She blinked. "How do you know?"
The smile fell from his face. "That was a rhetorical question," he muttered. He shoved off the wall and walked over to the door before slamming it open with his hand. The sound of the metal bar compressing shattered the silence of the dorm and echoed down the hall behind her.
"The bad storm back in October," he said as he stepped outside and held the door for her.
"Yeah," she said, watching him work. “What about it?”
He placed a fist-sized rock on the ground and tested the door as it shut. "That’s how I know. I went out, and the door locked behind me. I was stuck outside for a couple hours until one of those shitgibbons on the second floor finally let me in."
They stared up at the sky together. Leah let her mouth drop open in amazement. From the window back in her room, it was pretty, but with an unencumbered view of the dome above, the entire sky was lit with pinks and greens and yellows. It was magnificent.
"Oh, my God," she whispered.
"Intense, right?" asked the boy. He reached out a hand. "I'm Thom, by the way."
She shook his hand, her eyes still on the sky. "Nice to meet you, Thom By The Way."
"No, it's not…"
"I'm Leah." She grinned at his consternation. "Leah Cantrell."
He shook his head. "Look, I was just about to try to figure out what's going on. You can come with…if you want," he said.
"That's what I was going to do. You sure you don't want to come with me?" Her smile faded. "Wait—if someone goes out after us and the rock gets kicked out of the way, how are we going to get back inside?"
Thom shrugged a shoulder. "Don't worry about it. I left my window unlocked. That's me over there," he said leaning around her to point toward the front of the building. "Ground floor access. It's behind that bush there—you can’t even see the window from the street. While everybody else stands around and waits to get in, we’ll be able to slip through the window.”
Leah raised an eyebrow. "You expect me to go wandering off with you, only to come back and be forced to climb in through your dorm room window?"
Thom threw his hands up in a defensive posture. "Hey, I'm not trying anything—honest. Besides, you’re bigger than me—you could probably kick my ass." He stumbled over himself for a moment. "I mean, not that I wouldn't mind. I mean, you're not big—wait—I mean taller—”
Despite her suspicions, Leah cracked a smile. “Okay, okay—come on. Before you turn as pink as the sky. Nobody needs to get beat up today." The smile faded from her face. "But we do need to figure out what's going on."
"I saw a Public Safety cruiser drive by earlier—when the explosions woke me up.”
“What explosions?” Leah asked, pausing along the side of the road.
Thom turned around to face her. “You didn’t hear them? God, it sounded like World War III out there…” he said, looking around. “I have no idea what was going on, but I kept hearing these booms, you know? Then when I was standing at the window, I saw the sky light up in the direction of the noise.” He shrugged.
“Like bombs?” Leah asked.
“I guess…I’ve never heard one before. But it wasn’t thunder, that’s all I know. It was like one big one went off, then several little ones, then another big one…”
“Was that before or after…this?” Leah asked, pointing up at the sky.
Thom followed her gaze up. He stared at the swirling ribbons of light for a moment. “Just a little before. I heard all the noise and saw the flashing lights, then the power flickered and went out. Then…”
Leah put her gloved hands to her face. “The transformers. That’s what you saw.”
“Transformers?” Thom smiled. “You mean—”
“Power transformers—they distribute the electricity to campus from the power company, right? They were overloaded by the CME and blew up. Then the power died.” She shook her head. “I knew that. Why didn’t I think of that?"
“Well, anyway, that squad car had his lights on and everything. Whenever there's a party over in Greek Row, they always park a cruiser over there in the intersection," he said jerking a thumb over his shoulder. "I bet there's somebody there right now."
“You mean 5th and Ray?”
Thom nodded.
“That's on the way to main campus," she sighed, "so I guess we may as well see if there’s a cop there."
They walked along the road in companionable silence, each lost in their own thoughts for a while before Thom broke the early morning silence. "So, not to sound scared or anything, but do you know what the hell all this is?" He hesitated a moment and continued before Leah could speak. "I mean, I know they're northern lights and all, but I've never seen anything like this before…what’s it mean? What did you say earlier—CME? I’m a criminal justice major—to me, CME means County Medical Examiner."
"You going to be a cop?” Asked Leah.
Thom puffed his chest out just a little. “No way. FBI.”
She smiled. “Well, Mr. G-Man, CME means coronal mass ejection. And those lights up there mean the Earth's magnetosphere has been crushed by a massive CME."
Thom stared at her. "How do you know? You a physics major or something?"
"Or something," she replied, her eyes on the sky. "Astronomy."
Thom looked at her as they walked, then whistled. "I need to switch majors."
Leah laughed. "You like math?"
"No," Thom replied, his breath a cloud of vapor in front of him, “but I don’t like grammar either, so I picked criminal justice.”
Leah laughed again. "Then don't switch majors. Try to keep up,” she said as she picked up her pace toward the campus police car she spotted in the distance. "There's a campus cop up there. He'll know what’s going on."
They took a few more minutes of quick walking to reach the officer leaning against his squad car. The red and blue dome lights on his car put up a valiant effort to fight the pinks, greens, and yellows from the sky, but the entire thing made Leah a little queasy.
"What are you two doing out so early this morning?" he asked.
"Officer what's going on?" Thom replied.
"Oh, this is just the northern lights they told us about. No big deal.” He narrowed his eyes. “Isn’t it a little early to be walking around?"
"Yes, yes it is," replied Leah. "Couldn't sleep." She pointed up. "It was too bright in my room. And the power's out."
“And I heard explosions or gunshots or something,” Thom added.
The officer shook his head. "The whole campus is dark."
“What was all the noise?” Thom persisted.
“Power relays and transformers. They all went up all over campus about the same time. It was unreal,” the officer replied, rubbing his eyes. “Never seen anything like it.”
"How widespread is the outage?" Leah asked.
Behind them, the radio inside the squad car squawked about a fire in the engineering building and a car accident on Main Street. The officer held up his hand for silence as he listened.
“Dispatch, this is 12. I’m…” the transmission devolved into hissing static, then came back into clarity: “—heading back from…department. I’ll take Main Street…”
“Dispatch! This is…” More static hissed. “…students all walking…get FD out here—fires—electrical—”
The officer eyed them both for a moment, then shrugged and answered. "I guess it doesn't matter anymore, does it? With all that racket, I bet half the campus is already awake and wandering around like you. We’re not supposed to tell anybody in the interest of ‘maintaining order’ on campus,” he said, flashing air quotes, “but if it stays this bad, my wife's gonna be screaming for me to come home, anyway.”
He paused, listening to the updates from officers checking in around campus, reporting on fires, burning transformers, downed or sagging power lines, injured students—all of them asking for more information. The officer shook his head.
“Seems pretty bad out there, sir,” Thom offered.
The cop gave him a no shit look. “All right, whatever this thing was that hit us, it’s bigger than anybody thought. When I left the station this morning right—before it hit—I was listening to a country station in Columbus. I can't get anything on the damn radio now. Hell, our personal radios only work half the time.”
“—stays put…seven injured…copy?” Crackled over the squad car’s speakers.
The officer frowned. “See? Cincinnati, Columbus, Indianapolis—everything went quiet. Far as anybody back at the station knows, the whole state’s dark. Could be even more."
"Thank you, sir,” Leah said, her hand finding Thom’s. “I think I'm going to try to get home now."
Thom glanced at her in surprise. “Yeah…yeah, me too.”
"Well, at least it happened on Saturday, right? I mean, kinda sucks you guys won’t be missing any school today…"
"Oh, I wouldn't say I'd be missing it," Thom replied with a forced laugh.
“Stay away from any downed power lines,” the cop called after them. “There’s still a lot of reports of live wires across campus, okay?”
As they worked their way back toward the dorm, Leah released Thom's hand. She tightened her coat around her shoulders. "Oh this is bad…this is bad…"
"What do you mean?" asked Thom. “Yeah the power’s out—maybe to a couple states, but—”
"You don't know what a coronal mass ejection can do to the power grid, do you?"
"No…" Thom intoned, drawing out the word. He looked at her face and frowned. "I'm not gonna like what you're about to tell me…am I?"
CHAPTER 9
KATE CHECKED THE RADIO frequencies one more time. "LAX control, Aloha 2150—you read me?"
"This damn flare’s knocked everything out. Keep trying. I got a visual on the coast. Keep an eye out for lights out there," announced the pilot.
Kate stared at the horizon where the black ocean before them met the not quite so black sky above. Engine two had crapped out almost halfway to Hawaii. They were still within range of LAX and the captain made the call, amid warnings of worsening weather near Hawaii, advising LAX control they were turning around to ride the tailwinds back to the coast.
Kate nodded, wondering if she could convince her union rep the aborted flight counted for her vacation deal. It wasn't her fault they weren't going to make it to Hawaii.
"Yeah, I definitely see lights." She switched frequencies and tried hailing ground control one more time as they finally neared the coast.
“LAX control, Aloha 2150—do you read me?”
She was staring at the growing Los Angeles light dome when the flight deck went dark. A split-second later, the glittering lights on the coastline 30 miles out winked out.
"What the hell? Main power failure," snapped the captain.
The normal hum and hiss of equipment, computers, and recirculated air stopped. The only sound they heard was the wind as it whistled by at 570 miles per hour. Behind her in the cabin she heard a few muffled shouts but otherwise all was quiet.
"Full power loss. Engines one and three are off-line," Kate announced as the pilot struggled with his non-responsive control wheel. “Two is still out and four is…”
"Warning…warning…warning…" chimed the autopilot.
“Four is what?” grunted the captain. More alarms called out for attention.
“I get no reading at all,” Kate replied, not believing the data in front of her. “It’s like the damn thing’s not there.” She switched her attention to another panel of blinking lights demanding notice. "Cockpit's on battery—there it is, engine four's off-line now too."
"Christ,” muttered the captain. The plane bucked as it began a dive toward its final landing. “Hit the APUs," ordered the pilot.
"On it—” she announced, throwing switches that would start the onboard backup generators. “APUs powering up.”
Within seconds, the dials and screens and switches all across the flight deck came back to life. Warning bells chimed from three different directions.
"We're losing altitude fast," observed Kate. "Down to 20,000 feet."
"I know, I know," grunted the captain. He struggled with the wheel to keep the plane stable. "It’s like flying a God damned brick."
They hit a rough patch of air and the plane trembled as it continued to fall.
"When do we make the call?" she asked, doing her best to get the engines restarted, with little effect. “Passing through 15,000 feet."
"Do it," said the pilot.
Kate pressed the transmit button on her yoke. "This is the flight deck—we've experienced a temporary loss of power.” She swallowed. No pilot ever wanted to speak the next words out of her mouth: “Attendants…brace for impact."
Three seconds later, she heard the attendants begin the emergency landing safety routine, shouting for everyone to lean forward and reach for their ankles. It was like something out of a dream. No matter how many times she’d practiced this in the simulators, she could never have prepared for…this. The end. As the cockpit bucked and bounced with the dying plane, she noticed with an odd detachment that her hands weren’t even shaking.
"APU one is offline," the captain announced. More warnings blared in the cockpit. “If you got any tricks, now’s the time…”
Kate slapped at the offending buttons to shut off as many sirens as she could. She couldn’t think with all the damn beeps and whistles in her head. She threw the APU switches again as the plane shuddered, still sliding nose down toward the darkness of the ocean some 10,000 feet below. She had to steady herself to make sure she hit the right switches as the plane tried to shake itself to pieces.
“Damn it,” she hissed when her hand bumped a wrong key and a new alarm went off. “No, I don’t want to eject the lavatory chambers this low you stupid bastard…” She smacked the panel and silenced the alarm, then focused her ire on the reluctant APUs.
"Brace, brace, brace!" hollered the attendants. Their words, shouted in unison, were just audible through the reinforced cockpit door.
She had to throw the switch three more times, but the APU started up. "Thank God—APU one is back online. Let's try the engines again," she suggested as the pilot grappled with the controls.
“Brace, brace, brace!”
“Do it!”
Ignoring the surrounding commotion, Kate —reached up and threw the switch to restart engine one. "Restarting one," she said. She watched the displays for precious seconds, simultaneously minding the altimeter that bled numbers like a it had been shot.
“It’s not firing,” the captain warned. “Damn it, pull up you big bitch,” he grunted, straining against the wheel.
Kate threw the switches for every engine in turn and nothing happened. They continued to fall faster and faster toward the ocean. She glanced out the cockpit window and spotted breakers on the ocean, little white streaks in a sea of black.
“Warning, low altitude. Pull up. Pull up. Pull up…” cried the computer.
“Brace! Brace! Brace!” shouted the attendants.
“This isn’t working,” observed the captain with a newfound calmness to his voice. He took his eyes off the forward windows and looked at her. “I’m sorry.”
“Fuck that,” Kate growled. “I’m throwing all the engines at once—”
“What? You’ll overload the APU—”
“Or kick-start this son of a bitch,” Kate said. She didn’t wait for an answer—it was time to do things her way. She slapped at all four engine restart panels. The lights flickered in the cockpit and for a brief, heart-stopping moment, they plunged into complete blackness. Even the damn alarms fell silent.
I just killed us all…
Then the most glorious sound she’d ever heard hit her ears, drowning out even the brace, brace, brace! coming from the other side of the flight deck door. Two engines roared to life.
“Engines three and one are on-line!” the captain cheered.
“APUs are up and running—we’re at full power!” Kate said at
the same time.
The captain threw several switches on his side of the cockpit and a shudder rippled through the aircraft as the remaining engines powered back up, even troublesome number two. He strained against the wheel and it finally started moving, inching a little closer closer to his chest. They slowly stopped their plunging dive—but not fast enough.
The noise outside the cockpit increased as the plane struggled to pull out of its death spiral. Kate’s fighter pilot instincts kicked in.
“Damn it…it’s not enough,” the captain groaned as he struggled with the wheel.
An idea hit Kate that flew in the face of everything she’d learned since leaving the Air Force. Commercial airliners were designed for efficiency and to a lesser extent, passenger comfort. Mid-air emergency procedures took that into account and instructed pilots accordingly, asking way more patience than what a manufacturer would expect from a fighter pilot.
Kate grimaced as she watched the altimeter fall. The computer continued to shriek about pulling up and nothing seemed to work. As far as she could see, they had one shot left.
“Full throttle!” she announced, throwing all four engine throttles as far forward as they’d go. The plane responded like a snake-bit horse and the four big GEnx-2B turbines reached a new, ear-splitting pitch. She felt the airframe shudder under the stress of 266,000 pounds of thrust and grinned despite her fear. She had to admit, it was a helluva ride—even if they were headed straight for the ocean.
The airspeed climbed and after a few more seconds, the wings had enough speed to bite into the air and create the tremendous lift needed to pull out of the steep dive. The altitude gauge slowed its dizzying spin to a merely alarming roll of numbers heading lower and lower.
“Pull up, pull up, pull up…” warned the computer.
Kate grabbed her control wheel and added to the effort to right the plane. Both of them worked in silence, never releasing the wheels, eyes flicking from the windows to the altimeter. The plane fought them all the while, struggling between falling like a rock and leveling off.
“Brace, brace, brace!” yelled the attendants over the growing screams of several hundred panicked passengers.
Solar Storm (Season 1): Aftermath [Episodes 1-5] Page 9