GWOT VII - Chowing Down
On our return to the Embassy, heavily escorted, the Station Chief met me at the demarcation line.
He flinched when George came in with us.
"I need to brief you, sir."
"Do so."
A slight turn of the head, answered by my slight shake.
Yes, you will brief me in front of our new ally.
"The Ambassador is dead. She killed herself."
"Very well."
Some of the Californians choked at hearing me say that. Frankly, it saved me the trouble of shooting her.
"Her duties devolve on you."
"Not you, sir?"
"No." I opened a slip of paper. The same one I had shown George and Dr. Zhou.
Skipping the diplomatic and regal verbiage, I was appointed Ambassador Plenipotentiary to a nation I was not in at the moment - with power to sign treaties and wage war, in my own right.
"Holy. Fucking. Shit."
"Verify it. Then start setting up the plan. Redundant comms. This isn't an Embassy any more, this is a battle management center."
###
The Object was plugged into the growing star of laptops in the outer half of what had been the school's assembly room. SDF troopers and ribbon separated the tech package from the seating, the cameras and therefore the auidence.
This was in its own right a distributed aerospace combat node. Mammoth Lakes, an absolutely prime American target they'd pound until they cracked it open, but in a pile of laptops and network cables. Some of the same operators, though.
Two of those laptops - for redundancy - were connected to the Hotline, the direct combatant to combatant link that we had established between the California Air National Guard and the North American Air Defense Command.
If all else failed, I had to have a way to surrender that would keep the Americans from cementing their victory by completely destroying every California city, or using too many weapons in their rage and destroying the planet.
If we succeeded, the Americans had to have a surrender method that would keep US from doing that to THEM. Although they probably didn't realize it.
Our audience - diplomatic personnel all, and body searched - entered. Note had been taken of the ones carrying weapons, but we hadn't chosen to forbid it.
"Go no go for battle management," chanted the project director.
This was far more complicated than space flight. Far more complicated than a hospital, or an economy. This was a surgical operation. Our patient was America, and we were going to cut her into little tiny bits. But she wasn't tied down.
"Air Guard Strategic. Navy Liasion. GEO. LEO. Aerospace. Border. Army Group North. Army Group South. Air Bridge. Bear Force Internal. Bear Force Forward, Atlantic. Bear Force Forward, Interior. Bear Force Pacific. Collections Controller. Electronic Warfare. Civil Defense Controller. Air Defense North. Air Defense South."
At least one diplomat covered her head in her hands, weeping softly.
"We are go, Colonel."
"Thank you. Public Affairs, action."
"Acting," whispered the stage manager as she brought the circuit live.
My face, this room, broadcast to millions of people by satellite, by television radio signals, by cable. The Americans had backed off their initial electronic warfare efforts. Their only ask, would we accept a voice call from the American President?
Yes, we would. But I would speak first.
I played a short, canned video clip. Pat reading out my powers.
"... by the executive power invested in me as Governor of California, with the confirmation of the California Senate, hereby appoint Colonel 18 the Ambassador Plenipotentiary to the United States of America, with the power and authority to deal with the United States and its member states as he sees fit."
I paused, took a breath.
"Evening."
Not good evening.
"My name is Colonel Echo 18. I am presenting the United States of America with a grave decision to make. Instantly. In frank alliance with the entire rest of the world, we demand that America AT ONCE lay down her weapons of mass destruction. Launch no rockets or missiles, surface your submarines, turn over your ships to UN and foreign naval control, disarm your silos and submit your nuclear arms and biological and chemical weapons to monitoring, destruction and verification. Do this now. We are monitoring the location of American submarines, including the murderous Tridents that killed so many millions of Chinese, and I give this ultimatum in all earnest. Trident balllistic submarine commanders. Surface or die. You have two minutes. World Navy, ping those fuckers twice. In one minute, ping them once. If they try to hold at periscope or launch depth, kill them and that instantly."
A Trident could launch in four minutes.
All over the world, the world's biggest naval battle ever was breaking out, and the stakes were for the world.
###
PING. PING.
"All ahead emergency full! Noisemakers, stream them, flood tubes two and four and snap shoot!"
The submarine lurched forward, and only the helmsman already seated did not have to struggle to keep his feet.
"No solution!" warned Weps.
"Blind fire! Reload with red pills!"
Continuous pinging. PING PING PING.
"Sir, multiple heavy torpedoes dead aft, they have acquisition, they were IN OUR BAFFLES! Seven seconds, six, five, four..."
"Log buoy, now!"
And that was one Trident dead, dead, dead.
###
"Mr. President," I said, taking his call.
"Now you listen. The traitor state of California is going down! You have chosen war, you will die! Fire control officer, Hammer them!"
The LEO warfare officer, six laptops over from me, became very very busy.
"Kinetic warfare, fractional bombardment system, heavy metal, we have inbounds."
I nodded.
"Mr. President. In the terms you have chosen, surrender or die. Do it now."
"Call disconnected," the Public Affairs Officer, the PAO, said calmly.
"Very well," I said for the second time that day.
###
A helicopter touched down briskly on the lawn and a team of troopers ran forward. They grabbed their principal and security team, ran for the helicopter, flung them aboard, roared engines to escape the doomed city.
"What are you doing, get back on board!" the Governor said helplessly to the backs of the reaction platoon as they went into the Governor's Mansion. "Why did they get off the helicopter?"
"Can't carry you and them."
"They'll _die_."
"That's their job. Saving the people they're dying for, that's your job. Governor."
###
"Mr. President, we are at war, we need to leave NOW."
"There is no threat. Eighty Hammers, there won't BE a California."
"We have lost at least six -- SIX -- Tridents already! Likely more! At least the deep bunker!"
"No. I want to see the California strikes hit. Do you have video."
There was video. Mostly international news media. Teams in Los Angeles and Sacramento. No volunteers in Monterey for some reason.
Nothing.
"Time to target... OH MY GOD. Mr. President! Carry him! EVAC NOW!"
Protesting, the Secret Service detail lifted the President and carried him right outside the lawn where a Marine helicopter stood by.
The President looked up.
A streak of light from the east, in the upper atmosphere.
He was not totally ignorant of ballistics.
It was a Hammer. And there was no way at all it could be targeting California from here.
Not just one streak. Lines of streaks.
And there was no way to stop one once it had been launched.
###
"That's a kill. Norfolk is trashed. Statue of Liberty. Brooklyn Bridge. Annapolis. West Point. Norfolk again. Radiant Hammer, New England. Spider Hammer, Tennessee. Key West. Jacksonville. Fort Bragg. Charlotte. Moving west. North Dakota. Tinker. Missouri, got the B2 base. Colorado. Denver Airport. Colorado Springs. Again. Another. Four more."
###
"Surface the ship. Open all hatches. Do it now and quickly."
"Sir?"
"We know that some subs will fight. We will be the sub that gathers intel. We're useless anyway."
They had been 'shot out' during the Firecracker War, and kept too busy to reload. They had nuclear missiles and torpedoes, but not the ballistic MIRVs that would destroy nations.
As the hatch opened, the Captain was the second one out of it - in gross violation of protocol.
A P-3 of the Royal Navy circled overhead. Sonobuoys and smoke pots dirtied the waters nearby. On the international distress frequencies, and several others:
"American submarine, American submarine, you will stay surfaced or we will destroy you, acknowledge at once!"
_They knew exactly where we were_.
"Satellite, transmit, USS Nebraska to Atlantic Command..."
"I can't get a carrier, sir!"
###
"Mr. President," I said sadly as battle management confirmed - and flashed to the world - the kinetic destruction of the White House.
"Do unto others as you would have them do unto you. Or as in this case, before. You attempted, you programmed and planned, a space kinetic weapons strike on California using your orbital iron bombs. Your Hammer system. We therefore killed you with it."
I continued speaking as if to a dead man, my words for the world.
"Mr. President, America has lost. You exist at California's mercy. Fortunately for all of us, California still has some. If America surrenders at once, immediately, army and air force and aerospace and all the ships and subs at sea, California will pledge to defend America _and_ to rejoin the Union as a subordinate state. Diplomats will negotiate the details. But this offer, unlike your car's extended warranty, will run out in ten minutes. Mr. Vice President I am told you are still alive - get on the Hotline or call the California call center, do it now, you have ten minutes."
I pretended to look at my screen.
"People of America, I didn't like doing that. I don't like killing thousands of US Navy sailors doing their jobs, and tens of thousands of people either at a target or near one. But you heard what your former President intended for us. You're outnumbered, outmatched, outclassed, the world is against you and only California willing to pledge towards your survival. I keep my word. Just ask the people of Iowa. They know."
###
The battles were waged at the speeds dictated by their technology. The orbital war was a hellish mess. It was already interfering with the satellite communications that the ultimatum possible.
I did not want to use the EMP option, to knock America back into the pre-electronics age. What we had done to her with her own Hammers would be nothing compared to that. The death toll would be low at first, but rise and rise and rise as the country shattered from within - and no help from anyone, just more attacks to disarm anything previously overlooked.
Just barely within the ten minutes, a scratchy voice - airborne command post - was patched over to me.
"This is the Vice President. I have a carrier group off the California coast."
I thought about it for about a second.
And then pressed a little button right there.
###
Five thousand sailors never even knew what had happened to them.
An aircraft carrier, the symbol of America's might, literal acres of sovereign soil that could sail anywhere in the world to bring America's opinions to anyone she did not like. In an instant, a flash and mushroom cloud and a shockwave.
The blast rocked the ships nearby. But they were ready for nuclear war. Took damage and casualties, but were not sunk.
"FLASH FLASH FLASH. PRIORITY OPERATIONAL TRAFFIC, ATLANTIC COMMAND. USN CARL VINSON DESTROYED BY NUCLEAR EXPLOSION..."
There was no Atlantic Command to receive the message, it had been Hammered. But there were others who overheard.
###
"What carrier, Mr. Vice President? You have sixty seconds to talk to your Navy and verify."
###
"Goddamn you."
"Mr. Vice President, you are aboard a Nightmare command and control aircraft orbiting three hundred miles east of Nova Scotia. A little too close to London, don't you think? Do you want to talk, or die?"
###
"What do we have that can get at that?"
"Fighter aircraft. No tankers. One way trip."
"Launch. Two pairs. Try to get a tanker up."
They both knew the four pilots would end up in the water. But if they became a factor, it was a small price to pay.
###
"Talk," growled the VIce President.
"Go land in Canada. Order the Trident fleet, what is left of it, to surface and open hatches and surrender. Order the Joint Chiefs of Staff. No offensive actions against anyone. Aircraft will not scramble. Vessels in port will remain in port. And silo doors will not open, nor will I observe launch bloom."
"You've used up the Hammer system."
"Yes, I have. Too dangerous for anyone to have, even California. Very destabilizing, what were you thinking? But we have other assets."
"Like what?"
"The British and the French."
"Yes, things are strained right now, but I cannot imagine..."
"You have five minutes to talk to the British or the French. In the meantime, if American military forces take the actions I have outlined, we will take further offensive actions entirely at our discretion."
###
The National Park Service ranger was aghast.
The monument which had been the pride and joy of the park ... had been hit with an orbital space weapon. He was still stunned. The sheer gall. The arrogance of it. Like saying "Your cities aren't worth destroying, so we destroy your treasure instead."
He hardly noticed the team in full battle gear until they demanded his handgun.
He looked at them and blinked. A terrorist cell, no doubt, and his training had been to resist because they would kill him anyway.
He was too stunned to do anything but to unholster his handgun carefully with his off hand and give it to them.
"Thank you. Remain calm."
They started speaking to the crowd of tourists. And to the news crew they had arranged, with its satellite link.
"We are here as representatives of the native peoples of the Americas. Our ancestors knew this mountain as the Tunkasila Sakpe Paha, our Six Grandfathers. In her arrogance, America carved them into shapes after her own Presidents.
"As a symbolic gesture of what California could yet choose to do, but has so far refrained, she has as a gift to the native peoples wiped the slate clean. Now these are no longer the Six Grandfathers but also no longer the Four Presidents.
"Mount Rushmore is now just another mountain. With a crater at the top."
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