Asteroid Discovery

by Bobby Akart

  Friday, April 13

  Apalachicola, Florida

  Pop and Gunner hugged it out when they met up at the dock. The two talked briefly and then put the whole ordeal behind them. Gunner made his way into Apalachicola Bay and pulled into the City Dock, where they worked together to tie off the boat. It was approaching noon when they marched up Avenue D to The Tap Room.

  The doors were open and Kenny Chesney was belting out the lyrics to “No Shoes, No Shirt, No Problem” on their sound system. The stage was set for a raucous Friday lunch crowd; only there was one problem—no customers.

  Usually, the Friday bar patrons were getting geared up for the weekend, as the oystermen were looking to spend their pay in style rather than downing the usual six-pack on the dock, a ritual that capped off the other days of the workweek.

  But not today. The restaurant was empty except for Sammy Hart and one of the servers standing behind the bar, staring up at the continuous news coverage of the tragedy. The two were so consumed by the reporting that they didn’t see Gunner and Pop belly up to the bar.

  “Hey, Sammy,” said Gunner, catching his amateur therapist’s attention.

  Sammy snapped his head around, revealing the dour look on his face. “Hey, sorry, gentlemen. It’s just that …” His voice trailed off as he pointed his thumb over his shoulder.

  “I know, we saw,” interrupted Gunner. “Let’s have a couple of Hooter Browns and two dozen raw, please, sir.”

  “Sure.”

  “Extra horsey for mine,” added Pop. “Tabasco, too.”

  “You got it, Pop.”

  Hart turned to put in the order and then poured their draft beers. He avoided small talk, somehow sensing that Gunner didn’t want to discuss the tragedy. Instead, he cut up lemons and limes to restock the bar, anticipating an afternoon crowd that even he knew might not materialize.

  Gunner’s phone buzzed again, and he pulled it out of his pocket. He set it on the teakwood bar covered with multiple layers of shellac.

  “Son, are you gonna see who’s been calling you? It’s probably Cam or Bear. Or are you back on the call list?”

  “Not supposed to be, Pop. Not until Monday.”

  “What about Cam or Bear? They’re your friends. Don’t you want to—?”

  Pop didn’t finish his sentence as Gunner raised his hand to stop him. He reached for his phone and began to scroll the recent calls to look at the numbers. Cam and Bear had called, but they only represented two of the thirteen attempts. The others were from numbers he didn’t recognize.

  “I’ll call them back later,” Gunner said as he stared at the other calls. “These area codes are, um, two-oh-two, that’s DC. The other is five-seven-one.”

  “Virginia, I think,” offered Pop. “It could be McLean, Alexandria, Reston. I don’t know.”

  Gunner shrugged and put the phone back on the bar. As if on cue, it began to buzz again. Jesus! He angrily grabbed the phone and looked at the display. Two-zero-two.

  Hart arrived with the oysters and set the guys up with another round of beers. Pop stayed focused on the news, reading the closed-captioning that revealed more about the catastrophe.

  Gunner stared at the tray of oysters, wondering about the origin of the old saying the world is your oyster. He’d always understood it to mean that a person could achieve anything they wanted to in life, which hearkened back to the conversation he’d had with Pop after his shower. Gunner looked at it another way.

  Oysters get eaten. What did that say about a world that claims to be someone’s oyster? Or whatever. Gunner didn’t really give a crap, he just wanted to take his mind off, well, everything.

  The satellite radio station had a brief pause between songs, causing Gunner to change his focus to his surroundings. That was when he heard footsteps approaching the bar. He adjusted his seat slightly to get a view of the approaching new customer through the mirror. It was a clean-cut man, with tanned skin and dark sunglasses. He was wearing a starched white shirt and khaki pants.

  When the man sat next to him at the bar, Gunner’s eyes slyly glanced down at his shoes. They weren’t Sperry Top-Siders, something he’d seen worn by most of the bankers and lawyers in town who donned khaki pants. These were shiny, black and belonged on somebody with a coat and tie.

  “Good morning, gentlemen,” he began without looking directly at Gunner or Pop. “Do you recommend the oysters?”

  “They sure do,” answered Hart, Gunner’s guardian of the gate. “I’d be glad to get you a dozen.”

  “No, thanks. I’ll have an iced tea.”

  The three lone guests at the bar sat quietly for several awkward minutes. Pop continued to be affixed on the television, Gunner looked straight ahead, mindlessly counting the number of liquor bottles on display, and the newcomer casually rotated a beverage napkin on the bar.

  Gunner suspected the man was out of place. He didn’t order food. He didn’t order a sweet tea, a definite red flag in the South. And his shoes were too shiny. After another beer was delivered, Gunner decided to have some fun. He acknowledged the man to his left for the first time.

  “So are you two-oh-two or five-seven-one?”

  The man chuckled. “How did you know?”

  “Well, your shoes are a dead giveaway, and my damn phone quit ringing right before you walked in.”

  The man drank from his tea, which was now watered down with melted ice. “Two-zero-two, Major.”

  “You know me, obviously. Do you have a name?”

  “Nope. Just a message.”

  “Okay,” said Gunner, his curiosity piqued.

  “Your country needs you,” the man said dryly.

  Gunner laughed loudly, pulling a mesmerized Pop away from the television. Gunner took another long drink from his pint of beer. “That’s what they all say. Sorry, though, I gave at the office.”

  “That’s disappointing.”

  “Who are you? Even better, what are you?”

  “Have you heard of the CIA, NSA, FBI? The list is long.”

  “Yeah, of course.”

  “They don’t know who I am. That should actually reassure you.”

  Gunner started laughing again. He elbowed Pop and whispered to him, but loud enough for the visitor to hear him, “I kinda like this guy.”

  “Who is he?” asked Pop, leaning forward to assess the man next to Gunner.

  Gunner shrugged again. “Beats me.” Then he turned to the stranger, who’d clearly been sent to recruit him for something. “Well, mister no-name, no-title, no-three-letter-designation, I’m listening.”

  “Major, I’m gonna put this in very technical, patriotic terms for you. Your country is in a pickle.”

  Gunner burst out laughing, snorting his last chug of beer through his nose. Pop joined in the laughter, and Hart fumbled around for a towel before he quickly wiped the residue of Gunner’s outburst off the bar top.

  As Gunner recovered from the laughing fit, he glanced up at the television screen. They were showing the photos of the astronauts who died on this mission, and the twenty-four who’d perished on prior space missions. The graphic immediately put a damper on his newfound jovial mood.

  Gunner closed his eyes and shook his head. “No. Leave me alone.”

  Hart picked up on Gunner’s changed mood and immediately switched to another news network.

  The man persisted. “Major, I’d like you to hear me out.”

  Hart became protective of his friend. “You heard the man. I think you should leave.”

  The man sighed, grimaced, and began to walk away. Gunner glanced up at the television monitor and furrowed his brow as footage obtained from a boat in the middle of the Atlantic Ocean was being shown. It was replayed twice, revealing the moment the OS-1 exploded. Gunner tilted his head, squinted his eyes, and stood from his seat to get a closer look at the monitor.

  “Wait!” he shouted to the man.

  The recruiter stopped in his tracks, but didn’t turn around. Staring at the front doors, he simpl
y said, “You don’t know what we want.”

  Gunner glanced over at Pop and then back to the screen, which was frozen in time, showing the point the mission ended.

  “Doesn’t matter. Tell them I’ll do it.”

  THANK YOU FOR READING ASTEROID: DISCOVERY!

  If you enjoyed it, I’d be grateful if you’d take a moment to write a short review (just a few words are needed) and post it on Amazon. Amazon uses complicated algorithms to determine what books are recommended to readers. Sales are, of course, a factor, but so are the quantities of reviews my books get. By taking a few seconds to leave a review, you help me out and also help new readers learn about my work.

  And before you go …

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  VISIT Amazon.com/BobbyAkart for more information on the Asteroid trilogy, the Doomsday series, the Yellowstone series, the Lone Star series, the Pandemic series, the Blackout series, the Boston Brahmin series and the Prepping for Tomorrow series totaling thirty-eight novels, including over thirty Amazon #1 Bestsellers in forty-plus fiction and nonfiction genres. Visit Bobby Akart’s website for informative blog entries on preparedness, writing, and a behind-the-scenes look into his novels.

  www.BobbyAkart.com

  READ ON FOR AN EXCERPT from ASTEROID: DIVERSION, book two in the Asteroid series.

  Excerpt from

  ASTEROID: DIVERSION

  Prologue

  Command and Control Deck

  The Dmitriy Donskoy

  Off the Continental Shelf near Bermuda

  Atlantic Ocean

  The old Soviet Union was a master at propaganda, and despite the fact that the world witnessed the collapse of the U.S.S.R. in 1991 into fifteen separate countries, the tools of media manipulation were still maintained in the Land of Rus.

  Long-time Russian president, Vladimir Putin, was trained as a foreign intelligence officer in the KGB, and focused his efforts on the weaknesses of the United States beginning with its gullible media—news, entertainment, and social.

  In 2017, Moscow announced, in a show of détente to the new American president, that it would be destroying two of the largest strategic nuclear submarines in the world. The Dmitriy Donskoy and the Severstal were holdovers from the old Soviet Union and slated to be decommissioned.

  However, unbeknownst to Washington, as other Akula-class submarines were being mothballed, these two warhorses of the seas were being retrofitted with RSM-56 Bulava ballistic nuclear missiles. Like the newly designed Borei class of subs, these last two Akula-class were designed to be an integral part of the Russian nuclear triad of submarine-based, aircraft-launched, and space-based weaponry.

  The Americans took the Russians at their word, but due to the secrecy surrounding all Russian military activity, they were unable to verify the continued existence of these two nuclear submarines until recently.

  The Donskoy, bearing hull number TK-208, lurked along the cold, dark waters just off the continental shelf, sailing as far south as the Blake Ridge off the coast of Savannah, upward along the shelf toward Norfolk Canyon, before circling back into the Atlantic Ocean, ostensibly to return to the Russian’s Northern Fleet.

  Instead, the Donskoy was deployed on a circular pattern, making a wide sweep east of the island of Bermuda before approaching the U.S. territorial waters again. Like a shark circling its prey, the Donskoy waited for that moment when it was time to strike.

  Captain Third Rank Gorky, the submarine’s first officer, strolled through the central command deck of the Donskoy, looking over the shoulders of the ship’s crew as they intently studied the American’s activities at Cape Canaveral.

  On the surface, it appeared to be a routine rocket launch of the newest technology deployed by the NASA space agency—the Falcon Heavy rocket system, on a mission to the divert 2029 IM86. However, their intelligence reminded them that the Americans were not to be trusted and Moscow had a vested interest in landing on the asteroid first.

  The crew had been ordered to combat stations the day before, tracking the activity at the Kennedy Space Center using the American news media’s camera feeds, as well as their own Kosmos reconnaissance satellites.

  It was quiet on the command deck as Captain Second Rank Stepanov, the submarine’s commander, walked briskly toward his first officer. He nodded to his subordinate and leaned in to whisper his directives.

  “It has not been confirmed. Intelligence believes the Americans have deployed a nuclear payload on the Falcon Heavy, but without further evidence, we’re told to stand down.”

  Gorky, whose surname ironically meant extremely bitter, grimaced. He’d been steeling for a fight. Like his father before him, he’d been passed over for advancement during his career. He was anxious to show his superiors what his capabilities were, but found himself hamstrung by Moscow’s unwillingness to take the fight to the Americans before their adversaries gained the upper hand.

  “Our nuclear detection systems will provide us the evidence, no?”

  The commander nodded, taking up the stroll through the command deck with Gorky. “Da. The Chinese upgrades to our system will alert us within thirty seconds of a nuclear launch. Our advanced missile launch systems can react quicker than any nation on the planet.”

  Gorky patted one of the Russian sailors on the shoulder. “Place the communications feed from NASA on the overhead speakers.”

  The young man quickly complied and the first words the crew heard were, T minus thirty-one seconds and counting.

  “We will know soon enough about the Americans intentions,” said Gorky as stood back and rotated his body three-hundred-sixty-degrees. He nodded his head and smiled inwardly. He wasn’t formally in command of the Donskoy, but this was his ship nonetheless.

  T minus ten seconds. Nine. Eight. Seven.

  Stepanov was stoic as he gladly allowed his subordinate to take the helm. He was close to retirement and a relaxing future on his farm in Russian’s southern Rostov region. Stepanov remained out of the way, standing near one of the two lowered periscopes, occasionally glancing up at the monitors that encircled the command deck.

  Gorky stood behind the two fire-control computer displays, peering between the heads of the two michman, the rank equivalent of a seaman in the U.S. Navy.

  Solid rocket booster ignition and we have liftoff of Orbital Slingshot One!

  Gorky could hear the cheers from the Launch Control facility in Florida, and sneered at the video screen depicting flag-waving Americans cheering the launch.

  “We’ll see how long you will be cheering in a moment,” he snarled, but barely above a whisper.

  Power and telemetry are nominal.

  The rocket was forty-five seconds into flight. Frustrated, Gorky slammed the back of the padded swivel chairs of the michmen. Stepanov had a different reaction.

  “This is for the better,” he said, breaking the tense silence on the command deck. “The fate of the asteroid and the mission to land is no longer up —.”

  WARNING! Nuclear launch detected. WARNING! Nuclear launch detected.

  The sub’s on-board computer system screamed into Gorky’s ears, causing him to jump slightly. Beads of sweat immediately poured off his forehead and his hands began to shake. He’d been waiting for this moment his entire career. An opportunity to show the arrogant Americans that they were not superior to any one.

  Vehicle is supersonic.

  “It’s getting away!” he shouted as Commander Stepanov joined his side to study the monitors. “Arm countermeasures and prepare to fire.”

  “You will not fire unless on my command,” ordered Stepanov, slightly shoving Gorky away from the two nervous michmen.

  “But sir!”

  “You heard me, stand down until I order otherwise!”

  Gorky studied the computer screens and shook his head in disbelief. The artificial intelligence calculated that th
e Falcon Heavy Rocket would be directly over Bermuda in a matter of seconds. Once it cleared the island, it would be in a perfect position to be intercepted and destroyed by the submarine’s Bulava nuclear missiles.

  Maximum dynamic pressure achieved.

  Gorky stomped his right foot and swung away from the console, visibly upset and pounded his way toward the other end of the command deck.

  He couldn’t contain himself. “How long since liftoff?”

  BECO.

  He understood rocket launch procedures having been enamored with the space race as a child. He knew that the booster engines were being cut off and soon, the Americans and their nuclear payload would be out of reach.

  “Sir, we are running out of time. We cannot be responsible for allow—.” Gorky was interrupted by the submarine’s voice warning system.

  WARNING! Nuclear launch detected. WARNING! Nuclear launch detected.

  “We will wait for our authorization!” Stepanov was angry now. “You will stand down Gorky until the proper orders have been received.”

  MECO.

  “Sir, the American orbiter will be under its own power now. We’ve lost our opportunity.” Gorky dropped his chin to his chest and shook his head in disgust. He gave up the fight, suddenly realizing that the insubordination shown to his commander in front of the fully-staffed command deck would likely end his career.

  Stepanov, who remained calm throughout, turned to the monitors. He read the launch time aloud. “Three minutes, forty-five seconds.”

  Separation ignition.

  Captain Second Rank Stepanov stood and exhaled. He understood that their mission was over. The decision to have the Donskoy stand down was made for reasons he’d never know. He shoved his hands in his pockets and watched the American crew of eleven soar into space.

  Until they weren’t.

  PART ONE

  Friday, April 13

  ASTROMETRY

  Identification Number: 2029 IM86