Total War

Chapter Twelve

"Zero deviant flux on my signal. Ten, nine, eight-"

Mikhail Vorovoi watched the entire firing complex from the steel-railed mezzanine with a sense of satisfaction that was evident in his smile. As the technician droned off the countdown for activation of the laser charge through the particle chamber, Vorovoi could already see in his mind's eye, the Army drone aircraft being set free on auto pilot miles away toward the upper atmosphere, the warheadless missiles being launched from the Ukraine uncounted miles away.

"How do you feel, Mikhail?" a voice said. He turned, saw the hand on his shoulder, looked into the icy blue eyes of the blonde-haired woman beside him, the white lab coat poorly concealing what he had found with her almost every night since they had first met when she'd just come to work on the project. "Your first test on multiple targets, and both missiles and planes. You should be proud, Mikhail Andreyevich, dushenko."

"Elizabeta," he whispered, "you know what this means. If my particle beam weapon passes this test, soon it will be operational, and then nuclear war will have become obsolete. Its threat will not hang over us anymore like a plague waiting to break. In just a few years, it will be these weapons that both our country and the Americans will rely upon! No more radiation, no mass murder"'

"You still see this as a road to peace, Mikhail, I know that," Elizabeta whispered.

"Odyin!" The technician shouted the final number. Then "Switch on, charging, one-quarter, one-half, three-quarter, full power. Boost on number three"'

"Myir," he found himself saying, "Peace. It is at hand, Elizabeta," he murmured, holding her small hands in his. "I must go down on the floor and fire the beam personally-I must."

Their eyes met, and she smiled. He leaned toward her and quickly kissed her cheek, then ran toward the steel ladder that led to the firing arena. He took the ladder rungs two at a time, jumping the last three to the stone floor, then raced toward the center console.

"Here-go, move aside," Vorovoi said to the technician. "I will take charge personally." His dark eyes focused on the instrument panel, the gauges, the indicators, the computer readout diodes.

"Boosting ionization twelve points," he shouted, twirling one of the nearer dials. Punching the button for visual via the polar orbit satellite link he anxiously searched the screen, spotting first the low-altitude dot that he knew was the first aircraft, then the second aircraft. Soon-he watched the screen intently-he would see the missiles.

"Capacitance function readout"' he called out.

From behind him, a voice called back, "Ten to the fifteenth capacitance, to the sixteenth, seventeenth-" there was a long pause-"ten to the eighteenth-"

"Hold at that," Vorovoi interrupted.

"Ten to the eighteenth and holding capacitance, zero flux," the voice called back.

His eyes scanning the monitor, Vorovoi saw what his instruments already confirmed-the two unarmed missiles were streaking through the sky toward the drone aircraft. "Designating targets-now! Grid 83, target alpha. Grid 19, target beta. Grid 48-correction, 49-target gamma. Grid 27, target theta-lock!"

He leaned back, waiting, wanting desperately for manual firing mode, but knowing that the true test of his particle beam weapon system and its potential for light-speed pinpoint accuracy lay in the computer firing mechanism as well as the weapon itself.

"Automatic target acquisition and destruction on my mark-six, five, four, three, ready, one. Mark!"

He closed his eyes, his hands fanned in front of them a moment. Then, ignoring the dials and gauges and digital computer readouts on the console, he fixed his eyes on the monitor. Target alpha, the nearest of the low-flying bomber aircraft, exploded in a burst of light and vaporized. Almost in the blink of an eye, target beta, the second drone aircraft, vaporized. Vorovoi started to search out the first missile, third target in the firing sequence, but before he could locate it, there was a bright flash. Quickly, he spotted target theta, the last of the four. The angle was right, and he could see the knife edge of the particle beam-it looked like something from an American space movie, he thought. He had seen several American films in Stockholm years earlier when he was there for a scientific conference.

"Deathray," he murmured. The second missile vaporized in a bright flash, the camera whiting out a moment from the light.

There was total silence in the firing control center, except for the incessant whirling and buzzing of the computers and the climate control system which latter was needed for the proper working of the machines. Vorovoi stood up, looked toward the mezzanine, and saw Elizabeta beaming at him. Her smile was something Mikhail could never forget. Locking his fists together over his head, he jumped into the air, screaming, laughing. And, suddenly, the technicians, the military guards-everyone around him-were applauding, shouting, laughing.

"We have entered the new age!" he cried. "Peace"'