by Evan Currie
That was enough for Quinn to start paying real attention. “Ground zero?”
“Looks like Nevada, Sir.” Pierce told him with a wince. “We’re refining it now, and there’s going to be slop in the numbers because we don’t know how it’s going to interact with the atmosphere yet, but it’s on course for desert strike.”
“Jesus,” Quinn swore, “Ready squadrons wound up?”
“We have one in the air already, more standing by. Ground teams will roll out as soon as we have a better idea of the impact point,” Pierce said. “Right now, that’s what we know.”
“The other half dozen chunks?”
Pierce shrugged, “The closest of those will cross the Cislunar boundary within the hour. We’ve projected impact points across the planet as the Earth continues to turn. The first of those should come in off the coast of California, the one out in the general region of Hawaii, China, India, and so on. We’re crunching numbers to try and be more precise, but we just detected them less than an hour ago, Sir.”
“When we know, I know, got me Colonel?” Quinn said firmly.
“Yes sir.”
“In the meantime…” The Admiral hesitated, then gestured with his right hand as he made his decision. “Call civil defense, have them put out a warning through the tornado system and let the news teams know that we’re tracking potential space debris that could hit the ground.”
“Yes sir.”
Quinn motion to dismiss Pierce, then instantly called out, “Colonel…”
“Sir?” Pierce looked back.
“Make it clear that we’re not looking at some Armageddon situation here, will you? We don’t need a statewide panic. I just want people to know that they might need to duck sometime tonight.”
“Yes Sir, I’ll be clear.” Pierce said before leaving.
Quinn took another deep drink of the coffee as he held the tablet up and read off the details.
“Nick?” He called over his shoulder.
His secretary, Lieutenant Nicholas Rand immediately stepped forward. “Sir?”
“Another coffee,” Quinn said, hefting the now half empty cup. “I’ll be in the Operations Center the rest of the night.”
“Yes sir.”
As the Lieutenant left, Quinn stepped deeper into the Op Center and looked up to the large screens at the front of the room.
“ETA to atmospheric entry,” He said loudly enough to be heard over the hubbub of the room.
“Eight minutes Admiral,” One of the techs answered without looking over his shoulder or away from his station. “New numbers coming in on the other contacts… we’ve revised their ETA up significantly.”
That caught Quinn’s attention, “We misjudge their approach velocity?”
“Apparently,” The tech said, still looking over his display terminal. “Not sure what happened there. We’re running off NASA’s direct feed so while we’re getting the numbers in real time, it’s taking longer for them to figure things out.”
“What monitor are they on?” He asked, glancing around.
“Left side, third down, Sir.”
Quinn turned to his left and found the screen where a video conferencing application was running, and several people were visibly arguing across a conference table.
“They’re muted?” He asked dryly, unsurprised.
“They were giving several people headaches over here, Sir,” The technician answered blithely. “I can turn the sound back on…”
“No,” Quinn said quickly. “I assume they have a way to get our attention if they have anything?”
“Yes sir.”
“Good, leave them on mute.”
Quinn knew too well how chaotic many of the ‘experts’ at NASA could be. Most of them were admittedly geniuses, but the problem was that they both knew it and believed it. In his experience, there were few things as troublesome as a genius who believed his own hype.
“Thank you, sir.”
The Admiral forced down a chuckle at that response and spent the next few minutes reviewing the available information more closely than his quick skim had allowed. The contacts were apparently on a ballistic trajectory from the source of the explosion, or whatever it was, out in Jovian orbit.
That didn’t make sense to him, and it took Quinn almost two minutes to figure out why.
They made it from there to here in three days?
That seemed… unlikely, given their current velocity, but he would have to confirm that with the experts.
Before he could say anything, however, the first stage alert went up.
“Object One has entered the upper atmosphere! Tracking up!”
The large main screen at the front of the room lit up, showing high altitude RADAR telemetry of the object as it began to dig into the thickening atmosphere at just under ten thousand kilometers.
“Eagle eyes, Screen two!” Someone else called out.
The second screen lit up with a camera shot from a U2 spy plane. Quinn was mildly surprised that they had one on station, but a quick check of the orders in his brief showed that Pierce had ordered one up as soon as they had calculated a Nevada touchdown.
Good man, Quinn thought, deciding to drop a note of approval and retroactive permission in the Colonel’s jacket. Ordering up a U2 was technically within his authority, but it had been a bit of a risky move anyway. The spyplane was extremely expensive to fly, so it was possible some penny pincher might make an issue of it.
At seventy thousand feet, or about twenty kilometers up, the U2 had a clear view of the target as it entered the atmosphere. Without the flicker and mirage of thicker atmospheric distortion, the image on the screen looked almost like something out of a big budget movie.
The object had hit fast enough to ignite the atmosphere, leaving a flickering trail of fire that was obscuring the object itself from their view. A glance to the left was enough for Quinn to determine that the NASA boys had shut up and were now entirely focused on the imagery they were getting.
He tapped the closest tech on the shoulder to get his attention, then nodded to the NASA screen. “Let me hear them now.”
“Yes sir.”
Even unmuted, nothing was coming through from Houston for the moment as the eggheads were entirely engrossed in the U2 imagery, but just in case anything changed in a bad way Quinn wanted to hear about it in real time.
“Tracking true and straight, we’re on target for a desert impact,” A technician said from the front row of the op center. “Well clear of populated areas.”
Well, that’s something anyway.
Strictly speaking, Quinn was well aware that the odds were highly against a strike in a populated area. For all the pervasiveness of humans, most of the surface of the planet was empty. Hell, even most of the land mass was in reality.
Still, close counted with something moving at the speed this thing had under its proverbial belt. Even within a hundred miles of a town it could cause some pretty severe problems.
He was starting to relax a little as the fireball on the screen continued to plummet down past eight thousand kilometers, only to snap his glare to the left as one of the NASA specialists on the screen let out a scream of… something.
“It’s slowing down! It’s slowing down!” The sixty – odd – year - old man was chanting while he danced on the screen.
Admiral Quinn started to snap at the screen, when one of his own people let out a curse.
When a military man starts cursing that loudly in a crisis… if he’s an officer, at least. Quinn had long since learned to pay close attention.
“What’s going on?” He demanded, crossing the room to where the Major was leaning over a telemetry display.
“He’s right,” Major Malloy said. “It’s slowing down.”
“Air resistance?”
“No, Sir. Active maneuvering. That thing is under power.” Malloy told him firmly.
Quinn blinked, trying to figure that out, “How sure are we of its origin?”
“If you mean, did
it come from Jupiter’s orbit?” The Major shrugged. “A few minutes ago I’d have said we were completely certain. Now, I’m running back through all our numbers to check and see if maybe someone pulled a slingshot maneuver around the moon for some reason.”
“So, it could have been launched from China, Russia, North Korea?” Quinn asked.
“Not North Korea, they can’t hit the Pacific Ocean intentionally,” Malloy shook his head. “But sure, maybe China or Russia could pull this off… but we’d have monitored a launch, Admiral.”
Quinn turned, addressing the NASA specialists. “I’m going to ask this, though I shouldn’t have to, is this one of yours?”
The Mission Commander in the room, Gary Mitchell, centered the camera on himself.
“No Admiral, this is not one of ours. Nor is it anything officially launched by China, Russia, India, Japan, the ESA, or any other government or private concerns we’re in contact with.”
Quinn nodded curtly, turning back to his Operations Center. “Scramble defense squadrons, here, on the coast, Hawaii, Japan, and wind up every carrier group along the projected course for the contacts’ landing zones. I want everything we have, in the air, ten minutes ago!”
He grimaced, heading to the command station. “Keep me apprised of anything significant, but keep down the hubbub. I need to wake POTUS.”
*****
Chapter 2
Escape Pod, Sixty Kilometers over North America
Enough alarms were going off to wake the dead, something that he hadn’t seen happen in several decades at least, which was a memory that Benjamin Wachun could have done without as he was focusing on getting his pod down to the surface of the planet in one piece.
“Shut up!” He snarled, killing as many of the warnings as possible, only pausing when one of them in specific caught his eye.
Active targeting? Who’s targeting me now of all… oh for the love of…
The scanners on the pod were… rudimentary at best, but they had been equipped with basic detection and countermeasure systems to give people a chance of surviving a bail out in a fight. It wasn’t much of a chance, but there it was.
In this case, however, they’d picked up RADAR scanning from the planet as well as several aircraft zeroing in on his course.
Ben hissed in annoyance when the computer failed to identify them and put their profiles up on one of the small monitors he really should have been using for flight telemetry instead.
“Wow. An actual U2,” He said, somewhat impressed. “Last time I saw one of those was in the museum in Beijing. This one looks to be in slightly better shape.”
He wrote that off, since he was well aware that the spy plane didn’t have weapons and, as impressive as it was for the day it was built, even his escape pod outclassed it by a wide margin.
The other contacts, they were a little more worrisome.
“F35s. Great.”
The American made F35 was far from a perfect combat aircraft, but unlike the U2 these were armed and, while his pod could probably out race them, they were already in position to intercept. To get to the ground, he had to get through them.
Ben was wracking his mind, trying to remember just how jumpy the United States was in most twenty first century dimensions.
The cold war was twentieth century, but I think this was the height of the American’s military culture.
Like many Marines, he had at least some minor interest in history… as far as it applied to his chosen vocation at least, but Ben knew he was far from a historian… armchair or otherwise.
He was impressed, actually, that they had even spotted him coming in. As best as he could recall, space observation wasn’t much of a priority at this point in most Earth’s history.
I wonder what they made of a Junction Portal and two slip-ships blowing all to hell?
Whatever it was, judging from the sudden furor of warning signals he’d been hit by, they weren’t happy about it and that was going to make things decidedly more complicated.
“Arm countermeasures,” He ordered the computer. “Status of atmospheric thrusters?”
“Countermeasures armed,” The computer intoned back. “Thrusters now at seventy percent.”
“Kill thrusters, engage air brakes to maximum.” He ordered.
“Warning. Suggested operation will result in high G acceleration.”
“Did I ask for commentary? Just do it.”
The gentle pressure of the thrusters vanished, putting him in freefall for a moment before the air brakes on the exterior of the pod snapped wide open and he was slammed into his harness and began spinning wildly.
Ben grabbed the controls, wrestling with the attitude adjustment on the brakes as he fought to break out of the spin and stabilize his flight path. The air brakes would get the pod down to a survivable speed, but if he didn’t gain control over the spin soon, he was likely to pass out long before that happened.
Since waking up in a primitive government holding facility wasn’t on his list of things to do before he died Ben figured that he’d best take his fate in his hands… literally as possible.
As he fought the vagaries of the thickening atmosphere, knowing that until it got thick enough to really give his control surfaces something to bite into he was really just mounting a holding action at best, Ben wondered just what in the hell had fired up the local fire gnat’s nest anyway.
Surely there isn’t a full military response swinging into action over a single escape pod, is there?
*****
USSTRATCOM, AFB OFFUT, Nevada
“Objects Two, Three, and Four have entered the atmosphere above object one. |They’re accelerating, Admiral!”
Quinn twisted around, his face a mask of concern and disbelief.
“You mean decelerating?” He asked for clarification.
“No sir, increasing velocity relative to the ground. They’re coming in hot and… Whoa!”
The tech blurted out a shocked yell that made Quinn cross the room in three strides.
“What is it?” He demanded.
“Object One just started decelerating hard,” The technician answered. “He had been on a slow burn, but I think… yeah, he’s deployed aero braking. He’s in a flat spin.”
A voice from the left caused Quinn to turn as Mitchell spoke over the link to NASA.
“Object One is now experiencing heavy Gee forces due to the spin,” He said, “If that were one of our re-entry vehicles, I’d be worried about the pilot.”
“I’m more worried that no one seems to know where these things came from,” Quinn responded simply, looking back to note that the remaining objects they were tracking had entered the upper atmosphere, and most of them were still accelerating. “Track impact zones for objects two through seven!”
“What about one, sir?”
“Object one is apparently trying not to make a crater when it lands,” Quinn answered. “I’ll worry about him when I’m sure the others aren’t going to take out any major cities.”
*****
Escape Pod, Thirty Kilometers over North America
At thirty thousand meters, now well into the Troposphere, there was enough density in the atmosphere for the aero controls to actually bite a little and give him some positive response as Ben worked the controls and finally smoothed out the spin.
His speed was dropping faster as the atmosphere thickened, and it had adjusted his trajectory from the middle of the continent more to the East Coast.
That was fine. Honestly, Ben didn’t have much of a preference for where he landed.
LA might have been nice, if I remember correctly, He supposed. but Miami will probably be just as good.
From Miami, he supposed, he could make a run to Cuba if the Americans gave him too much trouble. From there, it wouldn’t be difficult to make his way almost anywhere in the world, with bonus points if he were trying to avoid American controlled areas.
“Warning.” The computer spoke up, catching his attention. “Multi
ple heat sources detected in upper Thermosphere.”
Ben swore, already having an idea on what he was going to find as he redirected his navigation monitor again, this time to check on the detected thermal signatures.
Yup, He grimaced. Those are entry signatures alright. Can’t get a clear scan now, too much heat, could be other survivors of the Eagle… or… not.
Ugh.
“Great. Just great,” He muttered, “We probably just introduced the Scourge to a pre-contact, barely digital era, Earth.”
He groaned, just resisting the urge to bang his head into some equipment that might not react well to the impact.
“If the Captain were alive, he’d… well, actually I don’t know what he’d do,” Ben realized, “But it wouldn’t be pleasant.”
His pod continued to plummet below twenty kilometers of altitude as the sky above him lit up with fire.
*****
USSTRATCOM, AFB OFFUT, Nevada
“Impact sites have been projected along the west coast, Hawaii, China, and somewhere in the middle East.” Mitchell said over the secure comm to NASA, before shrugging. “These calculations are subject to change, of course, if the objects engage active maneuvering.”
“Understood, Mr. Mitchell,” Quinn said, looking over to the right where POTUS was staring back at him from another screen. “Mr. President, bringing our forces to alert to protect the homeland is within my remit, and I have done so. Deciding what to do about impact sites in foreign nations is not. Respectfully, that decision rests with you.”
“Thank you, Admiral. Please, continue coordinating the response within our territories. I’ll see to notifying the heads of affected states and our allies,” President James Strand told him. “Good luck, looks like you might need it.”
“We may all need it,” Quinn said with a wry twist to his lips before nodding respectfully. “Mr. President.”
“Admiral,” The President responded before his screen went dark.
Quinn turned back around. “Alright, you heard the man. The defense of the United States is in our hands. Anyone here feel like fumbling the ball?”
With no takers, Quinn nodded firmly, “Then let’s get this job done.”
*****
