Never Again Page 38

  Stryker sighed, wishing he could have been there to see it. He’d been sleeping in the barracks to keep peace with Lainie. He turned toward her and she looked up, meeting his gaze for a moment, then turned back to the kids.

  “How’s Jessica’s new boyfriend?”

  Lainie shook her head. “I’m not getting in the middle of you two. Go talk to your sister if you want the dirt on them.”

  The two walked in silence for a few moments. Every once in a while, she’d bump into him, and it made him think fondly of when they used to take walks in Central Park.

  Before he knew it, the kids veered off the main street and Isaac swiped his finger on the biometrically keyed door.

  The door swung open, and Stryker hefted the pile of wood onto his shoulder. “I’ll start the fire for you guys.”

  Moments later, he had the fire roaring in the small cottage that served as his family’s home. He kissed the kids goodnight and lingered in the doorway as he watched them snuggle under the warmth of thick blankets.

  Lainie wrapped her arm around his and whispered, “Are we going to be okay?”

  Stryker nodded. “I have full confidence in whatever those scientists are doing. I mean, have you seen—”

  “No, you goof ball.” She gently elbowed his ribs and sighed. “I mean you and me. I miss us.”

  His heart skipped a beat as he gazed down at Lainie, spying tears in her eyes.

  What did she mean? She hated what he did. Hell, he was wearing his MP uniform and openly carrying a sidearm.

  “Lainie, I thought you couldn’t—”

  “The kids need both of us.”

  A warmth spread through him as he felt her leaning against him. “What do you need?”

  “You to spend more time with us ... with me.”

  Just as Stryker opened his mouth to ask a question, Lainie put a finger to his lips. She snaked her arm around his neck and pulled him in for the first real kiss he’d had from her in years.

  ###

  “Madam President?”

  Margaret had calmed herself and was watching the final minutes of the countdown as she received her first update from a nervous FEMA representative. “It was low tide on the east coast,” said the representative, “and the water there began rising very quickly. We just received a report that there was a small breach of the sand embankments that the Army Corp of Engineers had built along the coast of South Florida. Luckily, it only affected a lightly-developed area one-hundred-and-sixty miles north of Miami. I’ve not yet received reports from elsewhere along our coast, but there have been reports worldwide from those countries that were at high tide seeing the water rush out to sea.”

  Even though Dave had been staring at some of the data scrolling on the video screens, he’d clearly overheard the report, as he leaned back in his chair and commented without taking his eyes off the data on the distant wall, “I know they’ve been told, but warn your peers in those countries again that the tide will slosh back and forth for a bit before it finally settles down. Now that the Moon is gone and we’ll be losing any influence from the sun soon enough, the concept of a high or low tide will end up disappearing.”

  Margaret leaned forward to get a good look at the blonde woman’s badge. The FEMA rep nervously glanced back and forth between Dave and the president. “Listen, Jennifer, calm down. Just do as Doctor Holmes said, keep us apprised of what’s going on, and have faith.” Margaret looked up at the nervous federal worker and attempted her warmest smile. “Now go ahead and remind all of your coworkers about what Doctor Holmes said. That’s something that people should keep in mind if they’re going to do their jobs well.”

  “Yes, Madam President.” Jennifer nodded rapidly, turned, and raced from the Control Center.

  Margaret watched Dave settle into the Mission Director’s seat. Despite the death of a loved one and the news of a colleague’s unexpected death, he clearly had swallowed whatever he was feeling and remained in control. She nodded approvingly at the man. He was obviously one of the most intelligent people she’d likely ever know, but he was probably as mentally strong as many of the military personnel she’d served with.

  Feeling a surge of relief, Margaret relaxed a bit, knowing that it wasn’t her that would likely have to make any decisions for the moment. All of the logistics and details were in Doctor Holmes’ capable hands. She turned to the screen and watched as the countdown crossed the five-minute mark.

  The Launch Director’s voice broadcast through the Control Center’s auditorium, “NORAD Mission Control, we are now at T-minus five minutes and counting for Warp Ring activation.”

  Dave’s voice carried loudly across the chamber as he spoke into his microphone, “PAO, start the simulcast of the countdown along with the telemetry readings. Let everyone watch what’s going on, especially since all of humanity’s fates are now undeniably linked.”

  The rail-thin Public Affairs Officer raced from one workstation to another and activated the external broadcast so that the world could see and hear what Mission Control was doing. He turned and flashed a thumbs-up to Dave, then raced back to his terminal.

  “For all within the reach of my voice, this is David Holmes, acting as Mission Director and broadcasting from the NORAD Command Center located within the Cheyenne Mountain Complex. We are now approaching the four-minute mark before we activate the Warp Ring around the Earth, which is a component of DefenseNet.”

  Dave tapped on his microphone, muting it, and yelled across the thirty feet separating him from the Public Affairs Officer, “Can they see the contents of screen one?”

  The officer nodded and yelled, “Sir, I’m broadcasting everything from all of the screens.”

  Tossing a thumbs-up in the direction of the PAO, Dave tapped on the microphone and began to explain as the countdown commenced.

  “When the countdown hits zero, you will almost immediately see the Warp Ring get brighter as we activate what I like to call a gravity bubble. This is when we’ll actually begin moving.

  “Just so you know, when we start moving, you won’t feel a thing. We’re playing tricks with how gravity works, and even though we’ll start moving fairly quickly at a constant acceleration, you won’t feel a change in the momentum because we’re in that gravity-isolated bubble I mentioned.

  “You won’t see any immediate changes when things start. However, as time goes on, the Earth will begin traveling faster and faster.

  “Even though most of you do realize that the Earth is always moving, for simplicity’s sake, let’s assume we aren’t moving right now.

  “Ten seconds after we activate the Warp Ring, we’ll be travelling at nearly 1,400 miles per hour.

  “After ten minutes, we’ll be going over 80,000 miles per hour, and after only five days, we’ll be travelling nearly one-tenth the speed of light.

  “I know for many of you, it’s hard to grasp such speeds, so let me give you something more tangible to compare it against.

  “When Voyager 1 blasted off in 1977, it took it thirty-five years to leave the solar system and enter interstellar space. We’ll be doing it in five days.

  “Over the next few days, you’ll notice that the sun will begin to grow dimmer. In addition, the color will change from what it is today, and slowly turn more orange and eventually red. By the time we are five days away, the sun will look like a large red dot in the sky and will slowly begin to fade away.

  “As Mission Director, I will give daily updates as we travel to our final destination, a star which, when we arrive, should seem very much like our own sun.”

  Dave glanced at the countdown time as one of the engineers motioned toward him. “This is Launch Control. We are at T-minus 1 minute and holding. All positions stand by to give status.”

  Margaret had never seen a launch sequence before, and she watched with fascination as Dave probed each of the Mission Control assets to see if they were all ready to go.

  “Launch Director?”
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  “All systems are go.”

  “Substation Engineering?”

  “All substations are operating within normal parameters.”

  “Navigation?”

  “Navigation is go for launch.”

  “T-COM?”

  “All communications are stable. Launch computers are functioning normally. All systems are go.”

  Dave sent a thumbs-up to the Launch Director and said, “Roger that, Mission Control, we are go for launch. Launch Director, commence with countdown.”

  Margaret sat higher in her chair as she watched the seconds counting down. It looked as if everyone in the room was holding their breaths. Margaret tightened her grip on the armrests while the final seconds counted down.

  “T-minus five seconds ... four ... three ... two ... one ... activate!”

  Margaret felt nothing, but one of the video screens that had been focused on the sky brightened slightly as the power was throttled up and sent through the Warp Ring.

  “This is NORAD mission control, we have all taken our first step into a new age ... we have confirmed forward relative motion!”

  Cheers erupted through the auditorium, and a thrilling sense of euphoria washed over Margaret. Everyone stood, faced Dave, and began clapping. She could only imagine what it must have been like for all of those millions, if not billions, of people who were watching in anticipation. The world was likely cheering along with the people in the control center.

  All those promises she’d made to the world, the hopes that were hanging on this one last thread–it had worked. She swallowed hard as the thrill of the moment flushed through her, and she wiped away tears that threatened to spill down her cheeks.

  Dave smiled and spoke into the microphone, “T-COM, post on screen number two our speed and distance travelled. I’m sure we’ll all want to be looking at that over the next nine months.

  “Mission Control team, job well done. Remember, we still have a long trip ahead of us. I will report regularly to everyone, starting tomorrow at 2:00 p.m. GMT, which is 9:00 a.m. eastern time.”

  Margaret stood, walked over to Dave, and gave him a bear hug as she whispered, “You know that you’ll be forever known as the father of a new space age.”

  With a sheepish expression, Dave stepped back and shrugged. “I won’t let it get to my head.”

  With a friendly smack on his arm, Margaret smiled. “We still have a lot of work to do, but for now, it’s time to celebrate.”

  ###

  Margaret climbed out of her military transport to visit a nearby shelter in Colorado Springs.

  She looked up in the sky, and even though she was bundled up in a jacket, she shivered at the bone-chilling cold. It certainly didn’t help that they were 6,000 feet above sea level and it was the middle of winter. It was noon, yet the small orange disk of the sun seemed very far away as the Earth sped toward a distant star.

  It had been just over four days since they’d begun their journey. Thankfully, the critical part associated with the first day was over. Dave and the rest of the Control Team had managed to avoid the waves of debris that had been heading straight for Earth and angle the planet toward its final destination.

  The only unusual sign at the beginning of their journey was the light show from the shooting stars high up in the atmosphere. By some miracle, none of the debris that ended up hitting the Earth’s atmosphere actually landed in any populated areas. There were scattered reports of explosions high up in the sky, though, and in some cases, the explosions were strong enough to rattle windows for hundreds of miles.

  Now that the Earth was on the outskirts of the solar system, so many things had changed.

  The farther they went, the less difference there was between night and day. At this latitude, the land was in a constant twilight due to the distance they were from the blazing ribbon of light shimmering over the equator.

  A colonel from her escort approached, saluted, and motioned to a distant building. “Madam President, evacuation site CS-Alpha is ready for you.”

  Margaret barely held back her instinct to return the salute, and instead smiled at the fatigue-wearing soldier. “Thank you, Colonel Hawkins, lead the way.”

  As they walked the breadth of the evacuation site, the colonel said, “Madam President, Evac Site CS-Alpha is an overflow site, so we’re mostly housing people that the first line of evacuation sites didn’t have room for. About half of our 10,000 evacuees are from somewhere along the coast of California and the other half mostly comes from the Gulf coast.”

  The colonel panned his arm along the dirt road that ran down the middle of the encampment. “This is the main street, where no motorized traffic is allowed other than emergency vehicles. Otherwise it’s a pedestrian-only zone. We have all the comforts of home that you might expect; we’ve got a PX which takes ration cards as payment, so from there you can buy all of your items—like toothpaste, clothes, and other sundries.”

  Margaret noticed a red cross painted on a multi-story building ahead and to the right. “Hospital?”

  “Yes, Madam President. We’ve got a one-hundred-bed hospital with a state-of-the-art operating theater located within.” He waved to the north and said, “On the far side of the main street is our residential area. It may look like a snow-covered field, but we have well over one-thousand homes, each of which can house up to six people, and a barracks area which can house almost eight-thousand people.”

  “Where do people go to get information about what’s happening? Like, if they want to see what’s going on with our travel, or if there’s a public address they need to see?”

  The colonel pulled a box-like device from his belt and showed Margaret that it had a video screen displaying the broadcast coming from NORAD Mission Control. “Each family was assigned a portable video receiver, and we have a repeater antenna which broadcasts the signal to this location for everyone to see.”

  The colonel put the receiver back on his belt and turned left toward a very large building. He opened the door and invited Margaret to enter.

  The smell of freshly baked bread and hamburgers on the grill hit her.

  The colonel remarked matter-of-factly, “This is our chow hall.”

  The building was easily several hundred feet long, and fifty-feet wide, and had a steady flow of people coming in and out.

  “We serve food around the clock, and I’ll freely admit that I’ve probably put on a couple of pounds since I’ve arrived. It’s actually pretty good.”

  Watching the orderly crowds stand in line to fill their plates and the smiling faces of the kids sitting along the hundreds of bench seats, Margaret couldn’t help but smile. Some of the people closest to her peered up as they walked by.

  A handful of the citizens gasped, their eyes widening with recognition, and one of the women called out, “President Hager, are we going to be okay? I’ve heard about the terrible riots in San Francisco, something about a cult?”

  Margaret turned and walked toward the woman. Having received regular reports about the bloodshed associated with rooting out the Brotherhood, Margaret wasn’t sure how many details of the extermination teams she’d sent out had reached the public.

  Laying her hands on the frightened woman’s shoulders, Margaret spoke loudly enough for others to hear. “I know you’ve heard what that group called the Brotherhood has done. Their evil won’t be tolerated in a civilized society, and I swear to you—they won’t bother us again. You’re safe here, and by the time we get to where we’re going, nobody will have to worry about those crazy people again.”

  One of the men standing nearby was holding a young child, no older than George, and he leaned closer and said, “I was telling Xavier, my son, that it was getting darker only because we were going to a new place. A place where we can all be safe. Isn’t that right, President Hager?”

  Margaret smiled, cupped the young child’s face, and addressed him directly. “Xavier, we’ll be traveling super spe
edy to get to our new home. I know your dad’s worried, but I think you can help him. Can you promise me that you’ll be a big boy and protect your dad while we travel to our new home? He needs to know everything will be okay.”

  The young boy blinked and, with a determined expression, gave Margaret a nod. Xavier immediately wrapped his arms around his father’s neck, kissed him on the cheek and said, “It’ll be okay, Daddy, I’ll protect you.”

  Margaret glanced at the colonel and pointed at the line of people. “Let’s get a plate of food. I want to sit with these folks and just talk to them, see how things are going for the rest of them. You know, soak the environment in and see if there’s anything actionable I can take away from this.”

  The door behind them opened and a bitterly cold gust of wind blew in, making the hairs on the back of Margaret’s neck stand on end.

  As the colonel led her toward the line of people who were waiting for food, she silently worried about what it would be like just a few weeks later as the sun’s warming influence completely disappeared.

  Chapter Thirty-Eight

  Staring at the video screen in Mission Control, Dave sat at one of the terminals, feeling ill. He closed his eyes and listened to the doomed voices of the mining crew sending goodbyes to their family. He swallowed hard against the lump that had formed in his throat. Having only just been briefed about the stragglers from several of the mining colonies, who for whatever reason hadn’t been able to reach Earth before they left, Dave couldn’t help but think about Bella and wonder if all of these deaths were somehow preventable.

  He turned to one of the engineers, who had tears running down her cheeks, and asked, “How many does that make?”

  The woman quickly wiped the tears and responded, “Sir, that’s twenty-two from the asteroid mining expedition, and there were another 125 souls left behind as well from other installations.”