26

“Mr. President, we have to at least consider it.”

Lockerman glanced up from the thin paper folder he’d been scanning. All his briefing documents had gotten thinner over the last couple weeks. Crises were developing too rapidly for his staff to prepare extensive background materials. Decisions were being made on the fly, with minimal data. His aides and generals were tormented at the lack of paperwork and protocol, but Lockerman was quietly relieved. The endless summaries and briefs generally boiled down to little more than he could have gleaned from the news, but with endless caveats and ass-covering. Most decisions didn’t get easier past a certain data threshold. On the contrary, they only got harder, as the “on the one hand, on the other” debates progressed to the point where only an octopus could have tracked all the equivocating.

That wasn’t to say the choice in front of him was easy. Just simple. And Lockerman had made up his mind as soon as he understood the choice. He decided to let his team hash it out a bit more before he spoke. They were all tense and nervous, jittery about the combat playing out on the TV screens and satellite feeds that they were largely helpless to influence.

Hawthorne, Lockerman’s science adviser, was fed up.

“John, it’s stupid and pointless,” she said, not bothering to hide her disdain. “First, a nuclear strike will kill hundreds of thousands of people on the ground. Good job on that. Second, you’ll blow up our own surface-to-space weapon, giving the mrill a green light to send along another wave. All your fucking nuke will do is give them a nice, flat parking lot to land on.”

John Hall, the secretary of defense, leaned forward on the conference room table.

“Sir, we might already have lost DC. And if the mrill seize control of the cannon and start targeting our satellites and ships in space, it will be worse than if we simply destroyed it.”

Lockerman waved his hand to indicate he was ready to end the debate.

“How far are the B-2s from DC?”

Hall tapped an app on his tablet, bringing a display up on the massive monitors on the wall of the conference room. A dozen blue dots were moving across the western portion of West Virginia, headed toward DC.

“Fifteen minutes, Mr. President,” Hall said. “Ten of the planes have a conventional load of CBU-87 and CBU-97 cluster bombs, as well as AGM-158 cruise missiles. The other two are armed with low-yield B83 nuclear bombs.”

“No sign that the mrill have spotted the bombers?”

“Not that we can see, sir. Lieutenant Shepherd’s men have almost all the spacecrafts engaged in space, and the handful in the atmosphere are concentrating on providing ground support for the infantry they’ve landed in the area. I don’t know how long we have, but for now the B-2s seem to be avoiding detection.”

There were nine bombers still parked at Whiteman Air Force Base in Missouri—fueled, armed, and ready to launch within seconds. Lockerman had ordered them to remain prepped. As critical as the situation was in DC, they had to keep something in reserve should the mrill break through their orbital defenses elsewhere. Likewise, there were ground troops and fighter jets stationed across the country, and he didn’t want to flood the capital with those assets unless it was absolutely necessary. At the same time, losing DC could very well be the single opening the mrill needed to win the entire war. Let them squeeze through one door and the entire house might be lost. In that case, holding those troops and weapons in reserve could end up being the final act of the last American president. Lockerman had replayed the debate in his head a dozen times. It had been a long time since an American president had to seriously contemplate defending his home turf from a hostile enemy.

“Hold the nuclear-equipped B-2s, but keep them on station,” Lockerman said. “We’re proceeding with the conventional strike. Do we have a clear target on the ground?”

Hall swallowed his disagreement.

“Semi-clear, Mr. President. The mrill have destroyed all our surveillance satellites, so we’re improvising. We’re getting visual feeds from traffic and security cameras on the streets in DC, and our reconnaissance team is mapping those feeds to a map overlay to send strike coordinates to the pilots. We have a decent strike map, but I think we’re only going to get one pass at this, Mr. President. Once our bombers reveal themselves, we expect the mrill response to be severe.”

“You don’t expect the bombers to survive the attack?” Lockerman asked.

Hall paused. “Sir, I do not.”

Lockerman nodded. He glanced around the other members of his team at the table. No one disagreed with Hall’s assessment. “I understand. I want to talk to them.”

“Mr. President?”

“You said they’ve still got 15 minutes to target? I want to speak to them.”

“Yes, sir.”

While Hall spoke to a pair of technicians in the room, Jeff Goldman, Lockerman’s national security adviser, leaned close to the president.

“Mr. President, we’ll be securing your transmission as thoroughly as possible. But the fact is you will be broadcasting a radio signal, and there could be a security risk. I doubt those bombers are going to go unnoticed for much longer, and the mrill might trace the transmission back to here.”

“Is that even possible?”

“Not with any technology on this planet, sir, but . . .” Goldman trailed off.

Lockerman thought for a moment.

“Do your best. I have a feeling this is going to be over soon, anyway. We either hold them off or they break through and everything changes.”

One of the technicians approached Lockerman.

“It’s ready, Mr. President. We’re patched in to all the pilots. Just tap the ‘unmute’ button on the speakerphone when you’re ready.”

Lockerman took a deep breath.

Some 50,000 feet over the West Virginia countryside, the B-2 bombers cruised through the night. The V-winged aircrafts were virtually undetectable to any man-made technology. The black planes embraced the black sky, nearly as invisible to the naked eye as they were to radar. Thanks to some of the technology provided by the brin, engineers had made additional modifications to the aircraft, improving their stealth capabilities. No one knew for sure how effective the upgrades would be. All the crews knew they could be destroyed at any moment by the almost supernatural collection of enemy spacecraft and ground weaponry arrayed against them. On top of that, their mission was to bomb their own country, their capital, against the first enemy army to successfully land in DC since the War of 1812. The pilots flew in silence, running through their checklists, trying not to think about their target or their odds of survival.

Major Stephanie Williams of the 393rd squadron, 509th Bomb Wing, pilot of the B-2 Spirit of Missouri, glanced over at her mission commander, 1st Lieutenant Shawn Jones, as the radio announced the commander in chief wanted to talk to them. His anxiety and exasperation were easily visible in the green glow of the instrument panels. Jones said nothing, but Williams sighed. Damn politicians always loved to talk when it was time to act.

“Stand by for POTUS.”

The radio crackled.

“Airmen, I’ll be brief, since I know I’m probably the last person you want to hear from right now. I understand that your mission briefing indicated a high probability that this mission will not be survivable, and it’s hard for me put into words my admiration for your courage. You are the best of America, and we—I—do not send you on this mission lightly. It is vital.”

Ahead through the cockpit window Williams could see the faint orange glow of the capital on fire.

“We cannot allow a single breach in our defenses,” Lockerman continued. “And we’re going to need you to do this again. Your aircraft might be obsolete after tonight, but you’re not. No matter what happens, you are ordered to return home. This is not a suicide mission. I expect to welcome all of you back. Okay, that’s it. Godspeed and happy hunting.”

The radio went silent again. They flew in silence for a moment.

“I ever tell you about my first job?” Williams said. Jones, a small smile curling one corner of his mouth, shook his head.

“Sophomore year of high school,” Williams said, shifting in her seat and glancing at the instrument panel, the orange glow in the distance growing brighter and closer. “I applied to work at McDonald’s. I loved cheeseburgers and had horrible taste. Anyway, I send in my application, and the manager schedules an interview. I come in, and we’re sitting in those hard plastic chairs, and I’m all excited because I’m imagining all the free burgers and fries I can eat.”

Jones chuckled.

“But I’m nervous as hell, too, because it’s my first job, so I tell him what a responsible babysitter I was, and he’s just sitting there nodding and writing with this stubby pencil, and every time he nods and bends over to write something, I notice his toupee is slipping a little farther down his head. He doesn’t notice it, and I’m worried the damn thing is going to plop right down on the table. Quarter Pounder with hair. Finally, he wraps it up, doesn’t give me a clue how the interview went, but says they’ve got a bunch of other candidates and he’ll call me back. Okay. I go home, and next day, no call. So I call him, get voicemail, leave a message, nothing. This goes on for a week.”

“You waited a week to hear about a job at McDonald’s?” Jones asked.

“Shut up and let me finish. So, my parents think I blew the interview. I think I blew the interview. I’m bummed out. I mean, who blows an interview to work the deep fryer at fucking McDonald’s, right? A syphilitic monkey with a criminal record could get that gig. My dreams of free apple pies are toast. But two weeks later, I get a letter from the manager. I tear it open, and you know what it says?”

“Mayor McCheese didn’t like the cut of your jib?”

“I’m fired.”

Jones snorted into his face mask.

“I shit you not,” Williams said. “They hired me without telling me, held orientation and my first day on the job without telling me, and then fired me without telling me.”

“That’s the most inspirational speech I’ve ever heard,” Jones said.

“Up yours. The point is, at least this time we know what the boss man wants us to do before it’s time to do it.”

“Your parents pissed you screwed up that job?” Jones asked.

“Nah, I just got a job at the Burger King instead,” Williams said with a laugh. “I was a chubby kid.”

The navigation system beeped to indicate the bombers were crossing into the combat zone. Williams pushed a button on the console marked PEN, for penetration. The few antennas protruding from the B-2’s sleek skin retracted, external communication links were shut off to minimize electronic detection, and the aircraft was now in full stealth mode. She knew the other pilots in her formation were doing the same. She checked the fuel gauge again. The B-2 could easily make the round trip from Missouri to DC and back without needing to refuel, but it was a reflex born of training and habit she could no more control than she could the beating of her heart. Jones was running through weapons diagnostics, equally obedient to his years of simulator repetitions and live-fire combat runs. You checked and checked and checked so you could count on the machine to perform when you no longer had time to check.

“Okay,” she said. “Let’s go blow up Washington.”