Games of the Powerful

  Chapter 3

  President Jackson walked down one of the hallways leading to the presidential suites followed closely by two Secret Service agents. A few years after the Third World War, the new White House in the Rocky Mountain National Park Colorado was finally completed. The United States came out on top of that war if you call losing millions of people mostly civilians winning it. Unfortunately, many civilians died in wars, the winner is the country with the least deaths decides the winner of wars, and the loser can no longer stop more deaths from occurring. The militaries of the world learned that from World War II when the United States started reaching deep into Axis countries firebombing civilian targets like Dresden Germany.

  The buildup to the war essentially started right after the Second World War with the cold war lasting decades, plane hijackings during the 1960s, followed by embassy takeovers, terrorism on the rampage all over the world lasting well into the twenty-first century. The early part of the twenty-first century was the catalyst to the war with passivism, apathy, a desensitized public and governments to include the United States that did not act to prevent the violence and Third World countries from acquiring nuclear weapons capabilities. Posturing, politics as usual, one-sided treaties benefiting terrorist nations, meaningless embargos, small arms trafficking to terrorists subsidized by government agencies, vast sums of money and oil changing hands fueled the eventual nuclear fire that would kill millions.

  Walking down the hall thinking about these past events the president knew lessons from the past always seemed applicable to solving the events of the future. Thinking about the first strike, he remembered how it happened and why. After consecutive eight-year terms of pacifist presidents of the United States, social spending was up, and defense spending brutally cut to pay for the economic down turn. The economy was in shambles in the U.S. and all over the world. As the economies of the world, worsened, terrorist ranks grew in large numbers all over the world including the United States. Missile defense systems were nonexistent owing to massive spending cuts in the military and defense systems research. The first strike on December 7, 2028, was another date that would live in infamy.

  President Elisabeth (Beth) Ann Lee had been in office for less than a year. On taking office, she quickly instituted with the combined help of both houses of Congress measures to help the economy, increase jobs and improve military readiness capabilities. Remembering how he studied her magnificent inaugural speech, Walker was as captivated as the Americans were that heard it for the first time. The thing he remembered the most is it sent a resolute message to the world, she did not back away or diminish the role that leadership and responsibility played in the world arena. She categorically informed the world that the United States of America would no longer sit on the sidelines drunk in passivism and apathy and take a leading role in curbing the violence perpetuated by unchecked terrorist acts.

  The attack wiped out Los Angeles, San Francisco, and Seattle on the West Coast and a simultaneous attack destroyed Tel-Aviv and Dubai. Quick to respond, the U.S. retaliated with large-scale nuclear attacks against the two nations who precipitated the attacks. Two missiles one launched from Russia and one from China wiped out New York City and Washington DC. The U.S. gave back as much as it had received and Moscow and Beijing were gone. A lull followed, the world hand been shaken to its knees in shock or was taking a deep breath for another round of missile launches. Thankfully, the world leaders realized the futility of further missile strikes.

  Fortunately, the president had been on vacation at the new location of Camp David in the Rocky Mountain National Park when the attack had happened. The political elite that would have been normally in Washington DC were on an unplanned recess because of the unusual heavy snowfall along the East Coast. In previous years, Camp David in Catoctin Mountain Park in Maryland was where the president enjoyed some vacation time became a museum in favor of a new ski resort location. The location in the Rockies was under construction but it did have a command center nestled deep into a mountain where the president was right after the first attack. The Vise-President swiftly arrived at the Rockies location from his home in Montana after the attack.

  An unofficial cease-fire began when communications from the president of the United States quickly spanned the world warning that the U.S. would not stand any further attacks on U.S. soil. It turned out to be the quickest world war in history but the death toll surpassed any previous wars. The result of this war meant that the world had changed. World leaders agreed that petty mistrust between them was counterproductive, terrorism must be stopped at its roots, and new scientific discoveries would need to be made in radiation clean-up, medical treatment for radiation poisoning, space travel, missile defense systems and scientific research. Millions of job opportunities were created ushering in a golden age of invention, with entrepreneurs starting new businesses employing millions around the world.

  Although eventual outcome was a more stable world, the road to success was paved with both failures and successes. Calls for the President Lee to resign or be impeached by the apathetic pacifist news media and elected officials in the government crisscrossed the United States and around the world. They blamed her for this disaster for not keeping with the failed policies of enabling terrorism that previous presidents had instituted. She remained stalwart in her resolve to bring the world out of the ashes of nuclear war and help make it the wonderful place it could be. The American people shouted down her detractors and the rest of the world joined in when they saw that her ideas and policies were bringing about a new golden age.

  Terrorist acts continued on a smaller scale and to combat this terrorist nations supporting terrorism were quickly disarmed to the extent they could be with concerted attacks on nuclear facilities and training camps. Taking a leading role the United States created specialized military response teams called Quick Action Task Forces. These forces deployed around the world captured or killed terrorists and destroyed their bases of operations. Other nations quickly followed creating QATF groups under the overall command of CENTCOM based in Tampa, Florida.

  Scientific and medical advancement was unprecedented in the history of the world. The world had come together to solve a problem and showed that with the combined use of financial and natural resources the world could be changed for the better. These advances brought the world to the future that President Jackson found himself in. Wormhole generators had to be the single most important advancement that came from all the decades of research making space travel much more efficient and timely. He had asked the Russians, the Chinese, and other world leaders to be on alert ready to deploy some of their assets if needed and they would use those wormhole generators to respond quickly to any threats. The rewarding thing is they are willing to help with whatever assets they have available. In the early, twenty-first century that would not have been the case.

  Walker walked toward the huge double doors leading to the presidential suites with their clean white paint, golden accents and gold handles. On either side of the doors, two United States Marines stood guard, one quickly opening the doors for him when he saw him coming stepping back to attention saluting smartly as the president passed. Saluting in return the president entered the presidential suites quickly followed by the two Secret Service agents into the room closing the doors. Directly across the room are identical doors where the president, his wife and children live in safety and comfort in the president's private quarters. The two Secret Agents quickly took up posts next to the doors.

  The room is a large anteroom decorated with a man’s tastes in mind. To the left positioned cattycorner in the room sat a large mahogany desk with a high back chair behind it. On the left side, facing the desk Old Glory is hanging on a solid brass pole reminding Walker every time he enters the room why he is president of the United States. The far right corner is graced with a fireplace with a large dark wood mantle and a fire pleasantly warming the room. On the mantel are many sports trophies and memorabilia of his c
ollegiate days. Above the mantle is a fully working antique commemorative M-16 M4 given to him by the commandant of the United States Marine Corps upon his retirement from the navy. The shiny wood floors beautifully reflect the light from the fire dancing and flickering across the floor giving the room a warm homelike feel. Next to the fireplace, a large window allowed a glorious view of the neighboring snowcapped mountains, and the picturesque valley right outside the window. The walls around the room held beautiful landscape paintings and wooden bookshelves crammed with antique books he had collected over the years that he liked very much.

  Quickly moving behind his desk Walker sat in his chair with a loud sigh wanting to think in solitude before he went to his private rooms for the evening. The past few days were a whirlwind. After his conversation with Scott in the Oval Office, he spoke at great length with both the Senate and the House of Representatives majority leaders and the Secretary of State. The political dynamics of the United States has not changed in a hundred plus years with plenty of the apathetic pacifists of one party still walking the halls of government. His party had changed the most in comparing the parties since President Lee had won the election. No more were they party of weakness and willing to compromise its principals simply to get along with the news media and the other party; they gained a backbone. Sure, they had lost some elections since President Lee but the party stayed strong and kept to its principals making it much more cohesive.

  Senate Majority Leader Donna Weinstein pushed for communication with the aliens and negations for a peace treaty that meant giving up all the colonies to them if they would leave the Earth’s solar system alone. At times, her positions of weakness would contradict with his, he still tried to respect the opinions of the Senate Majority Leader. House Majority Leader Michelle Moretti is the polar opposite of her position on the matter where the Senate majority leader always started from a position of weakness Michelle is the complete opposite. Michelle known as a fireball in the house earned a reputation that brooked no descent from her party in matters of state. He had an enormous amount of respect for her not to mention that he liked her personally. For first time in history, both houses of Congress had women majority leaders at the same time.

  The briefing went well up to the point of the political maneuvering and posturing. Showing them the full content of the images resulting to more questions than answers and all he could do was to tell them he is going to take all the precautions that he knew to take. After they left the Oval Office, he communicated with the leaders of Great Britain, France, Germany, Russia, China, among others to get their response after viewing the encrypted images. Later the same day he would release the same images to the public with the image of the F/A-212 disappearing not included. After speaking at length with the world leaders, they agreed that the image of the 212 was possibly their ace in the hole so to speak and did not want to take a chance that the enemy would be able to see the image. After the redacted images were released to the public, he spoke to the world and all the colonies clearly showing he is a renowned world leader that spoke with confidence and trust. He asked for their support, to work together to find solutions to this crisis and to have faith that they would resolve this crisis.

  He studied the stilled image of the enemy’s vessel showing on the multiuse communication vid-screen on his desk still not believing what he is looking at, even with the evidence right in front of him. The holographic image showed in detail what the vessel and it occupants looked like. The vessel looked like a galleon from earths past a sailing ship with three masts, a foremast, mainmast, and mizzenmast. The main sails and the lateen sails were blowing as if in a stout wind above the customary lower forecastle and the square gallery above the captain’s cabin. Along the main deck rails mounted swing ballista are spaced every few feet with two heavier ones mounted on the main deck. He could only hazard a guess at what actually powers it, possibly the sails are receptors of some kind using the sun’s rays as energy. It appears they can live, breathe and fight in space, but how are they able to do that? Could it really be magic of some kind or a mixture of magic and science? The more he thought along these lines the more questions he had.

  Humanoid looking beings swarmed the deck, shrouds and one in the crow’s nest at the top of the mainmast with many wearing armor and carrying swords. Others were dressed in leather and carrying crossbows all of which had tasks or were waiting for battle. He looked at the two tall figures wearing black robes with the hoods pulled up hiding their features standing on the deck at the forecastle railing. One had both hands extended with swaths of immense darkness emanating from them blotting the stars while the other stood next to the first appearing to do nothing. Agonizing over the image, he knew how destructive these blasts of darkness were but not how to stop them. After he looked at the image for the hundredth time, he still did not know who or what the enemy was.