"Let's take out all military targets first," Tabitha said several times.
We hit several other targets in China and then moved on to the Baikinor Cosmodrome in Kazakhstan. I hated to destroy such a landmark of human space history, but hey, those bastards destroyed Kennedy Space Center. Tabitha and I both apologized to Yuri under our breath. Then we started peppering Russian launch sites. Svobodny went first, then Kapustin Yar, Plesetsk, Omsk, Yekaterinburg, Orenburg, Moscow, and Star City. We then traveled to North Korea and relieved them of all capabilities to make modern warfare.
At one point 'Becca had expressed her enthusiasm about getting to fire the warp missile but was disappointed that she couldn't see how it performed. Hell, I'm just glad it was ready and it worked. She and Calvin did tell me later that they had a rather boring ride otherwise. From where they stood, they never saw outside but for brief flashes and never knew what was going on.
Pretty much the same was discovered throughout the rest of the facility. Many people never even realized that we had left the ground. Alarms were sounded and people were told to stay where they were. The entirety of the final battle of World War III had pretty much taken place in a matter of a couple of hours and was now basically over. China, Russia, and North Korea were bleeding profusely. So was the United States, but we were still an unstoppable military might with the mastery of warp field technology. Not that that is what I had set out to do with my life. But we do what must be done in order for our way of life to go on. Or, it will cease being our way of life.
We discussed our next moves with General Tapscott who in turn discussed this with the President. He was still in hiding and only had direct links to certain facilities. Mike patched him through to all of us. We discussed the possibility that our secret was out. I assured the President that if any average people saw anything it was just a big blurry spot in the sky since the warp field would have forced light around it instead of reflecting it. Since we had modulated the outer field in order to communicate with our ground facilities and the TDRSS satellites, it is possible that the other military radar systems of the world detected us. That might just be a good thing. They have seen what we can do. They had better keep their damn mouths shut and stay out of it. And of course we could always leak misinformation about a Secret War with aliens or some nonsense to the tabloids. The truth of World War III would never be public knowledge. To add even more fuel to the conspiracy fire, I landed the base right back in the hole in the Earth that it came out of. I sat the base down and compared the view from the cameras to the view I had seen a few hours before when we lifted off and presto! We were back on good old terra firma. I cycled the software off and Jim assured me that the warp field was down.
"Calvin, this is Anson. How are you guys up there?" I called over the walkie talkie.
"We're getting wet, Anson. It is raining cats and dogs out here."
"Can we come in yet?" Anne Marie asked.
"Get inside," Tabitha interjected.
"Is it over?" 'Becca asked.
"Did we win?" that was Al.
I nodded at Tabitha. She pressed her walkie talkie button.
"We won."
CHAPTER 20
I relaxed in my chair and Tabitha finally sat down and joined me. We both had to let the day's events sink in. A few seconds of reflection was all the luxury that we were awarded. The flat screen had not yet faded out to blue and General Tapscott was still on the other end.
"Give us an update on your status General Ames, and realize that the President is listening." Mike ordered.
Tabitha sat up straight. "Yes, General. The Roswell facility is now grounded in Roswell as if it had never left New Mexico. There is most likely major damage along the periphery of the installation that will need repairing.
"As I'm sure that satellite imagery will verify, all launch facilities in China, Russia, and North Korea have been totally eradicated. The governments of each of these countries have been destroyed along with their abilities to make war. In fact, we would like to see global satellite imagery data here to see the extent of the damage. Perhaps we will learn more efficient methods for using this technology. And it's always good to see the havoc one has caused after a battle to maintain perspective of its horror. Hopefully, we won't need it for warfare again.
"It is possible that some of the knowledge of the warp technologies used in today's battles remains in the enemy locations since we didn't remove the entire populations of these countries. And it is always possible that they have sleeper contingencies. However, they have much larger problems now than building weapons to take over the world. Survival should be first and foremost on their minds. Most likely they won't be able to survive without aid from the rest of the world. My guess is that our economy will suffer greatly from our disaster relief also.
"I would suggest two efforts. One is to continue ahead with plans to place the warp research and development facility on the far side of the moon. This technology needs to be advanced and protected at the same time. We saw today that the masters of this technology were nearly unstoppable. We should maintain the only mastery of this awesome power. I should mention here, that it is also likely that we will find a way to use the technology as a defensive shield itself.
"Second, I also suggest to create an intensive intelligence gathering effort to determine if anybody on the planet has any knowledge of this technology and track them. What if terrorists got their hands on this thing also, or another group bent on global domination? In order to maintain the secrecy of this technology, this intelligence group should be placed under the same compartmentalization as the research and development facility. Perhaps the new intelligence group should even be located on the Moon. Travel to and from Earth will be simple and cheap. This way we will be able to know when and if someone is conducting an operation.
"Since the destruction of the Space Shuttle, this has been a global war of proportions great enough to remove the human race from existence. We can only now realize the devastating ability of warp weapons and of the sheer gall and lack of humanity of an enemy that would initiate a preemptive strike with such a weapon. I hope it will never happen again. However, in order to prevent it from recurring, a constant vigil must be kept." Tabitha remained straight in her chair and didn't move a muscle.
"I would like to add something." I interrupted the uncomfortable silence following Tabitha's speech, debrief, or whatever it was. "My original plans for this technology was simply to travel to the stars and see if there is other life and inhabitable planets out there. As it turns out, the power required for that goal can be twisted and used for more evil purposes. I for one never wanted to see that. As long as we maintain the possession of this capability, we can never let it fall into the wrong hands. We saw that today. However, I would hate to deny the world some of the awesome peaceful applications the warp drive can bring us. I can think of some applications useful right now in the disaster relief efforts.
But, I guess I have to agree that Earth isn't ready for power like this yet. Perhaps after the effects of this war are tended to and the governments of the superpowers become more aligned, we can have a space-faring society, one with various civilian uses of warp field technology. I don't know. In the meantime, we can't let our guard down. And today is absolute proof as to why we can't." I slouched back into my chair again. I was tired and wanted to go home.
The President had little to say other than the fact that nobody would ever know that World War III ever took place. The events of today would be reported as impacts of meteors from space. He issued an executive order compartmentalizing all knowledge of the warp technologies and all data was to be moved to the far side of the Moon away from the Earth.