A Twist in Time by Frank J. Derfler Page B

attack and mass shooting at Ft. Hood in Texas.  It has the elements of a terrorist event with multiple military causalities.  At fourteen forty-two US NORTHCOM declared Force Protection Charlie.  I immediately increased our security force and I have initiated our Oplan One.  We started a recall of bravo crew and we started the telephone tree alert for Charlie crew.  We are pre-cooling the cryogenic chamber and charging the capacitor bank. "
     
    "Did Turkey Point acknowledge?"  Arthurs asked.
     
    "Yes, Sir."  The Project had power feeders that went directly to the Turkey Point nuclear power plant.  It was good to let them know that there might be a sudden demand on those feeders.  The power surge that fired the Project’s array of precisely aimed Lasers came from a huge bank of capacitors.  After each shot the capacitors were re-charged through large transformers and rectifiers. The power part of the system was big old tech.  But, the faster they could re-charge the capacitor bank, the fewer changes they had to make to Laser alignments between shots.    
     
    "The alternate site?"
     
    "Oplan One initiated, Sir."
     
    "Any word from the National Military Command Center?"  The NMCC was  his official operational link to the Chairman.  
     
    "Sir, the NMCC has alerted us to come up on a secure videoconference, but it has not been initiated."   
     
    "Is that the news feed?"  Arthurs walked closer to a television picture showing on a corner of the video wall.  There was no sound, but the banner flashed "Shooting at Fort Hood." 
     
    Bill Wirtz had been speaking into his headset, but now he addressed Ted.   "No information on the television or news wires so far that was not in the CRITIC message. What we’ve got is three shooters, estimates of dozens of military dead, and more than fifty wounded.  One of the shooters was apparently military, an Army officer. "
     
    Ted turned back to the Controller.  "My wife read the initial message and headed for the school?" 
     
    "Yes, Sir.  I'm sure she was thinking Beslan, Sir." 
     
    On September 1, 2004 a group of Muslims from Chechnya attacked School Number One in the town of Beslan in the North Ossetia Republic of the Russian Federation.  In the end, 334 hostages were killed including 186 children.  Sally Arthurs, Bill Wirtz, and the planning team of the Project were familiar with the Beslan attack and frightened by its ferocity. They used it as an exercise to determine what actions they could take to prevent the school massacre.   
     
    "Bill, is there any sign that this Fort Hood attack was aimed at a school?" 
     
    Wirtz shook his head and replied, "No, it seems to be at a military personnel processing center."
     
    The Deputy Controller spoke up.  "Sir, I'm on the Homestead Command Post telephone conference loop.  The local police and sheriff's departments are responding to the schools."
     
    "Well," Ted commented just loud enough for Bill Wirtz to hear, “I hope we don't have to get Sally out of jail." 
     
    Wirtz nodded without smiling.  He had known Sally just as long as Ted and he had already considered the real possibility.  
     
    ***
     
    In the moments before the Force Protection Charlie warning went out from US NORTHCOM, Major Jose Valenzuela was reviewing an operations plan in his office with Dr. Rae Dunnan.  Rae, Craig Pulliam, and others put together "TDA Operations Plan 13, Deflection of  Near Earth Objects."  They researched, brainstormed, drafted, run simulated exercises, researched and drafted again, and this was the final refinement of the Op Plan that only needed the formality of Major General Arthur's signature.     
     
    "You know, Jose, "Rae had said with a little touch of sarcasm in her voice, "it would have been easier if I could have read some of your basic operations plans as a template."  Rae wasn’t sure if she was really irritated or just poking Jose to get a rise out of him. “Take that Mr.