Fractured Earth Saga 1: Apocalypse Orphan (5 page)

“It could be worse. We could be down there on Earth watching the world die,” Ron said stoically. “It’s strange they ordered the ISS moved into orbit around the moon…really strange.”

“Yes, it is,” Wolf agreed. “I have a new assignment, Ron, and I need to brief you and get going. Mission Control wants me to take the old shuttle that was mothballed at Kennedy Space Center out to survey the comet.” Wolf didn’t go into the details Charlie had shared about the shuttle. NASA had equipped the antiquated craft with an experimental nuclear engine and a supercomputer. It also had been re-skinned with a material harder than diamonds that would not rust or deteriorate. The engineers claimed it was practically impenetrable.

“The Atlantis? Lucky you…another solo shuttle mission. What’s up?”

“Some lady scientist on the moon wants me to survey Nomad and take pictures from all angles. Then I have to set up a satellite to record the impact and do a Doppler mass calculation to determine the composition of the comet’s core. I’ll be gone about two weeks. NASA wants the rest of the team to ride out the impact on the space station. We are to record the strike for posterity, so get her locked down,” Wolf said as he fastened his boots.

“It's your own fault they chose you,” Ron said. “You speak every major language on the planet, and with all the foreign scientists and dignitaries on the moon base waiting for data, you are the perfect choice to relay it—no middleman to translate and mess up the details. In fact, I was told that a lady scientist has been asking all sorts of questions about you.”

“Languages are easy for me. I’ve always had a knack for them,” Wolf replied. “I hear them for a few days and then I can speak them. It’s the math and engineering I can’t get a lock on. As far as asking for me by name, I don’t know any lady scientists.”

“Apparently one knows you. She’s probably the one who wants the information you’re gathering. You do realize that the ability to speak any language is amazing? Not many people can do that. You definitely have a gift,” Ron said. “Okay, Commander, let’s do this. I’ll walk you to the rear airlock and help you suit up.”

“Thanks. I’ll have to fly into Nomad’s neon tail…they want a sample.” Noticing Ron’s face break into a grin, Wolf snapped, “What’s so funny?”

“Neon tail? You mean ion tail. How the hell did you get this job?” Ron chuckled.

“You know I’m no scientist. I’m just a pilot. I didn’t ask to come up here, but I’m glad I’m not down there.” Wolf gazed out at the earth, framed in the window, and shook his head. “My people are descendants of the Hopi Indians. When I was a child on my reservation, I saw people die of hunger and drink themselves to death. My father was proud, a warrior, but he had been worn down by poverty and the government’s policies. One day, he sat me down and told me I should honor all women, treat them as princesses, and never raise my hand in anger against them. Later that day, he attacked the Bureau of Indian Affairs office with a knife, and the police killed him. He could have slain many of them, but he only touched them with his blade, cutting their clothes. Not once did he draw blood, yet they shot him down. I was eight years old and saw the whole thing.”

“Jesus, Wolf, I am sorry.”

“With death heading towards the planet, all I can think of is that moment he was dying. He turned and smiled at me. Our Hopi rituals reflect our belief that all life—plant, animal, and human—are one. All living things are temporarily differentiated parts of a single, powerful life force that exists throughout the cosmos. In my view of the world, animals, birds, and plants have spirits from the same source as human souls, with their own plane of existence in which they, too, will someday manifest in human form. When my ancestors killed an animal for food or fur, they made an offering to the spirit of the animal, asking it to sacrifice its physical life, and then they expressed their gratitude. With this comet coming to kill all life, who do we pray to now? Where in the cosmos will man return if the world is destroyed?” Wolf asked.

“Only in war were my people allowed to kill. The Hopis could be fearsome in battle. Our elders told stories of warriors going crazy and killing indiscriminately. My grandfather once told me I had an ‘old spirit’ and I was
Koyaanisqatsi
, which sort of means ‘crazy life.’ He looked at me with fear riding him hard and told me my spirit would delight in battle. He warned me never to release my full anger. I have tried to control my temper, and I’ve succeeded where others of my tribe have failed,” Wolf said, thinking back to his days before he joined NASA.

“We have a prophecy about the end of the world,” Wolf continued. “The elders spoke of it when I was young. The Fourth World will end soon, and the Fifth World will begin. The signs over many years have been fulfilled, and only a few are left. The first sign: The coming of the white-skinned men, who took the land that was not theirs and struck their enemies with thunder. The second sign: Our lands will see the coming of spinning wheels filled with voices. In his youth, my grandfather’s father saw this prophecy come true with his own eyes, as the white men brought their families in wagons across the prairies. The third sign: A strange beast like a buffalo but with long horns will overrun the land in large numbers. These were the white man’s cattle. The fourth sign: Snakes of iron will cross the land. The white man called them railroads.”

“How long ago was this vision?” Ron asked.

“It was before the white man came to the lands,” Wolf replied. “The fifth sign: The land crisscrossed by a giant spider’s web. Our power lines of today fit this one. The sixth sign: The land crisscrossed with rivers of stone that make pictures in the sun. Is this not our highways? The seventh sign: The Sea turns black, and many living things die because of it. Our oil companies pollute the planet every day. The eighth sign: Many youths who wear their hair long, like my people, come and join the tribal nations to learn their ways and wisdom. Many embrace the old ways and return to the reservations. The ninth and final sign: You will hear of a dwelling place in the heavens, above the earth, that will fall with a great crash. It will appear as a blue star. Soon after this, the ceremonies of my people will cease. These are the signs that utter destruction is coming. The world will rock to and fro. The white man will battle against people in other lands who possessed the first light of wisdom. There will be many columns of smoke and fire. There is more to the legend, but that is the gist. Now here we are with a bright blue comet coming at us. Fits a little too perfectly, don’t you think?”

Ron shook his head and observed, “You can remember that entire story in exact detail, but you can’t remember anything about physics and astronomy? Wolf, you are depressing me.” He helped Wolf into his space suit, zipped and fastened the buttons and snaps, and handed him his helmet.

“Thanks, pal,” Wolf said.

“Go take your pictures and readings and get back here. Then we can watch your heavenly dwelling place destroy Earth.”

Wolf entered the airlock and boarded the shuttle Atlantis, closing its compartment door as Ron sealed the ISS airlock, waved goodbye, and went to the control module to initiate lockdown of the space station.

“Atlantis to ISS, retract docking clamps,” Wolf said into the mic as his hands moved deftly across the computer terminal.

“ISS to Atlantis, docking clamps retracted. You are free to fire retros and initiate your engine for forward propulsion.”

“Atlantis copies. Firing in three…two…one. Firing and moving clear of docking booms and into free space. Moving into preflight burn for Nomad mission. I’m patching into Savior Two. Atlantis to Savior Two, do you copy?” asked Wolf.

“Savior Two copies. You are clear to proceed on mission. Godspeed,” Charlie responded.

“Thank you, Charlie. I’ll see you in two weeks.”

“Roger that, Wolf. You stay safe out there.”

Wolf touched a module and said, “Computer, tell me all available information on Nomad.”

A beautiful female voice responded, “Commander, it will take fourteen days to reach the ion tail of the comet. It is approaching Earth’s gravitational field rapidly, and by the time you turn the shuttle around, Nomad will be caught in the planet’s gravitational influence. When you arrive back at the ISS, your orders are to lock down the Atlantis and prepare the station.”

“Ron is preparing the station. All I will have to do is lock down the shuttle and watch the end of the world from the ISS,” Wolf said with an overwhelming sadness.

“Yes, Commander. I merely repeated what I was programmed to advise you.”

Wolf gazed at the comet with apprehension as he headed towards the rendezvous point. Nomad was coming fast, and it was immense. It sat in the earth’s night sky like a beautiful, blue beacon of death, churning like an ocean at high tide. The female voice on the shuttle continued: “When a large comet moves well inside the earth’s orbit, there is the potential for a long tail. The current record for the longest tail length is the Great Comet of 1843. Its tail extended more than two hundred fifty million kilometers. To put this in basic terms, if the comet’s nucleus was placed in the center of our sun, its tail would stretch past the orbits of Mercury, Venus, Earth, and Mars. Nomad’s tail length is estimated to be five hundred million kilometers.”

Wolf sighed, remembering that the world had been overjoyed nine months ago when a scientist predicted that the comet would hit the moon and somehow save the planet. But another scientist predicted it would still cause massive destruction by destroying the moon or causing the weather patterns to go haywire. Another prediction envisioned the comet propelling the moon into the earth and destroying not only Resurrection but also the planet. Several satellites and the ISS had been set to record the event for posterity. Much of what was left to record was pandemonium. During the last year, two and a half billion humans on Earth had been killed by wars, suicide, and murder. Everything outside of the military installations was a wasteland. Farms were abandoned, and other than the food stores set aside for the survival of the species, food sources had been depleted.

Wolf had been out just over thirteen days and brought the ship into position to conduct the scan on the comet. “Atlantis to Savior Two, I am four minutes out on Nomad and picking up gas readings from the dust tail. The nucleus is solid hydrogen with a temperature of minus four hundred fifty degrees Fahrenheit.”

“Savior Two to Atlantis, that is impossible. That’s almost absolute zero, and that’s as cold as you can go…which can’t be achieved because of the Heisenberg Uncertainty Principle and entropy-related laws of thermodynamics.”

“Uh…Atlantis to Savior Two, please put that into pilot dummy talk. I’m just reading from the instruments. I don’t know what the Hindenburg principle is.”

“Jesus, Wolf, didn’t you pay attention to anything in college?” Charlie sputtered.

“Charlie, I’m telling you, it is negative four hundred fifty degrees Fahrenheit, and the closer I get, the colder it is.”

“All right, Wolf, what are the other gasses?”

“Carbon dioxide, helium, argon, and three others our instruments can’t identify.”

“Really? Well, you discovered them, so you get to name them. Give it some thought,” Charlie laughed.

Wolf laughed, too, but without humor. “Real funny. I am getting magnetic interference on my instruments, Charlie. The ship is accelerating. I am being drawn towards the comet. This ship isn’t magnetic, is it? I thought it was made of carbon and plastics?”

Charlie grabbed the specifications chart and scanned it, then replied, “It’s made of reinforced carbon, an alloy of titanium, aluminum, vanadium, reinforced polycarbonate, fiberglass, and carbon fiber. The tiles are made of silica ceramic with diamond-infused alloys that can withstand temperatures up to three thousand degrees Fahrenheit while maintaining the vehicle’s structure at absolute zero. Yes, it has some magnetic properties. Fire your jets and get out of there!”

“I have been doing that for the last few minutes. I’m at full power and losing heat in the shuttle. Cabin temperature has fallen fifty degrees in the last several minutes, and the thermal heaters are on full power. Charlie, I can’t escape Nomad’s gravitational pull!” Wolf reported in a shaky voice. He shivered, and it wasn’t entirely from the cold. Fear crept up his spine; panic wasn’t far behind.

“Check your sensors. How far away from the coma are you?”

“Charlie, I am not sure how long I will be conscious, so how the hell can I tell you when I will go into a coma?”

“Wolf, you are an idiot. The coma is the part around the comet’s nucleus.”

“Oh. Looks like…one hundred thousand miles and closing fast. Charlie, I’m showing negative four hundred fifty-three degrees Fahrenheit on my sensors. It’s thirty below in the cabin and dropping twenty degrees a minute. At this rate, I’ll freeze to death soon.” Wolf reached over and twisted a control knob, trying to turn up the cabin’s meager heating unit.

“Have you tried to reverse the polarity of the engines?”

“Like I honestly know how? Damn it, Charlie, help me!”

“One of the techs here thinks that if you shut the engine down and then fire it at full power in short bursts, you might be able to slingshot around the comet.”

“Even
I
know that won’t work. The gravitational pull would draw me into the comet in seconds.”

“Wolf, can you turn the thermal heaters up any higher to warm the cabin?” There was panic in Charlie’s voice as he paced between the evenly spaced computer terminals at mission control.