Chapter 3: Welcome to Earth

Washington, USA

General Charles Winston put his phone down and leaned over the table, he had just directed Harry to take Dr Wahid and Dr Li and move here. Normally it would have taken 22 hours to get from Nepal to the USA, but since time was of the essence, he sent his experimental aircraft; the X17. This state of the art flying vehicle could bring them in mere 4 hours. Charles loved using experimental vehicles, weapons and gadgets. And he was ready to use everything to face what was about to hit Earth.

Charles sat down, looked over his team. A team of young scientists and tacticians bustling around, with pens, tabs and papers in their hands. Every single one of them had only one objective; to find out the final destination of the comet. There were several screens on the wall, with every one of them showing different possibilities. The majority of trajectories were destined in the pacific ocean, and a 7% chance of it landing in a village not far from Kiev, and finally a 3.5% probability of the Comet hitting a small, sparsely populated town named Whiteville, California. And Charles Winston was getting ready for Whiteville, he deduced that recovering the material from the Pacific is difficult, and getting a sample from Kiev is even worse. But even if a small percentage of the Comet is landing in Whiteville, that means he needs to be ready for it.

General Charles Winston was a hard man. He toured Iraq twice and ran a few coupes in Syria against Bashar. Until finally he was given a newly acquired agency, IAWN, International Asteroid Warning Network. This troubled Charles as he saw it only as clerical grunt work. Charles was just contemplating resigning when he got to know about the Chicxulub Comet. It took him half an hour to confirm everything Dr Wahid had presented. And another 30 minutes to find a suitable person to go there and keep him in the loop. After that Charles got busy, he acquired the software or a similar version of it that was in use in the Nepal Observatory. He ran his trajectories and with DoD's resources, he was pleased to get better results than whatever was in Nepal.

His speaker buzzed and He pressed a button in front of it.

"Sir, ETA is 1 hour"

"Okay, who are on the ground?"

"Agent waiting in Kyiv, and er...Captain Monica in Whiteville."

Charles knew why his assistant hesitated. Captain Monica Winston, daughter of Charles Winston, sharp as a knife and sweet as honey. She was ideal for espionage but Charles was against it. So, she joined special forces and now she's leading her team on the ground waiting for the impact. Charles was relieved as well because he couldn't trust anyone else as well.

"Okay, get Monica on the phone."

He stood and went to pour himself a glass of bourbon. His favourite poison when he's waiting for something. His speaker rang again.

"Yessir, Captain Monica reporting"

"Monica, just want to let know that the comet is expected to be visible in an hour."

"Sir, Is there anything else?"

"No, I'd like you to be in Ops room, we want you to be on the phone till we know where it is headed"

"Roger."

Charles loved that about her, she was extremely professional. And ambitious as well, she would be leading her agency in a few years. Charles started looking at the screens again.

"Now let's get you on Earth"

He moved out of the office and entered the main control centre. Everyone paused to look at him entering and resumed their work again. Everyone knew that Charles Winston entering the control centre means business because he liked to roll his sleeves up and get his hands dirty.

"Get our ground teams on the line"

His voice echoed all over the room and a few people moved hurriedly to make it happen.

"What's the sitrep on the comet?"

"Sir, Keiv impact probability is spiking"

"Get my agent ready there, assemble a team in case-"

"Sir, I'm sorry to interrupt but you need to see this"

Charles looked around to check which screen was that man pointing to. He looked closely for a few seconds until it hit him. The size of the comet was reduced drastically.

Charles regained composure and addressed everyone in the room.

"Can anyone tell me what's happening here?"

Everyone looked at him and stayed quiet.

"Can we get Dr Wahid on the line?"

One of the tacticians answered.

"Sir, we can send messages and receive them. But a stable connection with the speed of the aircraft isn't possible. I'll send a message right away".

Charles nodded and started looking at the screens as well. With the size decreasing every second, He won't be able to track the movement for long.

Everyone in the room kept running the simulation and logged the records. An hour more passed when everyone got excited because now the comet was about to enter Earth's atmosphere.

Charles asked for another sitrep from his ground teams and he received a few updates. The environment was tense; everyone was standing still and looking at the screen. One of the scientists raised her hand.

"Sir, we might be able to run trajectories for 20 more minutes, after that the size will be too small."

Charles nodded and resumed monitoring the screen. The blip entered the ozone layer and continued moving. Another scientist spoke out.

"Sir, Kiev impact is 60%"

The blip on the screen was now moving faster and the size was reducing. But a few seconds later it started moving in the opposite direction. There were a few small screams as everyone was shocked.

Charles couldn't believe his eyes.

"What has happened?"

Nobody answered.

"What are you waiting for? Give me a point where this thing's going to land"

Now everyone started to move around.

" And someone sends this to Dr Wahid"

Someone pointed one of the screens out.

"Sir, Whiteville impact is spiking quickly. It's 80% probability."

"Monica, get ready"

There was a sound on the speaker.

"Roger, that."

The blip crossed the Pacific and was now becoming a small tiny dot. As soon as it crossed over the USA, it vanished from the screen.

Charles kept staring at the blank screens now. Someone came and told him that they've received Dr Wahid's response. Charles signalled them to play it on the speaker.

"Greetings, General. . . er thank you for this marvellous thing we're in. Anyways, we received your previous message and the new one too. We've watched the clip again and again. My colleague, Li, deduced that the size is reducing because it was mostly frozen gas, while it was travelling from so far. However, this change in direction without any inertia could mean that it doesn't have a mass too. I'm not sure what it is but General, we need to form a perimeter around the impact. We can't have, whatever this is, interact with anyone."

He's right about the perimeter, Charles thought.

"Everyone, run through all the news, social media posts, 911 calls in Whiteville and surrounding area. There must be someone who saw something."

About 10 minutes later, He received another message. He gestured to play it on the speaker, it was Monica.

"Sir, there's a kind of EMP discharge at a local hospital. We are on the way and we're setting up our quarantine centre there. I've already asked to set up a 2km perimeter around it."

"Any word of an impact?"

"No, not yet."

Charles finally had a smile on his face.

"Gotcha."