“Mr. President, I wanted to tell you that Ivanov plans to join the Russian ship, and I feel they are probably going to cause problems when we get into space. Do you have any advice for me to handle him if he, in fact, does join his spaceship?”
The president nodded his head. “I had heard rumors to that effect since a lot of the responsibility has been delegated to his cabinet and backups. I do not know if he really will be on board, but if he does go with the Russian spaceship, you can be sure he is going to cause conflicts and try to play people against each other. I do not think Ivanov even really cares about Russia or leaving it behind. He hides behind that façade that everything he does is for Russia. He is like Donald Trump and his predecessor, Putin. They both love money more than people. I can’t stop him from going on their ship. If I were you, I would talk to him and whoever is in charge of the Russian craft in powerful language and not try to negotiate with them about important matters. Knowing Ivanov, he would not mind being on the only spacecraft to reach a new planet and calling himself “Ruler of the Galaxy.”
“That is very reassuring,” Tom said.
The president smiled at Tom. He had a winning smile, one that made you feel like he wasn’t preoccupied even when he most certainly had to be, given the number of problems he was facing and having to leave his family in the midst of the world’s biggest disasters.
“Excuse me, Tom, now I know that you and your colleagues did all the work on this spaceship yourselves without any assistance from our government. And perhaps you do not respect what the government has done regarding the environment, but I really need your assistance now, and I have a big favor to ask. I need to borrow one of your shuttles to get to the Nevada facility to shut down twenty nuclear silos that are active about an hour outside of Las Vegas. The heat from the California earthquake and fires are very near Nevada. Las Vegas is a ghost town. The temperature, about an hour from Las Vegas where the nuclear warheads are located, is now 145 degrees, higher than anything they have experienced. Right now, there are only five soldiers there due to the dangerous situation. The others have been sent away in case of an atomic explosion. I need to count on you.”
Tom didn’t have much time to think, but he couldn’t say no. “You got it. I’ll lend you one shuttle. The cost of the shuttle is nothing compared to the lives that can be saved by preventing an atomic explosion that may also affect our ability to take off into space. The shuttle is capable of landing close to where you want to go and withstanding tremendous heat. We will get you ready right now to fly to Nevada, shut down the atomic bombs and get those men out of there. I am sure we can squeeze seven people into the shuttle. It is less than a twenty-minute trip at the speed the shuttle can travel. My officers and I can monitor you in case of an emergency. Please contact Nevada if you can and tell them you are on the way. If they plan to pack anything to bring with them, ask them to get it ready now.”
“Thank you, Tom. I need a co-pilot. I can’t fly on Air Force One, as the ground is too hot to land the plane, and I don’t know the effect of all the smoke on the plane. I can fly the shuttle at a speed that would take less than one hour to get there.
“It cannot be done by remote control. To shut them down, they need a fingerprint ID to enter the passcode. Ordinarily, General Wallace would do that, but before the earthquake, he went to visit his family in Los Angeles and has not been heard from since. I have no idea what happened to him. The general is a good man, and he served his country well. The only other fingerprint available right now that the device will accept is mine. Mine can be used anywhere, but it has to be done in person.
“Once we have shut down the missiles on site, I plan to bring the five soldiers back here. They will stay with me or help out until you launch.”
Tom immediately called Marvin to get ready and assist the president into a spacesuit for the shuttle. In fifteen minutes, he was strapped in and ready to go.
“Good luck, Mr. President. See you in a few hours.”
The door closed, and the shuttle took off five minutes later.
Chapter 42 – Danger Zone
President Stevens, shuttle trip to Nevada
President Stevens sat down next to Marvin and told him to let him know when they got close to the coordinates that were given to him. Stevens, as a former pilot himself, was very curious about flying the shuttle and paid attention to whatever the pilot did. They had brought extra spacesuits for the others to put on that could withstand the high temperatures.
Twenty minutes later, the pilot notified him that they were close to the landing spot.
As they traveled to Nevada, the president was thinking how all of this did not have to happen. If only man had taken better care of the environment, we would not be in the situation we are facing today. Politicians, wars, and religion doomed the planet. Religion and politics have caused almost all the deaths caused by war. The world would have been better off if it was one big country where everyone cooperated together to continuously improve the quality of life without sacrificing the future. He particularly hated the heated partisan battles in Congress that helped to divide the country more and more. These partisan battles had split the country in two when it came to the environment.
Now it was too late. Millions of people around the world were now going to die because of these battles. If natural disasters ceased, it was hard to imagine what could be salvaged from the destruction. The effects of natural disasters were going to last for years.
The president told Marvin to land near the area that led to the missile silos. He thought of the twenty-something missileer who’d been stationed at the Montana Air Force Base before some of the newer prototype classified twenty-four-hour alert nuclear ICBMs had needed her attention in Nevada, given her training and high-adaptability skill level. She’d signed on at the missile alert facility, knowing full well that if ordered by the president, she was to launch any or all of the nuclear weapons now in her custody. She probably had never thought that she’d signed on to handle the way current events had unfolded and were developing. President Stevens doubted she’d ever thought she’d meet a president while she served.
What was the missileer’s name, again? That’s right, Air Force Lt. Col. Thea Derse. She’d been a steward for the nuclear enterprise for nineteen years and had pulled close to two hundred alerts as a missileer. Now, they weren’t fighting an enemy without, they were fighting an enemy within, and it was multi-headed, spanning multi-generations—their adversary now fire and earthquakes. Several reports downplayed the hazards from potential fires and earthquakes to the highly-secure national security site that contained a nuclear device assembly facility, several stockpile safety stewardship reliability programs among other threat detection efforts, and one of the nation’s launch control centers. Yet, preparations for this magnitude of natural disaster had been minimal. They had relied significantly on an overall vulnerability assessment that took in a very different kind of worst-case scenario that was a lot milder.
“Remain with the craft and wait for us,” the president said on approach to landing. “If there is any grave danger, you are to leave and return to the spaceship.”
“Don’t worry, sir. I am sure it will be fine, and you will all be going back with me in a short period. I am not leaving the President of the United States in Nevada.”
Then the president disembarked from the spacecraft and closed the door. He ran inside the designated building.
Once the president got inside, Major Joseph Johns introduced him to the other soldiers, including Air Force Lt. Col. Thea Derse. The two of them immediately went to the control room so that the president could use his fingerprint to enter the password and work on shutting down the nuclear weapons. The print allowed them to access the control panel where the atomic weapons were stored.