Parallel Connection
Page 14
CHAPTER 14
Later that evening the asteroid passed by Earth with only 15,000 miles separating the two; fewer than two dozen satellites were destroyed. Now was the time to implement Jarvick’s plan to keep it from hitting the moon. If it were to hit the moon in one piece, both bodies would be shattered into pieces causing unpredictable environmental disruptions on Earth. There would also be thousands of fragments from the collision ejected toward the Earth that would become dangerous meteors. Jarvick told them his plan. He instructed the men at the Jet Propulsion Laboratory to utilize the space based lasers and blast the asteroid into pieces after it passed by Earth. The inertia will carry the fragments toward the moon and impact it but not cause as much damage as one big impact, and the men at the JPL agreed.
Jarvick had his ship stationed in a high orbit above the Earth so he could watch the process of destroying an asteroid. There were five large satellites above North America that were used for defensive purposes, but they were pointed AT the Earth. It took the JPL and the Department of Defense a half hour to get them pointed out towards space. When they were ready, Jarvick and Cindy watched on the screen as the five satellites lit up and produced five red laser beams that converged right on the asteroid. After about fifteen seconds, it exploded in a bright flash, but no sound, which doesn’t carry in the vacuum of space. The asteroid had shattered into thousands of pieces, almost all of which continued to hurtle toward the moon in an expanding cloud. Several pieces were blown free of the asteroid but shot backwards, away from the asteroid toward Earth. One of them, about the size of a car, hit Jarvick’s ship with a loud explosion on the port side of the cargo bay.
Jarvick grabbed Cindy’s arm and dragged her down the ladder to the utility locker. He handed her a jump belt and hurriedly put on his. With the air in the ship getting down to dangerous levels, he hit both buttons on the belts and they disappeared, just as the ship exploded.
Jarvick and Cindy found themselves in a small café, which was closed and dark. Jarvick recognized the interior and sat down at one of the tables.
“Sit down, I know where we are.” Jarvick pointed at the chair opposite him.
Cindy sat down “Oh really? Where are we?”
“My brother works close by; we met here a few days ago. This place should be open pretty soon.”
Cindy looked around as she sat down and said “I guess your ship is gone, isn’t it?”
Jarvick nodded and said “I think it blew up. There’s going to be a lot of trash floating around up there for awhile, most of it should fall to Earth and burn up in re-entry.”
“How are you going to get back home?”
“I don’t know. I think what will happen is someone back on Gavilon; my Captain probably, will wonder what happened and send a cruiser to find out. Now that the authorities here on Earth know there is another inhabited planet in the galaxy, any ship that arrives to investigate will be noticed and they will try and communicate with it. By the way, where is this Jet Propulsion Laboratory I was talking with? Jim was talking to me from there.”
“I think it’s in California, why?”
Jarvick yawned and said “Jim said the people there were very interested in meeting with me and I want to keep in touch with them in case a ship does show up; I’ll need to let them know I’m here.”
Cindy stood up and began to look around, “If he was in California, he won’t be back until much later today. If we can get out of this place, my friend’s apartment isn’t that far; we can go there and get some rest.”
Jarvick had already moved to a booth along the wall and laid down on the bench seat. “I’m sure the owner of this place will wake us up when she gets here.”
Cindy laid down on the bench opposite Jarvick and said “And then have us thrown in jail.”
He yawned again and said “I’ll tell her we just saved the planet, she’ll thank us.”
PART 2