The Perseid Collapse (6 page)

“We’ll keep the engine running in case we break free of the anchorage,” said Alex, starting toward the cockpit.

“If a wave makes it over the island, I don’t think the anchor will matter. It might cause a problem for us if it gets snagged on the rocks,” she said.

He flashed his light at the anchor line tied to the forward cleat. He couldn’t imagine climbing forward to cut the anchor line while the boat pitched violently. They needed a way to detach the anchor if necessary.

“Start securing the boat for heavy seas. I’ll run the anchor line back to the cockpit. We can cut it from here. I’m glad you thought of that,” he said.

“I’m good for an idea or two,” she said, brushing against him on her way back.

“That’s one more than I’m good for,” he said, grabbing her hand. “We’ll be fine, hon. I’ll be in Boston tomorrow, picking up Ryan. Nothing to it. We’ve been through worse.”

“I know. I’m just scared for him. He’s alone in a new place. No friends. Nothing.”

“He knows what to do. Ryan’s the least of our worries. He’ll probably be waiting for us at the house when we get back,” he said.

She buried her head in his chest and didn’t respond. The sound of rustling leaves raised her head, and he let go of her to grab the nearest deck-mounted handrail. They wouldn’t have time to get into the cabin if another blast wave hit them. A stiff gust of wind buffeted them for a few seconds, swinging the boat on its mooring to face an easterly direction. No flash preceded the airwave, which told Alex that the explosion had occurred over the visible horizon. The only thing due east of Jewell Island was Nova Scotia. When the wind completely died, he stared in the direction of the first explosion, wondering if his plan to stay on the boat would send them to a watery grave.

Chapter 7

EVENT +00:15 Hours

International Space Station

Commander David Stull, United States Navy, drifted away from the Harmony node to the adjoining Destiny Laboratory, using his fingertips to guide him. He was several minutes behind the rigid daily schedule imposed by NASA mission controllers, though his effortless flight down the equipment-packed passageway betrayed no sense of urgency. The draconian NASA itinerary served a purpose: to regulate the astronauts’ natural biorhythms in the face of a ninety-minute cycle of light and darkness experienced by the station’s low earth orbit.

An unresolved communications glitch had put him behind schedule today. The station’s connection to NASA had been interrupted during the final moments of their morning briefing and could not be reestablished. His initial diagnostics check indicated no obvious issues with the communications equipment onboard the station. Of course, he wouldn’t know for sure unless he inspected the radio link equipment directly, running a series of sophisticated checks on the transmitters. To do that, he would need to enter an unpressurized section of the Z1 Truss structure above the Unite node. This simple thirty-minute voyage into unpressurized space would require an entire day of planning.

He glided into the Destiny node, where Cosmonaut Sergei Moryakov waited. Moryakov’s permanent, good-natured smirk was gone. Something was wrong.

“Roscosmos station in Moscow lost all communications with NASA fifteen minutes ago,” said the cosmonaut, in perfectly structured Russian-accented English.

“So it’s on their end. Saves us the hassle of accessing Z1,” said Stull.

“It’s more complicated than that. You need to see something,” he said, gesturing for Stull to follow him.

Before either of them moved, the lights in the Destiny node flickered. Moryakov’s ice-blue eyes darted around the crowded laboratory compartment. In seventy-two days onboard the station, he had never seen the lights flicker—and he’d certainly never seen the Russian exhibit nervous behavior.

He floated behind Moryakov to the Tranquility node berthing connection, tapping the walls to propel his body through the cramped corridor. The short trip ended over the Cupola, the station’s seven-window observatory. A pair of legs dressed in a royal-blue jumper extended into the berthing node.

“Take a look. Then we need to talk. We don’t have much time,” said the Russian.

Commander Stull pushed off the floor with the tip of his boot and flipped upside-down, squeezing into the Cupola next to Cosmonaut Viktor Belekin, who stared through a spotting scope aimed through the center window.

“What the—”

A thick, orange-black smoke trail stretched from the outer stratosphere to the east coast of the United States. From four hundred and sixteen kilometers above the earth’s surface, the smoke trail appeared to penetrate a pulsing red magnetic aura that blanketed the Midwest.

He felt nauseous. His wife and children had flown to Boston on Friday, staying with friends for few days until joining his parents on Cape Cod for their annual vacation. The smoke trail ended in New England. His vision narrowed, and he squinted, shaking his head. He was overreacting. Larger meteorites always left massive trails of smoke when they traveled through the atmosphere, even if they were only a few meters in diameter.

“Can I take a look?” asked Stull.

“This is bad, my friend. Very sorry,” said Belekin, handing him the powerful scope.

Stull followed the magnified trail across Mexico into the United States. The single inbound object had separated high over northern Georgia, splitting into four tightly packed, but distinctly separate reentry signatures. The smoke trails terminated in a narrow elliptical pattern beginning in Virginia and ending in Nova Scotia. He couldn’t pinpoint the two additional impact points through the atmospheric reentry stream.

He hoped his wife had decided to spend an extra day with friends in Braintree. The Cape was too exposed. Who was he kidding? All they could talk about last week was getting to Cape Cod. How could Spaceguard have missed something this big? Something else bothered him about the scene below him.

“Where are the lights?” he asked.

“I can’t believe I missed that,” the Russian murmured. “Most of North America is pitch black.”

“That’s the real problem,” interjected Moryakov, hovering above them.

Commander Stull backed out of the Cupola, along with Belekin.

“Our mission control registered a massive radiation flux on the station-based monitors. X-ray levels spiked, causing a minor system-generated EMP. Everything appears to function as it should, so latch-up must have been minimal.” Moryakov ran his hand through his hair. “We’ll have to run our own diagnostics, of course, and we’ll have to go outside to inspect the solar array coatings. Moscow isn’t optimistic about the long-term survival of the station.”

Stull shook his head. “What do they think happened?”

“All evidence indicates that a thermonuclear device was detonated in low orbit over the United States, causing a massive EMP event. Most of the United States is dark, consistent with this theory,” said Moryakov.

Commander Stull stared back into the Cupola, noting the eerie, reddish, spectral glow in the atmosphere over the Midwest.

“The aura,” he whispered. “Could it have been caused by whatever passed through the atmosphere?”

Moryakov shook his head. “Radiation readings were highest on the sensors aimed toward the ground. Moscow strongly suspects the radiation is from a manmade source.”

“The arrays?”

“Bad timing. All arrays were in Night Glider mode, pointed straight at the earth when the readings spiked. Another eighty-two seconds and they would have been aimed away from the blast, at the sunrise,” Moryakov explained.

“We’ll have to inspect the coatings for thermomechanical damage,” said Stull. “We can’t stay up here if the arrays fail.”

“That was Moscow’s assessment.”

“Is everything all right down there?” asked Stull.

“For now,” said the Russian.

He didn’t like Moryakov’s answer.

Chapter 8

EVENT +01:08 Hours

Jewell Island, Maine

Alex sat on the starboard side stern rail and stared at the thick stand of trees lining the island’s ledge wall. The damage caused by the air blast was fully visible in the crisp, dawn light, mostly confined to broken tree limbs and flattened grass. The cove remained awash with leaves, stirred only by large severed branches that occasionally bumped up against the hull of the
Katelyn Ann
. He listened intently, trying to pick up any sounds beyond the distant, piercing cries of seagulls.

Only the constant, muffled drum of the sailboat’s engine competed with the birds, but he had already filtered this sound out. Alex had no idea what he might hear when the tsunami hit, but with two thousand feet of tightly packed island to cross, he figured they would have plenty of warning.

The large cabin cruiser anchored off their starboard side roared to life, causing Alex to jump up from his seat. The overpowered engine steadied into a deafening growl that masked every natural sound in the cove. He hoped they were getting underway. Compared to his forty-horsepower engine, the cabin cruiser’s three- to four-hundred-horsepower engine sounded like a commercial jet liner revving for takeoff. He couldn’t blame them for running the engine. He was doing the same thing, in case something went terribly wrong at their anchorage, but with the cruiser’s engine drowning out his thoughts, he would have to pay close attention to the island and rely on visual cues. They might lose a few seconds of warning, but it shouldn’t matter. All he needed to do was get below and shut the cabin door.

Once the wave hit, they would assess and react accordingly. The decision to stay with the boat hadn’t been an easy one. The safest course of action would have been to pack up as much gear and food as possible and ride the dinghy to the cove’s southwestern shore. From there, a ten-minute walk would put them in one of the island’s towering concrete World War Two lookout posts. While assuring their short-term safety, this option almost guaranteed they would lose their transportation off the island. He had considered putting Kate and the kids in the tower and taking his chances alone on the boat, but he had a feeling that the tsunami wasn’t going to give him the option to return.

He planned to ride out the initial impact below deck, scrambling topside when the boat settled. He just hoped it wouldn’t be too late to react at that point to save the boat. If the boat were dashed against the rocks before he could take control and engage the engine, they would be at the mercy of the elements, forced to swim back to the island.

Alex looked through the cabin hatchway at Kate, who stared back at him, waiting for any sign that the wave was inbound. She wore one of the boat’s self-inflating life jackets over khaki pants and a waterproof sailing jacket. Next to her, on the starboard settee, sat a digital camouflage-patterned rucksack tied to an orange type two life preserver. The kids, wearing custom-fit vest preservers, sat across from her in the portside lounge, hugging their own life preserver wrapped backpacks.

They had stuffed most of their food, medical supplies and survival-related gear in five backpacks, affixing the cheap life preservers to keep them afloat. If they had to jump into the water, the packs would be connected to their respective owner by a ten-foot length of parachute cord. They were prepared for the worst-case scenario, which involved losing the boat right in the cove. All of their essential gear was either attached to their bodies or buried in the packs.

He patted his hand against the drop-leg holster on his right hip, making sure that the pistol was tightly secured under two layers of nylon and Velcro straps. Kate hadn’t given him a second look when he removed the pistol and holster rig from his rucksack. Before the Jakarta Pandemic, Kate would have ceaselessly berated him for bringing a firearm on a family trip. Now she understood better than anyone that preparation without security was meaningless, especially in the face of a widespread disaster.

The cabin cruiser’s engine throttled higher, drawing his attention away from the island one hundred feet away. He watched the thirty-foot boat pull forward while the anchor line retracted, breaking free of the mud surface below the water. A man dressed in white shorts and a red polo shirt steered the craft toward the mouth of the cove, picking up speed before the anchor appeared. He puffed on a fresh cigar from his perch on the boat’s flying bridge, saluting Alex as he passed.

The anchor emerged from the surface and banged against the boat’s fiberglass hull before snapping into place on the bow-mounted anchor arm. The cabin cruiser increased speed, reaching the mouth of the cove and turning into the narrow confines of the pass between Cliff and Jewell Islands. Alex watched him take the red navigational marker to port and turn sharply. A few seconds later, the cruiser lurched forward at full throttle, leaving a sizeable wake behind as they rocketed southwest, in the direction of Portland Harbor.

Alex was both surprised and relieved that the cruiser’s engine started. His sailboat’s diesel engine was directly wired to the battery bank and didn’t rely on any type of electronics to operate. The cruiser’s gas-powered engine was more complicated, and judging by the relatively new look of the boat, he figured that the engine was connected to a series of microprocessors designed to optimize performance. The fact that the gas engine started gave him hope that recent government-sponsored EMP research and assessment efforts hadn’t been bullshit.

The EMP Commission’s
Critical National Infrastructures (CNI) Revised Report
released in 2016 took into account the newer, more sensitive technologies present in nearly every electronic device reliant upon a semiconductor. CNI’s 2008 report predicted a 10% failure rate for automobiles, which stood in direct contrast to previous predictions by independent researchers and caused considerable outrage. The revised report admitted the difficulty of predicting the effects of an EMP, and raised the failure rate to 60%—still a rosy picture compared to earliest predictions.

Alex, along with preppers everywhere, cast a suspicious eye on the sudden change, wondering if the whole thing was a government ruse to ease fear in the aftermath of their spectacular failure during the Jakarta Pandemic. Trust in the U.S. government reached an all-time low in 2014, and hadn’t improved much since.