Elijah's Chariot (The Forgotten Children Book 1) (3 page)

“Is
that why you didn’t try to divert the thing, because you knew it wouldn’t hit
any populated areas?” Bob asked, pen poised on the pad. 

Kevin
shook his head and continued to stretch out his arms and back. “With barely
three weeks’ notice, we didn’t have enough time or resources. A year or more
ago we could have done something, fired off some nuclear missiles to try to
turn it off course, but not this late in the game.” 

“Sounds
like it’s going to be quite a show,” Bob mumbled quickly. Then, more slowly,
“Let’s just hope that Jerry delivers.”

Both
men fell silent. Suddenly, the previously unnoticed hum of the plane’s engines
became noticeably loud in the absence of conversation. Sean shifted in his
seat, maneuvering his pillow into a more comfortable position and pulling the
blanket up more tightly around his chest. 

Bob
drew in a deep breath, stretched his arms out, then folded his notepad over and
dropped the pen into his shirt pocket. 

“Great
chatting with you guys, makes the flight go by faster. Sean, you keep an eye on
your dad, he knows what he’s doing. Say, Kevin, once this bad, old alien rock
touches down, let’s go have a drink at the Hilton or someplace, okay?”

Kevin
gave him a brief nod. As Bob walked by, he slapped a hand on Kevin’s shoulder.
He continued to stand in the aisle after Bob had passed, his hands in his
pockets as he stared at the floor. Sean pulled his earphones out of the armrest
jack and dropped them on the seat next to him. He adjusted a pillow behind his
head and leaned back already halfway asleep. 

Arriving
in Moscow, getting through customs and driving from the airport to the Kosmos
Hotel were all a blur of exhaustion for Sean. Despite the daylight that was
trying to poke through the oppressive clouds overhead, his body felt like it
was the middle of the night. He was too tired to even notice that he’d landed
in a foreign country and had just lain down on the hotel room bed when the
realization struck him. But, by that point the pillow was already too inviting
and he quickly succumbed to the jet lag. 

A
few short hours later, Sean’s father helped him stumble his way down to a taxi
and through an official dinner at the U.S. Embassy. The first bite into some
kind of chicken dish sent a flavorful jolt through his brain and he was
suddenly completely awake and alert. He finished his dinner quickly and tried
to sit still for the few remaining minutes of the meal as scientists,
administrators and military men all chattered excitedly around him. Soon, Sean
and his father set off with a small group for the Russian space agency. 

RKA
headquarters was a large, gray box of a building buried somewhere deep in
Moscow’s warren of carbon copy streets and structures. Front-gate security seemed
minimal compared to the embassy, but the uniformed guards were equally as
somber-faced as the marines had been. The city streets had been completely
deserted during the trip from the Embassy. 

After
waiting in the lobby for what felt like an eternity, they were greeted by a
tall, friendly man with a bushy goatee who gave his name as Kondratyev, Agency
Director. With him, the group stepped into an elevator and descended for what
felt like several minutes.

The
elevator doors opened into a large, auditorium-style room, the exact dimensions
of which were indeterminable because the furthest corners faded into darkness.
Rows and rows of terminals stretched all the way down to a giant screen that
appeared to be a satellite-linked map of central Russia. Dozens of men and
women were stationed at the terminals, monitoring the gigabytes of data
streaming in. The large room was relatively quiet, except for a distinct hum
coming from the ceiling and the occasional beeps and blips from the terminals. 

Sean
had only taken the public tour of the facilities at NASA headquarters in D.C.,
which didn’t include any of the actual communications control rooms that were
used to pilot missions, so he was somewhat unsure of how the RKA compared with
its U.S. counterpart. From the looks on the faces of his father and the other
men, it compared quite well. 

Kondratyev
led the group down the steps to the front of the huge room. As they neared the
giant screen, they estimated that it easily spanned forty feet across. He
ushered them over to a display of data on the far, left-hand side. 

“Relative
velocity, rotation, distance from the moon, distance from Earth, ETA,” he said
in a heavy accent, gesturing at several numbers and the Cyrillic letters above
them. 

Kondratyev
beckoned the small group over to an adjacent computer screen a few meters away.
The screen was large and split into four different views, each showing live
video from various locations. Two of the views showed pilots in some type of
aircraft. The other two views were dark.

“Live
video feed from our Air Force stationed near expected crash location,” said the
Russian Director. 

He
gestured to the image in the upper right-hand quadrant of the screen. A
middle-aged, uniformed officer was visible in the foreground, with a younger
pilot to his right. Both were busy monitoring the complex instrument panel in
front of them. “This Colonel Tomak in Airborne Command Center. This one,” he
continued, gesturing at the other view of the pilot, “of fighter pilot in
vicinity. And these others are of night sky from helicopters a little closer to
expected crash site. Hopefully we will be able to see light from explosion,
signs of meteorite’s descent.”

“How
close are those helicopters to the crash site?” asked one of the NASA
officials. “Depending on the size of the blast when Jerry touches down, they…”

Kondratyev
waved his hands in reassurance. “They are in no danger at all. Their positions
are many kilometers away – completely out of harm’s way.”  

The
Russian Director leaned his tall frame forward and pressed a button on the
panel, then blurted something in Russian. Colonel Tomak responded quickly in a
gruff voice that seemed remarkably clear for coming from an airborne plane
nearly a thousand miles away. 

“Everything
proceeding normally, gentlemen,” translated Kondratyev with a smile. “Now it is
just question of waiting for meteorite to strike. Please, make yourselves
comfortable. There is tea and coffee – couches at rear of room,” he said,
gesturing. 

Each
of the Americans glanced around, all obviously unwilling to sit back and relax
while the giant asteroid neared Earth. One of Kevin’s colleagues stepped
forward and whispered something to Kondratyev. He nodded and gestured toward a
bay of terminals a few rows down, then turned to walk in that direction. All
the others began to follow him.

“Sean,
why don’t you try to get some sleep on the couch – it’s going to be a long
night. We’re just going to go take a look at some of the read-outs,” Kevin
said.

“But,
I can’t see anything from back there!  What if something changes – I want to
see it!” Sean protested, glancing at the dark, empty area around the couch.

“I’ll
let you know what’s going on. Everything’s going to be pretty standard until
Jerry gets into the atmosphere and I’ll wake you up way before that.”

“I
slept the whole day! I’m not even tired…”

He
stopped short after seeing his father’s glance. This was one of those no
argument times. Sean hated those. He sat down on the couch, resigned to his
fate. 

Kevin
walked down to investigate the monitors where the other men were now gathered,
talking excitedly with one of the Russian technicians. Sean watched him go.
They’re right there, he thought, only a few feet away. I’ll hear if anything
starts happening. 

He
leaned back into the soft cushions of the couch and listened to the whir of the
computers and their series of beeps and pulses as they relayed information from
the multiple satellites trained on the approaching asteroid. His watch said it
was almost midnight – only six hours away. 

Sean’s
mind began to fasten on that point in time and he wondered what it would be
like. He’d been imagining the moment and the entire week that lay ahead of him,
for the past month. The fantasy that he’d invented changed slightly each time
he returned to it, but a few things remained the same. Sean was completely
convinced that this would be the single most important moment of his existence
up to that point, possibly of his entire life. 

As
he stared at the large screen at the other side of the room with its constantly
changing sets of data, the image of the meteorite streaking through the sky as
a ball of flame leapt into his mind and he imagined the deafening sound of it
smashing into the ground, splintering trees and obliterating small hills for miles
around. 

He
tried to imprint the image in his memory, as well as his mood and feelings
about the approaching events. Then, he told himself to remember this exact
moment in one week’s time, to recall everything in perfect clarity – this huge
room, the Russians sitting quietly at their monitors, the feeling of excitement
in the air. This was a technique that he’d used a few times before so that he
could compare his conceptions of something before it happened with the reality
of the event as it later unfolded. He hoped that the magic he felt right now
would be preserved, that this level of excitement would carry through the next
few days as they finally arrived at the site and began studying the fragments
scattered all over the Russian steppe. But, somehow he knew that the actual
event would never completely live up to his imagination of it. That’s how
things usually turned out – he could always dream them to be better than they
really were. Although the real thing was wonderful and exciting, it never quite
carried the same electrifying feeling that the anticipation of it had…

Sean
struggled to open his eyes, the last vestiges of the dream slowly receding as
he became aware of his body, lying crumpled on the couch. He blinked around as
he pushed himself up onto his elbows and looked around at the large room,
teeming with activity. How long had he been asleep? He glanced at his watch –
5:45! Jerry was going to be here in fifteen minutes! 

He
jumped off the couch and staggered as his feet tried to get their strength
back. There were many more people in the room than there had been when they’d
arrived. They were all milling about the terminals, talking excitedly and
pointing to the giant screen at the front of the room. 

Sean
walked gingerly down the steps, searching the groups for his dad. Few of the
Russians noticed him – their attention was riveted to the screen. 

He
found his father toward the front of the room, leaning back against the
terminal bay behind him, his tired eyes fastened on the large, constantly
changing map. Kevin looked down at him as he walked up and seemed not to
recognize him at first. Then, he made a small attempt at a half-smile and put
his hand lightly on Sean’s shoulder. 

“I
think I fell asleep,” Sean mumbled, rubbing his eyes. He had no idea what time
his body thought it was and, although he still felt rather tired, he could feel
his heart beating in his chest with excitement.

“Jerry’s
going at just over… 10K per second? Is that what those letters right there mean
– velocity?” Sean asked, pointing at the left-hand side of the digital map. 

“Yep
– speed’s constant, rotation’s minimal, trajectory is right on.”

“Won’t
he speed up by the time he actually enters the atmosphere, in…” Sean glanced up
at the screen again, “thirteen minutes, forty-nine seconds?”

Kevin
nodded, eyeing the steadily decreasing seconds carefully. “Earth’s
gravitational force should bring it up to at least 11K. Then, the flash, a
quick streak and – touchdown.”

Sean
smiled and looked up at his dad, all memory of sleep or weariness completely
erased from his mind. 

A
technician seated on Kevin’s right toggled a few keys and the split-screen view
from the Russian Air Force appeared on the monitor in front of them. Sean saw
the same image on many of the monitors around the room. Everyone was tuning in
to the action as the meteorite approached. 

The
two views of the pilots looked the same, as did the images of the dark Russian
sky. Sean thought the sky was just a shade brighter than when he’d seen it a
few hours earlier. Dawn wasn’t for another half hour or so. If they were able
to catch it, the view of Jerry coming down would be spectacular. 

The
clock now read thirty-five seconds. Sean looked from his dad to the screen and
back again. “When is it going to start speeding up?”

“Should
be any second now,” Kevin said slowly, not taking his eyes off the steadily
decreasing numbers that were marking the time until Jerry entered Earth’s
atmosphere. Beside those figures was another set of seconds, also steadily
decreasing, but a little greater than the first – the countdown to ground
impact. 

Suddenly,
the numbers measuring the asteroid’s velocity began to change. They went slowly
at first, just adjusting by tenths of a kilometer per second, but then started
moving faster. There was an audible gasp as the numbers to the right of the
decimal point began to pick up speed and the whole numbers started to drop. 

Kevin
stared incredulously at the screen, glancing around quickly to make sure he was
looking at the right figures. They were dropping faster and faster now. Instead
of speeding up, Jerry was slowing down. 

The
asteroid was ten seconds away from entering the atmosphere. A low, rhythmic
whisper started mounting from the Russian scientists as they counted down,
“Desyat’ devyat’ vosyem …”

Sean
chanced a hurried glance at his father and saw confusion and worry in his face.
How could Jerry’s speed be decreasing? Didn’t he just say that the
gravitational force was going to make it speed up?

The
last second ticked off and the clock reached zero. Sean noted that right at
that moment, Jerry’s velocity had dropped to a little over seven kilometers per
second. 

The
entire room was silent as the last few seconds of the atmosphere entry
countdown reading slowly ebbed away. The velocity reading continued to drop.
Jerry was now speeding along at over six kilometers per second inside Earth’s
atmosphere. 

Sean
felt his heart pounding in his chest, almost two beats for every second that
ticked away. He thought for a moment that by willing his heart to slow down, he
could also slow down the clock, freezing time, bringing the sliding seconds to
a trickle, so as to preserve the moment.  
       With only a couple seconds remaining, there was a brief streak of light,
almost a flash, on one of the two dark screens showing the view of the early morning
sky over central Russia. Then, the final countdown clock hit zero.