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GWOT VII - Emergency Info Request
Oct. 13th, 2021 07:48 pmGWOT VII - Emergency Info Request
"Sir, yes, I wrote a detailed biography of the Governor of California! I'm trying to get it over to you. I can't get it up on the network!" the analyst said into the internal phone.
The CIA had of course analyzed this new, strange threat of separatist states and formerly domestic nuclear powers.
The venerable system on which this classified information was kept was not cooperating.
"Try looking up this Echo 18. Actually, give me a verbal first."
"Some middle rank officer. Appeared running Alviso Prison, on the California Terror Commission or something like that. The executions. Then he was a border patrol commander. Next thing he was with their UN contingent in Iowa. The Christian genocide thing. Fucking crazy, is his reputation, but all Californians are nuts."
The entry on the top secret Intelink loaded.
"SHIT. SHIT! We've been hacked! Dump this crap and restore it from backups, now!"
The screen read in bright, malignant red letters that were not part of the program as designed.
"So you tried looking me up. Good. Surrender or I will keep killing until you do. Love and kisses, Echo 18."
Then every screen in the facility started displaying the same message.
Not just the computers. The TV sets. The Voice over IP telephone screen. The security cameras. The panicked analyst pulled out his cell phone. It had a new lock screen. WIth the same message.
Langley was non-functional until every piece of hardware had been either flashed to factory specifications and reconfigured, or pulled and replaced.
Long after everything else was over.
###
Another agency had never trusted Intelink. It had its own secure, compartmentalized computer system.
So that agency briefed the NSC Advisor.
"FIrst record of Echo 18 in our systems is a routine background check. Before the Firecracker, a middling-good security supervisor. After it, he ran the contract security for a critical facility in Silicon Valley. Yes, after the Firecracker, through all the harshness. Arrested by Homeland... killed his interrogator?!? Rescued in the Resistance campaign. Ruined his left hand, severe PTSD, appointed Warden of Alviso Prison, appointed to the California Military Commission, executed over 2000 US military personnel and contractors for alleged war crimes, took over operations at Sunnyvale after the POW rescue there. Then he was on their border patrol, which is military... Sector Commander. Equivalent of a state police area command, but with more guns and, wait, nerve gas? Then he was on the UNNAPID deployment to Iowa. Credited with saving 800,000 lives. Briefly court-martialed for his losses, the Governor of California intervened. Got him appointed as a diplomatic officer, ostensibly assistant military attache in China, but that's when they rammed through the Ambassador Plenipotentiary powers..."
"Family, friends, known weaknesses. I need leverage."
"No family. No friends. I said severe PTSD. Apparently that's a promotion qualifier for California military. Doesn't even have pets. Nothing personal on him. A lot of video from Iowa, mostly from YouTube. Oh, fuck me."
"What?"
"Most of these clips are labeled California Military Press Liasion. Official as hell. And in every single one, he's blowing people up or shooting them or interrogating them and then shooting them. They've gone to great trouble to portray him as a ... what's the term ... French ... genocidaire. Mass murderer."
The analyst had four clips playing at once, flipping the audio using keystrokes on his multiple keyboards.
"This man is really, really unhappy. If you shot someone in the knee, you'd feel something. Power, rage, maybe fear, maybe the thrill of the forbidden. Totally flat affect. Like he was bored. Like taking out the trash, no, like checking the mail."
"See here," the analyst said, to someone on the phone who couldn't. "He's telling the town he destroyed it, he's going to poison the water supply. People are crying, people are furious. Just data to him. Only here at the end, just before the clip ends. You see that. His eyes narrowing. He wishes he could do more, but he can't because his duty won't let him."
"More than poison the town and set it on fire?"
"Yeah. Like torture them all to death or pile their bodies high and light the bodies on fire. I don't know what he was before the Firecracker, but he's nightmare fuel now."
The feed from CNN - apparently now the Echo 18 News Network - interrupted.
"You aren't kidding. He just nuked Hawaii."
"Official. I wouldn't let him pet a kitten."
###
The pilot, wearing an eye patch over his left eye as a standard anti-flash precaution, held his headset closer to his head.
He turned to his co-pilot.
"Did you get that, Mark?"
He nodded.
"Jesus Fucking Christ." His voice turned clinical, cold. "Co-pilot, I have a valid and authenticated order. Do you concur?"
"I concur."
The pilot turned on his transponder and set his transponder to 7700. Both acts were violations of nuclear war protocol. Command and control aircraft don't transmit their position. Even if, or especially if in distress, they do not transmit a distress code.
The co pilot reached up and selected "MASTER FUEL DUMP." Made sure all tanks were in line. Lifted the cover over the button and pressed it.
The pilot turned off the autopilot. Both men made sure their seat belts and harnesses were securely fastened.
"What the hell?" someone said walking forward.
And was knocked off their feet as the plane dove towards the ocean. Not at maximum dive. Not at loss of power dive.
At terminal dive.
Ninety seconds later, the wings tore off.
As ordered.
There were, of course, no survivors.
###
"This is NORAD CIC in Omaha. We have confirmation that the Vice President is dead. We are at war. CIC has operational control."
###
Thanatos Gambit.
You fucking assholes.
I have a deal with a civilian leader. So you kill him.
I selected three options from the battle management menu. Executed all three.
"Immediate Hotline message. Turn over operational command to the Speaker of the House as outlined in the US Constitution, or all deals are off and unlimited nuclear war begins. We know the Speaker is at Mount Weather, we know she has command and control. I want to hear from the Speaker in five minutes, that's 300 seconds and we're counting... Oh, and call Base Housing. They have a message for you."
###
"Snap shoot! Fire mission!"
The men in the trench started lifting shells hand over hand to the big 120 millimeter mortar they had carried in the parts of.
Every shell was nerve gas.
None of them wore chemical warfare protective gear. None of them had autoinjectors.
This wasn't that kind of war any more.
The Americans had Crossbow, anti-mortar radars. But they were deployed to protect the base.
Not the base dependent housing.
Enraged Security Forces immediately attacked. But they were out of shells before they even had to pick up their rifles.
It was something to do.
###
The commanding general picked up the phone. Slammed it down.
"Goddamn it, how dare they!"
"What, General?"
"Nothing. I want a TOT package prepared for every California city. Two squadrons should do it. One hundred silo missiles."
"General, that will mean two hundred..."
"Shut. Your. Mouth. I doubt the French will do it. The British certainly won't."
They started preparing the target package.
###
"They're uploading data to the squadrons. It's a fuckpack."
"Explain it to them."
"There's only the one way."
I took a deep breath.
"Sometimes we find things out by experiment."
###
The old man pushing the shopping cart felt the buzz from the device.
He thought about it.
He'd lived a good life.
He was sad for the handful of people who had been nice to him, not knowing who he was or where he was from.
He wondered if it would be the end of the world. But he really didn't care.
It would be the end of his world. And that is ultimately what every person faces, soon or late.
For the ashes of his fathers, and the temples of his gods.
He unplugged the Object from its battery pack.
###
"Madam Speaker, Echo 18 for California."
"Why did you murder the Vice President?"
"I didn't. He had an outbreak of common sense. Then his plane crashed. We have bigger problems. Pay attention to Omaha."
"Why Omaha?"
"Because the asshole who murdered the Vice President and tried to take over the United States in a military coup is .... well, was there."
"Oh my God!"
I glanced at one of the displays.
Not bad.
No, it didn't set the atmosphere on fire.
No, it didn't pulverize the continent. Or the planet.
But it was still a bad, bad day out for anyone near the south east corner of Nebraska.
###
"Estimated yield three hundred megatons," murmured our Civil Defense specialist.
That was a bit of an ouch.
The base, the Security Forces, the Bear Force cell hopelessly fighting them, the city, the county ... a good chunk of the state and of neighboring states.
The sockwave broke every window in Kansas City. Both of them. Cities, that is.
Thermal pluse reduced compared to a hypothetical meganuke of the same yield. Yet the flash was visible eight hundred miles away, fires were set in a fifty mile radius, the radiation and fallout - because of course, it had been a ground burst - horrific.
Sorry Iowa, had to fuck you again. But I would do a lot to save the planet, and we had only just begun.
###
"Madam President, the state of California recognizes you and only you as the leader of America. We will use the force of arms to assure your rightful position as President of the United States."
"Why?"
"Because Constitutional government should not be allowed to perish from this Earth. Now you need to speak to the entire world, using the Presidental Emergency Alert System. Mount Weather is a good spot for that. You will announce the unconditional surrender of the United States of America to the California-led World Coalition. You will order all American military forces to stand down and to cooperate with the arriving foreign inspectors as we secure and disarm all American weapons of mass destruction.
"And we will fucking nuke any military personnel who do not take your orders. And any city they are regrettably near at the time.
"Hint for any American military battle management folks who are asleep, stupid or drunk. We destroyed Omaha by a means you don't even know exists.
"And we will keep doing it as many times as we need to. Hawaii was your Hiroshima, Omaha was your Nagasaki. Next target is Kobe. Target after that is Tokyo. Figure it out and obey your oaths to the Constitution of the United States. Or there won't be a Constitution. Or a United States."
###
That was the last nuclear device - using the broadest definition thereof - we had to use on land.
The naval battle continued for a couple of pointless hours. At its end, a lot of fish were briefly unhappy. Also, every American ballistic missile submarine was confirmed destroyed or had foreign sailors aboard and in control.
A brief, savage cheer broke out when this was finally confirmed.
Then the Russian diplomat stood up, from where he and his staff - and their datalink - had been quietly watching.
"Mr. Echo 18. A word."
"Sir, yes, I wrote a detailed biography of the Governor of California! I'm trying to get it over to you. I can't get it up on the network!" the analyst said into the internal phone.
The CIA had of course analyzed this new, strange threat of separatist states and formerly domestic nuclear powers.
The venerable system on which this classified information was kept was not cooperating.
"Try looking up this Echo 18. Actually, give me a verbal first."
"Some middle rank officer. Appeared running Alviso Prison, on the California Terror Commission or something like that. The executions. Then he was a border patrol commander. Next thing he was with their UN contingent in Iowa. The Christian genocide thing. Fucking crazy, is his reputation, but all Californians are nuts."
The entry on the top secret Intelink loaded.
"SHIT. SHIT! We've been hacked! Dump this crap and restore it from backups, now!"
The screen read in bright, malignant red letters that were not part of the program as designed.
"So you tried looking me up. Good. Surrender or I will keep killing until you do. Love and kisses, Echo 18."
Then every screen in the facility started displaying the same message.
Not just the computers. The TV sets. The Voice over IP telephone screen. The security cameras. The panicked analyst pulled out his cell phone. It had a new lock screen. WIth the same message.
Langley was non-functional until every piece of hardware had been either flashed to factory specifications and reconfigured, or pulled and replaced.
Long after everything else was over.
###
Another agency had never trusted Intelink. It had its own secure, compartmentalized computer system.
So that agency briefed the NSC Advisor.
"FIrst record of Echo 18 in our systems is a routine background check. Before the Firecracker, a middling-good security supervisor. After it, he ran the contract security for a critical facility in Silicon Valley. Yes, after the Firecracker, through all the harshness. Arrested by Homeland... killed his interrogator?!? Rescued in the Resistance campaign. Ruined his left hand, severe PTSD, appointed Warden of Alviso Prison, appointed to the California Military Commission, executed over 2000 US military personnel and contractors for alleged war crimes, took over operations at Sunnyvale after the POW rescue there. Then he was on their border patrol, which is military... Sector Commander. Equivalent of a state police area command, but with more guns and, wait, nerve gas? Then he was on the UNNAPID deployment to Iowa. Credited with saving 800,000 lives. Briefly court-martialed for his losses, the Governor of California intervened. Got him appointed as a diplomatic officer, ostensibly assistant military attache in China, but that's when they rammed through the Ambassador Plenipotentiary powers..."
"Family, friends, known weaknesses. I need leverage."
"No family. No friends. I said severe PTSD. Apparently that's a promotion qualifier for California military. Doesn't even have pets. Nothing personal on him. A lot of video from Iowa, mostly from YouTube. Oh, fuck me."
"What?"
"Most of these clips are labeled California Military Press Liasion. Official as hell. And in every single one, he's blowing people up or shooting them or interrogating them and then shooting them. They've gone to great trouble to portray him as a ... what's the term ... French ... genocidaire. Mass murderer."
The analyst had four clips playing at once, flipping the audio using keystrokes on his multiple keyboards.
"This man is really, really unhappy. If you shot someone in the knee, you'd feel something. Power, rage, maybe fear, maybe the thrill of the forbidden. Totally flat affect. Like he was bored. Like taking out the trash, no, like checking the mail."
"See here," the analyst said, to someone on the phone who couldn't. "He's telling the town he destroyed it, he's going to poison the water supply. People are crying, people are furious. Just data to him. Only here at the end, just before the clip ends. You see that. His eyes narrowing. He wishes he could do more, but he can't because his duty won't let him."
"More than poison the town and set it on fire?"
"Yeah. Like torture them all to death or pile their bodies high and light the bodies on fire. I don't know what he was before the Firecracker, but he's nightmare fuel now."
The feed from CNN - apparently now the Echo 18 News Network - interrupted.
"You aren't kidding. He just nuked Hawaii."
"Official. I wouldn't let him pet a kitten."
###
The pilot, wearing an eye patch over his left eye as a standard anti-flash precaution, held his headset closer to his head.
He turned to his co-pilot.
"Did you get that, Mark?"
He nodded.
"Jesus Fucking Christ." His voice turned clinical, cold. "Co-pilot, I have a valid and authenticated order. Do you concur?"
"I concur."
The pilot turned on his transponder and set his transponder to 7700. Both acts were violations of nuclear war protocol. Command and control aircraft don't transmit their position. Even if, or especially if in distress, they do not transmit a distress code.
The co pilot reached up and selected "MASTER FUEL DUMP." Made sure all tanks were in line. Lifted the cover over the button and pressed it.
The pilot turned off the autopilot. Both men made sure their seat belts and harnesses were securely fastened.
"What the hell?" someone said walking forward.
And was knocked off their feet as the plane dove towards the ocean. Not at maximum dive. Not at loss of power dive.
At terminal dive.
Ninety seconds later, the wings tore off.
As ordered.
There were, of course, no survivors.
###
"This is NORAD CIC in Omaha. We have confirmation that the Vice President is dead. We are at war. CIC has operational control."
###
Thanatos Gambit.
You fucking assholes.
I have a deal with a civilian leader. So you kill him.
I selected three options from the battle management menu. Executed all three.
"Immediate Hotline message. Turn over operational command to the Speaker of the House as outlined in the US Constitution, or all deals are off and unlimited nuclear war begins. We know the Speaker is at Mount Weather, we know she has command and control. I want to hear from the Speaker in five minutes, that's 300 seconds and we're counting... Oh, and call Base Housing. They have a message for you."
###
"Snap shoot! Fire mission!"
The men in the trench started lifting shells hand over hand to the big 120 millimeter mortar they had carried in the parts of.
Every shell was nerve gas.
None of them wore chemical warfare protective gear. None of them had autoinjectors.
This wasn't that kind of war any more.
The Americans had Crossbow, anti-mortar radars. But they were deployed to protect the base.
Not the base dependent housing.
Enraged Security Forces immediately attacked. But they were out of shells before they even had to pick up their rifles.
It was something to do.
###
The commanding general picked up the phone. Slammed it down.
"Goddamn it, how dare they!"
"What, General?"
"Nothing. I want a TOT package prepared for every California city. Two squadrons should do it. One hundred silo missiles."
"General, that will mean two hundred..."
"Shut. Your. Mouth. I doubt the French will do it. The British certainly won't."
They started preparing the target package.
###
"They're uploading data to the squadrons. It's a fuckpack."
"Explain it to them."
"There's only the one way."
I took a deep breath.
"Sometimes we find things out by experiment."
###
The old man pushing the shopping cart felt the buzz from the device.
He thought about it.
He'd lived a good life.
He was sad for the handful of people who had been nice to him, not knowing who he was or where he was from.
He wondered if it would be the end of the world. But he really didn't care.
It would be the end of his world. And that is ultimately what every person faces, soon or late.
For the ashes of his fathers, and the temples of his gods.
He unplugged the Object from its battery pack.
###
"Madam Speaker, Echo 18 for California."
"Why did you murder the Vice President?"
"I didn't. He had an outbreak of common sense. Then his plane crashed. We have bigger problems. Pay attention to Omaha."
"Why Omaha?"
"Because the asshole who murdered the Vice President and tried to take over the United States in a military coup is .... well, was there."
"Oh my God!"
I glanced at one of the displays.
Not bad.
No, it didn't set the atmosphere on fire.
No, it didn't pulverize the continent. Or the planet.
But it was still a bad, bad day out for anyone near the south east corner of Nebraska.
###
"Estimated yield three hundred megatons," murmured our Civil Defense specialist.
That was a bit of an ouch.
The base, the Security Forces, the Bear Force cell hopelessly fighting them, the city, the county ... a good chunk of the state and of neighboring states.
The sockwave broke every window in Kansas City. Both of them. Cities, that is.
Thermal pluse reduced compared to a hypothetical meganuke of the same yield. Yet the flash was visible eight hundred miles away, fires were set in a fifty mile radius, the radiation and fallout - because of course, it had been a ground burst - horrific.
Sorry Iowa, had to fuck you again. But I would do a lot to save the planet, and we had only just begun.
###
"Madam President, the state of California recognizes you and only you as the leader of America. We will use the force of arms to assure your rightful position as President of the United States."
"Why?"
"Because Constitutional government should not be allowed to perish from this Earth. Now you need to speak to the entire world, using the Presidental Emergency Alert System. Mount Weather is a good spot for that. You will announce the unconditional surrender of the United States of America to the California-led World Coalition. You will order all American military forces to stand down and to cooperate with the arriving foreign inspectors as we secure and disarm all American weapons of mass destruction.
"And we will fucking nuke any military personnel who do not take your orders. And any city they are regrettably near at the time.
"Hint for any American military battle management folks who are asleep, stupid or drunk. We destroyed Omaha by a means you don't even know exists.
"And we will keep doing it as many times as we need to. Hawaii was your Hiroshima, Omaha was your Nagasaki. Next target is Kobe. Target after that is Tokyo. Figure it out and obey your oaths to the Constitution of the United States. Or there won't be a Constitution. Or a United States."
###
That was the last nuclear device - using the broadest definition thereof - we had to use on land.
The naval battle continued for a couple of pointless hours. At its end, a lot of fish were briefly unhappy. Also, every American ballistic missile submarine was confirmed destroyed or had foreign sailors aboard and in control.
A brief, savage cheer broke out when this was finally confirmed.
Then the Russian diplomat stood up, from where he and his staff - and their datalink - had been quietly watching.
"Mr. Echo 18. A word."
