“Hello Mr. Coats, I’m Frank Brenson, I met Trinity in the caves. She invited me to join you for the trip south.”
“I see, won’t your parents miss you?”
“I lost my parents around two years ago. I’ve been on my own since. I have no one else to travel with.”
Erin jabbed Jon in his side, then said, “Welcome Frank. It’s good to meet you.”
Erin saw the gleam in Trinity’s eyes. She thought, she’s growing up so quickly, I think it’s time to have a little reminder chat with her. He seems like a nice young man. I can’t imagine how he’s survived alone for so long. It looks like he and Trinity like each other. This might be her first real boyfriend. If we’re going to survive, we’re going to need to have our children have children, ONE DAY.
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The lead tank was pushing snow 10 feet deep from the road when its plow blade ran into something that screeched and caused the tank to stop. The driver backed up and tried again. His second attempt was stopped again. He called the tank commander, “Sarge, we have a little problem, there’s something in the snowbank in front of us that’s blocking us.”
“Push through it.”
“I’ve tried twice, no go.”
“Damn it, I’ll sound the horn to alert the Colonel. This means we’re going to have to get out of the tank and see what’s buried in the snow.”
“Yeah, I hate being on point.”
Chapter 18
The large monitors in the command room showed the nuclear explosions in both America and Russia. President Lanoha asked anyone who would respond, “What’s the impact of fallout?”
“Most of it will be kept in the atmosphere. The nukes threw up tons of additional debris, combined with the asteroid, the splinters, and the volcanoes, the sun’s rays are totally blocked from reaching the ground. It’s only a few days before the plants begin dying. The debris is harmful to be breathed in. The volcanoes expelled material which is similar to small glass shards plus their ash combined with the moisture in the lungs will turn the ash into a material like cement. The ash will clog the human lungs, thus killing millions. We’ve got to get the filters and face masks into the people’s hands before the damage is done.”
“I thought they all had the masks…”
“Not everyone. By last count, we’re still short over a million and many aren’t wearing them.”
“I’ll make another announcement…”
“Mr. President, you can’t transmit anything, the atmosphere is too ionized. Radio and television signals, all cellular and wireless are down and won’t be coming back any time soon.”
“How do we tell the people they have to wear their masks, or they’ll die?”
“Sir, I really don’t know.”
“Thank you. Not only did we lose the coastal cities, we got hit by over 140 nukes and volcanoes erupted. Of course, there are the earthquakes and then there’s the effect of the splinters and the main rock. What you’re telling me is we’re screwed.”
“Ah, well, yes sir, that’s correct.”
President Lanoha looked at the Commanding General, “General, are your people helping our citizens get out of harm’s way?”
“We’re doing the best we can, but we have no communications and many don’t want to leave their homes. Many don’t believe there’s such a thing as another ice age.. The base commanders reported less than 17% are moving south.”
“17%? We have to improve that number. We need more people moving out of the freeze line. If we don’t get them out now, when the weather really turns bad, we might not be able to get them out.”
“That, Mr. President, is our ‘Catch 22.’”
The President asked the satellite control officer, “Please show us the view from space.”
The wall sized monitor flickered and then displayed an image of North America. Three quarters of it was covered by dense smoke and debris. “Can you zoom in so we can see the ground?”
“Mr. President, this is the max zoom of the system. We should be able to read the newspapers in people’s hands. The debris is so dense we can’t see through it.”
“How about thermal or IR?”
“Here’s the thermal view.” The monitor’s image switched to glowing images which showed massive fire storms and fires burning out of control. Some areas looked very bright while others showed black, reflecting no heat. “Can you get us a better image?”
“No, sir thermal and the IR are useless with the debris. It can’t penetrate the thick cloud cover.”
“I understand. When will the birds be over Europe and Russia?”
“We have some overhead now. I can change the image if you’d like.”
“Please.” The image changed to show the heavy cloud/debris cover over most of Europe. “The UK looks strange. I can’t put my finger on it or what happened to it?”
“Sir, the waves washed over the UK’s coast. The famous White Cliffs of Dover have been shattered. Most of London was washed away. The entire country is without power which is why it looks so dark. The bright areas are the fire storms. Someone in Russia struck the UK with 16 nuclear weapons.”
“Shit.”
“The UK responded by launching their Trident missiles. They were able to launch 72 missiles with a total of 288 warheads.”
“This has gotten completely out of control. What’s left of Russia?”
“Sir, frankly not very much. We hit her with our nukes, the UK hit her, even France got in on it and struck her with 48 missiles and 144 warheads, and of course then there’s the main rock and numerous splinters. Russia has ceased to exist. President Aristov is dead. A large splinter crashed into his mountain. The shock wave destroyed his shelter. It struck with more energy than 1,000 megatons.”
“The mountain is gone?”
“Sir, here’s the image. As you can see, the top one third of the mountain is gone,
