north of that city.
The bridge spanned the North Saskatchewan River and was located next to the Legislative Assembly of Alberta. In the summer months, a waterfall created by artist Peter Lewis dropped one hundred and fifty feet off the side of the bridge, casting mist and rainbows across the waves. It was a beautiful piece of architecture and a significant landmark in Edmonton.
“High Level Bridge,” said the XO with recognition. “I’ve actually driven over that.”
“Yes, and it seems a large Russian ground force is looking for the same experience.”
“Oh no.”
“Oh yes. And you know what they want us to do.”
“They can’t be serious. What about collateral damage, aren’t they worried about—”
“The Euros asked for a kinetic strike.”
“That would take out the surrounding buildings — including the legislature. Couldn’t engineers rig the bridge?”
“I’m told that was the first plan, but they realized they can’t get it done in time.”
“I see.”
“So we’re going to deny the enemy that avenue of approach, but we’ll need to do it like surgeons. If we’re successful, Enforcers Corps troops on the ground will continue the delaying operation. I get the impression from the admiral that something even bigger is going on down there and that it’s imperative we do our part.”
“Well, he can count on us, sir.”
“My words exactly. So we’re under way for the Gulf. And XO, the second we’re in our firing position, I aim to let our Tomahawks fly and destroy that target.”
The XO nodded. “The crew will happily oblige, sir.”
In 1703, Peter the Great laid the cornerstone of the fortress he named St. Petersburg, in honor of the guardian of the gate of heaven. He later built a shipyard across the Neva River from the fortress.
In 2015,
Five years later, Captain Second Rank Mikhail A. Kolosov was given command of that sub. Kolosov was thirty-nine, never married, and known by his colleagues as a pensive loner. He was a graduate of the Tikhookeansky Naval Acadamy and the Paldiski nuclear submarine training center.
His first assignment was as communications officer on a diesel-electric Foxtrot class. Next he was an engineering officer aboard the last remaining Alpha nuclear attack sub. He later served four years as XO onboard a Typhoon-class SSBN until it was sold to the Chinese.
Despite eighteen years in submarines, Kolosov was still the youngest officer to be given command of the
Just two days previously, the
Now they were about to pass through the Dolphin and Union Strait, bound for the Coronation Gulf, utilizing their shaftless propulsors called RDT — rim-driven thrusters. The super quiet, all-electric
Kolosov reached into his breast pocket and removed the picture of Dimitri. He stared at it a moment, then rubbed the back for good luck, a ritual he had performed countless times. His older brother, twelve years his senior, had died back in the mid-nineties.
Dimitri had been working on the clean-up of the 70 MWe and 90 MWe pressurized-water training reactors in Paldiski, Estonia, and had suffered radiation poisoning while constructing the two-story concrete sarcophagus that now encased the two reactors. Officials and administrators had been grossly negligent, and Kolosov had lost his brother because of them. Dimitri’s death was a devastating blow to the family, one from which his parents had never recovered. They had gone to their own graves grieving his loss.
Kolosov returned the photo to his pocket and regarded his executive officer.
“It won’t be long now, sir,” said the younger man. “Today will be a great day for the Motherland.”
Kolosov averted his gaze. “Yes, comrade.”
Sergeant Marc Rakken and his team moved up the Calgary Tower stairwell, climbing farther into the uncertain darkness. The Spetsnaz troops had gassed the entire stairwell but to no avail. Rakken and his squad were masked up and determined. Another squad was coming up behind his, with two more in the other stairwell.
The staircase seemed to go on forever, the teams’ lights shining up until they seemed to run out, beams clogged with the still-lingering gas.
Every man on Rakken’s squad was now equipped with a concave-shaped Ferrofluid shield behind which they could duck in the event of a grenade being tossed into the stairwell. The shields also protected them from incoming rifle and rocket fire, though a significant explosion’s concussion would send them tumbling back down the stairs. If the blast didn’t kill them, the fall might.
Real-time video from the drone showed two heavily armed Spetsnaz troops posted on the landing outside the main door to the observation deck. Both were staring down into the stairwell with digital binoculars pressed to their masks. They resembled darkly clad aliens, armored and deadly. A third troop appeared and reached into a satchel.
“Grenade!” one of Rakken’s men cried over the radio.
Rakken already had an image from his point man’s helmet camera. The grenade had been dropped at an angle intended for their landing, but it flew wide, and plummeted toward the very bottom—
Two seconds later it exploded, the staircase and railings reverberating.
“Sparta Team, they still can’t get a decent angle on us. Let’s pick up the pace!” Rakken cried.
However, every man on his rifle squad was already breathless, including himself.
And they were only halfway up the tower.
“Incoming, shields up!” yelled Rakken’s point man.
Dozens of rounds began pinging and ricocheting down at them, and Rakken crouched down behind his shield, feeling the vibration of several impacts as the shield’s liquid outer layer grew hard, absorbed the blow, then returned to its fluid state. The Russians were simply delaying them now, and Rakken wouldn’t stand for that.
“Sparta Team, I don’t care about that fire! Move out!”
Not two heartbeats after Rakken gave the order, the entire tower began to shake, as though from some massive earthquake.
“Sergeant!” cried one of Rakken’s team leaders. “What the hell is that?”
Major Alice Dennison was riveted to her monitors. She had just watched the Rods from God platform commanders line up for their shot. Then the rocket-and-fin-equipped tungsten rod had streaked away from the cylindrical platform, its engine glowing as it reached a speed of nearly 36,000 feet per second — about as fast as a meteor until retro rockets kicked in to prevent it from burning up. The rod was nearly twenty feet long, one foot in diameter, and its heat-shielded nose cone had grown cherry red as it had vanished into the atmosphere.
The rod had all the destructive effects of an earth-penetrating nuclear weapon without all of the radioactive fallout. It relied upon kinetic energy to destroy everything in its path.
Dennison had views from several cameras on the ground when the rod slammed into Highway 2, directly in the middle of that long convoy of Russian vehicles.
And now a swelling sphere of destruction spread from the impact site, the ground heaving up in great torrents, as though a billion subterranean explosions were going off in succession, chutes of fire and smoke lifting hundreds of feet into the air. The kill zone continued to spread, vehicles instantly pulverized by the unstoppable force.
She could only imagine what it must feel like on the ground, commanders popping out of their hatches, only
