Chapter 37 - The Sins of the Patriarch
The red klaxon screamed louder:
*T-MINUS NINETY SECONDS TO MISSILE RELEASE. SILO DOORS OPENING IN MINOT, MALMSTROM, AND NEBRASKA.*
On the massive tactical wall, thirty real-time satellite feeds opened simultaneously. Massive concrete silo lids, hidden under the snowy plains of the American Midwest, were sliding back, revealing the deadly tips of Minuteman III intercontinental ballistic missiles, venting white clouds of supercooled liquid oxygen into the night sky.
"General, he's telling the truth!" Vance shouted, his fingers furiously typing into the auxiliary tactical station. "The firewall is hard-locked from the radiation containment vestibule! We can't override it from here! Someone has to manually trip the circuit breaker inside the core server bank!"
"Vance, secure Abigail," I ordered without hesitation, stripping off my tactical vest, dropping the heavy magazines and combat knife to increase my agility. "I'm going in."
"Mom, no!" Abigail screamed, breaking away from Vance's grip and grabbing my arm with both hands. "You heard him! The coolant is compromised! You'll die in there!"
I turned to my daughter. For twelve years, I had protected my country at the expense of being there for her. I had let her fall into the hands of monsters because I was fighting wars ten thousand miles away. I had spent my entire life serving an abstract duty while failing my most sacred one.
"Listen to me, Abigail," I said, taking her face in my hands, looking directly into her tear-streaked eyes. "A mother's job is to make sure her child has a world to live in. Everything I have done, every battle I have fought, was to bring me back to you. I am not going to let this broken, bitter man burn the world you have to live in."
"I won't let you die for his madness!" she wept.
"I'm not dying, Abby," I said, a fierce, unbreakable smile touching my lips. "I am General Eleanor Gardner. I don't die on foreign soil, and I certainly don't die in a basement in Washington."
Richard raised his head from the floor, coughing violently. "It's... suicide, Eleanor. You won't make it... ten steps..."
Abigail suddenly let go of my arm. She turned toward her dying father, her face cold as glacial ice. She knelt beside him, reached down, and ripped the gold signet ring from his bloody left hand—the ring bearing our family crest, retrofitted with the micro-cryptographic key he had worn since our wedding day.
"You never understood this family, Dad," Abigail said coldly, holding the bloody ring up to the fluorescent light. "You thought power was about holding the trigger. Mom taught me that power is having the guts to pull it."
Before Richard could respond, Abigail shoved the signet ring into my hand.
"Go, Mom," Abigail whispered, her voice steady, iron-hard. "Shut it down. I'll hold the terminal from this side."
"Delta, cover the General!" Vance roared.
May you like
I lunged toward the heavy blast airlock leading into the core reactor vault, the heavy steel door groaning as I engaged the manual pneumatic wheel.
***
