In 1893, the United States, in
violation of treaty, domestic and international law invaded Hawai'i, OVERTHROWING
THE CONSTITUTIONAL HAWAIIAN MONARCHY, disenfranchizing the Hawaiian people,
and stealing our lands.
ejr.2:ijstflajt, misHn iz gow aet1200. haj nuwn.
They followed a suborbital arc one hundred fifty kilometers above Vancouver. They descended again over the Juneau, but were still kilometers higher than the highest ISA fighter's ceiling when they plunged into the arctic night. The pack ice reflected the ghostly blues and violets of their exhaust plasma. In the angular edges and inky shadows, Sara saw whole cities cringe before her and then turn to flee.
It was Russian fighters, this time, along the horizon. They didn't seem too eager to come out over the Arctic Ocean, and the R1s stayed well off the coast. Sara understood. One war at a time. Maybe next time. She had never been against Russians and wonderred if they would die the same way. Others were also scrambled, Canada, Norway, and Denmark, around the ocean. But nobody ventured out after them.
Halfway around Siberia, they turned to avoid the Barents Sea and what lurked below. Two fighters moved ahead and two dropped back, while the bombers broke into pairs surrounding the R1Rs. NATO had stayed out of this business so far, but there was always a first time. They followed the coast of Greenland into the north Atlantic night. The R1s needed to dissappear: they dropped speed to subsonic, danced with the waves, and bled liquid nitrogen into the exhaust ports. As their heat plumes dissipated, the R1s trailed commercial flights, back and forth.
ISA knew the PRA force was sitting off its coast. Somewhere. R1Rs couldn't decipher military radio traffic, they wouldn't even try, but based on traffic analysis and the uncipherred challenges to civillian aircraft, they deduced the air defences were centerred on the District of Columbia. An aircraft carrier group was steaming south at full speed.
They squeezed between the Maritime provinces and the carrier group which was east of New York. They crossed the coast north of Boston, low and heavy below the radar, shortly before dawn. Sara wonderred if her parents were at home in Syracruse. If so, they would be safe. It would a bummer if she killed Mom and Dad, but if they were in the wrong place....well....natural selection in action.
They were still going slowly, waiting for the alarm to be raised. Sara hadn't spent ÊÊÊmuch time in New York, but she did remember what she saw now: naked forests, dirty snow, gray people in gray towns.
They were banking into the Hudson Valley when military challenges supplanted civillian. The R1s kicked in their engines and broke mach; ISA fighters would be on them within minutes. Now only speed would ensure their survival and, more importantly, a successful mission. The terrain was almost flat with only hilllets to hide behind.
Naked forests and snowy hills dissappeared beneath factories and cities. They were screaming among the skyscrapers of Manhattan. Windows shatterred and rained shards onto the pavement. In the canyons of steel and glass, the bombers slowed to pop their bomb covers.
Sara didn't have the usual high explosives or phosphorus strapped to her belly. Instead it was an awkward looking box. No one was sure would the yield would be, because so few had been detonated. Five to fifty megatons. They crossed over Long Island. Interceptors from the carrier group were tangling with the lead fighters. The bombers checked their heading with the relays before pulling up. The bomb mount stresses were maxed. Sara released.
The
bombs tumbled free, arcing high and far out to the sea. They weren't very
accurate, but neither was accuracy important. The R1s turned back to the
New Jersey coast and ran for all they were worth. The eastern sky turned
brighter than dawn, brighter than noon. The carrier group no longer existed.
Between the electromagnetic pulses and cubic miles of ocean turned to gas and plasma, the R1s could run at full speed undetected. They crashed through the air cover over Maryland like lightenning through a fog. Then another suborbital hop over the continent.
Sara knew they would be hated. Feared and hated.
She thought of Ronnie safe in her home in Tos Claire. Like all the tosses,
Tos Claire was built underground, under blast shields, under EM barriers.
DPR had just demonstrated its ability to take out any ISA city while its
own cities were safe from retaliation, this year. It gave them an edge,
this year.