When Gary and the soldiers arrived at the convoy, they found only three survivors, one of whom was Jon who was bleeding from a bullet strike to his shoulder. The other two were seriously wounded. One had a bullet in his chest and the other had two bullets in his back. Gary helped patch the three up, he asked Jon, “What happened?”
“Group on incredibly quiet snowmobiles again. They hit us hard, then they came by and shot all of the survivors. They took my family. Gary, you have to help me, they took my family.”
“I’ll help you, we’ll all help you. First we have to patch you up…”
“Forget about me, you have to save my girls. They’re only 9 and 16. You know what those monsters will do to them and to my wife.”
“I’ll see if we can track them and then I’m sure we’ll be ordered to grab them.”
“Wait?? Could you wait if they were your family?”
“Let me see if I can raise the colonel. The radios as I’m sure you’ve seen don’t work so well with all of the crap in the atmosphere. I think I heard that damned rock and the resulting nuclear explosions threw billions of tons of crap into the atmosphere which is what led to this wonderful weather we’re having.”
Chapter 11
On the USS Bush CVN 77
A gray navy tilt rotor plane carried President Aristov to the carrier where President Lanoha was waiting to greet him. The plane landed on an empty deck patrolled by armed Marines who made sure none of the ship’s 5,000 person crew were on the deck or in the halls when the two presidents walked to the Admiral’s Flag Bridge conference room where they would meet. Not even the battle group’s admiral was allowed in the meeting. There were four people, President Aristov and the head of the Russian space program, Dr. Rushchov, President Lanoha and Zack Milton the Director of NASA. After the phony welcomes, President Aristov shocked President Lanoha by saying, “I shouldn’t be sitting here, I should be in the Kremlin laughing over the destruction of your country after I launched all of my nuclear missiles and bombers at you.”
“What do you mean? Why would you say that? We are not threatening you.”
“Da! You have threatened the Motherland and every country on this planet by not sharing the information about this Robert’s Rock. You made plans to save your people while you were going to let the rest of the world die then you were what, going to send your military in to capture the survivors and annex the entire northern Hemisphere. Of course, I assume you’d use the cover of we’re here to help you as the reason for sending your military to conquer everyone who stood against you. Why else did you break every mutual defense treaty you had with everyone and recall all of your troops and all of their equipment. You had to lease ships and planes to return all of them to your country. Let’s not forget the series of shelters you’re building in your southern states or that you’re buying up every gram of food your farmers grow and all food stocks on the open market. You’re preparing your people to survive while mine and billions more die. I should have released my forces against your country when my officers wanted to. I told them no, you are a reasonable man, there had to be a reason why you didn’t share the information with us. I supported you even as you bought up the very food my people need at prices only you could afford, so tell me before I release my forces why didn’t you share the information with me?”
“I was assured your people already knew about the asteroid and hence there was nothing to tell you.”
“HA! You lie very well. We both know that isn’t the truth. Since you continue to lie, I will only tell you the following, in one day we will launch a series of rockets at the rock, each is armed with a new warhead. Be thankful this warhead isn’t fired at your country. Each warhead is rated at 125 megatons, yes, 125 megatons! See what we have been able to accomplish? We will launch six of our new massive rockets, larger than anything you have or had since your Saturn 5 moon rocket. We call them supertyazhs. In total we plan to launch 750 megatons at the rock…”
Milton shook his head, “Mr. President, even as large as 750 megatons is, it isn’t enough to destroy the rock, all you’re going to do is break some splinters off, these will destroy hundreds of our cities…”
“All of you Americans have no manners. I never said we were planning on striking the rock, my scientists have calculated such a force applied to the right spot will force the rock into a new orbit, thus missing the Earth. I came here to ask you to prepare some of your rockets as a backup in case some of mine malfunction. They are a new design and if your Milton is correct, 750 megatons might not be enough. We may require more, thus I came to ask we merge our strategic rocket forces to fire together. We have enough combined rockets that in addition to the 750 megatons, we might add just enough pressure to make sure its course is
