Cold War
by Warringer
Chapter Eight
-----------------------------------------------------------------
It had been a clear day in Katok and so it was perfectly possible for the three crew members of the Enrico Sanchez to see three mushroom clouds growing from three different spots, each about three kilometers distant to the city.
"What the hell..." was all Franklin could say as he stared at the mushroom that grew where the space port had to be. His mind raced as he remembered the movie 'The Day After' and the horrible things it had shown.
"No," Dao whispered and tried to hide behind Franklin.
In the distance there was a cloud that raced towards the city and the horrified Narn and humans.
"GET DOWN!" David screamed in Narn and threw himself to the ground, closely followed by most of the people in the small square they were on.
Franklin grabbed Dao as they got to the ground, doing his best to shield his best friend with his body. The cloud raced towards them and picked up rubble, tables, trash and even one or two helpless Narn of the ground as it raced over the city with nearly the speed of sound. The first wave was closely followed by a second and a third from the two other nuclear detonations.
Five minutes went by and the wind got down. Narn and the three humans slowly got up, but some Narn couldn't get up. They had been buried by some of the trash and rubble the shock waves of the detonations had carried and lost here when they hit the surrounding buildings. Only one or two of these buildings were still undamaged while most of them were damaged to some degree, some of them having burried helpless Narn inside the buildings.
There was a silence before the first injured Narn started to scream in pain and others called for help. In all this the human 4x4 had been untouched, the heavy frame had prevented it from being picked up by the shock waves. A Narn was laying next to the 4x4, his spine clearly broken as a shock wave had thrown him against the 4x4. Now he was on the ground, presumably dead if the growing pool of blood was any indication.
Franklin grit his teeth as he looked at the chaos around him as Narn tried to help the injured and burried. A look at Dao showed that she had gone into a shock, staring at the dead Narn next to the 4x4. He picked her up and slung her arms around her, trying to prevent her from seeing the carnage around themby pressing her face into his chest.
Davids face had become hard as stone as he looked around. The package he had just gotten was worthless now. He looked up at the mushroom clouds. One of them was raising above the space port, while the others rose above the garrison of Kator and the military space port. Precision strikes, something he had done himself enough times.
The additional sensors in his military grade Mk IV cybrain weren't picking up much radiation, indicating the use of catalytic fusion bombs and the little radiation he did pick up let him speculate about the yield of the three nukes. Each had been a 20 kt fusion bomb, detonating as ground burst.
And he knew only one star nation that used catalytic nukes besides NATO.
"Soviets," he spat out and looked at Franklin, who still pressed Dao against him.
The feline made noises that were the Kartanin version of crying.
"We need to get to the Sanchez," he said and Franklin nodded at him numbly.
-----------------------------------------------------------------
Above the planet of Kotok, the day had been a normal day. Ships came and ships left and no one was really interested in any thing. The few Narn vessels stationed at the planet were going on patrol, while the former Centauri space station above the planet was busy with the freighters that weren't able to land on the planet.
The routine changed to shock as several flashes of light appeared on the planet below, three of them near Katok. Panic came next as several high explosive charges destroyed on of the reactors of the station and each of the weapon emplacements, opening the station wide to the vacuum of space.
More than half of the stations crew and half of the visitors died before the air locks could be closed.
For ten minutes nothing happened and the ships near the station tried to leave the area in panic and complete disarray.
Than several jump points opened and a very powerful transmission overpowered any other transmission on any radio and tachyon channel.
"In the name of the Union of Socialistic Soviet Republics and General Secretary Joseph Stalin, we are annexing this system to free our oppressed communistic Narn brothers and sisters."
The message was looped as the brief first battle of Kotok began.
Still in complete disarray, the Narn defenders couldn't hope to fight of the Soviet battle group, consisting of a single Borey class missile dreadnaught, four Akula class battleships, eight Delfin class cruisers and about nine Putin class dropships
As the battleships and the cruisers accelerated to herd the commercial ships towards the station, all the Borey did was launching a single spread of missiles, fully well knowing that the point defense of the Narn was poor to non-existent. The commander of the Borey was right. Each of the defending Narn ships was hit by two R-39 anti cap ship missiles and were vaporized by their 2 MT warheads.
Most of the civil ships in the system were stopped by this show of force but a pair of jump-capable Vree saucers were able to leave the system, before the Soviet ships were able to intercept.
Two of the drop ships docked with the station and they only needed about an hour before they had complete control of the station. The other dropships rained down on the planet and its three cities to take over the planet.
Later that day several additional Soviet freighters would enter the system, bringing prefabed equipment to fortify the system.