America One - The Launch

by T I WADE

  Ryan did as suggested and the former president thanked him and asked for a direct land line number. Ryan only had one on the whole airfield.

  “I think we have a problem, Ryan,” stated Igor a few seconds later. “We are counting 37 large bits of rock from the second impact, and untold numbers of shrapnel now at 46,000 miles altitude. Most are heading out from its original direction, but one piece is large, and we can accurately still track it; it is heading north of the impact location. It’s hard to tell its exact size but I would bet that it is about a third of the original rock. This one last danger to the West Coast is still traveling at 26,000 miles an hour and still aiming for the Pacific, off the coast of the California/Mexico border. The middle of the impact window is about 500 miles off shore, and the rock seems to be traveling in a direct line.”

  “Astermine I to ground control, we are jettisoning our cargo. We have slowed to join America One, now heading away from the communications satellite at about 100 knots. Suzi seems to have her set up pretty well. I will leave the cargo heading out in the same direction with the beacon at 100 knots. I will be connected to the docking port in thirty minutes. Over,” reported the spacecraft’s pilot.

  Roger,” replied Ryan. “I want a full burn from both of you for fifteen minutes once you are connected. You have, as Bill Withers described, two swarms of bees about two hours out. SB III, do you have anything to tell us?”

  “Negative, we are heading away from the rocks at 1,800 knots. It will take us another hour to reach 10,000 or above at full thrust. Our computers don’t show many rocks yet, but we should be at a safe speed before they hit us. Does Bill Withers know how long it will take for these rocks to pass us and America One? Over.” Ryan let Bill speak into his microphone.

  “We don’t know how fast America One will be by the time the first rocks arrive. The faster you are moving the longer the meteor shower will take to get to you and pass you. The slower you are travelling the more quickly they will pass you, but once they are past, you must watch out for other pieces of satellites and anything else up there ricocheting around. I expect that the meteor shower will take ten hours if you are doing 10,000 miles an hour. The other stuff could be buzzing around up there for weeks, the faster pieces moving out faster than the slower pieces. Mr. Jones, space is big up there, you might not even see a dangerous object, you might see thousands. It takes only one big object at speed to take you out, so all I can say is be careful, keep your eyes open and keep your finger on the laser trigger for at least seventy-two hours. And, compared to the ISS, consider yourselves lucky, at least you are maneuverable.”

  Chapter 20

  Oh Crap!

  “Oh Crap!” Stated Bill Withers. “That big guy might have a chance to hit the ocean in what, two hours?”

  “One hour and forty nine minutes, allowing for slowing down through the earth’s atmosphere,” corrected Igor. “Two hours before SB III is in range of the shrapnel and two hours ten minutes before America One is in range. The Chinese space station will be directly over China and will be in range of flying debris three minutes after the rock hits the ocean. The ISS could come out of this the best as it will be on the other side of the planet and protected from the first round, but not from the space junk flying around.”

  “Nobody will be safe from the junk for at least seventy-two hours,” added Bill Withers. “Worst scenario is that most of the LSO (low space orbit) craft could be cleared, and Earth will have meteor showers for a solid seventy-two hours. By that time most of the stuff will have departed the crime scene in all directions. SB III is lucky here as the LSO will be cleared with much of the stuff at this altitude either burning up in the atmosphere or heading out to mess up the 12,000 mile zone. It will take a week before the mid-layer is reached by outgoing junk, which will in turn push around objects orbiting at the higher level. I believe it will then take a month before the exiting junk will reach the geostationary area. The rocks would have whizzed through. If they hit something the force will distribute pieces in all directions, but this exiting layer from below should halt any pieces heading towards earth. So, I might be wrong, and maybe Igor or his team might suggest something else, but I believe with my three decades of experience that the lower our craft are flying in say, fourteen days after the rocks fly through, the safer it will be for them. Igor what do you think?” Igor thought about the possible scenario and agreed with Bill.

  “It will be dangerous for our craft to pass through the exiting band. It could be like a moving asteroid belt, but a million times smaller and closer together. I believe that these pieces of satellites and dead junk up there will be traveling at a much slower speed. Every time they hit one another their speed should slow, with forward energy being reduced due to impacts. I will put some numbers into the computers, and I could have answers in a few hours, but I don’t believe that any junk up there bouncing around will travel as fast as the rocks swarming through.”

  “I agree totally, and I think there are some equations we can work on,” added Bill.

  “So, now we just wait for the swarms to do their thing, and then we can figure out what to do next,” suggested Ryan. “If the low orbit area is clean, we might as well bring down America One with Jonesy in support and blow a hole through the debris.”

  “Asterspace III to ground control, we are in formation with America One. We see Astermine II connecting up to the mother ship. Do you want us to do the same?”

  “Affirmative, but stay in your craft until the danger is over. Your lesser thrust can help the mother ship increase her speed. There must be a free docking port for you. Over.”

  “There are still two open. We can dock on the underneath port of Cube Six. The other two craft are on Cube Three’s side ports. Our thrusters will be well away from them. America One is now traveling at 290 knots from her original position.”

  “Guys, get her forward speed as high as you can,” added Ryan. “Asterspace III, even though you were short fueled by SB III, you should still have enough fuel aboard for sixty minutes of full thrust. If your fuel runs out, then at least you have the larger craft to hold on to.”

  Now everybody had to again wait. The television channels were still reviewing old data, until several minutes later when the president himself came on all three stations. He was in the White House Press room and smiled at the press in front of him.

  “Good afternoon, everyone,” he smiled, “it has already been a long day. Thanks to our experts at NASA and the United States Air Force, this threat to our West Coast has been averted, except for a small part of one of the asteroids that still has a slim chance to come down in the Pacific ocean about 300 miles off San Diego. Several warnings have already gone out from the FBI to the police forces, FEMA, the NSA, and other emergency departments by, we believe, the FBI themselves. How they are privy to so much information, I can only guess. This small meteor has less than a forty percent chance of hitting earth. If it does, the experts under Hal McNealy at NASA have told me that it could cause a minor tsunami, a one-foot wave about the height of what the West Coast received from the earthquake disaster in Japan. There was only minor damage from that disaster, so I am putting out my own warning to the populations of the United States, Mexico, Canada, Alaska, Hawaii, Japan and the east coast of Asia to expect a similar size tsunami as the United States received from the Japanese disaster.”

  “And with less than ninety minutes to go, millions of people must now evacuate. This guy is nuts,” declared Bill Withers.

  “It looks like people have been moving for over two hours,” added Igor. We have been monitoring local television channels in English and Spanish on several of our control screens, and they showed people clogging up highways out of the coastal areas as soon as the first warning went out. I think the FBI and police forces are already doing a fantastic job.”

  The president’s message continued. “So I have commanded all military departments and emergency units on the West Coast to begin moving people away from the coast.
Anybody within three miles of our West Coast must move behind a three-mile line my teams will designate with white paint sprayed along roads. Any questions?”

  “Wasn’t the first warning from you here in Washington?” asked one reporter.

  “Yes, in a calm and organized way, the government under my command began putting out warnings to local units throughout the West Coast.”

  “What happened to the original asteroid that the fifth nuclear missile obliterated?”

  “It was totally destroyed into minute particles, and will not hit earth,” smiled the president.

  “I understand that we are safe here on earth, but isn’t this obliteration a threat for all our satellites out there in space?”

  “It could be, but our first priority was to save Americans down here.”

  “Mr. President, I covered the press meeting more than a year ago when your predecessor and the former Administrator of NASA had the same questions put to them. Mr. Withers stated at the time that the minimum safe height to achieve one of these strikes against an incoming asteroid was 60,000 feet. Didn’t the air force hit these asteroids at a lower altitude?”

  “Unfortunately, to save Americans we had to achieve our first goal; to destroy any possible threat to the people of the United States of America first. Whatever my predecessor stated or did more than a year ago doesn’t concern me. I knew he had an avid interest in space travel, and I’m sure he is as interested as I am in keeping Americans safe, but he is not president anymore, and should remember that a far more active group of dedicated people are now running this country. This was my promise to all of you from the get-go. Thank you, no more questions.”

  “Oh crap!” stated Jonesy in SB III an hour later. “It really does look like a swarm of bees coming to get us. Our speed is 9,800 knots in the same direction the rocks are coming from. Partner, how fast are you doing?”

  “We have all three spacecraft on full thrust as of twenty minutes ago; we are not as fast, but our forward speed is climbing quicker now, through 4,100 knots, partner. How long do we have before I must ready my shooting skills?”

  “Thirty-four minutes, Mr. Noble,” responded Igor from ground control. SB III, you have thirty-five minutes; your speed is increasing more rapidly. As both of your speeds increase, so does the time.”

  Thirty minutes later the meteor shower of all time began. Over the entire Pacific thousands upon thousands of meteors began lighting up the sky, even though it was daylight. It wasn’t possible for people to count them for the first few minutes.

  Far off shore the one meteor that didn’t burn up, a piece of rock over fifty yards across, slammed into the Pacific, 320 miles off San Diego. It wasn’t the only one that hit the ocean, two smaller rocks each a tenth the size of the first one made deep craters in the flat wind-free waters several miles away from the first growing wave.

  The water was vaporized where the meteors hit, creating craters that immediately filled with water and equalized the water level. Within seconds the largest crater filled up with millions of gallons of water, and then it spread out followed by three or four smaller waves. The larger swells hit up against the two smaller ones causing hundreds of new waves, and then all the waves rapidly headed out in all directions at speeds around 600 miles an hour.

  San Diego was emptying of people, but many wanted to watch the show; the president’s promise of little danger made them want to stay, and they believed they were safe.

  Thousands of officials were still painting lines three miles inland when the first waves hit thirty minutes later.

  At first there was nothing. The sea looked normal, except that the seagulls had gone silent, and the air was empty of sound; a complete absence of traffic noises: birds, and any other forms of life.

  Then the ooh’s and aah’s began. The high tide began to retreat from the sand it was gently lapping; the beaches and small vendor shops along the walking or skating paths were empty; most houses had been just shut up and vacated. But, there were hundreds of people on balconies and roofs of buildings, especially the first one or two rows behind the beach.

  Cameras, including local television cameras, were rolling waiting for the first wave, which NASA had said wouldn’t be over a foot high. Currently at high tide, a one-foot high surge could cause little damage.

  Slowly the sea returned and the first swell grew. It wasn’t large a few hundred yards out and many smiled not taking their eyes away from their phones and cameras. Then it decided to show its majestic head fifty feet out, and people looked on trying to guess its height. Many said two feet, and they were right, but the wave still had two more feet of water to rise in before reaching the high tide mark and a near four-foot surge of water erupted over the skating, walking and bike paths on Mission Beach, and just kept on going.

  The water swirled and twisted around the buildings, nearly up to the door height of the first row. Water just kept on coming and then a small wave riding atop a second incoming swell a foot higher than the first wave increased the water’s height. Seconds later the wave from the third small impact reached shore and increased the overall height by another foot now pushing inland hard, lapping at the tops of doors of the first floor of all the first row buildings, and several began to vibrate throwing many screaming people in all directions.

  The powerful water began flattening single-story buildings, mostly empty of people. Everything in the water’s path became objects of danger and began shouldering their weight against more buildings, weakening them.

  On higher areas, even up to beach cliffs five feet high, water surged over the crests pushing small cars, neat white fencing and garden sheds off their platforms.

  Half a minute later the water lost its energy. Half a mile inland it finally decreased in momentum and began to recede taking everything in its path.

  The team in Nevada watched silently as cameras filming from helicopters above the area televised the retreat of the large mass of water. It returned to the coastline where tons of debris including cars, SUVs, even a few buses and trucks began to bear force against buildings, this time from the rear.

  The fronts of many buildings, weakened from the first onslaught, couldn’t withstand the reverse push. A live camera crew on the porch of one of the larger beach houses screamed that their four story wooden building was toppling over, and viewers watched aghast as the filming camera suddenly looked skywards, and then seemed to fall, to be immediately sucked up in the swirling water.

  A helicopter flying over a few buildings away caught their own media crew falling off the side of the house and disappearing into the swirling waters below.

  Even the president’s face turned pale when he watched the carnage taking place from the safety of the White House. His quick mind was already working out who to blame for all this, and he already had a long line of people to pin it on.

  After a couple of minutes of utter mayhem, a second wave, half the size of the first, again sent millions of tons of water over the coastal area, and then retreated, taking everything with it; the seagulls began screaming at each other looking for tasty morsels in the dirty waters hundreds of yards offshore.

  Up and down the West Coast for the next fifteen minutes the same happened, although the surges reduced in size as the distance increased from San Diego.

  Parts of Los Angles, a mile inland were swamped with water over three feet deep.

  Meanwhile, Ryan was working his craft. Jonesy was at 13,900 knots and Maggie was flying. He had already aimed his laser onto a couple of rocks heading in their general direction. VIN, far higher and slower at 8,000 knots, was doing the same thing. The rocks he could see on his targeting radar were still a few minutes away. He had blasted one and it had disappeared from screen making him feel better. Then suddenly another few dozen appeared on radar and VIN shortened his burst to one-second bursts and began playing this dangerous computer game seriously.

  “Wow! That was close!” exclaimed Maggie as they both saw a rock about the size of Jonesy’s he
ad whizz by about twenty feet from their craft. Jonesy then pulled the trigger three times and three rocks exploded several miles in front of him.

  “I can only fire so much, so I’m going for direct hits only,” said Jonesy as he calmly vaporized another one.

  VIN was doing the same. His weapon was much stronger and he was down to quarter-second bursts to keep his gun from running out of power. He had hit another three before his radar showed a large rock the size of a house coming directly towards them several hundred miles away. He increased his burst to three seconds and hit it dead center. After three bursts, the rock angled off passing less than a thousand feet away from the mammoth space station he was protecting.

  For the next hour the two lasers were on rapid fire. VIN had an easier time with the more powerful weapon, until even he couldn’t fire fast enough. Intensely concentrating on the vivid scene in front of him and on the computer screen, made this scenario look like clips out of Star Wars with all the enemy fighters coming in to attack.

  “I can’t keep up!” shouted VIN “They are growing in numbers, I can see several visually now plus dozens more on the radar.”

  “Hang in there, partner!” Jonesy shouted back. “It can’t be much longer.”

  “Oh crap! I missed one!” shouted VIN “It took out one of the end corridor beams. It just cut it away and the whole 40 foot piece just disappeared.”