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The Zero Chip
The Zero Chip takes place in the year 2034. The world is very different from the one we know. In this new world, the United States does not play a major role in either world politics or the global economy and its infrastructure has been severely damaged by a major geophysical event, the Shift. A revived Russian empire and a maturing European Common Market are vying for world supremacy. Their task is complicated by a unified, and Shiite controlled, Moslem empire; which dominates nearly all of the Middle East. The Shiites see the chaotic state of the world after the Shift as its opportunity to finish-off their long time adversary, Israel, and to establish themselves as one of the three major world powers.
The reader is also introduced to a new type of warfare - orbital satellite laser weapons, named “Guardians.” Originally designed in 2014 to destroy major remote targets under the control of sophisticated military computer networks located in the US, the Guardians are controlled in 2034 (after the demise of the US military) through the use of small aircraft, called “Lasetracks,” which are used as aiming devices. The laser weapons CAN NOT FAIL because of the use of Zero Chips in their microprocessors. The Zero Chip, the US's last major technological breakthrough before its collapse, has the unique capability to process data at speeds in excess of the speed of light and therefore can “see” ahead in time for very brief periods. This capability allows the systems to predict, and correct, their own failures making them virtually incapable of malfunctioning and gives them an infinite life expectancy. These weapons are unstoppable and will be forever! Or so the world has been told.
The only hold that the US, which has become a loosely connected band of settlements, has on a secure position in the world is its ability to use and control this weapons system. In return for its use the European Common Market provides the U.S. not only with national security; but also, the very basic essentials of life via regularly scheduled shipments across the Atlantic. To add to the political and economic complications the ECM felt compelled to replace the U.S. in defense Israel after the world cataclysm (the Shift) in 2016 which had rendered the US impotent in world affairs. Russia lent its support to the ECM in the defense of Israel in a major series of conflicts over a 10 year period, collectively referred to as the Eastern Wars, and suffered severe casualties as its reward.
As the story begins (5 years after the end of the Eastern Wars) the League of Islamic States has embarked on yet one more war with Israel, the ECM and Russia; the Zero Chips in the Guardian satellites are beginning to fail placing the security and very survival of the United States at risk and Russia’s alliance with the ECM has become unstable.
The locations in which the story plays out are a much reconfigured eastern United where Mason Bach, a rehabilitated alcoholic and former agent turned freelance bounty hunter, is tasked to uncover the conspiracy causing the failures of the Guardian satellite weapons. To add to his burden, Mason must solve the mystery within four weeks, the date of the ECM’s World Security Conference in Brussels, or the US will lose its already tentative protected status in the world and be open for take-over or final collapse!
… and in the Middle where Captain Donald Tanner, a middle aged military “retread,” volunteers for a mission that will take him back to Ashgabat Turkmenistan, a city in which he was held prisoner five years earlier, to verify a rumor that the Russian’s are meeting with the Shiites, their bitter enemies! He and a female Israeli army officer, with a secret mission of her own, share the arduous adventure that includes ditching a plane in the Caspian Sea and an escape that requires them to steal a captured B2 stealth bomber which happens to have two nuclear tipped Cruise Missiles aboard!
The reader is also introduced to a new type of warfare - orbital satellite laser weapons, named “Guardians.” Originally designed in 2014 to destroy major remote targets under the control of sophisticated military computer networks located in the US, the Guardians are controlled in 2034 (after the demise of the US military) through the use of small aircraft, called “Lasetracks,” which are used as aiming devices. The laser weapons CAN NOT FAIL because of the use of Zero Chips in their microprocessors. The Zero Chip, the US's last major technological breakthrough before its collapse, has the unique capability to process data at speeds in excess of the speed of light and therefore can “see” ahead in time for very brief periods. This capability allows the systems to predict, and correct, their own failures making them virtually incapable of malfunctioning and gives them an infinite life expectancy. These weapons are unstoppable and will be forever! Or so the world has been told.
The only hold that the US, which has become a loosely connected band of settlements, has on a secure position in the world is its ability to use and control this weapons system. In return for its use the European Common Market provides the U.S. not only with national security; but also, the very basic essentials of life via regularly scheduled shipments across the Atlantic. To add to the political and economic complications the ECM felt compelled to replace the U.S. in defense Israel after the world cataclysm (the Shift) in 2016 which had rendered the US impotent in world affairs. Russia lent its support to the ECM in the defense of Israel in a major series of conflicts over a 10 year period, collectively referred to as the Eastern Wars, and suffered severe casualties as its reward.
As the story begins (5 years after the end of the Eastern Wars) the League of Islamic States has embarked on yet one more war with Israel, the ECM and Russia; the Zero Chips in the Guardian satellites are beginning to fail placing the security and very survival of the United States at risk and Russia’s alliance with the ECM has become unstable.
The locations in which the story plays out are a much reconfigured eastern United where Mason Bach, a rehabilitated alcoholic and former agent turned freelance bounty hunter, is tasked to uncover the conspiracy causing the failures of the Guardian satellite weapons. To add to his burden, Mason must solve the mystery within four weeks, the date of the ECM’s World Security Conference in Brussels, or the US will lose its already tentative protected status in the world and be open for take-over or final collapse!
… and in the Middle where Captain Donald Tanner, a middle aged military “retread,” volunteers for a mission that will take him back to Ashgabat Turkmenistan, a city in which he was held prisoner five years earlier, to verify a rumor that the Russian’s are meeting with the Shiites, their bitter enemies! He and a female Israeli army officer, with a secret mission of her own, share the arduous adventure that includes ditching a plane in the Caspian Sea and an escape that requires them to steal a captured B2 stealth bomber which happens to have two nuclear tipped Cruise Missiles aboard!
Nook
First published March 30, 2011
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