Chapter Two - Part Two
In the words of Fleet Admiral Nakamura
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Arriving at Sunset Valley was a revelation of sorts. Seeing CFB Gnome and the Canadian Space Agency’s launch vehicle on final approach into YXX made me realize that Sunset Valley was just as much a target as DC. However since there was only one military base and our bunker was situated practically six miles away from the epicentre of what would be the target of any missile intended to destroy the base, our bunker had a chance to survive what would be humanity’s last days. When our flight landed, we made our way to the awaiting Canadian Forces vehicles which would transport us to our destination. General Kelly, RCAF would be joining us much later as he had many things that needed to be done. At least that was what Colonel Baker told me as he dropped us off at the bunker.
Waiting by the front entrance were Admiral Gracen and Command Master Chief Coates who had overseen the construction of the bunker. It was good to see some more familiar faces. And Captain Benton could go back to just being Chief of Staff rather than having to do double duty as my Yeoman.
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I greeted Admiral Gracen. “Admiral, good to see you again. All preps in place?”
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“Outside of final provisioning in terms of food, and supplies. All construction is completed and when provisioning is finished we can lock up and hunker down, sir.”
“Good. Glad to hear it.” I nodded and looked over at the bunker, “Low to the ground...it’ll keep the blast wave from tearing our roof off.”
“Yes, sir...it’s what one of the Seabees told me the reason was for the low structure. The blast pressure wave can pretty much destroy everything that isn’t only a foot off the ground.”
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By this time, Command Master Chief Coates had managed to make her way over to see the both of us. “Sir...it’s good that you and the rest of the group have managed to make it. I’ve been hearing some very disturbing news over the network.”
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I nodded, “Coates...it’s worse than we expected. We lost assets in the Pacific. Three hundred men lost and the Monaghan is at the bottom of the ocean. It’s not something that the President is going to back down from and we’re essentially at war.” Coates could see that I wasn’t kidding about that. The preps pretty much gave away the truth that this would only go one way and it wasn’t going to be pretty.
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Already there were conventional clashes between the Chinese fleet and ours. We’d sunk several of their submarines that were trying to make clandestine hit and run attacks on our fleet in the Pacific. And the Chinese were hot under the collar. Well, it was in retaliation for the Silkworm attacks on our destroyers. The casualty totals kept rising on both sides. And according to reports, specials were being prepared just in case everything kicked off. Which meant one thing for us: that we were on a rapidly diminishing timescale to provision. That was going to mean round the clock provisioning for us as we wanted to make sure that we were fully stocked in terms of meat and other essentials that could not be grown.
Specials was a term that sent chills down our spines. That was code for tactical nuclear weapons. When fleets and armies started tossing those around that meant kick-off. And it also meant absolute destruction. The nuclear genie in the bottle after it was let out to play couldn’t be put back in. And one thing was for certain, Gnome would get hit whether with a single JL-2’s 1MT warhead or by several; it wasn’t going to matter. Gnome would be radioactive rubble and Sunset Valley along with it.
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I noted three civilians within our midst and Admiral Gracen briefed me on them. One, a male was going to be our gardener, the other was a scientist female and the last was an artist and a metaphysical fan although I had no idea as to why the last was selected other than the fact that she was the gardener’s spouse. “Well, let’s take stock of what we have...” I said and motioned the rest of the group that we should head into the bunker itself. We had a Faraday-caged elevator which meant that the EMP (electromagnetic pulse) flash that preceded every nuclear detonation wouldn’t fry the circuitry of our elevator and trap us all underneath. Everything was shielded including the outer walls so that there would be no chance of radiation or EMP leakage or anything that could potentially harm us. Even the top farming area was separated from the surrounding ground by the shielded concrete and brick wall which blended into the bunker walls. It was interesting growing plants and fishing in a pond in an area covered by roof but that was to be our existence for the foreseeable future.
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Meg came over to meet with us at the entrance and we all headed in as a group. The elevator was a single unit and it meant that there would be some waiting. Which meant that only essential staff would be allowed to go to the surface. That meant that the rest would spend the rest of their lives in the bunker itself; their only contact with the outside world through the TV for as long as we were able to have television stations to watch. The rest of the time we would be busy honing our survival skills and getting trained on other necessary tasks. Basic skills but skills that we’d been relying for too long on other people to do for us. We needed to learn to do them ourselves. Each one of us would be taking a rotation on gardening and cooking. We all needed to learn those basic skills as it would stand us in good stead when we emerged from the bunker – though whether that would be in our lifetime or not; it was hard to say.
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A lot of us were still at the stage where we were in denial. How could this happen? How could we have let it get to the stage where we had to prepare for nuclear annihilation? The reason why I had put Vice-Admiral Meg Austin in place as my XO was because I had determined that I would be the one going out to do the provisioning. I was nearly sixty-two – near retirement age and frankly, if this hadn’t happened, I’d be slated for separation from the military in six months time. As it stood, by congressional and presidential mandate, I had been extended in service...by the needs of the Navy for as long as this situation persisted. I just received a notification via e-mail that the Navy had deposited an amount of §1,200,000 into our account to provision. After that, we were uncertain as to what awaited us.
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The Chikamoris (the paranormal enthusiast and the gardener) had several dogs that they wanted to bring into the bunker. A dog meaning a Rottweiler, a wolf and a fox. God knows how they managed to find a fox and a wolf and domesticate them. I had thought that domesticating a wolf was damned near impossible, but evidently, the Chikamoris had managed to find a way to do so. From what they told me was that their dogs had a great nose for sniffing out gemstones. So well, they would sniff out gemstones until we were certain that we had what we needed to survive financially as well then they would take shelter with us and not go out again until the radiation levels came down. That meant even more that I had to keep an eye on what was happening in the world, since I didn’t want to lose those dogs to a nuclear blast and call them in when the worst threatened.
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I called the group together for a meeting and it was a rousing one. People were on edge with the impending apocalypse and tempers ran high. I could see Meg eyeing Mac with a jaundiced look and Mac wasn’t looking too friendly at her either. While I was speaking I noticed that Lia was listening intently and Commander Burrows...well, he was doing whatever his insanity would let him. I just tried to ignore him.
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My speech mainly consisted of how we all had to pull together to survive this and how we were going to not despair, to look to the future and that we would come out the other end stronger and more resilient and all that rah rah pump up the group stuff. We needed it. When facing the thought of nuclear annihilation, one needed all the “pumping up” in morale that we could get. Kimber was also listening intently at what I was saying. I went down the particulars, that all civilians were under military jurisdiction and that their conduct and specifically their actions would fall under military law. I could see Mrs. Chikamori’s eyes grow wider at that – I don’t think she was expecting that.
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Establishing myself as the head of the group was relatively easy as I read out my orders from the SECNAV mandating me as Commander of the Bunker. And I introduced Meg as my XO and Admiral Gracen as the presiding judge advocate and legal officer who would be meting out justice should anyone stray from the straight and narrow as far as conduct was concerned.
Life in the bunker was not going to be easy and I didn’t expect it to be.
