SPLINTER

It had been a tradition for nearly two decades, one that had never actually been carried out in practice. Every nuclear silo, submarine, or interceptor installation had been given an identical golden box from the Waltran Military Cabinet, to be opened only if a launch occurred. The idea had been to give the nuclear operators a modicum of celebration, the Waltran Cabinet confidently assuming that in a nuclear skirmish Waltra would inevitably come out victorious.

The Union of Southern States had vastly outplayed their Waltran counterparts.

Twelve ICBM's had been neutralized successfully, saving twelve cities...but dozens more followed them only minutes later. The Southerners had sent at least two rockets for every target; it was a simple yet effective way of ensuring a hit. There were only so many interceptor installations in the Waltran mountains that could only be reloaded so fast...and what seemed like an infinite supply of USS ICBM's.

The war had lasted for a mere forty five minutes, more or less. Ross had sat at his desk for all of it, watching volley after volley of rockets fly across his screen, some heading north to Waltra and many heading south to the USS. The disbelief was palpable. They couldn't have failed--they were more advanced, more powerful than the USS in every way...but by the time Androvit Ross's first stale cigar had burned to ash, his country was ruined.

Those damned southern humans weren't supposed to be able to score any hits. The interceptor bases and early detection systems were there to prevent that--in any war, only Waltra was meant to come away unscathed. Out of anxious necessity, Androvit hadn't really considered the possibility that his race would fail and Waltra would lose, too.

"Ross."

Androvit turned to his colleague, who had been desperately trying to re-task one of Waltra's spy satellites. He held his thumbs up in victory, a wide smile on his face. Androvit pointed to the main screen at the head of the stuffy command center. "Put it up."

A glowing landscape flickered onto the screen, pockmarked with thousands of tiny fires and long, grey, streaks of smoke. It took him a moment to recognize the orbital view of the Union of Southern States, now oddly devoid of the greens and blues that had once covered the continent.

"Here's Aktran City," Ross's colleague called out, and the satellite camera zoomed in on one of the glowing pinpricks until it filled the screen.

Mother of light. Androvit pulled his cigar from his lips, his eyes wide. The USS capital city was simply gone. Five--no, six distinct craters pockmarked the ground, rimmed with fire and lava. The volcanic cone that had stood at the center of the city for six hundred years was simply gone, wiped from the surface and replaced with exposed magma and ash. The ground was glowing, as though the very surface of the city had melted.

And it very well did now, didn't it. Ross rolled the smoldering tobacco in his fingers, running a few numbers quietly. If the city had been hit with at least six strategic nuclear bombs, and if each bomb detonated with an initial temperature of about 100 million degrees Celsius...

Hmm.

The lieutenant panned the satellite camera away from the incinerated city of Aktran to another USS location; a military base this time. A similar view slid across their screens, again showing glowing earth and burning forests. A few of the bomb craters seemed to overlap, and Ross nodded in satisfaction. It had been said that there were enough nuclear weapons on the planet to completely resurface it several times over--apparently, the Waltran leaders had taken that to heart. As excessive as it was, the enemy had been left with virtually no chance of survival. And that was a victory in Androvit's books.