America, through a combination of luck, terrain and strategic ruthlessness had
managed to survive.
On both coasts there were plains which, except for specific cities, had been ceded to
the Posleen. But the north-south mountain ranges on both sides of the continent, along
with the Mississippi, had permitted the country to reconsolidate and even locally
counterattack.
In the West the vast bulk of the Rockies protected the interior, preventing a link-up
between the Posleen trapped in the narrow strip of land between the mountains and the
sea. That narrow strip of land, however, had once contained a sizable percentage of the
population of the U.S. and the effect of the dislocation and civilian loss there was
tremendous. In the end most of the residents of California, Washington and Oregon made
it to safe havens in the Rockies. Most of them found themselves in the still-building
underground cities, the "Sub-Urbs" recommended by the Galactics. There they sat,
working in underground factories to produce the materials the war needed and sending
forth their hale to defend the lines.
There were many untapped sources of materials in the Rockies and all of them were
being exploited, but what was missing was food production. Prior to the first landing all
holds had been released on agricultural production and the American agricultural
juggernaut had responded magnificently. But most of the spare food had ended up being
sent to the few fortified cities on the plains. They were scheduled to hold out for five
years and food was their overriding concern. So there was, elsewhere, a severe shortage
when the first massive landing occurred. Almost all the productive farmlands in the west,
with the exception of the Klamath Basin, had been captured by the Posleen. So most of
the food for the Western Sub-Urbs had to be provided over a long, thin link across the
Northern Plains following I-94 and the Santa Fe Railroad. Sever that link and eighty-five
million people would slowly starve to death.
In the east it was much the same. The Appalachian line stretched from New York to
Georgia and linked up with the Tennessee River to create an uncrossable barrier from the
St. Lawrence to the Mississippi. The Appalachians, however, were nothing compared to
the Rockies. Not only were they lower throughout, but they had passes that were nearly
as open as flatland. Thus the Posleen found numerous places to assault all along the line.
And the fighting at all of them, Roanoke, Rochester, Chattanooga and others, had been
intense and bloody. In all the gaps regular formations, mixed with Galactic Armored
Combat Suits and the elite Ten Thousand, battled day and night against seemingly
unending waves of Posleen. But the lines held. They held at times only because the
survivors of an assault were too tired to run, but they held. They bent from time to time
but nowhere had they ever been fully sundered.
The importance of the Appalachian defenses could not be overstated. With the loss
of the coastal plains, and much of the Great Plains, the sole remaining large areas for
food production were Central Canada, the Cumberland plateau and the Ohio Valley. And
although the Canadian plains were high quality grain production areas, their total
production per acre was low and they were effectively unable to produce a range of
products. In addition, while there was increasing industry throughout British Columbia
and Quebec, the logistical problems of a broad-based economy in nearly sub-Arctic
conditions that had always plagued Canada continued even in the face of the Posleen
threat. It was impossible to shoehorn the entire surviving population of the U.S. into