It is the President”, Courtney said. “Mark, I just got a call from the new President of the United States. He was one of their big generals before he got elected.” He was stuttering and I could hear the fear in his voice. “He has given us six hours to surrender our country or they will take it from us no matter what the cost of lives. He said they were not happy with us splitting this continent in half and it was causing security problems. In six hours, he will send a jet to each of our cities and fire rockets. He said maybe with the damage; and a large number of the people dead, any thoughts of holding out would be delusional. Our allies could not back us up for days except for Orleans, but they only have about 25,000 troops. We do not have any force that could even sway them”, he said. “Mr. President, if their president or general calls again, please let me handle them. Have all calls directed to me”, I said. “I trust you Mark”, he said and hung up.

All my cadets had nothing to do but practice flying the drones. My transmitters were all online. I called my six guys to meet me in my main lab that could fire the cannon. My trucks were already parked out in front and fueled up. I told my six guys, Judy, Sunshine and Rocky about the upcoming possibility of war. Rocky asked if he could take the cannon to Boone City. His parents lived in old Houston. I had complete confidence in Rocky. My drivers soon came in and I had help from the guys from the drone lab help in loading and setting the cannons. I sent two cannons to Dal City, two to Boone City, and one to Antonio City. They were to position themselves about five miles out. I had the cadets that were going to help me with the large drones report to the transmitter room close to security headquarters. Judy and Sunshine would supervise the other cadets on attacking with the smaller drones. My drones took off to the Gulf Sea. The other drones took off to the Texans northeast border.

About three hours had passed. I was getting nervous. I guess you could say scared. I have never been even in a fight in my life, I thought. I could see the carrier fleet on screen now. I flew my done to 35,000 feet directly above the fleet. The other drones hovered about two thousand feet over the sea about five miles away. Judy called and told me that the monitors show a lot of tanks, cannons and soldiers on the border. There were a lot of trucks coming in, some with troops. One blast from one of the small drones could put a hole about the size of a baseball through their hulls. The larger drones I commanded could put a hole about the size of a large medicine ball in the ships we were about to attack. A call came into the transmitter room transferred from the Tower. It was General Reinhart, commander of the US military. “I was told that you were the Texans’ commander. You have about three hours to consider Mr. Anglin before I commit my troops. I would rather there not cause damage to property and loss of life if at all possible”, he said. I could see on the monitor that a jet took off the deck of the carrier and others were getting ready to take off. “General, if one more jet takes off from your carrier, I will have your fleet destroyed. Look to the sea”, I said. I was hoping he thought we had a submarine or something in the water and not look up and out. “How could you know we had launched a jet? You do not have a navy or air force. It must be those damned French”, he said. Another jet took off the carrier. I was handling the controls of the drone at 35,000 thousand feet. At this height, it would take in about a mile in circumference. The beam would not immediately pierce the decks of the ships, but it would melt any rubber, light metal, glass or plastic. Any paper would ignite and anyone caught in the beam would be dead in about a minute from their blood boiling and burning of the skin. I had about fifteen minutes on the gun. I opened it up full and fired directly above the carrier. The jet taking off crashed into the water about five miles away. I told the cadets to fire on the supporting ships at the water level if possible and sink all the ships then fire on the carrier. The general on the line said, “what the hell” and the line went dead. We sank all the ships in about fifteen minutes. The carrier took about an hour to finally disappear beneath the waves. I told my cadets handling the large drones to head due east to the Atlantic. One of the destroyers got off a few missiles and took out three of my drones. So we headed to the Atlantic with twelve drones. Judy had given the order to fire on the troops at the border when they started to cross. The drones were firing from one and two miles out and were not touched by any fire from the US. Sunshine commanded another fifteen cadets with more drones heading due northeast. If there were any reinforcements, she would contain them. When my drones got to the Atlantic, they flew directly north at about fifty feet above the water. I was not sure if they had radar and was not going to take any chances.