Storm Killer
Benjamin Blue
Acknowledgements
I wish to thank my group of manuscript readers who gave me such good suggestions about the story. It is only through their support and constant encouragement that I found the energy and stamina to complete this first part of the forthcoming trilogy.
That group includes Boston John, my old pal Ray, and my sister, Debbie, and her husband, Mike.
Special thanks to Lydia, my Texas editor who corrected my rotten English and found places for hundreds of commas.
And I would like to thank my wife, Marlyn, for her support while I lived like a hermit in my office as I developed, wrote, revised, and published this book.
Introduction
The following excerpt was taken from Milton William Johnson’s Earth History; Life in the Twenty-first Century, second edition, 2455.
“At the beginning of the twenty-first century, it became apparent that winters were becoming colder and more arid. Spring brought torrential whiteout rains and tornadoes of unprecedented strength and frequency. Summer presented draught and high heat. Fall was filled with tropical storms of unimaginable intensity and numbers.
“Hurricanes seemed to occur earlier and earlier each year. They became stronger and destroyed whole cities and coastlines, such as the low-lying city of New Orleans, the Gulf Coast, and Tampa.
“Dire predictions of global disaster ran rampant through news media.
“The global technology company, CORDEX, based in Gaithersburg , Maryland, had, in the late 90s, stumbled on a revolutionary optical polymer only two molecules thick that provided perfect, undistorted, high magnification of light.
“Coming from their think tank group, a proposal for application of this polymer was brought forward to the company executives who saw large dollar signs if the proposal could be sold to the United States government and insurance carriers.
“They proposed to build a geo-synchronous orbiting station of gigantic proportions that would use the polymer in kilometers of thin film sheets to capture and focus sunlight on the weather-producing engine of a tropical storm.
“The premise being that application of tremendous heat at specific points in the weather engine of a storm would affect the storm’s ability to grow or even survive by lowering the temperature difference between the lower and upper atmosphere. This would cause the weather engine to short circuit from a lack of energy.
“All major insurance companies and the Federal government found merit with the proposal and funded the project with over one hundred billion dollars. Thus, was born the Storm Killer project.”
** To The Reader **
The following events take place two decades later as Storm Killer is about to go operational in its first practical test against real hurricanes. It’s success or failure is in the hands of a small security team aboard the Storm Killer station.
Between the publishing of the initial CORDEX proposal and the birth of Storm Killer, many of the central characters of the narrated events that follow in this book had life-changing events happen to them. These events shaped the very fabric of their beings and how they would respond to the upcoming Storm Killer incident.
A few of the following chapters will deal with some of these life-changing events as they touched and changed the central players of the Storm Killer incident. The large majority of the following chapters narrate the actual events of that incident.
These events are as they happened. Storm Killer’s success or failure, the fate of the crew, and the fate of Florida was decided in less than twenty-four hours.
1
Edna’s Birth
The local sorghum farmers had tried everything to rid themselves of the destructive shoot flies. Insecticides were useless. Introducing genetically altered sterile flies had no impact.
This year’s hordes of shoot flies were the worst ever seen in the western African nation of Guinea. All of the farmers agreed, the sorghum harvest was most assuredly lost.
Nebo Kantonga owned a sorghum farm on the gentle lower slopes of Mount Nimba, the highest mountain in Guinea. He was standing on the creaking ancient wooden platform that served as a porch in front of his dilapidated tworoom house gazing at the heavily forested terrain below him.
His great grandfather’s had built the house with just a hammer and a handsaw. The outside had never seen paint of any sort. The inside had seen too much paint over the years and now lead poisoning threaten the health of his children. But that was the least of his concerns at the moment.
His home was situated so that from this vantage point he could actually see the border of Liberia twenty kilometers away today. Today was extremely hot. But it was still early in the day and the air had not filled with the haze normally hanging over the dense forest in summer.
While Nebo gazed at the awe-inspiring view with a vacant stare, his mind was focused on the fly problem. His crop was doomed. No crop, no money. He might be forced to sell the family farm. It had been in his family for ten generations and he knew no other occupation. He saw his wife and eight children in his mind’s eye as he thought sorrowfully. How will I care for my family?
He picked up his shovel and walked down to the field of sorghum that lay on the leeward side of the slope. This area received only ten percent of the rain of the windward side. Sorghum grass thrived in this more arid environment.
As he approached the field, he saw the plants were covered in the small tan colored shoot flies. He became almost hysterical when he saw this. He ran into the field wielding the shovel as a futile weapon. He swung and swung at the flies until his arms felt on fire and his breath came in ragged gasps. The flies would leap away from his shovel’s path only to instantly return to their feeding.
On his last futile swing, his shovel made contact with a single shoot fly that caromed from the shovel to ground. The fly, even though gravely injured, raised itself in the air and started flying higher and higher. This was made more difficult by the grains of sand that had attached itself to the fly’s sticky thorax where the shovel had cracked the exterior shell.
As the fly used its last reserves of strength, it began to fall back toward the ground almost eight hundred meters below it. It was suddenly caught in a tremendous updraft caused by the early morning sun’s heating of the air. Tumbling over and over, it was lifted higher and higher. Until, finally, it drew abreast of the summit of Mount Nimba where the upward current final ended.
A single grain of very fine sand fell from the fly’s body as it struggled to right itself and fly again. What became of the fly will never be known. But the grain of sand was caught in another, even more powerful wind funneled upward by the very shape of the mountain. This updraft carried the grain all the way to the troposphere. Along the way, a small negative electrical charge built up on the grain of sand. The attracted other grains of sand and debris being blown higher and higher into the atmosphere. As the grains attracted and stuck together, liquid water formed around the still warm grains from the frigid water-ice vapor held aloft by the winds.
These grains, now inside a large water drop, began to fall back to earth. Another updraft caught the drop and blew it apart into two drops. These two drops, still warmer than the surrounding air grew in size as more water liquefied. This process was repeated hundreds of times with each drop splitting into two or more each time the updraft caught them.
Within a very short time, the single drop had become billions. These billions formed an ever-growing thunderhead. The sky blackened, as the billions became trillions. Soon the weight of the drops overcame the updrafts and fell to the ground. A torrential tropical rain shower was born.
Normally the clouds would be pulled apart by various factors like wind shear
. But conditions today were extremely favorable for cloud formation and as more and more rain fell, the temperature variances became greater and greater between the upper atmosphere and ground. This led to even stronger updrafts.
Eventually, the storm turned into a tropical wave that thundered off the Atlantic coast of Guinea heading due west.
The ocean waters had been heating all summer. It had been an exceptionally hot summer and now the waters contained the maximum amount of stored energy and heat. The upper winds were calm. Conditions were favorable for the metamorphous of the tropical wave into a tropical depression.
Conditions continued to be advantageous for the now serious but still fledging storm. It fed on the stored energy of the water. Growing in size and intensity until, finally, it achieved tropical storm status and was named Edna.
Another three days found Edna achieving hurricane status as she continued her way west by north west.
Nebo Kantonga, the simple farmer, would have never been able to grasp the fact that his single act of frustration against the pesky shoot fly had caused Hurricane Edna to be born.
2
The Plan
The woman looked long and hard at the man seated across the table, peering deep into the man’s eyes. She looked down at her hands as she said in a flat tone, “You’ll have to be electrocuted.”
The man didn’t stir or respond. He simply sat opposite the woman and seemed to be inspecting the ceiling. He cleared his throat, opened his mouth as if to speak, and then closed it.
The woman got up from the table and shambled toward the coffee pot on the counter. She moved slowly in an almost duck walk gait because of the low-gravity environment.
She turned to look at the man still seated at the table and repeated. “You’ll have to be electrocuted. Yes, I think that’s best. You’ll be electrocuted.”
The woman turned back to the counter and poured two steaming cups from the stainless steel coffee pot. She snapped lids onto the cups to keep the coffee from sloshing out in the low gravity.
She carried them to the table and placed one in front of the man seated there. She sat down across the table from him. They removed the lids, blew on the surface of the dark hot liquid, and took careful sips.
The two had similar features: piercing brown eyes, a sharp but well-shaped nose, thick auburn hair, and a dark complexion. They shared other traits, like the way they held their coffee cups, the pursing of the lips to blow on the coffee cup to cool the hot liquid, and the way their faces showed emotions.
The man remarked, “Good coffee, sis. You really know how to brew a good pot of coff--.”
She angrily cut him off. “Don’t make any reference to our family relationship! Especially not here, and especially not now! No one must know we’re related. Got it?”
He sighed, held up his hands in surrender, and slowly nodded his agreement. “Okay. Okay. I’m sorry! I should know better. You’re right. We have to be very careful while we’re here. Until… Until what I’ve got to do is over and done. ”
The woman went back to staring at the dark liquid in her cup. She looked sad.
The man leaned over and took her hand across the table, “I know you don’t agree with what I’m going to do.”
“No, I definitely don’t agree with any of this,” the woman almost shouted at the man. Then in an almost inaudible voice she said, “But I’ve got little choice, do I?”
“No, you don’t.”
They sat quietly for a minute or more sipping their coffees. Each was deep in their private thoughts about the near future.
The man absentmindedly reached into his shirt pocket and withdrew a pack of gum. He removed a stick, carefully removed the paper sleeve, unfolded the foil wrap, and placed the gum in his mouth. He then very carefully refolded the gum’s foil wrapper, replaced the paper sleeve, and returned it to the pack.
He quietly chewed on the new stick as the silence continued to permeate the room.
The woman stirred and broke the silence. “Like I said before, you’ll have to be electrocuted.”
The man smiled sadly, nodded and sighed heavily as if he were very tired. “That sounds like the right approach. I’ll be electrocuted.”
The man appeared to be deep in thought for a moment and then added, “Make sure the emergency oxygen bottle is tough to get off the sled. That’ll add another thirty to forty-five seconds to the time to revive me.”
The woman nodded, “Okay, I can make sure the bottle gets tangled up with some other gear.”
She grabbed the man’s left hand and leaned over the table until her face was only inches from his. The woman implored, “Please. Rethink this! There’s still time to end this madness!”
The man shook his head and slammed his open right hand on the table. “Enough! Hold your tongue! I’ve gotta do this! It’s time for people to pay. Pay for their disregard and lack of understanding. No, that’s wrong. They do have understanding; they just don’t give a crap. But they will soon. Oh yes, they will soon.”
He glanced at his wristwatch and patted the back of the woman’s hand. “I’ve got to leave before someone gets curious about why I’m here so long. Remember to tangle up the oxygen bottle! The way things are going, I will probably have to be electrocuted within the next twenty-four hours. So be ready to act.”
They stood up, hugged, and the man left the woman’s table.
The woman remained standing, staring at the man’s back as he left the room. She sat down at the table as if the weight of the world were on her shoulders. Even in the low gravity, she seemed to be weighted down by the situation. Her eyes glistened with tears as she whispered, “Yes, my dear brother, electrocution is the best path for you. Oh my God, what are we doing? What am I doing?” And then she dropped her head into her hands and cried.
3
Storm Killer
Adam Sand glanced from Storm Killer to the background of Earth. From this height one could see the entire hemisphere. They were in geo-synchronous orbit permanently positioned over the east coast of the United States. He could see a hurricane approaching Florida. It’s early for a storm like this. It’s only late August. Normally hurricanes form much later in the year. He thought to himself as he surveyed the storm. He muttered to him self, “Normal? Things in weather haven’t been “normal” for several years now.” He pondered. Maybe what’s happening now is going to be the new normal. How many Category Five storms have we had the last three years? Nine, or ten? What difference does it make? One is more than enough.
His eyes returned to the immense station known as the Storm Killer project. It was the largest engineering project ever attempted by the human race. It dwarfed projects like the ancient pyramids of Giza, and the Hoover or Three Gorges dams. It was more ambitious than the Great Wall of China. In fact, it was a more complex, and far more expensive project than all of these others put together, and Adam was the project manager for its construction.
The station seemed to hang in the emptiness of space. Every time he looked at it he was awestruck by its size. One could not appreciate the sheer size without some human point of reference. Adam used the small fleet of shuttles that ferried supplies and materials between Earth and Storm Killer. Currently there were three shuttles docked at the station. Two were from NASA in the United States, and one was from JAXA, the Japanese space agency. Each was the size of a 747 aircraft. Yet, the three shuttles were very small protrusions from the top of the station’s southern sphere. These small pimples on Storm Killer’s skin gave a clear indication of the immensity of the station.
The station looked like an antique erector set mixed with LEGO blocks gone wild. Attached at each end of its central two-kilometer-long titanium column were large spheres of the same material. The twin spheres were each over three quarters of a kilometer in diameter. The entire assembly resembled a dumbbell and most of the contractors involved in the station’s construction simply called it that.
At the top of each sphere sprouted several square blo
cks that contained the station’s power plants, air purification and recovery facilities as well as several ongoing scientific experiments. These units were attached to the station by one-hundred-meter-long transport tubes set at various angles from the spheres.
From each sphere of the dumbbell radiated two rows of six equal spaced arms made of spindly carbon fiber rods each about nineteen hundred meters in length. Between the rods were loosely folded gossamer-thin panels of a translucent film. The panels were almost invisible until the sunlight struck them at certain points during the station’s slow rotation.
Adam watched the work crew align the final panel to the final anchor point of the final rod. He was extremely uncomfortable in his environmental suit, but the comfort issue was the furthest thing from his thoughts. He was elated by the completion of the final panel. The slight adjustments being made to the panel now made Storm Killer operational.
As of tomorrow, Man would forever take away control of the Earth’s weather from jaded Mpther Nature’s eternal grasp.
4
Ten Years Earlier;
Damaged Goods
The girl features ran through the alley as fast as she could. She was slowed by the backpack of books and school supplies bouncing on her back. She was threading her way through some of the back streets and alleys of the Angelino Heights section of the Echo Park district of greater Los Angeles. The rears of gracious Victorian homes sprawled on both sides of the narrow alley she now traversed.
She had classic Latin features and temperament. Dark, flashing brown eyes, long luxurious dark hair, smooth olive skin, and a zest for life few possessed.
She wore the black and green uniform of Belmont High School. She was a senior there. The school, originally opened in the early 1920s, had been renovated several years earlier. Her family had used one of the rooms there for her eighteenth birthday just two weeks ago. The building was now in flames as the rioters had moved deeper into Angelino Heights. The students had run from the building as the headmaster’s voice had boomed from the PA system, “The rioters have broken through the police cordon! Run! Run for your lives! The rioters are only a block away!”
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