Zero Limit

by Jeremy K. Brown

  “Fine, fine,” Alex said. “Booze it is. OK, let’s get moving on this. We’ll need to start collating the data we’ve got on this thing and figure out our options. And we should set up a meeting at the White House as quickly as possible. They’re going to need to know about this.”

  “Already done,” Sara said.

  “So efficient,” said Alex. “Let me ask you. How do you think the situation looks?”

  “I’ll let you decide once I show you all the data,” Sara said. “But if I were you, I’d consider relocating.”

  “To where, exactly?”

  “Start by leaving the planet and work your way out from there.”

  CHAPTER THIRTEEN

  “This is going to work.”

  Listening to Diaz, hearing the excitement in his voice and seeing it on his face, Caitlin found herself wishing that she had the same confidence in her plan. Actually, she wished she had any confidence at all at this point. All she had at the moment was a funnel cloud of doubt that kept any rational thought from taking root. She tried to shake herself out of it, reminding herself who she was. During the campaign, she’d always known how to assess a crisis. How to think on her feet. How to react in a millisecond when the plan went from perfect to completely screwed. Right now, though? She was having a hard time getting a handle on the moment. That was part of why she was putting so much into this idea, a symbol of how she tended to deal with extreme situations. Find a way out, even if insane.

  “Take us through this again,” Vee told Caitlin. “You want to do what, exactly?”

  “It’s pretty simple,” she said. “We strip the Alley Oop. We take all the insulation from the descent stage, which, as you know, is made up of aluminum-Mylar foil blankets. Once we’ve got all the Mylar we can take from the ship, we use it to fashion a solar sail. Then, when we’ve got it together, we take that little rover out of the hold. Drive the sail out to somewhere on the asteroid where it will be facing the Sun. If all goes well, the sail will slowly start to absorb the Sun’s radiation, and the resulting radiation pressure should push us out of the path of Earth.

  “Sounds promising,” Vee admitted. “What made you think of it?”

  “I read about solar sailers on Lake Armstrong,” she said. “I was going to take Emily to see them when she came here.”

  “Hey, you still will, Cutter,” said Diaz, smiling broadly. “We’re gonna get off this rock! Me? I’m all about this plan. Shaw, what do you think?”

  Shaw stared out the viewport, an almost placid expression on his hawkish face. If Caitlin didn’t know better, she would have said that he looked bored. “I doubt it will work,” he said. “But if it gives us a way to kill some time before we obliterate half the people on Earth? I’m game.”

  “Your optimism is infectious,” said Caitlin.

  “Why don’t you think it will work, Mr. Wizard?” Diaz asked.

  “A perfect sail has to have one hundred percent specular reflection,” said Shaw. “That means it’s got to be like a mirror. Even ninety percent would work, accounting for wrinkles, curvature, and so on. But assembling it in this environment under these conditions, we’re going to be lucky to even get seventy-five percent specular reflection. Then there’s the size. A typical sail is about a hundred and twenty yards wide. There’s no way can we scrape together that much Mylar from the lander. And lastly, we have to be spot-on as to where we place it. If we’re not, we could end up pushing the asteroid in the wrong direction. Maybe even closer to Earth. The margin for screwing this up is just too wide the way I see it.”

  A potent silence settled in as they all took in Shaw’s words. Then Diaz spoke up.

  “You know a lot about solar sails, man.”

  “I was a substitute science teacher back on Earth,” he said. “Probably should have stayed one too.”

  “Well, what do you say you stop sitting here and bitching about it and put that big brain to good use?” said Diaz.

  Shaw chuckled and stood up. “What the hell?” he said. “We’re all gonna die anyway.”

  “Great,” Caitlin said grimly. “You two get started on the sail. Vee, let’s you and I get on the comm. Let them know what we’ve got planned up here.”

  “You think they’ll go for this plan?”

  Caitlin shook her head as she contemplated the truth of their situation.

  “Whether they go for it or not, it’s all we’ve got for now.”

  CHAPTER FOURTEEN

  Entering his thirtieth hour without sleep, Alex Sutter walked to the Situation Room at the White House like a ghost. Despite the lack of rest, he was still fully prepared to address the president’s advisors on the asteroid situation. The president himself, on his way to his retreat in Catalina, was “unreachable.” Alex failed to see how that was possible, but he was relieved to hear that, at least for the time being, the commander in chief would not be a part of this discussion. He had spoken with the president once before and found it akin to holding out your hand and shouting “Heel!” at a perpetually barking and foaming dog.

  Sara was walking alongside him, and although she had been awake as long as he had—longer in fact—she somehow still managed to look put together and presentable. He had always admired that quality in her, even going back to their days at Caltech. She could stay out as late as everyone else, then walk into an exam the next morning looking like she’d gotten eight hours of unbroken rest, and walk out having aced the damn thing.

  Sara looked over at him, and it was in that instant he realized that he had probably been looking at her just long enough to make things awkward.

  “What?” she asked, sounding annoyed.

  “No, nothing,” he said, then tried to think of something to say. “It’s just funny, you and I, you know, we were together back at Caltech and then we weren’t and now, here we are and we’re both . . .”

  Sara’s expression showed complete disbelief.

  “Really?” she said. “Now?”

  Before Alex could further contemplate his faux pas, they entered the Situation Room. The president’s most trusted team of advisors was gathered around the table. Alex nervously took his place there, shuffling his notes as he did so. Vice President Jason Keating stood up and addressed the room.

  “Good morning, everyone,” he said. “And thank you for coming here on such short notice. Overnight, the White House was made aware of a situation that has suddenly developed in space, one that may well have grave consequences for our planet. For more information, I turn you over to Dr. Sara Kent of the Planetary Defense Coordination Office and Dr. Alex Sutter of the Federal Emergency Management Agency. Doctors, if you please.”

  Sara and Alex stood up and walked over to the screen at the far end of the table. Alex punched a few keys on his holopad and an image of the asteroid popped up behind them.

  “This is asteroid 1222 Thresher,” he said. “It’s approximately seven hundred meters in size. It’s comprised of mostly rock, clay, and silicate with a large platinum core. We believe it originated somewhere in the belt between Mars and Jupiter and was moved out of its orbit, either by Jupiter’s gravity or by another asteroid.”

  “I thought Jupiter’s gravity was supposed to prevent objects like this from getting through,” said Dave Seward, Deputy Director of the Office of Science and Technology Policy.

  “You’re talking about the theory that Jupiter acts as sort of a cosmic vacuum cleaner, I assume?” said Alex, to which Seward nodded. “It’s a valid idea, the notion that Jupiter’s extreme gravity captures any objects and sucks them in before they can become a real threat. However, that gravitational force can work against us as much as for us. The planet’s gravity can toss objects out of our solar system, but it can also toss them back in. A great example is Barringer Crater in Arizona. It’s more commonly called Meteor Crater and was formed by a nickel-iron meteorite about fifty meters across that hit Earth sometime during the Pleistocene epoch. The energy released upon impact was equivalent to 2.5 megatons of TNT. The met
eorite was quite possibly sent here by Jupiter’s gravity. With that in mind, we may be looking at a similar situation with 1222 Thresher. Whatever the circumstances, the fact remains that somehow this asteroid was set on a new course, bringing it close to Earth.”

  “Close enough to be an issue?” asked White House Science Advisor Bob Lee.

  “No, not initially,” said Alex. “It would have come very nearby, maybe a few hundred thousand miles, but nothing that we would have had to concern ourselves with. It was on a trajectory to pass by the trailing edge of Earth in its orbit when an . . . incident occurred.”

  Here, Sara stepped forward and the screen behind her changed to an image of the Tamarisk.

  “Just twenty-four hours ago, my team and I at the PDCO received a distress call from the surviving crew of this ship,” she said. “A lunar tug designated Tamarisk. The crew, it seems, were in the middle of an unauthorized mining operation on the asteroid when a fire broke out. Apparently one crew member was lost, and the survivors were able to escape in the lifeboat and make it to the surface of the asteroid.”

  “Where was the Tamarisk’s port of call?” asked Keating.

  “She originated from the Ponca City docks, Mr. Vice President,” said Sara, somewhat hesitantly. Her eyes glanced over to Alex, and he knew what she was thinking. Unlike the commander in chief, the vice president was smart, calculated, and tended to think several moves ahead when faced with a crisis. Additionally, along with several other members of his party, he was not in favor of many of the policies the president endorsed. But, that said, he was also number two in the chain of command, which meant that he was duty bound to uphold them. Now that he knew the Tamarisk’s crew was from the Moon, their chances of getting home might be even more seriously jeopardized.

  “So the Moon, then,” Keating confirmed.

  “That’s right,” Sara said. “They came from the Moon.”

  “Excuse me,” said Secretary of State Amy Katz, “but, if I’m not mistaken, isn’t asteroid mining illegal without ICC authorization?”

  “Yes,” Sara said. “That is true. And, from what we can tell, the crew of the Tamarisk was operating without that authorization.”

  “Then, on whose authority were they out there?” Katz asked.

  “We’re still looking into that.”

  “So we’ve got a crew of miners conducting an illegal mining and salvage operation in violation of a travel embargo,” Secretary of Defense Alan Kittredge said. “And now they’ve gotten themselves stranded. Have ICC send out a skiff and take them back to the Moon where they can face justice. I’m sorry, Mr. Vice President, but I’m not seeing how this is our problem.”

  “With all due respect, Mr. Secretary,” said Alex, “it’s about to become everyone’s problem. You see, the incident on board the Tamarisk has resulted in the asteroid’s trajectory being changed.”

  “Changed?” asked Secretary Kittredge. “You mean it’s now aimed at Earth?”

  “Essentially,” Sara said. “The catastrophe on board the ship somehow caused the asteroid to change course. We’re still looking into what exactly happened. But, as Dr. Sutter noted, it was due to pass by Earth and is now poised for impact instead.”

  “Try not to think of it as being aimed, per se,” said Alex to the room. “It’s more just been moved into our path. We are heading toward it as much as it is headed toward us. Eventually, the asteroid and Earth will occupy the same space in orbit around the Sun. Imagine you’re crossing the street. When you do, you’re occupying the same space that cars, trucks, motorcycles, and what have you also occupy. You’re just not doing it at the same time. Now, imagine you step off the curb and something happens a few miles back. An overly long traffic light, someone running late for an appointment . . . a thousand little things to change the pattern of traffic, and suddenly a car happens to also be right where you put your feet at that same instant. And when that happens . . .”

  “Are we talking about the end of the world here?” asked Katz.

  “Not exactly,” said Sara. “But the damage will be extensive, and the death toll will be catastrophic.”

  “How catastrophic are we talking?” Katz asked. “Let’s not sugarcoat it.”

  “If the asteroid impacts Earth, it will do so with the force of about two hundred thousand megatons. About four times the strength of the Tsar Bomba explosion in 1961. The most powerful man-made explosion in history. If it strikes water, any coastal cities in its path will be obliterated by tsunamis more than a quarter mile high. If it strikes land, we’re talking earthquakes, fires, people being immolated where they stand . . .”

  “And that’s just the initial impact,” Alex said. “Afterward, we’d be looking at acid rain for months, a global drop in temperature by about forty-six degrees Fahrenheit, no summer, worldwide devastation of the ozone layer, allowing harmful UV rays to penetrate the atmosphere . . .”

  He looked around the room and saw the stricken faces of everyone present staring back. He realized that he may have gone a bit too far. Alex adjusted his glasses and cleared his throat.

  “Terrible,” he said, his voice reduced in volume. “Let’s just leave it at really, really terrible.”

  “Do we know where it will hit?” Keating asked.

  “It’s hard to say for sure at this stage,” said Alex. “But, based on what we know of the asteroid’s current trajectory, it looks like it might hit somewhere off the Pacific coastline.”

  “My God,” said Katz. “We have to start evacuating that region.”

  “That needs to be done carefully and precisely,” warned Kittredge. “If you have the president go on TV and announce that an asteroid is coming to wipe out California and everyone needs to clear out, you’re going to have a mass panic on your hands.”

  “I agree,” said Keating. “Let’s try and solve the problem first before we alert the public.”

  “I think Secretary Kittredge is right,” Alex said. “I can work with FEMA to coordinate an evacuation plan that makes sense given the short time frame we have to work with.”

  At the mention of the words “short time frame,” the room fell silent. All eyes, including Sara’s, fell on Alex, who was suddenly keenly aware of having said too much.

  “How long do we have?” Keating asked.

  Sara and Alex were quiet, exchanging looks. He knew he didn’t want to be the one to break the news, and he suspected she felt the same. Finally, Sara took a deep breath.

  “Twenty-seven days,” she said.

  A rumble of voices erupted as everyone reacted. Some were louder than others. Keating rapped the table, calling the room back to order.

  “OK,” Secretary of Defense Kittredge said, speaking up. “I assume we have a plan to knock this thing out of the sky? Nukes or something?”

  “There’s a chance we could use a nuclear weapon to divert the asteroid or to break it up before it enters our atmosphere,” said Sutter. “And while that might lessen the impact, we’d still be looking at a devastating situation.”

  “But it’s an option?”

  “Yes,” said Alex. “But there are other factors to consider.”

  “Enlighten us.”

  “We could nudge the asteroid off course and skip it out of our atmosphere,” Alex went on. “Like a stone over a pond. But we could also simply pulverize it and then run the risk of turning one large falling object into several. Or we could knock it off course but send it somewhere else. In essence, the pieces could wind up missing North America but strike other countries that weren’t originally in its path. Putting aside the devastation, the international implications of deliberately redirecting an asteroid into the heart of another country are, well, considerable.”

  “What countries could be affected?” asked Vice President Keating.

  “Are you seriously considering this?” asked Sara.

  “Right now, Dr. Kent, I am considering everything and anything,” he said. “Believe me, it’s not an attractive option, but I need to know so th
at when the president asks me, I have an answer for him. So, again, what countries could be affected?”

  “Well,” said Alex, “we’ve run some preliminary scans, and based on the Thresher’s current trajectory, if we were able to redirect the asteroid and it didn’t skip out of the atmosphere, the most likely point of impact would be somewhere in Siberia.”

  “That’s a sparsely populated region,” said Kittredge, almost to himself.

  “There’s also the question of the crew,” said Sara, as though by changing the subject she could steer the room away from this line of thinking.

  “I’m sorry?” asked Kittredge.

  “The surviving members of the Tamarisk crew,” said Sara. “They’re still up there.”

  “How many people are we talking about?”

  “Four,” said Sara.

  “Four?” Kittredge asked in disbelief. “We are looking at potential loss of life in the millions, and you’re going to quibble with me about four people? Four people who assumed the risk of undertaking an illegal mining operation, and might I add, are in violation of an embargo put in place by our president!”

  “One of them is Caitlin Taggart,” said Sara. “She was a hero in the Last Campaign. Fought at the battle of Samarra.”

  “I don’t care if it’s Jim Morrison and Janis Joplin and they’re back to spread flower power to the entire free world. Four people against millions, Dr. Kent. Do the math.”

  “All right, Alan,” said Vice President Keating. “You’ve made your position clear. Dr. Sutter, do you have other ideas outside of using nukes?”

  “Trust me, Mr. Vice President. We are working the problem.”

  “Well, I’m afraid you and your team have got to work it harder,” he said. “You’re running out of time.”

  Once the meeting adjourned, Sara and Alex ducked out of the Situation Room and began walking down the halls of the White House to Alex’s car. Alex took note of the portraits of former presidents on the walls, great men and women who’d found themselves at one time or another faced with a decision that would affect the lives of millions of Americans, not to mention people around the world. But had any of them faced anything like this? The potential annihilation of countless human lives by a force from beyond the planet?