Entire buildings, cars, buses, crowds of people; all of them were wiped out in an instant. Erased from the face of the earth like insignificant insects facing the might of a power they could never even begin to understand. The destruction was unimaginable, unending, and unstoppable. The White House ceased to exist, as did the capitol building. Almost two hundred and thirty years of political control erased in an instant.
GO TO HELL
Saturday 12:10 a.m. – New York City
Cal stopped talking to Louise when Jake was taking a turn at consoling her. He half listened to the young cop giving advice which he himself had never needed until very recently. He heard the words coming from a man he must have at least a decade on, and although he knew they were well intended, he also suspected they may sound hollow to others too.
High over their heads and thousands of miles to their north west, screaming south east at a little over eight thousand miles an hour, tore five ABMs, anti-ballistic missiles, fired in automatic response from a US base in Alaska. Because the distance of the launches was far shorter than expected, less than one hundred miles off the east coast, the Movement missiles devised for the mid-course intercepts were pointless to launch, instead they relied on the new system designed and tested in secret.
The Chinese weren’t the only world power to have unleashed new technology that night, and when the word was given to launch five of the thirty-six Seeker 6 missiles the United States had at their disposal, just about everyone held their breath. Testing had proven to be 100 percent effective, but they were on the back foot. The nukes detonated on the west coast weren’t missile-borne, but the signatures which set alarms screaming from the Atlantic near Florida were in play.
Lieutenant Colonel Andy Gilbert stood at ease as he watched the signatures on the big screen split apart and head in different directions.
“Acquire targets,” he called out to his control room, “prepare to fire five Seekers.”
“Targets acquired,” came a calm response, “fire on your mark.”
“Fire,” said Gilbert instantly with no trace of hesitation, feeling the facility shake with the combined force of five rockets capable of almost Mach-9 erupting into the sky far above them.
The threat had first come from the Soviet Union, and the facility he stood in was built as a direct response to that threat of mutually assured destruction. The United States had no desire to agree to be destroyed and, just as every other country in possession of nuclear warheads, began another arms race with more intensity than the space race to develop the most effective intercept missiles. These next generation missiles were designed with another purpose, rather than another tool in the box for two heavyweights to slug it out. The threat they feared more today was a short-range attack, or a nuclear or chemical or biological attack coming in by plane. The Seekers were designed to outrun everything known to fly, and instead of carrying a warhead, it relied on kinetic energy to displace the attack.
The program started way back in the eighties and was intended for short range use as tank busters, but the project was subsequently cancelled. It was quietly reinvented in the windowless meeting rooms of government buildings, using specialists in different fields like solid-fuel propulsion and electronic guidance systems all working in information silos and never getting together until the prototypes were ready.
“Target analysis,” Gilbert called out. “Intercept percentage.”
“Missile trajectory indicates Florida, Nashville, D.C., Boston, or New York. Last missile is a slow-mover and indicates…” The analyst paused, trying to search the digital map along the projected line of the missile’s path for a target. Gilbert didn’t snap at the woman, didn’t allow his fear and nerves to dictate how he treated his team. He permitted her a few seconds.
“Sir, based on trajectory I believe it could be heading for Pittsburgh,” she said finally.
“Could be?” Gilbert asked, his need for certainty greater than ever.
“Sir, trajectory is off for direct line, but no other major population center is in the path,” she answered. Before Gilbert could ruminate on that another analyst called out with panic in their voice.
“Impact! Detonation over Florida,” he squealed in panic. Gilbert fully expected that this would happen. He couldn’t do the complex calculations in his head with other things happening in quick time, but he knew that their missiles couldn’t cover the short distance that the first missile had covered in a matter of seconds.
“Understood,” he said coolly, swallowing. “Intercept percentage,” he said again.
“Sir,” the female analyst again, “slower moving missile at one hundred per cent, D.C. thirty-eight percent.”
“And the others?” Gilbert asked, the note of his voice changing slightly as he absorbed the majority likelihood that their capital would be annihilated in minutes.
“Looks like Boston, sir.” A pause. “Negative outcome. Twenty-one per cent intercept chance. Incoming missiles are accelerating faster than we anticipated.”
“Impact!” shouted the analyst. “It’s… it’s D.C. sir…”
“Understood,” Gilbert said again in a deadpan voice, staring at the screen resolutely.
“Impact!” shouted the excitable analyst again. “North of Fayetteville,” he said, scanning a map for the target.
“Fort Bragg,” Gilbert said, not needing a map to know what was just to the north west of the city. Gilbert waited, his hands clasped together and his breathing rapid as he watched the illuminated legends creep across the screen. The missile heading for Boston blinked out, and was followed by another impact report. Gilbert barely heard it, but acknowledged it all the same. He was reminded of the serenity prayer; he had to accept the things he could not change, he had used courage to change, or at least try to change, the things he could, and now he was learning the wisdom to tell the difference.
“Intercept!” screamed the analyst. “Remaining missile taken down near Atlanta.”
The control room cheered as one, not realizing the devastation they had just suffered, or simply not fully understanding it yet. Inside of a few tense minutes they had lost one of their biggest military bases, two cities with millions of casualties, and their capital. Gilbert stayed in the position he was stood in, rooted to the spot and fighting to keep himself calm.
And the attack would go, for now at least, unanswered. Because there was nobody left alive with the authority to launch a counterstrike.
The Movement, the treasonous fools, had ensured that, unwittingly, by securing the president and making him the perfect sitting duck.
Just as Jake was trying to emulate the easy manner of command that he had seen in others, a flash like lightening seared across the windows. It was like lightening, but at the same time it couldn’t be because the flash lingered instead of plunging the sky back into darkness. As the flash began to wane, a rumbling of something far away hit them as though they were on the very edge on a small earthquake.
Some people didn’t notice it, others did and began to ask questions. Jake, Cal, and Sebastian all exchanged looks.
“Sir,” Jake asked Sebastian. “Do you have roof access here?”