by Ryan King
Staring at the man, Nathan had an urge to simply pull his pistol and shoot the man in the head.
The messenger must have seen something in Nathan’s look because his calm demeanor slipped slightly. He looked around before saying in an overly loud voice, “My name is Captain Harry Giles. I’m here on behalf of General Vincent Lacert to protest your senseless aggressions against us.”
Nathan pointed in the direction where the staff officer had taken the bag of remains. “And I suppose the point you’re trying to make by bringing…that bag…is that you have some of my soldiers?”
“We do. Thirty-three men and women survived the battle with our forces before being captured. I’m afraid some of their wounds are serious and time is critical if they are to survive.”
“I would be outraged if I didn’t already know who I was dealing with,” said Nathan. “It shouldn’t surprise me that the same man who hangs, tortures, and mutilates captured prisoners would not hesitate to cut off heads or withhold medical care.”
“I’m afraid that may only be the beginning if you do not withdraw your forces.”
Nathan was silent for several seconds, resisting the urge to look over at the map. The map that clearly translated into casualties and death for his people. Finally, he nodded. “We’ll withdraw as soon as several conditions are met. The first is an immediate cessation of hostilities.”
“Of course,” answered Giles, spreading his hands wide. “That is what we want.”
“Second, I want all prisoners returned to us, starting with the group taken at the botanical gardens.”
“We can discuss exchanging prisoners after your forces are back across the Tennessee border.”
Luke looked at Nathan and shook his head slightly.
Nathan knew what he was thinking. Lacert only wanted them to go away so they could get breathing space. Once the JP army marched away, it would be damn near impossible to get most of those part-time citizen soldiers to return to a painful and difficult siege.
“Was there anything else?” Giles asked.
“Yes. We will begin our withdrawal as soon as we see that rocket on the launch pad destroyed as well as any other rockets you are currently building.”
The man shook his head sadly. “That’s going to be difficult, as they are part of critical protective measures. The rockets are purely defensive in nature.”
Nathan chose not to swing at that slow-pitch bullshit softball. “You will also return everything seized from Milan and make restitution for the losses suffered there as well as those that have been killed or wounded in this war.”
Giles looked stunned. “You can’t seriously believe General Lacert would agree to these terms?”
“We don’t believe he would live up to any terms,” said Luke. “We have some history with the man and understand how unpredictable and dangerous he really is.”
“You have no idea,” Giles answered, stepping forward a step. His calm was now nearly gone. “Please, for all our sakes, let’s figure something out. Don’t send me back with that message, or we’re all dead.”
“You’re scared of him,” said Nathan.
Giles looked at him incredulously. “Hell yes, I’m scared of him. Some of the things he’s done, well…let’s just say I have a family to think of in there. Pull your forces back and, with time, we can find another way.”
“Another way to what?” asked Luke.
“To end all of this.”
Nathan stared at the man for a long time, finally recognizing that he was as much a prisoner as Green’s men. Most of the Huntsville soldiers and civilians were likely in the same situation. “Here’s the other way. You bring me Lacert, alive or dead, I don’t care which, and it’s over. We stop fighting, blow up the rockets together, and then go on our way. Simple as that.”
“Simple as that?” asked Giles in a high-pitched voice. “Do you know what happened to the last group that even considered something like that? Them and all their families, even a little girl, were covered in gasoline and burned. We all had to watch.” He shook his head. “I’m not going to risk that, not my family. No one will.”
“You have to,” said Luke. “He’s just a man, and fear is his power over you. Take him out before it’s too late.”
Giles hung his head and asked in almost a whisper. “Is that all?”
“Yes,” answered Nathan and looked at the guards. “Make sure he gets back to his lines safely.”
The room stood silent as the messenger was escorted out. Staff officers peered at each other with wide eyes.
“Back to work everyone,” ordered Luke Carter.
The paralysis broken, they quickly returned to their duties, and the room became a beehive of activity once more.
“What now?” asked Luke. “I don’t recommend waiting for them to bring us Vincent Lacert.”
Nathan walked back over to the map and jabbed his finger at the hill sitting between the airport and the river overlooking Redstone Arsenal. “There. We have to take it, whatever the cost. Anything else will only prolong the conflict and cost more lives in the long run. Put everything we have into taking that hill so we can destroy the rocket. Then we have time to lay back and starve them out if we want.”
“When do you want to do this?”
Nathan looked outside at the afternoon sun and the growing shadows on the ground. Most of the fighting would be done for the day except for sporadic sniping and the occasional raids. Tired men and women on both sides sitting down to some food and shelter, grateful they had survived another day and not sure about the next.
Was Joshua out there somewhere, sitting down by a fire to eat or lying in a ditch somewhere hurt and already growing cold?
“Sir?”
“Dawn,” answered Nathan. “Let’s not let this go on another day.”
Luke looked at him, startled. “Dawn? That’s not much time.”
“I know. I’m afraid we don’t have much of it,” answered Nathan and walked out of the command tent, not knowing how prophetic his words were.
*******
In the dream, Nathan and his family were back in Southern Arizona. The rugged mountain and terrain of the high desert were stunning in their brutal beauty. He knew it was a dream, but also that he was happy. Happy again to be with his family.
Bethany stood on a high outcropping. As always, she had a camera up to her face and was taking the perfect picture. Nathan could hear Joshua and David behind them exploring at their leisure and he resisted an urge to remind them to watch out for rattlesnakes.
They know, he thought. They’re grown men.
But they’re not. Nathan turned and saw his boys as they had been many years before. Young and carefree. Boys on an adventure without cares or concerns. How it was meant to be.
“Come look at this,” cried Bethany.
Nathan turned and walked to stand beside her. He gazed out on the wide valley below them. Cacti that had bloomed frantically after the last rain had turned the normally brown and red landscape into a mosaic of color.
Without looking away from the scene, Bethany took his hand. “Isn’t it wonderful?”
Nathan nodded.
“And it will be gone in a few days,” she said. “Such is life, I suppose. We enjoy the beauty while we can before it’s gone. All beauty and goodness runs its course and then is gone.”
Joshua walked up beside them, except he was older now. Nathan could see the scars on his head and arms. He was carrying a baby boy in his arms.
“I’ll go check on David,” Bethany said with a smile.
“Don’t,” said Nathan, grasping her hand. “Stay here a little longer.”
She pulled away gently. “I can’t. David needs me.”
Nathan watched as she strode down the hill and out of sight. He turned back to the valley and saw that the light had faded and it was growing darker. The flowers below were wilting and dying by the millions in time-lapse speed.
Joshua looked at him sadly, the baby now gone.
“Wake up, sir,” said Joshua, his voice growing excited.
“What?”
“Something has happened. You need to wake up,” said Joshua, and suddenly, there was no Joshua, just an officer bending over and shaking him.
“What is it?”
“The rocket…it’s…”
Nathan didn’t wait for him to finish. He jumped up and ran outside to find others staring into the sky at the impossibly bright ball of light lifting up slowly into the sky. The deep rumble of the rocket’s engine sounded like prolonged deep thunder in the distance.
“Where’s it going?” asked someone, a tinge of panic in their voice.
I just killed a whole bunch of innocent people, Nathan thought, his stomach sinking.
They stared up into the sky, mesmerized, until the light disappeared into the atmosphere.
All beauty and goodness runs its course and then is gone.
*******
The Minotaur II rocket was originally a Minuteman Intercontinental Ballistic Missile, but with the end of the Cold War, many of these ICBMs had been repurposed for other uses. The Minotaur II was a solid, compressed fuel, three-stage rocket designed to lift payloads of nearly a ton into low-earth orbit and had been extremely successful at this mission.
The Minotaur that lifted off from Huntsville was only a single stage rocket, as it didn’t have near as far to travel as the edge of the earth’s atmosphere. Two hundred thousand pounds of thrust lifted the rocket with its eight-hundred-pound payload upwards on a north-by-northwest heading.
The rocket’s engines cut off in the earth’s thermosphere, approximately one hundred fifty miles above the ground below. At the peak of its parabolic arch, the rocket now began its long drop back towards the earth and its target, which was two hundred fifty miles north of its launch location.
Gravity pulled the rocket downwards while the tailfins made miniscule adjustments based on the global positioning guidance systems. The guidance system’s altimeter recorded the shrinking distance between the rocket and the ground, and when this distance had diminished to less than one thousand feet, the payload’s proximity fuse was activated.
The radio transmitter began transmitting a 180-megahertz signal at the onrushing ground and analyzing the refracted patterns reflected back. The wave patterns became more and more compact until the pattern indicated the payload was at the exact height predetermined for detonation.
At three meters the fuse triggered the detonator and eight hundred pounds of high explosives packed into a specially designed shaped charge activated in a brilliant burst of energy and light.
*******
John Downing stood out on the top of the dam. He often found himself there early in the morning. He liked to see the sun reflected off the surface of the lake held in place by the mass of steel and concrete he stood upon.
He hadn’t known shit about dams when N-Day happened. Sure, he understood the basic principles of how dams and hydroelectric power worked, but most of what he had learned had been self-taught. It had been surprisingly simple. John’s father had owned an auto repair shop until he died at the age of forty-two from a heart attack. John had worked with his father and learned how to assess and fix problems. He liked machines; they never lied.
John had wanted to be an engineer. After his father died, they had lost the house and things had become difficult for them. Still, he had done well enough in school that with some scholarship targeting his disadvantaged economic standing had allowed him to attend Georgia Technical University, one of the best engineering schools in the world.
It had been a catastrophe almost from the very beginning. He was smart and inquisitive, but his Kentucky public school math preparation had been sorely lacking. The other students in his classes were far ahead of him, and his professors grew frustrated with him. It wasn’t long before he was so far behind his confidence was crushed.
By his second semester, he had changed his major from mechanical engineering to management, much to the relief of his advisor. John had only felt a sense of failure and loss.
It wasn’t until years later he realized that if he’d gone to a different school, perhaps one that wasn’t filled with the best and the brightest, he might be an engineer now. Maybe if he had gone on to one of the small state universities, things might have been different.
John Downing had still been highly successful, one of the reasons he had been appointed Director of the Land Between the Lakes Park. The first week after assuming his new post, he had toured the dam facilities and been mesmerized.
After N-Day, John had no doubt about what was critical. When the dam’s managing director had vanished, John stepped in. Let all the rest of it fall about into rust and dust, but the dam was something special and magical. Electrical power from the sheer kinetic energy of blocked water. Sustainable power that could still be relied upon and outlast them all maybe. Something that would hold back the coming darkness for a little longer.
Let all the rest of them chase after other things; he knew his purpose and it was the dam.
He even felt like it spoke to him sometimes. Not in a crazy, needing psychiatric help sort of way, but in him sensing that something was wrong. Most of the remaining engineers no longer responded to his suggestions with skepticism. When he said a turbine didn’t sound right or that the bearing needed to be checked, they did what he said because most of the time he was right. When he told them to check the transmitter lines on a relay, they did it without question.
John closed his eyes in the pre-dawn light and listened. He felt the steady but faint hum of vibration through his feet and hands. A content purr of activity, everything working as it should.
He opened his eyes with a small smile and gazed up into the sky. This was the best time of day, the rising sun casting a beautiful kaleidoscope of colors onto the western horizon. Everything was calm and he could be alone with his thoughts. This was when he was reminded of how fortunate they all were, and that the sacrifices they had all made were worth it. That the JP was special, maybe the most special place left.
His eye caught on a speck in the sky. It was a dark object floating…no, not floating. Falling.
It grew and grew as it came down closer. John saw it was oblong. He thought at first maybe it was an airplane, but soon saw that it had no wings. Only a tail.
A rocket?
John stared in amazement as the object grew and grew, and he began to hear a whistle as it cut through the cool, early morning air. Soon the whistling stopped.
He didn’t even bother to turn away, only grasped the rail in front of him firmly.
John Downing closed his eyes sadly just before the explosion vaporized him.
*******
The explosion sent a shock wave across the surface of the water and the damn. Windows for miles around shook; many imploded. Everything on the surface of the dam was either obliterated instantly or thrown outwards to fall down the far side of the dam.
At first, an onlooker might have thought the dam had survived without significant damage. The surface was still intact and the water still flowed, but there were growing stress fractures in the surface. Those fractures were spreading and cascading at a speed that would have been too fast for the human eye to follow.
A large concrete section along the top of the dam crumbled and slid down the steep slope of the dam’s riverside surface. Soon thereafter, a faint trickle of water began to flow over the top of the dam through this gap. The trickle became a stream; the stream became a flood. Soon more chucks of concrete and rebar were torn loose and thrown downriver.
When the dam finally crumbled, it happened quickly. The center part collapsed upon itself and the millions of gallons of pent-up water rushed through and surged into the riverbed beyond.
Those that lived downriver of the dam had little notice of the deadly wall of water headed their way.
They were all focused on the lights going out.
Part III
Deepening Shadows
Chapter 1 – Uncovered Memories
Alexandra ignored the sharp pain in her back and scrubbed the piece of laundry even harder against the old wash board. Joshua’s blue denim shirt was starting to wear through in places.
Blue, she thought. They dress baby boys in blue.
She hissed at the unwanted thought and scrubbed even harder.
Benjamin. That would have been his name, the voice said. It was the name she had never uttered out loud, not even when they buried him. The little body wrapped in a towel had fit into a shoe box.
Alexandra screamed and threw the wet shirt away from her. She then kicked the wash tub, stubbing her toe painfully. Ignoring the pain, she put her hands to the tub and, with another angry scream, pushed it over onto the ground.
Panting, her hands clinched, she stared at the pooling muddy water as it ran over her shoes.
There was a thin shrill noise from high above, almost like a train whistle. It grew louder and deeper in timber, and she looked to the north where the sound appeared to be headed.
The explosion caused her to stagger backwards. She tottered on unsteady feet and then did fall onto her butt. Sitting there in the wet grass, she suddenly remembered listening to the radio the morning of N-Day and finding out the world had overnight slipped off its foundation.
Pushing herself to her feet, Alexandra raced down to the lake’s shore where several other people had gathered. The lake curved out of sight, but they could see a black cloud of smoke billowing upwards to the north.
“We all thought it couldn’t get any worse,” said a voice to her left.
Alexandra turned to find Joshua’s grandmother standing there staring out over the lake. For the first time since losing her baby, she didn’t feel the urge to pull the knife at her belt and drive it into the neck of the old woman beside her.
“That was a bomb,” someone from the crowd said. “A big one.”
“Was it another nuke?” a small girl asked.
