Chapter 598 - 586 Section 2

Colorado, Cheyenne Mountain.

"Sir, do you need to go outside for some air?"

"No, I’ll stay right here, not going anywhere."

John watched Sullivan with a wary eye, gripping the armrest of his chair with determination.

"Go check if the bunker door is sealed tight, we can’t let the shockwave in."

"...Alright, if you’re sure you want to do that."

"Go now!"

It was only after Sullivan left that John returned his gaze to the control panels filled with operators, focusing on the Space-based Early Warning System updating in real time at the center.

This was the Cheyenne Mountain base, a subterranean Great Wall carved out of granite, an impregnable doomsday fortress, the ultimate sanctuary at the pinnacle of the Cold War.

According to America’s schedule, the first rocket launch was set for December 13th at midnight. After the afternoon, John boarded Air Force One and burrowed into this fortress, accompanied by numerous political dignitaries and elites.

Despite numerous ways to confirm that no one intended to turn the ’mock exercises’ into reality and to ensure that only one rocket would be launched instead of hundreds or thousands at midnight, the entire upper echelon dared not be negligent.

They were, of course, also taking this opportunity for a drill. The Pacific Fleet even simulated the launch of hundreds of missiles, but the Presidential Palace readily agreed to the exercise mainly as a pretext to hide in Cheyenne Mountain.

A large group of congressmen were with him. If John hadn’t entered, it would have been fine, but once they confirmed that John, along with his confidants, had boarded Air Force One, their suspicions grew. They all came with the mindset, "Hiding for a few days is no loss, and if war really breaks out, it saves our lives." Not a few brought their families along.

The congressmen’s actions immediately set off wild speculations among the elite: If the congressmen were running off with their mistresses, wouldn’t we be fools not to run?

Those with some influence desperately leveraged connections to get into military bunkers, while those without fortified their basements and built their own shelters—after all, if there’s any place in the world plagued by severe paranoid delusions, it’s this land of liberty.

During the Cold War, it was popular in America to build shelters—farms, deserts, and forests were dotted with privately excavated doomsday fortresses, and even decades after the Cold War ended, the number of survival fanatics here remained the highest in the world.

As participants increased, even John, who held a "just in case" mentality, began to doubt whether a nuclear war was actually about to happen, causing even more anxiety for the congressmen who inquired about the situation from time to time.

Sullivan initially didn’t care about the world’s haphazard performance, but who would have thought that John would pull out the nuclear briefcase to boost his spirits through a drill, fiercely imagining commanding thousands of missiles and tens of thousands of aircraft in a massive counterattack, and he even nearly decided to enter the password.

The dozing Sullivan immediately woke up at that moment, terrified that John might mistakenly press the wrong key in his daze.

After all, the launch password was just six zeros, and to prevent errors, all other number keys were disabled; a blind press followed by the launch button, and civilization would truly take a massive step back!

Thankfully, after enduring the first wave for several hours, John became slightly more coherent, and Sullivan dared to leave him unattended for a while.

He didn’t leave the bunker to clear his mind but to actively contact his subordinates to inquire about the situation everywhere else.

When he returned to the bunker, only 30 minutes remained before the start of the second round of clearance, and John was beginning to slip back into his previous state.

"Quick, sit down. Has Russia made any moves?"

Sullivan hesitated, but still revealed the truth:

"We’ve discovered that the Il-80 took off from Moscow ten minutes ago, destination unknown."

"Damn it!"

John suddenly became agitated like a cat that had its tail stepped on, and shouted nonsensically:

"I knew it, I just knew they had a scheme, and perhaps others too. Are they starting the ’Raging Tides’ operation?

Mobilize the satellites immediately, all aircraft carriers must leave port, not one can remain in the harbor, now, right now!"

...

"Come on, raise your hands up... good."

Yu Man obediently straightened her arms, allowing Lin Ju to help her put on the protective suit, before she couldn’t help but complain:

"This protective suit is so ugly. Have you seen ’2001: A Space Odyssey’? The space suits in that film look just like this one."

"..."

Lin Ju finally put the hood on her and discovered that it indeed closely resembled the one in ’2001: A Space Odyssey’, with its all-silver body and large transparent visor, which was truly ugly...

"How could that be, you look very good in it."

"Really? But it’s one size fits all..."

"Safety first, it’s mainly about safety."

Lin Ju pointed to the silver outer layer and said:

"That Iskander missile from Russia was a serious big guy. We don’t have its explosion data either. It would be bad if we got hit by the radiation dust.

With a 700-kiloton yield, I think retreating 30 kilometers still isn’t quite safe. Let’s head to the ship’s cabin later."

Yu Man nodded in agreement. Her impression of Russians was slim, with Androff being the closest one she had encountered.

Who was it that first proposed the plan to nuke the Moon? It was him...

The two walked into the command cabin and then saw Academician She and Zhang Zheng, whose expressions were clearly not right.

"What happened?"

Academician She simply spread his hands:

"An electronic control unit of an exterior tracking antenna has broken. To disassemble and fix it, we need to return to the shipyard. We have now lost the capability to track the rocket’s trajectory."

Zhang Zheng: "After all, Yuanwang Seven wasn’t designed to military standards. The electromagnetic pulse destroyed a small part of the circuitry. We have only managed to repair half of it. From now on, our passive tracking capabilities will be very limited.

But don’t worry, the electronic intelligence ships of the fleet are still functioning normally, and they will share data with us before the explosion. I was just adjusting the data link."

Yuanwang Seven remained surrounded by warships, and the first wave of EMP had a significant impact on it, causing a communication interruption for as long as 25 minutes, with the subsequent signals also being very poor.

The warships, on the other hand, were extremely reliable. Shortly after losing contact, a Type 051H came over to inquire about the situation; they seemed to have regained communication in just 10 minutes without encountering any trouble.

They also gave an update on the status of allied forces. It was said that the ’Peter the Great’ had hardly been affected at all, possibly due to its still operational vacuum tube electronics system.

This time, Zhang Zheng did not allow anyone to leave the cabin and had closed all the compartment doors by 3:25, with the bow of the ship facing the direction of the land.

Academician She: "I hope they hit the target on time; otherwise, the entire Western Pacific will truly be contaminated, even the air."

Lin Ju: "You might as well hope that they have a larger yield."

"..."

While the people in the cabin were anxious about Russia’s reliability, an Il-80 ’Doomsday’ command plane had already flown over the Ust-Kut and entered Central Siberia.

Surrounded by four escorting Su-35 fighter jets, it was continually in satellite communication with the vast territory.

At 3:30, an order was transmitted from it to Vladivostok, thousands of kilometers away.

"If you don’t want to end up scooping the Pacific’s water with vodka bottles, please throw the warhead onto that damned reactor core!"