The Flash of Brilliance - 2. Chapter 2: The Rules of Engagement

(Richard Gillespie)

I’m dating a James Bond villain. With everything going on, my mind just focused on this superfluous concept. It’s absurd to be picturing Ken Savage stroking a white cat, laughing maniacally. It must be the surreal facts about what he has just done.

Ken, up until this point, was always a humble and unpretentious guy. He wasn’t showy like a lot of the tech billionaires with new high-concept inventions. From new electric car batteries, photoelectric cells, and communication equipment, Ken’s Paradigm Enterprises may not be the first or flashiest company in these industries, but they proved invaluable for everyone, like intel processors used to be at the turn of the 21^st century. He focused on being the driver of innovation rather than creating the innovative technology outright, which runs counter to the sophisticated satellite weapon system or whatever type of WMD he has used.

I caught my break in journalism by getting an interview with this reclusive billionaire. Before Ken, I was just a small-time blogger, who barely squeezed by on rent and food with paltry earnings writing in-depth articles for tech gadget sites. I am nothing to look at either, being average to slightly chubby from years of gaming and fast food, my hair was wild and my face was dotted with acme. All I had was my interest in tech and my banal writing on the newest tech toys that I review, but couldn’t afford to buy outright.

As a tech enthusiast, Ken Savage had been sort of an idol for me, despite being 15 years older than me at 41 years old, I had followed his life story ever since I heard about this interesting gay tech billionaire. I knew he was gay, based on his previous marriage to Daniel Krauss, a civil electrical engineer, who died in Afghanistan about 5 years ago. They had adopted a son, named Ahmad Krauss-Savage, from a Chechen refugee agency. However, last year, Ahmad had gone missing after a trip to Chechnya to ostensibly reconnect with his birth mother. Around that time, Ken stopped showing up at corporate events or making public appearances. He became reclusive.

I camped outside the gates of his 3,500-acre mansion for a week, making sure to be in front of security cameras. I hand-made a few rainbow posters with extra glitter to ask him for an interview and make sure he knows that I was part of the LGBT community. At first, he ignored me, but when a rainstorm caused my tent to partially cave in on itself, causing me to sleep exposed to the wind and rain for the night, he offered me breakfast and an interview the next morning. That’s how we became friends and eventually at least I thought, we were becoming lovers. Men like that had their choice of rent boys and twinks around my age, but Ken liked me for conversations and honesty more than appearance.

I am trying to wrap my head around the idea that my lover, my friend, and my hero is a genocidal mass murderers. Why did he want me to be here?

As we entered the White House escorted by men in black suits and military personnel carrying M16 assault rifles, I started feeling nervous. A bullet could end all of this in a single strike for Ken, but he appeared at ease and completely relaxed. He had asked to have all the reporters that had surrounded us in front of the White House be allowed entry into the grounds with us and their video crews, which I knew from just a brief experience at a DoD press conference was a breach of protocol. Thus, our entourage was directed to wait in front of the White House, instead of being escorted inside. The men in suits, who presumably were Secret Service, began conducting identification and quick biometric background checks.

I glance at Ken, who stares at his smartphone with a frown, then announces to the assembled mass, “One minute ago, the Russian Federation launched 273 ballistic missiles from land bases. Each missile carries 12 nuclear or biological weapon warheads directed at various targets in the United States and Western Europe. About thirty-five seconds ago, all 273 ballistic missiles were destroyed by my satellites,” he pauses for emphasis as a wave of silent awe swept the crowd, even the conservative reporters appeared dumb-struck by the fact, but Ken is not done, “The era of these weapons is over. As to the leaders who would use them and hide behind the idea that an aircraft flying in the air will protect themselves and their regime, I hope your President is greeted warmly in plasma hellfire along with anyone foolish enough to test this truth.”

(***)

The reports started streaming into TASS, the Russian News Agency, about the destruction of the PUM1, Russia’s equivalent to US Air Force One presidential aircraft. Russian military bloggers had grown silent after initially demanding an immediate retaliation with nuclear weapons against the United States when the news outlets reported the culprit of the “Massacre” in Chechnya. With their ballistic missiles now an obsolete weapon akin to the bow and arrow, their president along with senior leadership liquidated, and additional destruction from orbit as Ken Savage’s satellite system began firing at land-based military targets, specifically, the launch sites of their nuclear, biological, and chemical weapons after the initial wave of missiles were launched and intercepted, most considered capitulation the safest option left. Russian scientists were stunned by this quick turnaround within two minutes of their initial launch. Furthermore, instead of laser-based interception that was used against the ballistic missiles, the satellites appear to have a secondary system based on heated plasma.

While the idea of lasers and their ability to intercept missiles is widely known with limited practical implications, the idea of plasma-based energy weapons has only been demonstrated by tests in the 1980s from the United States Strategic Defense Initiative (SDI) program, under their code name of their “Marauder” division. However, based on early reports and recent Russian Federation tests, such weapon systems were unfeasible due to the massive power consumption needs, the short range before atmospheric heat dissipation under the laws of thermodynamics, and the long-duration capacitor recharge requirement.

The Russian scientific community understood that Ken Savage now possesses something that can solve these three issues and likely allowed him the ability to create gigaton-level weapons, they advocated immediate compromise and cession of all military activity. Even without another rocket or missile to deliver gigaton explosives, these plasma bolts fired from orbit offered him an unparalleled tactical advantage.

Alexei Sakharov, a prominent and popular media personality, who championed Russian technical supremacy in the past decade, speaks on his TASS media show, “The West may have created weapons that can ruin all of mankind as we feared. Yet, despite their acts of terror against us, we shall prevail. Take heart, they cannot subjugate us, cannot conquer us, and cannot enslave us to their fascist whims. Our land has defeated other foes through the centuries from Napoleon to Hitler. Ken Savage will be remembered as just another butcher when our armies and bullets reach him.”

Despite his words, he knew how dire his situation and the situation of his nation had become. The satellite weapons had eliminated most of their weapons, only a few warheads, onboard their nuclear submarines and a few Siberian bases that had not launched, remained unscathed. The situation was growing worse by the moment and there was no solution.

(***)

US Space Command base at Peterson Space Force Base in Colorado was busy keeping tabs on the network of satellites that Ken Savage had used to either intercept missiles or attack Russian ground targets after the effectiveness of the system against Russian missiles was proven in the last hour. Threat assessment had reduced, but alerts were already made to all US nuclear silos and other material storage sites.

Witnessing even the most advanced hypersonic missiles such as the Russian Kh-47M2 Kinzhal with speeds of Mach 12 being intercepted, the US Space command was in awe at the efficiency of the satellite systems. In theory, they all understood that light travels faster than sound, but US computer systems couldn’t make the proper calculations to intercept such speedy weapon systems in real-time, while simultaneously directing ground-based interception systems like Patriot missiles. They also wouldn’t have been able to coordinate a counterattack as quickly as these satellites had. To the engineers and aerospace researchers, it was clear that Ken Savage had utilized artificial intelligence and some form of quantum computing to synchronize his satellite network, achieving practical quantum supremacy, which classical computers could not achieve.

General Landry grows restless at the continuing success of these, “How many missiles and sites has he hit so far now? Do we have estimates from satellite telemetry of what kind of firepower we’re looking at from these satellites on surface targets?”

Sergeant Phillips answers in a daze, “569 ballistic missiles, 327 jet fighters, and the PUM1 modified airliner. Ground targets hit are 137 Russian bases and silos. Blast experts report that the strongest plasma blast appears to be equivalent to 45 tons of TNT, equivalent to the firepower of Russia’s ATBIP FOAB and four times more powerful than our SBU-47 bunker busters. The rate of fire appears to be around two minutes per plasma bolt.”

For various members of Space Command who knew of these results, an automatic sigh occurred. The satellite weapons appear to be quite powerful in their own right.

The majority of the Russian military ceased launching weapons twenty minutes after their first failure, while various nuclear submarines continued to launch sporadic missiles to test the defense satellites. The satellites continued their assaults on the Russian military bases and silos though were unable to attack the nuclear submarines at sea. At some point, the Russians will run out of weapons on their subs even if they can survive a counterattack from orbit.

Other developments were happening in Washington in the meantime.