Indian military forces are rounding up all Muslims and forcing them across the border with Pakistan. They are shooting all who resist. Pakistan is already overburdened with Iranian refugees from the Russian invasion and its subsequent takeover of Iran and Iraq. In retaliation, Pakistani forces have started shelling any concentrations of Indian Troops on the other side of their border. Indian air force and artillery units are retaliating. It is spiraling out of control.”
President Walden grimaced. “All right, please keep me informed of any further changes in the situation there. And please, have them radio ahead and have the Secretary of State come and see me at the Colonial House when I get back in New Washington.”
The General had no sooner gone to the communications room to send his messages when the President’s secretary knocked on the door. “Mr. President, The FEMA director wishes a video brief with you regarding the flooding in Florida and along the gulf coast.”
“Very well, patch it through here to me," He replied. His desktop monitor came to life and his FEMA director nodded his head in greeting. “Mr. President, I wanted to update you on conditions in the low lying regions of Florida and along the gulf coast. Last night at high tide water levels were almost eleven feet above historic high levels. The entire chain of the Florida Keys was submerged. The Florida Everglades are now completely underwater. The influx of saltwater will wreak havoc on the ecology there, but we already knew that was going to happen. At high tide last night, the water level was only seventeen feet below the top of the new dikes around New Orleans. Most of the outer low lying areas around the city were completely submerged. The city is an island now at high tide, an island that is about twenty five feet below sea level. If the dikes give way, it will rapidly flood. The dikes around Tampa, Mobile, and Savannah are holding at the moment, but there is serious concern that they may not be high enough. Local efforts to increase the height of the dikes are ongoing but it is a race against time.”
“What about the dikes around Cape Canaveral? We cannot afford to lose the heavy space launch facilities there. The western facilities are at risk from earthquakes and really not safe to use at the moment,” the President replied.
“Those dikes were raised to seventy five feet in height. Unless there is a large Tsunami in that area that affects the entire east coast of Florida, we feel they will hold.”
“And earthquake activity on the west coast?” the President asked.
“We are already having almost continuous moderate tremors all along the major fault zones,” replied the FEMA director. “The geologists are watching Mount Rainier very closely, and it is inevitable that Mount Saint Helens is going to erupt again. The geologists are saying that the magma dome in the mountain there is already expanding. It is also only a matter of time before the San Andreas Fault lets go and when it does, the geologists say it will be a big one.”
“God help the fools who refused to leave the danger areas,” sighed the President. “Keep me posted on any developments, but please pass those along through my chief of staff. I am getting deluged with reports and there are some major issues that require my attention.”
“Yes sir, Mr. President.” The FEMA director faded from view off the monitor.
Just as President Walden was hoping to relax and have a bite of lunch his secretary knocked once more on his door. “Excuse me sir, I have one more video call for you. It is General Seale of Space Force.”
President Walden hung his head in exasperation. “Now what?” he said to himself. He was rarely bothered by the Commander of Space Force unless it was for new funding. Then it hit him, the David Honstein was supposed to be docking today. The ship was returning from its scientific mission at Elpis. “Put him through Rudy, I forgot that he was to contact me upon the David Honstein’s arrival back at Earth.”
Once again the President’s desk monitor came to life, this time with video feed from Space Station Alpha. “Mr. President, I am calling to inform you that the Honstein is docking as we speak. I wanted to inquire about the state funeral that I had requested for Colonel Pierce. They have brought back his body for burial on Earth.”
“I have thought this matter over General, and I want to wait until after the encounter to hold the funeral.”
“But Mr. President, the Colonel deserves a hero’s funeral. He may not have died in combat, but if you look at all he did up here in space, he is every bit of a hero. He was at the forefront of the Earth Defense setup. He personally tested practically every single space ship we have designed and flown up here. I feel very strongly about this Mr. President,” the General pleaded.
“General Seale, I agree with you a hundred percent about the Colonels contributions, both to our nation, and to the world in general. Hear me out though. If we have a funeral now, it would be lost in all the catastrophes taking place as the Dwarf gets closer. The nation is fixated on floods, earthquakes, and people are dying. The new national cemetery just south of New Washington is almost complete. There is going to be a new monument there dedicated to the Space Force. I know that you were not aware of this, as only a handful of Congress and myself are presently aware of the construction.
After the encounter is over this country is going to be in a state of despair. The people are going to need something to give them hope, something to be proud of, and to give them reason to re-build and think of the future. I want to dedicate the new national cemetery and the Space Force monument at Colonel Pierce's state funeral. He will be the first person to be buried in the new national cemetery and his name will be the first engraved on the monument to those that have made the ultimate sacrifice for their country far above its atmosphere. The Colonel will get that honor, I promise you.”
“I am sorry, Mr. President. The Colonel was a very close friend. I did not want his sacrifice to get lost in all the events unfolding down on Earth. I was not aware of the monument.”
“I understand completely, General. I will let you know that I personally will give a eulogy at the ceremony honoring the Colonel. I am also going to let the citizens of this country, and the world at large know at that time about the alien artifacts that we have discovered on Elpis. I hope that I can give hope to the people of our country and the rest of humanity at a time when they will be in great need. I would like you to make the arrangements to return the Colonel’s body back here to Earth as soon as possible. As you know, you may be isolated up there for a while if we lose our launch facilities due to flooding or earthquakes. I have been advised that your people and facilities can survive several years if need be without re-supply, is that correct?”
“We can, Mr. President. We are self-sufficient on all but some of the more complicated manufacturing processes and occasional food supplies.”
“Very well, General, you are in command up there and neither I nor military command is going to micro-manage you. We have our hands full down here. Just make sure you are ready to stop any rocks that may get thrown our way. Carry on General.”
The President leaned back and looked out his window at the green ground slowly moving by miles below. He called the steward and asked for a sandwich and called up his in-basket on his desktop assistant. He had never realized that as the President, he had more paperwork to do than he did when he was Chairman of the Joint Chiefs. “Oh hell,” he thought. Putting it off just makes the pile grow taller. With a sigh he started pulling up messages from congressmen and the other multitude of federal department heads. The flight home at least gave him a little time to catch up.
Chapter 59
May 27th, 2043
Pasadena, California
Eric Casselman was grilling the rabbit on his propane grill when the helicopter went over the first time. He had shot the rabbit that morning when he was making his habitual daily walk around the neighborhood. Of all his neighbors, only the Adams couple five houses down and he had signed relocation waivers and stayed put when the rest of his southern California neighborhood was fleeing to the relocation areas. The power to the city
had been shut down four weeks ago and that had been an incentive for a large number of the hold outs to finally heed the government’s request to evacuate.
He had put enough food stores away to last him at least a year. He had water purifiers and had about a thousand gallons of propane in four tanks that he had buried beneath the patio in his back yard. A small collection of rifles and handguns and his ability to use them were hopefully a deterrent to any gangs or looters in the area. The regular military air patrols seemed to be keeping the looters away. The military’s proclamation that looters and gangs would be shot on sight seemed to be a good deterrent. Or maybe the gang members were just savvy enough to have fled to safer ground. It really did not matter to Eric.
Three nights ago, the really big earthquake that had been predicted hit. He had gone running out of his house to the safety of his back yard. For what seemed like an hour, the ground had heaved and bucked. He had no way of knowing for sure but he would guess that the quake had been up close to the upper sevens on the Richter scale. His house was a demolished pile of timber now. He had lost the solar cells on his roof that had provided him electricity. His phone as well as his backup phone had been destroyed when he had run out of the house without them. He had dug down to the basement and managed to get to his dried food supplies out, but his frozen goods were now spoiled since the destroyed solar cells could no longer power his two freezers.
The Adams had come by yesterday in their cross country vehicle. They had decided to call it quits and were going to attempt to escape to the east. He had wished them good luck. He doubted that they would get very far as most of the bridges and roads were probably impassible until you reached the area where the desert began. He was not really saddened by all of this though. He still had food, his pool was still half full of water, and he was where he wanted to be. He knew that his daughter Susan was probably frantic down in Houston, but she would all right. She just did not understand his reasons for not wanting to leave his home.
Peter, his son in law, had come by about six weeks ago with a military escort and tried to talk him into leaving with him. He had politely refused. He was haunted by memories of his past and love lost. He was getting up there in age and felt that his time on this world was approaching its end. He looked up into the morning sky and could see the faint disk of the Dwarf. It was growing closer and larger every day now. In about three weeks or so it would be at its closest approach and it would then be nearly one third as big in the sky as the full moon was now. The almost constant tremors beneath him told him that Earth was straining hard against the opposing gravitational tides of the Dwarf and the sun. He knew that the world was going to be forever changed when the Dwarf finally faded back into the dark of space whence it came. Something told him that his own life would also probably end with the passing of the Dwarf and he wanted his last days to be here in his beloved Southern California.
Eric flipped the pieces of the rabbit on the grill. It had been a long time since he had eaten rabbit. The rabbit had made the mistake of not running from him when he had walked through the shambles that had been his neighborhood that morning. The smell of fresh meat cooking was making his mouth water.
The helicopter came back over his house and started circling. It was a standard military issue transport. He could see a door gunner staring at him. He waved to the crew and it flew on down the street and dropped from view.
Eric had just sat down to enjoy his rabbit when three armed men in military fatigues came around the pile of rubbish that had been his house. “We are looking for a Doctor Eric Casselman,” the young captain who was leading the trio said.
“Well, you have found him, but I am afraid that this rabbit will not feed all of us. How can I help you captain?"
“Doctor Casselman, we were requested to attempt to locate you and bring you back to base with us so you could be flown out.”
“On whose orders captain?” asked Eric. “I have not requested any evacuation, and you have endangered yourself and your aircrew by landing here. We are still having some pretty powerful aftershocks.”
“Evidently you have some friends in high places, Doctor Casselman. Our Colonel received a request from the head of NASA to attempt to locate and evacuate you if you were still alive. If you can gather up what you can easily carry, we need to get back to the chopper and get you out of here.”
“Captain, do your orders say that you are to forcibly take me back with you?” asked Eric.
“Well, no sir. I don’t understand. We are here to rescue you, and help you get out to safety. I was not told to arrest you or anything.”
“Captain, you have carried out your orders then. You have found me, but as I have already signed a waiver of relocation, I do not desire to be rescued. I chose to stay here after the evacuation order and I still choose to stay. I am afraid your trip was in vain.”
“The young army captain just gaped at him. "Are you saying you want to stay here, sir?” He waved his arm to indicate the piles of debris that had been beautiful houses not a week ago.
“I am Captain. I wish to stay. But, I would ask one favor of you. Could you please take a hand written note and see it is delivered to my daughter Susan Rockwell. She is the wife of the head of JPL in Houston. Give me just a minute to write it. Eric went in the tent he had set up and found a piece of paper and an envelope he had pulled from his old office in the house. He hurriedly wrote a letter and sealed it and gave it to the young captain. “If you will make sure that this gets delivered I will be eternally grateful young man. Now you and your crew had best get back in the air before we have another aftershock.
The captain took the letter and shook his head. “Are you absolutely sure you will not come with us, Doctor?”
“No, Captain. My place is here and here I will stay. Now, all of you better get going. I am sure your services are needed elsewhere. Thank you for checking on me though.”
The captain nodded and motioned to his men to move out. The captain turned to leave and then paused. “Are you the professor they used to call the bear at Cal Tech? My dad told me about a professor he had in college there that he was terrified of.”
Eric grinned. “I may have resembled him at one time but that was a long time ago. When you see your dad again, you tell him that was all just a big show. I was a really a teddy bear in real life.”
The captain stepped up and shook his hand. “You take care of yourself Doctor Casselman.” He turned and followed after his men. About ten minutes later the helicopter circled above his house once and then flew off toward the Northwest.
That afternoon Eric loaded up his old jeep with about a weeks’ worth of supplies and water. In the morning he was going to attempt to drive out to the beach. He knew that it was probably going to be a long slow trip. Just after dark, Eric stood and stared up in the sky at the Dwarf, the dark star that his prized student had discovered and brought to his attention. “Such a long time ago that was," he sighed. He looked over into the north sky and picked out another newcomer to the night sky, the planet Elpis. "Ahh, that I was younger,” he said. "How I would love to be among the first humans to set foot on that beautiful blue planet that the dark star has brought with it. That night he dreamed of dark stars, blue planets, and warm beaches.
While Eric was sleeping, a fault zone off the coast of Japan shifted dramatically under the gravitation stresses being imposed on the Earth’s crust by the dwarf. An ocean ledge nearly three hundred miles long heaved upwards three feet. Three feet is nothing in the big scheme of things, but that three feet over a three hundred mile length displaced trillions of tons of water. Approximately ten minutes after the shift in the deep ocean ledge, the Tsunami alarms were sounding all over Japan and the rest of the Pacific Ocean basin. Unfortunately, only a small portion of those countries still had power to their electrical grids after all of the previous earthquakes. The number of people with operating communications or radios that received the warnings was very small. In a little less than an hour, the Tsun
ami reached the coast of Japan.
Anyone that had not evacuated and happened to be standing on the beach would have seen the ocean retreating rapidly from the shore. Out, out the water flowed away from the shore. The oceans sloping beach floor was exposed for nearly a quarter mile out away from the beach. Then the water returned, this time in a wall of water that was over seven hundred feet high. It swept inland demolishing all that was in its path. In places, it penetrated miles inland. Hundreds of thousands that were trying to get to high ground were swept away. The wall of water swept up the coast of Japan and then around the islands and on to parts of China, Indonesia, the far eastern shores of Russia, It then started reaching into the Aleutian islands and down the Northwest coast of North America. Although greatly reduced in strength by the distance, the mass of displaced water was still formidable when it started reaching the shores of Southern California.
It was just past five pm when Eric finally made it down to the beach. The trip had been a formidable challenge with numerous blocked roads and destroyed bridges. Luckily, his old jeep had managed to pull through. Eric stood at the water’s edge. He had taken off his shoes so he could fill the soft lap of the surf on his feet. “Oh the memories this brings back,” he thought. His mind wandered back to the carefree days of his youth, his early days of college. He had been in love then and had never realized it. Not until it had been too late.
"How many times that summer had he and Eileen walked this beach, laughed as they ran through the surf, and swam together in the sea?" he asked himself. Afterwards, they had made love on the warm sand as the sun set. He had given her up. He had chosen his work over his love for her. She had left and went east, never telling him that she carried the culmination of their love in her womb. He had found out years later about his daughter Susan, and had made contact with her, and built a relationship. He had lived to see the grandson that Eileen did not live to see.
Dark Star Rising Second Edition (Pebbles in The Sky) Page 40
