The Phoenix Project (11 page)

    
“Orbital Base Two has
signalled and said that they have the components of a new planet—side base
ready to move whenever you give the signal,” Madison reported. She handed a link to Elliot.

    
“How soon can they get it up
and working?”

    
“They said about a month,” Madison replied.

    
“What about the particle
warhead, Josh?”

    
“They’re already building it
off world,” Joshua replied.

    
“Where?”

    
“At the science station in
orbit around Venus. Once the different components are ready, they’ll ship it to
wherever on Earth you need it to go,” Joshua replied.

    
“Good.”

    
“That brings me to another
question, Eli. If Phoenix
goes ahead, where will we ship the warhead?”

    
“We’ll decide on that only if Phoenix goes ahead,”
Elliot replied.

    
“Is that it?” Madison asked.

    
“That’s the last of it. Phoenix is as ready as we
can make it.”

    
“You mean before the weapon
hits us.”

    
“The evacuation is as far as
it can go as well. Every ship is working overtime and it looks like things will
get done in time,” Elliot said.

    
With the groundwork for their
project finished, Elliot let out a long breath on the bridge of Joshua’s
ship. They had been aboard for many hours now making the final preparations for
Phoenix while
junior officers had done their best to forward reports. With the last of their
work done, they were able to monitor the evacuation.

    
The Moon was now as lifeless
as it had been a few centuries ago. The Central States were much the same with
the exception of a few stubborn elderly people refusing to leave. As far as
those last holdouts were concerned the government was trying to convince them
that the sky was falling. Even now several choppers were stationed near their
farms and houses. Representatives of the military were trying to remove them,
by force if necessary, but they had barricaded themselves in their homes.

    
The rest of the populations
across the eighteen colonies seemed to be on the edge of one collective
inhalation as the weapon closed in on the moon.

    
Elliot left the couple at the
captain’s chair and took up his accustomed position in the northwest corner of
the battle—grey coloured bridge. Madison
retained her place standing at Joshua’s left hand position as his first
officer.

    
“Sir,” a male officer said from
the science station.

    
“Yes Ensign,” Joshua replied.

    
“The particle beam is now passing
Mars. I estimate four minutes until it reaches the Moon.”

    
Every person on the bridge
stiffened at the statement. The entire atmosphere of the bridge had been tense for
nearly fifty—two hours, but now the stress seemed to have become tangible.

    
“Put it on the main monitor.”

    
The large primary screen on
the front wall of the bridge switched from a view of a star field interrupted
by the distant sight of the moon to one with a long, thin emerald streak.

    
“Magnify to maximum,” Madison commanded.

    
The line of green became a
blast of energy against the night sky of space. If not for the emerald hue, the
weapon would’ve looked like a comet speeding into the solar system.

    
“Four minutes,” Elliot said.
Joshua turned his seat around to address the Admiral.

    
“
We got everyone out?”

    
“
There’s no one left on the Moon. The prairies are another story.”

    
“
We haven’t finished the evacuation?” Madison asked.

    
“
A few people are still in the target zone. They refuse to leave.”

    
“
Are they drunk?” Joshua asked.

    
“
No, they believe the angel of death will pass them over,” Elliot replied.

    
“
You mean the hard headed, stubborn kind of people.”

    
“
Those would be the ones,” Elliot said.

    
“
I should have asked if their parents were brother and sister.”

    
“
Helm,” Elliot said.

    
“
Yes Sir?”

    
“
Move the
Endeavour
and the rest of the Third Battle Group to a
safe distance from the Moon and the target zone.”

    
“
Aye Sir.”

    
The Third Battle Group moved
to a higher orbit above Earth and farther away from Luna. The last dozen
transports lifted off the surface to take their families to new homes in the
solar system.

    
Billions watched as a long and
wide beam sped towards Earth’s satellite. Nadine heard the INN
anchor’s voice rise in pitch as the weapon became a large round spot on the
starlit monitor.

    
“As you can see from our
camera the weapon is now showing up quite large in the lunar sky. We estimate
two minutes until impact.”

    
Nadine could nearly feel the
collective tension from colonies, ships, and stations across a thousand light
years. She felt as though she was staring into an abyss as the beam grew larger
on the screen.

    
On a small farm near the Colorado border, a white—haired
man objected as two soldiers escorted him off of his land. Charles Edward II
had lived there since his father had died. No one was going to take him from
those long green fields. At one hundred and twenty—seven he remembered his
grandfather caring for these fields when he was just a boy.

    
None of that mattered to the bastard
communist soldiers pulling him through tall fields of wheat. He didn’t care if
he damaged some of his perfect stalks as long as it prevented the men from
kidnapping him.

    
“You stupid bastards!” Charlie
yelled and wrenched himself from the arms of people ninety years his junior. He
turned back towards his barricaded house with a triumphant stride. They had
managed to get him out of his home only after a full day of waiting outside
with promises of food and water.

    
“Mister Williams, we have
orders to evacuate all Alliance
citizens from the target zone. We have to get out of here, Sir. You’ve seen the
news. You know what’s coming,” one of the officers said, rushing to catch up
with him. He stopped in consternation and pleaded to the old man’s retreating
back. “Please!”

    
“I’ve been on this land since
I was born. No one is taking me from it.”

    
“Sir, Sir! This weapon is
going to hit us any minute now. We’ve got to go!”

    
“God damn you! Go save
yourselves from your
alien
ray gun
,” he said over his
shoulder.

    
Charlie thought up a better
insult and turned around to confront his would be captors. He was startled to
see that his fields were glowing green. The wheat stalks had gone from the
slight browning prior to harvest to a nearly incandescent emerald. He raised a
hand over his eyes to shield them from the setting sun and saw the same odd
glow in the sky. To confirm what he thought he was seeing, he turned his attention
to the soldiers who were also looking up into the sky.

    
A long comet of energy was
responsible for the change from a normal early evening sky to a strange sort of
otherworldly twilight. It moved at incredible speeds and then became partially
eclipsed by the Moon. They could hear what sounded like sonic booms from the
disturbances caused by the weapon’s proximity to Earth as the beam crashed into
the satellite’s surface.

    
Charlie and the small cadre of
soldiers stood in a hypnotic trance while they watched the dazzling
performance. The beam continued to plough into the moon and the sonic booms
dissipated into a still silence while all of the wildlife in the area stopped
and listened.

    
Charlie and the soldiers
waited for a moment with their eyes fixed on the round giant in the sky. After
a moment, they exhaled a long breath in relief. They were about to look away
when they saw the Moon shatter. The weapon had vaporized much of the far side
of the satellite but the resulting explosion from within forced the once great
and whole satellite into billions of pieces. The remains of Luna glowed briefly
as the weapon passed through its remnants. A strange daylight fell across the
fields. It took only a second for the beam to travel the distance from the
former location of the moon to Earth’s surface.

    
Charlie and the remaining troops
stood paralyzed in shock. Their terror mounted once they saw something bright
and impossible strike the ground in the Black Hills
lining the horizon.

    
In that short moment they
heard a great roar and the soil beneath them began to split. One of the younger
soldiers no more than nineteen years of age ran in the opposite direction to a
waiting helicopter. The rest of them felt the strong beat of warning in their
hearts as they witnessed a great wave approaching them. The tall tsunami was
not made of water but was composed of an emerald shock wave heading towards
them at a phenomenal speed.

    
Before Charlie or anyone else
around him could recover, the blast wave hit his house with the force of a nuclear
detonation. Charlie stood in awe of what annihilated him a moment later.

    
The wave continued across America in an
ever expanding circle. First, it shredded corn and wheat fields. Then it began
to swallow entire towns. They disappeared in an instant while the shockwave
gorged itself on the communities.

    
Old cities were nearly blown
down by great winds of hurricane force before the weapon even arrived. The very
force it exerted on tectonic plates created massive earthquakes that felled
many of the older buildings in dozens of metropolitan areas. Blowing debris
smashed windows and pounded into the sides of buildings. Abandoned vehicles
were picked up and tossed across great distances.

    
After plenty of advance
warning and only once it was at the apex of its fury, the blast was finally
seen. The wave’s effect resembled old footage of nuclear testing. Cities simply
disappeared; they were blown away by a great wind as if some Titan had exhaled
a breath onto each city and town
. Buildings collapsed or exploded as the wave met them. Highways saw
lamppost after lamppost consumed while the weapon progressed across them.

    
It was only after plowing through a diameter
of one thousand miles of the Americas
that the wave began to dissipate. It started out with a roar but lost energy
and ended in a whisper five hundred miles from its center.

    
The land was torn from the borders of Idaho to the edge of Lake Superior and from southern Saskatchewan to Northern Oklahoma.
The entire surface of the Earth within its range had fallen below sea level. A
great crater with a span of over one thousand miles had just become a reality
within the heart of the United
States. Small pieces of rocky land jutted
out across the wide depression. Waterfalls from rivers that had once flowed
through majestic valleys and across wide plains began to pour into the great
depression in the earth. It would take many days for it to fill.

    
The effect the energy weapon would have on Earth was
debated from the moment it was discovered. Scientists quickly came to the
conclusion that the effects of an energy weapon of this magnitude would not
have the same impact as a meteor or comet strike. The effects of an impact from
an object with mass would have been devastating to both the Moon and Earth.

    
Scholars and experts came to
a conclusion within hours that the weapon would leave an impact crater on the
surface of the Earth. However, it would not create a nuclear winter or any
other widely catastrophic side effects. They calculated that it would vaporize
massive volumes of land rather than expel it into the atmosphere.

    
The greater concern was for
the possibility of lunar debris destroying the Earth. Due to the distance from
Earth and the debris’ speed, the Coalition/Alliance forces were able to either
destroy or fracture any threatening meteors with time to spare.