by S. T. Boston
Sarah had been working as a teaching assistant for a history lecturer at George Washington University and was on her way to a field study trip in Egypt when the EMP struck. It was a trip she'd been brimming with excitement over for the best part of a year. The group of fifteen students and two teaching assistants, of which his wife had been one, along with two lecturers, had been in the air when it happened. Their 747 was on approach to Cairo when the EMP hit, and the craft had crashed into the city streets below, killing over half the passengers. Two of the students had survived, and then remarkably, also managed to evade the virus and return home. If it hadn't been for them, he'd have never known just how his beloved Sarah had died. He'd had three agonisingly long months of not knowing before the two students managed to make it back to the USA and report to the college, confirming his worst fears. He'd hated himself for wishing one of the two survivors had been his wife, but he suspected most people would have felt the same way. It didn't make things any easier. At one time, he'd been a man of religious belief but now he hated God, because if he did exist then he'd well and truly turned his back on humanity, and in return, Sandy had turned his back on him.
Being young and busy with their respective jobs, they'd delayed planning a family; both believing they had all the time in the world to become parents. They'd been wrong. Now Sandy was alone, nights in their formerly cosy two-bed apartment in Penn Quarter were long, and often spent trying to find solace in a bottle of bourbon.
Sliding the ticket from the passport he glanced at the date again and experienced a desperate urge to add a week's leave to his trip, just to delay that moment when he'd arrive home to a silent and cold apartment. Gripping the ticket tightly Sandy glanced to the west, out over Chiyoda, where the city lights diminished slightly thanks to the more rural parklands. The sky was clear, beautifully so but the city's ambient light blocked out many of the stars. He caught sight of a moving dot of an aircraft, another stark reminder that tomorrow he'd be heading back to reality. He followed it with his eyes and began to question if it was a plane at all, it seemed to be far too high, and as it drew closer and lost altitude, he could see a tail of flame streaking along behind it. Was it a meteorite? Or could it be an aircraft in trouble? The thought sent another stab of pain through Sandy's chest. As he watched, the falling object exploded and in an instant Tokyo was bathed in a daylight created by a new, but deadly, sun.
* * *
Ben Hawker closed several of the screens on his control panel, the ones monitoring the western world's launch and defence systems, and concentrated on Kwangmyŏngsŏng, which had just finished running through its start-up process and was live. From over nine thousand miles away, he watched the engineers run through a few test targeting procedures and smiled when he thought about how the United States Government would give just about anything to see this information. Their systems selected targets for each of their rather meagre, but nonetheless deadly, twenty-five megaton nuclear warheads. The vehicles which carried the deadly payloads were a close copy of the R-36 Russian missile, but unlike its Russian ancestor, each rocket only carried one nuke. It wasn't the greatest nuclear arsenal in the world, but it was the most primitive, and that meant it was the simplest to get ready and re-program. The nukes Hawker was most excited about were the Russian fifty megaton babies, the ones the USA thought had been dismantled in late 2017, before the virus – but more than a few remained and formed part of the stockpile that he would very soon be putting to good use.
As the programmers on the other side of the world finished their targeting program, Hawker scanned the list.
Seoul, Tokyo, London, Paris, Berlin, New York, Washington DC, LA, Chicago and San Francisco were the ten honey pots they'd selected. Of course, there was no launch planned as far as Hawker knew, but they were pre-loaded targets so that in the event of an attack, the birds would know just where to fly. He only needed one for now, the other nine Enola could use as she saw fit when the rest of the world's nuclear powers came back online. Even if the North Koreans tried to shut it down in panic, they'd fail; his systems now had primary command and they didn't even know it.
He smiled and turned to look at Asmodeous, who was sitting in the bridge's main control chair, surveying the small Earth-Breed team at work. “We're ready to test, sir. On your command, of course.” Hawker watched a smile, broader and more charming than any he'd ever seen form on Asmodeous' youthful, yet knowledgeable face.
“This is good news,” Asmodeous beamed. “Earlier than we expected, too!”
“By an hour, sir,” Hawker replied smugly. He pointed to the list of targets on the screen and said, “This is what they've pre-programmed. You can take your pick, or I can re-program one of them if you prefer?”
“You recommended Tokyo, earlier,” Asmodeous said casually, as if they were picking a fine wine in a restaurant.
“I did,” Hawker grinned. “It's almost poetic seeing as Japan is the only country to have been nuked in anger in the modern world, and with the name of the program being Enola, it just seems right. Not to mention the political shit that will fly when it goes down. They won't be able to retaliate, either, not even when the rest of the world comes out to play,” Hawker added. “Japan has always had a non-weaponization of nuclear technology policy, so it's a good test target.”
“Make it happen,” Asmodeous commanded, watching the holo-display with interest.
Hawker nodded and went to work. Enola was already running silently inside their defence systems, they wouldn't know about her until the launch codes went in, and then they would be able to do nothing except sit back and watch as their nukes launched. Two minutes later, Hawker was ready. He'd re-jigged the targeting on the Japanese bound nuke to test that part of Enola's programming, not moving it by much, just a few miles, centring the twenty-five megaton bird of death over Chiyoda, an older part of the city that used to lie in the centre of Tokyo. It didn't matter either way, the blast would still be strong enough to flatten the entire Japanese capital.
Working swiftly, Hawker reached the final screen, knowing this test was only a fraction of Enola's capability. Just a simple eight-digit nuclear launch passcode was all that stood between him and the ability to kill around eight million people instantly, with a further two million being sentenced to death as a result of the radiation fallout. He hit the execute button and Enola went to work, decoding the password. The North Koreans would know something was wrong now, and suspect that their system was either malfunctioning, or someone had their hand well and truly down its pants. Hawker glanced at Asmodeous who was watching intently, a satisfied grin on his face. In less than then ten seconds the bird would be in the air.
* * *
Sung-Jae watched nervously from the secret underground nuclear launch bunker as Kwangmyŏngsŏng finished running through the start-up phase. It was live. From the capital in Pyongyang, at the headquarters of the nuclear program, those in charge of the system had been working around the clock to make sure his beloved country could defend herself against any oppression from the Western World. Although only twenty-five years of age, he was not stupid. If he were, he wouldn't have been given such an important role. Sung-Jae knew that the Kwangmyŏngsŏng program was a show of power to the West and nothing more. The chances of them ever actually using their meagre stockpile of nukes was remote, because their main enemies could literally wipe them off the map if the mood took them. At this point in time however, and if only for a few short hours, North Korea would be the world's only nuclear power and the prospect filled him with pride. He was part of a team of twenty-eight men who worked in pairs around the clock, monitoring for any signs of nuclear attack and guarding the launch codes, which refreshed and changed their configuration every two hours. If it happened, it was their job to send the ten nuclear weapons toward their preordained targets. Although an important job, it required no special intellect, but Sung-Jae was proud of his role nonetheless.
He sat back and glanced as his crew mate, Jun-Seok, a more experien
ced officer in his late thirties. They'd been buddied up three days ago, after arriving at the bunker which lay some fifty kilometres from the nuclear research facility at Yongbyon. Sung-Jae hadn't really managed to figure out if Jun-Seok liked him or not, he seemed to regard him with an air of subordination that was not uncommon within the North Korean military. Aside from that he seemed like a quiet and brooding man who carried every trouble in the world on his shoulders. It was fair to say that Sung-Jae thought he'd drawn the short straw when he'd been paired up and wished he'd been buddied with one of the younger officers closer to his age.
The urgent blaring sound of the launch alarm grabbed his attention away from unimportant matters and fixed him solely on the job he was being paid to do.
Jun-Seok sprang into action, staring at him in alarm. He spoke in a tone about as far removed from his quiet and brooding nature as it possibly could be. “The launch system is initiating, who gave the order?”
Sung-Jae's hands flew over the keyboard, trying to log into the command system to see just where the computers were being operated from. The only place which could remotely command the systems was in the capital, but that didn't make sense because they'd passed control over to the launch bunker not an hour ago. He hit the escape key frantically, but he may as well have been slamming his fist on the desk – the keyboard was useless. He glanced at Jun-Seok, whose face had turned pale and said, “I don't know, I'm locked out. We don't have control.”
With panic spreading through his body like an unwelcome wave, he watched the launch code screen flash onto his monitor. One by one, the numbers blinked into the eight boxes. As the third one turned from red to green Jun-Seok snatched up the emergency phone, a direct line to the capital and headquarters, and almost immediately began shouting down the mouthpiece to whoever was manning the other end. By the time the seventh digit was accepted, Sung-Jae had heard enough of the one-sided conversation to know that the launch had not been initiated from headquarters. As the eighth digit blinked onto the screen and turned green, Jun-Seok stopped talking and sat in stunned silence, watching the outside camera feed. Deep rumbling growled up through the floor as the R36 inspired ICBM roared to life. The powerful engines created a deep vibration which thrummed through the concrete walls. Sung-Jae watched his paper cup of water dance across the control desk and fall to the floor; he didn't move to stop it. On the outside feed, one single rocket emerged from its tube, a sleeping giant rousing itself to life.
“Where is it heading?” Jun-Seok asked, his voice thin and taut.
Sung-Jae looked at his screen, which had switched to target and track mode. “Tokyo,” he responded in a hollow voice.
* * *
Sandy McCormack had less than half a second to ponder the artificial daylight brought on by the fiery-tailed object he'd seen heading toward the city. For half a second after the nuclear sun rose over the Japanese capital, Sandy was blinded. The blindness was of no real concern however, as a nanosecond later his entire body was vaporised and scrubbed from the Earth as if he'd never existed. The heatwave spread out in an unrelenting circle, annihilating almost every structure for a seven-mile radius, leaving only the strongest of reinforced concrete foundations as evidence that anything had ever existed there. Ten miles from ground zero, the windows were blown out of every building, and many others just crumbled to the ground, as if taken down by an invisible demolition team. The blast's sound wave rolled across the country like thunder and for a further hundred and fifty miles, windows shattered and the boughs of trees bent in a uniformed direction as if succumbing to a violent, one-directional storm.
Before the Reaper, Tokyo had been home to almost fourteen million people; after, and according to the census conducted by the Japanese Government, nine and a half million were left. In less than a minute, and far more efficiently than the Reaper had managed, the vast majority of those remaining nine and a half million souls were eradicated from the face of the Earth.
Chapter 29
Adam had trouble remembering the last time he'd been stuck in a traffic jam. The roads in this brave new world – a world which offered a strange mixture of the new and promising, juxtaposed against the ruins of that fateful week – got busy, but never offered the total gridlock of the world before the Reaper. He utilised an empty stretch of motorway to ease the RX7's accelerator pedal to the floor, and the car cruised easily past a hundred miles an hour as it raced through Hampshire and on toward Wiltshire. He glanced in the rear-view mirror at Oriyanna, who was cramped uncomfortably into one of the two tiny back seats. Adam had never had the need to take a third person in his car and now he realised just how impractical it was. The small back seats seemed to have been thrown in almost as an afterthought, by a designer who'd wanted to appeal to males suffering a mid-life crisis, who needed to transport kids around but still wanted a sporty car. Short of a five-minute spin to the local shops, no sane adult would want to ride in the back.
Taulass occupied the front passenger seat, and for the past hour his face had been locked in a stern expression of concentration. Adam was almost bursting with the need to get him talking about the idea he'd mentioned back in London. Finally, as Adam caught up with the next small block of flowing traffic and backed the speed off a little, Taulass glanced at him and spoke. “Okay, hear me out on this, it's very rough around the edges, but I believe the old human adage says that three heads are better than one.”
“It's actually two heads are better than one,” Adam corrected, mildly amused at the alien's misuse of the term. “But as you can probably count me out, I'd say you were half correct.”
Taulass nodded, the humour completely lost on him. He edged around in his seat so he could see Oriyanna as well. Satisfied that he had their attention he began. “Now, as I said, we can't call the craft back and fly to Peru, because as soon as we move the ship from the dark side of the moon, they will know we are coming. They will be tracking us.” He paused, but no one offered any comment so he carried on. “We need to find a way of getting to that ship, without having to take our craft to it.”
“The transportation hub?” Oriyanna questioned, leaning forward slightly as she realised what Taulass was alluding to.
“I'm lost already,” Adam said in frustration.
“Each Arkkadian vessel, is fitted with a transportation hub, much like the ones you both saw and used while on Arkkadia,” Taulass explained. “They are designed for short space transportation of personnel between craft in a fleet.” He watched Adam nod doubtfully. “It's cheaper and less labour intensive than having to move crew around via shuttle craft. They also use them to move ground crew from Arkkadia to craft in orbit, once again, to save us having to use expensive shuttle craft. It's also much safer.”
“I get it,” Adam defended himself, and this time Taulass was sure he did understand. “So, we can use the hub on your craft to move us directly to Arkus 2, in effect by dialling up its hub?”
“Yes. But there is one problem.”
“I had a horrible feeling you were going to say that,” Adam groaned.
“The hubs,” Oriyanna chipped in, leaning forward, “are only designed for very short journeys, no more than a thousand miles. Plenty of distance to allow for movement between craft in fleet, or from the planet's surface to a ship in orbit.”
“But Peru must be over five thousand miles away,” Adam said, not quite sure why they were wasting time on a plan which obviously had no hope of succeeding from the off. “Two questions,” he added. “One: why can they only be used for a trip of that distance? And two: why don't we just get in range, we can still separate the two craft by a thousand miles?”
“Both good questions,” Taulass said as they flew past a large truck, its massive tyres throwing a barrage of spray over the wipers. “As you know, to create a bend in space needs a massive amount of power, and the larger the bend, the larger the amount of power needed.”
“Yeah, I remember that one,” Adam cut in, pleased he could at least grasp the concept in
layman's terms. “Hence why the Tabut used the Earth's power and took two hours to charge.”
“Exactly,” Taulass agreed enthusiastically. “Now, the originating hub, the one on our ship, will take its power from the anti-matter engines that power the whole craft. Unfortunately, if we push the hub to a greater distance than a thousand miles, we won't have enough power to generate the first wormhole to return home.” He glanced at Adam who was, once again, looking confused. “It takes a tremendous amount of power to generate that first hole, but as we pass through, it also expels a tremendous amount of power. The ship's hull is made from Taribium, just like the hub and the Tabut. As that energy is expelled, it's re-harnessed by the hull and used to create the anti-matter for the next wormhole. It's a perpetual cycle of fuel expenditure and creation. But if we can't produce that first jump…”
“Then you can't refill the engines for the next one,” Adam completed the sentence, grasping the idea.
“Exactly. Only the power generated by a jump can be captured by the hull and used to refill the engines. Even if we could jump the six and a half thousand miles to Peru using the on-board hub, the ship would be useless – heck, it can't even jump us halfway.”
“Then we fly within range,” Adam protested, sure he was about to be shot down in flames by some bizarre reason that his underdeveloped brain could not figure out.
“No!” Taulass said promptly. “If we do that, we may as well fly the whole way there. They will be tracking us, see us land and guess our plan. As we pass through the hub they will be waiting. We may as well just walk up to Arkus 2 waving white flags.”