“I hear you, but I’m not ready to accept it yet. I want you to track the rock and figure out its course. I will speak to our best military and weapons scientists. I will not be the last President of the Motherland. This is to be classified at the highest levels, am I clear?”
“Yes, Mr. President. I understand.”
“Good, the fate of the Motherland is in your hands. Don’t let me down.”
Russia’s best weapon’s engineers reviewed the asteroid’s data and they all came to the same conclusion. The rock was simply too large, moving too quickly, and had a mass too large to stop. If the Motherland could strike the rock with a large enough warhead, they might break the rock which would drop fragments all over the world causing incalculable damage. President Aristov shook his head, “This is not acceptable. There must be a way to save us Find it!”
The commanding general of Russia’s strategic rocket service replied, “Mr. President, we can’t destroy the rock, but we may be able to shift its course just enough to miss the planet.”
“Please explain how you plan to do this.”
“By exploding massive nuclear weapons on a precise angle, it might be possible to nudge the rock, think of a cue ball hitting the eight ball on a pool table. Our goal is to make a small shift in the asteroid’s orbit, so it misses the Earth.”
“Do we have enough time to produce the weapons and delivery program?”
“We have the weapon design. It was created over 75 years ago. We called it the RDS-202 hydrogen bomb. It was designed to exceed 100 megatons. In its only test it was tampered down to 57 megatons, but we still have design. We can improve it, modernize it, and we can increase the yield to over 150 megatons. We have a handful of the new supertyazh boosters. We can launch them at the rock, each carrying the largest weapons the world has ever seen.”
“I repeat, so we have the time?”
“We can make the time…”
“What do you need?”
“We could use the assistance of the Americans who have the best computers…”
“NO! They knew about the rock and didn’t inform us. I won’t ask them for anything, and I won’t share the glory with them. The saving of the world will be ours and ours alone. Can we build the rockets and warheads we need in the time we have left?”
“We have no other option, if you give us the order, we will ensure we launch in time.”
“Do it!”
President Aristov picked up the video hot line three times, but each time he punched the terminate button before the White House National Security Advisor or the President himself answered. He knew and didn’t share the information. I bet he plans to save his people and let mine die. He would like that. He’s always hated us Russians. Always said he didn’t trust any of us, ever since he was a Senator and Putin was President. What a horror he was. He almost destroyed the Motherland. I ought to see if we can arrange to have the damned rock dropped on Washington, that ought to serve him. I won’t talk with him until I know if the General’s plan will succeed.
Aristov looked at the computer-generated image of the potential ice age for the fifth time and he wondered, could it really get that bad, I wonder if the white coats really know what they’re talking about. Almost the entire northern hemisphere is white. There will be more of America then us, maybe we should invade them and take what we want. Their people will be so split when the rock hits, they’ll be too busy to figure out what we’re up too.
Chapter 9
Jon heard one of the soldiers yell, “Pack em up, it’s time to go! We’re pulling out in thirty minutes. The beer and food is already loaded in the trucks. Anyone who even thinks they might need to use the rest rooms, I suggest you do it now.” Erin looked outside to see large green trucks line up in front of the diner. She pointed to the strange large vehicle leading the caravan. The soldier said, “That’s our snowplow tank. See the large blade in front, it used to dig up land mines and IEDs, now it clears the snow.”
Ariden asked, “What’s an IED?”
“Improvised Explosive Device. A very nasty bomb that the enemy planted to kill us when we drove by. The large blades pushed them out of the way as we drove by.”
“Someone planted them in the States? You had so many terrorists? Our news never told us about this. I understand why our Prime Minister debated if we should emigrate to the States or not.”
The solider laughed, “No, no. They were in the sandbox, I mean Afghanistan during our war on terror. Emigrate, what a big word for a little girl?”
“We do have schools in Canada. They teach us both English and French.”
Jon hugged his youngest daughter, he looked at the solider, “How long will it take to reach your forward operating base?”
“It depends on the weather, and how quick the tank can move, anywhere from three to six hours.”
“Will we have to worry about any more threats to us?”
“Not if they’re sane. But then again, not many who are still left up here could still be called sane. We’re armed and we’ll protect you just as we’re going to protect our beer.” He laughed. Erin realized they were making a joke, so she laughed, but she wondered if the soldiers were serious that if something happened along the way they’d spend more energy saving the beer then her family. Unknown to all of them, a group of ten people sitting on snowmobiles were watching the trucks line up in
