The U.S. Missile Shield, now controlled from Adelaide, would have looked from above like a cheap umbrella.  Still, while recycled paper and plastic were being exhumed from the South Australian outback and extruded into space-station "lifeboats" for Western Civilization, as long as it kept the Jihad at bay for a few years, the ageing Aegis system would have served its purpose.  These days people refer to it mostly as the Shield of Christ.  and the devotion with which its components are renewed at Port Adelaide is akin to religious fervour. 

The trick was going to be how to get the population off-planet and keep the allies of Allah out of Antarctica.  Bad enough if they got control of the Australian uranium reserve, but what if they got their hands on the mineral reserves beneath the ocean floor under the South polar icecap?   We'd be broke.  

It was a bit of a bugger really, finally getting the gig as Australia's leader just when the Yanks ran out of non-radioactive soil to inhabit, but at least I get to be vice-president of the Ultimate Sacrifice if they can get together enough nanotechs to decontaminate the place.  There seems to be a lot more interest in terraforming Antartctica, now that the temperature's warmed up again.   Apparently it's a lot easier to let the nanos run free over virgin terrain then rebuild a destroyed infrastructure, and having seen the speed in which Halliburton rebuilt Adelaide into a city of five million to accomodate the cultural refugees I can understand that the New Southern United States is a much more viable prospect.

Still it's all academic really, if your population has to be kept in cold storage while global warming and Halliburton do their work on the Last Continent.  I still can't decide whether to take the cryogenic option above our tough it out down under.  Sorry, that was a terrible joke.

As I write I'm looking at the glow in the Northern Sky.  Hang on, I'm sure I didn't authorise the reintroduction of Guy Fawkes Night.....