NUKE.ZERO
Chapter 1
Captain Erwin Kane, Earth Alliance, Formally United States, navy, rushed into the Combat Information Center of his warship, the USS
Alaska.
“Situation?” He said, as he sat down in the Big Chair of the ship, adjusting his uniform. Silence filled the room. After a pause, he repeated the command. “Someone tell me what the hell is going on out there!”
“Somebody just assassinated the Vers princess.” His Executive Officer, Alberich Kranz, said, his voice grave. “The Orbital Knights are starting to drop their castles.”
“Great.” Erwin muttered. “Franz Ferdinand all over again.”
“Not exactly.” Alberich said. “But the point stands. As of this moment, the Earth Alliance is at war.”
“Can we see the tracks of the Landing Castles?” Erwin asked.
“Yes, but we’d have to send up the comms mast.” The communications officer said.
“Make it so.” Erwin ordered. “I want to know exactly what cities they’re hitting and when they're due to make landfall, and I wanted to know yesterday.”
“Very well, sir.” The Tactical officer said. “Routing data to main screen now.”
A map of the world, devastated by the Heavens Fall fifteen years past, filled the screen. One by one, red tracks showing the descending Landing Castles. It appeared that nineteen of the thirty-seven in orbit were in the process of descending
“Calculating the estimated impact locations now.” The Tactical officer said. “And... We’re clear. Circular Error Probability is still over ten miles, but when you’re that big...”
He left the rest unsaid. Each Landing Castle was over two kilometers long.
The man zoomed in on North America. The Continent had been devastated worse than almost any other during the Heavens Fall, which was probably the only reason the old United States had signed on to the Earth Alliance. Both coasts were nearly uninhabited, life stretching mainly from the Rockies in the West to the Appalachians in the East.
Four red circles appeared on screen, denoting the possible landing sites of the Drop Castles. Denver, the new Capital following the complete destruction of Washington D.C., New Orleans, Old Chicago, and Montreal.
“Four of them...” Alberich muttered. “Damnit. That’s nearly ten percent of them.”
“Don’t count Space Command out just yet.” Erwin said. “I guarantee they won’t have a smooth ride down.”
“Those things are two kilometers long.” The Tactical officer said. “What the hell can we do to them?”
“Off the top of my head?” Erwin said. “I know one thing.”
The weapons officer turned to him. “You’re not seriously proposing...”
“I am.” Erwin said. “The planetfall nature of the assault on our nation offers a unique opportunity to destroy a significant portion of the forces assaulting us with a relatively small number of nuclear weapons.”
“But... They’re targeting our own cities with their castles!” The Communications Officer said. “Nuking them would inflict casualties on our own people!”
Erwin took a deep breath. “They’re already dead. I’ve run the numbers on those Drop Castles, and it will be like a nuke when they land. Everyone in those cities is already doomed.”
The Captain looked around the CIC of the submarine. “If there are no further questions, I will be leaving the bridge. Keep those castles on screen. XO, you have the deck.”
NUKE.ZERO
Erwin walked into the officer's lounge of the ballistic missile submarine. Leo Sandoval, the Political Officer of the vessel, was already there, waiting for him.
“Sit down, comrade.” Sandoval said, producing a bottle of vodka and two glasses from under the table. “I heard your discussion in the CIC. We have much to discuss, and little time.”
“I’m not even going to comment on that.” Erwin asked, tilting his head as he looked at the bottle the ship’s Commissar had procured, “but is this really the time to drink.”
Sandoval laughed. “I believe you may need something to fortify you. You have an important decision to make.”
“You could say that again.” Erwin said. “I need to decide whether or not to kill twenty million of our own civilians.”
The political officer poured a glass of vodka and took a sip. “It won’t be nearly that many after the castle hits.”
“So you think I should do it?”
“No.” Sandoval said. “But I believe you must do it.”
Erwin took a deep breath. “This is no time to be speaking in riddles.”
“I speak plainly. The course of action you wish to embark upon is both morally wrong and completely necessary. However, I will have no part in it.”
“But any launch, particularly a launch override, requires the consent of the ship’s political officer. If this course of action is necessary, why won’t you-”
“I took an oath to enforce the will of the Earth Alliance Government on this ship, and I will not betray that oath, or be party to these missile launches.”
“The how will I launch the missiles?” Erwin said, exasperated. “Do I just let the Martians march out of their castles onto my homeland?”
“If the Political officer is dead, the Captain and XO can perform a launch override.” Sandoval said calmly.
“What are you suggesting?” Erwin said warily. “Its not like you're going to just-”
Sandoval produced a piece of paper and a pen from his pocket and began to write a series of numbers and letters on it. “These are my launch codes. With these, you can launch the missiles, if you can get Alberich to go along with you.”
“But what are you-”
Erwin froze in horror as he watched the ship’s political officer produce a pistol.
“Remember me fondly.” Sandoval said. “I am an old man, with nothing left. I have no regrets.”
A single shot rang out.
Erwin watched as the Commissar crumpled to the floor. Shaking, he bent down and picked up the piece of paper with the commissar's launch codes.
He had work to do.
NUKE.ZERO
“We’ve chosen New Orleans as our target.” Alberich said, as he and Erwin walked through the corridors of the ship towards the room that housed the vessel’s missile controls.
“We?” Erwin said.
“I put together a group of sailors to determine which is the best target.” Alberich said, a grim frown on his face. “All hypothetical, of course. It seemed to be the best course of action.”
Erwin nodded, too engrossed in thought to respond.
“This time of year, the prevailing winds will blow most of the fallout out into the Gulf of Mexico.” Alberich said. “And it seemed best to concentrate all of our missiles against one target. We don’t have accurate intel on the durability of the Drop Castles, or what anti-missile abilities they’ll have.”
“Yes, yes.” Erwin said. “Very good.”
He had just watched the ship’s Political Officer, and a personal friend of his, commit suicide. It was only the responsibility of his position as captain and the weight of what he was about to do let his retain his composure.
The pair came to the missile control room. The two marines at the door saluted them, then stepped aside. Erwin and Alberich entered the control room.
Erwin reached into his pocket and removed the Launch Override Key from his pocket. He inserted it in the appropriate slot and turned as his Executive Officer began entering the launch codes.
After offering biometric confirmation of their identities and entering the launch codes, the slots covering two keyholes opened.
At the same time, the ship began to dive. Erwin and Alberich waited for a moment for the ship to level out, as it reached a depth from which communication would be impossible.
The launch override system was created in the event that a preemptive strike by the Orbital Knights rendered the Earth Alliance Government unable to issue missile launch instructions. It worked by sending out a secure coded communication pulse to Earth Alliance headquarters. If HQ was intact, a counter signal would be sent, and launch permission would be denied.
However, if HQ had been destroyed by an orbital strike, no counter signal would be sent, and the submarine would enter Launch Override status, in which the Captain had discretion over the launch of his weapons.
Of course, the ship had to be at communications depth for the launch override system to work, but Erwin had, for the past half hour, had his engineering team sabotaging all eight of the submarine’s official depth detectors, so the ship now though it was at only thirty meters from the surface, when in fact it was more than ten times that depth.
The communications pulse was absorbed by seawater. Fifteen minutes passed, and no counter signal was given.
The USS Alaska entered Launch Override.
Then came the tedious part. The wait. From orbit to ground, it would take about three hours for the Drop Castles to descend. An hour had passed since descent had begun, and from the Alaska’s current position in the North Atlantic, it would take about an hour for her missiles to reach New Orleans.
For the crew, the time was frantic. Missile techs had to calculate exact trajectories for their charges that would put them on target for a simultaneous airburst around the Drop Castle, just after it had landed, before it had any time to cool down or recover from the shock of impact.
Sailors with programing skills had to make adjustments to the flight software of the missiles, to use the weapons in ways they were never intended to be employed. In all, it was a miracle that the Alaska was ready to launch when the window opened at all.
In the missile control room, the time pass silently. Neither man present had any words for what they were about to do. It was a time of awful reflection and prayers for forgiveness. Eventually, the comms circuit crackled to life.
“Sirs?” One of the Missile Techs said. “We’re ready to launch, and two minutes out from the opening of the launch window.”
Erwin took a deep breath. “So.” He said. “It’s time.”
“Yes.”
Alberich walked over to the other keyhole revealed when the ship entered Launch Override. “Ready?”
Erwin nodded.
“On three, then?” Alberich said.
Erwin nodded again.
“One.”
Both men put the missile keys in position.
“Two.”
Erwin raised his key into position.
“Three.”
Alberich inserted his key and turned.
Within the bowels of the ship’s computers, subroutines activated, searching for authorization. They found it, and the ship went Weapons Free.
“I’ll be on the bridge.” Erwin said.
NUKE.ZERO
In the CIC of the Alaska, Erwin watched as the red lines representing the enemy Drop Castles inched closer and closer to their targets.
“Ready to launch.” A missile tech reported. “The necessary adjustments have been made to the missiles, and they should perform as desired.”
“Excellent.” Erwin said, hands gripping the armrests of his command chair with white knuckles. It was essential that he not appear weak now. The fate of the world could be resting on his shoulders.
He only wished he knew if he was saving or destroying it.
“If it means anything to you, sir,” the missile tech said, “I’m with you, sir, a hundred percent.”
Erwin smiled as he heard those words. They made his burden just a little bit lighter.
“Bring ship to launch depth!” Erwin commanded.
“Yes, sir!” The helmsman said. A shudder ran through the ship. “Vessel at launch depth, sir!”
“Commence launch.”
NUKE.ZERO
In the compartment of Trident III number 16 aboard the Alaska, an explosive charge detonated. The energy of the charge was channeled into a container of water, which vaporized instantly under the force of the explosion. The steam shot through a series of pipes into the chamber of the missile proper.
The force of the steam pushed against the container containing the missile, shooting it upwards through a water-tight membrane keeping out the weight of the ocean above.
Propelled by the force of the steam, the missile container shot upwards, piercing the ocean and emerging from the ironically tranquil surface, alongside twenty-three of it’s brothers.
The shroud on the missile split open as pyrotechnic bolts detonated, revealing the missile itself.
The primary motor engaged, and the rocket shot upwards into the sky, separating slightly from the others. It accelerated at an incredible pace. Had the missile had any eyes with which to see, the curvature of the earth would have become visible.
Trident-16 continued its ascent.
Within two minutes of launch, the third stage motor activated, the previous stage dropping away to earth, and the speed of the missile exceeded twenty thousand feet per second.
The sky faded from blue to black, a void lit by shining stars and distant harsh red glow of a descending Drop Castle.
The third stage disconnected from the missile fell away, and the star-sighting system activated. Nitrogen gas puffed into space as Trident-16 made minute corrections to its course to ensure maximum accuracy.
Trident Missile Number Sixteen drifted like that for a while. In truth, the missile was mostly gone now, having been dropped and burnt away, only the ‘bus’ containing the warheads visible. Trident-16 carried eight W88 warheads, each with the destructive power of four hundred and seventy-five thousand tons of TNT. It was a formidable weapon, one of the most versatile and destructive ever invented by mankind.
Trident Missile 16 took its final stellar observations, adjusted itself, then split open, discharging its eight warheads on their final re-entry vectors.
The warheads began to tilt downward and de-orbit. They contacted the atmosphere, but unlike a drop castle, they were slim and aerodynamic, and lost comparatively little velocity as they sliced through the air.
Miles and miles below them, the Drop Castle targeting New Orleans struck with the force of an atomic bomb.
In an instant, millions of human lives were extinguished by the massive overpressure wave created by impact. Structures collapsed and people were thrown like ragdolls from the force of the Drop Castle touching down.
The shock wave propagated upwards through the atmosphere, spreading out and weakening as the air thinned. By the time it reached the Alaska’s missiles in the upper reaches of the atmosphere, it was barely strong enough to jostle them off course.
Of the one-hundred and ninety two warheads deployed, two were destroyed outright by the shockwave as tiny mistakes in manufacturing conspired against the weapons. Fifty-six were knocked off course by the blast wave beyond the abilities of their guidance systems to compensate.
The last minute adjustments to their programing detected this and shut down the detonation procedures on their warheads. Twenty-six more missiles were not knocked off course, but their internal guidance systems believed they were, and their warheads were shut down.
The one hundred remaining projectiles continued to descend, the guidance systems of ninety nine of them correctly compensating for the shock wave. One veered off course, its warhead still live.
The projectiles deployed tiny fins and began to maneuver into a formation as they fell. They were programed to form two sets of two concentric rings around the Drop Castle and dentonantle simultaneously, for a maximum chance of destroying the enemy.
The warheads continued to descend, obscured from their target by the massive cloud of dust thrown up by its impact. Twenty-eight projectiles failed to fall into the proper formation, and their programing killed their warheads.
Seventy-one reentry vehicles were left as the lower ring plunged into the massive dust cloud kicked up by the impact of the Landing Castle. Six warheads suffered mechanical failures as the formation entered the cloud.
The Drop Castle below began to open up to commence its invasion of the Earth. Massive sections began unfolding from the sides of the descent vessel like the opening petals of a flower.
The warheads reached launch position.
Aboard the Alaska, Erwin watched as the timer to detonation reached zero.
“Fiat Lux.”
The effect of the surviving warheads was more than enough. They detonated at the same instant in a burst of nuclear hellfire. For miles around, anyone who survived the impact of the drop castle and was looking in the wrong direction at that moment was instantly and irreparably blinded.
As the flash of radiation passed, the shockwave formed a massive glowing dome, with the unfortunate Drop Castle in the center. The hull of the castle, already glowing red with the heat of atmospheric reentry, were flashed much hotter by the sudden burst of atomic radiation.
Then the shock wave struck. It tore into the Landing Castle, weakened by impact, like a can opener, waves of superheated air tearing into arcane defensive measures and brushing them aside like cobwebs before impacting the hull with incredible force.
The Drop Castle, a structure the size of a small mountain, crumpled as the shock waves smashed into it. ‘Petals’ were torn off as the shock wave ravaged it, and radiation flooded the interior as the bulkheads of the massive craft all failed at once.
As a distinctive mushroom cloud, the second of the day, rose over the grave of New Orleans, what was left of the drop castle began to topple.
It seemed to take an eternity to fall. It struck the ground with a crash, almost silent after the sound of its impact, instantly killing any survivors in the heart of the craft.
The cloud continued to billow upwards into the sky, and then quite returned the world, broken only by the now insignificant sounds of the crackling fires, funeral pyres of an entire nation of warriors, arrogant enough to invade they could invade a planet in complete safety.
Over it all, the broken moon continued to rise.
NUKE.ZERO
Ninety Minutes Earlier
Panic reigned in Earth Alliance Space Command North America. Four drop castles were falling toward the continent, and there seemed to be little anyone there could do about it.
General Marcus Von Braun walked onto what was referred to as the ‘Command Stage’ of the Space Command facility under Cheyenne mountain. “Status?” He shouted.
“We have four Drop Castles incoming.” A staff member said.
“Targets?”
“New Orleans, Denver, Old Chicago, and Montreal, sir.”
Marcus grit his teeth. “You already tried the anti-satellite weapons?”
“Yes, sir.” Another staff member said. “No effect.”
That made sense. The anti-satellite weapons were intended for taking down relatively small spacecraft and, of course, satellites. They had little chance of success against a two-kilometer-long battle station.
“Call up the Strategic Laser sites.” Marcus ordered. “Tell them to prepare for sustained firing.”
“We’ve run the numbers, sir. The lasers can’t pump enough energy to burn through the heat shields they’d have to have in time to make a difference, sir.”
“Shields plural?” Marcus said. “Have you tried focusing all the beams on one fortress?”
“No, sir, orders from Alliance Command were to-”
“I’m overriding that.” Marcus said softly. “Until the fortresses touch down, consult with me before following any orders from Alliance Command.”
“Can you do that, sir?”
“I’m your commanding officer, son. Let me sweat the details. Run those numbers again, this time focusing all the lasers on the fortress dropping on Denver. We must protect the capital.”
America, having suffered worse than most other developed nations during the Heavens Fall, had invested in a massive network of nuclear-powered strategic lasers designed to engage anything airborne below low orbit. They could be used to shoot down incoming asteroids, or enemy aerospace assets. America’s network of laser sites dwarfed that of any other nation in the Earth Alliance, and now it would be put to the test.
Several tense minutes passed as the base’s personnel and computers crunched the numbers and the Drop Castle drew closer and closer.
“Sir, it won’t be enough. We can’t burn through their heat shield.”
Marcus’ fist clenched. What else do I have? He thought. There’s got to be some way to amp up the lasers and... Amps! Electricity! Of course!
“When you made the calculations, did you add in overcharging the beams using civilian power supplies?”
“No, sir, we need Alliance Authority to do that.” The technician said. “We can’t do something that might endanger the lives of civilians without a direct command from the highest authority. You know that.”
“Are you an idiot?” Marcus said, a cool anger simmering in his voice. “That Landing Castle poses a threat to every civilian in the Greater Denver Area. We need to stop it.”
“But sir, if we do that-”
“Its on my orders!” Marcus shouted. “If they court martial you for it, tell them to blame me. Now, you will call the Strategic Laser Sites, and you will tell them to overcharge the beams using civilian power supplies.”
“Sir, do you have the authority to-”
“To save an entire city?” Marcus said coldly. “I believe that any good citizen has that authority.”
NUKE.ZERO
All around the Front Range Urban Corridor Strategic Laser Site, the lights shut off instantly as power was redirected into the massive banks of capacitors which fed the laser.
Almost instantly, hundreds of complaints were leveled, but critically, none of them them were sent to Space Command.
Power flowed into the capacitor banks at a much faster rate than normal as the output of all the surrounding power plants was channeled into them.
As the nearby authorities began to spool up auxiliary power supplies, the Strategic Laser fired for the first time.
The invisible infrared beam pierced the night, shooting toward the distant Drop Castle slicing through the atmosphere. An instant later, it was joined by a dozen of its fellows, all targeting different portions of the enemy fortress.
The beam from the Front Range Urban Corridor Strategic Laser Sight struck the Drop Castle near the tip of it’s drill-like frontal protrusion.
It seemed to have no effect. It superheated a few square meters of the surface of the station, but the hull was made of a material made to be superheated, and nothing seemed to happen.
The other lasers had similar effects.
A few seconds later, the laser emitted cycled and fired again. It was operating at a much higher intensity that its designers had intended, and it was all the laser site’s engineers could do to keep it from overheating.
As the lasers played across the surface of the Drop Castle, they were detected by sensor built into the hull of the craft, which noticed that the ablative material of the heat shield was vaporizing faster than it should have.
It was brought to the attention of the crew of the Castle, but they assumed they had underestimated the heating that would occur upon atmospheric entry. The heating was still within design tolerances, after all.
The Front Range Urban Corridor Strategic Laser Site cycled its beam emitters and fired once again, aiming for the same general point as three other Laser sites.
The beams fired, crossing in the wash of plasma surrounding their target and impacting within a few meters of each other. As they began to superheat and vaporize the hull material, something strange happened. As the beams burned into the material of the craft, they formed a pocket in the material of the Heat shield.
Plasma slammed into this pocket, further increasing the rate at which the hole was burned into the heat shielding. The lasers overheated and cut out, but the hole continued to grow.
The Strategic Lasers continued to beam truly insane amounts of energy at the descending drop castle. The one-sided battle raged for over fifteen minutes as the beams burned into the Drop Castle, which continued to grow closer and closer to its target city.
Meanwhile, in Space Command, a new and completely different series of alarms began to go off.
“Sir! We’re registering ballistic missile launch!” A technician shouted.
“Where?” Marcus demanded.
“North Atlantic. Location coordinates with the last know location of the Alaska, sir!”
“What the hell?” Marcus looked at the screen showing the Drop Castle descending toward Denver.
Space Command had every astronomy asset on the West coast they could get focused on it, trying to determine if the laser assault was having any effect. They were getting some weird readings on the plasma cloud surrounding the castle, but they didn’t have enough data to determine if it was due to their efforts.
“Put the incoming missile tracks on screen B.” Marcus ordered. “As soon as we know where the target is, tell me.”
The missile tracks appeared on screen. “Target appears to be New Orleans, sir!” A technician shouted.
Marcus glared at the inbound nuclear missiles, then the incoming Drop Castle. He took a deep breath. I hope you know what you’re playing at, Kane.
“Focus all fire on incoming Drop Castle. Leave the missiles alone.”
“But sir-”
“That city is already doomed. We need to focus on the people we can save.”
“Yes, sir.”
The Laser Sites, which had taken a brief break from firing to cycle their cooling systems, resumed their attack on the drop castle. Once more, lasers bit into the surface of its heat shield and began vaporizing material.
The beam from the Salt Lake Laser Site struck the drop castle. Nothing was remarkable about this particular beam, except that it was targeted at the point on the castle where four beams had previous converged. It shot into the hole burned into the drop castle by the convergence, and began superheating the base of the hole.
The heat radiated outward into the material of the heat shield surrounding the hole. It was now being heated from two vectors, and was deprived of a location to dump heat to. As the plasma vortex surrounding the hole intensified, the material surrounding the hole in the heat shield began to shake.
As it vibrated, tiny pieces of material began to detach from the shield, material that had not been vaporized, and thus was not carrying heat away from the hull of the drop castle.
The beam from the Salt Lake Laser Site cut out, but the damage had been done. The plasma vortex intensified, and larger chunks of material began to break off of the heat shield.
As the plasma vortex intensified, several notifications appeared on screens in Space Command.
“Sir! We’re reading the formation of a minor event on the surface of the Drop Castle!”
Marcus didn’t hesitate. “Focus all fire on that point!”
As the drop castle drew closer to the ground, the beams from twenty-one Strategic Lasers reached out and touched the Drop castle near where the plasma vortex was forming.
Material flashed to absurd temperatures under the conflux of beams. The heat shield began to overheat.
NUKE.ZERO
Alarms sounded on the command bridge of the Drop Castle. One of the technicians looked at his display and shouted. “Count! The Terrans are attempting something!”
“What is it?” Count Oggoth shouted.
“We’re detecting anomalous heating on the heat shield. We thought it was a natural occurrence, but its focus is all on one point now! It has to be some form of laser attack!”
“Commence evasive maneuvering.”
“Sir, evasive maneuvers would endanger the lives of every person on this vessel, and would vastly decrease our probability of hitting the target city!”
“You think I care?” Oggoth said. “We can’t avenge the princess if we’re dead. Begin maneuvering!”
Engines fired, and the Drop Castle began to shift in its course. The lasers tracked it, but as the castle fired secondary thrusters, they could no longer maintain the coordination required to pose a true threat to the Castle.
As the Castle continued to drop, one by one, the lasers had to cut off their attacks as their target fell below the horizon.
For the last minutes of its descent, the Castle fell unopposed. However, the damage had been done. Instead of landing in the middle of the Capital of the United States of North America, the castle vaporized a small town in the Rocky Mountains.
It was a tragedy, of course, but not nearly on the same scale as the destruction of Montreal, New Orleans, Old Chicago, or other cities across the globe.
Slowly, the three drop castles that had landed on North American soil began to open up and unpack their troops.
The War for Earth had begun.
NUKE.ZERO
As the hatches aboard the Alaska opened, MPs swarmed aboard the ship. As now Drop Castles had fallen in Iceland, where the ship had made port, they had nothing better to do.
Erwin raised his hands over his head as three MPs charged into his cabin and leveled their submachine guns at him.
“Take it easy, gentleman.” Erwin said said, staring down the MPs. “I’ll come quietly.”
“There he is.” One of the MPs whispered. “The Butcher of New Orleans.”
“You’re under arrest.” The lead MP, an older soldier, said. “Come with us.”
“Under what charges?” Erwin said, smiling.
“You damn well know.” The lead MP said. “You-”
“Everyone in that city was already dead.” Erwin said. “Do you really think what I did the wrong thing? Thanks to me, you’re fighting a war on three fronts, instead of four.”
“We are in the process of encircling the enemy. They are trapped.” The MP said. “They will be destroyed in short order.
“You don’t get it, do you?” Erwin said. “They aren’t trapped in our encirclements. We’re trapped on the same planet as them.”
“What do you mean?” The MP asked, sounding concerned.
“You clearly missed the First Interplanetary War.” Erwin said. “The only reason we managed not to be wiped out then was because the Heavens Fall cut off the Route between here and Mars. The Vers couldn’t carry their attack further, but make no mistake, they are superior to us, at least in terms of military technology.”
“But...” The MP now seemed nervous. “We have the Milita Program. We’ve built up our armies since then.”
“Sure, we have numbers, but will that be enough?” Erwin said. “I don’t know, but I’ve done my part. I’ll sit out this war in a jail cell. So, on what charges am I being arrested?”
“You launched missiles without orders.” The lead MP said. He seemed much less confident than he was when he first entered. “That’s a capital offense, regardless of circumstances.”
“Very well.” Erwin said. “I suppose they’ll execute me, then. It is, after all, no less than I deserve.”
NUKE.ZERO
Erwin sat on the cot in his prison cell, contemplating his own mortality. He had been flown back to the States right after the MPs pulled him off the Alaska, and then thrown in his present accommodations.
It wasn’t too bad, actually, if anything, it was a little bit boring. Waiting to be executed kinda sucked, but he had gone into it knowing what he was doing when he went into Launch Override.
Abruptly, the door of his cell began to slide open and a man walked it. Erwin recognized him; he was Gabriel Winters.
“Get off your ass, Kane!” The President of the United States shouted. “You think I’m going to let you sit out this war in a jail cell?”