Juggernaut (outpost)
Page 35
DISPATCHER: Sir, am I to understand a civilian airliner has crashed into the woods?
DM: No. I mean I don’t know. It didn’t look like a plane. It was big. The object was big. I couldn’t make out detail. It was like a comet, a big ball of fire.
DISPATCHER: Has there been an explosion? Can you see flames?
DM: I heard a bang. Could be a sonic boom. It came down north, over towards Green Bluff. I can’t see flames.
Police are reluctant to discuss the matter further, but we understand an aerial survey of woodland near Green Bluff conducted by helicopter at first light located what appeared to be a large impact crater and small brushfires.
A police spokesperson refused to discuss rumours the impact site contained an item of scorched space debris. However, unconfirmed eyewitness accounts describe a large cylinder, possibly a fuel tank, at the bottom of the crater. Press speculate the wreckage might by the third-stage booster of a military rocket or the habitation module of a Soyuz spacecraft.
We understand an exclusion zone has been declared around the site.
‘Federal authorities have advised local law enforcement not to approach the impact site at this time,’ said a PD spokesperson. ‘A specialist military recovery team has been dispatched and will be on site within twenty-four hours.’
Laure Pernette, lead scientist at the Orbital Debris Programme Office attached to the Johnson Space Centre, confirmed that NASA has, for several weeks, been tracking a large debris field caught in a decaying orbit.
‘Mass and alignment suggest the wreckage of an orbital installation akin to Mir or Skylab. This loose aggregation of debris is beginning to re-enter the atmosphere. We are currently liaising with our counterparts in the Russian Space Agency to see if this object is a relic of their Soyuz programme.’
Items of space detritus, such as rocket boosters and redundant satellites, frequently re-enter the Earth’s atmosphere. These objects usually reach velocities twenty times the speed of sound and burn up during re-entry. Those objects that survive the ablation of uncontrolled descent usually fall into the ocean or land in remote, unpopulated areas.
The Johnson Space Centre currently tracks over twelve thousand substantial astral objects using radar arrays in Goldstone, California and Arecibo, Puerto Rico.
‘We estimate several more large items from this debris field may re-enter the Earth’s atmosphere in the coming days and weeks,’ said Pernette. ‘Data supplied by NORAD suggests a series of re-entries over North America and the Atlantic. We understand wreckage may also be scattered over Northern Europe and the Arctic Circle.
‘The Federal Aviation Authority has issued a bulletin to US pilots warning a potential debris hazard may exist for the next couple of weeks. Our international partners have also been informed and are taking appropriate steps.
‘I understand some news agencies are attempting to link the impact on Sunday night with a series of emergency admissions to the trauma department of Providence Medical Centre. We do not believe these two situations are in any way connected.
‘We certainly advise the public not to approach anything they believe may be an item of space wreckage. Some older communications satellites were powered by plutonium power cells. Booster rockets that have fallen to earth may still contain carcinogenic traces of hydrazine propellant. However, we understand the current CDC level-four quarantine at Providence relates to a viral pandemic alert described as a ‘contagious haemorrhagic pathogen’, and is therefore very unlikely to be associated with the wreckage that fell in remote woodland near Green Bluff.
‘There will be further re-entries in the coming weeks. We look forward to a spectacular light show. There is no reason to be alarmed.’
Acknowledgements
Illustrations by Noel Baker.
I would like to thank Charles Walker at United Agents and Oliver Johnson at Hodder.
‘Outpost’ by Adam Baker
Five years have passed. Five years in which the plague has spread across the world leaving only tiny enclaves of survivors…
OUTPOST
They took the job to escape the world.
They didn’t expect the world to end.
Kasker Rampart: a derelict refinery platform moored in the Arctic Ocean. A skeleton crew of fifteen fight boredom and despair as they wait for a relief ship to take them home.
But the world beyond their frozen wasteland has gone to hell. Cities lie ravaged by a global pandemic. One by one TV channels die, replaced by silent wavebands.
The Rampart crew are marooned. They must survive the long Arctic winter, then make their way home alone. They battle starvation and hypothermia, unaware that the deadly contagion that has devastated the world is heading their way…
About the Author
Before writing his debut novel Outpost, Adam Baker worked as a gravedigger and a film projectionist. Juggernaut is his second novel.
www.facebook.com/adambakerauthor
www.darkoutpost.com
Find Adam on Twitter: @AdamBakerAuthor
Copyright
First published in Great Britain in 2012 by Hodder & Stoughton
An Hachette UK company
Copyright © Adam Baker 2012
The right of Adam Baker to be identified as the Author of the Work has been asserted by him in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988.
All rights reserved.
No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means without the prior written permission of the publisher, nor be otherwise circulated in any form of binding or cover other than that in which it is published and without a similar condition being imposed on the subsequent purchaser.
All characters in this publication are fictitious and any resemblance to real persons, living or dead, is purely coincidental.
A CIP catalogue record for this title is available from the British Library
ISBN 978-1-444-70909-4
Hodder & Stoughton Ltd
338 Euston Road
London NW1 3BH
www.hodder.co.uk
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