Chapter 9, Gain, loss, and failure
David opened a mini-fridge and pulled out an ice-tray, but sighed when he saw it was empty. "Just my luck, no ice."
"I take it you've heard." Said a new voice, David turned around to see Conny standing in the doorway. "A toast, to the end of the world," David said as he held up his glass. Conny walked into the room and spoke. "Well he-he didn't come to decision lightly; he didn't have any other choice."
"Yeah, you, still believe in him, yeah."
"Well, he's a good man."
David sat down on a chair in the lounge and spoke. "Better be, you left me for him, or for your career," Conny replied to his statement. "You know it wasn't just my career; it was the biggest opportunity of my life, I wanted my life to make a difference; I wanted my life to mean something." David stood up to her level and spoke to her as opened the fridge back up and took out a bottle of liquor. "And um- I wasn't ambitious enough for you?"
"David, David you could have done anything that you wanted, research, development just-" David quickly spoke up. "Oh, honey I was happy where I was."
"Haven't you ever wanted to be part of something special?" Conny asked David. He slammed the bottle he had down on the windowsill overlooking the dragon ship, causing the contents to spill out a bit, and spoke. "I was part of something special." after a few seconds Conny started to walk out of the room. but stopped and spoke as she leaned against the door frame.
"You know if it makes any difference, I never stopped loving you."
"But that wasn't enough was it," David said. And then conversation ended there as Conny slowly turned around and started to walk away.
Steve sat against some containers next to the wall when he heard a helicopter coming in. He got up and started to walk to the chopper. He reached it and started to climb into the pilot's seat. A soldier saw him and ran over, he pointed a gun at him as he spoke
"WHAT THE HECK ARE YOU DOING, GET OUT OF THERE!"
"Look I got something I gotta handle I'm just borrowing it," Steve replied. "no your not sir." Said the man as he kept his gun trained on Steve. "Do you really wanna shoot me?" Steve asked him. After a moment the man lowered his gun. "Just tell em I hit you," Steve said as he strapped into the seat. The man stood there and watched as Steve took off in the helicopter.
Several ships were flying through the air getting ready to attack the target. A man in one of the jets spoke to command through a radio. "Command, this is retail op, squadron is in the air; we are on station and awaiting instructions. A man in the AREA 51 control room replied.
"Roger, break formation, head to targets." The Jets broke their formation and headed to the enemy ships. The man at the control room got up and informed his superiors. "Sir, their breaking formation," President Whitmore was looking at the wall that had the earth's continents when General Gray spoke.
"MR. President, we're initiating sequence codes."
A man spoke in a mic relaying codes. "Verification: ALPHA ZULU six, eight, niner."
President Whitmore walked over to the table and spoke. "Which city will be reached first?"
"Uh, Huston: Texas, ETA, six minutes and counting down." Said a man sitting at the table. "Huston," President Whitmore said as he sat down. General Gray spoke. "The major cities have been deserted; civilian casualties should be down to a minimum."
A tank rolled along a highway into Huston and a man radioed command. "Command, this is neighborhood watch, we are in position, tracking monitors are locked on, we are going to visual recon." The man pulled down the periscope and looked through; words displayed in the scope as he looked. HUSTON GROUND SURVEILLANCE IMAGE
ENHANCEMENT FALSE SPECTRUM OVERRIDE ENGAGE.
"They have confirmation." Major Mitchel said. "Launch code confirmed: ALPHA ZULU SIX, EIGHT, NINER, standing by." Said the man relaying the codes.
A jet was approaching the dragon ship and one of the men spoke. "Laser targeting, locked on." The man in the control room communicating with the pilot spoke. "We're locked on sir; do you wish to deploy?" President Whitmore said nothing as the jet got closer to the ship. "MR. President if you wish to deploy, the time is now." Said, general Gray. President Whitmore stayed silent and the jet got closer to the ship. Mister Nimziki leaned forward and spoke to President Whitmore, "MR. President." "Deploy." Said, President Whitmore.
The man on the mic spoke. "That's a go: ALPHA ZULU SIX, EIGHT, NINER, deploy." "Here we go." Said one of the men in the jet as he deployed the nuke.
"Birds away." Said Major Mitchell ( I THINK it was Major Mitchell)
The man using the periscope in the tank spoke as watched the nuke as it flew to the ship. "We have visual confirmation on the missile; it's on target, approaching."
"May our children forgive us," President Whitmore said as the nuke approached the ship. The man in the tank kept tracking the nuke. "Five seconds to impact, three...two...one." There was a bright flash as the nuke impacted the ship. Mister Nimziki stood up and shouted in triumph. "OH, YEAH, IT'S A HIT!" The tank shook from the shockwave as debris flew everywhere. "Lock it down, I said lock it down!" Yelled one of the men in the tank.
"Can we confirm that the target was destroyed?" Asked President Whitmore. The man on the mic ran over to a man working at a computer and spoke. "Get the tank commander online, I want confirmation that the target was destroyed."
"Yes, sir." Said the man at the computer. He then proceeded to communicate with the tank." RED ARROW ALPHA NINER SEVEN TWO THREE, can you read." A Garbled voice came over the radio. "Repeat commander you're breaking up." Then the voice on the radio cleared up.
"We have lost visual." Said the voice. The man at the computer spoke again."Roger that, we're looking for confirmation." In the tank, the periscope was brought back down and a man looked through as the system rebooted. The man panned the scope around but saw no sign of the ship. Mister Nimziki spoke. "We got the suckers." People all around the room cheered and clapped as Mister Nimzik continued. "Good job everyone, congratulations."
The man at the computer continued speaking. "Commander do you have visual, I repeat we need 'visual! confirmation, has the target been destroyed?" The man once again looked through the periscope and looked around, the visual was blurry at first but once it cleared up the spaceship came into view. "Negative...target remains, I repeat, target remains." Said the soldier manning the periscope.
President Whitmore stared at the screen then turned around and spoke. "Call the other planes back." "Well other bombers might have more luck so-WE SHOULDN'T JUST GIVE UP ON THIS!" Mister Nimziki objected. "I said call them back." President Whitmore said in a stern voice.
"Abort." Said General Gray. The man with the mic spoke."Alright, abort mission, initiate the abort codes right away, this is an abort, full abort do you read, abort mission right away!"
Ruins of El Toro Base
Marilyn Whitmore sat against some containers covered up with a blanket while Jasmine sat next to her holding her hand trying to help her. Suddenly a light filled the room as the sound of a helicopter came into existence. Jasmine walked to the front of the hanger doors as the helicopter landed in front. The pilot of the helicopter got out and spoke.
"Jasmine!" She smiled as she realized that it was Steve and ran up to him. They both embraced each other in a hug and then Jasmine pulled away and spoke. "Your late" "Well you know how I like to make an entrance," Steve replied right before they both went into a kiss.
AREA 51 hospital
Two men opened the door to the medical ward for President Whitmore; as he and his daughter went to see Marilyn.
A doctor walked up to President Whitmore and spoke. "MR. President, your wife is resting comfortably, perhaps if we had gotten to her-" They reached the room where Marilyn was and President Whitmore spoke to Patricia. "Hey, there she is, go on." He watched Patricia run up to her mother and he addressed Marilyn's state. "She doesn't look too good."
Then the doctor continued. "Your wife is bleeding internally MR. President, perhaps if we had gotten to her earlier." President Whitmore interrupted him. "What a minute what are you saying?" Then the doctor continued. "We can't stop the bleeding, if we could- there's nothing we can do for her." Across the room, Patricia spoke to her mom. "We were worried, we didn't know where you were." Conny was in the room and she looked at the President with a solemn face.
President Whitmore slowly started to walk to his wife. Marilyn spoke to Patricia. "You got bigger I think." "I did?" She asked. Then Marilyn continued. "You just keep growing and growing." President Whitmore lowered himself to Patricia's level and spoke to her in a quiet voice. "Hey, can you uh, wait outside for a bit so mom can get a rest.
Patricia nodded and Conny spoke to her and gestured for her to take her hand. "Hey, come on munchkin." Patricia took Conny's hand and waved as she left. After Patric left Marilyn spoke." I'm so sorry that I didn't come home when you asked me to." President Whitmore replied. "Aw no, it's ok. The doctors think that your, gonna be just fine." "Liar." Replied Marilyn. They both started to cry as they hugged each other.
President Whitmore walked out of the room his wife was in with his hand to his face. People gave him space as he walked over to where his daughter was and sat down next to her. Patricia grabbed her fathers hand and spoke. "Is mommy sleeping now?" He replied. "Yeah, mommy's sleeping." President Whitmore then pulled her into a hug while he was on the verge of crying.
Gain: Steve discovered Jasmine was still alive and vice versa. Loss: President Whitmore got his wife back only to lose her again. Failure: the plan to nuke the dragon ships didn't work.