Chapter 2: The Next Steps

(Day 43 just before midnight, Russian airbase in Siberia, across the Bering Sea)

With the high altitude airburst of the Bio- chemical weapon, Lt Hector Kerry's medical team immediately vaccinated everyone that they could. He then gave Boris the encrypted phone he could call his daughter on. The phone signal would be picked up by an orbiting EP-3, which would then relay the signal through to Nome where it would be transmitted to Anchorage. The alarm went throughout western Alyeska that another bio-chemical bomb had detonated over the Siberian Peninsula. There were perhaps 700 vaccine doses to distribute among 1800 people in the path of the Bio-weapon.

(Day 44- July 5, Galena, Alaska)

Paul Kensington had been awakened at 6:30 by his son Calvin and summoned to open the church so people could pray for deliverance from the cloud approaching from the west. During the previous initial attack, the concentration had been more dense, and higher in the atmosphere, yet enough of it struck down many of the people in Nome and on the Seward Peninsula. Now the church was packed beyond standing room, and it was the second prayer service already that morning.

Still the people had seen wonderful things since Paul and his family came to Galena. They put faith in his connection with his God. That is where Paul told them, "We can pray, but it is not only my relationship with the Almighty that we need here. We need all of you, in your hearts, to truly trust and believe that the Lord will deliver us from our enemies and smite them that they can no longer raise their arms against us."

As if to give him strength, the young girl Berry and her brother and sister, whom he brought from Kobuk, walked to the front of the church and knelt. Paul began to pray, "Gracious Heavenly Father, we ask that you deliver us from the pestilence that our enemy has unleashed upon us, and render it harmless to our bodies. We ask that you help us in our coming battle with his multitudes, that we shall prevail, and that you will unite your children around the world once more so that your will, not our will be done in your name. We ask these things in your Son, Jesus' name, Amen"

As the congregation looked to Paul for further words of wisdom, guidance or even comfort, he just said, "It's all in God's hands. We fail or prevail by his wishes."

(0815 hours, Petropavlovsk, Kamchatka Peninsula)

Along the flight line of the airbase where the remaining Red Chinese fighters and bombers were based, an all out attack on Anchorage to try to catch the Abraham Lincoln Battle Group in port was about to be launched. The evening before high altitude high-speed reconnaissance planes flew over beyond reach of the SAM batteries and the Chinese knew that they would be attacked if they didn't strike first. As the first four fighters began their take off roll, the earth shuddered and the middle of the runway split at an angle as the far end suddenly raised sixteen feet as the earth shifted.

One of the fighters managed to get airborne, his side being longer than his wingman's but of the three behind him, one didn't achieve adequate airspeed before liftoff, and stalled, and the other two clipped the higher portion of the runway. The taxiway was then sheared from the runway and the crosswind runway buckled almost twenty feet as the concrete folded as easily as cardboard.

The Kozelskiy Volcano then began to belch a plume of volcanic ash. The Chinese pilots panicked and tried to get the planes back under cover. The neighboring Avachinskiy Volcano chose that moment to explode upwards, sending a cloud of ash miles high between the lone fighter and the transport base. On the ground the jet engines began to choke out from the ash cloud quickly covering almost everything to a depth of two inches already.

As the men outside abandoned their airplanes and began to run for the hangar, large pieces of molten rock began to pelt the field and all of the buildings exploding like so many incendiary bombs. The airbase was soon devastated more thoroughly than anything but a nuclear bomb could have done.

As the seismograph in at the Geological Monitoring Center in Anchorage registered the activity, the Aleutians went on watch for a Tsunami. The aircraft on Shemya and Adak took off for the King Salmon Airport, while as if to say to those in the Anchorage area, "You just sit tight," Mount Redoubt released a plume of smoke across Cook Inlet.

The heat from the volcanoes created a low-pressure area over the Bering Sea, drawing the cloud of the Bio-weapon back to the southwest, just as it reached the tip of the Seward Peninsula. This created a thunderstorm that washed the cloud harmlessly into the ocean. It was then that Admiral Grover recalled the Russian sub coming ashore in Seward, and dispatched a helicopter and two 737-400 airliners to pick them up.

While satellite imagery was no longer an option, one of the Aurora Mach 6 Stealth spy planes was dispatched from Eilson Air Force Base to photograph the target once more. Nothing could be seen from Attu west beyond the Kamchatka Peninsula, and the plane turned back. Until the dual eruption subsided, and accurate intelligence gathered on the enemy, any attack was put on hold.

(Anchorage, 1220 hours)

Shortly after noon, the big AN-12B turboprop landed at Anchorage International Airport with 100 head of cattle and oxen aboard. At the controls was Col Boris Petrovic. Col Petrovic and his crew were driven to the Defense Ministry Building on L Street, arriving moments before the officers of the Petropavlosk.

The livestock was rounded up and moved to one of the farms in Palmer where they were quarantined until the veterinarians could give them a clean bill of health, and then sorted as to type and breed. Some would be slaughtered for the meat, and the dairy cows sent to a farm in Eagle River. The oxen, normally tough, would be made into beef jerky for the MRE's.

Governor Murray took time to greet the Russians as the transport was refueled and reloaded with medical supplies. Also loaded were several drums of fuel for the four tanks. When Petrovic and Rustovski met, they knew each other. The submarine base was near the Air Base where Boris' fighter wing was based before the war happened. Tanya, one of the women who came back with Col Mitchell was Rustovski's daughter.

The Russian men laughed and then realized that Admiral Healy and Gen Brubaker wished to coordinate the raid when the eruption subsided, before more attacks occurred. Rustovski opined that if two volcanoes erupted at the same time, there was likely not much left of the nearest air base, and the other base would be covered with ash for weeks.

Healy offered, "It looks like the only surviving enemies are on American soil now, not meaning you, Comrade, of course, but those who have come up from Mexico."

Rustovski offered, "Depending on how many Chinese subs you have sunk, add eight to those," as Sonya translated.

"I believe we have sunk 35 plus your eight is 43," Healy replied. "The Reagan Battle Group is back out on the hunt, so I have no idea where Admiral Kitchens is at the moment, or how many he has found."

"For the sake of simplicity," Rustovski added, "they had about 65 subs of different types. Were your satellites destroyed also?"

"They were," admitted Gen Brubaker, "We have reconnaissance aircraft but it isn't like having a network of satellites in orbit. We salvaged eight reconnaissance satellites from Vandenberg Air Force Base, but could not find any rockets to boost them in orbit."

That was not entirely true. Three satellites were in orbit at the time, monitoring the Chinese and Mexican Armies in the Southwest. None of the personnel thus far knew enough about repositioning them so far north to do so, and they were at the moment tracking the northward advance of Gen Chung's group, and the Mexicans closing in on Corpus Christi, Texas. This was being done from Hill Air Force Base, in Utah.

Rustovski chuckled as Sonya relayed the General's message. "If you have a crane to lift the warheads and remove them I will gladly share my ballistic missiles for boosters if you allow us access to the satellite imagery. I have twenty-one left. I fired five on Chinese mainland because you Americans can't only have revenge. They killed more Russians than Americans. I am very happy was it not us as enemy in war."

Boris added, "If those subs were within 200 kilometers of mainland, they are dead now from radiation. Nothing will live there for a thousand years, unless he is from Japanese monster movie. Come my friends and we will make missiles into rocket boosters."

It took most of two days to remove ten nuclear warheads from one ballistic missile, and load them aboard the AN-12, sealed in lead-lined US Air Force containers. With the multiple warheads it was that much more difficult. Once the warheads were removed and on the way to Siberia, the three satellites had to be installed and the missile had to be reprogrammed to release them independently of one another, just as it would the warheads against an enemy.

The Russians were anxious to see what if anything was left of their homeland, and the satellites would provide that information faster than even the two Top-Secret Aurora spy planes taken from Area 51 in Nevada. The R-Team that visited the Groom Lake site had gone down two levels and returned saying they did not ever wish to see what they did there again. The men even refused to talk about it, and none of them ate for two days. The Mach 6 stealthy Auroras were in a hangar on the top level and flown back to Elmendorf and Eilson.

Captain Rustovski had no idea if any other Russian submarines in the Pacific had survived, but he had been in the Arctic, in the days after launching his missiles on the Chinese Mainland. That had been one of the post-nuclear war rendezvous points, but after thirty days, no ships or submarines showed up. Rustovski and his crew had been shown wonderful hospitality the three days they would be in port and on the seventh of July, he and his daughter approached Admiral Grover, asked to see Defense Minister Brubaker, and asked for acceptance into the Commonwealth.

Capt Rustovski asked through his translator, "As a start to a bright future for our peoples, I would like to pledge the services of my ship, the Petropavlosk, and my crew, to the new country of Allie es Ka."

The translator explained that the name was taken from the Aleut name for the Great Land, and it was actually pronounced Al-YES-ka, which sounded more like Alaska to the white men. So, it was still Alaska, with a twist, but almost everyone from the outside pronounced it with the Allie beginning.

Brubaker accepted, "Thank you Capt Rustovski. Although it is my wish that some day we will find colonies of your countrymen alive and well, and can all learn to live together and trust one another, I welcome you, your crew and the ship that we should call the 'Spirit of the Bering Sea'. It will be a symbol of cooperation between our people, and a hope for a day when all of these missiles can be used for a peaceful purpose."

Late that evening the former ballistic missile propelled three satellites high into earth orbit. Re-supplied, the Spirit of the Bering Sea set sail the afternoon of July 8, accompanying the attack submarine CAS Seward and a linguist aboard for the western Pacific.

(Day 48 — July 9, Logan, Utah)

As little as they had to carry, the Winnebago was overkill and foraging for diesel was becoming more and more difficult. Ernie Hart, and Janine decided that they would turn and head into Salt Lake City to see if there was anyone regrouping there to start over. As they neared Ogden, Janine noticed some activity near an air base. On her map, she noted Hill Air Force Base, and they headed there as two C-17's and a giant C-5 were landing. They were able to drive on through the gate around nine burned out vehicles, and make their way to the flight line.

When they tried to approach the aircraft, two Humvee's came towards them, and blocked their path. Ernie brought it to a stop and exited the RV. The MP sergeant asked what his business was on a military base. Ernie explained they were just trying to get somewhere safe.

Sgt Ross shook his head and said, "I don't think this is going to be safe in a few days. It will probably be a target. At any rate you won't want to be here. Where did you come from?"

Ernie answered, "We were in Alaska, and got out just before the main die off. Then we came here from Seattle when we couldn't get to Portland. There were more with us, but terrorists killed them along the way, and one lady stayed in Pocatello, Idaho with her Militia friends who were going back to kill the Arabs that ambushed us. I guess everyone up there in Alaska is dead, huh?"