Long ago with his grandfather, Colonel Marks had watched the movie
Klaxons rang in the bunker, but this wasn’t a test. This was for real, for real, for real. It felt as if he had echoes in his mind. He couldn’t believe he was going to do this.
On screen, Marks watched base silos open. They were like giant, metallic flowers moving with robotic hearts. His human heart sped up as he watched. The silos opened in order for them to spew forth their terrible thermonuclear cargoes.
He knew why he was doing this. They had discussed it among themselves here in the bunker. The German Dominion sailed toward America with a dagger, meaning to plunge the knife deep in his country’s heart. There was only one thing now that could stop these Krauts.
Colonel Marks would launch ten T Mod-5s. The “T” stood for Triton, the last new ICBM America had manufactured. “Mod-5”, of course, meant this was the fifth major modification to the Triton missile type.
There were no GPS satellites these days to watch the enemy. The Air Force had launched more high-flying drones to spy on the GD fleet. The ICBMs didn’t use radar or any other guidance. That was by design. They went up, took readings from the stars for perfect navigation and dropped their warheads at a programmed point on the Earth, or out a sea for this one. They would wreak thermonuclear havoc on the GD armada.
“Sir,” the operator said.
Colonel Marks lowered his precious watch. He knew his babies. He wanted to bray with laughter. Babies—he only had one baby now, and she was at home in the crib. Each missile weighed 192,000 pounds. Most of that was solid fuel to burn his baby thousands of miles if needed. He would reach out and touch the enemy with an extremely brutal and heavy hand. He would swat them out of existence with the Flash.
The operator turned around and looked up at him. “Sir,” he said, “we have a narrow launch window.”
Colonel Marks knew that. They were timing his babies to hit along with ASBMs using regular warheads. Those ship-killers would be the decoys. Could you imagine that?
Lean Larry Marks raised his hand and chopped it down decisively. He did it thinking,
The operator relayed the physically-given command.
In the command bunker, everything soon shook, even the screen. Colonel Marks stepped up behind the operator, putting his left hand—four lean fingers and a lean thumb—on the man’s shoulder. Wide-eyed, Marks watched the screen as he tightened his grip.
The first ICBM Triton roared into life. The massive death-machine rose from its silo as smoke billowed in a vast, chugging, churning cloud. Flames raged out of the back end as the Triton climbed slowly at first and then with greater speed.
Inside the bunker, Colonel Marks mentally computed the situation. The initial boost phase would last a little over three minutes. The solid fuel booster would put the missile into suborbital space flight. None of the missiles would complete a full orbital revolution around the Earth. Each missile’s flight path used a trajectory that went up and down in a relatively simple curve, well before it had a chance to orbit around the Earth like a satellite.
Despite his worries, a smirk spread across Marks’s face. Conventional ASBMs used regular warheads and Mach 10 plus kinetic energy to destroy ships. Those missiles would need great precision to kill: not so his thermonuclear-armed missiles.
The GD fleet was spread across many nautical miles of ocean. It would take more than one nuclear warhead to destroy them. As incredible as it was believe, they had launched ten ICBMs to make sure some got through the GD defenses. In truth, nothing on Earth was going to stop his babies, not the T Mod-5s.
Marks’s smirk grew. The GD ships were spread out, but not nearly far enough apart to save them from the coming destruction. The surprise of a lifetime was about to fall upon the invading armada.
A secret GD sensor-satellite packed in stealth sheathing was in an equatorial stationary orbit high off the coast of French Guiana. The sensor picked up the boost-phase burn of the ten Triton ICBMs leaving Minot, North Dakota.
The satellite’s onboard computer analyzed the data. In a microsecond, it came to the proper conclusion. The enemy launched ICBMs. A second later, the orbiting sensor burned through its sheathing as it aimed a communication laser. The laser speared across space to a relay station in the Mauritanian Desert, which was in western Saharan Africa.
Afterward, with the primary task completed, the sensor continued to track the lifting ICBMs, beaming all the telemetry data to the relay station.
The GD major on station in the Mirror Launch bunker also made a nearly instant decision. He had a single function: to negate an automated system from launching a heavy missile into space.
With hot coffee spilled on his uniform—the cup hit the wall even now, shattering. He’d been leaning back a second ago, drinking the coffee as the alarm rang and surprised him. With hot, soaking coffee beginning to scald his skin, the major nevertheless scanned the simple amount of data on his emergency screen. As he did, he had three thoughts:
The middle thought was the important one. He saw American ICBM boost-phase burns. Therefore, he did not raise his hand and reach for a red button. Because he did not, he did not depress the switch that would shut down the launch sequence. Therefore, the automated system continued to function smoothly as designed.
Fifteen seconds later, the bunker shook, making the light overhead rattle. He thought it might explode. A heavy K-14 rocket sped for space, with massive boosters shooting long flames. The missile did not carry a warhead. This was not a retaliatory strike. The missile’s payload was a mirror, one that possessed fantastic adjusting ability. Even as the rocket roared toward the Heavens, telemetry data poured into its onboard AI, data that originated from the sensor high above French Guiana.
Warrant Officer Gunther Weise stared in shock at the big screen. For a moment, he forgot his duties. Many did in the central situation room aboard the supercarrier.
General Kaltenbrunner and the admiral stared silently at the screen.
“Can we intercept?” Kaltenbrunner finally managed to ask.
The admiral—a small, neat man with a white goatee and white uniform—merely smiled in his restrained way. “Matters are already proceeding for our defense, General.”
That woke up Gunther, as did a nudge in the back from the lieutenant in charge of the warrant officers.
Gunther returned to monitoring his controls. Sweat began to pool under his armpits as he realized the sick truth. The Americans had launched nuclear missiles at the fleet. Those missiles raced here even now. This was horrible. He didn’t want to die.
Once more, the lieutenant poked him in the shoulder “Keep on task, Weise. Don’t freeze. There’s a good fellow.”
Gunther licked his lips. The sweat under his armpits became worse. He swallowed, and with greater concentration, he monitored his station. A pain spiked between his eyes. He found that he stared hard at the controls. Fortunately, his training took hold, helping him to remember his tasks.
Even as he felt himself floating out of his body—it was a terrible sensation, he hated it—he readjusted for static.
“Ah, better,” Gunther heard the admiral say.
Commands soon went out, and klaxons rang with seemingly greater urgency. There was a flurry of activity
