Struggle for a Small Blue Planet

by Warwick Gibson

  "Onto it," said Jimmy. "Normally you'd have to wait until daylight for a chopper, but I'll see what I can do." Then the call ended, and silence descended on the runabout once again.

  "Something up ahead," said Mikael suddenly. He had climbed up onto the small deck of the craft, appointing himself lookout. It didn't take the current long to bring them in among the taller buildings of Masterton. The runabout went gliding serenely past the expansive roof of a warehouse, just going under the water, but a tall office block had two storeys clear of the flood.

  Doug surveyed it carefully for survivors, but wasn't surprised to find their were none. The 'quake had struck in early morning. Moments later a body surfaced nearby. It rolled over in the current and seemed, impossibly, to wave at them. Then it settled face down in one last, lifeless, gesture.

  The four of them turned away from the grisly sight, and settled themselves in the bottom of the runabout. It was nice looking up at the stars. It wasn't long before Jeannie and the kids fell into an exhausted sleep, but the pain in Doug's shoulder kept him awake.

  An hour later he was roused by a sound he knew only too well – the distorted thump of helicopter blades coming in low over the water. The pilot had to be rated 'instruments only' to make the flight in the dark. Jimmy had pulled some very heavy-duty strings.

  Doug woke the others, and looked around for the lights of the machine. It didn't take him long to find them. Moments later the helicopter was directly overhead.

  "Anything else?" shouted the rescue chief as Jeannie was winched aboard. Doug looked down at the runabout from the side door, seeing it bizzarely outlined in two searchlight beams. It had saved their lives. He took a moment to recognise that fact, then shook his head to answer the question.

  "You got it all!" he shouted above the din. The number two motioned for him to strap in, and moments later the helicopter accelerated back the way it had come.

  Daylight was breaking as they rounded the end of the Rimutakas and came in over Wellington Harbour. Doug understood the need for the extra kilometres round the end of the mountain range. It was safer than flying over it in the dark.

  Then he looked ahead, and saw what had become of the harbour. For a long time he just stared.

  "East side down, west side up," he muttered at last, like he was repeating a mantra. Jeannie gripped his shoulder and he glanced back at her. He had thought she was asleep. They looked at the harbour again, then looked at each other in disbelief.

  Wellington had come up out of the sea like a container ship discharging a load. Seaside roads hung over rocky dropoffs, or ran alongside impossibly wide beaches. Wharves looked derelict, the last piles metres from the water's edge.

  But there was one thing he couldn't take in. Wellington harbour, previously a deepwater port, was now a lake. He looked down at the strip of land that cut off the inlet from the sea. Already a river was carving itself a bed along one end. The Hutt river and all the tributaries of the harbour had to go somewhere.

  The city must have lifted at least 12 metres. Doug knew that, because the entrance to the harbour was 12 metres deep. Civil defence had to know those things. The middle of the harbour was more than 20 metres deep in places. Hence the lake. He understood it, but he couldn't believe it. The huge area of sea under him would be a freshwater lake one day.

  He saw the centre of Wellington in more detail as they came in to land on the Civil Defence building. It looked like a quarry where the diggers had run amok. There were piles of masonry and broken concrete everywhere. The streets had disappeared under the rubble.

  Doug tried to get his mind back on Civil Defence business as Jimmy came to greet them at the chopper pad.

  "What's our functional capacity?" he shouted, as he hurried his family toward the rooftop entrance.

  "Pretty good," said Jimmy. "The building held up, and we've got most of our comms links back. The problem is raising anybody else. There's no coordinated effort going on across the city, just individual efforts, and few enough of those."

  Doug hadn't expected anything more. Civil Defence had never trained for this, never even looked at scenarios of this magnitude.

  "I've been getting calls on the military channel from Waiouru," said Jimmy. "Guy named Cal, said to make sure you ring him when you get in."

  Doug stopped in his tracks. Cal. It couldn't be. He'd always thought the SAS man's wild preparations for worst case scenarios were over the top. Then he smiled grimly. Cal had been proved right on this one.

  Doug had made it through the selection test for the SAS as a young man, with Cal as his captain, and done one tour of peacekeeping duty in East Timor. Then other things had called to him, and that got him started in Civil Defence.

  Jimmy grabbed Doug's arm, and got him moving again. Cathy was waiting inside the doors, and welcomed him with a brief hug. An aide took Jeannie and the kids to the onsite living quarters to get something to eat. Doug insisted on going down to the control room, where he found a stack of work waiting on his desk.

  The readiness reports made grim reading. There was little they could do until outside help arrived. But where was that help going to come from?

  Eventually he rang Cal.

  "Thought they shot you, you old bastard, for being right too often!" he said, when Cal came on the line.

  "Watch it, Private!" retorted Cal. "No matter how big an operation you run down there in the big smoke, it's still a civilian operation. I know you shit your pants every time the government changes."

  Doug laughed.

  "What can I do for you?" he asked.

  "You can join me up here," said Cal. "I need your organisational skills. I want you to run the show – around ten thousand people – so I can concentrate on developing a strike force. You'll have some good help."

  "Geez, Cal, that's like running a small town. No, it would be worse. Anyway, you don't have anything like those numbers in Waiouru."

  "We will," said Cal. "I can't answer too many questions just yet, but we will."

  Then he paused.

  "Look," he said, "I know you're just starting to come to grips with the mess down there, but you'll soon see there's bugger all you can do about it."

  Doug demurred, but Cal cut in.

  "There are people on your command team who can take over," he said. "They can set up disaster centres for those remaining, raid supermarkets, and organise long drops."

  Cal had a point, thought Doug. But still, why would he 'abandon his post' at the very time he was most needed?

  "You can bring your family," said Cal, "but they'll have to work hard. Everyone will. The main point, though, is this war is going to be won by innovative tech on old technologies, so if you can bring anyone with those skills it would be most appreciated."

  "What war?" said Doug quizzically.

  "Ah, yes," said Cal, slowing down. "We have a lot to talk about."

  A day later a helicopter arrived on the roof. Doug and his family, and Cathy, his tech specialist, stood waiting for it. They had one carry bag each. That was one of the new rules, for a new age. Each of them understood what they were about to do, and what the consequences were for the planet if they failed.

  Minutes later the machine lifted off, and climbed out of Wellington, the devastation of the city played out below them. Then it altered course for Waiouru, and snow-capped mountain peaks stood out on the horizon.

  20

  South Carolina Joint Military Base

  Charleston, USA

  Don wondered how anything could have got so buggered up, and so quickly. He eased the barrel of the M16 toward the cabin door of the EMARSS spy plane. The barrel was hidden between two carry bags lying on the floor. Other luggage, thrown up to be stacked inside, disguised his position. It was mid-morning of the day after he and Jo had arrived at Charleston Air Force Base, home to the 628th Air Wing.

  Don had found the M16 in the EMARSS survival gear, his response when soldiers dragged Brigadier-General Summers' office staff out onto the runway and
threatened to shoot them. The Brigadier-General was out there now, trying to defuse the situation.

  Don had been running through the plane's operating procedures with the pilot and co-pilot when it started. He had the two men doing pre-flight checks in the cockpit now, in case of an emergency take-off.

  The M16 was one of the later versions, the M16A4 he guessed. It had a longer barrel, but open sights. Not his first choice as a sniping rifle. He could take out one of the mutineers on the tarmac with some accuracy, and then it would be rapid fire. Not the best outcome for the hostages.

  Don could hear pieces of the conversation between a stocky major in his thirties, who appeared to be the spokesman, and the grey-haired Summers. The major's family home had been overrun by looters, and he had no idea if they were still alive.

  Now he, and others on the base, wanted their families brought onto the base. The major held a terrified woman hostage in front of him, a civilian worker at the base most likely.

  Unfortunately, bringing families to the base was not part of the Presidential plan, and it would be interesting to see which way Summers would swing. One wave of refugees had already been turned back with gunfire, and there would be more.

  Don demanded absolute loyalty from his men, but he didn't know how Summers ran his command. Fairly loosely, if this was the result.

  Cal had rung in the previous night with an extraordinary destination for Don and his team. They were to go to Bechar, in the middle of Algeria. Hell's teeth, it was on the edge of the bloody Sahara desert. What could be so important there? And Cal was keeping very quiet about why they were being sent.

  "You need to see the evidence for yourself," was all his boss would say. "I don't want you going in with preconceptions!"

  Don had shrugged his shoulders. What was one more mystery in a world that had gotten decidedly weird of late?

  Summers had authorised the use of the EMARSS spy plane for Don and his team as soon as he made the request.

  "The hanger collapsed at one end in the quakes," he said, "but the EMARSS doesn't appear to be damaged. One of the underground fuel tanks is intact, and it can be pumped by hand.

  "The plane's surveillance gear will help you avoid anything hostile. Some of the governments where you're going think the quakes are an act of war engineered by the West. They have a habit of not believing the facts in front of them."

  Don agreed with him on that one. At least the EMARSS had now been fueled up and parked out front of the offices and control tower. Or what was left of them. Close to a thousand personnel on the base had already cleaned up a lot of the mess. Tarpaulins were stretched over the least damaged buildings, and a tent city had sprung up by the demolished barracks.

  He wondered if the activity round the spy plane had provoked the mutiny. It might look like the top brass were flying out to somewhere safe, and leaving the foot soldiers to fend for themselves.

  Don swore quietly. Summers should have covered all this with his troops. He should have foreseen problems with the married men and given them the option of joining their families on the march to the new settlements.

  Then he looked over to his right. A figure deep in the shadows under the ruined control tower gave a sharp signal with a raised hand. Don smiled. Mosha had read the situation on the tarmac and armed up. He and his team would have taken out the nearest military police and removed their weapons. Don had been expecting this. He eased his position to one side, and returned the signal.

  Mosha and his team had come in late last night, but there was no sign of the other team. Most of the cell phone towers were down, and a frightened population was overloading the rest. Once someone decided to save the fuel in the emergency generators, the towers would be down for good.

  Summers, at least, was now holding firm. The major and his men could shoot the four hostages if they wished, said the Brigadier-General, but this base was standing by the President's orders.

  Don saw a combination of rage and grief play across the major's face. He must be worried his family died badly in the riots. Right now he was not a rational man. Unfortunately, once he started shooting, a lot of people were going to be dead.

  Don sighted carefully along the open sights, and pulled the trigger. There was a chance the bullet would hit the woman's shoulder on its way to the man's heart, but he could live with that.

  The major dropped without a sound, and Don waited for a response. When two hotheads opened up on the control tower, thinking the shot had come from there, Don dropped one and Mosha's team began systematically eliminating others.

  Hands started going up as rifles clattered onto the runway, and Mosha's team ceased fire. Don counted four down, one of them a hostage. He sighed. Not ideal, but it could have been worse.

  By the time Mosha had disarmed the remaining mutineers, and had them sitting on the tarmac, Summer's loyal forces had arrived.

  "I can't thank you enough," said the Brigadier-General two hours later, as the EMARSS prepared to depart. "It looks like I'll never be able to repay your SAS. Cal airlifted a group of us out of Pakistan fifteen years ago, when a clandestine op went wrong."

  Don smiled, and told him it was all part of the job. Then he shook Summer's hand and joined those boarding the plane. The second trainee team hadn't made it in time, but he was flying out with Jo, Mosha, and two good SAS soldiers.

  The spy plane was quickly airborne. One runway was serviceable along half its length, and it was enough for a power take-off.

  The EMARSS had six windows either side of its cabin, but some of the seating had been removed for surveillance equipment. The one technician started fussing about the surveillance gear as soon as the plane eased back into a steady climb. Don went up front to speak to the pilots.

  "You're a medium range outfit, right?" he said to the co-pilot, leaving the pilot to pump fuel around the tanks, balancing the aircraft for optimum flight.

  "Flight plan calls for two stops en route to Algeria," said the co-pilot, bringing up a map of the Atlantic and west coast of Africa on a screen. "We'll be refuelling by drone tankers off the Truman, here, and Eisenhower, here," he said, pointing to dots on the map.

  "Aircraft carriers," he added, when Don looked more closely at the map. "Our carriers had no trouble with the tsunamis, long as they had deep water under them."

  Don nodded.

  "Tell me about Bechar," he said.

  "Not much to tell," said the co-pilot. "Strong French presence from colonial days. Two hundred thousand people. We'll be landing at the Boudghene Ben Ali Lotfi Airport. You'll find sand dunes to the south, the Atlas mountains to the west, and salt lakes to the north. Can't think why all those people want to live there, myself."

  The Atlas mountains, mused Don. That was where Cal was ultimately sending them. It was time to study up on the area. He returned to the cabin, and got the tech to connect a satellite feed to what was left of the world wide web.

  Jo came and sat beside him. She rested her hand on his while he waited for the connection. It was a surprising act of familiarity. Then he remembered she was high grade intel and he could use that. He got the tech to open a second link, and put her to work.

  A few moments later he realised something. He was going to miss the internet when it was gone.

  21

  Mount Weather underground complex

  Washington, USA

  It could have been a normal meeting in the Situation Room at the White House, a precursor to a civil emergency, or an international incident. But it wasn't. It was a different room. The same size, but more spartan, and it was packed with the most powerful people in Washington.

  The main difference was this meeting was taking place under a mountain, somewhere they had always hoped was a place of safety. All the same, the fact they were meeting here presumed civilisation as they knew it was about to fall.

  Cleet could identify the Chairman and Vice-chairmen of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, but today each branch of the military, and the National Guard, was also repres
ented. Some of the others he didn't know and hadn't seen in the media.

  He suspected they were the shadow people of the intelligence agencies. At least this time Cleet had a full complement of staff around him, recently increased to seven. He wished Theo was one of them. The Colorado earthquake specialist had an intuitive genius for solving problems.

  Bulldozers had cleared the road of debris and cars for the 48 miles from Washington to Mount Weather. Cleet could imagine a cheering populace, convinced their government was coming to rescue them. Then the long cavalcades of officialdom swept by, and the people realised their leaders were leaving.

  The room stood as the President came in. It was the third day since the earthquakes, and reports so far were confusing. Whether the population was taking the Presidential plan seriously was still unknown. Top people in the small towns of the plan had to establish effective leadership, before troops would move in to support them. Government was a centralised function, and survival had to be organised by the people, for the people.

  The second to last item on the agenda brought its own confusion. Lately, thought Cleet, he was making a habit of bearing bad news.

  "I wouldn't bring this to your attention, gentlemen, and ladies," he said, "but some of these reports have now been verified by teams in the field."

  Sending helicopters out had been an extravagance, but Cleet believed in Theo's view of what was to come, and the President had okayed the flights.

  "We have so far catalogued seventeen areas of uplift, in the order of one to two hectares each. Most of them are in the middle of wetlands, and all of them are along fault lines. The rate of uplift appears to be about a metre and a half a day."

  The whole room looked at him blankly.

  "You mean within the continental United States?" said one of the figures Cleet had not been able to identify earlier. Cleet nodded.