COBRA

Mayday, Mayday, Mayday. Alpha 075.

I'm declaring a fuel emergency.

Alpha 075, what's your current fuel status?

- _ - 295 souls on board.

Current fuel status is half an hour.

We spent too long over France. We won't make Newcastle.

They've had avionics issues since the storm hit.

And then the situation at Charles de Gaulle.

Where is he now?

Approaching Northumberland but we keep losing him.

- Try Newcastle. - He doesn't think he'll get there.

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OK, Alpha 075, we're sending you to RAF Coningsby.

We won't make that. We need to land.

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That's exactly what I said to them.

We don't have the officers...

Jesus Christ!

A plane just went over really low but I can't see any lights.

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- You're smoking. - No!

- Why can't you vape? - Real men don't vape.

Where's your protection officer?

Risk is part of smoking. Take that out, what have you got?

Lymph nodes! I called James. He's just coming.

So can I go to the party?

As long as we can video you millie-rocking.

- You think I don't know what that is. - He doesn't.

We don't really do parties anyway.

- Really? What do you call them now? - A few friends coming round...

Yeah. For tea and biscuits.

Well, enjoy yourselves. You deserve it.

I love you. Call me later. Bye, Georgia.

Fascist scum! Sutherland! Resign!

- Yes, make that move. - Bye, Mrs Sutherland.

Are you sure?

It's been a long time coming. What about the other issue?

Still waiting for an update from Fraser.

- OK. I'm on my way. - OK.

I'll call you as soon as I hear anything.

Dan?

I want an immediate update if there's any sign of panic buying

at the petrol stations.

Anna.

You didn't answer my letters.

They didn't deserve an answer.

Mum?

Please go.

You don't even want to know what happened.

No.

Mum, who's this guy? Is he hassling you?

He's just going.

Come on. Come inside. Come on.

_

X5.

And another one.

I'll let them know.

- Anna. - Multiple X5s.

- Right. Do we know...? - That's all we've got.

But we've gone from moderate to significant threat

and we're informing all goal commanders.

I'll tell the Prime Minister.

- Anna. - Multiple X5s.

We've gone to significant threat.

They could be heading our way.

Convene a full COBRA for the morning.

So, shall I be Mum?

I've never done it like this before.

It's cool.

I might just drop a couple of downers.

Later. Babe, honestly.

Trust me.

It's like you're riding down a river on a swan.

It just takes the edge off everything.

Here.

Cheers.

_

- Dominic Knight's on the way. - Great. Thanks.

_

Hey, Anna. You wanted to see me.

- It wasn't me. - It was you.

- I didn't. - You did.

I did an interview a while back/

"What's the most important function of being the PM's Chief of Staff?"

Do you know what I was tempted to say?

Knowing where the nearest toilet is at all times.

There's the strategic input, diary management, controlling access.

But really it comes down to making sure

he always has somewhere to take a piss.

You don't get to choose your level of loyalty

when you work at this address.

We have a COBRA on the solar threat at 11.

And you have until the end of the day to draft your resignation letter.

Can I...? That is outrageous.

You're quite right. You don't need all day for such a short letter.

Two hours should be plenty. Have it done by lunch.

The civil servants are waiting. We should go.

Oh, and Dominic.

You can leave by the public entrance.

Queen takes Knight. We should expect a counter-attack.

Don't worry. Got the next move all planned out.

Peter will brief the press

the threat level's been raised to significant.

All the petrol stations seem to be working.

There's no sign of panic yet.

Because people don't know what to panic about.

- Morning, Archie. - Fuck that!

Have you just sacked Dominic Knight?

Shouldn't it be, "Fuck that, Prime Minister?"

You should have talked to me first.

I really don't think that's part of my constitutional obligations actually.

You know how it looks. Dom's closely identified with me.

Don't go there, Archie.

Or I'm gonna be forced to ask,

"Who gave him the nod to brief against the policy he helped devise?"

They're ready for us now.

Oh, I'm sorry, Lady Macbeth.

I didn't spot you lurking there for one delightful moment.

That might work if I was his wife.

Never too late.

So which virtue-signalling ponce has been lined up to replace him?

I have a couple of ideas.

Francine Bridge was one thought that occurred to me.

We'll have to have a chat about that one.

Now, as you are already aware,

this morning,

the threat from Extreme Space Weather

was raised from moderate to significant.

There is some uncertainty as to the impact zone

but the UK is certainly at risk.

I'll now hand over to the Chief Scientific Officer.

Yes, as I briefed the Director

of the Civil Contingencies Secretariat last night,

the Met Office has been seeing fairly significant activity

on the eastern side of the sun.

But we planned for all this though.

There was the seminar you did at the Home Office.

What was it called again? The last bad one, a couple of centuries back.

The Carrington Event.

And a few telegraph operators got singed eyebrows, right?

The point is though, Home Secretary,

as I'm sure you'll recall from my presentation,

that our technologies are much more sophisticated now.

The impact of a similar-sized storm will be considerably worse.

OK, but it's not a great big meteorite or the sun suddenly blowing up.

It's neither of those scenarios.

I shall make the Press very aware of that later.

Be great if we could all stay on message on this one.

Well, I have a bottle of Lagavulin with the Foreign Secretary,

this will all go the way it normally does.

I am sure we are all hugely reassured by that, Archie.

Now perhaps you could pick up the threats

in terms of practical implications

just in case the shark actually is in the water like the last time.

Of course, Prime Minister.

Stage One of a bad solar storm would knock out satellites,

potentially destabilising all transport and navigational systems.

I understand that aviation is the biggest concern.

Yes. There are real worries over flight safety

after a serious particle blizzard.

But Stage Two is potentially the most disruptive part.

The storm will almost certainly release

several blasts of plasma into space.

And if one of these reaches Earth

it could cause huge damage to the power supply

through voltage instability and transformer damage on the network.

Some areas could be without power for months.

The National Grid begs to differ.

They think it could be restricted to a couple of remote areas.

And it could. We just don't really know and neither do they.

But even one day without power is enough to drive most people insane

and do huge damage to the economy.

Think of the impact of weeks or even months.

When are we gonna know whether all or any of this is gonna happen?

We expect to see more large flares on the visible face of the sun.

The Met Office are monitoring for plasma launches.

But even then, it would have to come our way

and even then there would still be one critical variable left.

Does the incoming plasma field

have a north or south magnetic orientation?

- Which is the one we don't want? - Hot South bad.

Frozen North... harmless.

The probability is absolutely 50:50.

The plasma eruption could have very little impact at all

or... it could be extremely serious.

When do we know? For certain.

So once released it could take up to two days

to cover the 90 million miles from sun to Earth.

But we'll only know if we're Hot South

when it passes our satellite at the L1 point.

That's about one million miles from Earth.