The Last War: Akula Kosmicheskiye--Prologue

He was captain of the most powerful vessel ever built by the Soviet Commonwealth. The Sovietskii Soyuz was a truly massive vessel, over four hundred meters long and half as wide. He featured an inner hull, where his powerplant and sensors were located, surrounded by four other hulls. Spun about his horizontal axis, he could generate enough pseudo-gravity for the crew to comfortably live and work-Russia had never favored the complex centrifuges so beloved by the Americans. The outer hulls sported two powerful particle beams, multiple missile launchers, and eight rail gun turrets, each capable of magnetically accelerating metallic slugs to over twenty kilometers a second. He was as fast as any cruiser; anything he could not outgun, he could outrun. The Sovietskii Soyuz had been meant to stand in the line of battle against any other human opponent; however, given the UN?s vast superiority in space, the Sovietskii Soyuz wouldn?t last five minutes in a pitched battle. Instead, he would prey upon the UN?s weak underbelly-its supply lines to and from the colonies. As part of his conversion from battleship to raider, his fuel tankage and cargo storage were increased; he could go for months at a time without resupply. And better yet, no one knew he even existed.

Shaposhnikov turned away from the window and kicked off toward the door on the other side of the observation room. He did not need to look at his watch to know what time it was. Fourteen light years away, it was still night over the Bering Strait. Above the earth, half a dozen satellites were firing their thrusters in order to change their orbits so that they passed over the Western Hemisphere. Rail guns slid from concealing shrouds and tracked targets only a hundred kilometers below; the first rounds would obliterate the UN Compound in New York City, the United States Aerospace Forces? headquarters under Cheyenne Mountain, and key military installations across North America. Aboard innocent looking freighters, Orbital Infantrymen made last minute checks on their equipment. Wing-in-ground effect craft, bristling with troops and armored vehicles, raced across the Bering Strait toward Anchorage. The ship?s chronometer chimed: zero hour. It had begun.

31DEC85

TO: All Theater CINCs

FROM: CJCS

SUBJ: War Warning