Today was quite possibly the biggest day in General Byrd’s long career. During his tenure, he had worked side by side with hundreds of Vitahician aliens, personally flown a space ship to Neptune, oversaw the development of Mach 6 AG Fighters, and even executed a few Large Gray aliens when the opportunity arose. But today would be a first, and based on his age, most likely his last first. Today, he would witness an event that had not happened in over seventy years.
“Good morning, General Byrd,” said General Johnson as he joined him in the back of the command center. General Johnson was tall, lanky, and had thinning gray hair. The men had grown close. After all, the circle of men that could relate to their activities was extraordinarily limited.
“Morning, General, are you ready for the big event?” Byrd asked as he sipped on his black coffee.
“Been ready for twenty years, Sir,” Johnson replied.
“Impegi is approaching low Earth orbit,” one of the junior officers called out.
Two huge thirty-foot display panels in the front of the command center showed the Impegi approaching a low Earth orbit. Every eye that was not staring down at their own display panel was trained on the big screen in the front of the large room. Just as the Impegi was reaching an orbital speed, the unthinkable happened; a fireball shot out of her side like a volcano erupting.
“What in the fuck was that?” General Byrd barked at the officers nearest to him while spilling some of the coffee out of his white ceramic mug.
For a moment, Byrd could not process what he was seeing. It was so unexpected and unimaginable.
“Looks like an explosion,” said one young officer.
“The antimatter reactor just exploded,” said Mudar, one of the Nordic officers. Mudar had been on the Moon Base since it was first commissioned in 1987.
“What can we do?” Byrd asked, deferring to the alien’s centuries of experience.
“Nothing, all is lost,” Mudar flatly stated, “The other antimatter reactors will be vaulted out of the ship. At this orbit, the ship will crash to Earth before we can reach it.”
“How long to impact?” Stone Byrd called out to the command center.
“Eight minutes, tops.”
“Where will the ship crash?” Byrd asked.
“All trajectories point to Siberia - Russia.”
“Will the cargo survive?”
“No way to tell, depends on the skill of the Captain,” the Nordic responded.
Byrd looked at General Johnson, “What can we do to help? Those damn Russians will be all over our cargo like stink on shit.”
Johnson shrugged and said, “We can give them cover.”
“How?” Byrd questioned.
“As it stands now, the Russians can clearly see our cargo ship crashing into Siberia. They have very limited military resources in Siberia since they moved most of their military to the Ukraine border. If we gave them more targets to track, it would dilute their fighting force, giving our guys a chance to escape or recover cargo,” Johnson quietly explained.
“Brilliant!” Byrd exclaimed. “All we have to do is nuke Russia.”
“Get Major Tom up here now!” General Byrd commanded, with a slight grin on his face. This was the perfect opportunity to test out his new missiles.
CHAPTER EIGHT
“Never let a good crisis go to waste,” Byrd thought to himself with a smile.
One minute later, Major Tom was snapping to attention before him with a slightly confused look on his face. “You requested my presence, Sir?”
“At ease, officer. What is the status of the ultra-dimensional missiles?” Byrd barked.
Major Tom, not at ease in the slightest, replied, “Months away from testing.”
“What do we have ready now? That we can launch at this very moment?” Byrd insisted.
“I have ten TEPNOS missiles ready to launch,” Major Tom offered.
“What’s their yield and blast radius?”
“They are variable yield, Sir. We could set a blast radius of one mile, or up to 17 miles. We can also dial back the long term radioactive effects to nearly zero,” answered Tom, somewhat proud that his invention might actually be used.
“I want six TEPNOS missiles launched at Russia right now!” Byrd called out to his command center. “We need to create a diversion, so the Russians will have something else to worry about besides our cargo ship.”
The special weapons targeting officer, sitting near the front of the command center asked, “Target locations?”
“I want each missile to strike between two and five hundred miles of the Impegi’s projected crash site,” Byrd replied, “Don’t let those missiles get so close to the Impegi that it will harm the ship, but they need to be close enough that the Russians won’t know which site to investigate first, giving our guys a chance. If you can place the missile in uninhabited zones, then do so, if not. . .” The General’s voice trailed off. Everyone understood.
Officer Denny called out, “Impegi’s projected crash site in in the middle of the Magadan district in Far East Russia, north west of the Okhotsk Sea, at the foot of the Chersky mountain range.”
Byrd mumbled, “Good, at least I won’t be responsible for killing thousands of people today. Launch the optical stealth missiles, have them targeted in a star burst pattern around the Impegi, two hundred to five hundred miles apart.”
The Magadan district of Russia had less than 160,000 people inhabiting over 178,000 square miles of land, most of whom lived in the port city of Magadan. With an average of less than one person per square mile, there was a good chance collateral damage could be kept to a minimum.
Byrd asked, “How long do we control the trajectory of these missiles?”
Major Tom responded, “Impact will be in six minutes. We will have flight control for the next five minutes, and we can choose to disarm any time before impact.”
Tom knew the order to disarm would not be given. The thought of his team’s creation being the cause of a major war was unsettling.
“I want a population map up on the display now. Guide these missiles to low density population areas, avoid all cities and towns. They are meant to be a distraction, to give the Russians something to investigate besides my space ship. If we can do this with no collateral damage, then let’s make that happen,” Byrd ordered.
“Three minutes to impact,” officer Denny called out. “Final targeting solutions acquired, projected death toll - under two hundred.”
“Just how stealth are these things? I can’t have a trail of bread crumbs pointing back to our secret Moon Base,” Byrd asked.