by T I WADE
Distracted, Preston was on the other side of his airfield pondering which hangars and buildings he would need. “There would be enough room between the triangle-shaped runways and taxiways to have several buildings inside the asphalt, and we will need a secure food storage building as well!” He envisioned a large hangar for the Wing of new aircraft requisitioned by Carlos. “It would be nice to have the girls stationed here at the farm. Also, housing will be needed. The President has already asked for a house for the First Family. All accommodations would need to be kept far away from the new ammunition storage depot about to go in. They would have to build them in a line with his house and hangar on this side of the current runway.”
“Preston, are you with us?” he heard the general ask him and he quickly returned to the present.
“Sorry, General Patterson, I was trying to figure out where all the new buildings are going to fit on my airfield,” he replied, embarrassed.
“Do you want me to start putting up more buildings?” joked Joe. “Just remember we don’t have our neighborhood Home Depot or Lowes anymore. I have enough wood supplies at home for several exterior frames, even a couple of hundred logs from a log home we dismantled a year or so ago…”
“I’ve always wanted a log home, like the ones in the Rockies,” interrupted the President. “You keep that stuff for me, Joe, and I’ll make you a pilot in no time. I’m even thinking that I might as well start flying. At least I can help out with airlifts. Colonel Mondale, when can Joe and I start down at Seymour Johnson? It will give me a reason to be down here longer.”
“Right after the meeting, Mr. President,” Colonel Mondale joked. “We can have you flying single-engine propellers by tonight, multi-engine by lunchtime tomorrow and jets by tomorrow night.” Everybody enjoyed the humor going around.
“No, I’m serious, soon-to-be Major Mondale. Remember the Chief of the Air Force is in this room and one word from me…”
“I get the message, Mr. President,” replied the colonel. “We have a couple of Cessna 172s, the ones Preston found at RDU, we have a two-seater multi-engine trainer operational and within a month, a second two-seater, side-by-side A-37 trainer is being made operational as we speak. There is a third one at McConnell in Kansas and a fourth somewhere else. With the general’s permission I can get them all relocated to Seymour Johnson and anything else we can find to teach flying and start a flying school.” General Patterson nodded his approval. “Mr. President, I think that with a serious program on a daily basis, we could have you and Joe and anybody else who wants to fly jets trained within three to four months.”
“I am your certified Cessna instructor, and ready to start work Mr. President,” offered Martie. “I was going to go help my father and grandfather design new electronics, but to help new pilots is far more rewarding.” Preston was immediately relieved. One of his forthcoming issues was resolving itself in front of him. Martie would stay.
Agreements were made. It was easy to build the future as everybody who had a say was in this hangar meeting.
A timeline was set up with suggestions from the engineers present, Martie, Preston, Buck, Maggie and Carlos contributing the most. A satellite phone was activated to Michael Roebels currently at Silicon Valley with Lee and Grandpa Roebels and the first dual-coast conference call of the new world was started.
With many ideas rising from the teams of expert engineers on both sides of the country, the satellite phone connected to Preston’s old music amplifier and loudspeaker was set up for the conference call and a second system was ready in California. Both parties could hear each other well, but the satellite phones had to be passed to speak into.
Any form of electrical grid modifications to anything larger than a sub-station would take two to five years. Countrywide was a wild guess of twenty years by Michael Roebels.
Agreement was made that a small nuclear power plant in California should be made activate immediately. Several smaller plants around the country, which included the local Newhill Nuclear Power Station, also should be brought back online when needed. It would take about three months to get the first one in California up to steam and then it would be shut down again until needed, as there was nothing presently working to use the power. Buck reckoned that the country’s current nuclear power stations would be the ongoing power sources of the country as needed. The old coal-powered ones would be left and any working parts cannibalized for other projects.
Buck also suggested that companies around the country that produced or stored solar panels should be visited and all available solar equipment, panels, storage batteries and working inverters transported to one location and erected to maximum potential.
Maggie suggested that the same be done with the wind power companies and that they visit any companies that made small household wind-power equipment. Very few in the civilian community could do anything with this equipment, or even get a necessary infrastructure together and a large wind turbine could power up an air base or small town. Maggie also suggested that there could be warehouses of parts and equipment in all areas of the country. Carlos calculated that all this material could even equal a coal-fired power station and be enough for a couple of smaller cities.
Once the incoming troop airlifts were complete, the 747 aircraft could visit towns and cities where these companies were situated. General Patterson stated that the troops deploying around the country could seek out these warehouses or businesses and put a guard detachment on them if they were still in one piece.
The general then asked Michael for other estimates on when manufacturing plants could begin manufacturing new parts.
Michael gave them the information they had worked on in California. There were a dozen old electronic-part manufacturing plants in Silicon Valley which had shut down within the last decade, due to Chinese parts becoming so cheap. Companies had gone out of business and these older plants had manufactured electronic parts in the mid-90s, which meant they could be made operational again, or would take less time to go through the systems and replace defunct parts. They now had recorded samples of all the working parts that had arrived in the 747 transporter from China. These could be used as production examples, copied and then processing lines set up for manufacture. Raw materials could be obtained over time. He suggested somebody visit the Chinese production plants and set up a trade route of needed materials. They should have tons of raw materials stockpiled over there and Michael suggested, with Lee Wang’s guidance, that a firm friendship should be made between the American government and whoever was ruling in China.
Everyone at Preston’s farm agreed to the plan and Sally suggested that since General Allen had managed to get across in Ghost Rider that Blue Moon should be immediately readied for a world reconnaissance, especially to the safe areas of China.
Admiral Rogers reminded everyone that a container ship would be heading in that direction and it could be used as a helicopter landing platform; tons of men, fuel and supplies could be put on its deck and dirt or stone ballast inside the massive ship to make it safe for blue-water travel.
The meeting reverted back to Michael who gave suggestions about country-wide possibilities that made everybody solemn and serious again.
“I’m going to read from a list we have worked on here:
A local electrical grid structure, here in the necessary production area around Silicon Valley in three months, and a same-sized grid in your Raleigh/Durham area next year.
A statewide grid in California and North Carolina; ten to twelve years.
A countrywide grid for everybody: two decades.
New communication systems, phones, computers, radios, directional equipment etc.: ten years for the simplest systems.
More sophisticated systems from the above: two decades.
To get a new satellite into space: three decades.
Build new fighter jets and defense systems: unmanned a decade at minimum, maybe two decades for a modern manned aircraft.
To make operational
current unmanned aircraft with ground-flight controls: two years for a simple system with a 500 mile control radius and three years for a system to operate through our existing Navistar satellite which would be far bigger.
“That is our work up to now with emphasis on the fact that we will have no new parts manufactured for at least 24 months, and then the manufacturing will be very slow until we build more plants in this country. We could ask China to build parts for us, but that is up to the powers that be.”
“Never in a million years!” replied the President. “We will never have anything more than the importation of raw materials into this country. I will make it part of an ongoing law for future Presidents and perhaps suggest it as an amendment to our United States Constitution.” He received applause for this from both sides of the country.
The team in California was thanked and the hangar meeting reverted back to a closed session.
“The last item is security, ladies and gentlemen,” stated General Patterson. “What does everyone suggest we do now, for the rest of this year, and next year, and the ongoing future?”
“I believe that it will take at least a year of organization before any power can ready enough troops or machinery to attack the United States,” suggested Carlos. “I suggest that for the rest of this year, we have limited security, except where our returning troops are being hampered or attacked in the cities or towns internally.” Everyone agreed.
“I think that this year is a year to get our troops back, feed our civilians, get the farmers all the help and labor they need, try to save as many people as possible, and keep our satellite, or satellites trained on our shores,” added Mike Mallory.
“Within a few weeks,” continued General Patterson “we will have our container ship with what the Admiral suggested near Shanghai, once it has met up with the other Chinese ships coming our way. We can fly out two Gunships via Europe with air tankers and set up lines of real communications with the Chinese. We have our satellite communications right now, but we will not communicate with them until we are close to arriving in their country. Once we have all our troops back, I will ask General Ward to take over the southern border and have a good number of men and vehicles patrolling. Once we get Michael’s unmanned drones flying in a year or two we will be able to see 500 miles inside Mexico. Hopefully they will be equipped with night vision and then we can get some of our Spanish-speaking Special Forces dressed in civilian clothes to go into Mexico and warn us of any gatherings of armies, or whatever could come north. Canada is not a problem and unless someone brings our northern border up, I think we are finished here until our meeting back at Andrews in a month’s time. Meeting adjourned!”
“I’m getting rather thirsty thinking of that mountain of Yuenglings back there, Preston. Do you have any real cold ones?” asked the President to everyone’s delight.
Everyone agreed, the day was done and one-on-one discussion needed to take place over snacks and drinks. Music was added to the mix, those outside were allowed into the hangar, and from the main house Preston, beer in hand, stated that he was going to walk his perimeter and asked if anyone wanted to join him. Both the general and admiral did as well as Martie, Carlos, Mike Mallory and Buck, and the lead Air Force engineer. A major who was nearby was asked to accompany them to take notes. The President wanted a little time with his wife and kids.
“A great idea, the camp you are putting together,” stated Preston to Admiral Rogers as they walked south down the existing runway. “Do you think we are going to need a million new houses in this country?”
“The people we have managing the situation with the cities in the north are devastated by the numbers of dead,” Admiral Rogers replied grimly. “If you haven’t been there, it is impossible to visualize the size of the tasks before us. Mike Mallory and I joined a team going through Manhattan a couple of weeks ago. We walked down The Avenue of the Americas to Central Park. We walked by broken windows in snow boots. The windows were third-story windows. The city was barren and empty and we saw several dogs and one or two people disappear into windows when they saw us approach. Central Park was a white skating rink where the sun had frozen fresh snow into a top ice layer. We walked across Central Park at tree level. It had snowed several feet the week before, a massive snow storm which stopped all our work for a couple of days and raised everything by a three or four feet. It took days just to clear the airport runways and get troops back into Manhattan. Even at this high level we had teams behind us in tracked vehicles, old jeeps we have found with snow tracks on them, and we picked up over seventy frozen bodies which couldn’t have been dead for more than a few days. I would hate to see what body count was below where we walked, frozen in the snow.”
“What or who is still killing the people?” asked Martie.
“Mostly gunshot wounds. Some had just fallen in the snow and were too weak to move. There was little we saw or heard while we were there. I believe many of the people didn’t want to be seen, mostly armed and dangerous. It was after we returned down The Avenue of the Americas, back to our guarded vehicles, when people started waving at us from windows. Once they knew that we weren’t bad guys they came out in dozens, mostly children and teenagers, telling us that their parents were holed up somewhere else in the city. That afternoon, we brought out seven hundred starving people and placed them in the new camp. We now have several platoons of soldiers going into Manhattan and a couple of other cities every day looking for people. In the week we have been doing this on a daily basis, we have lost three men to sniper fire, have kitted the soldiers out with bullet-proof vests and saved nearly 2,000 people in Manhattan alone.”
“Wow!” exclaimed Preston.
“We just don’t have enough men to do everything we want yet,” added General Patterson. “We have had to ship many men to supplement the guards at hundreds of our military bases around the country. Many of them did not have enough personnel for round-the-clock protection. Also, many of the incoming officers have been deployed to take command of these bases, mostly smaller ones. We have 143 major bases in the country, and all these now have 3,000 to 5,000 men guarding them. The problem we faced last month were the 5,800 smaller bases where there were less than fifty to a hundred men remaining to guard them; these were ammo dumps, prisons, warehouses, and specialist training bases including all the National Guard and Coast Guard bases around the country. It has taken us three weeks to get troops into these bases with needed supplies. These smaller bases will be our future national defense grid and it has taken 250,000 men from overseas—half of the men we have returned so far—just to set up security for all these bases. The task has just been completed. It wasn’t only bringing the men into the country, but then major airlifting them into the bases, mostly using helicopters out of the major secure bases. It has been a long three weeks and we used everything we had spare to get these men around the country. That put added pressure on the food distribution and also helping civilians stay alive.”
“You must have found more flyable aircraft to do this,” added Preston.
“We scoured every airfield we had mapped across the country. In many areas we found small aircraft which we commandeered, just like you did at your international airport here, cleared the runways and flew them to the Air Force bases. To date, we have found over 300 small single-engine civilian aircraft we can use and lined them up with our 40 operational helicopters. With the larger C-130s we flew hundreds of men and rations into the main air bases from Andrews and McGuire. From there the civilian aircraft flew them into air fields not blocked by snow, or they were airlifted into bases in towns or cities. This task is virtually complete, and thanks to many pilots and aircraft working around the clock, we have all these bases up and running. Now we can airlift food and supplies into them using the helicopters and small aircraft on a daily basis. Thanks to your idea, Preston, we looked at every FedEx and UPS building at the airports and we successfully got a 100 of the old Cargomasters working like beasts of burden flying supplies
into small airfields. They carry far more than the smaller aircraft and cover a fantastic amount of ground.”
“Even Lady Dandy has been working 24/7, Preston,” added Buck. “I have flown over a hundred hours in the last four weeks delivering supplies and men into Ohio and Kentucky as well as helping Carlos and Lee at Andrews when other pilots were flying her. The air force has promised me two new engines for her.”
“Now I feel guilty that Martie and I haven’t helped,” commented Preston.
“Don’t worry,” replied Buck. There were more than enough pilots once we got them arriving from overseas. It’s just that I wanted to look after my own aircraft. Only Baby Huey has been spared flying 24/7 because the President needs a helicopter for the White House pickups. It wasn’t the pilots we needed, it was aircraft and you guys wouldn’t have helped much with your Mustangs.”
“So that’s why my civilian aircraft disappeared?” Preston asked. They reached the end of the runway and Preston showed the general his idea on the new runway area. They spaced out the longest length of ground and agreed that the new runway would add another thousand feet for a larger range of aircraft to land. “What do the F-4 Phantoms need for takeoff and landing?” Preston asked General Patterson.
“I flew them for three years in my early flying days,” replied the general. “I would get them off fully laden in 3,200 feet and land in less. Luckily the altitude here is not a factor. Since we have walked out 3,700 feet, if you trimmed all the at trees both ends down to ten feet or less for a couple of hundred feet at either end, we could get everything we are currently flying in here except for the jumbo jets.”
