Update!
Part IV: A Brave New World
Armageddon + 14 Days
Paradise Lost [2]:
It had turned into the story of the century. The exploits of the ships crew were being printed on pamphlets. Songs were written and sung about the bravery and the determination of the aviators. There was even talk of creating a play about it, though actors were in short supply in today’s day and age.
Somehow, the USS Nimitz had sailed from Norfolk, Virginia to the natural bay of Aberdeen Washington in roughly two weeks. Most of the particulars of the mission were kept top secret from the masses, which only gave more room for the legend to grow.
There were tales of massive battles, sinking of the whole Soviet Fleet single-handedly, and rescuing thousands of Americans stranded thousands of miles from home. Sadly, the truth is much more mundane than the legends.
The USS Nimitz or CVN-68, had just left its home port of Norfolk, Virginia on the morning of the 19 of February 1984, two days before Armageddon, in route for the battlefields of Europe. Preparing for war, the Navy had called back all of the aircraft carriers to their home ports, and ordered them refit and rearmed for the escalating conflict.
Those desperate days were spent gathering fuel, food, ammunition, and re fitting the nuclear reactors with ne w fuel rods. After the floating cities were fully supplied, they and the rest of their strike groups could travel nearly 6,000 miles at 13.5knots (roughly 25kph) without stopping. The stage was set for war.
War for the USS Nimitz never came. Two days after setting sail, and heading toward the middle of the Atlantic, the bombs flew, missiles arched across the sky and the world ended.
Armageddon was upon us.
The ships continued their course for the first couple of days. However on the third day a radio message was received.
Hello, this is FEMA, is anyone out there?
That first message and the correspondence between the Admiral and the General changed their mission forever.
On day 6 a flight of F-14 Tomcat fighters were dispatched to escort the FEMA team’s travels to Washington, after those fighters returned, they had two new missions.
One, make their way to the natural bay outside of Aberdeen, Washington.
Two, coordinate with as much of the US Navy as was left and rescue as many American nationals as possible.
The first turned out to be easier than the second. With the Destroyers and PE-3s scanning for submarines their passage through international waters would be risky, but not impossible. The Soviet Navy was geared more toward defence, so as long as the fleet hugged the coast they should be safe.
The last week had been eerily quiet. Besides the occasional civilian container ship, they ran into few naval vessels of any kind. Sonar scans and flight’s of PE-3’s confirmed their suspicions. Most American surface fleets were struck by nuclear missiles of one kind or another. They would be lucky to find any other mostly intact surface ships.
They were spared a strike, perhaps it was due to their closeness to the American mainland, perhaps it was due to their orders being changed so often, but they were spared an attack.
About a week into their journey, off the coast of Brazil, they ran into their first submarine. Practice depth charges were dropped and hailing calls were issued. It was assumed that the ship would be American, it hadn’t attacked them yet. The mysterious sub disappeared to the north sometime later. They never saw that submarine again.
Off the coast of Argentina only a day later, they ran into another submarine. After the practice charges and hailing calls the sub surfaced and began to respond. It was the USS Dallas, the ship that in another world would be made famous by the novel The Hunt for the Red October, but here it served a grander purpose. The USS Dallas was single handedly responsible for tracking down and breaking the silence of most of the remaining American submarines. That mission received mixed success. Roughly 8 American submarines would be reached over the course of the next two weeks, 7 would eventually make it home to Washington.
The entire total voyage took nearly 15 days of pushing every ship in the fleet to the brink of collapse. The crews were exhausted of days of traveling top speed and the stress that a single Soviet sub could sink every ship in the fleet.
However, on Tuesday March 6th 1984, the USS Nimitz arrived in the natural bay outside of Aberdeen. Joyous crowds, parades, fireworks, and a band met the returning heroes. The submarines were still on their mission, to rescue embassy personnel from every country possible. The fate of that mission was still to be determined.
*The Fireman was walking down to his mailbox. With the EMP many telephones and radios were destroyed, and the intermittent service that the power companies were able to supply was not helping people stay in touch either.
He shook his head, and smiled. People were reduced to talking to each other in person! The horror! At the very least he didn’t have to force his daughter off the phone every night. Three hours for one person was enough.
He passed a mail-boy who was just leaving for his rounds. The light blue shirt, the canvas bag stuffed with letters, newspapers, and pamphlets, and his bike signified his job to anyone who looked.
With gasoline reserved for the military, the normal mail trucks were out of operation. Mail now had to be delivered by foot. As most adults needed to work the fields and work on construction projects, the demographic of children between 13 and 16 filled the manpower gap needed to deliver the mail.
The older children were used in a pony-express type system where they passed letters off from one town to the next until they reached their proper destination. Because they were the only form of sure communication, the post office was gaining a lot of prestige and prowess. Some claimed it was due to the Presidents influence, but most acknowledged it was because the post office worked.
It was almost surprising how quickly the teens accepted jobs at the post office. Before Armageddon most probably hadn’t mailed a letter for anything besides holidays, and now they were rampant mailers. His daughter had now sent at least one a day, maybe more. Usually to her friends in town, but he did see some in there for the government in Columbia. Mail, now politically active teens! Who knew what could happen next, they could be cleaning their rooms!
He stepped up to the double glass door. He was mailing a package of potassium iodine pills to his sister. It was one of those things you didn’t trust to leave in the mailbox any more.
Before he could open the door, the Station Chief walked up. “Just the man I was looking for!” The Fireman turned around. The Station Chief was standing next to a military officer of some kind. “We went to your house, and your wife said you went down to the Post Office so we came here.” He laughed. “The Major needs one of my best men for a training mission, so I said I knew exactly who. You!”
The Fireman nodded, he was off duty and he didn’t feel like saluting and holding the box at the same time. “Major.”
The marine Major replied “I need you to teach some of my boys how to properly open a locked door, none of my men can seem to properly do it, and we’re just wasting too much time. There’s an operation coming up and I need my men prepared.”
The Fireman though for a minute “Station Chief, am I open on Monday?”
The Station Chief puffed out his chest and smiled “absolutely.”