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The most dreadful of days had come. Powell’s scientists had finished his siberite bomb, and he wanted a live test. So instead of risking his own precious behind in case something goes wrong, I get to head up this particular black op. So I’m to find some location in the desert and blow up some scenery, all with the utmost in security. I built up my base near the desert on the plains to the south. An ideal location presented itself in the form of a good uncluttered location in between a siberite lode and an oil deposit(see photo). I knew that we would need a lot of energy, so I got most of my people to work right away on oil derricks and a siberite mine. Things were progressing well, until Powell radioed and said that we had incoming. Some Alliance bigwig named Gorky was headed our way. I wasn’t happy about facing anyone from Roth’s alliance, but orders are orders. I set up an ambush with some heavy vehicles and waited for the news. Before too long I got word that Gorky and his convoy were done for. We decided to go with oil for power, since we’d need so much siberite for the bomb research and production. Since it seemed that our location was known, I started building up our defense and weapons technology, in case things should go south anytime soon. After a while, my hunch proved to be correct, as we were attacked by some Arab vehicles. Our snipers managed to get some of the drivers, so we had some extra vehicles on hand. From the looks of things, it was going to get even more hostile, so I had the scientists start work on rocket tech as soon as I could. Soon after that, we found that a second siberite deposit in the area had become contaminated, and was strongly radioactive. It seemed odd that something as nominally stable as siberite would suddenly become radioactive. I thought that I smelled a rat, so I sent a sniper to keep watch on our primary mine. Sure enough, an Arab scientist soon tried to sneak up and do something to our mine, but we stopped him before he could manage. Meanwhile we worked some more on building up out defenses and fended off another Arab attack. When the rocket tech was finished, I had another lab built to specialize in siberite technologies. The Arabs attacked again, stronger this time. The period while we researched siberite fission and constructed the bomb was quiet, but this just proved to be an Arab attempt to lull us into a false sense of security. We had just finished the factory which was to build the bomb and its carrier when we were attacked again, and this one was the strongest of all. With all of the prerequisites out of the way, we started the grim work of building the bomb. I radioed as much to Powell, and he said that he would send us some reinforcements. I could practically hear him slavering over having such a weapon. They arrived just in time to turn around and help us to defeat yet another Arab attack. Finally, the vehicle was complete. You could tell by looking at the gathered and tight faces that no one was terribly happy to be there at that moment. I radioed Powell, telling him that the deed was done. His voice was strained from holding back his excitement when he told me to build some test buildings for a target(II) and to test the awful thing. The scientists wanted to get more info, so I let them build a radar(III) and monitoring vehicle while I went out with a convoy and some defense to prepare the impact site. We encountered some Arab resistance en route, as we had expected, but it was nothing that we couldn’t handle. We built the target buildings and then put a radar on the top of a nearby hill. Everything seemed ready. In final preparation, we built a storage building and siberite lab(IV) at the edge of the blast zone, to help with the monitoring. Once all the crew were out of the way and all seemed safe, I hesitated a moment, then gave the order to fire. For a long, long moment, there was no sound but for the rocket’s long climb, then there was nothing, just wind while the vanishingly small speck dwindled toward the target. The final second before the impact was filled with the scientists screaming for everyone to get down. Then it was there, with us. The concussion from the blast hit us before the sound, which was eerie. Luckily for us, this was a smallish bomb, and our location, though it felt the shock wave, wasn’t annihilated. Although we got the whole thing recorded, Stephenson, one of our top remaining scientists, wanted to go out to the blast site to personally collect samples and get a measure of radiation exposure. I was against it completely, but was finally pushed by Powell into another alternative, which was to send another, less valuable scientist out there to get the ‘samples’. While he was being probed and tested, I sent a report to Powell.  |
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Introduction Mission 1 Mission 2 Mission 3 Mission 4 Mission 5 Mission 6 Mission 7 Mission 8 Mission 9 Mission 10 Mission 11 Decision Mission 12 Mission 13 Mission 14 Mission 15 |
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