ONCE UPON A TIME.......

"Uh ..excuse me sir." The voice was very subdued and had the sound of a man who knew he was going to die.
"what is it now sergeant?" David Maryn was frustrated enough at the piece of equipment he had been working on. He was even less pleased at being disturbed by this lowly soldier, when all that the scientist wanted was to have some uninterrupted time to figure out why his toy wouldn't work.
"NAMTAC on the phone sir...they've launched."
Paying only partial attention to what the soldier had said David kept working. "launched what, sergeant?"
"The missiles sir, they've launched the entire nuclear inventory! The Chinese, the Russians, the French, the British, us, everybody!" the soldier stopped talking to take a breath when he noticed David's head start to move.
"When?" was the only word the David said when he saw the pale face of the sergeant.
They had been expecting something to happen with all the turmoil in the world coming close to the boiling point, but never this. the plans that were made three years ago to shelter the "Project" and anything else that was "Black" in the USACM inventory were only a safeguard. No one thought it was going to be anything out of the ordinary. The "skunk works" had been here for the past year shuttling equipment, their staff, and their families to the bases in Nevada, the others had been coming in from the beginning of the safeguard action and had pretty much finished settling in.
"ETA for first strike on north american soil is 15 minutes," the soldier started to follow David who was now jogging to the door of the hanger he had been working in. "NAMTAC is tracking all the missiles. They predict the EMP devices to detonate in 5 to 10 minutes, warheads targeting this area are expected to hit about 5 minutes after."
Out in the open air field was a form of ordered chaos. Surface evacuation was underway and almost finished for the personnel and equipment that held priority. Smaller aircraft and equipment had been loaded into the largest of the transport planes then towed to what was probably the largest elevator ever conceived, where they were lowered into the underground facilities. Soldiers in power armor were acting as traffic cops to all the remaining vehicles and personnel moving around the base, tanks lined the perimeter, and helicopters and aircraft were landing at almost dangerous time intervals, their pilots abandoning the crafts as soon as they've stopped.
David stopped jogging to take all the commotion in. His eyes eventually fell on a large armored vehicle parked in the middle of the desert airfield. The huge radar dish on the roof of the truck was pointed at almost 60 degrees up and spinning. Surrounding it was numerous combat robots, power armor suits, anti-missile defence vehicles, as well as a few scattered anti-aircraft batteries. Almost all had their guns pointing up.
By this time the sergeant had started his hover jeep and pulled up along side him, motioning for him to get in. David had barely sat down in the vehicle when the sergeant punched the accelerator and headed for the radar vehicle out in the field dodging people and other vehicles as he went.
The trip was a short one, for which David was grateful. "you're dismissed sergeant." was all he said and after a quick "thank you, sir" the hover car took off towards the hangers.
"Dave!" The voice came from a woman in a lab coat standing in the door of the radar truck "I was wondering when you were going to join the party."
"Not funny, Carrie."he replied. "what's our status?"
"All I can say is thank god for the space stations. They've taken out most of the space based offensive systems of almost every nation, including ours. If it weren't for that we wouldn't be talking right now. Unfortunately they have also taken out some of the defence satellites."
Moving towards the truck he looked at her closely before asking "How many defence satellites?"
"We have about 20% of them still operational."
"Oh hell. What does that leave for us to take out?"
Glancing over her shoulder, she asked for an update from the radar operator before turning back to Dave. "about 600 warheads."
"Ouch, have you compensated for that?"
"Actually," she paused as she reached over and grabbed a small communicator from inside her lab coat."Number 6 wants to speak to you about that."
Number 6 was a code used around the base by those who were in the "elite" of the bases personnel. His actual name was unpronounceable and everyone listened to what he had to say, because he rarely ever spoke.
Taking the communicator he punched in the code and put the comm unit to his ear.
Carrie watched as Dave listened to the Comm unit. Every once in awhile he would nod, even though he couldn't be seen by the person at the other end of the comm unit. After a few minutes he pressed a button on the unit and handed it back to Carrie.
"Well?" Carrie asked with a bemused look on her face.
"He said take out what we can and leave the rest to him and our other three "friends" at the other bases."
Voices inside the radar truck rose in volume and immediately Laser and particle beam fire erupted from the surrounding vehicles. Caught off guard Dave froze in place, staring at the sky. Carrie reached out, grabbed him and pulled him into the radar truck. She then turned and slammed the door shut, cutting off the outside world.
Inside the truck people crouched over radar displays giving co-ordinates over the comm sets to those outside. Blips on the screens were appearing and disappearing at incredible speeds. Sparks shot from one of the consoles as its inadequately protected electronics was fried from an EMP device going off.
One of the men watching the radar's turned to Dave and Carrie. The expression on his face told them that they had a problem.
"Sir, mam, we just lost 5 of our long range Anti-Missile platforms and 12 of the short range ones to the EMP devices. There is no way we can keep up with what's left."
"You and your troops did what they could, commander. We couldn't ask for more." Dave turned to Carrie and was about to speak when sparks flew from every piece of working equipment in the truck.
The power in the truck died and after one last flicker from the red interior lights.........