Author's Note: Why is this one so late? Well I'd have had it to you a few days ago (as of: 01-30-04) but my computer decided to freeze four pages into writing. I was really angry about it.
Keeping to the story line, but slapping it in the face. I like that. Can I use that in a revised summary of the story?
Anyway, here it is. Chapter thirteen: Project Destiny.
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Chapter Thirteen
Project Destiny
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35 Hours in; 1900 Miles Down
"Virgil you are approaching core interface." stated Talma Stickley from Deep Earth Control. "Are you good to go?"
~
"Josh?" Braz called over the coms toward the back of the ship. "Josh can you hear me?" he waited, exchanging glances with Zimsky who sat silently in his seat. "Josh, can you hear me?"
Josh had disappeared into the navigation module for some time. During then no one had contacted him, and in turn he had not said anything to them. Serge sat in his seat, looking back now and again in case Josh might come through the corridor. The silence was offsetting, but not unnerving. He might have just been caught up in some minor repairs.
Commander Bob Iverson now sat at the head of Virgil once more, with Beck once again at his side. She'd taken advantage of the living quarters and slept for a few hours while Iverson guided them every closer to the core.
"As ready as we'll ever be, Stick." Beck replied with a grin. At that time the soft tapping of shoes could be heard from behind the cockpit, and Josh entered with an apologetic grin on his face.
"Doctor Keyes." Iverson addressed.
"Here." he grinned.
Iverson smiled. "Deep Earth, we are green and good to go."
At that point, everyone inside braced themselves for the transition from the mantle to the inner core. The solid-liquid properties of the mantle dissolved and melted away, and Virgil digressed into a fully liquid atmosphere. The screens displayed the change for all the crew to see. Right before their eyes, the same changes occurred. The solid properties melted away, and the orange and brown shifting portrait transformed into a mass of smooth yellow and white. They had successfully made the transition. They were almost there.
Josh smiled, amazed and relieved to have made this far. Serge's chin raised to better view the transition through the screens. Iverson's head raised with pride. Beck let out a low laugh as Braz's countenance exploded into a wide grin. Zimsky sat stoically, however, braving the moments of silence with skepticism.
Suddenly, Iverson felt a shift within the cockpit. His eyes fell to the speed readings below.
"We just got a huge speed jump here." He noted verbally to the others. "We're at ninety five knots."
"What?" Beck leaned her head over to see for herself.
Serge frowned and looked to Josh, who's expression was similar to the Frenchman's.
"One ten." Iverson reported.
Josh's eyes fell to his computer screen, his frown deepening.
"One thirty. One forty." he sighed and shifted through some of the data readings on his screen. "Our speed's jumped because the density of the core is different than our estimates. It's lighter than we thought."
"So much for best guesses." Braz stated mockingly. Zimsky's face now contorted into a considering frown.
"I'm fine with this." Beck stated, not realizing the dire situation they were now in. "At this rate we'll, what--reach the inner core in a little over five hours. I think we finally bought some luck."
"Braz." Came Zimsky, doing some calculations on his computer.
"Yeah."
"Would you please punch the new core density into the equations for the nuclear detonation."
Braz did just that. A few entries on the keyboard and the simulation started. A blob of green appeared on the easternmost point of the core diagram and then spread in a vast array of green lined patterns. The lines, representing the wave patterns of the explosion, reached the edge of the inner core and mantle, and refracting of the solid surroundings bounced back and forth, weaving a never ending motion through the core properties.
"Please tell me this is enough." Josh prayed from his seat. Serge's eyes were on the two earth scientists to his right and behind. All waited in trepidation and anxiety, until a small alarm sounded from the computer speakers.
FAILURE SCENARIO appeared over the diagram. Zimsky sighed and rested his head in defeated against the back of his seat.
"You're telling me the one thousand megatons of nuclear warheads we hauled down here isn't going to cut it?" Beck snapped.
"No." Zimsky replied very matter-of-factly. "This core material is too thin."
"What?"
"The energy waves from the explosion won't spread far enough. They'll just bleed away into nothing."
Beck slapped the monitors in front of her. Josh let his head fall in defeat and sorrow as Braz sighed sorrowfully. Serge bit his lip, not near ready to accept failure, and Zimsky clasped his thumb and forefinger at the bridge of his nose. "That's it." he announced, shifting in his seat. "We go home." All eyes turned questioningly in his direction. "We go home." he repeated.
"Home?" Josh repeated.
"What?" came Beck.
"Our weapons control systems are gone. We don't know whether we can arm the nuclear devices-"
"We can still arm them if we-" Serge started to argue, but Zimsky cut him off.
"And our plan to fix the core no longer works. So...we have failed."
"We have not failed." Josh spat.
"We have failed," Zimsky repeated as though it were simply the wrong answer to a question. "And we go home, and we go to the alternative." He turned in his seat.
"What alternative?" Braz asked with a frown. "What are you talking about?"
Zimsky was no longer listening. He pressed his headset close to his head and began to address DEC.
"General, this is Doctor Conrad Zimsky. Destiny is a go. Repeat. Destiny is a go."
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Purcell registered this from his position at Deep Earth Control. His head drooped slightly in stoic disappointment.
"Damn." he whispered. Slowly, he reached for a small read phone nearby, but it never left it's receiver. A large shadow came over where he sat, and Purcell looked up to see fiery brown eyes boring down into his own.
"I need to know everything to do my job." she whispered in anger.
"You don't have to know this." Purcell argued. Stickley shifted her stance. "General, it is my job to ensure the safety of this mission. Anything that affects it is my business. Now what the hell is destiny?"
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"It's a device." Zimsky answered to the same question almost twenty thousand feet below the surface of the earth. Standing from his seat and obtaining another portable computer from his personal shelf behind him, he continued on. "Deep Earth Trigger Seismic Initiative. DEST-INI. Destiny." Serge and Josh exchanged confused and angered looks. "We had reason to believe that our enemies were building a weapon that could generate targeted seismic events." He turned once more to his 'audience' to find that only Joshua seemed to know what he was talking about. Zimsky decided to transfer over to basic English. "They would be able to create massive earthquakes under our territory. No way of telling who did it."
"So?" Josh asked.
"So, we built one too. MAD! Mutually Assured Destruction. A perfect acronym if ever there was one."
"Beautiful." Serge and Josh stated simultaneously.
"They built it first. I built it better." Braz shook his head and laughed in disgust as Zimsky went on. "I beamed high-powered electromagnetic waves down Deep Earth fault lines and, you know." he smiled and turned, overly pleased once again with his own genius.
"Zimsky, what makes you think Destiny would even touch the core?" Braz asked in severe doubt.
"'Cause it already did." Came a strained, angry voice. All eyes turned to Josh who sat with a tensed jaw in his seat. His gaze turned once again toward Zimsky with a blazing fire in each eye. "This isn't a fluke. We killed the planet."
Zimsky sat down, a hint of satisfaction in his poise.
"You keep saying the core is too big to be affected by anything short of nukes, so-"
"The core is an engine." said Josh, standing. "Throw a small wrench into a big engine, you can still stall it."
Iverson frowned and turned to face the screens once more. He sighed. "Deep Earth this is Virgil. We require clarification on the status of Project Destiny. Why weren't we notified of this?"
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"Because you didn't need to know, Commander." Purcell answered with some air of anger in his voice.
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Josh rolled his eyes as Braz shook his head and laughed sarcastically. "Now you may not like this. I may not like it either. But its my job..."
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"And I do it for my country. And if we don't develop these devices someone worse will, and they will use them against us."
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"You Americans are too damn paranoid." Serge stated quietly so that none could hear over the coms. Josh and the others laughed, all save Zimsky.
"But you have my word.."
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"No one in this administration--no one, had any idea that this could happen."
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"So the device that killed the planet is your backup plan." Asked Braz.
Zimsky sat back with a frown. "An electric shock can stop a heart. It can certainly restart one. Destiny will work. It has to."
"No, it won't work!" Josh yelled. All eyes now fell with amazement to the young man who had been almost as quiet as a mouse the past thirty five hours of the mission. "If you fire that thing again with the core already stalled, it will terminally destabilize it."
"Yes, granted--there is a marginal risk involved." Zimsky agreed. "But given the circumstances, I hardly see that there's an alternative."
"Every, no, Zimsky listen to me. Every volcano on the planet will blow. There'll be earthquakes big enough to rip us to pieces."
"Doctor Keyes!" yelled Purcell from DEC.
"What?" he snapped.
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"I'm afraid it's all we've got. Now I have orders from the President. Come home, Virgil. We go to Plan B."
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There was silence. Josh collapsed defeated back into his chair with a sigh. The others blinked, unable to grasp that they have failed. Finally, Serge spoke up.
"What about a Plan C?"
The others turned and looked at him. Here was the one man who, with all the right in the world had no place among this crew as a family man, suggesting that they all go on toward their death, and his, in order to save a world that would never know about what they did.
"What? What?" Braz whispered.
"Plan C?" Josh raised his eyebrows. Iverson and Beck eyed him, intrigued.
"Plan C." Serge repeated. "We continue on...we restart the core...somehow..." he muttered more of the minor details to the plan they had originally adopted. "We don't do it...they fire Destiny."
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"I can't wait for you to get out of there." Purcell argued.
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"Then don't." Serge answered simply. "If we fail...fire Destiny."
"Oh, come on! That's ridiculous!" Zimsky spat angrily from his seat. No one paid him much mind.
"What choice do we have, Zimsky?" Josh argued in his friend's defense.
"Are you kidding me? If they set that thing off the shockwaves will wipe us out! We'll be lucky to get back if we turn back right now!"
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"Virgil, I'm telling you right now, we will fire Destiny," Purcell went on, silently begging them to not go through with this. "And we need to do so as quickly as possible, and if you're still there, you will be destroyed."
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There was an exchange of glances through the crew. Nervous ones, doubtful and unwilling.
"Robert? Rebecca? Please don't make me have to do this."
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Commander Iverson sighed and cast his gaze down, almost accusingly, at the controls before his eyes. Eventually he brought his heavy head up to face Beck. She smiled sadly and nodded her head.
"Plan C." she smiled and turned back to observing their progress. He looked then back at the others.
"Plan C." Braz nodded. Josh nodded with him, saying nothing. He cast his gaze to Zimsky who's own was down, his head shaking.
Suddenly his eyes fell upon Serge. The one man who, if accepting death, would never again see his wife and children. It was lunacy, in all right they should turn back just for him.
"Doctor Leveque, I want to inform you," he started. "You're the only one here with family back at home. If you are unwilling to follow through with this decision, you're vote will cancel out all others, and we will return home upon your request."
Serge nodded in understanding. He blew a sigh and glanced momentarily to Josh. He smiled reassuringly at his old friend and then turned back to the Commander.
"Like I said before, I am here to save my wife and my two children." he began. "If I die to do so, then I have no regrets. Plan C."
"It's your call then, Commander." Josh went on with a sad smile. Iverson nodded and turned in his seat.
"Majority decision. We're going in." he stated firmly. "I'm sorry, sir."
~
Purcell nodded his head sadly. Without a look in either direction he left his position. No one dared to stop him.
~
"Oh, come on! You're a bunch of suicidal morons!" Zimsky hollered, flying from his seat and into the isle. His eyes blazed with a bottled fury that had been itching to get out since day one of the mission. All eyes of course went to Conrad who was growing slightly madder by the moment. "What are you, crazy? Plan C? Restart the core 'somehow'? Oh, that's a great idea!"
Josh stepped into the isle to calm him, putting forth his hand and trying to explain. But Zimsky would have none of it.
"That's a brilliant idea!" He started to pace from the isle to the corridor and back. "I can't believe I'm stuck in this floating septic tank with you lunatics! You may have nothing to lose!" he pointed at Braz. "You may have nothing to lose." He pointed and pushed forward toward Josh. "You may have nothing to lose." he pointed at Beck. "You may have nothing to lose!" he pointed at Iverson, and then looked last to Serge. "And you seem to think you have nothing to lose. But I have my life to lose, hank you very much, while you're up! Now turn it around!" he started to gesture maniacally. "He told us to go back, and we're going back! Why? You want to be a hero? You want to be a martyr? What do you want to be? You're out of your mind! Thank you! Turn it around!" He moved forward and started to bull rush Josh, pushing him back to get at the controls as if he himself believed he had to turn Virgil around.
"Zimsky!" Josh snarled through clenched teeth.
"I don't want to die! I don't want to die!" the crazed man went on.
Josh held him firm for a few minutes, but eventually he couldn't keep still. Inching backward with Zimsky flailing his limbs madly, Josh started to strain every muscle in his body to keep the maddening scientist from reaching the commanders. Serge stood to help, but Braz gently brushed him aside as he launched from his seat.
There were a whole bunch of random obscenities and screams exchanged between Josh, Braz and Zimsky. Eventually the mad scientist turned on Braz.
"You, shut up!" He spat.
What happened after that, no one had expected, and yet at the same time they'd all been waiting for it. Braz hauled off and punched Zimsky straight in the jaw. He fell backward, unconscious and into Josh's arms. The younger of the two looked up in utter amazement, horror, and a slight humor. Serge's brow raised in silent congratulations.
"It's not a stupid ship." he breathed, the others staring at him in wonder. "I had to." he continued, hoping that no one thought too poorly of his actions. Josh shrugged and half grinned, setting Zimsky lazily back into his seat.
"It had to happen sometime."
"Yeah."
Braz nodded, sighed, and returned to his own, along with the others.
Author's Note: Okay, there it is. Sorry this took so long again. But it's over. I'll write another one next weekend. ^_^ Take care everyone, and remember to review!
