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further south near Tampa, but it had run out of energy. The devastation from
the tornadoes alone caused several billions of dollars worth of damage.
Miraculously only twelve people were killed as a result of them. Doppler radar
coverage gave ample warning for people to take cover.
Way to go National Weather Service!
The ECC explosion on the other hand, caused tremendously more damage and a
serious loss of life.
The final death toll was still being determined but it was over four hundred.
And I thought I was going to win a Nobel Prize! Hopefully, I won't be tarred
and feathered, drawn and quartered, stoned, imprisoned, bludgeoned, and twenty
other horrible things. Perhaps I will at least be allowed a burial in an
undisclosed location so that my remains won't be desecrated.
Oh yeah, what happened to the Space Shuttle? Well, that is an interesting
story. Apparently, the same meteorites that tore through the atmosphere
destroyed the Shuttle. Colonel Ames and Dr. Anson
Clemons were conducting an EVA when the meteor shower destroyed the Shuttle.
They miraculously survived and were rescued by the International Space
Station's CRV. The CRV landed at NASA
Dryden yesterday. Dryden is across the runway from Edwards. Unfortunately,
they were the only survivors. The two of them were injured during the disaster
and are recuperating at the hospital near
Edwards. No press has been able to see the two astronauts as of yet, but the
NASA press release states
that the two of them are in good condition. Also, doctors say that they may be
able to hold a press conference later today. That explains that.
"Tabitha, why were we the only good guys able to make it to ground zero? I
would've thought that the Strategic Air Command or the Space Command would
have been all over an incoming projectile as destructive as the probe was. And
Jim had to have told somebody that the phenomena in Florida was us," I asked
Tabitha rhetorically. I didn't realize she had an answer.
"Of course, SAC and Space Command and NASA knew that we caused the ruckus,
Anson. Jim didn't have to say a word. Although we traveled way too fast for a
telescope or radar to track us, it was obvious when one second we tell Mission
Control that we're going to press a button, then the next second all hell
breaks lose. Crisis teams and security protocol teams were dispatched
immediately in three helicopters totaling seventeen men and women. All of them
were killed by the violent weather and extreme wind shear patterns created by
the probe."
"That doesn't explain what happened after the storms settled. I mean, I feel
horrible that all those people died," I coughed a couple of times. Tabitha
looked concerned until I showed her my hands, "See no blood. My throat is
still just a little scratchy from whatever they had stuck down it. Quacks!"
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"Anson, those quacks saved your life. Three times!"
"Maybe I'll have to rethink my opinion. Be patient please, it is hard to
change years of bad behavior and beliefs over night. Believe me, I'm far from
ungrateful. I like the scratchy throat much better than the alternative."
"Well, okay for now. But I don't want to hear you talking like that around the
doctors. It would just be plain rude," Tabitha scolded me with her best
Mama-said-don't-do-that voice.
I nodded and asked again, "Okay. So why was there no help from the good guys
after the storms?"
"By the time the weather had settled down enough for aircraft to be sent in,
we had managed to stumble along to the back gate at Eglin Air Force Base. Our
communication filtered up the food chain much faster than you would believe.
An order was sent out to stay out of the area until more was heard from us.
Boy we sent a message in a big way didn't we?"
"Uh huh." No words could describe how badly I felt for the people involved in
this whole ordeal.
"I know Anson. I had no brighter ideas of how to save us either. But, we're
here and alive and we kept the probe out of the hands of the communists, or
terrorists or whoever."
"Johnny said the Communist Chinese, remember?" I corrected her.
"Sure he did. But why should we trust him? How do we know that he wasn't
sending us down a blind alley? It could have been Usama Bin Laden as far as we
know."
"I thought he was dead?"
"Are you sure?"
"Good point."
"One problem is that Johnny must have known everything about our program.
Hell, he was our secretary and he had somehow managed a clearance. I guarantee
that his customers have all of our blueprints, drawings, data sets, and
everything else. Do you think they could rebuild an ECC or a warp probe?"
"I never thought about it. I don't see why they couldn't, if they were smart
enough. If it's terrorists who were his customers, I would be more worried
that small ECC bombs would be created and used.
They just wouldn't have the bankroll to fund anything as large as a Warp
Probe."
"That sounds logical, maybe. Remember how bankrolled the terrorists back in
'01 were. Uncle
Usama was loaded." Tabitha reminded me.
"That's why I just can't rule out the terrorist theory. Johnny was too well
financed for it to be anything less than a large cell structure or a
government. He had superfast fixed wing helicopters, surface to air
anti-aircraft missiles, and he did mention that the Chinese were going to
steal the probe on orbit. Didn't
Mission Control tell us that the Chinese had a rocket on the pad but it wasn't
ready for launch yet? We need some more intel on that."
"That's right. And he must have had a top-notch crew to get into the Vehicle
Assembly Building to plant the bomb on the Shuttle. I think you're right. It
must have been a government or at least an organization as big."
"We need to tell somebody this. These people or government could change the
balance of power in the world!"
I was terrified. Much like I had been as a kid in the seventies and eighties
during the Cold War. Now
I was far more terrified by a warp missile than any intercontinental ballistic
missile. The worst part is that I
had invented the terror. Now I know how Einstein and Oppenheimer must have
felt after the
Rosenbergs. Or was Einstein already dead by then? For that matter, was Oppie?
"Relax Anson. After the press conference with the Vice President in New
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Mexico, we're flying back with him to D.C. to debrief the Joint Chiefs and the
President."
"Vice President?" I asked Tabitha. She told me to read the cup in my hand, the
one that I had been sipping water from for more than thirty minutes. I did.
The logo on the side explained that the cup was from the Office of the Vice
President of the United States of America.
"Air Force Two?" I asked while studying the cup. [ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]

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