Chapter 19 Hello Darkness
"Welcome back." said the anchorwoman as she sat across the table from President Barker in a New York news studio "We have as our guest President Barker, now Mr. President some have questioned the wisdom of you leaving Europe in its current state. Some members have called it and I quote "A sign of weakness by turning your tail and running." Still others have said it is a sign that you don't care about the people by leaving regular people behind."
President Barker shook his head as he listened to the question.
"That is totally wrong Amy, I am here in New York because it is the best place to manage the situation in Europe and North Africa. Also the forces that normally are required to protect me in a war zone are now free to help bring this to an end." explained President Barker
"So you are calling it a war zone?" inquired Amy as she bite the end of her pen, it was one of the habits she was known for in the news business.
"I misspoke when I said war, but it is a combat area. We have enemy Special Forces teams on the lose and while our forces are hunting them down it is better for me to get out their way." corrected the President
"Some are worried that these Coordinators will take this war out of Europe and North America and attack other locations around the world, do you share their concerns?" asked the Amy as the camera zooned in on the President.
"While I understand the concern I can assure the people of Earth and Space that the situation is totally under control and we will soon have everything right where it should be." reassured the President with a warm smile, which calmed people heart.
Over seven thousands of miles away from New York where the President was sitting in an interview the cold Antarctic winds was blowing across the most Southern Preventer RND base on Anvers Island. Anvers Island was located almost 700 miles off the coast of South America and was the perfect spot the testing the new weapons without anyone getting hurt or it being seen. The base also surveyed as a main communication hub for satellites orbiting around the southern half of the world. High up on a frozen ridge a team of soldiers watched as the Preventer guards moved around the base trying to keep warm.
"Look at that stockpile of missiles," said one of them as the hanger opened up long enough for an experimental mobile rocket launcher to roll in.
"I am looking at those new fancy mobile suit." stated another
"So many targets…and I brought so little explosives charges." cursed the only woman in the group who was also the explosives expert.
"That isn't our target." Said the commander as he looked out of her binoculars at the four other members of his squad which was moving around the edge of large radio broadcast building "Yet."
The four other members lined up in front of the doors, which lead inside, without saying a word the four of them entered to find a large changing room where guards would change out of their winter gear to clothing more in tune to their indoor jobs. One guard had his back to them as he pulled over a large sweater, which he would wear under his uniform to stay warm.
"I swear if that is you Mike I am going to report you for leaving you're…." started the Guard but he never had a chance to finish as a bullet fired from a silenced pistol ended his life.
"Move." ordered the leader as they moved into the guard post area which was staffed by five guards whose job was to make sure no one got into the building, they failed. The Phantoms stepped over the bodies and moved down the hall dropping anyone they came across with three round bursts to the head. Most of them where dead before they even hit the ground; soon they had reached their target. They did not even bother with trying to hack the lock instead one of them blew open the lock with a shotgun blast. With the door open it was another blood bath as the men and women controlling the radio system where killed in a hail of bullets.
When the gunfire died down one of the Phantoms sat down at one of the control panels shoving the still warm Preventer to the floor. She swiped the blood off the screen and put in a head set into the broadcast jack.
"30 seconds early." said the commander as he checked his watch
Far away from the frozen wasteland Heero Yuy stood over a portable map table, unlike his hosts which mostly used old fashion paper maps this card table sized map table projected a holographic image of the area. Heero's mind was racing as he looked at the real time satellite images he was taking from the Preventers.
"So Admiral Yuy what is the situation?" asked Yzak as he entered the room along with some of his staff.
"The fires are out but that port will be closed for months while they try to clear out the port however the airfield will likely reopen within two days." reported Heero as he moved his hand over the map to show the bulldozers shoving wreck vehicles and pieces of fallen buildings out of the runways. The Zaft rebels' eyes widened as they looked at the technology in front of them.
"So we could come under air attacks?" asked Yzak
"Possible but I am not that concern about that. We have a plan to take care of that," admitted Heero "I am concern about the where the gundams are, they moved them somewhere."
"If I was them I would move them to the nearest military base." stated Yzak
"Possible, hard to know for sure." said Heero "If I was Zechs I would pull back Wufie's suit for repair and the nearest place for that is right outside of Rome but I wouldn't waste time in pulling the suits back only to push them forward again."
"Well there is a large park located outside the city." offered Yzak as Heero nodded his head in agreement.
"That would be a prime place to hide them." confirmed Heero "Now about your defenses."
"What about them?" asked Yzak
"We can't hold them." confirmed Heero as Yzak and his commanders blinked "We can't hold them for in the long run, we have to fall back."
"Fall back…we have nothing to fall back to." snapped Yzak "This is our last stand."
"It doesn't have to be, we have two ships coming and combined with that experimental ship you captured from the Preventers we have enough lift capability to leave." offered Heero "once in space we can jump back to our own home and leave this place to its fate."
"This is our home!" snapped a younger officer
"This place will likely never accept you, better to leave then to fight so much that you can't have a life," explained Heero
"Even if we would want to we can't." stated Yzak as he crossed his arms over his chest "In case you haven't noticed the mass driver which is the only way to get said ship into space is only half way done, so we are stuck on the ground."
"I wouldn't be so sure about that." reported Heero "Kira and Athrun are looking into Luna's idea about how to get you off world."
While Heero was discussing the next move less than a hundred miles away the woman who still loved him was considering her own options.
"We need to end this soon." reported a Preventer General to his Secretary of State Relena Peacecraft. "We had thousands of attacks last night across multiple cities and it will only get worse."
"Thousands of attacks all done by a single group of special forces?" inquired Relena believing the General was stretching the truth.
"It isn't the Phantoms that I am worried about but the regular civilian population," explained the General as Relena blinked.
"General the people are not savages they are law abiding citizens," defended Relena as the General shock his head.
"Sorry Secretary Peacecraft but you don't understand human nature." explained the General "People when they have full stomachs, hot showers and television they are as civilized as you know but take all that away and we are not that different then savages. The longer the people go without power or a victory of some kind the more savage they become."
"What is the worst case?" asked Relena
"We already had multiple cases of fires and looting, it will only get worse as time goes on." explained the General "We need to end this now?"
"How do you recommend that?" inquired Relena
"We have multiple options we have six large battle stations up in space each about the same size as space forests Barge was all those years ago." noted the General "The main gun on any of them would be more than enough to destroy Malta. We could move any of them in close enough in two days to fire. It will cost us the prototype ship and the mass diver but it will not be as costly as watching cities burn as the people riot."
"They will see us moving it and destroy it with that beam weapons of they have on our moon." Countered Relena
"Which is why we go old school to take them out." offered the general as Relena blinked "We still have thousands of land based nuclear weapons loaded in their silos we can mass launch them. They can't destroy them all."
Relena lowered her head for a moment before looking back up at the General.
"I will take your idea to the President." Confirmed Relena wondering if she would back the General's play or not, could she watch as a beam of light come down on Heero and kill him.
It was nearing noon and while major cities across Europe, North Africa and the middle East was still no closer to getting power back on, a problem no one had expected was coming up in ever growing number. Since it was the middle of summer it was very hot and without central cooling systems a lot of people where now having to deal with heat, they never had to deal with before and this got them angry. To make matters worse with no power there was no power for the electric ovens most people had in their homes and most of the business did not have power for their cooking equipment either, so the average citizen had to deal with uncooked food or no food at all. While they where doing that Vice Admiral Lunamaria Yuy was enjoying a hot meal on the beach along with the rest of the Neo-Plants people. The people who were labeled terrorists by the Preventers where like something out of the history books to Luna, they appeared to be very similar to some of the founding members of the Plants, just normal people who wanted to fix what they saw wrong with nature. She had even talked to a few of them, some only wanted to fix some genetic trait, which would doom their child to either a life or pain or an early grave. Others wanted to raise humanity to a new level by increasing the natural gifts.
"Your Vice Admiral Yuy right?" came a voice as Luna looked toward the source. The source was a woman about her own age with deep red hair and even deeper sea green eyes.
"Yes and you are?" asked Luna
"Specialist Aadi." introduced the women as she sat down across from the Admiral "This is kind of hard to explain but I am…."
"Your Yzak's girlfriend." Finished Luna as Aadi blinked those green eyes. "The Preventers have a file on you."
"Oh…well I know you didn't know Yzak before he came here so I am not going to ask you about that but how screwed are we?" asked Aadi as Luna blinked. "The word going around is that we may have to leave this place."
"Yes." confirmed Luna
"And if I am know Yzak as well as I do, he is dead set against that." stated Aadi, she didn't even wait for Luna to confirm what she already knew "Is there any way that I can help you convince him to leave? I may not be a coordinator like you but I know how to get what I want from Yzak."
"I'll let you know but first tell me something will you?" asked Luna "Why did you side with the coordinators?"
"I was a twin, he died when he was 8 after years of dealing with a genetic disordered, my younger brother and another sister all died the same way." explained Aadi with sadness in her voice "I am a carrier and any children I would have, would have a 2/3 chance of getting it and dyeing by the age of nine. The current law would not let me fix the problem because as that Bitch Relena said "it is God's will". I wasn't asking to make a master race only stop a sickness would cause children to die in pain."
"And a coordinator would be free of that." Said Luna totally understanding her reasons because it was the same reason why her grandmother had grandfather had made her mother a coordinator.
"Yes." Confirmed Aadi
"Would the others here be up to leaving this world behind for good?" inquired Luna
"In a heartbeat." confirmed Aadi
The skyline of Seoul filled the night air with light as the people of the mega city went about their evening. The hundreds steel and glass skyscrapers and neon lights helped make the city feel even more like a modern jungle. The people who inhabited this jungle where going about their evening some heading to bed for work the next morning. Others preparing for a night on the town in one of the many dance clubs and bars that was the heart of the cities nightlife. Since it was a Saturday night, those places would be full to the breaking point. None of them paid any mind to the sound of yet another helicopter overhead even as it came in for a landing on one of the many landing pads, which shot out of the side of some of the tallest buildings. It had become common for the ultra-rich to use the choppers as their main transport into the cities from their homes in the countryside to avoid the massive traffic jams. The chopper came in for a landing, she did not even wait for the blades to stop turning as Stella walked out of the chopper.
"Welcome to Seoul." said the head of the RND department of a research company owned by her parent company.
"It is always great to be in this city, my own regret is that I don't have time for a meal at my favorite spot." said the Stella native to this earth as her blonde hair blew in the wind as they left the helicopter pad, passing the massive skylight and AC units before heading down into the building below. "Has the Phantom prisoner started speaking yet?"
"Sadly not yet but we have only just begun to talk to him. Our best man is talking to him in the basement right now," reported the woman as the two of them walked toward the meeting room. The building was mostly square with a glass outside allowing for massive amounts of natural light and a large opening that went from the ground floor to the roof where a massive skylight allowed more light into the building. "However we have learned a few things."
"Like what?" asked Stella
"Such as that under his armor which was actually thin gundamium plates he had a power suit which would improve his speed and strength." stated the researcher "It also has an ability to pump pain killer drugs of some kind into the body if shot."
"Amazing and how long until you can copy this technology?" asked Stella
"Not sure, the gundamium was laced with an unknown compound which made it lighter so that anyone wearing it wouldn't be crushed by the weight." reported the researcher "We are trying to ID it as we speak."
"Good." said Stella with a nod of her head as they headed toward the meeting where she would get a more detailed report of the findings.
At the same moment, the President and his advisors where having a high-level meeting over the government live broadcast system. This system allowed government members from around the world and space to have face-to-face communication in real time.
"How soon can we get the power back on?" inquired the President from New York
"Sir, we have no idea what the N-Jammers look like." admitted the Energy Cabinet Minister "And even if we find it in one of the places it may be in a totally different place in another power planet."
"What about building new plants that would bring the power back?" asked another Cabinet Minister
"It would take months to build even one and then all these Phantoms would have to do is put another N-Jammer in place and the plant will go down again," rebutted the Energy Minister as she took a deep breath. "Sir, I know it is may be political suicide but it may be for the best if we give in to their demands. I mean all they want to leave, why not let them."
"I agree." added Lady Une quickly as the civilian head of the Preventers she had a voice at this table. "We are in a horrible state and frankly we have our back against the wall. We cannot launch an attack on Malta because we are busy dealing with the riots in the darkened cities. Finally to top it all off we have a special forces team of unknown numbers conducting attacks inside the affected areas."
"Is it really that bad?" asked the educational Minister
"We have had 245 deaths in the past 12 hours," reported Lady Une "Most of them where either ambush attacks or snipers picking off soldiers manning checkpoints. However we have also had bombings, ships exploding at the opening to major ports, gas stations going up in fireballs and almost anything that can provide power has attacked in some way or another."
"Almost anything?" asked the President
"The Phantoms haven't targeted civilian hospital generators or the trucks bring fuel to them. They will go after all others but not those." explained Lady Une before deciding to turn back to the issue at hand "Mr. President tell me is this really worth it? Is the death of possibly thousands of our soldiers in an attempt to kill people who want to leave and be left alone worth it?"
"It possibly can't cost thousands to take a small island with only a handful of mobile suits." Laughed the chief political advisor to the President "I saw the battle forecast it was going to be a blood bath."
"Sir it may have been a cakewalk earlier but now the game has changed the Neo Zaft forces have new allies in Zaft, Orb and the EA. They have three gundams in place and who knows how many others they can deploy in a short amount of time. They also have Special Forces teams striking us and a beam weapon on the moon which could strike at any position on Earth or in space. To top it all off they have Heero Yuy."
"Heero Yuy can't mean that much?" stated another Minister
"Sir, Heero has been a frontline solider and key player in at least three major wars and those wars where at least as large as our own, which means he is likely trained to a sharp and very deadly edge." Stated Lady Une "He is possibly the biggest weapon they have and from all the reports we have the other two pilots who joined him are at least is equal in training if not as experience in direct combat."
"We do have another option which would end this all in moments." expressed Relena sadly, "A General advised me to recommend we launch our land based ballistic missiles on Malta or on the moon beam weapons."
"Relena that would be suicidal if we launch the nukes on Malta then the beam weapon will begin taking out cities." stated Lady Une "And if we launch the moon it will take at least an hour for the missiles to reach the target."
"We have over a thousand missiles which we put in after the Christmas Eve battle they are supposed to be a last line of defense, it is time that they are used." Stated a minister "If we launch them all there is no way that they can shot them all down and if they do try it will mean they can't fire at our cities."
"And if they decide to fire on our cities we could lose millions of people." reported Lady Une hoping that the President would shot down this crazy idea.
"We could fire when the moon is over the Pacific Ocean it would limit the number of cities they could hit, even with their skills they can't bend a beam strike," offered up the President as they began to format their plan.
It was a normal boring day for the Preventer Capitan as he sat an underground bunker along with a small four-man crew. He spent most of his days planning how he was going to landscape his new house and hoping that his wife did not go on a spending spree while he was underground. Suddenly a loud beeping filled the air as a printer, which was not supposed to print anything, started going. Instantly another member of the crew moved and picked up the dispatch, he read it over only to stop and read it again.
"Sir." said the man shaking a little bit "We have an order to fire."
"What?" asked the Preventer Capitan as he grabbed the paper out of the younger man's hands. He read the message before moving toward his radio system. He quickly got to the command broadcast channel.
"This is missile command." said a female voice
"Yes, this is Snow missile field." said the Capitan using the code name for his field of twenty-five nuclear missile silos he had under his command "We have a launch order."
"Yes, we have a confirmed order to fire you are to fire on an approaching unknown weapon system which is coming toward Earth." stated the woman as she repeat the launch orders and the correct confirmation codes.
"Understood." said the Capitan before turning back to his man, he had not expected this day to come but it had come and he had to follow orders "We have order birds launch in 3 minutes."
Unknown to that Capitan or the others who called was that all their orders came from the radio station taken over by the Phantoms and even their communications where sent to the base. When they got confirmation for launch they were not talking to another Preventer but a member of the Phantoms.
Across the world people stopped what they were doing and looked up as missiles took off from their land based launchers. They streaked up into the air like avenging angels and at once the Preventer military went into over drive trying to figure out what was happening. Some tried to access the remote targeting system built into all the modern missiles in a hope of changing the course of the missiles to wherever they were heading however the only image that came up was an image of the Phantom Squad symbol and the words "Kiss your ass Goodbye."
The media did a flash message across all means of communication about the launch and at once people began to panic believing that their lives would soon be over; little did they know those missiles would never hit the ground. Once they reached the right height in the atmosphere they all exploded, the height of the blast meant that no radiation would get to the people far below but that was not the plan. Now the bombs where at just the right height so that an EMP burst from the nuclear explosion fired every unshielded electrical system which happened to be at the time. Instantly the whole world minus a handful of EMP shielded electrical systems normally attached to, the military of government in some way went black plunging the world into total darkness.
Down in the Antarctic the Phantom member turned on the radio again. In four places around the world they were waiting for the message she was about to give.
"We are a go, I say again Go."
Well I hope you liked this chapter even though it took a lot longer then I originally planned it to be. I hit a little bit of a writer's block where I could not decide what route I wanted to take to get to the next part of my story. Now part of the issue was that I was struck by some ideas for stories. I have posted the samples on my profile if you want to check them out. Now until next time which I promise will come a lot faster, please keep reading. Thanks Wilkins75