Overture (Earth Song)

©
Copyright 2011, Mark Wandrey
All rights reserved.

No
part of this book may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise, without written permission from the author.

First edition printed 2004 (Avatar’s Overture)

ISBN
978-1-418-48555-9

Second
edition printed 2011 (Earth Song Overture)

ISBN 978-1-453-69732-0

A note on editions: This edition of the book
is different than the one first published in 2004 in that it contains some minor scene changes added to facilitate the creation of the Earth Song series.

For additional details on this series, visit
WWW.Worldmaker.US
.

This book i
s a work of fiction and as such springs forth entirely from my mind. Any resemblance between people living or dead is purely coincidental. The opinions and situation put forth here are also those of the author and do not reflect upon, or are necessarily shared by the publisher or any distributor of the book.

Cover art by Digital Donna (
[email protected]
). Additional cover images credited to Jim Young at the Jet Propulsion Laboratory.

DEDICATIONS

To my editorial team, LN
., Tony Sullivan and Mary Chris Waller. They read the unreadable, edited the uneditable, and tolerated the intolerable. Tacos, beer, and friendship go a long way.

In memory to Francine Lemos. I tried for more sex, but the plot just kept winning. And also in memory of Steve Karvonen. I'm glad you liked this, but sorry you didn't get to read what comes next. You were a good friend.

To my wife Joy, and son Patrick. The two most wonderful people I could ever know. Who knew a farm, chickens, geese, dogs and cats could make you so happy? As long as your family is there with you.

And finally to my mother and father. Regardless of their faults, they made me who I am today.

It is still two hours before the sun rises in the east but Mindy Channely is already up and at her place of work. This day she will not be at her desk, her husband of one month, Jake, is nearby. Instead they stand with a handful of other people on the roof of their office building. Not even the faintest glimmer of dawn has yet to touch the eastern horizon but already there is a glow higher in the sky.

"Here
it comes," Jake speaks and she turns from the west to look. The ball of light in the eastern morning sky that had been getting brighter every day is now streaked with sprays of light. The asteroid LM-245 hits the atmosphere like a cosmic lance thrown from a million miles away. The two clasp hands as the elongated rock slams into the atmosphere at a high angle. It gives off bright incandescent light and streamers as it bites air. Everyone has to lift a hand to partially cover their eyes from the glare as it streaks across the sky in just seconds.

"Maybe
it will just pass through," Mindy hears someone say. She shakes her head but remains silent. The time for words is past. Besides, she knows better. Though it might seem like it is coming in at an extreme angle the reality is, it doesn't matter. Already it had passed over their heads and is racing for the western horizon. Mindy and Jake brace themselves for what is coming. The building rooftop is rocked by the hypersonic shock wave. An unbelievably powerful blast of noise so concentrated it knocks several people off their feet. One unlucky man on the other side of the roof is sent screaming over the edge to his death below. No one moves to see his fate; their own is close on his heels. The asteroid is only a red smoking ball of fire now as it sinks to meet the sea. Somewhere over the curve it makes contact, and the planet's fate is sealed.

Several
million tons of rock have boiled off the asteroid leaving its gleaming core exposed and glowing white-hot. It hits the ocean with the force of a million megatons and keeps right on going. It takes only a fraction of a second to reach the bottom of the ocean floor and only another second to pass through the crust and slam up against the mantle where it reaches its first serious resistance. None of the models generated at JPL match the physics of the impact. The asteroid imparts its energy into the core in a spreading shock wave of unimaginable force. Back on the surface, a red, raw wound nine miles across and roughly two hundred miles off the northern California coast, pours fire and ash into the sky. The column of superheated gas and rock also holds trillions of gallons of steam. Along the impact path, water stands in walls like Moses parting the Red Sea. The ocean is being held back by the intense heat rising from the wound.

On
the west coast the tidal wave caused by the impact reaches land less than a minute after impact. Mindy and Jake look west toward the ocean twenty four miles away. The Coastal Mountain Range stands between them and the water, a seemingly insurmountable obstacle. A sea wall fifteen hundred feet high that has never been breached.

The
sound of the onrushing water reaches them through the mountains. A deep subsonic vibration that shakes the buildings of Portland and sends those on the streets screaming for shelter. In seconds it is loud enough to crack windows in the skyscraper. Then the tsunami rises up, exploding through and around the mountains and still towering above them. A two miles tall cobra poised to strike along the thousands of miles north to south. Mindy and Jake gaze up at the face of water as it rushes at them. She turns to look at her husband and smiles as they squeeze each other’s hands. One or two people on the roof top scream an instant before it hits. Portland is obliterated seconds.

The
wave continues inland, scarcely slowing as it devours Portland. It washes over the much taller Cascade Range, the colossal tidal wave soaring high over many of the five thousand plus foot peaks.

The
mountains' passes act like amplifiers, channeling great blasts of water, already dark with debris, through them. Some of the peaks are torn asunder and collapse from the onslaught while others bear the brunt of the attack with ancient determination. Mt. Rainier, at more than ten thousand feet, takes the attack well, the water rushing around it to crash onward. Hundreds have taken refuge on the highest peaks to be reached by car, and they cheer as the waters roars past them. Fifteen minutes later the shock wave created when the meteor hit the mantle reaches the great tectonic plate of the Pacific Northwest, and Rainier instantly explodes. It has been many thousands of years since the peak last erupted and all the pent up energy goes off with a blast many times that of the Hiroshima bomb. Those survivors who were cheering minutes before never knew what hit them.

As
the tsunamis rush around the world, the impact shock waves rip loose every existing fault line and create still more. On the other side of the planet, opposite the impact point, the brunt of the collision force reaches the crust again. Billions of tons of force are driven before it all the way through the center of the Earth and as it reaches the lighter material of the outer mantle it begins to push up the continental plate before it. The teaming masses in India are surprised to feel like they are on an elevator as the land of their country lifts upward.

The
planet bulges outward like the weak spot in a tire until it bursts, blowing island sized pieces of rock and lava towards space. Some pieces are hurtled to orbit or beyond, others rain back to earth to spread death. Now the Earth is leaking energy and heat from two wounds, one on either side of the world. On the Pacific side the ejecta is now reaching space and ocean levels are beginning to lower. Already in Asia mud and rock have begun to rain from the sky. The tsunami washes Japan off the planet and buries half of China under a new sea two miles deep. In America, the tidal wave washes up against the Rocky Mountains. Still another tidal wave, like a rebounded ripple in a pond, bounces off Antarctica and up the Gulf of Mexico.

Six
hours after impact, dozens of deep fissures are radiating out from both of the vast wounds in the planet. Despite the two huge wounds, internal pressures continue to build from the terrible blows dealt to the outer crust. Mile by mile the biggest faults reach out toward their sisters from the other side of the planet. When they make contact, it is the beginning of the end.

The South Dorset coast of England was never warm in February and this was no exception. Alicia Benjamin sat in an aluminum lawn chair inside a tin shack and watched the telescope track a stellar body many millions of miles away. The 16” Schmidt-Cassegrain telescope she used was considered small among professional astronomers, nothing more than a large hobby job. But it was professionally installed in a permanent four meter dome, had a nearly state of the art CCD camera and computer, and a well maintained drive set.

The
powerful little electric motors hummed efficiently, moving the telescope in concert with the dance of the spheres. Its movements were far too small to be noticed by the naked eye, but she could see in the monitor how the object she had been studying was fixed squarely in the cross hairs. “LM-245,” she said as she jotted into her note pad, “always one of my favorites.” She had first observed the twelve-kilometer long, irregularly shaped asteroid more than ten years ago when her Worth Hill Observatory initially came into service. Discovered by NASA’s NEO, or Near Earth Orbit project years before that, the asteroid was well categorized and easy to find because of its bright visible characteristics. Alicia normally preferred to hunt for uncategorized asteroids, but this was an old friend.

She
went into the equipment shed adjacent to the observatory dome. She had been eyeballing a sticky drive motor that needed attention. At almost ₤20 each, she didn’t replace them lightly. Running a private observatory was never cheap, and funding had been hard to come by lately. She’d found a little grit in the motor’s worm gear. After cleaning the gear she monitored the motor’s performance. The temperature sensor showed no increases so she pronounced it healthy and was ready to get out of the cold. Alicia was about to turn off the monitor, but her hand stopped just short of the knob. LM-245 was no longer visible on the screen.

“
What the bloody hell?” she grumbled and sat back down, picked up the control box and punched buttons. Everything she could do from here could be done in the warmth of the observation building, but she didn’t want to lose the time it would take to get there. It only took a minute to confirm with the computer and the GPS receiver that the telescope was pointing where it should be. The object she was looking for was not there any longer. “That’s not possible,” she said as she confirmed the target settings.

Taking
a risk she would never find the missing asteroid again, she punched in the identification number for another orbiting object only two degrees from where LM-245 should have been. The much more regular shaped asteroid quickly came into view and was locked dead center. Alicia’s mind reeled with the possibility. LM-245 was gone!

She
quickly secured the maintenance shed and ran inside. Diving into the main control chair Alicia furiously stabbed at the bank of older computers to review the data she'd been recording. The images reversed comically and a few seconds later LM-245 crept back into view from the left side of the screen. She waited a second and then hit the stop. The images resumed normal play and showed her what she had missed as she was fixing the troublesome motor.

LM-245
hovered there for a moment; the screen wavering as a bright point of light struck one end of the raggedly teardrop-shaped asteroid. In just seconds the huge piece of rock began to accelerate and move out of view. Alicia rewound the recording and watched the flash again. That flash of light didn't encompass the entire view. There in two frames the light connected to the one end of the asteroid. She silently cursed the fact that the recording wasn't at maximum resolution. It was just to test the motors, not to observe anything new. Once the view was enhanced as much as possible she could see what looked like a streak of light coming toward the point of the flash. It was only on two or three frames, but it was certainly there. “Did a micro comet hit the asteroid?” she spoke to the darkened room, a habit Alicia wasn't aware she'd picked up over the years. It seemed a possibility, but would that cause the effect she witnessed?

She
replayed the aftereffects again, this time watching the rear of the asteroid where the flash came from. There was no distortion of the asteroid, and no debris cloud. A collision seemed unlikely.

While
she worked on the recorded image, Alicia tracked the telescope toward the observed asteroid movement and reacquired it. Using a visual intensity meter she once again locked the asteroid in the center and followed it. A light began to flash a warning and she turned her attention to it. In five minutes, LM-245 was going to drop below horizon and be lost to her. If her old friend stayed where it logically should have, it wouldn't have dropped below the horizon for more than another hour.

Alicia
turned up the intensity on the computers capture rate filming more frames per second before she lost the image. As it filmed she began using an older computer, the one that had the astronomy database in its memory, to calculate the effects of this unknown acceleration. If what she saw was correct, LM-245 had accelerated at more than four gravities. She had a hard time imagining the power it would take to accelerate a twelve-kilometer long asteroid faster than the space shuttle.

Light
from one side of the screen was already beginning to haze the view as she finished recording all the data and set the computer to make backups. While it worked she snatched up her phone and dialed a number in London.  On the screen, LM-245 dropped below the horizon and was lost from view.