It was a beautiful, crisp summer night. This was her favorite time. The children were down. The house was quiet and since the draconian environmental laws had gone into effect, the skies were so beautiful. She would walk around outside the house by the gardens and look. Sometimes she would use Sean's spotting scope and look at the moons of Jupiter or the rings of Saturn. Sometimes she would count the shooting stars. But what she enjoyed the most was staring at the Milky Way stretching across the sky.

This night, she noticed something odd. At first she thought it was just her imagination. Then she was sure of it, there were ghostly green flickers in the sky. As she watched, they grew bigger and brighter. Streaks of red sparkled in the sky as well, highlighting the green. She had seen it before when she was a child in Nebraska. It was the aurora borealis, or Northern Lights. It was normally a phenomenon of the far North in Alaska and Canada and had never heard of it in summer.

She went inside to get Sean. He had turned the TV set around and was checking the connections. "I think something just died."

She shook her head. "Come outside."

He followed her, figuring that the satellite dish must have fallen down. But it didn't seem to be. Then he noticed the lights in the sky. He stared at it silently. He knew what it was but had never actually seen it. It was brighter than a full moon and growing brighter as he watched. He pulled his driver's license out of his wallet and could easily read it.

She checked the cell phone in her pocket. There was no signal. It had a full charge. She had called her mother just a few hours ago with it. She knew how an aurora formed. Charged particles in the upper atmosphere glowed. This normally could only form where the Earth's magnetic field was weakest, near the poles. But this was so strong that it was happening at the 40th parallel. It wasn't just a few flickers in the sky. It was an ugly green overcast light that lit the sky and was still growing in strength. It seemed to be strongest towards the South. "I think it's hit."

"The nova?"

She nodded. "Eta Carinae isn't visible above about 30 degrees North. But it must be lighting the sky in South America. I'll bet they can see it during the daytime in Australia."

"CNN news said Obama was flying tonight to Sydney for a big conference. I'll bet he's getting quite a show."

Molly nodded, turning seeing how the car antennas and the TV antenna was alive with a bright blue and violet ghostly dancing flame. "That's something I've never seen before."

Sean held his hand up. "Listen." There was an odd hissing sound.

"Last night I saw St. Elmo's stars
With their glittering lanterns all at play.
On the tops of masts and the tips of spars.
And knew we should have foul weather today.

from The Golden Legend by Henry Wadsworth Longfellow."

"I didn't know you liked Longfellow."

"There are lots of things about me you don't know yet." He began unbuttoning her blouse. "How about getting fired up under the St. Elmo's Fire."

"It's too bright. Let's go inside."

In the morning the sky was normal. She put the TV back together. She couldn't get anything on Dish network and switched to the antenna to see if the TV was working at all. Reception was bad but she got Channel Phoenix's 5. It was before 10:00. It should have been some stupid reality or game show but Dianna Sullivan was on. She was the noon and 5:00 news anchor. She normally did the smiling blonde talking head act very well. Today she was ashen. "Today is a day full of tragedy, so many that it is difficult to know where to start. The long awaited eruption of Eta Carinae has finally occurred, and it has brought unimaginable tragedy, including the death of President Obama. Most of the United States was shielded from the direct hard radiation of the nova but Hawaii and parts of Texas, Florida, Louisiana and Alabama were hit hard. President and Mrs. Obama along with Secretary of State Richardson were aboard Air Force One over the Pacific between Hawaii and Australia when the radiation hit. Wreckage has been recovered in the vicinity of their last position. We repeat, Barack Obama, 44th President of the United States, is dead."

"The death was not limited to the President. Almost every jet plane that was below the 30th parallel and was flying at altitude crashed. This was the single worst day in aviation history. An estimated three thousand people were killed on dozens of airplanes, from U.S. top gun pilots on night training to a military transport plane in Brazil that taking soldiers to fight a forest fire in the Amazon. Planes simply dropped out of the sky. One of the few planes that survived was a Cubana de Aviación Ilyushin IL-76M cargo plane that was making a delivery from Havana to Costa Rica and was over the Caribbean at the time. The pilot allegedly reported that all onboard electronics and navigation equipment failed."

"According to reports sent by amateur radio operators, the entire electrical power system in Central and South America failed. Except for scattered private generators the entire continent was dark. All telephone switching equipment has been damaged. Most computerized equipment has also failed. There are widespread reports of accidents, riots and massive theft. Police, fire fighters and medical services were unable to respond because they weren't receiving emergency calls with all telephone systems down and even when they did know where to go their vehicles were almost all rendered inoperative because of the electromagnetic disruption caused by Eta Carinae."

Molly stared at the television as Dianna Sullivan continued describing the death and destruction, remembering what she had ordered done to Miami. The whole region had gone dark. How many were killed that night? Over a thousand died just because their pacemakers failed. How many burned to death because fire alarms didn't work and fire trucks wouldn't start? She couldn't even think of it. All those dead, pages after pages of them, because she was sure she knew what she was doing. What would happen to her soul? How would she be judged by God? "I was only following orders." Would she spend eternity with the Nazi SS who exterminated Jews?

"Are you alright, Mommy?"

She found that she had been crying. Little Noreen had crawled into her lap.

"What's wrong, Mommy?"

Molly looked down at Noreen, hugging her. She was always the cheerful little angel, always trying to help. "The President died. A lot of people were hurt last night."

"What about us? What about you and Daddy?"

"No, we will be fine. It all happened far away." She wiped away the tears and turned off the TV.

I realized I made a scientific error in the old version of this chapter. I think I also missed a great deal dramatically by jumping ahead too soon. I still don't have any reviews. It would be very much appreciated ifsomebody would review it soon.