THE NEW CANADA INCIDENT

In February 2012, the United Canadian Empire (UCE) launched Operation: Gambit, the most dangerous coordinated attack New England had faced in modern history.

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Emperor North demanded that the United States surrender all six New England states to the UCE, where the region would be reorganized as New Canada.

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His leverage was a network of nuclear and radiological threats distributed throughout New England.

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At the same time, UCE troops, Redcoats, sabotage teams, and superpowered UCE Enforcers attacked communications systems, military installations, transportation routes, emergency networks, and other strategic targets.

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False emergency broadcasts were used to direct police, National Guard personnel, military staff, government officials, and other potential resistance leaders toward UCE-controlled detention sites.

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Propaganda urged civilians to remain home and portrayed American resistance as the true danger.

For several hours, the strategy worked.

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New England began to fracture.

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UNION BLUE AND THE RESISTANCE

Union Blue — Sarah Westwood recognized the UCE occupation tactics almost immediately.

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Having lived through the Soltan occupation of Connecticut as a teenager, she understood how false checkpoints, controlled movement, staged evacuation routes, intimidation, and disarmament could be used to neutralize an entire region without fighting every defender directly.

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Sarah began bypassing compromised orders and building resistance cells from police, National Guard personnel, trusted officials, emergency responders, and civilians.

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These groups preserved weapons and communications equipment, opened secondary routes, moved civilians, protected specialists, and prevented large numbers of regional personnel from walking directly into UCE traps.

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Her role during New Canada transformed personal experience into operational expertise.

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MINUTEMAN AND THE GAMBIT RELAY NETWORK

While Union Blue countered the occupation on the ground, Minuteman — Hunter Hollister began studying the pattern behind the communications collapse.

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Most communications systems had been destroyed or disrupted.

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A handful of high-powered transceiver sites remained active.

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At first, they appeared to be infrastructure the UCE had simply overlooked.

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Minuteman realized the opposite was true.

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The towers had been deliberately preserved.

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They formed the Gambit Relay Network, Emperor North’s dedicated remote-control system for the nuclear and radiological devices.

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The network was redundant. Disabling one relay would not be enough.

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Minuteman determined that the critical relay sites had to be destroyed or shut down almost simultaneously before the system could switch into emergency transmission mode.

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The estimated synchronization window was only:

four seconds.

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THE BACKLINE

The Yankee Minutemen still faced a major problem.

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How could multiple teams across New England coordinate a near-simultaneous attack when most regional communications had already failed?

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The answer came from Vermont.

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The old Green Mountain Boys had maintained a network of abandoned copper telephone infrastructure, analog phones, fax machines, legacy switching equipment, and low-speed data links known as:

The Backline.

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Because the system was obsolete, the UCE had largely ignored it.

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For several critical hours, the Backline became one of the few reliable systems connecting scattered Yankee Minutemen, military personnel, regional responders, and allied forces.

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Minuteman and Union Blue used it to coordinate the strike against the Gambit Relay Network.

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FOUR SECONDS

Across New England, Yankee Minutemen, military personnel, National Guard units, GUARD teams, police tactical forces, regional heroes, Green Mountain Boys, and other responders moved against the relay sites.

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Minuteman controlled the timing.

Union Blue coordinated field contingencies.

The Backline carried the countdown.

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Within approximately four seconds, the critical Gambit Relay sites were destroyed or disabled.

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Emperor North lost remote detonation control.

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The balance of the war changed instantly.

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ENFORCER ALPHA’S PLAN B

Enforcer Alpha I responded immediately.

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If the WMDs could no longer be controlled remotely, then the UCE would have to physically retake them.

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Alpha activated Plan B.

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UCE troops, Redcoats, and Enforcers were redirected toward the weapon sites.

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The reason those sites had previously been relatively lightly occupied became obvious: North had not wanted large numbers of UCE personnel standing beside devices he might have to detonate.

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Once remote detonation was lost, that calculation changed.

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The Yankee Minutemen had anticipated the move.

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The moment the relay network failed, their teams moved on the WMD locations.

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Their first objective was to disable the local remote-control receivers on each weapon.

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Then qualified technicians began the far slower work of making the devices safe.

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Within minutes, the UCE attacked.

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THE WMD SIEGES

The next several hours became the most intense phase of Operation: Gambit.

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Yankee Minutemen teams defended technical personnel from waves of UCE troops, Redcoats, and Enforcers.

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Doctor Phlebotinum’s specialized anti-superhuman countermeasures temporarily disabled or disrupted several heroes.

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Across the region, different Yankees faced different forms of the same problem:

hold long enough for somebody else to finish the real job.

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Captain Connecticut I defended Connecticut while repeatedly choosing civilian protection over pursuit of Enforcer Alpha.

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Providence pushed her Arcane Reserve nearly to exhaustion during the Rhode Island mass-casualty crisis later remembered as The Four Hours.

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Master Warwick contained Netherbride long enough for civilians and responders to escape.

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Sister Salem helped expose the Cambridge EMP operation through fragmented foresight.

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Lexington held a narrow corridor against UCE attackers while technical personnel completed their work.

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At Portsmouth Naval Shipyard, Maine Man and Iron Works protected responders dealing with a WMD threat complicated by both military and supernatural interference.

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Snowfury kept mountain evacuation and supply routes open in New Hampshire despite repeated attacks.

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Granite Guy physically held a collapsing structure long enough for trapped civilians and responders to escape during the event later remembered simply as Six Minutes.

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In Vermont, Nor’easter and the Green Mountain Boys protected Jason Wentworth while he worked to disable the local nuclear threat.

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The battles nearly overwhelmed the team.

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VERMONT AND THE GREEN MOUNTAIN BOYS

Vermont suffered some of the worst sustained fighting of the incident.

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The Green Mountain Boys used local terrain, heavy equipment, communications expertise, and improvised tactics against UCE forces.

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Their most famous encounter involved Yukon.

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When conventional attacks failed against the massive crystalline Enforcer, the Green Mountain Boys used logging and blasting expertise to bring an enormous tree down on him.

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It pinned him.

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For roughly a minute.

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That was enough.

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Nor’easter, meanwhile, struggled with his own desire for revenge against Yukon.

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Josiah Wentworth stopped Jack Rower from executing him, forcing Jack to confront the difference between justice and vengeance.

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Josiah was killed shortly afterward by UCE indirect fire.

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The lesson remained.

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THE YANKEES BEGIN TO FAIL

By the final hours of the WMD sieges, the Yankee Minutemen were near collapse.

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Armor was damaged.

Ammunition was running low.

Providence was nearing reserve depletion.

Snowfury had been operating almost continuously.

Granite Guy was battered.

Captain Connecticut’s systems were degrading.

The Green Mountain Boys were suffering catastrophic losses.

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For a brief period, Enforcer Alpha’s Plan B still appeared capable of succeeding.

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Then reports arrived confirming that the remote network was dead and local WMD control systems were being neutralized.

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Minuteman and Union Blue sent the call through the Backline and every surviving military and emergency channel they could reach:

The bombs are contained. We need everybody. Now.

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NEW ENGLAND ANSWERS

The response changed the battle.

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Air National Guard aircraft moved.

National Guard units mobilized.

Police departments reopened roads.

Military formations converged.

GUARD entered the fight.

The Challengers and other regional heroes responded.

Union Blue’s resistance cells guided reinforcements through areas still controlled by the UCE.

Fire departments and EMS crews moved toward casualty zones.

Civilians joined the effort.

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The UCE had tried to isolate New England.

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Instead, the region began moving as one force.

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In Vermont, that mobilization became known as the Green Mountain Rally.

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Residents arrived with vehicles, tools, food, fuel, medical supplies, weapons, and whatever else they believed could help.

When the immediate fighting began to subside, many of those same civilians began treating wounded UCE troops alongside their own.

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First they came armed. Then they came with bandages.

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ENFORCER ALPHA’S END

With the WMD sites slipping from UCE control and regional reinforcements arriving, Operation: Gambit collapsed.

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Enforcer Alpha withdrew to the remaining UCE command position.

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The Yankee Minutemen pursued.

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By the time the final defenses were breached, Alpha was badly wounded.

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The Yankees prepared to capture him.

Alpha understood that his operation had failed completely.

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The relay network was gone.

The WMD sites were lost.

New England had not surrendered.

His Emperor would know.

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Unable to accept capture or return to Emperor North as a failure, Enforcer Alpha used one of his own weapons to take his own life.

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The Yankee Minutemen did not celebrate.

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His death became one of the clearest demonstrations of how completely Emperor North had shaped the identity and loyalty of those closest to him.

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No Yankee Minuteman was responsible for Alpha’s death.

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NOR’EASTER’S FINAL SACRIFICE

Even as Gambit collapsed elsewhere, Vermont remained dangerous.

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Clyde Wentworth was badly wounded.

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Nor’easter used his powers to send Clyde toward safety on an improvised ice rescue sled.

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Jack Rower could still have escaped.

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Then Yukon returned.

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There were wounded people behind him.

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Jack stayed.

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Mortally wounded in the confrontation, Nor’easter used the last of his strength to contain Yukon rather than execute him.

Josiah’s lesson survived.

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Jack Rower died at age twenty-two.

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His final choices became the basis for what the Green Mountaineers would later call:

 

Rower’s Rule: People first.

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THE THREE-DAY LIBERATION

The decisive WMD crisis ended roughly thirty hours after Emperor North’s proclamation.

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The UCE occupation did not.

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For approximately three more days, police, National Guard, Air National Guard, military personnel, GUARD, superhero teams, resistance cells, and emergency responders systematically reclaimed the region.

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They:

• liberated UCE detention sites;

• dismantled roadblocks;

• recovered stolen military equipment;

• destroyed remaining Redcoats;

• arrested UCE personnel;

• restored communications;

• reopened transportation routes;

• located sabotage devices;

• tracked surviving Enforcers.

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The exhausted Yankee Minutemen continued assisting where their abilities were required, but conventional forces increasingly carried the burden.

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That mattered.

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The incident proved that New England’s institutions had not disappeared.

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They had been disrupted.

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Once they could communicate again, they worked.

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THE COST OF NEW CANADA

Victory came at tremendous cost.

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All six states suffered casualties, infrastructure damage, displacement, military losses, emergency-service disruption, and long-term psychological consequences.

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The Green Mountain Boys suffered catastrophic losses.

Of 124 members, 122 deployed.

Eighty-eight were killed.

Thirty-four returned from the deployment.

Two members had not deployed.

Only thirty-six immediate survivors remained.

The old Green Mountain Boys never truly recovered.

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Nor’easter was dead.

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Enforcer Alpha I was dead.

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Communities across New England began rebuilding.

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AFTERMATH

The surviving Green Mountain Boys eventually reorganized as the Green Mountaineers.

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The new organization deliberately moved away from its older militia identity and emphasized:

• search and rescue;

• disaster response;

• communications resilience;

• technical operations;

• logistics;

• regional preparedness.

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The Backline remained operational.

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Nor’easter’s sacrifice became part of their doctrine.

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The Yankee Minutemen changed as well.

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Operation: Gambit proved that no superhero team could protect an entire region through combat alone.

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The team became more decentralized, rescue-oriented, communications-redundant, and integrated with civilian and institutional partners.

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The crisis permanently broadened their understanding of what victory meant.

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