Disaster Among the Heavens - Don E Peavy Sr (best books for students to read .TXT) 📗

helicopters. Shannon had ordered them spaced out to where they could cover the entire area of the cloud.
“General, are we ready?” he asked the Major General as he arrived at the command point. The Major General was already in his special suit. The suits allowed both external and private communications.
“As ready as we can get under these circumstances, Sir.”
“Okay, let’s do it.”
Shannon entered the helicopter with the Major General. Once inside the helicopter, which had been fitted with a jet engine on a platform above its rotors, he was handed a headset which he placed over his helmet and spoke into.
“This is Main Thruster, all units report in.”
Each of the helicopter commanders reported their position. Shannon responded with, “Okay, Sweepers, start your engines!”
After two minutes he said into the microphone, “Okay, Sweepers, start your ascent. Easy as she goes. Maintain constant rise per schedule. Commence sweeper engine at exactly 1815.”
Shannon watched his watch as the helicopter eased its way into position. At 1815 he pointed his finger at the pilot who flipped a switch. The jet engine started up and the helicopter recoiled about fifty feet downwards and shook as if it would explode.
“What the hell?” shouted Shannon.
The pilot fumbled with the controls.
“Turn it off! Turn the damn thing off!” shouted Shannon to the pilot.
Shannon called for reports and all the helicopters reported similar experiences. “Listen up, this time I want you to wait until we are all at the cloud before starting up the sweepers. Let’s calibrate our watches. It is now 1818. We will all be in place by 1821. Start your sweepers at exactly 1822. Do not wait for my command. Repeat. Do not wait for my command. Start exactly at 1822!”
The pilot guided the helicopter towards the cloud. He was within 100 feet of it at 1822 when he flipped the switch. The helicopter recoiled and shook and fell 50 feet. He fought it back towards the cloud and this time continued to wrestle with the controls as the cloud began to lift.
“It’s working! It’s working!” shouted the Major General.
Shannon talked into the mike with the others and listened to the reports coming in. Everyone was reporting that the cloud was lifting. Within ten minutes of the sweeping action, there was a loud sound like thunder and then a humming like a freight train and the cloud in one big swash, shot straight upwards and disappeared.
The pilot flipped the switch turning the jet engine off. Shannon unfastened his seat belt and hugged the pilot, then the navigator and finally the Major General.
“Okay, Captain, get us home with all due speed!” exclaimed Shannon. The pilot complied.
Back on the ground, Shannon did not linger to join the others in celebrating their victory. Instead, he gave more poster boards to Rodney, who was ordered inside the Command Centre during the sweeping action, with messages informing the occupants of the bunker that they would be attempting to dig a tunnel to reach the bunker and for them not to panic. He then made sure that all of the missiles were guarded by a man with a lasso and a tool kit.
Everything was in place. The earth moving equipment had arrived and was busy at work. A steady stream of trucks with canvas tops came empty and left filled with dirt. All of the dirt removed from the site would be taken to a special facility where it would be “washed” clean of any contaminants then transported to Nevada where it would be buried in the Sierra Mountains.
Shannon sent three Airmen to exchange their suits with the officers from Chicago so they could join him. He needed them to help make positive identifications of the occupants in the bunker in case there was a fire fight. Shannon had no intention of merely handing whoever opened the door a radio. He was of the opinion that this matter had dragged on long enough and he was going to bring an end to it.
Finally, the moment arrived. Enough earth had been removed to locate the previous tunnel which led to the bunker. A squad of engineers descended into the tunnel and cleared a pathway to the door. Soon the door appeared unobstructed. Shannon and the three officers from Chicago and Rodney were then let down into the tunnel and they approached the door led by two Airmen with M16s and concussion grenades.
Per their plan, one of the Airmen knocked on the door. There was no answer. He looked at Shannon and Shannon nodded for him to knock again. Still, there was no answer. Shannon pointed to the knob which the Airman tried. The door fell open. They all rushed into the bunker to behold Diggs sitting on the floor with Fredda on the floor next to him with her head still in his lap. Upon further inspection, they found the assistant wrapped in his burial shroud.
The officers identified Diggs and the Assistant. They could not identify Fredda.
Pamela’s actions were now clear to Shannon who found the security codes on the counter and entered them in reverse into the console. He watched the monitors as the missiles retreated and the silos closed. Shannon left the bunker and hurried to his office to telephone The President. It was 1930 hours. The President would have already begun his speech. He hoped there was yet time to switch to the alternative one.
. . .
The President watched his Press Secretary count down the last seconds to the live broadcast of his presidential address to the nation. When it was time, the Press Secretary said in a solemn but firm voice, “Ladies and gentlemen, The President of the United States!”
The President looked straight ahead into the camera and said, “Good evening, my fellow Americans. Nine scores and twelve years ago, our forefathers brought forth upon this land a new nation conceived in liberty, and dedicated to the ideal that all men are created equal.
“At the time those noble words were spoken, over two million persons of African descent were being held in bondage and several hundred thousands of Native Americans were being slaughtered and interned on reservations. At this same time, women of every color were denied the right to vote, the right to hold public office, and were in a state of existence just a notch or two ahead of that of children.
“It is clear then, that when those lofty words were written, they were understood to mean all white men. The veracity of this conclusion is borne out by the words of John Jay who said that the American people, ‘descended from the same ancestors, speaking the same language, professing the same religion, attached to the same principles of government, very similar in their manners and customs.’ John Jay could have spoken those words only if he meant to limit the appellation of Americans to white men.
“Today, we are faced with a nation in which all of its institutions have been created and maintained for the exclusive enjoyment of white men and the exclusion of an ever increasing number of people of color and women. Today, vast numbers of our citizens are locked up, locked out, and deemed inadmissible to the vault of opportunity for which this country is revered the world over. White men around the world see America as the land of opportunity; whereas, our citizens of color see it as a land of inequality, despair and oppression.
“Those who spoke of the American ideal that the circumstances of one’s birth should in no wise limit or expand one’s horizon, must have confined such hope to white men. For being born woman or Negro meant one was born into a world of limitations from which one could never hope to escape. One was ever confined by a glass ceiling that permitted one to see opportunity but not achieve it.
“Even that grandest of all designs, the construction of the City of God meant a city for white men. Our leaders of the cloth preached a gospel of a universal God who acted particularly in and for white men. The members of the academy joined this promenade of whiteness and declared that God had ordained the colored man and the red man for servanthood since they were inferior to white men and in fact was little more than animals themselves.
“Scholars drafted theories of race and anthropology which supported the miserable lot to which we confined these people of colour. Yet, I cannot deny that always and at all times ‘their eyes were watching God.’ That even though, like the Apostle Peter, they at times plunged into the waters of chaos, their eyes were ever on God, trying as best they could to reach God’s kingdom. For that reason, we make no apology for what has been wrought upon this land.
“My dear Americans, as I address you this evening, I cannot help but be aware of the terrible cries which can be heard all over this land from people whose lives are no dream but a nightmare. As your President, I can no longer sit by and turn a death ear to those cries. Racism and sexism are our original sin. That we have resisted confessing this evil and repenting of it is the greatest threat to our democratic way of life. We must take a stand now and purge ourselves of this great sin or we will soon crumble into the dust of absurdity. For a lie cannot live long in the sunlight of day.
“I find it ironic that the same man who said that all men are created equal also wrote that the ‘tree of democracy must be watered from time to time with blood.’ History has proven those words too prophetic. I would have thought that the bloodshed during the War Between the States was enough to water our fragile tree for many generations to come.
“I was wrong. Our streets continue to run red with the blood of our children because we continue to measure people solely on the basis of the colour of their skin and their sex. This we can no longer do. The time has come to stop the bleeding.
“I do not mean to place a tourniquet on the affected member or to bandage it. What we must do is to remove the knife which has been thrust into the soul of Negroes and suture the wound and care for it until it is healed fully. That is why tonight -- --”
The President looked up from his speech to see his secretary waving at him. Once his eyes met hers, she flashed the victory sign to indicate that Shannon had secured the bunker. The President looked at the speech in his hand and the one that lay on his desk. He looked back at his secretary who maintained the victory sign. The President decided to continue with the speech at hand.
“-- -- that is why tonight, I am forced to
admit that perhaps we have aimed too high in trying to approximate the City of God. While ‘our eyes have been watching God,’ we have trampled on a great number of God’s people. It may be that all we can hope for at this moment in time is to achieve a Great Society, a society in which the circumstances of