“Thanks guys,” Richard said when he and Josephine reached the top of the hill.
“You nearly got yourselves killed,” Sean said as he ran over to see if they were injured or not.
“I know, we found some rockets, but on our way back the Augs caught us and we had to ditch them. Unfortunately, the Augs shot the three people that came with us,” Richard said, clearly upset by the loss of life and failure to get the rockets back safely.
“What are we going to do now?” Sean asked.
“We’ll just have to wait and see if Jake and his men had better luck,” Richard replied.
“They just got back,” Sean remarked.
“Where is Jake?” Richard asked.
“He’s over by the mobile rocket launchers… looking for tools or something to get the crates open that he brought back,” Sean replied.
“Oh, that sounds promising,” Richard remarked, as he and Josephine made their way over to the launchers.
“Hey Jake, what did you find?” Richard asked.
“I don’t know. It’s locked down tighter than a witch’s spell book, and we about broke our backs getting them here,” Jake replied.
Richard walked over and hit the lock with the butt of his pulse rifle a couple of times to no avail.
“I already tried that, it won’t budge,” Jake remarked.
“Did you try this?” Richard commented as he slammed the butt of his rifle against the hinges on the back of the crate, knocking the pins out of them.
“No,” Jake said as he watched him pull the lid off.
“Holy mother… I think it’s a warhead!” Jake said as he slowly backed away from the crate.
“Oh my god, it’s a short-range tactical nuclear weapon,” Richard said as he looked down at the long slender rocket surrounded by a thick metal protective casing.
“Are you sure?” Jake asked.
“Yeah, I saw a larger version of this weapon on display at the Openheimer Museum in Los Alamos. It’s a self-propelled rocket that can be fired from a mobile launcher. It was developed so the front line troops could deliver a high yield explosion, without generating very much fallout,” Richard recalled.
“I thought the Augs destroyed all nuclear weapons when they took control. Remember how they claimed there was no need for them after they established their new world order?” Jake commented.
“I do remember that… I guess they kept a few around, just in case,” Richard remarked.
“So, how do we arm it?” Jake asked as he looked over at Richard.
“I have no idea, that’s not the kind of information the museum gave out to tourists,” Richard replied.
“So it’s useless to us?” Jake scowled.
“No, we just have to ask around until we find someone who knows about them,” Richard suggested.
“Does anyone know how to arm a nuclear warhead?” Jake asked as he cupped his hand around his mouth and walked through the camp. Laughter immediately rang out from the rebels as everyone thought he was making a joke.
“He’s not kidding!” Richard added. “Does anyone have knowledge of nuclear weapons?” Silence immediately fell across the camp, and after a few moments, a young man stepped forward.
“My father worked at Rocky Flats back in the early nineties. I think he is familiar with them.”
“Is he here?” Richard asked.
“No, he’s back at the settlement,” Stanton replied.
“I want you to use my radio and try to reach him. Let me know the second you do, it’s very important.” Stanton nodded and then radioed the settlement.
“No one is answering,” he replied.
“Keep trying until you get someone!” Richard demanded. Out of the corner of his eye he saw Josephine pointing down towards the city. Richard looked over and saw that the Augs were preparing to mount another attack. “Everyone listen up. We thought the Augs were going to stay down in the city to defend it, but it appears that they have figured out we have intercepted their nuclear warheads. So grab your rifles and dig in! They are going to try to prevent us from using it,” Richard said in an anxious tone
“Richard, I’m sorry to bother you, but there were other crates on the truck,” Jake interrupted.
“What! How many?” he asked.
“Two more. I’m sorry, we could only carry two due to the weight, but I did disabled the trucks, so it’s going to take them some time to go back and retrieve them,” Jake said optimistically.
“Take however many men you think you’ll need, and destroy the rocket launcher they have across from Rainbow Dam!” Richard ordered.
“Alright,” Jake replied as he scrambled off. A few minutes later Richard saw Jake leaving the camp and heading down in the direction of the dam, but a detachment of Augs intercepted them. Just as Richard was about to send more soldiers to help Jake get across, a large column of Augs came across the river on the 15th Street Bridge.
“Stanton where are you?” Richard called out as the rebels took up a defensive position along the ridgeline. A split second later, four rockets exploded behind them, narrowly missing their rocket launchers. Richard knew the Augs didn’t have any more rockets left on the hill, but if they got to the remaining warheads, it was going to be a short battle.
“Fall back and protect our rocket launchers!” Richard ordered as the Aug soldiers advanced.
A moment later Stanton came stumbling over, so badly injured he was unable to speak. Richard looked down at his bloodied hand and saw the Satcom radio was damaged beyond repair. Stanton mumbled something apologetically, and then fell to the ground as blood gushed from the side of his neck. Richard tried to stop the bleeding, but the wound was too severe. Stanton motioned for Richard to lower his head, and in a garbled voice he said, “The activation code for the warhead is… one, five, seven…” His voice gave out mid sentence, and his eyes closed. Richard shook him violently in an effort to revive him long enough to get the code. Stanton’s eyes fluttered open, and with his last breath he said, “one, five, seven, two, nine, …nin… ni… n…” Richard felt sick to his stomach as he ran back to the crate to retrieve it. Then with his bloodied hands he loaded the warhead into the first launch tube, connected the interface cable to the rocket. Then he climbed up into the cabin of the launcher and turned the weapons system on. The moment the display came up, he targeted the production facility and entered the activation code into the keypad, but nothing happened. He tried it again, but still, nothing.
“Damn it!” Richard shouted as he saw the Augs cresting the hill through the window of the mobile launcher’s cabin. The Rebels were frantically trying to stop them, but there were just too many Augs. Pulse rifle fire started impacting the ground all around the launcher while Richard frantically tried variations of the code Stanton had given him. A stray rifle blasts hit the side of the rocket launcher and the control panel suddenly went blank. Richard hit the panel with his fist, and it lit back up for a moment before going dark. “Work, you piece of junk!” Richard yelled as the Augs drew nearer with each passing breath. Just as he was about to jump out of the cab and run over to the other launcher, the panel came back on. Richard tried entering the code again with one less nine at the end of the number string and the display flashed, ‘warhead armed’. As Richard reached for the ‘fire’ button on the display panel, an Aug grabbed him by the leg and pulled him out of the cabin. Richard fired his pulse rifle at the creature killing it, but the blast had hit him too. As he looked down, he saw the flesh on his left leg smoldering. A wave of pain shot up his spine and he blacked out for a moment. When he came too, he yelled out at the top of his lungs, “Josephine help me! Please, someone help me!” His cries went unnoticed, except for an Aug who was running towards him with a pulse rifle aimed at his head.