Their mission was to set up a network of orbiting nuclear weapons, five in all. These missiles could be clandestinely targeted and fired from the earth to hit virtually any location on the planet. The warheads on each were extremely powerful, each capable of destrying the largest of cities in a burst of hydrogen fusion.
Blakers had agreed wholeheartedly with the mission objective even before the Change; his enthusiasm had been one of the reasons he'd been assigned to lead it, not to mention his high level of competency and experience in space. The orbiting nukes would be America's ace-in-the-hole if one of its enemies launched a surprise attack of their own. Besides avoiding the world's antipathy to space weapons, the president had decided that the weapon system had to be secret to prevent the Chinese or Russians from putting their own nukes into orbit. The president had also been worried that terrorist groups and their supporters would try to steal the powerful nuclear weapons if their existence in earth's orbit was generally known.
Now Blakers knew that the need for their mission was greater than ever. Even if Congress had been changed into a bunch of simpering sissies, they were still the elected leaders, and the commander didn't like the idea of a bunch of crazy feminists trying to take power for them in a coup. The armed forces, too, would be overrun with women, and Blakers knew that they'd be ill equipped to prevent a band of female insurgents from taking power.
In his own mind, Blakers was beginning to see himself as the last, best hope for maintaining American ideals in the face of this inexplicable global Change.
That's why, after he had personally taken care of releasing the hydrogen bombs and their launching platforms into orbit, Blakers told Armstrong to...