Kennedy Space Centre, December, Thursday, 10:14 PM UTC-5h, d-3.
A man in his seventies came into a crowded control room along with three bodyguards and a serious lady leading the way.
This room was filled with computers, TV screens and papers. Military and civilians were sitting or walking hurriedly across the room.
The sight was odd as the contrast between the two types of people were like day and night. Some were wearing pairs of shorts and flip-flops and others were in their usual neat uniforms, but nobody seemed to care as they were deeply focused on their tasks.
At the centre of the room was a man in his early sixties with four stars on his shoulders was shouting orders and listening to reports. He was the Chief of Staff of the Army and was currently under tremendous stress. Seeing the man and guards approaching, he gave a military salute followed by his subordinate.
"Mister President!" exclaimed the Chief of Staff of the Army.
"At ease general, what is the situation?"
"We are almost ready; we have finished synchronizing the launch with the other countries and are now checking the last technical details. It is time for you to confirm the operation with the other presidents, sir."
"Very well, keep processing your tasks, I'll make sure the other countries will do their part."
"Yes, mister president!" The general faced the crowd, "you've heard him, keep working, we have the fate of mankind in our hands!"
"This way Mister President," said the lady in the group. The president of the United States, followed by his bodyguards, went to a side meeting room.
This room was filled with big TV screens.
The lady started to go around switching on some devices when of the screens were displaying very well-known men and women. Official representatives of powerful and rich countries.
"We have been waiting for you," said one of them with a strong Russian accent.
"I had to finish some business, now let's proceed with the agenda. We all agreed on a joined attack, do you confirm you are ready?"
All agreed on the spot but the French President.
"Yes, but we have some concerns about the results. Some scientists in my team believe we will fail, leading to disastrous consequence."
"You really behave like a pussy! Are you really a man? You know this is the last-minute call, all you need to do is say yes like everybody!". The interruption of the Russian president shocked part of the participants while others were sneering, mocking the French president.
"Your team was the one giving us the procedure to destroy that thing, and now you are telling us that you don't believe in its success? You know this is serious and, we people from China, can't tolerate this kind of attitude!"
"How likely do you think it is going to fail? And what would be the consequences?" Said the British president ignoring the first two.
"The probability is hard to tell as my team is still having a hard time determining the constitution of this asteroid. We believe it might be sturdier than we have though. This means, it won't totally disintegrate. Among the shower of small meteorites, a significant amount will be big enough to hit the earth and have disastrous consequences. And the probability will go higher if some of the missiles miss, you know that…"
The US president cut short the ongoing explanation. "Enough speaking, we have already agreed that we could not let the asteroid go its own way as the probability to hit the earth is way too high. We need to proceed now to not miss our launch window."
Approving exclamation came from most of the representatives while a nervous look was seen on others.
The French president was fuming with anger seeing all these people degrading him, but he could do nothing but endure. "If it comes to this, then we are already ready to press the button and are 99.999% sure of the successful hit for all our nuclear missiles. I hope you have set yours properly and as agreed to the schedule." He said with a defying tone.
"Who do you think we are?" Said the US President. "Then, it is set. Operation begins in…" the secretary started whispering in his ears. "…1 hour and 43 minutes from now. No going back and no mistakes!" he continued.
Anxious all agreed and left the video conference.
A few hours later, among the dozens of nuclear missiles, only one encountered some trouble after a few minutes getting into space. It was to be expected as this operation was a first in human history but, still, the impact could be dramatic. Even then, the Russian president did not even bother to give an apology.
The different control rooms all around the world were restless. But very few of the people working on this mission could do anything by now. Most were just watching the screen monitoring the missiles charging to their target, while others were praying in their heart. The trip was about 50 hours, and these were ones of the longest hours of most of these men and women's lives.
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Two days later, the impact was imminent, all eyes were on the screens and all the best telescopes in the world were pointing in the direction of the asteroid.
During these past few days, the different governments in the confidence, and with the technology to spot the asteroid, were having a hard time covering this huge operation. They used the military to manage all the outer-space-related sites to avoid the information to leak as it could lead to a worldwide panic, but still, some rumours were spreading across the internet. Especially during the last two days. All the military and civil personnel related to space studies and operations were isolated from the outside world, and these sudden behaviours raised the suspicion of a few people and reporters.
The governments were challenged, and the justification was not very convincing. How in the right mind could all the space specialist and space-related sites not be reached or accessible in the whole world at the same time for a few days? This question was all over the internet, but even if people were having fun giving guess and talking about worldwide plot, most of them were joking around not taking it too seriously.
Finally, the time of the impact came, the result was in between the best expectations and the fear of all the scientists. It took a bit more than an hour to have a shallow overview of the situation. It showed that the path of the main structure of the asteroid has been diverted enough to avoid the earth.
However, a lot of scraps were still coming. The size and number of these meteorites were hard to tell, but after a few more hours, a more detailed result came out. More than one hundred and fifty million meteorites were approaching the earth. Between 8% and 12% of those were big enough not to disintegrate in the atmosphere before the impact.
Deep fear was visible on the face of the French scientists as they already had simulated some estimation of the catastrophe, same applied to many of the other scientists team around the world. But that was too late to worry as the first meteorites would reach the atmosphere in less than an hour.
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Back in the US control room.
"Mister President, we estimate that the US won't have to face a big hit, and we have about 12 hours to prepare. Most of the meteorite will disintegrate and the most dangerous scraps that have been identified are far from the extinction level. We expect the biggest ones to have an impact of about 1 km to 10 km radius on earth with a blast radius of less than 50 km. We don't know where they will hit, but they are few enough to hope for a good issue." Said the five-star general.
"Very well, it is time to prepare. Spread the army in the country and call off the air force, hide the main assets in the nuclear bomb shelter. I expect you had the time to prepare to go through this terrible situation. For our overseas forces, make sure they are ready to hit our enemy as hard as possible once that damned rain is over. Since the US will likely have one of the least causality, we must use this opportunity to come on top of our opponent and dominate the world!"
"Yes, mister president, we will definitely deliver a satisfactory result."
After a salute, the general, followed by his most trusted men, left the room.
At the same time, words of the imminent doom were spreading among most of the world governments. Emergency procedures were all triggered one after another. In most countries, sirens and other warning means were used to push people to take cover. The TV channels, radios, and internet websites were all cancelling their planned programs to show special communicates in the hope to make as many people as possible take cover.
However, not all countries were fortunate enough to be prepared, and a few minutes later, the first countries were hit in Oceania and South-East Asia. The shower of small meteorites lasted 20 hours, hitting most of the countries around the globe. Not all countries were having the same treatment as some barely received meteorites while others were overwhelmed. Fortunately, the damage was less dramatic than expected as almost all meteorites were small enough to just create very small local explosions.