Tobias Weiss.

Chapter 14

                      © 2013 by tore56789 (GOS) All rights reserved.

Harold knew what he said would have been entertaining, in a dark sort of a way, but for all that had happened.  He found it weird he was even thinking that.  He guessed it was just a human response to the unthinkable.  As deep down he was afraid too, everyone he ever cared for out there might be no more.  And he knew too, Charles was also right about the clowns at the top; both in the navy and the military.  People who saw themselves as untouchables –like that general he had spoken with earlier, and on several occasions before that.  Who gave the impression he would rather throw away young people’s lives needlessly –who also had families, and people who cared for them, than lose a bit of face, and admit it was a wrong decision he made in the first place.  When crazy whacks like this could okay government funds for doom day weapon technology, it only made sense then this day was eventually going to dawn.  As it was really like giving that same senseless three year old, Charles had mentioned about, a loaded gun to play cowboys and Indians with.

He thought it ironic, that one of those whacky General back at the Pentagon, had  spoken about taking his command at one time, and seeing to it he’d be lucky to get a job on a barge, if he didn’t give their military boys onboard his ship full administrate privileges.  Now he needn’t fear that. He assumed that whack-job had also perished from the affects of their new toy.

He was just about to reply to his second in command, when a call from the radio room interrupted him, “Sir, think you should hear this.  I picked up a ham on seventy five meters.  He’s based in a town in Kansas.  Will I patch him through?”  The voice of the young lad, he couldn’t escape from, sounded a little at a loss, troubled.

“Yes son, do that.”

“The lad I spoke with said this is the USS Minnesota?  And you’re positioned in the Pacific?”

The voice coming over the speaker in SSB (single side band) the standard mode of operation on seventy five meters for ham operators, sounded a bit off frequency, with a slight changing pitch to his voice from high to low; as if his transmission was slightly drifting, which the boys in the radio room made adjustments for, by tracking it ten hertz up and ten hertz back.

“Yes, that’s right.  I’m its Captain.  We’d appreciate if you could fill us in how things are back there, as we have lost all communications out here?”

“Captain, hope my transmission is okay?  I’m using a very old shortwave transceiver.  Reckon she can’t be too stable after gathering over thirty years of dust.  See normally I only stick to the vhf, uhf, repeaters, as I can get more or less everything else off the satellite.  But with the way things are, and no one about there, even with a message rigged up to ask anyone to reply, I came down here.  I was beginning to think Jed and Buck, my two boys, and I, were the only people left alive on the planet, till your lad in the radio room came back to me.”

“I understand,” the Captain said a little upset.  As to him it was like he was failing to get things across. Not to mention coping with a transmission that was the farthest from high fidelity; meaning somewhat annoying to the ear. “Your transmission is drifting, but the radio room is compensating for that.  Please, can you confirm again, what I first asked you?”

The voice then broke the static.  The odd clashes of nose brought about by distant thunderstorms.  The tone was down wind, “Captain, where I live isn’t pretty.  This won’t be the news you want to here.  All day, me, and my boys have been trying to put out fires, caused by cars, trucks, crashing into electric transformers on over head poles, into gas stations.  Never seen anything like it? Like everyone just driving along suddenly died at the same time?  It was a commuter bus which took out our power grid, just ploughed into it, going right off the road, with thirty or so folks onboard.  Everyone was incinerated in the blaze; even before we had a chance to know how to react to this whole bloody mess.”