Glimmer of Hope (Land of Tomorrow Book 1)

Prologue

I've been lying to myself, she thought. All these years I promised I'd never do it. But then the time came, and routine was simply too powerful to overcome. With a word I betrayed myself and destroyed the world.

Major Susan Rivera stared down at the enthusiastically blinking and austere grey console board. She was surprisingly calm. The indicator lights were all a sickeningly green tone and she imagined if she vomited now the color would complement those lights nicely.

Why, she wondered, but more importantly, how? She had kept a secret deep in her heart most of her career. Susan had determined that if the time ever came to rain down fire upon the earth, she wouldn't participate, she wouldn't fight back. She decided long ago that if called upon to launch her missiles, she would refuse, allowing the country she loved to be obliterated. Better for one nation and its people to be destroyed than the entire planet, she'd reasoned after years of agonizing soul searching. She didn't see her decision as betrayal, but as a courage born of selfless conviction.

"Twelve birds away ma'am," said Lieutenant Jacobs excitedly typing on his keyboard. "Running confirmations now."

It all happened so fast. They had run the drill thousands of times before and when it happened for real, Susan's brain and body responded without conscious thought. She authenticated the message. She turned her key. She pushed the button to launch her missiles. A single instance of inefficiency on her part in any step would have been sufficient to stop the launch. Where are my convictions now?

Susan was shaken from her troubled thoughts by a subtle change in Lieutenant Jacobs' attitude. They had grown close over the last few years working in the launch tube together and were sensitive to each others' mood and feelings. She turned to see him frowning down at the computer terminal. "Ma'am, the confirmation checks actually show we've only launched eleven of the birds. Number Eight's still sitting in the silo."

"Run diagnostics," she said automatically without thinking. Her voice sounded calm and assured to her ears. That was good.

She looked around the small grey vault of a room. There was nothing appealing about the hard edges, tomblike construction, or cold surfaces, but she found it all oddly comfortable. This room was who she was and more a home than the lonely and cold apartment where she slept, ate microwave means, and stored her stuff.

Part of her wanted to retreat into the fantasy of believing this was simply another drill. It would be so easy. At some point an authoritative voice would announce over the intercom that the drill was complete and tell them when and where to report for an after action review.

Maybe that was exactly what was happening, she thought. We've been getting soft and command has decided to add an additional level of realism. It wouldn't be difficult for them to fake all of this. How would we know?

Jacobs swiveled his chair towards her with concern bordering on distress. "Ma'am, the diagnostics confirm, we still have a bird in the silo. Computer says it's a Code 23 Error."

Great, a Code 23 Error, she thought. Systems Interface Malfunction. This was the computer program's catch-all whenever it didn't know what the hell was actually wrong. Susan often wondered why the programmers couldn't have simply allowed the system to respond honestly in such cases. "Heck, I don't know what's wrong, we were designed by the lowest bidder after all." This would have been more apt and infinitely less frustrating.

Susan picked up the radio microphone and turned the knob to their assigned post-launch strategic command net. They could now break radio silence. "Stormchaser, Stormchaser, this is Raven's Nest Five. SITREP follows, over."