The intense heat from the explosion continued to radiate outwards in the form of a thermal pulse, accompanied by X-ray and gamma radiation. Travelling at nearly the speed of light, the thermal pulse killed everyone within a four-kilometre radius, instantly incinerating them. Anything flammable was immediately consumed. As the pulse continued to expand outwards, it cooled to only a few hundred degrees and was no longer able to kill instantly. Instead, it inflicted third-degree burns up to seven kilometres away, leaving many victims to face a slow, painful death from those burns over the next days and weeks.
Following a few seconds behind the thermal pulse came the shock wave. This high-pressure body of air produced fatal internal injuries up to seven kilometres away and flattened everything in its path. Even though it was only a wave of highly compressed air, for anyone caught in the open, it was like being hit by a train. Internal organs were liquefied. Eyes were blown out of people’s sockets. Eardrums burst. Brains were jellified.
And, of course, the radiation fallout from the blast would continue to kill people and poison the Earth for thousands of years.
Josepha Castillo was a conscientious schoolteacher, who loved children and worked hard to make her lessons engaging. She had been teaching first grade at Saint Catherine’s Primary School, on the outskirts of Santiago, Chile, for 23 years, and was dearly loved by the school community. Today she was reading her students the story of Saint Francis of Assisi and making her students laugh as she mimicked the sounds of the various animals who came to the godly man for his care. The sound of a siren interrupted her story. It was coming from the business district three kilometres away. What is that? A fire alarm? Some kind of emergency service alert?
Suddenly there was a bright flash of light, brighter than anything Josepha had ever seen. She put her hands up in front of her face and instinctively closed her eyes. Even so, she found that she could see through her closed eyelids and was amazed that she could see all the bones inside her hands and arms, as if she was having them X-rayed. She opened her mouth to warn the children to get down on the ground, but before she had time to speak, she and all the students in her class simply ceased to exist, instantly reduced to their component atoms.
Demetrius Konstantinidis cooked the best fish and chips in Sydney. At least, he liked to think so. He had owned and operated his shop in Chatswood for only 12 years, but it had become renowned for its fresh seafood and its delicious, crunchy golden chips. The secret was his cooking oil. He used only the finest blend of oil, and he changed the oil every single day. People came from all over the North Shore for his fish and chips. ‘Demi’s Is Best’ announced his street sign, and many people in Sydney agreed. Tonight was a slow night. Demi was taking a break out the back, leaving his daughter and niece in charge of the shop for a few minutes. They were good workers, but Eugenia tended to overcook the chips sometimes. He looked across the hills to the skyscrapers of the city and breathed in the sweet-scented night air, feeling a deep satisfaction with the life that he had built for himself and his family. The sudden burst of light instantly blinded him, completely burning away his retina. Demi felt no pain, just a brief moment of bewilderment before the searing heat of the thermal pulse charred him to the bone.
Alarms were sounding all over Kepler Station, attached to the tether cable high above the Earth. Jen Mason, duty officer in the control room, yelled above the noise, “Somebody turn those damn alarms off! I can’t think with all that racket! Now, someone tell me what the hell is going on!”
As silence descended upon the space station again, Tony Kirchener, second officer, pointed to his radar and thermal imaging screens and said, “We’re tracking multiple ICBM launches. Originally at least 40 hostiles, and even more of ours. Defensive systems on both sides have taken out about half, but we are looking at MAD right now.” Mutually Assured Destruction. An icy silence greeted that announcement as the full import sunk in. Kirchener continued, “Warheads are being deployed as the ICBMs reach their targets. There are detonations all over the southern hemisphere. Too many to count.”
Another alarm started up, this one more strident than those previously. “Now what?” asked Mason.
Chez Rainger, the comms officer, answered, “We’ve just lost the tether. The ground terminal at Macapá has been destroyed and the cable has been severed at the base. We’ve got about five minutes before that shock wave travels up the cable and shakes us to pieces!”
“Get everyone out of the docking bay and blow the cable!” said Mason.
Rainger replied, “There’s a pod on its way up, Ma’am. It’s due to dock in two minutes.”
Mason swore under her breath. “Patch me through to the docking bay.” She paused for a moment to gather her thoughts. “This is Duty Officer Jen Mason. Who’s in charge down there tonight?”
The voice over the comm replied, “It’s John Padgett, ma’am.”
“John, all hell’s breaking loose down below. The tether cable has been severed and we need to blow it, but we’ve got a pod still on its way up. Do you think you can evacuate the pod and clear the dock within 90 seconds of its arrival?”
“It’ll be tight. But if I don’t wait for full pressurisation before starting evacuation, I think I can manage it.”
“OK. Let me know the second the last passenger is safely through the airlock.”
Rainger interrupted, “Ma’am, we’ve got two unauthorised shuttle launches!” She activated the shuttle comm and said, “FTL-3 and FTL-4, please advise why you have undocked.” There was no response. “FTLs 3 and 4, who is on board and why have you undocked?” Still no response.
Kirchener announced, “Radar indicates both shuttles are accelerating. Based on current trajectories, the best guess is they’re heading for the moon.”
Mason swore softly and said, “Keep trying to contact them, Chez. John, how are you doing down in the docking bay?”
“The pod has docked, and the passengers are disembarking now. Thirty more seconds and we can blow the tether.”
“Good. Count me down as the airlock cycles.” Turning to Kirchener, Mason said, “Tony, blow the cable on my go.” To Myra Kerslake, her orbital navigator, she said, “Myra, I want full lateral manoeuvering thrusters on my go, plus three. Get us as far away as you can from that cable, as quickly as you can.” Activating the station-wide comm, she announced, “This is the command centre. We are about to execute an emergence evasive manoeuver. Please secure yourself as best you can.”
The crew in the control room waited expectantly, and a few moments later John’s voice came over the comm, “Cycling the airlock now. 5, 4, 3, 2, 1, Go!”
“Blow the tether!” yelled Mason. The space station shuddered as the tether bolts blew, and a moment later, everyone was thrown sideways as the manoeuvering thrusters began accelerating them clear. Thirty seconds later, Mason said, “Cut the thrusters, we’re well clear now.”
Except they weren’t.
A refraction wave of kinetic energy had travelled up the tether cable at close to the speed of sound. The cable was now acting like a whip, anchored to the asteroid in a higher, faster orbit. By sheer chance, the cable whipped across the 300 metres of space that separated it from the space station and, in the blink of an eye, neatly sliced the station in two. The sudden decompression sent a sparkling explosion of debris radiating outwards like a beautiful, incandescent space-borne flower. The crew never knew what hit them.
7
Zac Perryman had never felt better, floating in a warm glow of drug-induced contentment. He had moved from his chair and was sitting on Simon Wisecroft’s desk, with his legs dangling over the edge. He began swinging his legs in a circular fashion while staring at them in fascination. “Hey guys, this is awesome! You should try this. It feels amazing!” he said.
Dr. Wisecroft nodded to George Leonidis and said, “He’s completely harmless. He knows nothing. At least now we know that he isn’t involved. On the downside, we’ve just wasted two hours chasing up a blind alley, and we’re no c
loser to finding our missing staff or uncovering whatever it is they’re planning.”
“Come on, guys!” said Zac, continuing to swing his legs. “Why aren’t you doing it? It’s the most amazing thing! Come and sit next to me, Georgy Porgy!”
“What do you want me to do with him?” asked Leonidis.
“He’s as high as a kite,” said Wisecroft, “and I don’t think he’s going to sleep for a while. You’re just going to have to babysit him.”
“Great. Thanks very much. That sounds fun.”
“It’s one of the perks of your job, George.”
“I perked up once,” said Zac. “All over the dinner table. Ruined the lasagne. You ever perked up, Georgy? You look like a perky kind of guy.”
“Dr Perryman,” said Wisecroft, speaking slowly and clearly, “George is going to take you to the staff lunchroom. I’m sure you would appreciate something to eat by now.”
“Cool,” said Zac, jumping off the desk. “Come on, Georgy Porgy.”
George just rolled his eyes as he guided Zac out the door and down the corridor. As they disappeared, a comm channel beeped at Wisecroft, with an ID tag telling him it was the control centre. He accepted the feed and his Head of Communications, Michael Gates, appeared on his screen. “Dr. Wisecroft, we have a major situation. I just received a transmission from a Titan cargo vessel, the Herschel. It’s just achieved Earth orbit, inbound from Titan. It’s in geosynchronous orbit at the tether point, except there’s no tether and no Kepler Station.”
“What do you mean?”
“Kepler has been blown to bits, sir. There’s debris everywhere, and the tether is detached from the base station. It’s now degrading the orbit of the anchor asteroid, which, if the calculations of the Titan crew are correct, will impact Earth within the next 12 hours. We’re talking about a major impact. But that’s not the worst of it. All hell has broken loose on the surface. There appears to have been a major nuclear exchange. The Herschel comm officer says there are mushroom clouds over just about every major city in the southern hemisphere. EMT pulses seem to have wiped out all ground-based comm channels and circuitry. Right now, we’re looking at a silent, radioactive globe that has just been taken back to the stone age.”
“God help us,” said Wisecroft. “What about the other manned satellites? Has the Herschel been able to make contact with anyone?”
“They’ve located debris where there should have been satellites in mid-Earth orbit. Most of them appear to have been destroyed by missiles. Because of the EMT pulse, we have no way of knowing for sure whether there are any survivors in orbit.” Gates paused for a moment, looking at another screen. “Just a moment, I’m getting a video feed from Herschel. I’ll patch it through to you.”
Wisecroft’s screen suddenly depicted a view of Earth from 200 kilometres altitude. Shining, spinning debris could be seen in the foreground, creating tinsel-like glitter covering an ominous-looking world. Huge mushroom clouds obliterated large sections of Africa, which was currently passing below. The enormity of the catastrophe overwhelmed Wisecroft as he sat staring at the screen.
“Sir, the captain of the Herschel wants a word. I’m patching him through now.”
An olive-skinned face appeared on the screen. “Dr. Wisecroft, I am Captain Jason Hunziker of the Herschel. As you can see, we’ve got one hell of a mess here.”
“I can see that, Captain. Is there anything we can do from here? What’s your own situation?”
“Well, we’re getting low on supplies, having just pulled a long haul from Titan. At this stage I don’t think we should even consider trying to get down to the surface. For starters, we can’t be certain hostilities have ended, and we have no way of communicating with any survivors. I think we’re going to have to make our way to you and wait it out.”
“Of course, Captain. We can accommodate you and your crew. We’ll be ready to ...”
An alarm sounded from the bridge of the Herschel and a voice could be heard off-screen saying, “Captain, radar and infra-red sensors are picking up two missiles, 120 clicks out and closing fast.”
Captain Hunziker spoke off-camera for a few moments. Urgent commands were issued, and panicked replies could be heard in the background. Hunziker came back into view. He calmly looked into his comm screen and said, “I’m terribly sorry, Dr Wisecroft, I’m going to have to decline your very generous invitation. It looks as though we are not going to make it for dinner after all. Please express my ...” The screen went blank.
Gates’ face appeared again. “Sir, we’ve lost all comms with the Herschel. They’re gone.”
Wisecroft ran his hands through his hair. The whole world has gone mad, he thought.
“Sir, I’m picking up something else here,” said Gates.
“Is it good news, Michael? We could use some right now.”
“I’m not sure, Dr Wisecroft. There are two shuttles inbound from Earth. They aren’t on any schedule I’ve got, and they aren’t answering our hails. Their electronic signatures ID them as FTL-3 and FTL-4, which aren’t due until tomorrow.”
“How far out are they?”
“They must have flipped about an hour ago. They’re about 30 minutes out.”
“OK. I’m assuming they’re survivors from Kepler. Thank goodness someone made it out alive. Keep monitoring their progress and keep me posted. Let me know if you establish contact.” Wisecroft shut down the channel and sat staring at the blank screen, trying to come to terms with all that had happened. The Earth was a disaster zone. Millions or possibly billions of lives lost. The Tether Lift gone. Kepler Station gone. Humanity sent spiralling back into the dark ages. Would the world ever recover? Would mankind even be able to survive on a planet that must now be facing thousands of years of deadly radioactivity?
He stood up and had taken only two steps towards the door when the floor beneath his feet shook so violently that he fell to his hands and knees. An alarm sounded somewhere, and confused shouting could be heard from various parts of the research facility. He got to his feet and made it a few metres down the corridor when a second explosion knocked him to the floor once more.
Wisecroft had thought the situation could not get any worse.
But he was wrong.
Very wrong.
8
Kit Tyler enjoyed her layovers on the moon. Today she would only be here for a few hours before her scheduled afternoon departure, but that still allowed some time to unwind. Her first stop was always the gym at the Casino, which was light years ahead of the tiny gym on Kepler Station: treadmills, bikes and rowers with 3D Immersive Sensory Virtual Reality (ISVR). The millionaires who stayed at the Casino wanted the very best, and she got to enjoy it all for free as a member of the flight crew. Today she spent a total of an hour and a half, rowing through glacial fiords, running through rainforests and riding through the Swiss Alps. Then she hit the spa in the adjacent room - a large, heated hot tub with an adjoining cold-water lap pool. The water was conveniently sourced from the huge ice deposit 400 metres directly under the city, estimated to be over 80,000 cubic kilometres in volume.
Feeling energised and refreshed, and now very hungry, Kit then visited her second favourite place on the base, the cafeteria. Because of the abundance of fresh water and the unlimited power supply from the fusion reactor, the aquaponic farm on Sub-Level 2 produced the best range of fresh fruit and vegetables in the solar system. And, once again, it was all hers to enjoy for free.
It was in the cafeteria that she met up again with Bane, who was having a coffee. “What’ve you been up to, Islander-boy?” she said as she tucked into her yeast steak with salad and fries.
“Nothing much,” he said, giving her a furtive glance.
“Finding your way around here OK?” she asked.
“It’s a bit of a maze, I must admit. I got lost a couple of times. I still haven’t quite worked it out,” he said.
Kit took out her foldable network tablet and opened up a drawing page. “Here, let me show you,”
she said, starting to draw on the tablet with her finger. “Sub-Level 1, which is where we are now, consists of a central lava cave, surrounded by four much larger caves.” She drew a circle in the middle of the page, surrounded by four larger circles. “The central cave is just a small chamber housing the main lift, linked to the Terminal on the surface, where we docked. The lift services Sub-Levels 1 and 2. On Level 1, there are four corridors branching out from the central chamber, leading to each of the much larger caves: Armstrong Research Centre, Galileo Observatory, Starlight Casino, and the largest cave of all, Habitation and Cafeteria, where we are now.” As she spoke, she drew the relevant details on her rough map. “Each of these four large caves, or zones, as they are commonly called, is also linked by a series of further connecting tunnels extending around the perimeter of the base. Each zone also has its own smaller lift to access the surface and Sub-Level 2 below.”
“Sub-Level 2 is about 50 metres below us and consists of another four lava caves surrounding a central chamber, in a similar layout to Level 1. Down there, we have the aquaponics farm, water harvesting plant, fusion reactor, life support with the artificial gravity generator, and engineering department. And all of those have a similar system of linking tunnels.”
Kit kept up her narration as she continued to scoff down her steak and salad. “Most of the caves and some of the tunnels were pre-existing, from ancient lava flows. Needless to say, a lot of extra excavation had to be done initially to get it to its current layout.”
The Stars That Beckon Page 4