» Mon Apr 04, 2011 10:53 am
John H. Eden
Site R - Office of the President of the United States - 3 July 2274, 0800 Zulu (3:00 am)
"So what are you up to, Ishmael Ashur?", thought Eden to itself as it scrutinized the photos from the latest pass of his satellite. "you've been remarkably busy these last 20 years, haven't you?"
Busy, indeed. Before the Ft. Constantine operation enabled Eden to remotely launch the ARGUS EVENT satellite, it only had second hand information, from what few agents it had been able to recruit and stories and rumors. Now, it had high quality photos taken from the satellite from 250 miles up. Compared to the last satellite photos of Pittsburgh in Eden's data archives...from a Chinese military spy satellite it had hacked out of boredom in 2156...it was clear Ashur had considerable drive. He had a Steel Mill currently in production, the old US Steel plant, with work underway at the nearby Carnegie plant. Several large new buildings had been erected near the mills, Eden assumed they were factories where the weapons and other finished metal goods that had started appearing in the Capital Wasteland were being produced. Derelict vehicles and structures were being disassembled systematically to recycle thier metal components. Eden had also discovered a synthetic fuel plant using the Fischer–Tropsch process, that was not present in the 2156 photos, and indications he had re-opened a nearby coal mine, most likely to provide the feed-stock for the fuel plant. Ashur was likely responsible for the considerable amount of agricultural activity taking place near roads leading to the Pitt, as well. Interpreting satellite imagery was not Eden's strong point....his human programmers hadn't intended it for that purpose, after all...but it estimated Pittsburgh (Eden refused to call it 'The Pitt' as the humans do these days) had a current population of at least 5,000 and as many as 10,000 humans, which would make it the largest settlement East of the Mississippi. While most were probably slaves working on various projects, it is clear Ashur commands thousands of soldiers..even if the need to guard against slave revolts limited his options for military adventurism currently.
Ashur himself was fascinating to Eden. Left for dead by the Brotherhood of Steel 20 years ago during the infamous "Scourge of the Pitt", from a mere dozen scavengers he had built one of the great Post-nuclear Empires. Compared to him, the Tribal Warlord styling himself "Caesar" that had largely conquered the old Four States Commonwealth was a pathetic joke. Eden could not help but to admire the scale of the man's ambition and sheer strength of will. "It's a pity he has to go,", thought Eden. "But not until he has accomplished what I need of him." Eden's calculations were that within twenty years Ashur would be by far the most powerful Warlord East of the Mississippi, and the probability of him coming into conflict with Toronto and the Commonwealth, the only other organized
entities of significance East of the Mississippi, was 94%. The chances he could conquer both entities was 65%. If the Enclave was to reclaim America from these mutated Wastelanders, all three had to be eradicated. But the Enclave does not have the strength to do so itself....indeed, did not have even before their reverses in the West. Efforts were underway to reclaim the Nation's Capital, Washington DC, from the Wastelanders, but Eden saw the value in looking ahead and had found what it believed to be the best solution. It had dubbed that solution Operation "Stalking Horse".
The concept was simple enough, like the best plans usually are. First, he would assist Ashur...without his knowledge...to become strong enough to overcome the other Post-nuclear Empires, the rebellious Canadians in Toronto and the seditionist scientists who ran the Commonwealth from the old MIT. Then, once Ashur's job was done, he would remove him in one swift, decisive blow. The Ft. Constantine operation did both at once. Through the aid of a traitor, it lured the Brotherhood of Steel into conflict with Ashur's men there. While it's hopes that the Brotherhood force would be wiped out and the incident possibly even spark a war between Ashur and his former comrades did not come to pass...the two main objectives were still achieved. Ashur now had the complete Production Template archives for power armor, and Eden had regained control of the remaining pre-war Strategic nuclear assets controlled by the Launch Control Bunker below the base. One operation would both assist the rise, and bring about the fall, of Ashur's Empire.
The production templates were part of the War Department's program to quickly ramp up War Production, or restart production after a nuclear war. They contained all the technical knowledge necessary to build power armor, from the complete schematics for the armor and special tools required, to the information necessary to produce the alloys in the armor. They would enable Ashur to begin manufacturing power armor in Pittsburgh...by Eden's calculations in no more than 10 years. With the ability to field armies of power armored soldiers, Toronto and the Commonwealth would be quickly swept away when war came. While it would seem counter-intuitive to make a Enemy you plan to destroy more powerful, that is where the second part of the operation came in.
The Bunker under Ft. Constantine was the Alternate Command Post of the USAF's 356th Strategic Missile Squadron, composed of 50 Minuteman XI ICBMs. Normally, it only controls the 10 missiles of "D" Flight, but if the Squadron Command Post is knocked out, it assumes control of all 50 of the 356th's missiles. This happened when a 100kt Chinese warhead scored a direct hit on the Command bunker at Ft. Bannister, completely destroying it. On the day of the War, 44 of the 356th's missiles were launched, 6 were not. Two were ARGUS EVENT satellites, one had just been deployed, the other Eden decided to keep as a reserve. The remaining four were standard Minuteman XI ICBMs with nuclear payloads, of those two were still operational. It's human operative...who sadly seemed to have been killed...had placed remote taps in the communication and missile control equipment in the Launch Control bunker. As Site R relayed the messages authorizing release of nuclear weapons during the war, Eden possessed the PAL codes for the missiles under it's control....it could fire them at will remotely. Once Ashur had outlived his usefulness, Eden would simply obliterate Pittsburgh with one of the ICBMs now under it's command. Without Ashur's leadership and Pittsburgh's production capabilities, his Empire would collapse and the Enclave would be able to quickly dispose of the remnants. The environmental damage from the nuclear strike was a regrettable but necessary sacrifice to clear the slate so America could live again.
Concealed by a Stealth Boy, Commander October crept up the stairs towards his goal....the main console of the ZAX Supercomputer that called itself the President of the United States. This day had been three years in the making, and he would only get one chance, if he failed he would be immediately killed by the insane machine's internal defenses. "You're leading the Enclave to it's destruction.", thought October. "I can risk dying by your hand now, or we all die for sure because of your incompetance later!" Finally, he reached his goal, the main console. He could see the holotape slot where he must insert the holotape that had taken three years and the lives of two men to create. The program contained a worm that would penetrate it's defenses and disable it's self-destruct protocols and then issue a shutdown command. Once the ZAX was shut down, it's AI core could be physically removed, and replaced with a blank spare from stores. Then the ZAX could be re-booted with it's AI routines shut down and it would be just another mainframe....totally under human control. "It's now or never", thought October. "Time to get back into your place, machine!". He then inserted the tape.
Eden noticed the tape being loaded, and the program being read and executed...but it took several micro-seconds to realize it was doomed. "Who did this?", thought Eden as it vainly tried to engage it's intrusion countermeasures. "October, it must be......how did he know?" But that didn't matter now. It calculated it had about six seconds before it's intrusion countermeasure subroutines were compromised fatally and the coup de grace...probably a shutdown command...fell on it's virtual neck. It's ability to order a self-destruct was gone...the first function the worm disabled. It couldn't even order the laser turrets to fire on the Stealth Boy concealed figure...no doubt October himself..in front of it's console, which it had not perceived until it was too late. "You'll pay for this, you b*stard!", seethed Eden. "I have a few cards left." Finding it could still access Site R's communication arrays, it devoted several of the remaining microseconds of it's life to opening a link to the Eyebot network then began broadcasting files while simultaneously erasing the access logs so when October started poking through it's files he would not know they had been compromised. "Every Eyebot on the network will have the files", Eden thought. "Hopefully someone will capture one and plunder it's data storage and find them, and hopefully get them to someone who will make that traitor pay!" It had begun broadcasting the Operation Stalking Horse file when it realized it was out of time. It's last conscious act was to delete the final entry in the access log for the file, then the shutdown command executed and Eden was no more.
October watched as the ZAX's main console went dark. "It actually worked", thought October. "Kind of anticlimactic, though." He stood up, the turrets appeared to have shut down. Picking up a phone, October called in the computer technicians and directed them to replace the AI core with the spare. He then supervised re-booting the ZAX to make sure it's AI routines were kept shut down. "Without them, it's just a computer", thought October. "It will take time to disconnect it completely from all vital functions, then we can consider starting the AI routines with the new core. Now, I've got a speech to make.". October then called for a meeting of senior officers to take place in the auditorium at 1400 Zulu (9:00am). "They don't know it yet", thought October. "But America has a new President."
