EMP Code Blue
Steve Stroble
Copyright c 2016 by Stroble Family Trust. All rights reserved.
Cover photo, copyright muratart
Years later, partial credit would be given to astronomer Ursula Petrovich for discovering the Mother of all solar activity. But other better known scientists would capture the bulk of the credit and ensuing prestige and awards because of their peer support network that excluded lesser knowns such as Ursula.
When she first noticed how Venus was reacting to the solar storm almost upon it, Ursula cursed.
If only the storm had hit Mercury first, she thought. That would have given us more time to prepare, if need be.
But Mercury’s current position in its solar orbit had sheltered it from the storm ripping through the solar system toward outer space.
Part of Ursula wanted to call her Godly grandmother and ask her to pray for their planet. Another part longed to speak to her mentor. But she dared not contact either one until after Alexander had helped her determine the storm’s magnitude and trajectory.
Her subordinate was so mercurial Ursula had told their coworkers he proved her theory that men had monthly cycles affecting their moods to a greater degree than those women experienced. One day he could be gentle as a lamb, the next, like a porcupine embedding its quills into any who ventured too close to him. She found him on an extended break, playing a computer game he had developed.
“Alexander, I need your help right away.”
“What is it this time?” he asked without looking up at her.
“I’ve detected readings that Venus is being hit by a solar storm. All the other astronomers are probably still so busy monitoring the two black holes merging together that they haven’t even noticed the solar storm yet. I … I mean we need to know whether the storm’s trajectory will bring it in contact with Earth.”
“Again? I’ve performed that task for you how many times already during the last seventeen years? Is it 200 or 300 times by now? Besides, I am off work in five minutes.”
“You fool!” Ursula aimed for the back of his chair but part of her palm connected with Alexander’s back.
“Okay, okay, don’t get so angry. But you will have to convince my wife that I need to stay here late because it is my daughter’s birthday tomorrow. I need to go home and get some sleep before I make preparations for it.”
He punched a button on his cellphone and handed it to his supervisor.
* * *
It took a promise of I will bring your daughter a birthday present if you let Alexander stay a few minutes late tonight to help me with an urgent matter before his wife relented to Ursula Petrovich’s request. A half hour later, Alexander handed a computer printout to Ursula as he walked past her.
“I put in all of the variables that you supplied. Good night,” he said before a door slammed behind him.
Her eyes scanned down the document and stopped at the field titled ETI (Estimated Time of Impact). It read: 6 hours, 4 minutes.
She dropped the document during her sprint to the observatory’s phone with a land line to the Kremlin. The tired sounding voice answering Ursula’s frantic call seemed to be controlled by an even more tired mind, guaranteeing a slow transmittal of her message up the chain of command until it reached someone with enough knowledge to understand its implications.
Ursula ended her call and collapsed onto a seat’s edge, which left her sprawled on the tile floor when the wheeled chair scooted out from under her slender body. An image of her mentor shaking his head flashed into her brain as she stood. But a call to his cellphone gave an option of leaving a message. She broke protocol and sent the retired professor who had guided her to a PhD in astrophysics an email detailing her discovery.
Then she prayed.
“Oh God, please have him wake up and turn on his computer.”
* * *
Hacker Jackie Yee did not believe in prayer, only his overrated perception of himself. While honing his illicit skills, the accompanying rumors of his stealth and theft or corruption of electronic data from any computer located anywhere in the world had elevated him to legend. Tired of great fame but little money, he sought out security. What better place than working for government, he had thought.
So he had joined China’s army of hackers.
Jackie loved working the 11 p.m. to 7 a.m. shift six days a week because then his office was almost empty of other humans and their never-ending distractions.
Jackie saw Ursula Petrovich’s email before anyone else. His quick mind deduced that such a communication from a Russian observatory to a well-known astronomer might yield at least one tidbit of useful information. After downloading it into a program to render the email’s Russian into Chinese characters, he smiled as he read the rapid translation:
Professor:
Have data to indicate that Earth will be hit by major solar storm. Point of impact will range from approximately 80 degrees west longitude to 100 degrees east longitude. I fear my data will not reach someone high up enough in time before impact. Please call me as soon as you read this. Maybe you know someone to contact?
Ursula
Competitive since his years as a toddler, Jackie now set a goal to beat his American counterparts by relaying the email to his country’s leadership before the American government’s hackers could to theirs.
* * *
NASA administrator Libby Neff first became aware of a potential disaster when she read a message on her Twitter account warning that Judgment Day has arrived. She half walked and half ran to the part of the Houston, Texas, complex monitoring solar activity and found most of its cubicles empty due to the holiday.
“Anything new on that solar storm?” she at the first occupied cubicle she found.
“Which one?” a bored looking technician asked. “There’s been a whole lot of activity coming off the sun lately.”
“The biggest one.”
“It’s still banging along.”
“Any chance it will hit Earth?”
The technician tapped on his computer’s keyboard. “Looks like it might possibly graze Earth just a little bit. Our computer model shows that most of that storm is going to miss us. You can stop huffing and puffing now. You sound like you ran over here.”
She hurried back to her office and called a Russian colleague and spoke first when someone answered. “Hello, Ursula?”
“Is that you, Libby? How are things there in America?”
“What do you know about the solar storm created by that huge CME about four or five days ago?”
“I could lose my job if I tell you anything. You have to speak with my boss for any such information. But I can tell you this much.”
“What?”
“Regardless of what he says, you have been warned.”
“But…” Libby’s systolic blood pressure increased another thirteen points as she searched for the phone number she had scribbled down a year ago.
An hour and ten minutes later, after Ursula Petrovich’s boss had received permission from the Kremlin to talk to NASA, Libby Neff believed she had enough information to justify making a call to the White House.
* * *
But the President was not at home on Pennsylvania Avenue. To celebrate the holiday, he had retreated to Camp David for a barbeque with some of those who had helped him to capture the highest office in America. When a Secret Service agent intruded and whispered into his ear, he frowned.
“Mr. President, your chief of staff just called and said you need to meet with the military Joint Chiefs of Staff at the Pentagon,” the agent said. “Your helicopter is ready for you to return to D.C.”
The President excused himself without explanation, leaving guests to specul
ate on his uncharacteristic exit because other hasty departures had always included a joke or complaint. Halfway to the helicopter, he called his chief of staff.
“Thank God it’s you,” the one the President had nicknamed my right hand woman said.
“What’s this all about, Judy?” the President asked.
“NASA says we’re going to get hit by a mega solar storm caused by a coronal mass ejection.”
“Then have them call a press conference. That should take care of it.”
“But the Joint Chiefs of Staff say they have to meet with you about this right away at the Pentagon.”
“Tell them to meet me at the White House instead. Then call the heads of the FBI, CIA, and NSA and tell them to get to the White House right away. I’ll meet with them after I’m through listening to all those generals and admirals. Don’t they ever take a day off?”
Thirty-eight minutes later, the President strode into a large White House briefing room and counted his Joint Chiefs of Staff. “All present and accounted for. So why are all of you so upset about this activity from the sun? Where exactly is it supposed to hit the Earth anyway? I hope it destroys Russia. That would be nice.”
The five men and two women who advised him on military matters did not respond, except for the Chief of the National Guard Bureau, who tried to stifle nervous laughter beneath his crooked smile.
“Well?”
An Air Force general stood and aimed his laser pointer at a digital map of the Earth covering an entire wall.
“From approximately here,” he said as he traced a red line from the map’s North Pole down the line marked 80 degrees west longitude to the South Pole. Now embedded onto the digital display, the red line added by his laser pointer blinked. “To here.”
He drew a second line between the poles along the 100 degrees east longitude line. The second red line continued to blink after he shut off his laser pointer. “As you can see, most of the area exposed to the impact is out over the Pacific Ocean. The ETA of the impact is about two and a half hours from now. Please understand that these estimates are all just a SWAG.”
“SWAG?”
“Scientific Wild Ass Guess.”
The President stared at the map. “But that’s also almost all of the United States except for a section of the East Coast. Just how much damage will the solar storm do to us?”
“Unfortunately, we can’t measure it until it passes over one of our monitoring satellites. Since the solar storm is traveling over four million miles an hour, the Earth will be hit by the storm before we can even measure it,” the general said as he sat down.
“But why are of you so worried then? Isn’t this something that NASA can monitor and take care of instead of you?”
The chairwoman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff rose and walked to the map.
“We are concerned because the Chinese have a satellite that is orbiting around Earth in a way that carries it over the San Francisco Bay Area and then somewhat south of us here in D.C.” Her moving finger seemed to cut the portion of the map representing America into northern and southern halves.
“We cannot be certain but it may contain a nuclear device. If they explode it while it’s over the center of our nation, the electrical magnetic impulses released could render most or maybe even our entire electrical grid and computer networks inoperable for God only knows how long.” She stabbed north central Kansas on the map. “That is ground zero. We are in agreement that it should be shot down with one of our missiles immediately. During the last few hours, the Chinese lowered this satellite’s orbit from 250 to 232 miles above Earth. They are obviously up to something. We think they might have lowered the orbit to time their detonation of the nuke with when the solar storm hits us.”
“I see.” the President’s thoughts drifted back to the barbeque and deal making he was missing.
The Chairwoman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff wanted to say more, but kept her anxieties internal. We wouldn’t be here sweating bullets if one of your predecessors hadn’t handed China our missile and satellite technology in exchange for secret campaign contributions, she thought. Their missiles used to blow up on the launch pad or crash shortly after takeoff before he gave away our secrets to them.
As if in response, the President stood and turned to his fixer of all problems, great and small. “Tell the Secretary of Defense to get over here right away. The rest of you are dismissed except for you.” He pointed at the Chief of the National Guard Bureau, General Rangel.
Rangel was the only member of the military the President had developed a tiny measure of fondness for after he decided to adopt him as my little brother. “How many troops are there in the Guard?”
“A little over 400,000, if you include both Army National Guard and Air National Guard together.”
“Thank you.” He marched from the large briefing room to a smaller, more intimate one he reserved for making final decisions and found two chatting men waiting for him. “Where is the head of the F.B.I.?”
“She’s out of town, but is on her way back to Washington right now,” the head of the NSA said. “I hope she gets here in time.”
“What do you mean by that?”
“If her plane is up in the air when the solar storm hits, it could fry the computer systems on the jet she’s on and shut down its engines,” the head of the CIA said. “It could crash. Our intel that we picked up is that the Chinese and Russians are grounding all their planes and telling those in the air to divert and land as soon as they can must mean that this storm just might be big enough to affect planes of all sizes when it hits Earth’s magnetic field.”
“Okay.” The President pointed at the head of the NSA. “You contact the FAA and tell them to do the same thing to all of our planes after you have briefed me.”
The head of the NSA stared at his watch and thought, every second counts. Let me go do it now. Please.
Instead, for the next ten minutes the President grilled him for details of how the 325 million or so Americans under his care were behaving. “How many people know about this solar storm and how are they taking the news?”
The chief of the NSA gulped, shook his head, and blinked all at once. “It’s off the charts. The last time I checked, the posts about it had gone viral. The tweets were in the tens of millions and posts on the internet in the millions already.”
“Well, at least that’s a whole lot less than I expected. Maybe this won’t turn out so badly after all.”
“But,” he paused as he connected his smart phone to one of the NSA’s mainframe computers. “The numbers are now up to almost 100 million tweets and posts about the solar storm on the internet are up to almost forty million.”
“And the media are all over the story. The more hysterical reporters are advising people to head for shelter,” the CIA chief said.
“So what are people doing?”
“There are runs on stores, especially grocery stores and gun shops for ammunition, most likely. And the lines at gas stations are as long as five blocks. Many of the stations have already run out of gas. We can’t tell for sure if people are fleeing the cities because this is the start of a long four-day holiday weekend and the traffic is bound to be heavy anyway.”
“Four days? Today is Thursday. Are you telling me that employers are giving their employees Friday off, too? That means that even more people will be traveling than if it was just a three-day weekend.”
“Not very many of the employers are giving them an extra day off. But a lot of people either call in sick or take one vacation day whenever a holiday falls on a Thursday.”
“If the storm does end up knocking out our electrical grid, how will people take it?”
The NSA chief sighed. “It will be panic in the streets, especially in the places where people have to rely on air conditioning to survive during summertime. Communications for law enforcement and emergency responders like firefighters and ambulance drivers could become almost nonexistent.”
The
President smiled. “We don’t have to worry too much because General Rangel from the Joint Chiefs just informed me that we have more than 400,000 National Guard troops available to handle any contingency. If I have to, I’ll just declare martial law nationwide. This just might be the perfect time to put some fear into those damn right-wingers.”
“Uh…” the NSA chief hesitated. “About 80,000 of those Guard troops are deployed overseas right now.”
“That still leaves us with around 320,000 of them at our disposal. That should be more than enough.”
The last half of their conversation focused on where best to deploy the Army National Guard and Air National Guard forces across the nation. Then the President dismissed him.
“First, work with my Secretary of Defense to mobilize all those Guard troops. Judy is getting ahold of him. You know where her office is down the hallway, right? Second, contact the FAA to ground our planes like the Russians and Chinese already have.”
“Yes Sir, right away.” In his haste, the head of the NSA stumbled as he hurried from the dimly lit room.
That left the President alone with the one who had proven to be his favorite appointment, the CIA chief.
“Look, China has altered the altitude of that satellite five or six times ever since they launched it,” the CIA chief said. “It’s no big deal that they did it again today. Maybe they think they can better monitor the solar storm from its new altitude.”
“You’re right.”
“We sure as hell don’t want to blow it out of the sky like those military boys and girls want you to do. All they ever seem to want to do is start World War III.”
* * *
Little brothers can be such a big pain, especially if you have to babysit one, fifteen year old Sofia Orca thought. It’s even worse because I’m trapped inside this plane and every seat is taken so I can’t even move away from Casey.
Younger than his sister, Casey had fidgeted and talked for hours, fueled by his snacks of candy bars washed down by a caffeinated soft drink brought aboard for the long flight. At first merely annoyed, Sofia now wanted to scream.
“No more drinks with caffeine for him, please.” Sofia’s pleading voice and eyes brought a nod and smile and understanding from the flight attendant dispensing sodas, fruit juice, iced and hot tea, coffee, and alcohol from her metal cart.