“Shit. Is there any good news?”
“No, sir. I’m sorry. We didn’t expect a nuclear war on top of the asteroid strikes. The combination has really destroyed most of the northern hemisphere.”
“What about Canada?”
“A couple of Russian missiles struck Toronto and their six main air bases. They also used nine warheads to destroy nine of our deactivated DEW radar line stations.”
“Why? We deactivated it. I don’t understand why they would hit the empty facilities. All they managed to do is throw more debris and moisture into the atmosphere which we didn’t need. The rain may be radioactive. Does anyone have any ideas?”
A radar tech responded, “Sir, I figure an old missile boat with old targeting tossed their missiles. I bet the Russians launched whatever they had. Some must have had old programs in them.”
“Sounds as logical as anything else today. Do we have idea how long the debris field is going to stay up there?”
A forgotten person who’d been sitting on a small folding chair along the wall said, “Mr. President, this is Bob Imus…”
“Ah, the Robert of Robert’s Rock. He speaks. Continue. Since you discovered the monster rock, you get a voice here the same as anyone else. I’d forgotten I had invited you to join me.”
“Sir, I believe the debris has been shot so high into the atmosphere and it’s so dense that we’re looking at it staying up there for years, many many years.”
“Can you define that any better than many many years?”
All eyes were on Imus, “Sir, I don’t have access to a supercomputer. The best I can do on my laptop is the cloud will stay up there for at least fifty years…”
“WHAT!? Someone get Mr. Imus access to the best computers we have.”
The general shook his head, “Mr. President, we need that computer to calculate our strikes…”
“General, look at the monitor, strikes on whom? There’s no more Russia, their attack was a mistake. I made a mistake counter striking and then the UK and France got involved. There’s no one left to toss nukes around. Do we even have any more nukes to use if I wanted to?”
“Yes, sir. We have four submarines and are preparing to rearm the boats which have already launched.”
“I have no intention of ordering a follow up strike. I’m giving you a direct order, give Mr. Imus access to the computer.”
“Yes, sir.”
“Mr. Imus, you can connect to the facilities server and through it the supercomputers. I need an answer and I need it very quickly.”
“Mr. President, I’m connected and working on it.”
“Excellent.”
The command room was silent while every eye was focused on Robert Imus who was typing like crazy on his laptop which was connected to NORAD’s and DoD’s supercomputers. He paused, looked at the display, then typed again. He looked up and asked, “What’s the current temperature over the middle of the Atlantic and Pacific Oceans?”
After getting the readings from the satellite control officer he typed then asked, “I’m sending you coordinates, I need the surface temperature, the temperature at 50,000 feet and can you determine the wind speeds at the same coordinates too?”
“Sir, please give me around twenty minutes and I believe we can get you the data.”
President Lanoha smiled and nodded his approval at Imus who was typing like crazy. “Sir, I am sending you some of the information you requested.”
“Can you also give me the temperature at the North Pole and the wind speeds circling the Pole? Any way to measure the density of the clouds? I also need the temperatures at these coordinates of the oceans at the attached depths.”
“Sir, yes, however the President will have to give him permission. That information requires the release of the use of classified sensors…”
President Lanoha’s face turned red, “I am hereby stating, under my Executive Order, Mr. Robert Imus has TS/SCI clearance, he is to be treated as a member of my staff, am I clear?”
Every head in the room nodded. The sensor officer replied, “Mr. Imus, the data will begin populating your form in minutes. Please remember this is classified TS.”
“Thank you, I understand. Who am I going to tell? I’m sitting with you and the President inside a hollowed-out mountain.”
A moment later the mountain rang like a giant bell. Imus dropped his laptop while he, like almost everyone else, yelled and covered their ears. The electronic systems failed, the lights flashed and went off. The emergency lights turned on, the large monitor and its surrounding monitors were all black. The sound of the HAVC system was silent. All of the telephones and internal radios were silent. Large sections of the once bolted into the rock ceiling tiles fell. Two workers were crushed when the large tiles fell on them while they were sitting at their desks. Wire bundles broke loose and hung down from the walls. Red lights strobed in the room. Imus cursed. “My laptop! My connection was cut, I lost all the work I had done. Can someone please get the network back on line?”
President Lanoha asked, “What the hell was that? A nuke?”
A sensor officer responded, “No, sir. It was a splinter which struck the side of the mountain. We lost all of the security troops stationed at the base of the mountain. According to the sensors, the main tunnel doors survived. The mountain itself survived unlike the one in Russia. All of our systems are down from the shock. We are restarting them, we should be back up and running within minutes. Mr. Imus it will take at least ten minutes for the network to restart. Lights and power should be on in three minutes, HAVAC in ten. Mr. President, once the systems are back on line, we’ll be able to show you
