by Steven Kagey
President Xinping glared at him as he spoke about the shortcomings of their defensive preparations. Noticing this, General Huang quickly concluded his briefing.
Next was the Minister of Public Security. Minister Jing Kao stood. “Our electrical grid is a complete loss due to it being majorly made up of older parts. Outside the cities, it was comprised of a lot of parts deemed unsafe for normal use, but the sheer number of people the system was required to support left them with no other options than to use those older, unsafe parts. Fires are burning all across the country from the warehouse and factory districts, the business and commercial districts, the suburban housings districts, to even the most rural housing districts.”
“I would have thought the rural communities would have been the least impacted due to their lesser reliance on electricity,” President Xinping said.
“In theory, it should be,” Minister Kao agreed. “In most of the rural areas the electrical wires are directly attached to the house roofs and trail from one to the next in the same manner. When the power surge went down the line, almost every house was on fire within a matter of minutes from that direct contact with the electrical lines. The suburban districts are burning at a slower rate. There the fire has to jump to the next house once the first house is sufficiently ablaze. It is steadily moving along them due to the lack of firefighting resources and the water pressure to stop them.”
Minister Kao took a breath before continuing. “A quick analysis of the situation within the country has turned up disheartening results. Once these fires are under control, it is estimated that over half the population will be without a home. The fires are also impacting food stores. Not only are the fires burning up what individual families have in their homes, they are burning the markets and warehouses where the food is stored. Farms are being largely untouched, except many of the workers who live near the farms are being displaced. Also, most of the water to our nation is required to be pumped, and those pumps are not operational at the moment without electricity. This is contributing to the difficulty in stopping the fires. Citizens will succumb to dehydration and disease without clean water in a matter of days. Crops in the fields are not going to be receiving any irrigation, so their yields will be extremely low. We estimate that fifty to sixty percent of the population will be dead within three to six months, and maybe up to seventy-five percent by summer.”
The entire room gasped as Kao read off those figures. The President’s face was filled with a mixture of sorrow and anger.
“So you mean to tell us that seventy-five percent of 1.35 billion of our fellow citizens may be dead by the middle of next year?” he asked.
Kao nodded and stared at the floor. Everyone in the room sat in shock as the realization that over one billion of their fellow citizens may die in the upcoming months came to light.
President Xinping looked in the direction of the Minister of State Security and General Huang and asked, “Who did this to our country?”
The Minister of State Security, Min Yang, spoke up. “I have heard some reports that this was not an attack at all, and that it was possibly a natural event.”
The president sat upright in his chair. “Three-fourths of our population may die, and you believe a natural event could cause that? Who told you such a thing?”
Minister Yang's hand shot up and he pointed across the table to the president's Science Advisor Wei Cheng. Wei Cheng’s face blanched, especially after hearing the tone in the president’s voice.
Xinping snapped his head across the table looking at Wei Cheng. “Is this true?”
Clearing his throat, Cheng stated, “Yes, Mr. President. Our investigation is showing this to be a possible solar flare.”
“If this was a solar flare then why didn’t you provide any warning to the country?”
Advisor Cheng had a deer in the headlights look on his face and stared at the president. The president repeated his question with more intensity this time.
Advisor Cheng’s throat seemed to have been instantly dried of any moisture. “It came out of nowhere, sir,” he choked out. “We didn’t see it coming.”
President Xinping took a deep breath. “Mr. Cheng, do you think everyone in this room is stupid?” Before Cheng could answer the president continued, “I was a science major before I changed over to political science. Solar flares happen during periods of increased solar activity. The last briefing you gave about the sun said that we were in a low period of solar activity. If you were paying attention and doing your job we should have had advanced warning. Solar flares don’t just happen without telltale signs. This supposed solar flare formed and eight minutes later hits us? Is that what you would have us believe, Mr. Cheng?”
Cheng shook his head in an attempt to get out of the hot seat. “No sir, we were likely attacked, Mr. President.”
Upon seeing Cheng backtrack like a weasel, President Xinping was filled with even more anger. He walked over to a file cabinet and pulled out a handgun, walked back to the table, dropped the magazine out of the pistol, and removed one round from it. He then chambered that one round into the gun and went around the table to Cheng. Cheng pulled back in fear as the president got closer to him.
“Advisor Cheng,” Xinping said, “due to your incompetence in performing the duties appointed to you, you are a disgrace to yourself, your family, your profession, and to the people of this country.” He extended his arm and handed the weapon to Cheng.
Cheng did not reach for it; he simply stared at it.
“To compensate for the disgrace that you have brought upon yourself, I expect to hear your resignation within the next five minutes,” Xinping ordered. “Please go out into the hallway to give your resignation. You have inconvenienced this meeting enough from in here.” The president put the pistol in Cheng’s hand and turned around to walk back to the head of the table. The two guards at the door immediately raised their weapons and had them trained on Cheng as they approached, motioning for him not to do anything except stand up and leave the room. Cheng stood, bowed towards the president, and stepped out of the room.
When the doors closed behind Cheng, the president looked at General Huang and took a long breath. A single shot rang out from the hallway, followed by a loud thud. Everyone in the room except the president looked around the table at each other with a dreadful look on their faces.
“General, it is time to launch a Five Dragons package,” Xinping said.
“Five Dragons sir? Against whom?” asked the general.
“Everyone, anyone, I don’t care, just launch them.”
“Sir?” said the general, questioning the president for clarification.
“The United States, Russia, the Middle East, Japan. I don’t care. Make them pay for what they have done to us.”
“Mr. President,” the Minister of State Security spoke up, “our reports show that Japan may be worse off than we are. As well, Eastern Russia was hit as bad as we were, sir.”
“I don’t care. Launch a single Dragon on any Asian country that is not affected by this, launch five Dragons on western Russia, the Middle East, and the U.S.” The general stood there looking at the president. “General,” Xinping snapped, “you have your orders. Do not make me say it again. Avenge our country.”
“Yes sir.” The general saluted and hurried out the door.
A Five Dragons (Wǔ lóng) nuclear strike package was the ultimate offensive strategy in a nuclear weapons attack developed by Chinese military advisors. A single “Dragon” was two separate nuclear weapons launched together. One would be targeted at a city within the enemy country, and the other would be set to an air burst location at a predetermined altitude above the enemy country. The ground missile was designed to take out the target city, and the air burst was designed to spread an electromagnetic pulse blast towards the country. If both weapons were successfully detonated, the theory was that the devastation caused by the ground explosion would be significantly magnified by the EMP blast, preventing the country fro
m getting first responders and aid delivered to the site of the ground blast and surrounding areas. The target country would be overwhelmed in attempting to mount a recovery response, and Chinese ground troops could land and be faced with very little resistance. Having two missiles heading close to the same target would make it harder for the enemy to launch countermeasures. If they did stop one missile, the other one would still be able to do its damage.
Russia did not stand a chance. The ten missiles launched towards western Russia all had successful impacts and detonations within a matter of minutes due to close proximity. Russian advisors still hadn’t arrived to brief the Russian president on what had happened to their country five hours earlier. Russia never realized it was struck twice, once by the sun, and once by a foreign country. The EMP effects reached far into Europe.
Ten additional intercontinental ballistic missiles sped off towards the U.S. It would take those thirty minutes to reach their destination.
Chapter 9
15 Minutes Before U.S. Outage
9:20 a.m. MST
North American Aerospace Defense Command (NORAD)
Peterson Air Force Base, Colorado
“General! We just received a transmission from one of our ships in Baltic Sea,” said Tech Sergeant Martinez, handing the general a slip of paper. The general read the message:
"Command, this is the USS Carney DDG-64, we have six, I say again six high-speed bogies that just flew over our position on a plotted course to yours. Our Aegis Missile Defense System fired ten, one-zero antiballistic missiles at the targets. Bogies were too high and too fast. That is a November India, Negative Intercept on bogies. How do you copy, command?"
“Dear God,” the general mumbled. He began barking orders to technicians in the room. “Notify the White House immediately. Notify any ships within the path of those missiles that have intercept capabilities to move into position. Notify all coastal anti-missile batteries to be on the lookout.”
The group immediately began making calls over the radios to their respective regions. The general started cycling through all the defense capabilities in his head. The Ballistic Missile Defense Organization’s satellite known by its moniker as the Star Wars program was not responding, like all the other satellites. There was no way to track the incoming missiles either. There were no airborne laser assets in the skies to shoot down the missiles. The only thing left to do was hope and pray.
The general started receiving notifications from the technicians in the room that they were able to contact various assets successfully and there were some that could not be contacted.
At that moment another technician shouted above the rest, “I just received a message from the USS Higgins in the Pacific! It is tracking four additional bogies headed towards the U.S. It was able to shoot down two of them.”
The general’s hope that they might be able to stop all of them after all, was crushed when another technician exclaimed that Washington D.C. was hit.
The room fell deathly silent except for the radio chatter coming through everyone’s headphones.
Sergeant Martinez broke the silence in a weeping scream. “They hit Los Angeles!” She slumped down on the floor right where she had been standing, sobbing into her hands. “My family!”
The general hurried to her and squeezed her shoulder. “Everyone,” he said, “please stay focused and hold it together for a few more minutes. The fate of the rest of your fellow citizens is still at stake.”
What the general did not say was that any second he expected for their lives to be over with a missile plowing into the mountain above them. NORAD had always been a first strike high-value target to most of their enemies. That impact would never come, and the room didn’t even notice so much as a glitch in the lights as the power to the area above them and the surrounding country went out. They maintained power thanks to the hardened location and generators it contained. They did notice that almost all radio traffic ceased to exist. Every technician in the room was screaming into their microphones for the units that they had been speaking with to repeat what they said or to “come in.”
As nothing but static filled the airwaves, the general dropped down into his chair with despair on his face.
Chapter 10
30 Minutes After U.S. Outage
11:05 a.m. CST
Cumberland County, Tennessee
Brian had traveled for a mile before he came across the first stranded car that had drifted to the shoulder of the road. The hood was up, and the driver was in front reaching into the engine checking different wires and parts. When he heard the approaching engine he looked up and stuck out his hand to flag Brian down. Brian knew most of the people along the road and did not want to be a jerk even though in his mind this was a life or death situation. Before he realized he had slowed down he came to a stop next to the stalled car.
“Do you have any jumper cables?” the man asked. “My car is completely dead.”
“Sorry, I don’t,” Brian replied and before he thought about it he offered. “I’m in a hurry. I can give you a ride down the road.”
The man jumped in the car, and in his distraught state didn’t notice the panic on Brian’s face.
“Thank you, thank you, so much. I’m Victor Roberts.”
Victor said that he had recently moved out to this area and lived down the road a few miles from the intersection up ahead. He was rambling on about how it was weird that his car stopped and then when he went to call for roadside assistance his battery on his phone had died too.
Brian wasn’t listening, he was focusing on what he had to do. He had to make sure their entire group made it out to the compound safely.
“Hey, do you have a phone charger so I can plug up my phone?”
“No, sorry, I don’t have one.”
They passed a few more cars on the side of the road, none had drivers standing near them. A little further down the road, they found the drivers walking. Each one tried to flag down Brian in the Ford. Upset with himself for picking up Victor, Brian wasn’t going to cause any more delay for himself in getting his kids and wife.
“That’s strange,” Victor remarked. “Other people are broke down too.”
Brian sped up as he went by them.
Another mile down the road they came up on an intersection.
“Take a right at the intersection,” Victor instructed. “I live five miles down on the left.”
Brian slowed down to a stop at the intersection. “Sorry, man. I don’t have time to take you all the way to your house.”
“What? It’s only five more miles!” Victor protested, trying to coax Brian into taking him all the way.
With a more forceful tone, Brian stated, “I can’t take you. I have to get to my wife and kids. Please get out of the car.”
It was at this point Victor noticed the Glock on Brian’s hip and did not argue anymore. He got out of the car and slammed the door. “Thanks for the ride,” he said sarcastically.
Brian was getting ready to pull away when he stopped and rolled down the window. “Victor!” he called.
Victor happily stepped back up to the car thinking that Brian had changed his mind about taking him all the way to his house.
Brian leaned over so Victor could see his face and said, “You need to get your family as soon as you can. Get a gun if you have one, and gather as much food as you can. I suspect things are going to get bad in a few days.”
“What are you talking about?” Victor asked, confused. “And why is it going to get bad?”
“I think we were hit by an EMP and—”
“What’s an EMP?” Victor interrupted. “I’ve heard that term before, but don’t know what it is.”
“I don’t have time to explain,” Brian said hurriedly. “Nothing electrical is going to work for a few years at least, food is going to get scarce, and you need to prepare yourself and your family as soon as possible.”
Victor opened his mouth to ask for more details, and Brian shook hi
s head. He reached into his backpack and tossed a bottle of water to Victor. “Be safe and take care of yourself.”
Victor stepped back a little confused. “Thank you,” he said, and waved goodbye in a more genuine manner than before.
Another mile down the road on the shoulder was an SUV that looked like Evelyn’s from behind. When he got closer, Brian realized that it was Evelyn’s and his heart jumped into his throat. He started scanning the road in front of her SUV to see if he could see her walking. He didn’t see anyone. As he got closer to the vehicle, he saw movement in the rear window and recognized Beast wagging his tail. He slowed down and to his relief he saw Evelyn sitting in the driver seat.
He could see the worry on her face from the side when she looked over. She didn’t recognize the car at first. After a moment she realized it was Brian that was driving. They both jumped out and ran around the vehicles to hug each other.
Panicked, Evelyn asked, “What’s going on, Brian?”
Brian noticed she had the Faraday pouch and the radio in her hand. “I don’t know for sure, but I think it’s bad.”
“When neither the car nor my phone worked, I didn’t know what to do. If you hadn’t shown me the Faraday bags and radios, an EMP event wouldn’t have even crossed my mind. I stayed in the car and was waiting for an hour to pass so I could try calling on the radio, but I was scared and didn’t want to get in trouble for not having a license to use it.”
Brian shook his head. ”Those rules are out the window now.” He hurried her to grab anything useful from the SUV since they would probably never drive it again. They grabbed Beast and jumped in the car.