>>6312515While you sip the coffee an alarm briefly goes off, and Frank puts down his phone and turns around in his seat.
“Mr. President. Everyone. If you will direct your eyes to the display. The fighters are reaching the limit of their fuel capacity.”
You watch the glowing screen as several smaller displays light up, zoomed in on the white triangles of the bombers and their relative positions to Russia, Canada, and the blue fighter squadrons racing to intercept them, their trajectories traced by dotted lines. You notice that there are even some from your airbase in Greenland, by far the closest, and you think for a brief moment that they might catch them. But then the Canadian fighters begin disappearing from the screen, one by one, while the bombers continue on inexorably to their target, and you curse when you realise that they never even got close.
You hold out hope for your Greenland fighters though, and somebody cheers when they let loose a flight of missiles, only to fall silent when the thin icons depicting those missiles disappear a few seconds later. They were too far away. A minute or two passes, and your fighters also disappear from the screen. The room is silent. The dotted lines of your bombers continues to increase, while there are now several more that end at the edge of the Arctic.
>Are the rescue teams…?“They’re already on the way, Mr. President. They’ll find some, I’m sure.” Albert assures you. He’s your friend, but sometimes you wish he was a little more honest.
>What now?He shrugs. “There is little to do until those bombers enter Russia. If we could get through to them, maybe we can convince some to turn back, but either we’re being jammed, or…”
>Or what?He suddenly looks uncomfortable and mutters about some unknown factor. You don’t understand, until Black speaks up.
“Or they have already received marching orders.”
Kate looks up sharply, and Frank stares daggers at his intelligence counterpart. Burrows and Schultz simply look confused. Kate shakes her head and stares at him.
“What do you mean by that, Director Black? The President is the only one who can authorise a strike.”
