The Thirty Hour War

[NASAFanboy]

"With great power comes great responsibility."

Ludzor Kerman awoke with a start, his head spinning. Damn. Shouldn't have done that keg stand last night at the party, he thought. The air outside was quiet, misty with the morning fog and awake with the continous chirping of crickets. Most of his barracks was sound asleep in their beds, peaceful, serene, and almost as if they weren't the fine-tuned killing machines they were at daytime. He pondered about the words in his head, With great power....comes great responsibility. Where have I heard that before?. Most Kerbal's believed that most dreams were nonsense, they mean't nothing. But he had a feeling this wasn't this "most", that this was a exception. Watching the munlight glint off the sides of his assault rifle, he stared up into the sky, and watched, pondering the meaning of his dream. And the morning sun rose in a glowing bright fireball.

CHAPTER ONE

"By only counting the missiles under the Stragetic Ballistic Space Command, we can put the number of nuclear warheads under our control at more than three thousand. Add the missiles from the naval forces, and we get another thousand, maybe half thousand. The army? Another thousand, mostly smaller nuclear launchers and assorted landmines. Our air forces share their warheads with the SBSC, but have around nine hundred nuclear weapons of their own, each high caliber and capable of leveling a city and it's outlying districts. That's a total of around six and a half thousand nuclear warheads. Enough to destroy civilization ten times over"

"And what about the enemy?"

"Our intelligence estimates them to have around six thousand warheads, of lesser quality than ours but more aptly produced and scattered in armoured silos throughout their countryside with one or two even based in the heart of their cities. We haven't found all of them yet, and their building more, so it's going to be difficult to destroy their capability with a sudden first strike. We could expect them to launch a shotgun barrage of missiles."

"I want you to construct an anti-missile defense that is capable of preventing such a barrage from destroying the United Proviences."

"I don't think that's possible."

"Given enough money, duct tape, and boosters, anything can be accomplished. We landed on the Mun! We went to Duna! We obivously can build an anti-missile defense that covers the entire nation and can prevent any enemy nation from exercising their 'second strike' capability on us."

*recording ends*

Hepford Kerman flipped the switch on the tape recorder and sighed. President Madfield Kerman was still adamant on his stance regarding the nation's anti-missile shield. Not a colleague of his on the Joint Chiefs of Staff wanted the project, not even Admiral Makery, his closest friend. This left him in charge of what was basically an impossible task. "Hmph, politicans, don't even understand science." But even if it was a impossible task based off the delusional idea of a politican, he was the most qualifed Kerbal in the entire Department of Defense for the task. After all, he oversaw the founding of the Stragetic Ballistic Space Command. He personally flew on and commanded the Manned Orbiting Laboratory before it was turned over for civilian uses. He designed and constructed the second military space station. He built the militaries most advanced GPS networks, managed classified missions to Eve and Duna, and earned his rank to Lieutenant General. If anyone was qualified for the job, it was him.

"Sir, Hepford."

"What is it?"

"Unidentified flying objects are on radar. Travelling at supersonic speed. Appears to be rockets, sir."

"What? UFO's? What are they, little green men from Duna?"

"Yessir, I wouldn't surprised if they were. After all, Duna Two is already on it's return trip home, although it would surprise me if it made it home this early. Anyways, what about the next three radar conta-ahem, the next five radar contacts."

"No, no, not literally. It's a expression, Lieutenant. It's a expression. They haven't been neglecting literature in the Officer Academy, have they?"

"Define Literature, sir."

"I'll handle that later..."

Quickly grabbing his hat, he raced into the control room. Pandemonium was exploding in the facility as Kerbals anxiously called their loved ones and awaited further orders, their hearts pounding as the rockets neared their destinations. There was sixteen of them on the radar screen now, positioned as if in a massive shotgun blast of ICBM's. He approached one of his aides, who was yelling into a phone.

"What's the situation?"

"Unidentified objects are heading toward our major cities. The President has been evacuated to another one of our underground facilities, but I'm wondering about one of the missiles which appears to be aimed to explode above us."

"Oh."

"Yeah...."

"Have we informed the population?"

"That's your call, sir."

"Activate emergency protocol. Order our fighters to scramble, try to intercept these missiles if possible. I even want our space force to scramble to orbit and target as many missiles as possible. Order our space stations to track the missiles using onboard telescopes and radar, and stay on alert. The Emergency Broadcast System is to be activated, now!"

"What about the high-flying missile? It's ahead of the other missiles by a whole hour, but doesn't seem to be aimed at us. Or anywhere on the ground, for that manner."

"I'm more interested in the source of these missiles. Have you backtracked them?"

"Yes, and they aren't from Communist territory. It's on Balian territory."

"Are they allies with any Communist country?"

"From our records in the Department of Foreign Affairs, that appears to be a positive."

"So the Communists did it?"

"Maybe. The airborne rocket is nearly over us. We'll see what it does next."

The room suddenly shook violently as the computers and lights flickered out, but after what seemed to be a eternity, the machines turned back on. Hepford looked worriedly at his digital watch - it had completely stopped functioning. Instead, the numbers flickered and changed violently before the entire watch died on itself. "Odd.", he thought to himself.

"No signal from our satellite networks?!"

"GSOS is down! KSAT is down! We've lost communication with Space Station Polaris and the Manned Orbiting Laboratory. Not a single satellite is responding to our signals, and we've lost communication with most of our units."

Across the United Proviences, the lights flickered and turned off. Entire cities lost power as the nuclear power plants slowly went into meltdown without the electricity to to pump coolant to their reactors. Machines overheated, hospitals were rendered useless, radio broadcasts dropped midsentence, calls were dropped, and aircraft fell from the sky, plunging into teh ground below. Panic took control of the population as a light fulled the sky, burning as bright as the sun. The nation was now helpless to the incoming assault.

Among the proposed defenses was a massive fleet of the experimental XF-5 space fighters. Each XF-5 carried two interceptor missiles capable of downing enemy missiles or satellites, and could be used to deliver nuclear weapons. But that was a option for another day with a shotgun blast of missiels headed toward the major cities of the United Proviences took the absolute priority. Ill-suited for atmospherical flight, the military quickly seized control of several civilian rockets and launched as many fighters as they could into the sky. Of the planned fifteen squadrons of XF-5's, few were operational and even fewer had been armed and ready. Nevertheless, in a time of crisis, one must use whatever they can, so every XF-5 available was sent onto a mission that was almost pure suicide.

[PIC]

Rushing from the barracks, Bobfred Kerman felt a pounding sensation in his heart and watched as his fellow pilots rushed to their stations. ".For a national emergency, the space center is quiet.", he thought. Aside from the gentle whirring of the backup electrical generators and the occasional intercom announcement, there was little to no sound as the technicans rushed from craft to craft, hurriedly readying them for what would the difference between life and death. Weapons had to be attached, fuel guages had to be checked, and most of all, snacks had to be stuffed into the cockpit containers.

Rushing from the barracks, Bobfred Kerman felt a pounding sensation in his heart and watched as his fellow pilots rushed to their stations. "For a national emergency, the space center is quiet.", he thought. Aside from the gentle whirring of the backup electrical generators and the occasional intercom announcement, there was little to no sound as the technicans rushed from craft to craft, hurriedly readying them for what would the difference between life and death. Weapons had to be attached, fuel guages had to be checked, and most of all, snacks had to be stuffed into the cockpit containers.

Entering the cockpit hatch, Bobfred felt a rush of energy. He sat in his seat, staring into the vast blue expanse as the concrete covers of the underground launch site slowly slid away. Picking up the checklist, he quickly counted down to launch. Pulling his helmet visor tightly over his face, he quickly made a thumbs up gesture to the ground crews and gripped his controls. Destiny, here I come. There was a hiss and a roar as the launch clamps dropped and the main engine burst to life. Feeling the ground tumble away behind him, Bobfred felt exhilirated. The first few minutes of his flight would be autopilot, but the rest would depend on him.

[PIC]

Interception of the missiles was risky. With almost the entire Provincal militaries satellite network disabled, their scattered forces were nothing short of a blinded giant, striking out at what they percieved as threats. They just had to trust their instincts, and destroy the missiles at all costs. The fates of their families and country depended on it.

Edited July 25, 2014 by NASAFanboy

[rasheed]

Ooooo neat start.

Can't wait for more.

[NASAFanboy]

Ooooo neat start.

Can't wait for more.

Thanks!

I had to offload KSP for a while today, so I couldn't update it. More will come soon.

[ramnrmeul]

First part=clever. Using a nuke as an EMP by detonating it ABOVE the ionosphere. Clever, clever Communists. No modifications are required to the device, but the effect is absolutely devastating. What you've done here has happened only once in real life, and it was by accident as well. It killed the power in the Hawaiian Islands, though...

Also, the third paragraph in part two is a duplicate of the second.