AmEarth

“Prepare the nuclear warhead to launch back at five p.m. I want it to go off at exactly six thirty p.m. Warsaw time,” President Chen said.

He was standing at the head of the war room’s long table, at which ten generals also sat. On the large white computer imaging board was an animation of the Earth with Poland at the center and several satellites hovering over it. The clock on the wall read 11:00 p.m. New york time and 7:00 a.m. in Moscow. The Joint Chiefs of Staff were all aware of the gravity of the mission and knew that if anything went wrong, it would be very, very bad. The greatest dissent came from General Redford of the Air Force, whose voice carried weight, as the operation was in the air, or rather, in space. The NASA Director, Dr. Larry Kanter, was communicating on his earpiece with his headquarters, where the operation was being conducted.

“Operation AA1-25 is a go. Repeat, we are a go,” Director Kanter said into his mic.

“I know that I have said this in the past, but I’m worried that contamination will fall back to earth,” General Redford stated.

“General Redford’s opinion is noted, as is the opinion of my astrophysicist, who calculated that entry into our atmosphere requires mass plus force, and this explosion has no mass, so it will not penetrate our precious atmosphere. We can assume that the detonation will remain in the stratosphere,” President Chen countered.

“Have they considered that it might nudge the earth off its orbit, or anything like that?”

“They have.”

“And?”

“General Redford, next time you come to a meeting of this importance, please read the material fully beforehand. The estimate is quite tolerable. It is in the inches, which will not affect the Earth at all. At most, time could be altered slightly, but the estimate of a clock differential is 0.001 seconds! That is a thousand times less than the movement recorded by the Earth when the Russians detonated the fifty-kiloton in Siberia.”

With that operation, Alien Attack Number One began in April of 2045. President Chen was confident that this would quell any and all dissent, but only if reported and experienced correctly. He pressed the button on a remote control to view the animation of the attack one more time.

The 3D image of planet Earth with Poland at its center showed a series of shuttles in space and a few satellites. The animation zoomed in and showed a large shuttle opening its bay doors, ejecting a projectile into the atmosphere, and then taking off. The projectile sat there, and the camera zoomed back out to show the full-size Earth. Then the explosion occurred. It was massive, about one-tenth of the earth’s size, right over Germany, Poland, and Russia. The animation was a computer estimate, and Redford looked at it with distrust.

“Now for the other half of this directive. Gentlemen,” President Chen said.

Everyone stood as President Chen left the room. He went to the elevator and stopped at Peter’s forty-eighth floor. There he found a few workers whom Peter had called in to help him, as well as Peter himself, sitting at his office desk, looking a bit frazzled. Everyone noticed President Chen enter and stood up as he passed. Some greeted him and others shook his hand. President Chen entered Peter’s office and closed the door.

“Peter, I need you to be ready to go live in the next twelve hours. Here is a brief. There is no time to delay, and I won’t revise it. I trust you. Are these the staff members you will need to transmit?” President Chen asked.

“Yes sir. They’re all in technical departments,” Peter replied.

“Good, good…please be aware that I fully trust the WPP to work, even though it is incomplete. NASA is sending a video animation of how we believe we will be protected. Of course, there is always a danger, but I think it’s minimal. Do you have family in Poland?”

“No, why?”

“Read the brief and we will discuss everything later. I’m going to my office. I need a nap.”

“Yes sir.”

President Chen left. Peter opened the folder on his desk and began reading.

TOP SECRET

Problem: Alien missile directed to Earth projected to land near Warsaw, Poland on 4-15-2045 at 6:30 p.m. Warsaw time. Actual coordinates put the impact over the small city of Plock.

Solution: NASA will track device and detonate by missile defense honeycomb before entry into atmosphere. Explosion is expected to yield twenty to thirty kilotons of power and the WPP honeycomb should rebuff the explosive force, effectively protecting the Earth.

Potential Issue #1: WPP honeycomb system is unfinished and areas where pieces are missing will create a weak link. Impact is expected in the Northern Hemisphere, far from weak links.

Potential Issue #2: Nuclear device penetrates honeycomb and detonates over Warsaw, killing millions.

Potential Issue #3: Radiation poisoning is likely if radiation penetrates Earth’s atmosphere.

Potential Issue #4: Panic is created if the population finds out in advance and thousands lose their lives unnecessarily due to mismanagement of the media.

Outcome: NASA, the NSA, and WPP all concur that the device will be stopped at the periphery of the Earth over Poland. If the rocket has a nuclear device, given the calculation of its size, the explosion should be visible as far as Portugal to the west and Uzbekistan to the east, Norway to the north, and southern Italy to the south.

Peter was scared. This was far worse than anything he had imagined. The alien threat was real, and the honeycomb would be tested for the first time in a matter of hours! He began to brainstorm the text and realized it would be hugely incendiary, just like his last release. While considering what that meant for him, he received an electronic communication from NASA. He downloaded the animations for Earth’s defensive safeguards.

He played the first animation on his large screen wafer. It was similar to the one President Chen had shown at the meeting with the Joint Chiefs; it was the earth in a 3D representation, but in this version, Spain was at its center. In this version, the honeycomb was present and there was no shuttle ejecting the warhead; this animation showed an alien rocket making its way toward Earth, but various corners of the honeycomb sent laser beams toward the rocket, making it explode before it ever reached the honeycomb.

The second animation showed the potential breaking of the honeycomb, as it was weak in certain areas. The video showed the animation of the honeycomb falling to Earth, along with the rocket. The animation finished with an explosion at ground level—very destructive.

Peter worked and prepared his message. He felt ready by 9:00 a.m., but President Chen gave the explicit order that nothing was to be released until noon. Peter found it uncomfortable, but understood that six or eight hours of advance notice would create a panic in cities with millions of inhabitants. Being responsible for something like that was not something he had planned for, nor did he think he could handle that responsibility. The brief he was about to read also explained that fleeing was a terrible strategy. This message was for all of AmEarth, even though it concerned central Europe more than any other area. Germany, Poland, and Russia were the larger territories involved, and they would have to brace themselves for what was to come. Peter decided to try to sleep for a few hours before it was time to start. He lay down on his office sofa, but was unable to get anywhere near sleep, so he called Barbara.

“Honey?” Peter said.

“How are you doing? Did you sleep at all?” Barbara asked.

“No.”

“What is it? What’s the crisis?”

“First of all, you shouldn’t worry. All of it is happening over Eastern Europe.”

“What’s happening?”

“Barbara, you mustn’t tell anyone—not even the kids.”

“Okay, Peter, but now you’re scaring me.”

“You had better just wait till noon and see me on the news.”

“If you want to come back to this house tonight, you had better tell me now!”

“Okay, fine…the first alien attack is being countered by the WPP tomorrow at 12:30.”

“I don’t understand, Peter. Attack, counterattack…can you explain it to me? Are we in danger? Yes or no?”

“No, we aren’t. This is happening far, far away, so relax. Watch the news at noon and don’t tell anyone what I just said.”

“Okay. Get some sleep; you sound terrible.”

“I will, honey. Just be calm. Nothing is going to happen to us.”

“I hope you’re right. Love you. Bye.”

“Big kiss.”

Peter immediately felt better that Barbara knew. He was pragmatic, but needed that one release that could only come from his wife. He went to the media room, where his cameraman was waiting. The set showing the AmEarth logo was ready. They sat there waiting for noon to arrive, eating donuts and drinking coffee. The clock moved in slow motion until 11:55, when they all sprang to action. Peter placed eye drops in his eyes to remove all the redness and straightened his tie. His assistant applied powder all over his skin to prevent it from shining on camera. Sweat was one’s worst enemy in the communications business, and he was happy that the room was cold.

Peter began the newscast intervention behind the Breaking News TV graphics on the lower third of the screen all over the world at exactly noon on that April day.

“Good evening, citizens of AmEarth. I am Peter Johansen, minister of communications for alien affairs. Only two days ago, I announced the potential for an alien attack. I explained that this was due to a preemptive strike launched back in the 1980s by the former United States of America.”

He paused for effect.

“Today, AmEarth has discovered a new kind of alien rocket moving toward our planet. We cannot know if it is hostile or what type of payload it is bringing. The World Protection Project, with its honeycomb design, will shoot this vessel with its laser system to establish whether or not the ship is aggressive. We cannot know this right now. These are stock images we have from NASA, along with an animation of the honeycomb protection system doing its job.”

The animation played on every TV on AmEarth. People in Europe were particularly concerned, as the image showed the northern hemisphere with Spain at its center. Evidently the makers of the computerized animation chose a random area of Europe when making the video. Panic began to strike Madrid and the surrounding cities of Spain, but before this actually began to take root the screen went on to explain further.

“These images are not current, nor real. I repeat, this animation is stock footage—a simulation. We believe that the rocket will be destroyed over the city of Plock, Poland, in exactly twenty-five minutes. The most important aspect of this is that we must trust the WPP honeycomb and have faith that it will protect us. We don’t want people to panic. We ask that people stay at home and wait. Images will be shown live on this station as the rocket is disabled. This will happen at six hundred kilometers above the Earth in the exosphere. The danger is very, very low.”

An animation of the honeycomb failing then came on the TV, but the gaps over the southern hemisphere suddenly appeared ominous.

“We debated at great length whether or not to show the following NASA animation. However, we want to be truthful and let everyone know that there is a possibility that the rocket could be destructive enough to harm the honeycomb itself. If this were to happen, everyone on Earth could be harmed by debris from the WPP structure itself. We do not, I repeat, do not anticipate this happening. If the honeycomb had been finished and all of its gaps were closed, it would be far stronger, as a blow to any of its areas would dissipate throughout. Unfortunately, the gaps over the last remaining countries to join AmEarth put us all in jeopardy, but we should all be thankful that the rocket is not following a path that would lead through any of those gaps.”

Peter looked solemn and sat there with the clock behind him, which was counting down meaningfully.

“Now we will turn to images in and around Warsaw, where we have asked our anchors to show the night sky to see if the rocket will be visible from Earth.”

On the screen, images began to appear showing people who had taken to the streets all over Warsaw. Knowing that a nuclear bomb would annihilate them, even if they began to flee, they had opted to go out and look up, contrary to the recommendation Peter had made. The atmosphere was something between panic and a street fair frenzy. Everyone was either cursing Ronald Reagan for turning the aliens hostile or praising AmEarth for the honeycomb, their only hope. Everyone had a wafer pointed at the sky to record the moment, even though it could be their last.

The clock reached 12:30, then 12:31, and then 12:32, at which point a huge flowering explosion could be seen over Warsaw, then an eerie silence ensued. The only sound was Peter’s voice on TV and in wafers across the globe.

“This is incredible. We have just witnessed a nuclear explosion over the European plains. I am waiting to hear back from NASA on what exactly just happened.”

and seconds later a massive boom echoed across every wafer and video. Recorded by millions of people and sent to every corner of the globe via live TV, the defense of Europe had succeeded. Peter’s voice was the only sound most people could hear coming from their TV wafers.

“

Images kept feeding out onto the screens, as people who had just witnessed a ball of fire appear in the sky now looked up at a night sky no different from any other night. There was no debris falling from the sky, no ash, just…nothing.

“The WPP honeycomb has worked. We are seeing no immediate aftereffects of the explosion. I’m just getting confirmation from NASA that the explosion was the result of a thirty-megaton nuclear warhead. They are telling me that we can expect a loud explosion in the next twenty-five minutes, because the detonation happened so far away and the sound will be delayed. Please do not panic when the explosion is heard, it has already passed. NASA expected a smaller explosion, given the size of the rocket, but the technology the aliens possess is clearly superior to our own. We can report that the Earth is safe, and that NASA will send us an update of any possible damage to the honeycomb.”

The street images coming in now showed a wild party in Warsaw, as well as in other cities around the world. Peter had an idea that he knew was off-script, but the moment’s adrenaline had him in a frenzy and he shot from the hip.

“I think April fifteenth should be declared a holiday! This is truly the first global party I’ve ever experienced. People all over the world, in all different time zones, have a reason to celebrate!” Peter touched his earpiece, where he was being fed updated information. “This just in: NASA reports that all areas of the honeycomb are intact. The WPP honeycomb will keep us safe from the alien threat! Brace for the noise coming, it will be heard all over the world.”

Scott, Cate, Barbara, and Brianna were glued to the TV wafer. The world had gone from terror to a global celebration. Not only had the WPP worked, but Peter was the sole source of information on the largest news story of the century. He was fast becoming the world’s best-known human being, next to President Chen Tyson, of course.

The boom sounded loud over Poland and could be heard live as far as northern Germany and Southern Switzerland. The whole world heard it via TV exactly as Peter had announced.

“And there is the sound, boy it was strong. I think we should all thank AmEarth for the WPP it worked! We are safe!”