DEFCON Year New Generation: Leigh Barton

Chapter 1

One month after blowing up a weapons trafficking group in Southeast Asia, Leigh and the rest of her team were taking some down time when they suddenly heard a USMC Intelligence officer coming into the room. Even if Leigh knew Civil Rights in the US have been improved in the sense that everyone was now equal before the law regardless of gender, ethnicity, sexual orientation or religion while also enjoying a better social justice, this wasn't the case everywhere around the world since some countries had adopted similar reforms for a more equal society built on social justice and better government control over the private sector while others just didn't want to do it.

As she thought about it, Leigh led her team to the briefing room, where the Intelligence officer stood in front of a white board where the team saw several pictures of individuals being displayed thanks to a projector linked to a laptop.

As the Intelligence officer was briefing the team, Leigh noticed she and her team would be sent to China, a country which was now near two US Military bases in the Paracel and Spratley islands, which had been conquered by the Allies of World War III as part of the strategy to put China out of the war while NATO had gotten even stronger thanks to the accession of Sweden and Finland into the Alliance prior to World War III as well as the foundation of a trans-Pacific alliance led by the US at the start of the war.

But the more Leigh listened to the briefing, the more she realized her team and Leigh herself would be sent in China as bodyguards for a US delegation for new peace talks with China's government, which took no part in World War III on the grounds they had links to Russia's now-dead dictator. But the world has changed since the United States and its allies had won World War III, crushing Russia, North Korea, Iran, China, Cuba and Venezuela before replacing the dictators in these countries with democratic-leaning Resistance-led governments.

But China was still a totalitarian, corrupt and backwards-thinking totalitarian regime. And Leigh also knew misogyny and racism were common in China, both of which could prove to be an issue since President Wally Barnes was an African-American Democrat Party official while Leigh herself was a woman in addition to Darnell being an African-American man while Tores and Marquez were Hispanic-Americans.

As Leigh thought about it, she also noticed the Intelligence officer showing the portraits of US officials part of the delegation involved in said talks while also noticing a table giving the differences between pre-World War III and the post-World War III United States as well as the progress made during and after World War III in economic, social, political, military and judicial terms in the US. Suddenly, another table showed how little China had evolved for the better after World War III.

Darnell, Marquez and Tores realized how much the United States had changed for the better during and after World War III due to the role of the reformed US Military in that war, including the landing onto the Paracel and Spratley islands as well as the retaking and restitution of Filipino, Taiwanese and Indonesian islands to their rightful owners during the early stages of the conflict before starting a new island hopping campaign.

As Leigh and her team listened to the briefing, they realized the Intelligence was actually briefing them about both their mission and the cultural differences between the post-World War III United States and the post-World War III China, since the team didn't quite understand the cultural differences between Asia and the United States. Leigh also understood the team would have to be careful about their vocabulary because of the cultural differences between the two countries.

Leigh and her team also understood they had to avoid mentioning the US bases in the Luzon Sea, since China still didn't like the post-World War III American military presence on the Paracel and Spratley islands while other countries like the Philippines, Taiwan and Indonesia had no such problem thanks to huge amounts of US assistance in the region and to all of the Allied countries involved in World War III. And Leigh also knew she and her team had to even avoid speaking about better equality and social justice in their country during their stay as an escort detail in China.

Leigh also realized pre-2024 differences and prejudices had been blunted during World War III thanks to the active participation of LGBT people, persons from ethnic minorities in the US and even women while China never actively took part in World War III, unlike many other countries which sent troops to fight alongside American forces. And Leigh had a stepsister who had fought as a sniper in the US Army on the Pacific front in World War III while Leigh herself had proven a very dexterous sniper and drone pilot, turning her into an Intelligence operative.