Texas Wildfire

Colonel Malloy looked around the cockpit of his B-52 bomber. The huge plane still constituted a significant portion of the U.S. Air Force's bombing force, even though the giant bomber was nearly one hundred years old.

His copilot smiled back and gave him a thumbs-up. The venerable bomber was now only crewed by two, the pilot and copilot. The rest of the crew duties the computer situated behind the two men would run.

Malloy was flying mostly by instruments because of the nature of the night mission over the panhandle of Texas. Their bombing group consisted of twenty B-52s escorted by a variety of fighters. Some were flying on the deck as Wild Weasel, which meant they were flying very low to the ground and jamming all radar and radio signals coming from ground installation.

Colonel Malloy was also flying his bomb group a lot lower than he would have liked. However, the mission called for them to put the fear of God into the people of Texas below them. A score of huge bombers screaming through the night would do that to anyone.

Further south in the interior of Texas other bomber groups were doing the same. However, over Austin a group of B-2 Stealth bombers were carrying-out a similar mission, but without the noise.

"Okay, Mike," Malloy said to his copilot over their headset. "Get the computer set on my mark."

"Roger," Mike replied.

"Three…two…one, mark," Malloy counted down.

"Mark," Mike replied. "Computer bombardier is set. We will release in precisely ten minutes."

T.J. finally exited the Texas Hold 'Em a few hours after Vargas left that afternoon. Murdock was in a serious funk and did not know how he would get out of it. He had scraped together all the money he had access to in order to help pay for the arms Vargas had already delivered. President Tucker was kind enough to grant T.J. a loan of oil dollars. However, he would not relinquish any actual useful funds.

The real kicker and yet the worse blows for T.J. were his father disowning him, removing him from the company, and turning him over to the U.S. authorities. T.J. hoped that his father would regain his senses in the morning and reinstate T.J. into the company -- and family -- as well as forget about turning him into the authorities.

T.J. had spent the remainder of the night getting seriously drunk. He still had a few thousand dollars left and he intended to use a little of it to help forget his troubles. The problem is that it did not work. Even with several women asking if they could help him out of his mood, T.J. had to decline.

T.J. climbed into his Corvette and started the engine. It was an old internal combustion vehicle from the previous century. The engine purred as T.J. pulled the Corvette onto the main street as he headed for Austin. He hoped that maybe he could convince President Tucker to help him secure real funds to pay off Vargas.

It was well past 2 O'clock in the morning when T.J. entered the outskirts of Austin. He noticed some colorful objects slowly descending from the sky. The objects coasted down into the street and would occasionally bounce off his vehicle.

There were few cars on the road at this time so T.J. pulled the Corvette over to the side of the street and stopped. T.J. then opened the door and reached down to retrieve one of the mysterious objects that were still raining down from heaven.

The object was nothing more than a plastic Easter egg with a small parachute attached. The falling objects were mainly in bright primary and pastel colors. With the door still slightly ajar to allow the interior dome light to remain on T.J. cracked the blue egg open. Inside, he found a slip of paper.

T.J. unfolded the paper and squinted to make out the words typed on it. It took several seconds for his inebriated eyes to decipher the message. As the blurry letters finally came into focus, T.J. was able to read, 'Next time it will not be Easter eggs!'

The drunken oilman did not think things could get any worse, but that was until he read that ominous message. T.J. crumpled the paper into a small ball and tossed it out the still open door. He then slammed the car's door shut before he spun the wheels in an effort to return to Houston and get to the Texicorp corporate headquarters. He hoped that maybe he could hide out there until things blew over

T.J. pulled onto the highway just as the emergency sirens started to wail across Austin. A few sporadic shots of antiaircraft fire also climbed into the air. However, it was just for show. The bombers were now long gone and the New Republic had very little ammo for the limited numbers of antiaircraft guns it could boast.

Military officers from all the branches sat in anticipation in the old high school auditorium. There was a low murmur as the crowd conversed with each other. It was in the middle of the night and there were still recovery missions going on around the bombed town of Littleton.

Finally, a sharp voice cried out, "Atten-shun!" All the men and women in the room instantly snapped to attention as General Davis walked on to the stage. His right arm was in a sling and two aides closely followed him.

"You may be seated," Davis instructed the crowd and instantly every officer proceeded to take his or her seat.

"There are not as many of you here as I would like," stated Davis in a grave tone. "Yesterday's bombing mission was meant to take out me and any officers who would have been at the Army Reserve Center. I am sorry that, although I was missed, there have been no survivors found yet at the Reserve Center. Fortunately for you people, you were scheduled for a later briefing." General Davis pushed a button on the metal podium before him and a holographic map of Texas instantly displayed itself behind him.

"As of this minute we are beginning our invasion of Texas. This will be called Operation Texas Wildfire. In three days, we will begin our land advance beginning in the panhandle and swing south toward Austin."

As the general continued to lay out his plans for Operation Texas Wildfire in the last row of the auditorium, an officer in the back of the room was taking extra special notes. He furiously wrote down every word General Davis spoke despite having one arm in a sling. When the briefing was over the officer slipped out of the crowded auditorium and exited the old high school.

General Davis watched the crowded auditorium empty itself after he finished the briefing. He noted many smiles on the faces of the officers as news reached them that they were finally going to move into and retake Texas.

An aide walked over to the general and spoke softly in his ear, "The weasel is away." Davis broke into a rare smile, "Good. Good, give him two hours and then reassemble everyone for another briefing."