GWOT 2 Civil Defense

GWOT 2 Civil Defense

For once I was in Dispatch when it all went south.

As soon as we had been able, we had set up satellite dishes to pick up as many video feeds as we had equipment for. We'd never quite lost the American Forces Network. Once CNN was back up, we'd made sure a feed was playing in several places on campus - the outer office of the Site Location Executive, a few employee lounges, a corner of the Security Operations Center, the cafeteria seating area. It was a hint of normalcy.

So when CNN went off the air suddenly in mid word, it was a bit of a surprise. Wyatt immediately panned a rooftop camera to point at the dish farm. Nope, dish was fine.

That's when the weather radio started honking and a female voice started speaking quickly.

"This is North American Air Defense Command at Colorado Springs. This is a civil defense emergency. This is a nuclear war warning. The United States is under enemy nuclear attack. This is not an exercise."

She kept talking but we were not listening. One of the dispatchers was taking notes but Wyatt looked at me, I nodded briefly, and he lifted the protective cover over the SIREN WAIL switch and flicked the switch from PEACE to WAR.

Immediately the PA system started playing a wailing high-low siren, a rising and falling tone.

Wyatt spoke clearly and calmly into the PA microphone, his voice echoing over and with the sirens.

"ATTENTION. ATTENTION. TAKE HARD COVER IMMEDIATELY. WE ARE UNDER NUCLEAR ATTACK. TAKE HARD COVER IMMEDIATELY. THIS IS NOT AN EXERCISE. IMPLEMENT THE CIVIL DEFENSE PLAN FOR NUCLEAR ATTACK NOW."

On receiving confirmation, the guards at the main gate kicked out the J barrier rollers to keep the gate closed, gathered up their equipment and moved immediately into their bunker.

The Fire Brigade engine and brush truck, sirens blaring, left their tent garage and pulled into the southern lee of the Building C and D loading docks respectively. The firefighters on duty put on all their gear and moved to designated shelter locations.

At the perimeter posts, guards put on their helmets and huddled in their trenches.

Employees abandoned their perimeter offices for the core of each building. Reaction Team drew weapons and equipment. Stretcher Bearers grabbed their stretchers. Everyone who had a helmet put one on.

The cafeteria stopped serving. The staff started carrying food back into the freezers.

Out on the farm, the field crew stopped plowing and limped the tractor back towards its prepared bunker.

Facilities started systematically shutting down water systems and non-essential power systems, crews wearing overalls and hard hats going down each building's Civil Defense checklist.

This was going to be a huge disruption.

I logged on to one of the computers. Unsurprisingly, the fragments of the public Internet that Homeland permitted to exist had no information. The static page for the Weather Service had the civil defense message but no additional information.

But we had some more tricks up our sleeve.

"Wyatt, you're relieved to go secure our files. Sarah take over."

Wyatt sprinted upstairs to the Room, to plug in his antenna feed and do some forbidden listening to BBC North America - broadcast from Canada, a constant irritant that had even attracted one or two "accidental" cross border missile strikes, but was the best source of news we had.

Then the female announcer had more news. Inhumanly calm.

"Nuclear strikes are expected on the following cities within two minutes: Cincinatti, Ohio ... Detroit, Michigan ... Chicago, Illinois ... Kansas City, Missouri ... Omaha, Nebraska ... Denver, Colorado ... Colorado Springs, Colorado ... "

I ran to our Plexiglas covered map of the United States with a marker and put an X on each target city. I stole the nearest straightedge - a binder - and started using it to visualize lines.

What the hell?

Fractional Orbital Bombardment System? The Chinese didn't have a space capability left. The Russians were saber rattling like the bad days of the Cold War but staying out of our suddenly hot Firecracker War. They would not hit heartland targets, even if one was our backup capital and one was a major military base. They would go for the gusto - DC, New York, Norfolk.

It didn't make sense. What delivery system could hit those targets? Bomber? No way. Way too long a flight time. Yeah, most of the Air Force was nuke-fucking China, but not all of it.

North American Air Defense Command. Canadian radars and air fields. But wait, we knew from BBC that Canada was cooperating with the embargo.

Oh God, we were blinded to the North.

Submarine? Ballistic missile submarine?

I did some math. The ranges were just too damn long. It wouldn't be two minutes flight time, not from the Northwest Passage or the Arctic.

I looked again. Let's see. No. Not possible. Or was it?

I started drawing dotted lines with our fine point dry erase marker.

They converged in the Great Lakes.

Balls of hammered brass. The Chinese got a ballistic missile boat into the fucking Great Lakes!

Pearl Harbor was now the second most devastating sneak attack on the United States. If you believed the propaganda, a far distant third.

"Detonations confirmed, Cincinatti, multiples Chicago; now Flint, Michigan."

That was millions of people.

Someone choked back a sob. Then I remembered. We had evacuated three bus loads of people from here via Bakersfield to our Colorado site .. deep in America. Protected. Safe.

But nowhere is safe in nuclear war. And that was the point.

Our Colorado facility was in the Denver suburbs.

I listened angrily and helplessly to the litany.

"Detonation, Col..."

Static, fade. A new voice, male, aggressive.

"NORAD primary at Colorado Springs destroyed. This is Omaha. Interception successful for Omaha, Detroit, Kansas City. Denver take hard cover, you still have inbounds. Correction, Denver shots intercepted by counterfire, remain in shelter to avoid falling fragments."

I took the PA system.

"Attention please. We will hold under Civil Defense conditions for at least thirty minutes. Please remain calm and be safe in your movements and actions. We appear to be in no immediate danger here at this time.

"It is my duty to inform you that enemy nuclear detonations have taken place in the middle of America. We are still working to confirm details and will provide the best information we can when we can confirm it. We will remain in Civil Defense mode until we know for sure that we can stand down. That is all."

The phone rang from an extension, a corridor phone near - but not close to - the Room. It was Wyatt's voice.

"You need to come up here, now."

###

The walls of the Room were covered in new information. One wall was a map of North America. It was annotated.

"... now hearing that the government of the United States has issued an ultimatum to the Canadian government. Canadian armed forces will stand down immediately or the United States will consider the nuclear strikes as having originated from Canada. The city of Ottawa is being evacuated..."

San Francisco had lots of company. Chicago. Cincinatti. Flint. Colorado Springs.

But according to the BBC, the United States was picking a fight with Canada.

This was going into extra innings. Wikipedia was maddeningly vague about whether Canada had a nuclear capability.

But I knew something horrific. Building nukes is not hard. Making the fissiles is a little harder, but you have to have the raw materials. And Canada does.

Add the motivation of watching America go totally apeshit crazy and drop so many nuclear weapons on China that planetary ecology was reasonably in question.

"So far from God, so close to America."

"... now hearing from the United Nations that the Canadian ambassador to the UN, acting on instructions from his government, is making a public statement ... going live ... 'I am instructed by the Prime Minister to immediately communicate his message of unconditional surrender to the armed forces of the United States of America. The American imposed no fly zone will be honored and no civilian or military aircraft will be permitted to take off from any Canadian airport.' ... interrupting for breaking news from the Ministry of Defense. 'The United Kingdom is activating her mutual defense treaty with the government of Canada. As a precaution, civil defence measures are being ordered for the United Kingdom and her overseas territories. All Royal armed forces have been directed to their highest state of alert. This is a war warning.'"

Holy shit. The world was really going crazy. The UK was threatening nuclear war with America!

Unlike Canada, that was a threat that was a whole lot more credible. We had Trident. So did the UK.

So much for the 'special relationship.'

There was only one mercy to all this madness. San Francisco had already been smacked. San Jose was a sideshow, a suburb. Not worth a strike if London and DC were going to go at it hammer and tongs. Long range shots, easier to interdict, and with all those interceptors watching for forlorn single China shots waiting.

We wouldn't get it again in the shorts locally. But a second full nuclear exchange, within months of our devastation of China, might just knock the planet into full blown nuclear winter.

No crops nowhere for two years. And we thought we had food problems now?

I actually found myself agreeing with Homeland for once.

It wouldn't do anyone any good to be listening to BBC right now.

I went back downstairs.

###

There was no point to making everyone hunker down.

"Attention. Based on additional information we are moving the site down to a modified Civil Defense Condition of Orange. Reaction Team and Stretcher Bearers may secure equipment and return to work. Key mobile equipment will remain secured. Food service will resume for the evening meal. Department head conference call in twenty minutes. Thank you."

I had that long to make madness into a short statement.

That's why they call them "Briefings."