear weapons in one day," the voice let out an excited laugh.

"What the hell..." Popper said, "No one has that tech--"

Almost like the propagandist could read Popper's mind, "But no one has that technology, your thinking," he paused, "well, we do."

Suddenly gunfire broke out around the marines.

"AMBUSH!" Popper said, "Right side!"

Two marines died within the first second but the rest were able to move to cover and return fire. The firefight ensued, but the marines were outgunned and outnumbered, but not outmatched.

Popper grabbed a grenade from one of his fallen friends and threw it in the general vicinity of where he thought the NZA forces were.

BOOM!

The grenade sent several of the enemy flying out of cover and incinerated several more instantly. The enemy was sent into disarray which gave the sailor and the remaining Marines time to retreat.

Grain had to be lifted to safety by one of the other due to the wounds spread across his body. Popper kicked in the nearest door and his men cleared the room of hostiles. As soon as it was clear, he pulled up a map of the city, "Listen we can't stay on the base, however there seems to be a boat house, if we can get it open we may be able to make it to somewhere like Kahoolawe... we can hide there and await reinforcements."

One of the other marines turned around, "There will be no counterattack... for a while at least, the NZA are active across the globe and we are fighting them everywhere, it's going to take before a while before a large enough group of soldiers arrives back on North American soil."

The dark thought had washed over all of them, but no one had mentioned it.

Popper nodded, "Maybe... but there should be supplies on Kahoolawe from previous inhabitants, we can last it out there."

The marines looked at each other, all biting their tongues when another marine spoke, "Well we can't stay here."

They had all decided... it was escape or die trying.

***

Walking through the desolate military base they weaved in between houses suddenly coming out on the glistening coastline. The sun was still up, they had a few hours before it went down.

Popper looked at them, "Right, we have to take this boat around the coast to a bigger boat, due to the fact that this is a piece of shit."

One of the soldiers chuckled, "You sure have a mouth on you, Sir, you said that three times now."

Popper frowned, "Well I have to convince myself that this will work before I convince any of you," he paused exhaling, "Because its definitely better than laying down and dying," he gulped as he climbed into the small boat.

Looking back at the shore he saw a single desolate figure standing in the window... they looked odd. Almost uncanny... 

But as Popper analysed the figure he saw a red oozing substance pour out the stomach area onto the window and a skull mask appeared behind them. He recoiled in shock immediately drawing his rifle and firing at the window, "START THE FUCKING BOAT, ITS A DEATH SQUAD!"

The marines turned around in shock letting supporting fire rain around their surroundings; climbing into the boat, Grains was placed on the captains seat, immediately start the boat he looked back, "Hold on!"

Popper looked around, "JUST GO!"

Following orders the Sailor hit the accelerator. Launching the boat further out to sea, circling back the soldier lay down looking at each other, one of them swore, "Death troopers... here? we are so fucked."

Popper climbed into the second seat overlooking the controls, "Follow the island to the left, we'll soon reach a small port with a large white yacht."

Grains chuckled, "Yours?"

Popper sighed, "Fathers."

Looking at each other, Grains questioned further, "How do we know your father hasn't taken it?"

Rolling his eyes, Popper replied, "He's was in France last time I heard from him... he's safe."

Grains knew not to push any further otherwise he may cause trouble, so he just sat there sailing down the coast...

A few minutes passed, nothing... nothing happened, its was eerily quiet. As they approached the peer a fog started started to set in and the sun had completely gone down. Pulling alongside the Yacht, they climbed on, Grains grabbed a bag from the back of the boat, shoving it on the accelerator he jumped onto the ladder pulling himself away and watching the boat fly off into the fog... then it exploded as a metallic object appeared in the mist. Its shape took form. Another ship. 

The sea was silent as Grains climbed onto deck. The marines stared in horror as the realised what it was.

A beast made of steel... a vessel made to fuel the NZA war machine.

Suddenly a voice broke out from inside the cabin... but all the marines were on deck, going downstairs they heard the propagandists voice once more. The TV in the corner of the room was turned on, filling the room with sound. Grains and the marines watched he screen.

"Like you, Citizens of the oh so great United States, have now fallen under attack by us several times, I thought maybe we'd reminisce about the first attack," The voice fell silent only to be replaced by the voice of the old American President.

"My fellow Americans..." It was the doomsday speech, the final transmission from the last US President. Grains had listened to this recording so much, that he remembered every word from that horrific day.

Then the recording reached where Grains had left off earlier and his eyes widened, "... We have received information from the British Government, that they think they've discovered a plot to level several major cities including... Washington DC... I know this may be a shock to you, but there is nothing we can do anymore, most of the government evacuated but I'll stay," the recording of the president had a worried and saddened look on his face, "I won't abandon our capital, however, I'm going to ask a favour of everyone listening. Teach our enemies the true power of the American people. Our people," the recording flickered as an explosion of light filled the sky behind the American President. The US military personnel present watched the most horrific event in American history unfold before their eyes. The windows of the White House were blown out and the building collapsed on top of the camera ending the recording.

That monster's voice appeared again, the propagandist, "Wow, that was such a satisfying ending don't you think?" a small laugh broke from the voice of the enemy, Grains tightened his fist around the air and gritted his teeth as the Propagandist paused again... then he continued, "Yes I'm talking to you Lieutenant Grains of the USS Carl Vinson and Sergeant Regs with his Marines."

Everyone's eyes widened as he continued to talk to us, "You really thought you could leave this place alive? There will be no escape. So die."

Suddenly the main gun of the warship started to charge up; revealing it full steel deck and whole shape. It could only be described as one thing... a battleship. Then it fired, shredding through the hull the boat was split in two as shards a fire burned bright. They increased in size and heat as the Battleship charged again sending two shots through, these burned bright as all living being in vessel stopped moving, knowing their life was already over. The shell exploded but not before Grains saw the small detailed phrase on its front, 'You get what you deserve!'

The eyes of the soldiers' died for a second but before they could move again, hellfire filled the room causing everyone to scream in agony. But no one died instantly, they just collapsed. This weapon wasn't meant to kill people quickly, it was made to make people suffer and cry out to be helped. But no help would ever come, it was a futile attempt. Impossible one might say.

The marines' skins started to melt off their skulls revealing a thick sticky substance on the inside. It was once their brains, reduced to nothing. Then one by one they collapsed and died a painful and horrifying death.