Dead Hand

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Like the slow, steady pealing of a church bell announcing the death of a parishioner, the massive steel blast doors reverberated with each new explosion. Some of the more nervous officers and soldiers still at their stations jumped each time a new eruption shook the doors that separated them from the vicious combat on the other side. When the sound of one particularly violent detonation rippled through the launch-control center, even the steadiest of them dropped all pretenses of the calm demeanor that was a hallmark of the elite Russian Strategic Rocket Force. Comrades who had shared and endured so many hardships on the fringes of Siberia exchanged nervous glances. Now, with the rattle of small-arms fire growing closer and the acrid smell of cordite seeping into the room that controlled the ICBM fields of their regiment, one by one the mutinous soldiers turned to stare at the console where their commander should have been.

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