Casey frowned at the orange juice handed to him by his sister. “How come I can’t drink another soda instead?” he asked. “Can’t I have one without any caffeine since you always think that it makes me really hyper?”
“Because the sugar in it would make you hyper too.”
“I wish we were up in first class with Mom and Dad. That’s where they serve all the cool expensive stuff.”
“They only got to sit there because all of the other seats were overbooked, silly. Besides, they deserve a break from…from us.” Sofia turned up her nose, struck by her sudden magnanimous substitution of us for her intended you.
The jetliner’s intercom system cackled to life.
“Ladies and gentleman, this is your captain. We have just received word that we have to return to Honolulu. We are sorry for any inconvenience this might cause any of you.”
The announcement was greeted by a chorus of groans and a few curses. Only one passenger seemed happy.
“All right!” Casey shouted. “Maybe we’ll get to stay in Hawaii a few more days. I read that the airlines have to give you a free hotel room when this sort of thing happens, unless it’s because of the weather.” He glanced out the window, his view changing as the airliner began a wide 180 degree turn. “It’s beautiful outside so it can’t be because of the weather.”
* * *
Grandparents on both sides of his family had filled the President of the People’s Republic of China with a sense of destiny; one he believed now was at last coming to fruition. For decades, he had desired to strike back at Japan on behalf of the tens of millions of Chinese killed by invading Japanese troops during World War II. But now it appeared he must settle for a secondary target, America. That was what the Central Military Commission’s members had argued in favor of for the last hour.
“So the newest projection of the Russians is that the solar storm will hit most of China and the eastern parts of India and Russia?” The President asked the official in constant contact with hacker Jackie Yee.
“Yes. Unfortunately, that also means it will only strike the western third of America instead of almost all of it, which was the original projection.”
“I see. And if we do go ahead and explode our satellite at the exact moment the storm hits Earth’s magnetic field, where will it be in its orbit, according to the new calculations?”
“About eight hundred miles west from San Francisco, out above the Pacific Ocean. The electrical magnetic impulses created by our atomic bomb concealed in that satellite will only travel about this far inland,” said the general who had argued the longest and loudest to convince China’s leader. The general rubbed his sweaty palm over the portion of the paper map showing the border between Utah and Colorado.
“Are you certain that the solar EMP will provide us with enough cover to get away with what the generals want to do?” The President turned to the astrophysicist he most trusted.
“Yes.”
The President stood. “When is the moment of the detonation to be then?”
“Nine minutes from now,” the astrophysicist answered.
He turned to the generals. “Proceed with your plan. Excuse me, I have to now return a call from the President of the United States.”
The American President five minutes later uttered an impatient greeting to the Chinese President before saying, “I’m afraid my translator is still stuck in traffic and not here yet. We will have to rely entirely on your translator.”
His tone of voice sounds bewildered, the Chinese President thought as he waited for a translation of his words from English to his native tongue before responding.
“That is no problem. The translator sitting next to me is the best one we have.”
“Good. I’ve been calling to ask why you grounded all of China’s planes, even your military ones. Is it because of that solar storm that was supposed to hit Earth about an hour ago? Do you think it will really be strong enough to damage the electrical and computer systems on your planes?”
“Yes, we are very concerned that the EMPs produced by the storm will be strong enough to do severe damage. That reminds me. We are likely to need your help to recover after the solar storm hits my country. Do you think you will be able to help us?”
“I’m sure that can be arranged. Oh, I also need to know why you lowered the altitude of one of your satellites. As usual, those damn crybabies are going to demand answers from me when Congress goes back into session.”
“First, let me say how grateful my nation is to your country for giving us access to your satellite and missile technology. Unfortunately, there are still a few problems that we are experiencing. As you know, that satellite is used to gather data for our planned colony on the Moon and after that, further space exploration. But the telescope does not always focus correctly, which requires us to sometimes alter the satellite’s orbit. Perhaps your administration could be so kind to help us fix this problem?”
“I’ll call NASA and –”
The sudden end to his words told the Chinese President that whichever communications satellite had been beaming their call halfway around the world was now inoperable because of the long awaited storm, a potential disaster foretold by his scientific advisors since he had taken office. Less than a nanosecond before the storm struck Earth’s magnetic field, China’s atomic weapon had detonated hundreds of miles above Earth.
The Chinese President wondered how effective his country’s contingency plan to protect its electrical and computer infrastructure from the EMPs now bombarding Earth would be.
* * *
Neither captain nor crew was happy with their fishing expedition. With their hold only a third full of fish and two day’s journey away from their home port in Hawaii, any expectations of a large payout were fading. When the captain could not fix his boat’s sonar unit, he summoned his first mate.
“I still can’t get it to work. Tell the men that we have to head back. But keep the nets out to see if we might get lucky and snag some more catch on our way in.”
After issuing the order, the first mate spotted the descending aircraft as he returned to the wheelhouse.
“Captain, you were in the Navy, right?”
“Yeah, for twenty-six years. Why?”
“I just saw what looks like a plane heading toward the islands pretty low in the sky seeing how we’re so far from them.”
The captain grabbed his binoculars and stepped from his wheelhouse to the rolling deck. “It’s only at about 4,000 to 5,000 feet.” He yelled and told the other five members of his crew to quiet down.
When only the slaps of swells creating groans from the wooden boat still sounded, the captain cocked his head toward the sky and listened. “Do any of you hear any sounds coming off that jet’s engines?”
His crew answered with shaking heads.
“It’s going to ditch in the ocean without power. Pull all of those nets back on board.”
The five deck hands scrambled to obey.
“Give this tub everything’s she’s got,” the captain ordered his first mate, who gunned the boat’s three diesel engines. “And follow that plane until it hits the water.” He stepped back onto the deck. “The rest of you start throwing anything heavy overboard that will slow us down.”
* * *
Six months later, the United Nations’ ambassadors assembled in New York for an emergency session. The bureaucrat overseeing the committee tasked with tallying the effects of the solar storm on Earth’s nations waited until every delegate sat and grew silent.
“Thank you for being here even though travel conditions are still extremely difficult because of the damage to the airlines caused by last year's major solar event,” she said, her words translated into dozens of languages and then transmitted to the earphones of the ambassadors and their staffs.
“According to our initial assessments, the most severe damage occurred to the western part of the United States. Japan experienced a lesser amount of damage. There was
even less damage to China, Taiwan, the Philippines, and Australia. Our preliminary estimates of casualties are in the hundreds of thousands due to: crashes when cars, trucks, buses, and airplanes had their engines stop working, power and computer failures at hospitals, nursing homes, and other such facilities, lack of air conditioning and later on, heat, for millions of residences, and from riots due to water and food shortages and other lawlessness. Dozens of satellites were rendered inoperable, including one that exploded. Our scientific team has yet to conclude why it did.”
Her presentation, complete with videos and slideshow, and repeated calls for action, ended an hour later.
China’s ambassador rose to respond.
“The continued accusations made by some American and Japanese politicians are not only with no basis in fact, they are preposterous. If China had wanted to detonate an atomic device to create EMPs to destroy the United States’ electrical grid, would we not have detonated it over the center of America to do just that? As everyone now knows, our satellite instead exploded hundreds of miles away from the West Coast of America, out over the Pacific Ocean. As has already been said earlier, only a very small section of the U.S. was affected. In fact, China’s eastern coastal cities were just as severely damaged. With all due respect, the damage to our country is much greater than what was detailed in the presentation we just heard.”
The ambassador’s right eyebrow twitched, a nervous habit whenever he lied.
“But what about all of the radioactive fallout that has been detected since your satellite exploded?” Japan’s ambassador asked.
“Our satellite was powered by enough nuclear fuel so that it could perform its numerous daily tasks and experiments for many, many decades. It had to have a very large amount of nuclear fuel or else the satellite’s orbit would have decayed and its remnants might have landed on some of your nations as it burned up during re-entry into Earth’s atmosphere. The solar storm somehow caused the nuclear power plant on that very large and extremely complicated satellite to explode. It will cost us billions of dollars to replace it. Accidents happen, even in outer space. And don’t forget about all of the radioactive material released from your nuclear power plant into the atmosphere and oceans after the earthquake and tsunami in your country of Japan not that many years ago. Please remember that this solar storm was even more powerful and devastating than those two events combined that struck your land. In the meantime, my country’s leaders have asked me to appeal to the international community to come to the aid of our nation. We are in desperate need of –”
Eight hundred and sixty-one miles to the south, nine year old Casey Orca used a remote control to end his television connection to the United Nations’ meeting. His sister Sofia glanced up from her e-book about zombies hunting for survivors of multiple apocalypses.
“I wish we were still over there on vacation in Hawaii,” Casey said.
“Why, just so you could hang out with those guys from the fishing boat who rescued us? I can’t wait until things finally get back to normal in California so we can go back home again.”
“Yeah, I guess you’re right. Things here at Grandma’s house are way too boring.”
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