Jenny In Space: Chasing The Killer Comet

by Michael Coles

Chapter 14

  Earth's Plan

  Back on Earth, information about the comet had leaked to the public. The news on television, in the papers, radio, and on the lips of every informed person on the face of the planet, was about the "Killer Comet", as it was now called. The populace of Earth was in a mass panic.

  "Experts in astrophysics describe the impact as catastrophic," wrote one reporter.

  "Do we have a chance to dodge this cosmic bullet?" asked another columnist, echoing the thoughts and hopes of his country.

  "Why aren't we more prepared for such a significant risk?" asked many people.

  The President of the United States called an emergency meeting of United Nations to discuss this urgent matter. All other issues throughout the world were suddenly trivial, and long time enemies banded together in a necessary state of cooperation. Roy Thompson was asked to attend to give his expert analysis.

  A government limousine picked him up at the airport and drove him to a hotel where he would have a few hours to unpack, and prepare, for the important meeting.

  Jenny's father was grateful to have a little time to relax before the officials required his presence. He unpacked, and looked out of his hotel window into the night sky. He found it hard to believe that somewhere up there was his daughter, speeding along at inconceivable speeds, towards an object that was on a collision course with Earth.

  "My, how things can change so very quickly," he said softly to himself, as he gently shook his head. He set his travel alarm clock for three hours later, and lay down for a nap. Sleep, when it did finally come, was in short waking spurts, and full of confused dreams. Mr. Thompson got up to have a shower, not feeling any more alert or rested than before he lay down.

  Under different circumstances, Roy Thompson would be thrilled to be going to the White House, but as he climbed the steps, it was just another building filled with worried mortal men and women. Security officials led him through corridors lined with paintings of past U.S. Presidents. He could hear the sound of conversation in the distance, which continually increased in volume, until the sound of the excited voices boomed in his ears.

  They led him to a very large conference room, already three quarters full, and he took his assigned seat. He sipped the cool water provided, settled into his seat, and waited for the meeting to begin. After a short time they announced the President, and with little fanfare, he walked in briskly and deliberately and took his seat at the head of the proceedings. They called on many experts in different fields to offer their opinions on the comet. The viable options were limited to one. Our only hope was a combination of nuclear explosive technology, and rocket and satellite science.

  "Yes, I believe it could be done," answered a rocket specialist. "We would not so much try to hit it, as we would park our nuclear munitions satellite directly in the path of the oncoming comet. It is a huge object, moving at a high velocity, as the learned Dr. Brown has just mentioned. If we can load up a rocket, get it up there, and maneuver it into the comet's path in time, we can explode many megatons of explosives against it."

  "Do we have an expert on the structure and behavior of a comet?" the President asked quietly to his secretary.

  She quickly consulted her organized list of names and the credentials of those in attendance, and then spoke. "Dr. Roy Thompson?"

  "Present," Jenny's father answered, as he stood up.

  "Dr. Thompson is the director of operations at the Lester B. Pearson Observatory in British Columbia, Canada. He is a leading authority on comets," the secretary announced through her microphone to the assembly. "And, he is the man who first discovered the comet."

  "Thanks for your attentiveness, your diligence has provided us with precious time. Now, how will nuclear explosives affect the comet's structure, and present course?" the President asked Jenny's father.

  "In my opinion, nuclear explosives will have little or no affect on moving the comet off course. Picture an object, seventy plus kilometers in diameter, and moving at over one hundred kilometers per second. The amount of explosives we could get up there, would have little effect against such an awesome force. The only thing we may achieve, is to blast chunks out of it, or to split it completely, but this would do little in regards to altering its course. Even though it is enormous, comets are very fragile structures. They are held together loosely because they are a frozen mass of matter, and by their own feeble gravity. Outside forces such as a planet's gravitational influence can cause them to fracture, and break apart. In 1994, an immense comet called Shoemaker-Levy 9, was broken into many pieces by the gravity of Jupiter, and the comet impacted an area on Jupiter four times the size of Earth. All we will possibly accomplish with this comet is to break it into pieces. Then we get bombarded with many pieces, instead of just one, but the result would be the same," Dr. Thompson explained.

  Jenny's father did not want them to send up nuclear explosives against the comet. He knew that it would be useless, like a fly against an elephant. He knew in his heart, Earth's best chance for survival was now racing at incredible speeds to intercept the titanic object, and his daughter was up there. The futile attempt by Earth would endanger her even more than she already was, and would jeopardize the success of their mission. But what could he say, we can't do this because my daughter's up there with an alien in his spaceship, trying to save us? They would think he had cracked under the pressure, and advise him to get psychiatric counseling. No, it was best to advise as well as he could, and hope for the best in a chaotic situation. He knew Earth's only option was to send up nuclear weapons, and that was what we would do. We are just not prepared or capable to handle an event of this magnitude.

  "If it does break apart, won't more of it burn up in our atmosphere, because there are more pieces?"

  "Yes sir, you are correct, but what people have difficulty comprehending, is the enormity of the object. Even if we succeeded in breaking it into pieces, each smaller piece is still going strike the Earth with catastrophic force. I'm afraid the result will be the same. In 1908, a small comet struck the Earth in a remote area of central Siberia. A tremendous fireball was observed flashing across the morning sky. When it hit, a great ball of flame leaped up from a forested region close to the Tunguska River. The comet dissipated its kinetic energy on the area, and completely vaporized in the process. The ensuing shock wave flattened trees within a forty-kilometer radius, and the tremors registered on seismographs throughout Europe. A hurricane wind produced by the impact, tore off the roofs of houses hundreds of kilometers away. This was a tiny speck of a comet compared to the monster heading for us now," Jenny's father explained.

  The President, and the whole assembly for that matter, did not want to hear any more. Understandably, they needed to hear positive things, like yes, there is a chance, and, we still do have some hope. The questioning passed from Dr. Thompson, and went on to more positive and constructive issues, like how much explosive force can we get up there in the small window of opportunity available to us.

  The meeting ended with the impression that all countries with the technological capability of getting a satellite, loaded with nuclear explosives, into space, would do so. Every country on the planet would need to band together in a common cause.

  .

  Dr. Roy Thompson needed to burn off some of his nervous energy, so he asked the limousine driver to drop him a few blocks from his hotel. The streets of Washington D.C. were pandemonium. People constantly looked upward. Roy Thompson overheard a young child asking his mother, "Mommy, is the sky falling?" And Jenny's father found himself thinking about his own daughter as he walked along.

  It was now two days since she had left with Born, and four days until impact. The comet would be visible with the naked eye in the night sky soon. Jenny's father thought about how events had turned so quickly. A few weeks ago we didn't have a care in the world, at least nothing that seems even remotely important now. He also realized how small and vulnerable the Earth really is, in the cosmic scheme of things.
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  Space is full of speeding space debris of various sizes. Earth gets bombarded with fifty thousand tons of cosmic fragments daily, in the form of billions of microscopic particles. The larger pieces are less plentiful, but it had been just a matter of time before chance and circumstance determined that a large object would strike the Earth, and the time was now upon them. To think that life on Earth would have to start from scratch again was almost inconceivable. Dr. Thompson wondered if life would evolve the same as the first time. He imagined archeologists, millions of years from now, digging up the remains of old cities, long since buried, and trying to piece together what had happened.

  To have to start over seemed a shame. We had advanced so far in such a short period, but soon it could all be gone and the whole process would have to start over. It was still hard to comprehend; the fate of the entire human race was in the hands of his thirteen-year-old daughter and her alien acquaintance. It helped him to think that fate had brought them together for this reason, and why would fate bring them together if it weren't to save the human race.

  He didn't really believe in fate, he was a scientist, who believed in the laws of nature, chance, and probability, but he had to admit, the concept of fate did help one to cope with certain situations, such as this one. These were thoughts continuously running through Roy Thompson's mind as he concluded his stay in Washington, and took the long flight home.

  Once home, he kept busy at the observatory. He was still supplying data on the comet to the government, so they could accurately plot the course of the rockets and satellites. He felt uncomfortable about supplying information that would undoubtedly make things more dangerous and difficult for Born and Jenny, but the information could, and would be compared and confirmed with every other observatory in the world, so falsifying information did not seem like an option.

  "Hey Roy, the comet is officially going to be named, Thompson's Comet," a colleague notified Jenny's father.

  "Oh, that's just great! I finally discover something that gets named after me, and it has to be something that wipes out the entire human race. What an honor," he said sarcastically.

  While plotting the course of the comet, Dr. Thompson noticed something unusual and puzzling, but something to make his pulse quicken. "Hey Sophie, can you please double check my calculations here?" Roy Thompson asked of his colleague. "According to my figures, the course of the comet has changed slightly. I've checked it over twice and I keep coming up with the same result."

  His associate checked his calculations and came up with the same conclusion.

  "You're right, Roy, the comet has shifted its course slightly, but it's still going to hit us."

  "But what if the shift continued at the same rate? The comet would clear the Earth, not by much, but it would miss us."

  "But, what is causing the shift? It just isn't possible. A solar wind couldn't create a shift this great, and certainly not in such a sustained manner," she stated.

  Jenny's father tried to suppress a large smile that wanted to spread across his face, and he softly mouthed the words, "Atta girl Jenny, atta girl."

  "Sorry, what did you say Roy?" his co-worker asked.

  "Oh, nothing, I was just talking to myself," he said, as he secretly pumped his fist under the desk.

  The following day Dr. Thompson got a call from NASA.

  "Roy, I've gone over the data you supplied from last night, and it doesn't make sense. According to your figures, the comet is slowly changing its course, and we know that a continuous consistent shift like this is impossible. Are you sure about the accuracy of this information?"

  "Yes, it is accurate. Don't ask me how," Dr. Thompson said, and then he quickly covered his mouthpiece. "because you wouldn't believe me if I told you the truth...but the comet does appear to be steering away from Earth. If the shift continues at this rate, it may well just miss us. I think we should wait before we take any action at this point."

  "You know we can't count on some inexplicable shift to continue, and besides, we launch tomorrow. We can't just put a halt to all of this preparation based on some mysterious movement. If we don't launch tomorrow, it will be too late. I've got to go, Roy. I just wanted to check on the accuracy of those figures. Keep it coming. Bye for now," and he hung up.

  "How frustrating!" Roy Thompson said as he hung up the phone forcefully.

  "Jenny and Born are managing to divert the comet, and we could ruin everything by launching those rockets and disturbing their progress. I wish there was some way to warn them."

  .

  The following day at Kennedy Air Force Base in Orlando, Florida.

  "How are we doing on replacing those O-rings on number two?" a woman asked a man as they walked briskly down a long corridor bustling with people.

  "It was decided there isn't enough time to change them. The test procedure showed they were weak, but they would probably still hold, and even if they don't, we should still be able to maneuver the munitions satellite into position."

  "Are you heading to the control room, too?" she asked.

  "Oh yeah. I wouldn't miss this," answered the man.

  The two proceeded into a large room, full of people and equipment. Most of the men and women present sat in front of computerized equipment with communication headsets on, and at the front of the room, the wall was equipped with many television screens, showing different areas of the two rockets about to be launched into space. The military brass was out in full force, pacing about and talking on telephones. The rockets stood tall, with steam rising. and scaffolding beside them almost as tall as the rockets they supported.

  "All is in order. We have completed the final preparations and pre-launch tests," a man in military uniform stated to his superior officer.

  "Good, start the ignition sequence."

  "Countdown has begun."

  A large digital clock at the front of the control room was activated, indicating five minutes and counting down.

  It was a dangerous place to be if something went wrong. These brave people were the only ones within 100 kilometers of the site. All hoped for a smooth launch and a timely and accurate delivery of the nuclear payload in front of the oncoming comet. The tension in the control room was high, as it was with the entire population of the world. The clock ticked down to the final minute as the launch technicians monitored the rocket for any malfunctions.

  "Ten, nine, eight, seven, six, five, four, three, two, one... Ignition!"

  The two rockets began to rumble as the rocket fuel within ignited, and billows of smoke spewed from the base. They rose from the launch pads as if in slow motion, breaking away from the wires that attached them to the scaffolding, which distorted from the intense heat, and then retracted.

  "Lift off! We have lift off!"

  A bright blast of flame shot out of the rear of the huge missiles, as they picked up speed and flew off into the bright blue morning sky.