21st July 1999
Who would have thought our war with the British would have gone on this long? Not I for sure, despite our repeated attacks on their cities and their commonwealth, still they plagued us.
The television on the other side of the room in the Oval office was displaying the remains of the Sixth fleet sail into Boston harbour. Less than a third of the fleet had survived the battle off the Scilly Isles.
"It would seem the British fleet still has some bite." I murmured sadly.
"Yes sir."
"Has London accepted the terms for cease fire we offered them?"
The diplomatic advisor pulled out a sheet of paper from inside his jacket pocket.
"I believe their queen told us where to put our terms, sir."
"Stupid fools, why do they make it so hard on themselves? We have superior technology, firepower and manpower, and still they insist on prolonging this stupid war. How did it ever start?" I mused out loud…but of course, we all knew how it started. The war for independence back in the 1800s, technology and warfare had progressed far since then, but still we fought.
The world was a different place now, Germany had overrun France back in 1914 whilst Britain stood by, unable to intervene because their military was focused on attacking us. Then the newly formed Communist state of Russia signed a pact with Germany and attacked Japan, the war still raged over there as well. Germany had been the first to use the ultimate weapon, the nuclear bomb. Dropping one on Tokyo in an attempt to stop the war, it hadn't worked, Japan has just changed its capital to Hiroshima and carried on fighting. Russia was predicting the war to end soon…I wish this war with Britain would too.
But in the here and now it was time to retaliate against the British.
"Ok, scramble our stealth bombers, target their ports, we have to catch some of their navy in port."
"Sir, with all due respect, finding their ports is tricky, we destroy one and they build another down the coastline, we bomb that and…well, you get the picture, sir."
I sighed and leaned back in my chair, the red telephone on my desk rang, and I picked it up.
"Mr President, the base at Pearl Harbour is under attack by Australian bombers, we are retaliating but a lot of our fleet was there."
"Damn…ok, do what you can to defend the fleet, let me know what casualties we sustain."
I slammed down the phone and swore, Britain's allies, the Australians were a constant harassment in the Pacific theatre, they had been quiet up until the sixties when suddenly they had attacked Pearl Harbour, catching our fleet totally by surprise and annihilating it, now it would seem that history was repeating itself. Could we really be so stupid as to let that happen?
A door opened into the office and an aide rushed in, he looked out of breath.
"Sir! We have to leave now, we're initiating REBASE:1!"
"What? What's happening?"
"Massive inbound raid, sir. Heading straight for us."
The capitol city? It had been a while since a British raid had come this far. What could they be playing at?
"Are we at Defcon one?"
"Yes sir." replied the aide as we rushed out of the room and down the stairs, a whole group of secret service agents surrounding me with their sidearms already drawn. There had been a number of terrorist attacks by British sympathisers in the past couple of years so we were always prepared.
"Any idea where the raid originated?"
"Their base at Greenland it would appear, sir. Our surveillance ship caught some EM activity as they formed up."
"When will they arrive?"
"In about fifteen minutes, sir."
We were outside the White House and heading out to the helicopter waiting on the lawn outside, it's rotor blades were already turning as my aides hurried me up into the seats at the back, I barely had enough time to buckle up as the door was slammed shut and the helicopter became airborne. With the window open as we flew low over the city I could hear the air raid sirens wailing and see people running through the streets in panic heading for their shelters.
The phone in the wall in front rang, my defence aide picked it up before I did and sat listening to the person on the other end for a few minutes, nodded and then undid his safety belt and headed forward to speak to the pilot. A second later he was back, diving into his seat as the helicopters engine suddenly revved up and we began climbing as well as gaining speed.
"What's happening?"
"A submarine has launched a missile at Boston, it's on a low trajectory so we didn't pick it up until the last second, they're trying to shoot it down now."
"Why now? What's happened to cause the British to become so bold, they usually only attack in self-defence these days. It's not as if they have much to attack with."
"Raid in T-minus five." Yelled someone from up the front of the helicopter. I suddenly felt a lot more vulnerable with enemy aircraft scant minutes away.
"Can't this thing go any faster?" I asked, looking down and seeing the transfer airfield appear slowly below us.
"We're almost there sir."
Within seconds it seemed, the helicopter had touched down and I was being rushed to Air Force One, my armoured jet plane, ready to whisk me away from trouble. I felt guilty at leaving my people behind but the British had attempted to target the White House before, I doubted that they wouldn't pass up the opportunity to target it again.
I climbed up the steps and sat down in my designated seat, the jet engines roared as the plane began to take off, a television screen in front of me winked into life, displaying a newscaster who had just interrupted a popular daytime show.
"We interrupt this broadcast to bring news of an incoming raid on Washington, radar has picked up at least thirty incoming planes of unknown type, due to reach the skies over Washington in less than one minute. We go live to our cameras outside the studio…"
The scene switched from the suited woman behind her desk to a camera on top of the studio building facing out to sea, a cluster of black dots could be seen on the horizon, the camera zoomed in a little but the black dots remained undistinguishable. I slid the window cover up beside me to see the reassuring sight of two F-16s sitting just off the wing of the aircraft. If only the F-16 was more numerous, but as it was we were stuck with the less agile F-14, with the F-15s withdrawn with technical faults.
Something dropped from the lead British bomber and streaked towards the city, the rest of the aircraft in their formation broke and turned for the sea.
"Just one missile?" I asked incredulously, and then it began to dawn on me why the British weren't saturating the skies of Washington with missile trails.
"Oh no…"
A white flash covered the city and the broadcast went dead. Outside the window a similar white flash lit up the skies, closely followed by a small shockwave which shook the aircraft, but nothing else. I could see the clouds above us go red with a reflection of fire behind us.
My aides went ballistic as I sunk back into my chair in shock, the defence aide ran to the front of the aircraft to contact command, the diplomatic minister went ashen faced and started stuttering swearwords, the secret service agents were staring at the static displaying on the screen.
It was a few minutes before someone actually said the words we all already knew.
"Washington has been destroyed by a nuclear missile."
There was a quiet few minutes, broken by myself.
"Get me the chiefs of staff on the video-link."
Within ten minutes I was sitting in the video room with the chief of National Defence, and the chiefs of the armed forces on video screens surrounding me.
"What's the damage?" was the first question I asked, looking at the chief of National Defence.
"Most of our major east coast cities were hit. Boston, Washington, the lot. The missile on Washington was the only aerial hit, the rest were from submarines."
"How did we let this happen? Who screwed up?"
"It would seem our Russian 'friends' gave the technology to the British some time ago and they've only just got it to work…I don't know how they managed to keep this one under wraps. If only our satellites were operational."
"They're not, and won't be for another two years…we just don't have the money to spend on space research like the Germans can."
The whole world had rejoiced when Germany had landed the first man on the moon in 1979, it seemed like one day when the news wasn't full of war. Days like that were few and far between now.
"What about our spies? Shouldn't they have told us something!"
"The British counter-intelligence service is second to none, sir, we have a hard time getting any information they don't want us to have."
Someone tapped the chief of naval affairs on the shoulder and handed a piece of paper to him. He read it a couple of times and shook his head in disbelief.
"It's worse than that sir, I've just had a report from the USS Dallas, it was shadowing the boomer that launched on Boston. It was a Russian boomer, sir…a Delta-VI."
"The Russians? Attacking us?"
The CND went silent and leaned back in his chair.
"Dear god, what have we done wrong?" he asked.
"We've fought the wrong country for too long…perhaps we should have accepted the treaty Britain gave us in 1914 when Germany attacked France?"
"Perhaps…but we can't muse on such things now…we have to strike back." Said the chief of aerial affairs.
"You mean with nuclear weapons?" I asked.
"They used them first…the people will be crying out for us to use them back."
I closed my eyes.
"Mr President, we must strike back now! Any delay will only be seen as a sign of weakness and leave us wide open to further attacks."
I nodded slowly, this was how it would begin…I had wondered before just how the end of the world would start…when superpowers started throwing weapons of mass destruction at each other. This was how it would begin, with a third rate superpower with nukes like us attacking the powerhouse of Europe.
Us against the rest of the world.
We didn't stand a chance.
"Can't we sign a surrender?" I asked quietly.
"SURRENDER!" yelled the CND
"Mr President, are you insane? They have just killed thousands, no, millions of our people, and you want to surrender? Surrender when we can do the same thing to them a thousand fold?" yelled the chief of ground forces.
"This war will solve nothing…we don't stand a chance."
"Sure we do, we have China on our side, and I'm sure we can get Japan to help us…" said the CND
"But nuclear war…"
"Is the only advantage we have left, sir."
"Do it." I said, hanging my head low.
The CND turned to someone by the side of him and said a few terse words.
"Do we target Russian cities as well?" he asked me quickly.
I nodded but said no more.
"Thank you Mr President, I'll get the order sent out, expect launching to commence in five minutes."
The CNDs screen winked out.
"I'll get my boomers ready." Said the Chief of Naval Affairs, before disappearing.
"My planes will be ready." Said the Chief of Aerial Affairs, before he left too.
The Chief of Ground Forces just nodded and left.
Which left me, on my own, to contemplate what I had just done. Total nuclear war, a phrase which had become undistinguishable from the phrase Armageddon. I knew how this would play out now, we would launch on Russia and Britain, and Russia would launch the remainder of its arsenal at us. Our missiles would cross in mid-flight…and the skies would turn red.
I cried, cried with the enormity of the crimes against humanity which had begun…but I hadn't begun it, the Russians had…but…why had they begun it? Was it as a way to end the war with Britain? Was the world tired of fighting?
One last battle…and no-one would fight again.
I felt a tap on my shoulder, but didn't turn my head.
"The missiles have been launched, sir."
No turning back now…we were over the brink and heading straight for hell.
22nd July 1999
Today the world burns.