Sophie studied the massive rocket almost two kilometers away. Maybe they weren’t lying about the incoming strike. In her great crisis of faith, it all came down to a question of faith. Who could she trust more? Her backstabbing leadership or a dictator a thousand miles away in Washington?
“Mr. President, you better fucking be worth it.”
Still gritting her teeth, she spun the turret ring around and warmed up the fire control unit for a TOW anti-tank missile launcher. She lined up the crosshairs, removed the safety and… hesitated.
“This one’s for you, Dad!” She smashed the fire button. The anti-tank guided missile leapt out of the tube riding a wave of compressed gas. The motor ignited a few yards away from her and raced off to its target.
Far too late.
“They’re early!” Sophie stared down the scope and recoiled as the Atlas rocket’s main engine ignited.
Her missile was going to miss.
Sophie flipped off the automated controls and turned on the manual guidance. She took a steady breath and tweaked the joystick just a little. She’d used this system once before to kill a moving target, but that was a tank driving along a road at only 20 mph. Not a friggin’ rocket trying to exit the atmosphere.
Her whole world shrank inside the black and white targeting screen. At a speed of 300 meters a second, Sophie only had time to readjust the missile’s angle of attack. The Atlas rocket was already 200 meters off the ground. The very edge of the maximum theoretical engagement envelope. Sophie took another second to fire off a prayer as both missiles entered the same airspace.
“Shit! Shit! Shit!”
She could have sworn her missile impacted, but the warhead didn’t activate. It just kept going.
As did the Atlas.
Sophie closed her eyes and sagged into the gunner’s sling seat. How many people did she just kill? Definitely far more than every soldier in this war combined had. With a shudder, she raised her rifle to give it a French kiss goodbye.
The base’s blaring air raid siren brought her back to life. She glanced up to see the first stage of the Atlas rocket break off. She was no aerospace engineer, but it seemed too early for that.
With its main engine prematurely ripped off, the upper stage and payload tumbled end over end across the base. Before hitting the ground, the remaining fuel supply sparked off. All 30,000 pounds of rocket fuel.
For a brief second, Sophie thought the nuke had detonated. After a year in this war, she was no explosion virgin, but that blinding flash and heat wave even made her flinch.
She could only imagine how much chaos the blast and shrapnel caused among the rest of the Freedom Brigade fighters. Sophie yanked up the vehicle’s radio. Time to ramp the chaos up to a whole new level.
“Net call, net calclass="underline" this is Senior Storm Leader Kampbell. We’ve been betrayed! Dietrich and our sponsors were behind the chemical attacks. There isn’t any nuclear threat from the US. The crazy bastards want to start a nuclear war for nothing!”
Sophie nodded in satisfaction. Now everyone had a chance to go to hell in their own way.
“I’m officially taking over the Brigades. All true patriots: detainee Dietrich and any sponsor on sight!”
Instead of the orgy of mutinous violence she expected, only Dietrich’s chuckling voice came over the radio.
“Kampbell, I told you these were the most dedicated members of our organization. They’re all willing to do whatever it takes to restore America to greatness. I thought you were one of us. What a shame. Try to take her alive, boys. I’d love to question her thoroughly.”
The radio clicked off without another word. Out her front windshield, Sophie saw four up-armored Humvees rushing from the main compound. Heading straight for her.
She jumped back up on the machine gun, ready to take as many with her as she could. Giving her surroundings a quick scan for threats, the three abandoned 5-ton trucks caught her eye.
“Well, fuck it.”
Sophie gave up on the gun and dived from the roof of the Humvee, sprinting to the nearest truck. As she ran past the open cab door, a camouflage gym bag beckoned. She skidded to a stop and dumped the contents. She zipped up the MOPP suit jacket and pants over her uniform in fifteen seconds. It took her another twenty to strap the gas mask, fitted for someone much larger, tight on her face. She donned the hood, boot covers and gloves and then covered the mask’s air inlet with her hand. Her breath caught as she choked for air. Perfect. She had a proper seal. Dressed for the party, she checked on her attackers.
Her former comrades-in-arms were only two hundred yards away.
There just wasn’t time for finesse.
Sophie wedged an incendiary grenade snug in the middle of the first pallet. Looping a roll of 550 cord through the pin, she tore off running, feeding the line behind her. Sophie made it to the second truck before a warning shot cracked over her head.
“Don’t make me kill you, Storm Leader. I really respect what you…”
Sophie yanked on the cord as the first militiamen came around the lead truck. Five seconds later the thermite grenade detonated, showering the cargo bay in sparks. The men recoiled reflexively, but then laughed.
Sophie walked towards them, hands held high. More of the fighters gathered around.
“Damn, Kampbell. I think this war has really gotten to you. You’re running around in NBC gear and burning trucks? I thought the Group Leader just had a personal vendetta with you, but Dietrich is right. You have lost your mind.”
As the first militiaman grabbed her, Sophie reached to her mask and clicked the microphone. The Darth Vader voice couldn’t hide her grim satisfaction.
“Haven’t you guys wondered how I knew about the chemical weapons?” She tilted her head towards the burning truck.
It didn’t take long for the thermite bomb, with plenty of iron to oxidize for fuel, to reach 4,000 degrees. The scorching grenade melted through eight of the shells at once. For safety, the sarin nerve gas was separated and stored in a binary mixture. Once the walls of each containment unit disintegrated in the heat though, the individually harmless agents swirled together into a potent cocktail. There was a good reason why 190 countries banned this gas.
The creeping mist was tasteless, odorless, colorless… and pitiless.
The three militia members closest to the truck, busy hosing it down with fire extinguishers, couldn’t hear Sophie’s quip. Within milliseconds, they shook uncontrollably. All three shit and pissed themselves. One lucked out and died of an immediate heart attack. The other two fell to the ground, hugging themselves tight, but found no solace. Their bodies convulsed wildly, smashing their faces against the pavement while they screamed in helpless terror.
From the depths of the inferno, some of the conventional propellant in the shells cooked off. The small explosions, coupled with a slight wind, kicked the lethal fog out farther, coating everything within a hundred yards.
“What the hell have you done?”
The militiaman next to Sophie wiped an inky droplet off his face. The militia officer raised his weapon towards her head. Before he could shoot, the rifle twitched out of his hands. Every one of his bodily functions went into overdrive. His face broke out in sudden acne as every pore opened up, all while his glands sweated out a liter of water in seconds. He doubled over and projectile-vomited on her. Sophie stared coldly into his contracting pupils as the nerve agent turned his own central nervous system against him.
The Freedom fighter clicked his radio on with a pale, quaking hand, but could only drool on the mike. Between his hyperventilation and streaming tear ducts, all he got out was a whimper. Even after multiple brain aneurisms finally put him out of his misery, his body kept flopping around for several minutes. The twisted dance ended only after every lastneurotransmitter sparked out.