The Guardian Program by Herman Steuernagel

Author:Herman Steuernagel [Steuernagel, Herman]
Language: eng
Format: epub

Cara kissed him goodbye at the doorstep. He’d had to turn off that damn alarm. The alarm that had been warning them something was wrong for two damn weeks before the drones had descended.

The drones had obliterated the residences where Terre and his wife and daughter had spent the last two years. How had he not acknowledged that the alarm was a symptom of a bigger problem?

If only he had known. If he could go back, kiss his wife, hold his daughter close, he would have held on longer. As long as he could.

Cara’s face stared at him from behind their living room window as it had imploded in the shockwave, moments before the warhead made impact and left their home a hole in the ground.

He hadn’t really seen it. Thank God he hadn’t been able to see it. But he dreamt it. He saw it every night in the nightmares that kept him from getting a proper night’s rest. In some ways, it was worse than reality, because his imagination played games with his head, and it was likely his thoughts were far more graphic.

He had woken up that evening on a flight back to San Francisco, heading for a hospital where he would be injected with those damn nanos. For his survival. One of only a handful of injured worth trying to save.

He’d heard the news on the way over. In fact, he’d asked. He’d asked about his wife. They had to let her know. Let her know he was okay.

They had to send her to meet them, he’d said. He wouldn’t leave her and Sarah alone in Guam. They’d want to be with him.

That’s when they’d told him. Told him his family hadn’t made it. Nobody in the staff residences had made it. Not his family. Not his friends. If he hadn’t gone into work so damn early, he wouldn’t have made it, either. Not another damn civilian on base except for the kid. And K had only survived because he had been with him in the Command Center.

Most of those on duty hadn’t survived, either. They had been caught so unprepared that it was a miracle they had stopped the attack at all. Over eighty percent of the base were killed. Their operations center would be rendered useless for months, probably years, as they tried to rebuild. The United States’ largest Pacific military operation off the mainland had been rendered impotent. The U.S. Naval Base, Andersen Air Force Base, and the Marine Corps Base had all been decimated.

Thankfully, not much civilian territory off base had been affected by the attacks. The damage seemed coordinated; strategic. Analysts only confirmed later that the drones had been completely automated and acting with no human guidance.

K had been on the plane as well. The kid had been unconscious, knocked out by falling debris while helping to pull him out of the rubble. Being unconscious would have been a welcome escape, rather than to awaken in this nightmare.

They’d given him the first treatment once he landed.

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