New Earth: The Sedna/Kern Incident. R.D. MDiv Pittman
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NEW EARTH:
The Sedna/Kern Incident
By R.D. Pittman
Copyright © 2011 Two Pitts Publishing, LLC
Published in eBook format by eBookIt.com
ISBN-13: 978-1-4566-0602-2
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Fiction Caveat
This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used factiously, and any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, business establishments, events, or locales is entirely coincidental
Visit R.D. Pittman’s website at http://www.rdpittman.com
Acknowledgements
This book is dedicated to my son, Tynan.
I was too often absent from his life
at critical times of need.
And…he still loves me.
I am so proud of him for the person he’s become
To my son Tynan, I dedicate this book
with all my love and hope for the future.
I can’t forget to mention that my wife Sharon provided
her invaluable editing skills for this book.
She has always been and will always be…my life.
Chapter One
Déjà vu
“How is it that we just picked this up?” Alex asked.
“We have a satellite that’s an enhancement to the old Solar and Heliospheric Observatory (SOHO) program, it is equipped with a device called a coronagraph, which blocks the sun’s surface glare so you can pick up large ejections and flares that would otherwise be invisible. The comet that created the disturbance in the asteroid belt, which the conspirators used to trick everyone during the coup d’etat, has been traveling in its altered elliptical orbit around the sun and headed back through our galaxy at an accelerated speed very close to the sun. We didn’t have access to the satellite until a month ago and picked up the trail of Sedna/Kern p236 coming out of its pass around the sun. There was no need to scan that area while the false program sent out what we thought were real-time images of asteroids heading toward earth. What the conspirators didn’t realize was they were preventing the scientists of the world from discovering the imminent threat from the comet until this past month. General, it’s going to strike the earth; it is two miles wide and ten miles long at the core, the tail is some four hundred thousand miles long. It will be here in one hundred eighty seven days,” Kumar sat nervously wiping his brow.
“Has this been verified by any other independent scientists?” Alex asked.
“Yes, we have independent verification from nine other observatories around the world, so if you’re thinking there is another rogue program at work, I’m afraid it’s not possible. Systems were delinked from one another to avoid that happening again. The data has been checked thoroughly by some of the best scientific minds in our field, it is incontrovertible.”
“Exactly what are we facing Professor Kumar?” Alex asked.
“It is an extremely large mass moving at an incredible speed. There is good news and bad news. The good news is that it is a comet, made up of gas, rock, small sand like particles, and some larger asteroid like bodies. The speed at which it is traveling will cause a large portion of the comet to burn up in the atmosphere. That’s the good news; the bad news is in the core of the comet we have detected numerous objects that will probably survive the entry into our atmosphere. This fact increases the likelihood of strikes affecting a larger portion of the earth’s surface. I can’t ever recall seeing a comet with such a dense concentration of independent bodies traveling in concert with it. I’m afraid we are in for a pummeling with hundreds of small to medium strikes. We could also see several large impacts on both land and in the oceans as this comet disintegrates over the earth’s surface.”
“Have you been able to pinpoint projected impact areas?” Alex asked.
“Yes, we have come to a consensus among ourselves that the first strikes will occur in the eastern Atlantic near the British Isles. With possible additional strikes occurring in the English Channel, then multiple ground and air explosions will hit France, Germany and Russia; resulting in catastrophic damage. If the comet splits into separate bodies and that is a distinct possibility, the Middle East and Asia as well as the Pacific Ocean could be hit in the same manner as Europe.”
“What’s your estimate of loss of life?”
“We estimate close to five hundred million people will die in the first scenario, if Sedna/Kern splits and hits the Middle East and Asian countries… then it becomes difficult to imagine the death toll much less predict. In my personal opinion we are looking at probably a billion lives lost within a week of the strikes, the death toll will almost double within sixty days as resources are depleted and disease pandemics set in.”
“Will we have a nuclear winter effect?”
“To some degree, but unlike a large asteroid strike, there will not be nearly the impact severity and the resultant ejection into the atmosphere. We may have one to two years of sun blockage at most. All that is caveated with, unless the comet stays intact and strikes the earth. General that would be what is known as an extinction level event…the extinction of man. But, if we are lucky we will have time to recover underground and restart crop and food production once the atmosphere stabilizes. Since you did such an outstanding job of preparing us for the false alarm, there is not much for us to do here in the U.S.”
“Professor, I can house around eighty thousand people in bunkers and at converted military bases, but that still leaves over two hundred fifty million Americans at risk. I’m not comfortable saying we don’t have much to do.”
“I apologize. I didn’t mean to marginalize the issue.”
“Do your scientists have a time frame in mind as to when they will announce this to the world?”
“That’s why I’m here, they’ve agreed to wait for you to make the announcement and they will back you up. It has been suggested you should make the statement before the United Nations with a worldwide broadcast.”
“Professor Kumar, I’m preparing to retire now that this dreadful affair with the overthrow of the government has passed. This is more appropriate for the President or President-elect to decide not me.”
“General, you are revered throughout the world, some religions have deified you, and people trust what you say. I am not sure the current President-elect will create the same sense of urgency that is needed to face this threat.”
“You do realize worldwide panic will break out, anarchy will spread everywhere and we may not survive that? All right, I will sit down with the President-elect and his newly formed Cabinet to express your desire, but he or President Cantwell may very well opt to make the announcement, I have no control over that decision.”
“Thank