by T I WADE
“Affirmative, I could blow up one of the pyramids right now.”
“Mr. Jones, Mr. Noble, Joe Everson here. Am I right that Mr. Noble has the more powerful weapon?”
“Affirmative, Joe,” VIN replied.
“OK, I want you both to aim at these exact coordinates,” Joe continued.
“Sorry, Joe, computer is showing 133 seconds before I can achieve target-lock on those coordinates,” VIN replied 10 seconds later.
“My computer states 159 seconds,” added Jonesy. “I’m 200 miles lower.”
“OK, then we have no choice but to wait,” replied Joe. “The targets are Russian T-90s, older T-72s and Iranian Mobarez Tanks. We didn’t know that the Iranians had taken delivery of Russian T-90s until they showed up crossing the border. The vanguard group one mile ahead of the main formation is made up of 25 of the latest T-90s with steel-composite-reactive blend armor. The next groups you will see are 200 T-72s followed by 400 Mobarez. Then they have two rear guard elements of 300 T-72s. The latest armor on the forward T-92s shouldn’t be a problem for your laser canon. It wasn’t when we were shown the test results from the Boeing’s new 20-mile range laser canon last year. The big difference in your laser is that, as Ryan explained, it is powered by electricity through a nuclear reactor and/or a mobile nuclear battery, not with the gas system Boeing uses.”
“I have 18 seconds to given coordinates target acquisition, laser live and ready,” stated VIN.
“Thirty-one seconds,” added Jonesy.
Ryan sat in his chair at ground control. He had never been in the situation of being right in the middle of a battle. To him, the large screen which showed all eight of what both gunners were watching looked like a computer game. He could see that Jonesy was closer to earth, his screens showed more precise objects on the ground. VIN’s were far hazier, and he waited for the first move. Even though he was the brains behind this possible attack, with Joe Everson in control he was now just a bystander, and he wondered if anybody in Washington knew that Americans were about to destroy another country’s armored invaders.
“OK, guys, you will see the first 25 tanks come up on your screens. I will call the ones I want taken out and you just follow me,” continued Joe.
“I have faint visuals through radar,” stated VIN. “The heat of engines is beginning to appear on my heat screen. Twelve seconds before I can get my first lock. Joe, which one do you want me to hit first?”
“Listen guys. The engines are at the rear just behind the turret, I want hits just behind the turret sections. They are diesel, so there won’t be explosions. At best, if you hit them they will just stop. I don’t want explosions. Try to aim for the engines without killing the occupants. I want the most powerful burst you can deliver on the first T-90s, all 25 of them. Then we aim for the next massive line of T-72s. These have less armor to penetrate and I want a quicker, more rapid burst into these. Once we hit a couple of dozen tanks, they will probably retreat and, hopefully, head for home. After that, we have the same problem just south of the border in South Korea; a hundred tanks there being bombarded by South Korean artillery.”
“I have target acquisition,” stated VIN.
“Roger that, there is one tank in the lead, we believe it to be the new T-90 Division tank commander. Hit the first tank as close to the turret as possible and, if you can, within the heat glow you have.”
“I can only see the glow. I have a side view. Do you want me to hit it from a side angle?” VIN asked.
“Wow! I never thought you would get an open side angle. Yes, hit the lead tank!” ordered Joe.
VIN could see a couple of dozen faint heat sources on his large screen. They were very close together. He could just make out one glow, the size of a pin head and he locked the targeting software onto the target, increased the laser burst to a full seven-second burst and pressed the button on his handheld control. “Burst fired,” he stated over the intercom.
Nothing happened for a few seconds, then Joe noticed through his screen from a drone flying to the side of the army that one of the tanks right behind the lead tank suddenly stopped, smoke erupting out of his engine.
“Your aim was fifty feet to the rear. You hit the second tank, and certainly did it some damage,” Joe responded. “VIN, aim at all the targets you see and blast away. It seems that your accuracy isn’t close enough yet.” VIN followed Joe’s orders, firing once every 27 seconds.
“I have the targets online,” stated Jonesy. “I can see the lead tank clearly, shall I take it out?”
“Affirmative,” replied Joe.
****
The tank commander sitting comfortably in the lead turret thought he felt a vibration from his tank. Then the engines began to cough and slow. His brand new T-90 came to a dead stop nearly throwing him from the turret. Suddenly a black oily cloud of smoke blew out of the turret around him, and he was forced to exit, his crew scrambling to follow him out.
The commander scrambled onto the rear of his tank, and suddenly he saw a white-hot smoldering hole four inches wide in the armor right in front of his feet; he noticed it just as the hot area was beginning to omit the same dense black smoke. He looked up and saw that three of his 25-tank command had stopped with the same smoke blowing out of their turrets. Something was attacking his tanks. He looked around for shelter and saw a desert ridge a few hundred yards to his right. He pointed to it, and the tanks turned towards the cliff thinking that it would protect them. It would in ten minutes time. As soon as the two spacecraft flew far enough to the east, the cliff would get in the way of their aiming devices.
Every few seconds or so a tank stopped dead in its tracks with smoke pouring out of it. It took twelve smoking tanks before one tank, that of his second-in-command which was coming next to his to pick him up, suddenly exploded in a massive mushroom of flame. Something had blown up its full ammunition compartment, and the force of the exploding inferno literally blew the tank apart.
Bits of tank exploded out everywhere, decapitating the commander and two of his crew standing on their tank twenty feet away and turning their unprotected bodies into a dense cloud of red as millions of pieces of hot metal diced them apart.
****
“Try to aim for the rear engines, you hit an ammunition compartment,” stated Joe his screen alight with the explosion. For several seconds both the heat screens in the ships glowed too bright to find a new target. “When you can aim again, aim for the lead tanks first. The tanks are heading towards a rise that will take them out of your viewing area.”
At four tanks a minute, they didn’t make the protection of the rise, the last one being hit by Jonesy as it was about to get protection from them.
“Set your aim to the T-72s a mile behind. Fire at will until you are out of range,” Joe ordered.
It was easier now as the second battle group of hundreds of tanks had seen the smoking towers in front of their position, and stopped to wait for further orders. They weren’t tightly packed, but a tank did take a bit of room to maneuver, and as other tanks around the group began to start smoking, with a couple exploding, several were put into reverse gear and began slamming into the tanks behind as they tried to retreat from this unworldly attack; nobody knew what it was.
“I’m out of range,” reported VIN. “I cannot lock onto targets anymore.”
His laser was in a separate 360 mobile turret below him. Much like canons on helicopters, the laser could be aimed anywhere but up. Maggie had slowly turned SB III around as they passed to the south of the attack zone. Now they were facing backwards and Jonesy killed two more stationary tanks before he too headed out of range.
Asterspace III, with Fritz in control, was already 500 miles behind SB III and moving upwards in an ever-lengthening orbit. It would take them one complete orbit to reach America One’s altitude and dock with her to transfer the live cargo in ninety minutes.
By this time both craft were at the same speed and flying in formation 200 miles apart.
“I�
�m switching to another feed from a drone above the Korean border,” continued Joe. “I see a long horizontal formation of tanks heading south. I count about 200. The Koreans are doing a good job with their artillery. Aim at any moving targets and help them out. Anything moving within 60 miles of the Korean border is enemy. We have already warned South Korea to halt all vehicles, so any moving objects are enemy. Whatever you see moving, take it out.”
Ryan watched the one-sided battle play out on his screens. Here and there explosions lit up the heat screens as vehicles, or tanks exploded. In this battle there were more explosions, as many of the vehicles were old gasoline troop carriers and the engines erupted into flame as the gasoline ignited.
On one road VIN saw a line of what looked like a column of vehicles that weren’t tanks, as they had their engines in the front, and he shot shorter two-second bursts, blowing up twenty vehicles in a minute.
This battle made Ryan feel sick. He hadn’t designed these lasers for warfare. They were designed for safety in spaceflight. Now he watched as hundreds of men died as VIN and Jonesy sprayed the area with short bursts, a new explosion lighting the screens every few seconds.
“Enough, Mr. Jones, Mr. Noble. Close down your weapons. We have done enough.”
“What do you mean, Ryan? Keep firing,” ordered Joe.
“Mr. Everson, do not counter command my craft. These lasers were not built to kill. They were built for safety.”
“Mr. Jones, Mr. Noble, ignore Ryan. Keep firing! That is an order!” shouted the FBI agent.
“Sorry, bud, we take our orders from our boss,” stated Jonesy calmly. “Ryan, we have holstered our weapons.”
“You continue firing, or I take your protection away from your airfield, Mr. Richmond,” commanded Joe angrily.
By this time both craft were out of range anyway having caused mass destruction on two battlefields below them. Unknown to Ryan, the Iranian tanks were already retreating back the way they came, leaving more than fifty destroyed pieces of armor still smoking and the odd one on fire here and there.
Korea was the same. With the artillery bombardment and the destruction of over one hundred tanks and motor vehicles, the punch of the North Koreans was gone and they were about to go into full retreat. The lasers had made sure of that, destroying over thirty troop carriers filled with 1,000 men, who now were nothing more than burning remains on the road south.
Joe, in a really angry mood, immediately gave orders to his FBI team to evacuate Ryan’s airfield and ordered the air force personnel to do the same. Allen Saunders who couldn’t command the troops, since he was no longer in the military just listened, and waited for C-130s to arrive to pick up the men.
“I understand your ideals,” Joe said to Ryan, the conference call still active a few minutes later “and I appreciate your men halting the advances, but when I give orders, I expect them to be carried out.”
“That’s fine. Mr. Everson, take your control-freak attitude and leave my premises. And by the way, I’m an American civilian not one of your G-men. I just don’t understand where all these authoritarian ideas of controlling this country come from. First the president, then the NSA, the CIA can’t think further than their nose, and now the FBI gets pissed off when civilians don’t jump to orders. Maybe, Mr. Everson, you should go home and ponder your actions. You will never have the use of my lasers again. Maybe try a good old-fashioned nuke like Mortimer did, and then you will have your war, and hopefully mankind will survive it. Don’t phone me again. I hate authoritarian bullies, Mr. Everson!” and he put down the phone.
“That puts us on our own,” stated Bill Withers.
“Yes, and thanks for the introduction, Bill. Is your job finished here? Is it time for you, Shep and your RV to head home?”
I’m afraid so,” Bill replied. “It looks like war was averted, thanks to you.” Ryan got on the phone and called Lieutenant Walls, stating that the FBI and air force personnel were about to leave and to make sure the hangars were safe, and send two guards to Hangar One.
“I’m sorry, Bill, but you will be a guest of the airfield until my mission is complete, in about a month. I’m sure Joe Everson will come and release you once I’m out of here. You know too much and, unfortunately, I now have to place a good friend of mine into detention to save my project.”
The two guards arrived and walked Bill Withers away. It would be the last time Ryan saw his friend.
“Allen, are you—one of my best pilots—part of this FBI infiltration?”
“Sort of, but I was given no command of the air force personnel here,” stated Allen truthfully. “I cannot stop them from leaving, but what I can do is ask if any would like to remain, and perhaps to accidentally leave some weapons. You already have the two Bradleys that seemed to have disappeared into thin air. Jamie and I are coming on your mission. We are too far into it to leave now, and a prison cell is not a place I prefer ending up in, I love the space flying too much.”
Ryan nodded, he needed Allen now that it would be the last lap of the long race, and it would be a race to the finish before the government goons decided to attack his airfield. He was sure that the power of the lasers would get out and he hoped it would deter the government agencies from attacking his field.
Chapter 25
The “End Game” of political chess
The former president phoned Ryan two days later. Ryan’s team had just watched the next shuttle depart, forty-eight hours after Jonesy and Maggie landed twenty-four hours late after taking several orbits to realign themselves for reentry.
“Thank you, Ryan, for saving the planet from two large wars,” he began. “Please thank your team for me. I know that I don’t have the power or ability to change the authority in this country, but at least we saved the world from possible world wars. The Iranians are in full retreat blaming the Israelis for their demise. They want war with the U.S., and I’m sure the president has work to do to solve the situation; hopefully, he’ll leave you alone long enough to finish your mission. South Korea sends their thanks. Your short intervention has North Korea scared and bewildered about what hit them. I think peace in that region will be good for a while. Your mission is still a secret with me. I want to thank you for your offer to join you in space, but I must stay here and try to solve the problems this country has. Of course, the current president has taken all the kudos for halting the potential wars, but I believe the use of your weapons has put you in a new spotlight. I think that Washington must be very scared; they have lost the upper hand in being the most powerful force on Earth, after nearly a century now.”
“Why is that, sir?” Ryan asked.
“Your weapons, Ryan. I believe they now make you the most powerful force on Earth. Nobody can really defend themselves from weapons they can’t hit. NASA or the U.S. military certainly can’t due to their own bad decisions which resulted in their destroying their own space defense system. I don’t think anybody can accurately target your craft in space, plus you can annihilate anything they throw at you.
“I never thought of the power of my lasers like that before,” replied Ryan truthfully.
“I will help you all I can. I hear that Joe Everson will be taken before a secret session of Congress in a few days, and he will be sworn to tell the truth, and nothing but the truth. Joe calls a spade a spade, and he is an honest man. He owes you for sorting out the problems, and he won’t forget. Ryan, remember he was only doing the job demanded of him by others. This hearing will leave you and me in the open, so I’m getting ready for reprisals, and so should you. I will do my best to help you out if I can, but we have to look after our own forts from now on. I wish you luck ending your stay on Earth and look forward to a call from you from space soon. Goodbye, Ryan.”
After thanking his good friend, he put down the phone. His brain filled with scenarios of what could happen to his airfield in the near future.
There were seven more necessary flights to go in the next twenty-one days. An eighth flight carrying gro
und control and its computers and the remaining crew, would give Ryan the basic requirements to stay up in space. Twenty-four days was all he needed, and the former president said that Everson would be in a hearing in a couple of days. He expected that the hearing should last for at least a few days; that gave him three more flights without having to make another move on the political chess board.
Once the hearing was over, the government would know a lot more about his power in the sky, certainly more than they understood from his small show on the runway at Cape Canaveral.
He sat deep in thought. The only weapon that could touch his lasers in strength was the Boeing laser. Less modern and weaker than his, it was currently installed aboard an Air Force C-130 based in Tacoma Washington. General Mortimer’s face interrupted his thinking. General Mortimer probably had jurisdiction over the Boeing laser. It had an accurate range of ten miles the last time he was given a report about it. He heard Joe Everson say that its range may have been extended to twenty-mile accuracy or a 100,000 foot target scope from its flying altitude.
VIN or Jonesy could take out the C-130 any time they were over the Pacific or the American Continent. At 400 miles, nothing could touch the ship. The shuttles could be hit within a 100,000 foot range around the C-130’s maximum altitude of about 35,000 feet. The Boeing laser could easily take out the C-5 loaded with a shuttle. The only time the C-130 could be in range of an incoming shuttle would be within Ryan’s twenty-mile restricted airspace, as the shuttle was much too fast and too high further out.
So he and his team would need to be wary of any aircraft flying within twenty miles of the Dead Chicken and close to his air space. The airport’s Choking Device would help him within a ten mile window at maximum. Ryan was also sure Mortimer wouldn’t think twice before shooting down one of his own air force aircraft, the Dead Chicken, and then blame it on Ryan.