The messages of the Gospel begin to interrupt the news revelations, with videos of just fifteen to fifty seconds, telling people about the atonement of Jesus – Y’shua – and the utter foolishness of Islam and the Profit! That’s right; Profit.
Even when paying for groceries with a card, a selection is likely to come up, saying, “If you want the Ayatollah Asshola to die, please press ‘Yes’.” Only there is no choice for “No.” And if no choice is made, no purchase can be completed. The news is full of stories, “millions of people choosing that the Ayatollah should die.” The regime shuts those tales down with evulsion.
With motivation at an all-time high, the news vans are found quickly and targeted shortly. As they are driving down the road, mostly in the countryside, a missile would come from before or behind, locked onto their vehicle, or radio, or something else. Regardless of who may be nearby, it blew a hole in the earth about ten inches deep and thirty feet in circumference. When the site of the origin of the rebellion is discovered, a missile is sent their direction.
The All Conflict is On
Into the mouth of Hell rode the six hundred.[31]
E-Day Minus 1 Day
“Incoming!” shouts a radar nerd.
“Where?” comes the response from Culver.
“Coastal launch, southern Cali, headed this way.”
“Boot!” she yells back, “Get me Boot.” Of the radar nerd, she asks, “How long?”
“Four and a half minutes to strike, ma’am!”
“Boot to shoot?” Boot asks, assuming his seat.
“Yes, Boot to shoot,” replies Culver. “See that missile?”
“Yup! Kill missile?”
“First, can you track its Comm systems?”
“Sure – go?” he asks. “Then kill a missile?”
“Do!” she has learned to communicate with him in short bursts.
He strokes his keyboard, the screen lights up with letters and symbols. He strokes and pokes at what seems like a thousand words a minute, but there are no words.
“We’re running out of time! Two minutes, Culver,” says the radar nerd.
“Boot shoot!” he shouts, and hits enter. Nothing happens and the radar nerd is in a panic, almost screaming. “Three, two, go . . .” he counts, and the missile turns around and heads back to the sub. The sub counters by attempting to flee the area, but is not as quick as the missile, and as it attempts to re-enter the launch tube, even though the sub has moved a hundred feet, the missile detonates, blowing water over three hundred feet into the air. “BOOM!” shouts Boot, fists in the air, dancing around his chair.
“Everyone, the game is hot! Repeat; the game is hot!” shouts Culver. “Get me Mike.”
Mike is crossing the room already, “Sitrep, Culver!”
“Incoming Cruise class missile, fired from a sub off the shores of California, but Boot turned the missile around and sank the sub.” Turning to Boot, she says, “Excellent work, Boot.”
“Damn straight, Boot! Great work!” says Mike, reaching to shake his hand. But Boot jumps at her in a huge hug.
“Boot can shoot!” he says.
“Okay, let’s see what they are going to do next,” says Mike. “Meantime, ramp up the vehicles. Limos online!”
“Marcos,” shouts Culver, “load the cars and such.”
Marcos scrambles, shouting to get the drivers in their seats. “Tommy, throw some cars into these stations.”
Tommy starts shouting instructions to the loaders as the seats are being filled. Carlos and Sylvia run in the door, practically jumping into their chairs. “First one to ten gets the full works tonight!” says Sylvia.
“You’re on!” replies Carlos.
“I want missiles on the ready,” shouts Mike. “Get the tank commanders online as well. Put all audio and video out there; flood the airwaves and networks of the world now.”
The computer crews work like fiends to get the messages out to all the news people in the world, pushing the Trojans to drive the hack, delivering the news about the Ayatollah’s theft of everyone’s money, along with all the leaders in every nation in the world. All the affairs begin spilling out into every form of communication available, utility companies begin shutting down, water mains break, and electricity becomes the only reliable service, so that the news can be disseminated. Traffic lights in dozens of cities go all green, on every intersection, in every direction. There are about ten thousand accidents in five minutes time.
The limos begin running amuck, driving over people, hitting hydrants, bashing other cars, and if their principals are inside, they are shooting at military or police as they can find them, drawing fire from every front. After Sylvia uses one up – or so she would say – she drives it off the Key Bridge in DC, into the Potomac. “Did it have ammo left?” asks Carlos.
She realizes that it was not fully used up, and she has to get one more before she can start counting. “That was the Vice President, though. Do I at least get extra points?”
“I have a general in a deuce and a half, in Chicago, headed for the Midway Armory with an automated grenade launcher on board. So, no extras for rank.” His truck blows through a stop light, running over a couple of shopping carts, smashing a police motorcycle through the cop and into a store window, taking a couple of rounds in the back-glass, bouncing through an intersection before crashing through the garage doors of the armoury, launching its grenades into a palate of RPG’s. Google Earth will show the explosion blew out the windows and doors on the other side of the street. A police car which is just arriving, having chased the General down the street, becomes a weapon. When the blast blows through the doorway, the squad car is upended, throwing the front end onto the stoop of the building across the way.
A Prime Minister of What-damn-istan is in route when his trip is redirected. The limo begins firing at every military target it can find, shooting up soldiers, police, property, and even birds, at forty-six rounds per second, using two miniguns mounted under the hood. Evasion rockets deploy to destroy some jeeps following with lights and sirens, before driving through a guard shack, up the steps of his office building. Immediately, flares for redirecting heat-seeking missiles fire in a shower of phosphor flaming balls, bouncing down the stairs. Jammed into the doorway sits the limo, engine still revving, tires screaming as they barely touch the steps, before soldiers with machine guns come out and terminate everyone in the car. That-damn-istan is an unforgiving place.
A van full of imams are on their way to a summit with Smotritel when their vehicle goes bat-shit-crazy, driving over everyone in or near the road. Car doors that are open when it comes by are snapped off without a thought. Since the operator of that one also speaks Arabic, he takes control of the mic, shouting to the world, “Allah is an imaginary asshole!” The van plunges headlong into an upper school for their religion of hell, tearing through twenty sitting students, slamming their instructor through the far wall, before bursting into flames.
The US President has just landed on the White House lawn in Marine One, and barely as he gets to the door, a rocket comes over the trees, flying at about thirty-five feet, striking the chopper. The detonation sends rotor blades through the house, killing several of the staff, and the First Dog. Struggles may be the only casualty of this attack that truly sorrows anyone. But, since it wasn’t Sylvia or Carlos who did that one, so they will not be docked a point for the dog. Sylvia and Carlos are on far more active pursuits, driving things with a fury and a vengeance, and having unbelievable success.
Secret Service speeds the President toward his bunker, below the White House, and due to the conflagration, his family is already in the elevator when he arrives. The elevator would be restricted from rising for at least an hour. One of the President’s closest advisors is Walid, but the Secret Service did not trust that Walid has his priorities in order to remain in the confidence of POTUS. When the elevator is loading for departure, Walid was kept at gunpoint, barred from entry, and left to die, if death was coming. O
ne small glitch though is that the elevator will not currently descend. It could be a coincidence, but the President has doubts.
The missile attack is in full swing when Mike turns her attention to the ships. They watch the screen to see that a USS Carrier Clinton, in San Francisco Bay, launches four fighter craft, headed east-ish – in their direction. Another minute passes and another four are launched.
“Can we shoot from above?” asks Mike.
“Boot can shoot!”
“Can you shut down those planes?”
“Yeah, Mama!” he shouts with excitement, begins keystroking like a mad man, and “Go! Um, stop!” and he hits enter. It takes another ten seconds for the commands to get to the jets, but the computers shut down, completely. They are dead-stick, no engine control, and the fuel flow has ceased. It takes a whole thirty-five seconds before they all fall to the ground over north Nevada. “Boom – sckkkkkkrrraam!” says Boot. He has used his satellite connection to override the computer systems in the planes, throw them into maintenance mode, thinking they are on the ground, and throw them into a security shut down. With a little grace, the pilots were able to eject and float to safety.
“There’s another bank of them, one minute behind.” She puts her hands on Boot’s shoulder.
“Boot! The planes have set targets on their missiles. They will get to within about ten miles and seek heat. What can you do?” asks Culver. “Boot shoot?”
“Yup!” Boot strokes keys, clicks a mouse four times, moving it around the screen, putting crosshairs on each of the planes on the map, then calls down a command no one has ever seen, and, the sky above the planes opens in a red and blue undulating shimmer as the rockets away. The missiles are on their way, but the planes detonate. Seconds later the shimmer follows the rockets on their way, causing another detonation in the sky.
“What the hell was that?” asks Mike.
“Star Wars!” says Boot.
“A Death Star?” she asks, turning, “Darth Vader?”
“No,” says Culver. “It was a secret satellite system, initiated during the Reagan Administration in what was called the ‘Star Wars’ program.” She waits a second, turning to missile command, saying, “I want missiles on that carrier, right now!”
One of the missile crowd spins in his seat, stroking and clicking like a ferret on speed, then, “Boom!” and satellite video shows the carrier going down.
“What did you do?” asks Mike.
“He fired the tomahawks from that carrier, targeting the carrier. The missiles went out a half mile and looped back. They hit just under the waterline.” Mike smiles, so Culver continues, “It is a fast and dirty solution, but it means we cannot use them for something else.”
The shooter had been smiling, but now he puts his head down, turns facing his station. He gets back to poking and stroking.
“Incoming!” there is a pause. “Straight out of St. Louis, ma’am! It’s a Hornet – supersonic, armed to the teeth, ma’am.”
“Boot shoot!” says Culver.
“Boot can shoot,” says Boot. The plane advances another fifty miles in just a slice of time, but shortly, the red and blue shimmers overtake it, blowing the plane apart, leaving the wingtips, tale assembly, and nose cone falling to earth. The NTSB would have a field day with this one, if only there remained an NTSB to do that.
“Colonel,” Mike calls to Lundt, “you gotta see this.”
Lundt and Mark come quickly to the station that has her attention, “What is it?” they ask.
“We are watching the whole world, and we have been a little busy with our own crap, but we missed something pretty major.” She points to the screen and says, “Look!”
“I don’t know what I am seeing, Mike,” says Lundt.
“According to the computer, that’s 200,000,000 military personnel, with armored units and artillery.” She points using her open hand, fingers dragging the screen. “They are amassed in Iraq, having crossed the Euphrates.” She asks the operator to show her screen grabs from twelve, twenty-four, and forty-eight hours ago, then a week. “Look,” she says, “If they had not been moving so slow, our satellites would have triggered an attack warning, but they came on foot, horseback, and by trucks.”
“Can we call Israel?”
“No, sir. But I think we can ‘hack’ them a message.”
“Do it.”
Tommy is called over as a coordinator of that ‘attack,’ and he recommends Boot. “Somehow, that kid can get into almost anything, faster and smoother than anyone I know.”
A minute passes while they tell Boot what it is they want him to do, then another minute for him to tell them that, “Israel has no doors.” He stops clicking and clacking a minute, puts his palms up toward Mike, almost like he was going to touch her breasts, shakes his hands in the air like ‘jazz hands’ and says, “Maybe we should send them smoke signals.”
“I don’t know what that means,” says Mike.
“Watch-see.”
He gets back at the typing, accesses the old Turkish government, reaching into a Russian control center there, and sends new instructions to a surveillance satellite. The satellite then triggers its steering rockets, plotting a course for reentry, falling right into the army gathered to attack Israel. “You see?” asks Boot. “I think maybe they see too.” And sure as can be, Israel begins moving troops and equipment from the northern frontiers. The movements begin in a few minutes, though the actions will take a few hours to take defined shape.
In a couple minutes, another fighter bomber flies over the pole, crossing over Canada, headed their way, and in a minute more, it is destroyed, scattered across the western edge of Iowa. Mark comments that, “Iowa was the name of a band I used to like. They said the name meant, ‘Idiots Out Wandering About.’ I liked that too.”
“I think it’s time we circled the wagons, don’t you Tommy?” asks Mike.
“Yeah. Let’s make that happen.”
Mike gives orders to keep the airspace clean, to turn up the pressure on Russia, and walking to the doorway, she explains that the coaches, both kinds, are weaponized. She says that, in the event of a severe disaster, they can become an armored command structure. Originally, it was to be an almost indestructible enclave for the safety of the Executive office and whatever military commanders are available to pilot these craft. “Let us show you how it’s done,” she says.
She instructs them to pull the wagons in a circle, and by circle she doesn’t mean oval. No, she has them drive, counterclockwise around the complex in a circle ‘til they get it all pretty even, with less than ten feet between bumpers. There are push release panels on the right side of each of the campers, and when open, they allow access to storage bins, which had not previously been seen. Reaching into the bins, Tommy pulls out a long cable, about fifteen feet long and one inch thick, with a complex connector on each end. There is a cover to what looks like a tow-hitch-plug on each bumper, near the right corner, which can be uncovered, and into each goes that complex connector. “Bring me a standard, 60 AMP, 220 connection from below.” Someone at the entry hears and obeys. In a minute, he has them powered up, ready to go. Tommy goes to the RIO station in Mark’s coach, strokes a few things, he pops up a window that says, ‘User Name?’, to which he responds, ‘boot.’ ‘Preferred Password’ and he types ‘BOOT,’ then clicks ‘Save.’ No one could see the password, but he tells them all, “The password is the name of the most useful guy around these parts.”
“You made the password ‘Mark’?” asks Lundt.
“The name is Boot.” He turns to Lundt, and says with a smile, “Lowercase for the username, and all caps, please, for the password.” He taps the screen a few more times and there is a whirring noise, followed by a clack of something falling open. “I think there is more work to do, gents.” He stands from the RIO seat, waving his hands that everyone should clear a way for him to get outside, and he steps through the door. Extending his hand downward and to his right, he indicates the open door panels
at the bottom edge of the coach. He points further along and they realize that the same panels have opened on every coach.
Behind the panels are two things that look like fluorescent lights, connected by a two foot long, two inch thick cable, and the end of one has another cable, same thickness, rolled up on the right end.
“Alright, boys! Let’s get these things setup.” He points to a couple of young men, gesturing that the lights need to come out. The men each grab an end of the pair, and under Tommy’s direction, they bring them out of the bins, about twenty feet into the open ground. “Lay them down there and I will align them all after the rest of them are out.”
Young men and women begin to scurry about, pulling the devices out of the coaches and laying them in the same approximate locations, relative to the other coaches. Once they are out, Tommy demonstrates how to set one up, and others follow suit. The front edge of the first bulb goes in relative parallel position with the front edge of the coach. The next one, the one connected by the short cable, lays in such a position as to point one end at the first one and the other end at the one in front of the next coach back. In this way, they form a circle around all of the coaches.
“Okay, everyone, they go lights up with the nails,” he holds up a nail fourteen inches long, “driven though the slot to hold it in place.” He holds up a three-pound sledge, saying, “The hammers and nails are in the bins where the light bars were.” People begin to scurry and scamper around like ferrets. In each light bar, there are three nail slots, each in a four-inch long, cast iron collar, and the nails just drive into the earth. “Don’t worry about rocks! These nails will break through granite to keep these puppies in place.”
Fastened in, Tommy decides to give the systems a test run. Calling down to the bunker, via walkie-talkie, he summons the attention of Culver, saying, “Test fire in three-zero seconds.” She responds an affirmative reply. “Everyone,” he shouts, “get away from the lamps. You can be inside the circle or outside the circle, but you cannot be on the circle. You will die!” That last part gets people moving, some to the edge of the woods, and some to the side of the coaches, but everyone moves. Tommy says, “Set power to five percent.”
The Warriors' Ends- Soldiers of the Apocalypse Page 32
