By the time the story reached the engineering decks the death toll had climbed from none to ten. When the tale reached an extremely homesick Floridian engineer in a certain central compartment, the story turned darker. He gazed in horror back and forth between the douche bag next to him laughing his ass off about some chick from Miami getting her skull caved in and the fuzz from the wall-mounted TV. The nuclear reactor watch crew always reveled in their macabre sense of humor, but this time the jokes hit a little too close to home.
Some would claim he was a wannabe terrorist. Others, a hero. The judge at his court martial would later call it the most dangerous and egregious breakdown of discipline he’d ever seen. What everyone failed to realize was he never made a principled decision either way. If you look at it from his limited point of view, what else was he supposed to do?
His family lived in Florida. If the Navy was willing to do all the terrible things the scuttlebutt claimed to their own, what would they do to the so-called enemy? When his chief turned his back, he stood up and shuffled to the center of the control wall. With a shaking hand, he hit a series of giant red “Oh Shit!” buttons. The sweating engineer made neither speeches nor excuses when alarms blared and the rest of the watch came running. After what he just did, words were superfluous. Simply sitting down and staring at the wall stunned his mates enough.
Modern nuclear reactors are equipped with multiple emergency shutdown controls intended to halt a melting reactor core in seconds. Now, to avoid lasting damage, they are employed one at a time and in only the direst situations. The hasty mutineer simply activated them all at once. These controls were last-ditch tools to prevent another Chernobyl, manual overrides in case the automatic processes failed. As such, there was no way to abort them.
The nuclear chain reaction stopped instantly after little explosive bolts dropped several neutron-absorbing control rods into both cores. Not finished yet, the system then dumped a load of boric acid, so called “nuclear poison,” into the coolant system. Flooding the containment unit with seawater as a final touch was really over the top. It would take weeks, at least, and millions of dollars before either reactor could be cleaned, repaired, inspected and safely started up again.
The Gerald R Ford was the most modern aircraft carrier in the world. Her designers chose an ultra-reliable, but energy intensive, all electric catapult launching system. Without the endless supply of power from the ship’s twin reactors though, her 90 next-generation combat aircraft weren’t going anywhere. Until that power plant could be reactivated, this technological marvel was $9 billion and 100,000 tons of scrap metal.
The ship’s captain got the mutiny he feared.
Lake City Municipal Airport
North Central Florida
US General McDowell couldn’t sit still any longer. Everywhere he looked government troops secured one sensational success after another. All federal forces except for his command, that was.
“God Damnit!” From his perspective, he deftly and methodically advanced his unwieldy horde into Florida. His troops crushed any minor resistance encountered with decisive and overwhelming force. At the same time, they took every precaution to avoid unnecessary losses, especially to civilians. No matter how much that slowed them down. This perfect operation should have been the highlight of the general’s career and not the most embarrassing moment.
McDowell buried his face in a map, doing his best to ignore the politicians cluttering his headquarters and trying to catch his eye. To the bigwigs around him, he plodded slowly and ineptly down the center of the state against little resistance, with no politically vital, spectacular successes to show for it. In the age of TV war, that was tantamount to defeat. His unit’s greatest accomplishment so far was capturing Lake City, some evacuated little town in the middle of nowhere, and only 60 miles from the border.
Conversely, another federal task force took Jacksonville by H-hour plus two.
“Sir, check it out!” McDowell faked a smile for his excited staff while watching the disgusting television feed streamed over the internet. The news hailed that other federal commander as a hero for so swiftly relieving the surrounded naval base and liberating a city of a million people. All without a shot fired by either side. The rival general’s live interview, explaining the intricacies of his tactical brilliance, was interrupted by an even greater disaster to the west.
Tallahassee had fallen.
Which was the worst possible news of all. McDowell always hated that impudent ass from VMI who commanded the Panhandle Task Force. Sure enough, McDowell watched from his aid’s tablet as his career-long archrival reached new heights of grandstanding. Ever the showman, he must have planned this well before the invasion kicked off.
The other task force general posed on an M1 tank turret, in his spotlessly clean full battle rattle, and surveyed the “brutal battlefield” around him. He wore every ribbon, badge and medal from his Class A dress uniform attached to the body armor. A light machine gun rested casually under his broad shoulder, the belt removed from the ammo box and looped impractically over the weapon. His unit’s standard, carefully shredded by some staffer to appear “battle worn,” waved defiantly from his left hand. The stub of an unlit cigar in the corner of his mouth completed the ensemble.
McDowell’s command team snickered at the ridiculous, borderline disrespectful fool. Most of the millions of civilians watching missed out on the humor. The general was clearly some awesome fusion of Chuck Norris and John Wayne. Raw, pure Americana baddassery personified. The camera shook with the operator’s excitement. These were career building, history book type shots right here.
McDowell crossed his arms and ground his teeth. “Jesus Christ. The show’s just getting started.”
Behind the federal general, someone had removed the Great Seal of Florida that flew over the dome of the Capitol building. In its place, they raised a colossal 25’ x 40’ American flag, confiscated from some used car lot, on a brand new pole. The crane doing the heavy lifting would later be Photo-Shopped out, but the four soldiers struggling, Iwo Jima-style, to guide the flag into place would stay in.
Just as the cameramen and producers orgasmed, four F-15’s flashed by in a perfectly synchronized, high-speed flyover. Better than the Super Bowl. Some singers were already recording country songs about this. The already cheering crowd roared louder and spontaneously sang the Star Spangled Banner. With mostly the right words even. A million flags waved hysterically; red, white and blue fireworks burst over the capitol grounds. Tears and hugs were passed all around.
General McDowell struggled to keep his breakfast down. Even his junior soldiers muttered in discomfort. The senior senators and congressmen in the tent with him shook their heads in disgust at the general they foolishly decided to ride along with. McDowell’s second in command hung up a satellite phone, frowning.
“Was that the White House again?” The general didn’t make eye contact with anyone.
“Yes, sir. They want to know what the holdup is. I told them you were inspecting the front and it would take a moment to transfer the call. I suggest we—” One congressman in the corner couldn’t stand it any longer.