Sentient Peoples
20-11-2005, 04:47
C-space, TacNet, T-00:29:46
The computers which monitored things were rather simple. They had sets of activities to look for, and things which crossed that threshold, they reported to a monitoring EI.
But when one is talking about ten thousand or so monitoring satellites above a planet bent all to fractal Hell, it takes a moment for anything to really stand out. Which was why it took the monitoring computers nearly fifteen seconds to pick up the silo doors opening all over the Confederacy.
That was reported to an Intelligence Division Monitoring EI named, of all things, Pepper. Pepper, being vastly more intelligent and having data to correlate, along with being vastly more intuitive, figured out what was happening in about a microsecond.
A thousand microseconds later…
Office of the Imperial President, Imperial House, Griffin, Commonwealth of Sentient Peoples, FSP, T-00:29:45
Cortana’s avatar flickered into existence, burning crimson in the semi-darkened office of the most powerful man in the Federation, startling Lady Lesley off of D’ron’s desk where she was sitting, kissing her tall husband, and onto the floor. Fortunately, both of them were clothed.
Sort of. Nothing was showing anyways. “Sorry to interrupt, but there is a situation.” D’ron instantly focused on her, taking in the dark red of her extreme agitation. “Lost Americans is preparing a full strategic missile strike against us,” the EI continued once she had his attention.
“How sure are you?”
“My confidence is very high in the intelligence and the conclusions.”
“Shit. How long?”
“Maybe as much as thirty minutes.”
“Oh my god,” Lesley whispered, fastening up her jumpsuit, as D’ron slammed his hand down on the desk. Well, more on a communications button while still looking at Cortana.
“What can we do, Cortana?”
“Immediate interdiction fire, and a strike at their central missile command center.”
“I’ve seen the data file on that. We don’t have a missile that can go that deep.”
“A strike team, Mister President, it’s the only way.”
A second hologram resolved, that of Anson Farragut, then a third and a fourth, bringing together all of the heads of the Federation military, the Minister of War, the CO-FSPSN, and the CO-FSPGF, Adrian Tenai.
“What is it, Mister President?” they all seemed to ask at the same time.
“I need orbital suppression of Lost Americans strategic capabilities and a Cadre strike team on their way five minutes ago, gentlemen. This war isn’t over, apparently.”
“Ohshit,” Farragut said, his hologram already blinking out…
Flag Bridge, S.P.S. Acamar, Flagship, Second Battle Fleet, High Orbit over Earth, T-00:27:30
“…So that’s about the size of it, Kate. Targeting updates should be flowing to your ships’ EI over TacNet now.”
Admiral Turabian looked down in disgust at the orders which she now had, the data flowing in, the holographic map of yet another country she was supposed to bombard. Between the First and Second Fleets, nearly twenty percent of the Battle Fleet was still out of action from getting too close over the Atheist Reality a few weeks before. Many of the more lightly damaged ships still bore their wounds, with no dock space to get themselves repaired as yet, especially with all the Anglothel’s docking slips out of commission.
Furthermore, the remainder of First Fleet was deployed in the outer system, running through the monthly combat trials.
So it was up to Admiral Turabian. “Aye, sir. Will do.”
“Alright, Kate, it’s your show.” The screen with her superior officer’s face blinked off, and Turabian took a deep breath before she spoke. “Okay, Fleet Orders, maximum acceleration, zero-zero over Lost Americans for immediate suppression of surface to surface strategic assets.” She knew the ships would get underway momentarily as she continued. “Gunnery priority is strategic assets. Counter fire is only to be intercepted, not suppressed…”
The orders continued rolling as she moved to the holographic map sparkled with the pulsing red diamonds of threat…
Office of the Imperial President, Imperial House, Griffin, Commonwealth of Sentient Peoples, FSP, T-00:27:15
Lesley was gone now, to get baby Daniel, at a run, and to warn Rialla, still a guest, and to get all of them to the secured basement nearly a kilometer underground.
D’ron was still giving orders. “John, I need you to work on sealing up the cities, grounding vehicles, whatever that entails. We don’t need aircars in the air, and all that. Adrian, you know what you have to do. Civil curtailment, which means keep your people safe.”
“Aye, Mister President,” they both responded as he took a breath.
“Good, I’ll reestablish contact from the command bunker when I get there.” D’ron’s cape swished as he picked it up, grabbed Kánomegil off the wall, and stepped briskly towards the high speed elevator waiting to take him down to safety.
He slapped the emergency alarm on the way, ordering all personnel to their respective underground facilities…
Camp Serenity, Presidential Cadre Base, Location Classified, FSP, T-00:23:55
“Bloody hell!” Sergeant Raymond Dake shouted as he landed in the back of the Huntsman-class Assault Pinnace after jumping ten meters into the air. “You could have waited until I was on the ramp to fucking lift off, damn it.”
The team commander, a young woman named Lieutenant Tara Usakoski, laughed. “Where would the fun be in that, Sarge? Besides, had to make sure you’re not losing your edge. I knew you could make the jump.”
“Thanks, LT,” her second in command replied with playful disgust in his voice.
The voice of the pilot came back to them in the passenger area as the doorway sealed. “Strap yourselves in, boys and girls. This is gonna be a rough and dirty one.”
“Hey!” objected one of the lance corporals on the team, by the name of Eric Dennis, “I like it rough and dirty.”
“Not like this,” said Usakoski as she loaded up the briefing map. “This is our target, the Lost Americans Missile Command. The only way in is by this primary elevator shaft, that is twenty meters across, too small for the Huntsman.”
“Her name is Juliette!” came the shout from the control deck.
“Right. Too small for Juliette, ‘cause she’s a fat bitch.” Tara grinned at the annoyed shout from the command deck. “So we’ll have to free dive down the shaft after the elevator is taken out by a missile. It’s supposed to be a kilometer deep, so make sure you hit your pack in time to land and not splat. That’s twenty seconds. Main control is another hundred and fifty meters below that, and the base itself is a maze. This floor plan we got from some very valuable human intelligence sources in the Confederacy, and it is the best we have. The armory is on the fifth level down. We have to hit that within two minutes of arrival, or they’ll be too well armed to take down, with all five hundred or so personnel in the base. There are probably automated defenses we don’t know about, so stay on your toes. This is ugly and rushed, but frankly, we don’t have a choice. Set your chronometers to count down twenty two minutes. That’s how long ID predicts until the Lost Americans launch.”
The team commander looked around. “We can stop it, if we get there in time. And we must get there in time. Understood?”
“Yes, ma’am!” came back the response from four men and one other woman.
“Good. Chronometers are mark in five... four… three… two… one… mark. ETA is thirteen minutes. Settle in for the ride.”
The six members of Presidential Cadre Team Seven hung on, strapped into the sides of the pinnance as it and its escorts bulled northward at an absurdly high rate of speed…
Emergency Warning Broadcast System, C-space, FedNetLive, T-00:20:00
This is the Federal Emergency Warning Broadcast System. This is not a test. This is not a test. All civilians are to report immediately to their strategic defense locations. Again, all civilians to their strategic defense locations immediately. All citizens are to report to their civil defense centers immediately. All citizens to civil defense locations immediately. This is not a drill…
This is the Federal Emergency Warning Broadcast System…
Flag Bridge, S.P.M.S. Black Adder, Giftake-class Dreadnaught, Dragonstar Shipbuilding, Inc. Federal Authorized Militia Fleet, Chronicle Shipyard, Lunar Distance Orbit over Earth, T-00:15:12
“Citizen Admiral, all ships are reporting minimum crew aboard.”
His name was DiPrima, Andrew DiPrima. Normally, he worked as a yard foreman for Dragonstar Shipbuilding, but he had been in the Navy once. Which made him the Admiral at the moment. “Very well, Fleet orders, cast off and maximum acceleration to Earth. Additional Personnel can reach us by shuttle if possible. We have to go now.”
A moment later the plot showed him that the ships were getting underway, and he smiled. “Throw off the safety interlocks. I want maximum possible acceleration.” His face tightened a moment later as the force of the acceleration knocked him back into his chair under nearly ten times the motherworld’s force of gravity, as space curdled around the Militia ships, and even their gravitic sensors went offline, unable to pierce the disruption of their own drive fields under nearly fifteen hundred gravities…
Marauder Light Tank #5, 15th Platoon, Ninth Armored Division, Second Army Group “The Barbarian Horde”, Fort Jackson, Commonwealth of Peitha, FSP, T-00:11:05
Sergeant Natalie Roberts dropped down into the tank as she felt the hatch sealing behind her, the hover field coming out of standby mode and fully powering. As she took her seat, her armor slotted into the tank’s command interface, letting her feel her section, and the rest of the platoon.
“Second Section ready to move out, Lieutenant,” she called into the comm system.
“Understood, Sergeant,” came back the calm sounding voice of her commanding officer, and she wondered if her voice was really that shrill with fear or not. Despite the length of the ground conflict, and the painful intensity thereof, and the enormous losses the Second Army Group has sustained, especially the Fifteenth Platoon of the Ninth Armored, she had never been this afraid.
But then, that was because, despite the killing and the horrible death all around, it had been personnel, individual, and able to be fought…
How did a tank commander like her fight a strategic level nuclear weapon?
The answer was, not only did she not fight it, she could not fight it, which left her feeling cold and empty inside. Afraid.
And so, the platoon moved out, the entire army group was scattering as much as possible to not provide a concentrated target should the nukes get through the missile defenses.
Natalie wondered as her tank slid forward at a hundred and a half kilometers per hour if it was possible for them to escape the blast zone at all in the time remaining to them…
Atmospheric Insertion, Near Confederacy of Lost Americans Southern Coastline, T-00:10:55
Lieutenant Commander Eddie “Tin Man” Sørensen smiled as his squadron of fighters hit the atmosphere, circling slowly around the much larger Huntsman-class assault pinnace in their midst, his computers busily plotting a path through the orbital strikes pounding down from the heavens against Lost Americans missile sites.
He flew the most advanced fighter the Federation had ever designed, a fighter that did not exist, the Sabre-class Aerospace Dominance Fighter, a slightly shiny black fighter that looked exactly like the less advanced Longsword-class Multirole Aerospace Fighter. In fact, currently, its emissions matched that fighter within a one percent tolerance…
As commanding officer of one of the two most elite squadrons in the Federation, he knew everything there was to know about the fighter and its production, but all that was unimportant, when it came right down to it.
All that mattered was that the fighter performed as designed. “Tin Man to Hunter One, we’re going Hazy now.”
“Copy that, Tin Man.”
There were twelve pilots in the Cadre “Black Knives” Aerospace Squadron, and all of them now opened their minds up wide, merging with the artificial intelligence in their fighters through the neural interfaces in their helmets.
Instead of flying through the atmosphere in their fighters, the pilot-fighters were now flying through the air themselves, feeling the air crackling around their drive fields, before, as one, they switch to their secondary drives… one of a multitude of differences they had with their Longsword cousins…
And another becomes readily apparent as their delta form suddenly explodes, wings snapping out to the highly maneuverable forward swept trident position…
Thirteen craft thunder through the atmosphere over the coast of the country they have come to attack, and lightning bursts around them…
Energy cannons roar up defiance at them, and missiles burn through the air towards them, burnt down by defensive weapons and forward guns easily enough… The pilot-fighters begin to reply, and death streaks out towards the immobile targets in their paths as they roll and dodge wildly about the air, avoiding the scythe seeking them…
Kilometers burn away in a second, as enemy interceptors appear at the edge of their engagement horizon, and missiles spring free…
Rocketing across the sky on wings of energy, the Federation craft blow past their opponents and four pilot-fighters drop out of formation to engage them…
They tear into the slower, less maneuverable Lost Americans Diablos, and rejoin their comrades within twenty seconds as the target area approaches…
The Huntsman the pilot-fighters protect explodes with energy, then, a flare in the vision of the Haze, as its missiles blast out to suppress ground defenses, shattering them one by one, its cannons roaring defiance in streams of hyper accelerated projectiles. The pilot-fighters add what they can, but generally save their weapons for the enemies which approach them from the air.
Plasma washes around the landing zone for the Huntsman, despite the fact that it is not really going to land… As it loops up and over, a single, final missile plunges earthward, shattering the elevator shaft and the elevator it contains.
Tin Man-Serena watches with interest as the pieces tumble away into blackness and the pinnace moves into a hover, its rear ramp sliding open…
Presidential Cadre Team 7, Assault on Strategic Missile Command, Confederacy of Lost Americans, t-00:08:17
Lieutenant Usakoski shouted angrily as the ramp lowered. “We’re running behind schedule. It took too long to get in through their defenses.” Then she smiled, as the team lined up on the end of the boarding ramp, ready to jump from the hovering pinnace. “Sergeant, a little music, if you wouldn’t mind…”
“Of course not, Ell-Tee.”
Let the bodies hit the floor. Let the bodies hit the floor. Let the bodies hit the floor. Let the bodies hit the…
“JUMP!”
…flooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooo…
They fell, down and down and down and down, the walls of the elevator shaft rushing past faster and faster, as the six of them fell a kilometer into the surface of the Earth…
…ooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooor!
They hit the bottom, their antigrav units already having absorbed most of the energy by slowing them down before the grounded among the ruins of the elevator itself.
Beaten why for… Can’t take much more…
“Go!” A beehive charge found its way onto the door quickly and easily enough, shattering it inwards as lethal shards of metal. Behind it came the six soot black titans of the Cadre Team, their rifles at the ready, but the only people on the other side were already down.
The moved into the base, and began to encounter resistance as they shot forward across the floor at a run, explosive rounds glancing off them battle armor from lightweight personal weapons…
One, nothing wrong with me,
Every step they took, their rifles blazed death, sweeping through technicians and security personnel totally unprepared for the sudden violence.
Two, nothing wrong with me,
Two hundred meters away was another elevator shaft, this one much smaller, dropping five floors down to the armory level. Lance Corporal Dennis opened fire, cutting the metal door loose on all four sides, before his barreling power armor slammed its shoulder into it, sending it careening downward…
They jumped…
Three, nothing wrong with me,
Five floors was nothing to Cadre power armor, and they landed heavily on the elevator, tearing through its lightweight roof. Guns blazed again, blowing this door into the hallway before them, screaming, burning splinters of metal reaching out to snatch life from the people on the other side…
The armory was halfway to the next elevator…
Four, nothing wrong with me,
A explosion threw them backwards as they drew close, a grenade that missed. They own fire began riddling metal and stone walls, tearing it pieces of flying shrapnel, a tornado of death in a cyclone of violence. A plasma grenade found its way from Usakoski’s hand into the armory and settled the matter with the heat of the sun…
Fortunately, the armory was armored against just such an internal explosion, but a gout of flame tore through all five floors above…
They kept moving…
One, something’s got to give,
The next elevator plunged them down another five stories into a hail of fire, a corona of explosive rounds sheathing their combat armor in flame. Usakoski snarled angrily as she felt something punch through her left arm, and a high explosive grenade tore down the corridor from her rifle’s secondary fire…
The resistance shattered…
Two, something’s got to give,
More fire spangled off their armor as the six member team charged down the hallway. The sensors built into their armor let them accurate return fire, even as they moved, even through walls and doors and bends and twists of hallways, the high velocity rounds punching through basically everything but exterior walls…
Three, something’s got to give,
Now.
They went down again, heading deeper into the bowels of the base, the earth swallowing them up as they slammed into a heavier core of resistance. Grenades blew them back, and Lance Corporal Dennis dropped to the ground, injured severely.
Another plasma grenade took care of the problem.
Let the bodies hit the floor
Push me again
This is the end
Skin against skin blood and bone
You're all by yourself but you're not alone
Time passed in a haze of combat, fighting deeper and deeper into the complex, killing as they went, two members of the squad dragging the injured Lance Corporal, shielding him with their own armor, and, of course, having him watch their backs, as he could still fire his weapons.
You wanted in now you're here
Eventually, they reached the control room, the doors to which they overrode instead of blowing open, using a dead tech’s body. All they needed was the eye and the fingerprints, after all. Lax security this deep inside.
Usakoski screamed as she leveled her gun at the commanding officer of the base. “Turn the missiles off now, you bastard.”
“I can’t,” he replied, and was promptly blown apart as her gun tracked to another target. “You, turn them off!”
The soot black battle armor, coated in fresh blood which steamed on its combat heated surface was frightening enough without the massive battle rifle being directed at one’s self.
“No one can, only the computer, once they’re in final countdown.”
He died in a spray of blood too. “Someone turn them off, now.”
Driven by hate consumed by fear
That was when Usakoski finally noticed the big countdown timer on the wall…
Five… four… three… two… one…
Too late.
Let the bodies hit the floor
The Cadre Team began slaughtering everyone in the room as high above them, missiles rose to destroy the land which had sent them…
Sentient Peoples
01-01-2006, 05:39
There are moments in time which last an eternity.
The first kiss between a young man and a young woman. The first time a young soldier fires a weapon and sees his enemy die. The first time a parent gazes into the eyes of their newborn child.
The moment just before the eyes close, as the world flashes by, when death claims its price. The moment of stunning realization – victory or defeat.
This was one such moment.
The Confederacy of Lost Americans final assault on the Federation of Sentient Peoples. Every missile - ancient intercontinental ballastics, fully powered rockets, intercontinental cruise missiles, over the horizon kinetic kill missiles, ground-to-orbit missiles that had been retasked.
Everything. Anything.
Gigaton upon gigaton of fire and flame and death riding in hundreds of thousands of missiles, wave after wave after wave.
But despite their numbers, despite their firepower, despite everything, they did not come unopposed…
Electronic countermeasures called to them, decoys sang their siren song, armor and drive fields tried to interpose their bulk in the very paths of the missiles storm…
But passive defenses do little when the target cannot move, and is known to be unable to move.
Countries don’t dodge.
But still, there were defenses.
First they ran into the Federation Space Navy’s Second Battle Fleet, holding a close orbit over the Confederacy, just engaged in a desperate attempt to silence the missiles before they had fired…
Obviously, it had failed, and their active defenses tried valiantly to stop the tide of destruction which washed towards their home. But it swept up and over them, barely pausing.
The next line of defense was satellites, hundreds of them, linked together in an integrated whole, a defense in depth over the land which had built them. The tide crashed against them, and swallowed them, spitting them out.
Then came the battlestations, the pride of the Federation, two operating at maximum capacity, one heavily damaged… but every weapon capable of firing spoke, everything tried its best.
The militia starships were the final line in space, the weakest remnant of what was there, but still they tried, they fought, they gave everything they had…
The final line of defense was the nation itself. Thousands of buildings topped with missile defenses against this very kind of assault, thousands more armored facilities with countermissiles and interception fields. Military bases and aerospace fighters which desperately tore up the sky to burn down the missiles…
The Confederacy of Lost Americans launched four million, six hundred ninety-seven thousand, five hundred and twenty-four missiles at the Federation in the course of thirty minutes – most far older than the people who were overseeing their firing.
Between the massive layered defenses of the Federation, one hundred and thirty-seven got through.
They fell onto the land which was the hated enemy of their birth, their reason for existence, a land which was as prepared as it could possibly be for such an event…
But nothing can truly prepare a land for the equivalent energy release of nearly a billion tons of trinitrotoluene compound.
Amazingly, the lost of life was minimal – insofar as twenty million lives can be called minimal. The population was highly urban, and the cities boasted by far the strongest defenses…
And many of the missiles which made it through contained not nuclear fire, but toxic chemicals – nerve gases, hallucinogens. But they still killed…
But a sealed residential tower was proof against theses weapons – and so, few lost their lives to these.
But forests and fields, mountain and vale, the places least inhabited, the places least protected, the places where food and minerals came from…
…They burned.
Compared to what could have been the cost, twenty million was a small price to pay.
The Confederacy and its FleetNet had failed in their Vengeance. But now, the blood of the Federation’s citizens would cry out its own reply.
Revenge.
The Confederacy would have to be stopped, its threat ended forever.
Or else those twenty million would die in vain.
And that was intolerable.
The stunned silence which followed the last explosion, the blank looks of sheer horror on those who saw...
That was a moment of eternity... a moment which defined existence.
Sentient Peoples
01-01-2006, 05:40
Slowly standing, D’ron blew out a heavy sigh. A large holographic map of the Federation glowed against the far wall of his office, scarred by dark crimson blotches. At least the warheads had been relatively clean.
At least the Southern Jet Stream carried most of the fallout over the ocean to the North.
At least…
He could do it on his own, in an emergency. Give the order himself, strike back while still in shock.
The decision was already made, of course. Full retaliatory strike, nothing less, and nothing more. Of course there could not be anything more. After all, what could you do to glass?
He pressed the buttons on his desk, bringing up a holographic conference. Johnathan Currey, Minister of the International Relations Directorate. Cortana Tywyllgwaed, Director, Intelligence Division. Deborah Johassen, Minister of the Education Directorate.
Once all three holograms appeared silently, for everyone was still in shock, D’ron spoke. “Cyrano, I want to talk to Joshua.”
The soft mellow voice came back. “Of course, Mister President.”
Silence for a moment. Then, a child’s voice, a young boy, perhaps no more than eight. It was a reminder of what was at stake, strangely disharmonic with the seriousness of the situation.
Hard coded challenge-response sequences began to filter through D’ron neural interface, while the voice spoke, yet another level of security. “Good morning, Dave.”
D’ron tried to keep his voice as level as he could. “My name is not Dave.”
“Then what is your name?” All this was scripted, of course. All codes.
“Imperial President D’ron Christopher Smith.”
“Good morning, D’ron.”
“There is nothing good about it, Joshua.”
The computer’s childish voice was deceptively simple, as the three holograms watched with growing horror at what was about to happen. “I’m sorry to hear that, D’ron. Would you like to play a game?”
“Yes. I’d like to play Thermonuclear War.”
“How about a nice game of chess instead?”
“No, confirm, I’d like to play Thermonuclear War.”
The child’s voice was bittersweet irony, but then it faded, becoming harsh and mechanical. “Confirmed. Authorization Code.”
“A strange game. The only winning move is not to play.” D’ron gave the command authorizing the release of strategic nuclear weapons firmly.
“Concurrent Authorizations.”
“Three. MED, MIRD, DID.”
“Confirmed. Waiting.”
Deborah spoke first. “To educate a man in mind but not in morals is to educate a menace to society.”
“Authorization Code Roosevelt, Minister, Education Directorate, confirmed. Waiting.”
Then was Currey, his turn to quote something. Only each person knew their own codes. Well, them and Joshua. “Are you sure that you understood what happened, which of course includes what was meant to happen and what might have happened?”
“Authorization Code Murdoch, Minister, International Relations Directorate, confirmed. Waiting.”
Cortana’s shimmering purple hologram turned darker, nearly black, then crimson, then navy, before slowly brightening back to it original color. Holographic hair shook and she tossed her head. “I have walked the edge of the Abyss. I have governed the unwilling. I have witnessed countless empires break before me. I have seen the most courageous soldiers fall away in fear. I was there with the Angel at the tomb.”
‘Authorization Code Letters, Director, Intelligence Division, confirmed. Mister President, target selection.”
“The Confederacy of Lost Americans.”
“Target Confirmed. Strike Order.” The mechanical voice droned on, spelling out each step.
“Pattern maximum, strategic elimination, two hundred percent saturation.”
“Strike Order Confirmed.” One could hear the capital letters in the computer’s emotionless voice. “Resources.”
“All available.”
“Resources Confirmed. Execution.”
“Immediately.”
“Execution Confirmed. Please confirm strike as Strategic Elimination of the Confederacy of Lost Americans, Two Hundred Percent Saturation, Maximum Yields, with All Available Strategic Resources, Executed Immediately.”
D’ron blew out his breath, while Currey and Johassen seemed to hold theirs. “Strike confirmed, authorization, ‘The chief obstacle to the progress of the human race is the human race.’”
Dead silence for a long moment, and then…
“Initiating.”
* * * * *
It did not happen exactly immediately, of course. These things never can, never do. First Joshua spread out through the Tactical Network, temporarily absorbing the computing power over each and every station.
Joshua could not do this, of course, without authorization. These sort of functions could not even be brought out of controlled storage without direct verbal and electronic authorization of the Imperial President. But now, the not at all sentient Artificial Intelligence was freed of his normal restrictions.
Completely. He still was not sentient, of course. But he was just short of it. Millions upon millions of calculations in nanoseconds were now available to him, and he used them all.
User interfaces shut down as the resources Joshua commanded responded to him. Four hundred warships. Ten thousand ground based launchers. Two Anglachel-class Battlestations. Three hundred armed satellites. Two hundred thousand missiles with warheads averaging five megatons of nuclear hellfire.
Another calculation whirred through the networks. They would be enough missiles. Besides, a second strike could always be used if needed.
The missiles fired.
Not all at once, or even closely grouped. When coming from separate locations spread over a third of the globe and its orbital space, to make sure every missile arrived at the same time required a massive, sequenced attack.
The Confederacy had been hit hard in the earlier bombardment, of course, and without the satellites destroyed so many months before its defenses were far below normal. But even still, they remained capable of engaging an awesome number of targets. Missiles died by tens, twenties, hundreds, even by thousands. But there were thousands upon thousands more behind them.
More than half their number died, then three quarters… then more…
But not enough.
Lost Americans burned, the very atmosphere itself turning to plasma from the intense energy release.
A country died. Four billion and more people consumed by the unleashed Hellfire of the Federation’s wrath.
Death walked free, unleashed by simple words from a simple man, stalking here and fro across the surface of the Earth, and He fed richly upon the culmination of a war.
To any nation not at a comparable level of technology, the cleanliness of the Federation’s weapons would be a miracle. Lethal concentrations of radiation would fade within a year. The fused ground would remain slick for a long time after, though.
Joshua shut down.
* * * * *
The Imperial President of the Federation of Sentient Peoples gave the final order of the war. “Stand down from war footing.”