In the office of NASA Headquarters, Washington DC:

"Oh, God, did this have to come across my desk right now? I'm up to my eyeballs in budget cuts and appeals for grants, and then this."

Josh looked over the cubicle wall with a quizzical expression. "What is it?"

"Its this NEO report. It's Earth crossing and from its albedo, it's big. If it's right, this is the planet killer." Said Dr Jurgens with a sigh.

"Who lodged it?"

"Um, looks like a grad student, Ramon Illitch, working for a Professor Anton Wiles in Serbia. Seems legit. I'll get JPL to run the numbers".

--------------

"Josh, JPL confirm, we have a planet killer".

"What's the ETA".

"Just two weeks, why didn't we see this before now"?

"OK, we have to look up the flowchart here, never done one of these situations before. It says that we issue an e-mail to [email protected] including 'Code 5' in the subject line and listing the contact details of everyone involved. We conclude the e-mail with the code words 'wormwood and gall'. We then wait for a procedure package to be delivered."

"Ill get JPL to re-run the numbers, just in case."

---------------

Two hours later:

A large brown paper envelope is delivered by courier to the desks of Dr Jurgens and Dr Josh Hormill.

Josh smiled briefly and detachedly at the courier, a pimply and quite bored youth who simply turned away, heading for the next address.

Josh slit the top of the bulky envelope and looked inside. "Wha.."

There was a loud pop as both packages exploded simultaneously.

The room was filled with a cloud of blue haze and a confetti of paper shrapnel.

The poison acted quickly.

A 'phone rang, unanswered, then all was silent as the air-conditioning slowly cleared away the haze.

reply to post by chr0naut


Nasty. If there's more, awesome!

If there isn't?
As a stand-alone, still brilliant!

In the new Astronomical Observatory Belgrade module on mount Vidojevica, Prof Anton Wiles and his student assistant, Ramon Illitch were observing the latest details of the NEO which they had nicknamed "Варяги" (Varyag) when there was a loud swishing noise.

They looked at each other startled, but after a few seconds, the noise died away and they returned to their studies.

The noise was created by the release of several bottles of oxygen (part of an Oxy-Acetylene cutting rig left by the construction crew) into the air. In less than five minutes, 76 cubic feet of oxygen from the four cylinders had mixed into the air in the observatory. Due to its cool temperature, due to its decompression, the oxygen enriched air stayed close to the ground and did not leak out the slot of the observatory dome.

Seven minutes later, a small canister bounced in from the observation slot in the dome and rolled across the floor behind them.

Ramon had just begun to walk towards the canister when it exploded, spraying out a flammable vapor which, when mixed with the oxygen enriched atmosphere, produced an all consuming fire which melted the aluminum dome of the observatory in onto its occupants.

There could be no survivors.

Across the world, new coordinates were assigned to observatories across the world, pointing away from the incoming object's path.

Solar observatories were placed into maintenance and recalibration.

Photographs and data disappeared from NASA and affiliated online databases.

On several conspiracy sites, someone began to ask questions about the jump in mortality rates for astronomers (many astronomers were being killed simply because their telescopes may have inadvertently been pointing towards the object).

In the second week, it was noticed that no-one had seen any politician for a few days. Even their homes, as well as their capitol buildings were deserted.

Wave after wave of nuclear weapons were launched into space against the object and finally, the public saw the object lit by thousands of nuclear detonations. It was as effective as trying to stop a baseball with the light from a flashlight. The object continued on its approach.

On the last day, the object collided with the moon and, except for a showers of meteors and space dust, was miraculously gone.

The politicians re-emerged. Questions were asked but ultimately, little was done.

The mood was one of jubilation and thanksgiving across the globe. It seemed that all could be forgiven.

Then it was noticed that the moon looked larger than usual...

S&F