Magestic 2, p.131
Magestic 2, page 131
Ngomo said, ‘The order to fire the missiles came from a base in Norway. We are attacking it now, but it’s under the mountain.’
‘Sir!’ an operator called. ‘Radio signal from a German submarine, in the Arctic, an unknown sub.’
‘It was under the ice!’ an officer reported.
‘Missile launched!’
‘Targeting missile ... at maximum range ... missile still on original course.’
‘Targeting sub with EMP, firing.’
‘Second drone firing at sub.’
‘Missile still tracking ... targeting ... firing ... no hit, missile still tracking.’
I watched in abject horror as the missile’s track was displayed, arcing across Greenland and down towards the east coast of America. I lifted my phone in slow motion and dialled Kennedy, alternating my gaze between the phone and the screen.
‘This is President Kennedy.’
‘There’s a missile tracking towards your east coast, we can’t stop it,’ I said in a horse whisper. ‘The sub ... it was under the ice floes. Do you have anti-ballistic missiles?’
‘Not worth a damn, we don’t,’ Kennedy admitted. ‘We’ve experiment with them, but they were never effective. But we have missiles that explode in low orbit and try and knock incoming missiles off course or with an EMP pulse.’
‘We’re still trying to intercept it,’ I informed Kennedy as I stared at the missile’s track, kicking a beetle with my shoe.
‘No additional missiles fired,’ came from an operator. ‘I think we affect the sub, sir.’
‘Did you hear that,’ I said into the phone. ‘That sub must have had a dozen missiles, but they’re not launching.’
‘Where’s the missile tracking to,’ Kennedy asked in a controlled tone, sounding resigned to the situation.
I closed in on the screen, the target highlighted. ‘Boston. Eighty three seconds left.’
‘There are three million people in the metropolitan area,’ Kennedy stated. ‘But the air raid sirens went off eight or nine minutes ago, so ... hopefully most will be undercover.’
‘We missed the sub under the ice,’ I flatly stated.
‘So did we. My generals assured me we knew where they all were, more or less.’
‘Sixty seconds,’ I read off the screen. ‘We can try and hit it on re-entry, but that’s almost impossible because of the speed, and its momentum will carry it to target.’
‘We lost many of our satellites, but we detected a dozen nuclear explosions in a high orbit. We think the explosions affected our satellites.’
Focused on the timer counting down, I idly commented, ‘The missiles probably detonated on time, thinking they were on target.’
Shouts from outside caught my attention, calls and cries, desperate cries. ‘Medic!’
I hung up and ran outside with the senior staff, around tents and towards the portal landing areas. There sat a smoking bus, at least half a bus, bodies and body parts in the sand, blood stains everywhere.
‘The portal closed while people were coming through!’ a soldier shouted.
I stood staring at the bizarre scene of half a bus, the edges frayed and melted, blood everywhere, a red goo on the sand, intestines clearly visible. Several soldiers were being worked on, limbs missing, the officers directing the medical work. Fortunately, there was a superbly kitted surgical tent fifty yards away, the survivors carried there quickly. That left the senior staff staring at the bus.
‘Contact them!’ I called, people now trying to do just that, to contact 2047.
‘No signal,’ came back from several directions as people ran about.
Ngomo Jnr stepped closer. ‘Could the bombs going off affect it?’
I shrugged. ‘I don’t know. Possibly.’
We spent five minutes standing next to technicians, who repeatedly tried to get a signal, a micro-portal always open when the main portal was closed. All three portals were tried repeatedly.
Then I received a call from Canada. ‘Sir, the portal closed prematurely, killed a man. Now we can’t raise them.’
‘Same here. It may be temporary, so just keep trying.’
I dialled Lobster, wondering what might have happened in Berlin.
‘Colonel Nbeki,’ he answered.
‘You’re alive,’ I let out.
‘Yes, sir. This facility is strong, sir, now all the men inside. We could see the flash and feel the wind blast, now we detect radiation close by.’
‘And wounded?’
‘Ten or more blinded by the flash, but we think their eyes can be better in a few days, sir.’
‘Did you close the portal?’ I asked, rubbing my forehead.
‘Yes, and now they open it for my men to go through.’
‘Thank god. Evacuate the wounded, but protect the portal, don’t let the Germans get hold of it; stand by to blow it if necessary. We’ve destroyed all the German subs and planes, so they won’t be happy with us.’
‘What happened, sir?’
‘A nuclear bomb was flown to Berlin on a Russian diplomatic aircraft.’
‘They play the trick.’
‘Get your wounded out, and keep me posted. Oh, and we’ve lost contact with 2047.’
‘No contact, sir?’
‘No, no contact. We’ll let you know. Out.’
I stepped across to Ngomo Jnr. ‘We still have contact with 1938, Lobster opened a portal.’
‘Is there a problem on our world?’ Ngomo Jnr floated. ‘A ... disaster?’
I stared back at him for several seconds. ‘We don’t know. We’re here now, so ... we make do.’
Stepping into the command tent, I approached the operator I had been previously stood behind.
‘Boston gone, sir,’ he reported.
I closed my eyes for a moment. ‘Any ... any more missiles?’ I asked after clearing my throat.
‘No, sir.’
‘Move drones to the ice floes, and search for any more subs. And try and block all signals from Europe.’ I turned away, gently tapping my forehead with my phone. Stopping at the tent’s plastic sheet doors, I turned and asked, ‘Have the Americans launched missiles?’
‘No, sir.’
That was a relief, at least. Outside, I stared at the phone, not knowing what to say to Kennedy. After a long minute staring at the phone, I dialled.
‘Kennedy?’ came an expectant voice.
‘There’s little I could say that will do any good at this point,’ I began. ‘But we can rewind history, go back and alter this.’
‘You can do that?’ he asked in a whisper.
‘That’s the benefit of time travel. But at the moment we can’t get a signal to our home world, the portals closed prematurely and killed a few people coming through, possibly as a result of the bombs going off here.’
‘They affected your portal,’ Kennedy stated. ‘We lost many of our satellites.’
‘We should have a signal through soon, and then we’ll know. But the portals are at the other end, not here. What ... what casualties are you estimating for Boston?’
‘The sirens went off ten minutes before the blast, and we have telephone contact with a few buildings in the city; most people were undercover thankfully. But the death toll will still be high.’
‘We have drugs that will treat radiation burns and radiation sickness, we’ll get them to you as fast as we can. Anyone who’s still alive today should make it.’
‘We’re arranging for the local civil defence teams to receive the drugs we have here, taking them from hospitals around the country.’
‘Are your Generals after revenge?’
There came a long pause. ‘They want to do something, and so will the people.’
‘The people, Mister President, will calm down and see sense. They’ll look at Boston ... and think what could have been. Without our missile shield you would have lost all of your major cities; they launched a hundred and twenty missiles towards you. Be thankful, Mister President, be very thankful.’
‘I understand the situation, but the military ... and the people.’
‘What, they’d like to roast a few million German women and kids would they?’ I snarled. ‘Germany was turning away from its leaders before this happened, its people rejecting the leaders. All it needed was time.’
‘The military will want to invade, to make sure it’s over.’
‘I guess that’s inevitable. I’ll send our US Marines through to Berlin and make a start at disarming them. They can also treat the wounded. So tell your Generals that you’ll invade, and we’ll assist you. But as soon as I get an open portal none of this will have happened.’
‘Hold off on that till we speak again.’
‘Excuse me?’
‘There’s ... a big picture here I need to look at.’
‘A big picture? You just lost Boston and maybe a million people.’
‘And as you pointed out, it could have been much worse. Look, if this had never happened, what would have been the course of events in Europe for the next decade?’
‘Germany would have changed leadership -’
‘Still nuclear armed.’
‘Well, yes, for a few years at least. But we would have negotiated away man of the weapons.’
‘They’d never have given them up willingly, even a civilian government, not with the Russian threat to them. We might have turned Europe around slowly, or we may have fought a war, conventional or nuclear. And despite what you say, you may not be around later on. This way we take Europe for the loss of Boston, hardly a shot fired. And the Joint Chiefs, they were pressing for a sneak attack on Germany while they were weak.’
‘That figures, you had the same idea as the Russians.’
‘So I’ll take these figures to stop a long war and an opposed invasion, if you’ll help.’
I heaved a big breath. ‘We’ll destroy what’s left of the German military, we would have done that anyway,’ I explained.
‘And Russia?’
‘Oh, don’t worry about them, I haven’t even started on them yet. By time I’m finished they’ll be back in the Stone Age.’
‘And Japan?’ Kennedy risked.
‘Are you out to dominate this world?’
‘My Generals are, I’m out for peace.’
I took a moment before answering. ‘Once Germany and Russia have been disarmed, we can move extra drones to Japan, and destroy their subs and missiles in one go, provided we can find them all.’
‘I can take that to the Joint Chiefs?’
‘You can,’ I reluctantly agreed.
‘I’ll call you back,’ Kennedy said before he hung up.
An hour later Jimmy called, the signal relayed through Berlin, a little distorted. ‘I know most of what happened, but where are we at now?’
‘The Russians set off a bomb in Berlin, as you know, and someone in the German command gave the signal to attack America, a hundred and twenty missiles launched, which is just about all of them. One got through and hit Boston, millions dead or wounded.’
‘And we’ve lost contact with 2047?’
‘Can’t get a signal.’
‘Not from here either, but the German portal is working, which means something has happened in 2047.’
‘A disaster their end?’ I thought out loud.
‘We’ll never know. But if it was something they could fix, even fifty years later, they would have still signalled by now. No signal ... means that they can’t signal for some reason.’
‘Could the nukes going off in orbit affect a portal?’ I asked, as much of myself.
‘The scientists here think that it could under certain circumstances, damage to sub-space. So it could be that 2047 is trying to call us, but we’re not receiving.’
‘But we can open a portal to you!’
‘That’s going backwards in time, 2047 is forwards. If we can’t reach them in a few weeks, then we could modify the German time machine to try and contact them. Maybe we just need to call home to fix it.’
‘How long would it take to modify that portal?’ I queried.
‘A year or so with the technology we have to hand,’ Jimmy informed me. ‘And we’d have to create a separate machine, or risk losing the link to here.’
‘The Americans have one here. We fried its electrical controls, but they could be replaced quickly enough.’
‘And then it would be under their control. No, most likely I would build it here, on this world, in Britain. British are too polite to invade other worlds.’
‘Well, it’s all premature; we could have the signal back tomorrow.’
‘How are the Americans reacting to the loss of Boston?’
‘Kennedy doesn’t want to unwind time, not now that we’ve destroyed the German military.’
‘He’ll invade Europe?’
‘Yes, and I’ll help. I’ll deal with the Russians as well, and start tracking all Japanese assets ready to destroy them. That’ll leave just America with nukes.’
‘Did you offer Kennedy a deal?’
‘I suggested we’d go back in time and stop the attack on Berlin.’
‘Which would leave the status quo; Cold War and mistrust for decades. Maybe the Russians did us a favour by bringing this all to a head; the Americans lose Boston, but gain Europe. But the White House will be our biggest problem in the future, not the other nations.’
‘They won’t listen.’
‘Nope,’ Jimmy agreed. ‘Best bet will be to develop Africa as a counter-balance, but that’ll take twenty years.’
‘Not the way this lot are going; there’re sixty thousand people here from 2047.’
‘I’ll call you tomorrow. Stay alert, this could all go wrong.’
‘Listen, there’s something I need to tell you. I knew about your son, Christopher, just not all the detail; I met him just before I jumped back and joined you. He said he would interfere in a small detail, but I couldn’t say or I’d cause a paradox.’
‘He spoke to Helen Astor a few months ago, and asked her to let me know the kids were mine – she wasn’t planning on doing that.’
‘Then 2047 must be OK; he came from 2064, he told me.’
‘Then it must be OK,’ Jimmy agreed. ‘Just a crossed line somewhere. If it was important, he would have told you – I’d hope. But ... but I don’t think my son did you any favours. He must have figured I’d take time with the family, which meant I wouldn’t be where you are now, and in the middle of a nuclear war. Maybe ... maybe this whole thing was to keep me out of it.’
‘And now I’m in it, right in it!’
‘You can escape to Berlin, hopefully, but yes, you’re where I should have been, your family here.’
‘I have the Rifles here, and there are US Marines, so we can fight our way up to Berlin and through to you if we have to. But first, first I’ll try and fix this mess.’
The portal area was slowly cleared of the bus wreckage, blood-stained sand removed, metal surfaces washed down. If anyone opened a portal and came through, the area would now be clear.
I grabbed another cold drink and accepted an energy bar, before stepping into the tent for Russian Operations. I found just six operators, the men controlling just eight drones. ‘Right, listen up: I want you to find where that bomb came from. The Russians were not supposed to have nuclear bombs, so search for radiation spikes, and find the facility. In the meantime, I want you to destroy all Russian aircraft on the ground, civilian as well as military, and hit all their major cities with EMP. I want every military base hit, every command centre. Send them back to the fucking Stone Age!’
The operators glanced at each other, a little shocked, and then got to work.
I sat down and ate a meal with Ngomo Jnr at 6pm, no further missiles having been launched. The operators figured that they had found most of the German facilities, and had disabled or destroyed them. They were now hitting the missile and bomb assembly plants, military aircraft manufacturers, ships at sea, even tanks on the ground or individual trucks. By time we had finished, Germany here would be as bad as Germany over in 1938.
Contacting Lobster, he sent a message through the portal, asking for all remaining US Marines to journey to 1984, but through the German portal, the only one working. There were some eleven thousand US Marines still in 1938, and all would now be part of disarming Germany in 1984.
I sat in a darkened tent later, on a bed allocated for me, and typed up a speech. Handing it an officer, I asked for it to be transmitted on all frequencies around Europe, and in all European languages.
‘People of Germany, and of Europe. Today, a Russian aircraft - posing as a diplomat flight - took a nuclear bomb to Berlin. We, the time travellers, only spotted the plane’s deadly cargo at the last minute, and the bomb exploded over Berlin, killing many. As a result of that explosion, the Germany military wrongly believed the bomb to be an American missile attack, and they launched their missiles at America. All missiles apart from one were shot down. That lone missile reached the American city of Boston, where it killed and wounded millions of people.
‘America did not launch its missiles in retaliation, and if they had done so we would have shot down those missiles. America will, however, now invade Europe with our assistance, to make sure that no further German missiles will be launched towards America. Soldiers from the future will assist with the disarming of German forces, and with the disarming of other nations in Europe that may be in a pact with the Germans as part of the Greater Germany.
‘Any nation that now breaks away and declares independence will be recognised as being independent of the Greater Germany, and will receive our support and our protection. Peoples of Europe, now is your time, your time to realise your freedom. If you show no aggression towards American soldiers you will not be harmed.
‘The Russian aggressors in this matter will be dealt with, and will pay a very heavy price for what they did. The Russian Army will not threaten Europe, so go about your lives and rebuild your nations in peace, a peace free of German rule. To those in Germany I say this: if you do not throw down your weapons you will be killed, killed by the soldiers who removed the Arab fighters. Make your choices soon.
