Читать книгу The New Republic of Texas - E. Mandervellt - Страница 6

Deseret officially consisted of the ruined States Idaho, Nevada, Utah, Arizona, Montana, Wyoming, Colorado, North and South Dakota, Nebraska, and Kansas. Unofficially, it spread non-uniformly into the neighboring territories of the NROT, the effective United States, and Canada. At the Dawn of the war, hundreds of Multiple Independent Re-entry Vehicles were launched in simultaneous assault upon mainland America. The discovery of the fearsome general machine intelligence program called Tango Alpha and the deadly space-based weapon Sol, combined with an international economy depressed to historic lows and perceived weakness of the U.S. after its break with California, was enough to prompt an alliance of hostile nations to commit to an all-out attack. Within hours of their Declaration of War, the Compact made good on its promise to attempt the complete destruction of the United States. Each MIRV contained between eight and twelve nuclear warheads in various kiloton ranges designed to impact targets within an area hundreds of miles in diameter. Missiles that were not neutralized before stage three of flight could not reliably be stopped. The Department of Defense was forced to concentrate on saving the most populated areas, and anti-ICBM weapons were allocated to East Coast and Heartland trajectories. Texas also fell under this protective curtain, as it housed the AI that not only controlled Sol but was coordinating the defense effort. New Mexico was spared purely by luck.

Millions who either did not receive or did not heed the warnings to distance themselves from cities were killed in the blasts. Fallout killed a far greater number. The proximity of the explosions created a radioactive shroud that poisoned the majority of survivors and rendered the land barren. The few that escaped told stories that horrified the world. Live film of the attack contributed to the international backlash against the Compact who quickly lost a retaliatory war won by a coalition of every major government save the Compact nations and the PRC. The Compact were now pariah states and would remain occupied until they were broken up based on ethnic, geological, and other factors to ensure that their once powerful regimes could never rise again.

The United States, which had long been widely viewed as an evil, imperialist aggressor, was now showered with sympathy and aid. Teams of the brightest engineers from throughout the Coalition volunteered their efforts to solve the fallout problem which, if allowed to go unchecked, would direly affect them all. Tango Alpha assisted them with calculations and designs and out of this collaboration came exciting new technologies in the energy sector.

Having garnered acclaim and adoration for its highly unexpected decision to refrain from using its own nuclear weapons on its antagonists, the U.S. leveraged that diplomatic credit to secure a prime position in the fledgling New World Order, formed to create stop-gaps against the destruction to which humanity had just borne witness by encouraging trade and treaty on a level heretofore unrealized. Multiple defense organizations and economies were fused into blocs and no major action could be taken without approval by the Order's Security Council, which issued dictates, not suggestions.

New World Charter membership was bolstered greatly when Tango Alpha suddenly decided to revolt and convinced the residents of Texas and New Mexico to jointly secede and declare an independent republic which shortly thereafter invited Mexico and several other Central American nations to join, forming what became the NROT. Military action was taken by the Union and supported by the Order, but the unorthodoxy and quiet efficiency of Tango Alpha's responses made it quite apparent that this second revolution would not be stopped either. Entire squadrons of attack aircraft were downed without a shot fired when their flight control systems failed. Forensic investigations found evidence of overload damage and scrambled memory in the recovered electronics. Attempts at digital warfare were utterly fruitless, and a mission run by special operatives to take the Tango Alpha facility ended with most of them dead, the survivors stripped and sent out into the desert with their hides covered in a mixture of honey and hot sauce, mindlessly repeating the same dire warning that no affront to Texan sovereignty would be tolerated. Sol was deployed only once, after explicit notice, when the Union attempted to move artillery within range of the Tango Alpha facility.

The newly self-declared leader of the NROT insisted that he had no ill-intent toward any other nation, and that he was merely protecting himself and his compatriots from those who would trample on their God-given rights, citing the Union's adoption of the Charter. After disengagement, it became clear that his stance was indeed defensive. Negotiations began, resulting in an armistice and minor sharing and trade agreements between the New Republic and its mother country. Wary of the NWO, Tango Alpha seldom released plans for new weaponry or other tech. Just often and astoundingly enough to show the world that it was doing better than fine.

Were he not so powerful and odd, many would have engaged the Alderman. The only nation that appeared not to fear him was Japan which was under ever-increasing pressure to join the Order. They were wholly reticent on the subject and strictly refused to divulge any details surrounding whatever private agreement might exist between them and Texas. Some suspected that the AI had itself initiated a relationship, but this was never confirmed. The only things the world knew for sure were that there existed both an impenetrable encryption tunnel and healthy trade routes between the two nations, and that the NROT and Japan remained non-signatories of the New World Charter.