Chapter 15 - The Return of Gobias Koffi

The Mushroom Cloud Chronicles (Reboot)
A JAG-Sims3 Story
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Chapter 15 - The Return of Gobias Koffi
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It was about six days into the training schedule when there was a communication from an inbound helo asking for clearance to land on the roof helipad. It was a gruff no-nonsense voice, the voice one could easily recognize of a Marine Devildog; there was no two ways about it. The Vice-Admiral wasted no time in clearing the helo in. And Tom Boone and the Vice-Admiral headed up topside to greet the visitor.

"Sir..." the fatigue trouser, olive drab tee-shirt clad officer climbed out of the helo and walked over to VADM Nakamura. "Major General Gobias Koffi, US Third Marine Division at your service, sir."

"Good to see you, Gobs..." VADM Nakamura said, "Been a while since Afghanistan..."

"Two years, sir. Thanks for pulling our fat out of the fire. That air-strike that your guys from CVW-8 and BATGRP2 did on the bad guys position really kept us from taking casualties that we would have taken otherwise. They had us pinned pretty good. Good to see you're around, Tom." MGEN Koffi acknowledged Rear Admiral Thomas Boone. "So you guys were holed up in here when the balloon went up."

The men talked amongst themselves as they headed to the elevator that would take them back into the bunker proper.

"Didn't realize that they'd send you to my old home-town. By any chance, did my ne'er-do-well brother survive the balloon going up?"

Tom and Tosh looked at each other... "I think we need to talk in the command office."

When Gobias stepped into the office, he saw the head of the Joint Chiefs, Admiral James Pointer and the Secretary of Defense sitting in the chairs beside the desk. Gobias concealed his surprise, after all, he was a Marine and he didn't have any problems with dealing with high ranking officials. He was just interested in how the whole situation had gone down. "Sirs " he acknowledged Admiral Pointer and SECDEF Sheffield, "I'm suprised and gratified to see that you're both alive after this."

"You may be wondering why we're holed up in your old hometown, Gobby..." Pointer stated, "Well, that was the President's idea. After Pinnacle was instituted, we dispersed as many of the Line of Succession out in as remote areas as we could find. If the President had been killed, at least we would have saved one or more of the Line of Succession so that they could take charge of the day to day running of the country. As it stands there has been no communications inbound or outbound from this facility. We do not know if any of the other bunkers have survived."

"I saw a lot of devastation flying in from the East Coast, sir...and I had to land at places that hadn't been touched by radiation or damage from the nuclear weapons. We were just lucky that the Sovs hadn't decided to do a scorched earth launch."

"Do you think there's any left that they could be holding in reserve?" Tosh asked Gobias.

"Hard to tell, but then again, my gut hunch is that they launched a hail Mary attack and used every strategic nuke that they have. If they have anything left, it's probably all tactical small yield between the tens to about 100 kilotons. What I think we need to worry about is whether they've salted any of their tactical nukes with cobalt for territorial denial tactics."

"Gobby, I do have bad news for you." Tosh stated looking him square in the eyes; he hated having to tell Gobs about his family; in this case his only living brother, "There was a guy going around saying that his name was Gobias Koffi, evidently he'd sold off his shack and moved into your house. The thing was that he looked exactly like you. And considering how fishy that looked, I wasn't about to say anything to the guy since I knew you were serving abroad."

"I knew he was a ne'er-do-well...Admiral, but I didn't think that he'd stoop to doing this." Grief warred with anger in the timbre of Gobias Koffi's voice, "Tobias never did an honest day's work in his life. I went into the Marine Corps, he went to college, flunked out from USC even though he had a 4.0 GPA in high-school, somehow managed to get a job, but never reached the heights he should have. I presume he never was one of the selectees for the bunker."

"No...Gobby, It was a tough choice and as much as we would have liked to have saved all of them, we just didn't have the supplies."

"Understandable, Admiral, we all have to make tough choices in war and the ones who have a future and full life to live for, should be the ones that were saved just as you have done."

"Thank you for doing what you could to save the majority of the future of Sunset Valley, sir."

Having to tell someone that there was no body to bury because the victim had been completely immolated in a nuclear conflagration. There were times when life really truly stunk.