Extinction Machine

Chapter One Hundred Twenty-one

The Situation Room

The White House

Monday, October 21, 8:22 a.m.

President William Collins sat at the head of the table, with the Joint Chiefs on his right, the national security advisor and chief of staff on his left. On a large OLED screen, a real-time satellite showed a white dot moving at incredible speeds toward the Pacific Ocean. The satellite tracked scores of other dots, some in front of the fast one, some behind, all of them moving many times slower.

“It reached Mach sixteen over Ohio,” said General Croft. “We’re currently clocking it at Mach nineteen point four.”

“What are our options for shooting it down?” demanded Collins. Hands were clutched together on the tabletop, fidgeting like frightened mice.

The generals and admirals and secretaries looked at each other and away.

“Come on, what are our options?”

“Mr. President,” said Croft, “we don’t have anything that can catch it.”

“We have prototypes, we have experimental ships that go that fast.”

“None of them are in the air, sir. None of them have successfully cleared the test phase.”

“I don’t care,” Collins exploded. “Get them in the air.”

“They aren’t armed yet, sir. It would take a few weeks to—”

“Then what the hell do we do?”

“Mr. President,” said Admiral James, “everything that has wings and a gun is in the air. We’ve got seventy jets converging on it from three points and we’ll fill the air with missiles and rockets.”

“Good,” said Collins, jumping on that, clutching the thread of hope it offered. “When? How soon before they shoot it down?”

“Six minutes until contact.” James paused. “Mr. President, at this speed we’re going to get one shot. Just one.”