Delta Pier, Naval Submarine Base; Bangor, Washington: 16:43 Pacific Standard Time USS Alaska (SSBN-732) sat underneath the gigantic covered pier that was the Trident Weapons Facility (TWF) for the Pacific submarine fleet. The tremendous submarine stretched a good 560 feet long and could displace almost 19,000 tons submerged. 24 eight foot diameter missile tube muzzle hatches yawned open along the middle of the ship. TWF workers and their civilian counterparts scurried along the missile deck, or ‘turtle back’ as it was known, preparing the muzzle covers for the tubes that were already loaded with Trident II D-5 missiles. Marines patrolled the Delta pier and it’s surroundings. They were heavily armed and ready to go at the drop of a hat. This was no exercise, Alaska was loaded for nuclear war. The TWF foreman watched impatiently as the powerful overhead gantry crane went about the slow and careful business of lowering a missile into the tube. The towering white shipping container projected out from the muzzle of the launch tube, the missile itself would never see the light of day unless it was actually launched. “Tube number 14 is the last one,” he observed to the ship’s Weapons Officer. “You’ll be ready to go to sea tomorrow.” The Weapons Officer nodded glumly. “My last patrol before I rotate to shore duty,” he said. “Hope it’s uneventful. The way they pushed us through the refit and crew turnover makes me a little nervous, though. I think someone has plans for us, but it’s coming from so high up that there’s no idea where it’s from.” “Cold War’s over,” the foreman remarked. “What would anyone need to use 24 of these monsters on?” “Got me,” the Weapons Officer shrugged. “And that’s what bothers me.” Hickam Air Force Base, Oahu, Hawaii: 02:50 Hawaiian Standard Time. The airfield was dark and quiet so early in the morning. The last commercial flights had arrived in nearby Honolulu International Airport hours ago, and the next flights wouldn’t start for a few more hours. A Sky Cop roved the runway in a Ram 50 pickup painted dark blue. He was met minutes later by an armada of Humvees and heavy 8-ton trucks. 300 Marines bearing the ‘Bad Boy with MP-5’ logo of the 2nd FAST battalion began spilling out of the Hummers and deploying around the runway. They were decked out in full camouflage and nightvision gear. Each carried a LAW rocket in addition to his assigned small arms. The Sky Cop stopped his truck and picked up his radio mic. “Hey Central this is Able Two; I got a bunch of jarheads running around out on One-Three, you wanna tell me what’s going on, over?” The voice of his supervisor crackled over the radio. “Able Two, disregard activity on runway One-Three, continue your patrol and stay clear of runway One-Three, understood, over?” “Roger Central,” the Sky Cop replied. His shift was over soon, and he just didn’t care that much if a bunch of Marines were running exercises. He drove off away from the runway and thought nothing more of it. C-5 Galaxies of the Military Airlift Command began landing on runway One-Three fifteen minutes later. Marines hopped to, securing each aircraft and it’s cargo with speed and efficiency. The cargoes were loaded onto the 8-ton trucks. The trucks themselves were formed up into a file with machine gun and Mk-19 grenade launcher armed Humvees spaced every other truck as escort. The convoy sped off the runway and towards the gate that separated Hickam AF Base with Naval Station Pearl Harbor. Marines had already secured the entire movement route and blocked out the sparse early morning traffic with heavy weapons. The convoy rolled on, headed straight for the waterfront. At Merry Point, the small boat landing pier for the Naval Station side of Pearl Harbor, the convoy stopped. Streets were blocked off for two hundred yards of Merry Point, and the few men and women awake aboard the surface ships that were nearby were cleared from the weatherdecks and sent below. The Marines began transferring their cargo to the waiting Tugs and small boats of Tugron-ONE and Service Craft commands respectively. This type of large scale move had never been performed before, and never under such short notice. A full platoon of heavily armed Marines escorted each craft as it chugged away from the pier and headed across Pearl Harbor to West Loch. Dolphin’s Cove, SUBASE Pearl Harbor: 11:35 Hawaiian Standard Time Dolphin’s Cove was a little smoke break area with soda machines and a small hot dog stand that ran during lunch. It was right on the waterfront of the Submarine base and as such was a popular hangout for sailors with nothing better to do. Men in dungaree uniforms that sported ball caps for the numerous subs based in Pearl sat on benches and drank Pepsi’s and Mountain Dews and kept a vigilant eye out for some errant Chief wondering where his division had run off to. A tug pulled USS Key West (SSN-722) out into the middle of the harbor. Men in olive drab life vests stood on her deck instead of scurrying below -always a sign that a sub wasn’t leaving the island but moving within the harbor. Key West sounded it’s whistle and slowly steamed under tug escort towards Ford Island in the middle of Pearl Harbor. Three subs sat alongside the two finger piers that jutted out from the waterfront in front of Dolphin’s Cove. Each boat had a little yellow and magenta sign across the access brow informing those who would come aboard that the reactor was critical, and they would need to wear a radiation dosimetry device to come aboard. “What’s going on, man?” A sailor asked a shipmate from another boat. “No fuckin’ idea,” the other sailor replied curtly. “All I know is just about every 688 on the waterfront is starting up their reactors.” “What for?” The first asked. “Goin’ to West Loch,” the second said with a yawn. “I heard a bunch of Marines came rollin’ through here this morning. They had all the tugs and small boats running them out there,” a third sailor interjected. “My boat was supposed to go to West Loch this morning,” a fourth added. He was from a 637 class sub, the USS Spadefish (SSN-668). “They canceled it. Instead we’re gonna load torpedoes over here.” “What?” The other three cried. “You mean warshots?” The first asked. “Yup. Twenty of them.” “That’s nuts! Why aren’t you doing it over at West Loch?” The first asked. “Or at least the back side of Ford Island,” the second added. “Can’t do that,” the Spadefish sailor said. “West Loch has the Columbus, Santa Fe, Honolulu, and San Francisco out there loading Tomahawks. Ford Island has the Charlotte, Topeka, and Asheville doing the same.” “Topeka? They were out on ORSE workup!” The first cried. “Called ‘em back to do this weapons load.” “No fucking way someone canceled a Reactor Safeguards Exam to do a weapons load.” The third said in disbelief. “No fucking way!” “Unless some serious shit was about to go down,” the Spadefish sailor intoned. “A couple of these boats were due to go out on WESTPAC runs. They already had their Tomahawks loaded. So why go to West Loch and reload them?” By this time a large crowd of submariners from the various boats on the waterfront had gathered around to listen in on the conversation. -A conversation that was affecting them all. “Oh shit...” Someone gasped in realization. “You’re fuckin’-A right, man,” the Spadefish sailor said evenly. “The TLAMs they’re loading out there are nukes. That’s what all the Marines were for -near as I can tell. They flew the warheads in early this morning so they could load them into the missiles.” “What’s goin’ on? This for Saddam?” Someone asked. “I thought the Gulf was the Atlantic fleet’s problem.” “Could be,” another replied. “Whoever it’s for, they’re gonna get their dicks stomped in the dirt for something.” The Spadefish sailor declared. B-1B Bomber Lucky One-Nine, 30,000 Feet above South Dakota: 21:11 Central Standard Time “Comin’ up on next waypoint,” The Navigator announced over the intercom. “Bout time,” the Co-pilot sighed. “Another hop almost done.” “More flight time for me,” the Pilot grinned. “Rack up the hours and get out of here. Fly for United and make the big bucks.” “You wish,” the Navigator shot back. “More like Value-Jet!” Incoming encrypted message traffic interrupted the laughter that followed. The crew shifted back to business as the message was decoded and given to the Pilot. He read the message and then read it once again. “You verify this?” He asked. The Navigator looked back from his charts. “Twice.” The Pilot turned back to the windowed canopy. He thumbed the intercom switch and took a deep breath. “All right listen up,” he began. “We’re heading northwest.” A chorus of curses echoed in his headset. “We’re coming up on bingo fuel,” the Co-pilot declared. “Got about twenty-thousand pounds left.” “Inflight refueling gents,” the Pilot replied. “Goddamn, I hate doing that at night,” the Co-pilot muttered. Lucky One-Nine turned northwest and cruised subsonic above a bank of clouds lit by the bright moon above them. Thoughts drifted to the payload in the bomb-bay. 12 Air Launched Cruise Missiles armed with W-65 nuclear warheads. The presence of nuclear armed ALCMs aboard Lucky One-Nine was against current U.S. policy, but since when was the Government in the habit of playing by the rules? North American Aerospace Defense Command (NORAD); Cheyenne Mountain, Colorado: 22:58 Mountain Standard Time. “Ah man! I don’t believe this!” Tech Sergeant Keith Dulles lamented. “System still down?” His supervisor, a full bird colonel, asked. “Yeah...” Dulles said and sipped from a tepid cup of coffee. “Sir, I don’t get it. Why the hell are we changing ICBM target packages in the middle of the night?” “Need to know, Dulles. Need to know.” The colonel warned. Dulles rocked back in his chair, flicking his eyes casually to his display. “I know Strategic is running that show, but fer chrissakes sir, doesn’t changing all of our ICBM targeting packages simultaneously strike you as a little odd?” The colonel brandished his silver eagles on his epaulets. “See these, Dulles?” Dulles sat up straight in his chair. “Y-Yes sir.” “Someday I want these birds to fly away and leave a star in their place. I don’t ask too many questions when the powers that be say jump, I just get airborne.” Lullabye Mountain Group Headquarters; Planet Lullabye, Brahms System, in the 7SF Colonial Annex: 17:33 SMT; 9 Neptune 4194 CE Generalissimo J. Austin Wilde accepted the reports from his operatives with a cool nod. Ten thousand parsecs away and 2200 years in the past his SURTacs had surreptitiously seized control of the United States’ entire nuclear arsenal. He could, on command, order a nuclear strike of any magnitude on any target he wished. Because targeting codes were preloaded into target packages for both ICBMs and SLBMs, those who would launch those missiles had no real idea where they would go. They had only the word of their Strategic Weapons commanders, and the Generalissimo had taken care of them. Now that he had the means to destroy the revengefic’rs in the accepted Prime World, he could turn his attentions to the more esoteric locations they and their animate comrades/enemies frequented. It had taken a great deal of work, but he now knew their locations. They were clever and powerful, but he was confident that he could deal with them. All of them. “Generalissimo, our Jaunt Teams have isolated Fred. We can deploy there at will via Jaunt Bridge,” an Operations tech reported. “You are certain? They have taken pains to close it off. Their scientist Washuu is quite brilliant.” The tech nodded. “We received concurrence from Doctor Hexenkessel, sir. We can overpower their hold on the portal utilizing our Avalon Bridge -which is powered by the Lucifer’s Well Collapsar.” The Generalissimo grinned smugly. The 100 solar mass black hole was throwing off enough radiant energy from it’s accretion disk each second to light an entire solar system. The Avalon Bridge could get his strike teams through. Middle Of Nowhere, or MON as it was known according to his Intelligence Section, was already identified. The controlling Artificial Intelligence, Durandal, had been duped into allowing a team of SURTacs in with a gaggle of fleeing authors. The SURTacs were in position and biding their time. There was also the dizzying mess of parallel planes, sometimes known as shadows, but after weeks of painstaking effort, his agents had identified the ones with his enemies and waited patiently for the signal to strike. When the time came, it would be a clean sweep: every author, every animate, every construct of their fertile imaginations; wiped out in a microsecond. He had to laugh at that. Even his progenitor, the original J. Austin Wilde, would feel his wrath soon enough. When he had first learned that the animates were rising up against the authors, he had cloned himself and accelerated that clone’s life cycle until it was fully grown in a matter of days. That clone he had named the Generalissimo, and was given the task of protecting him from the revengers. It was a task he had taken to with all the zeal any child would give to his father. He was given the troops and resources of the vast Lullabye Mountain Group to work with, and had faithfully protected his progenitor. None of the revengers had been able to reach him. The original J. Austin Wilde went about his business in the Prime World, awaiting his discharge from the Navy and working odd jobs for the barracks. His daily commutes through space-time via the Jaunt Bridge to the Cluster and the planet Lullabye went unnoticed as he could return at the very moment he had left. But he, the clone, the shadow of himself, stayed in Lullabye Mountain. He watched, he waited, and it was soon that he learned his days were numbered. That he was betrayed. He doubled over in pain as the cramps in his sides hit with full force and white lightning shot down the nerves of his arms and exploded in his finger tips. He wobbled for a moment as stars swam in his eyes, but he blinked them away and fought to stand erect. He was almost out of time. The cancers and the decay were growing. Oh yes, J. Austin Wilde would pay for creating him. For making him an Aphros clone and accelerating his maturation. A process that would destroy him shortly. He remembered a movie that his progenitor liked to watch, a memory engrammed into him when he was in the nursery ward of Lullabye Mountain. “The candle that burns twice as bright burns half as long,” he said aloud. “And as I shall only burn half as long, I *will* burn twice as bright!...” He watched the multitude of holotanks and displays that showed all of his targets, and all of his forces standing by. Destiny was almost upon them. He would let them finish their silly little war. And then he would destroy them. Wipe them completely out of existence. It was a cleansing, an absolution for the sin of his creation, and at the end it would be his final gift to J. Austin Wilde. Before he killed him. “And they shall all burn with me.... All of them.”