Chapter 6: A "Ray" of Hope
Everyone filed up the stairs to discuss the latest findings. Well, most everyone anyways, Rufus, the Turks, Cloud and Company, and the astronomers. The technicians, scientists and engineers were instructed to wait down in the streets of Junon and just…stretch in the meantime. As always, it was quite the hike up to the top of the building, even with the taking of the elevator, but they finally reached the zenith, and spread around Rufus's office, awaiting this "rather unpleasant news".
Naturally, there was tension in the air, everyone was feeling it. How could they not? The predicament that they had found themselves in was pretty bad in itself, what with a huge meteor plummeting to earth, ready to cause massive damage through a tidal wave, or bring about the apocalypse when it struck land. That was rather shitty; and now they were told it was somehow worse than that? That was just great.
Rufus took him position in his cushy armchair behind his desk, flanked by the Turks. Cloud and the gang merely lolled about the room, waiting. With the exception of Vincent, who at this point was still absent.
"Alright," Rufus let loose a slow breath, trying to calm his own threadbare nerves of steel, "Give us the facts straight, and don't sidestep any details. I don't want to be in here for an hour with you beating around the bush. Just tell us what you found." The astronomers were hovering over by the presentation monitor fiddling with the controls, talking quietly amounts themselves. They almost didn't even seem to heed the President.
"Any day now, gentlemen." Still nothing, as they booted up the software, and continued murmuring.
"Will you dumbasses start talkin', and tell us what's what!" Barret's loud and angry voice split their concentration, where Rufus's mellow composed tone did not. They jumped, looked round, traded on last group whisper, before stepping forward, nervously fidgeting with their lab coats, and spectacles.
"Ahem…yes of…of course. You'll have to forgive us…sir…we're, well we're just a little stressed out, what with the circumstances and all. And the fact that we have to convey…well what we've discovered on to you all…well, that doesn't really help either."
"I think it's safe to say that we're all feeling the pressure at this point," Rufus reassured them, "But the longer we sit here and brood, then the less time we have for perhaps creating a countermeasure, and saving our necks. So…gentlemen, if you please."
"Of course sir," the head astronomer looked behind, and gave a nod to his fellows, who in turn began fiddling with the controls. There was a horrid feedback whine for a second of two, causing all to cringe. An auspicious start to things. As this faded, the screen began flickering, filled with static, which gradually began to clear.
It quickly became painfully obvious that the astronomy equipment at Cosmos Canyon was far superior to the Shinra's, for the image this time around began to become sharper and clearer than the previous. Once more, there it was. The object that had caused all the distress thus far. The meteor, still revolving about in space, drawing ever closer towards them, its coming spelling destruction.
"Here it is," the head astronomer began, "Now, as you all know, we made the best calculations we could at our own observatory, but with the telescopes we possessed, all the numbers and figures we produced were more hypothetical than anything else. Upon closer examination of things, we see that we were not quite as accurate as we had hoped. We are in even more danger than before, and the hopes of survival have grown…dare I say it, bleaker."
He paused, letting this new soak in. It was soaked rapidly, and several of the occupants of the room, Barret and Cid mostly, were looking moments away from bursting in with commands to hurry up and continue. With a sigh, he did.
"The size originally estimated was four thousand five hundred meters in diameter. That was naturally a ballpark approximation. Now we know that it is actually quite a bit larger than that. More of somewhere in the vicinity of six thousand two hundred meters in diameter. Not only that, but our speed calculations were flawed as well. Rather than fifty thousand miles per second, as it was originally thought, it is actually more along the lines of sixty-three thousand miles per hour."
"So…" Rufus pressed, his tone conveying that he didn't know exactly what the deal was, "It is larger and faster than previously thought. What I want to know is, with these new numbers, what changes, if any, has this made? Is its trajectory altered because of the extreme size?"
"We don't think so, at least, not to a significant degree. In fact, it's moved a bit to the west, further away from the southern continent. However, with the increased speed, it does decrease the time in which it will impact. Instead of thirteen days, it is now only nine days. Including today."
At this revelation, everyone immediately thought the same thing at the same time. Nine days. That's all the time they had. A little more than a week. Such a short period of time…it was…unnerving.
"On top of that," the astronomer went on, "The increased size and mass makes the falling ratio far greater, and the tidal wave created on impact will be quite a bit more sizable than previously estimated. I'd say there is enough force in that thing to submerge everything on land to a degree of about three miles inland. That's if we're lucky of course. The kinetic energy released on impact could easily be ten times stronger than we predict. There just is no real way to know for sure. And one other thing. The larger size of the meteor makes it all the more difficult to destroy. At least effectively. I don't suppose there are any…well current plans on the drawing board for that…is there?"
"As of right now," Rufus told him, "No, there isn't. But that is precisely why I've called all the technical experts here. Should a possible and plausible solution to this be presented, hopefully we have enough manpower to do whatever it is that needs to be done, and survive. But nine days…that does not leave a whole lot of time. I dare say that you are right, and things have begun to look a little…well, grim. I hate to be negative, but unless we can hurry up and concoct some manner of plan within the next couple of days, then I'm afraid we have no choice but to accept this, and weather this meteor as best we can."
"I don't get it," Tifa had been stewing in her own thoughts, and now she stood up, "Why can't you just send another rocket to try and blow it up? Surely it would work if the bomb planted on it was strong enough."
"That would be ideal yes, but the trick is finding a rocket. Shinra 26 was the last working prototype, and it was used against Meteor. With minimal effects, if you recall. And unfortunately, the process to build a new working rocket is no simple task."
"Not only that," one of the astronomers piped in, "but even if you had a working rocket, and it was to detonate against the asteroid, that doesn't mean it would destroy it. Or even damage it enough to cause it to burn up in our atmosphere." Everyone turned his way, as he began to fidget, nodding in agreement with himself.
"Yes indeed. Here, let me explain." He trotted over to the screen, and began pointing up at the impending doom hurtling their way. "We may now know the exact size and speed of it, but we have no way of knowing the density of it. I'm no geologist by any means, but even I know that its mass is one thing, but its solidity…well, that's quite another. It could be completely solid, an enormous concrete piece of rock through and through, which could easily give it a weight of one hundred million tons. Even with a bomb impacting on the front, it would undoubtedly have little luck piercing it. It would simply blow off a portion of the rock face, but other than that…nothing."
"But if there were multiple charges planted on it," another astronomer began thinking, "along fault lines, detonated simultaneously, it could break it down to the core, and separate it, no matter how hard it was."
"What exactly are ya proposin' there Einstein?" Cid interrupting his musing, "I'm hopin' that ya ain't got it in that peabrain head your's to try and land some crazy suckers on that damn thing ta blow it to smithereens! Cause, if ya do, then you can count me out! I may be an astronaut, but I ain't suicidal, that's as sure as shit."
"And by the time we actually got there," Tseng added, "It would still be too close to the planet to matter that much."
"What about using explosives to just knock it off its collision course?" Red suggested, "Using the blast to send it in another direction?"
"We thought of that," the head stargazer assured him, "Unfortunately, it would do little good. Its speed is drastically strong, and it is stuck in a gravitational well, being pulled towards the sun. Plus, there's no knowing of exactly how powerful the blast would need to be to redirect something of that size. The amount of force required for that would have to be phenomenal indeed."
"Ah shit," Barret cursed, getting pissed, "Why can't we just up, and blast the stupid thing? I say if we put enough firepower behind it, I bet we could blow it in to tiny little pieces!"
"See," Reno exclaimed, pointing in Barret's general direction, shaking his head. "There he goes again with that! I told you, that's his solution to everything. If he were in charge, even toddlers would have guns!"
"Hey! Come over here and say that to my face, skinny!"
"Actually," Cloud said aloud, his eyes unfocused, staring off into space it seemed, "Shooting it down might not be such a bad idea…" Elena snorted at that, rolling her eyes, while Rufus shook his head.
"I just don't think it could be done."
"Well," Yuffie grumbled, "Why not? Why couldn't we just shot the damn thing down?"
"For starters," Tseng answered for his boss, "We do not have access to anything that is near big enough to damage something of such a huge size. Secondly, it would require an enormous amount of energy and power just to shoot anything into space. A rocket is hard enough, but a projectile? And thirdly, and though I've already said it, I'll do so again, just to make the point clear…we don't have anything that we could use, and building something like that from scratch, no matter how many engineers and technicians we have gathered in the city, we would never get it done in less than nine days."
"What about the Junon cannon?" Cloud interjected, having been mired in his own world of thoughts, as he had a tendency to do, a plan of his own forming, "That would have to be large enough."
"The Sister Ray? You of all people should know that we haven't used that thing in years. It was damaged when Weapon attacked Midgar, it was nearly overloaded when that screwball Hojo attempted to overload the reactors, and when Meteor was hovering just over our heads, the force caused by that inflicted more damage. Not to mention that it has been sitting out there for well over two years. It certainly couldn't be put to any use!"
"But, you said if we had to build it from scratch we would never make the deadline. What if we didn't build it from scratch? What if we moved it again to a better firing position, and refurnished it. If we tried to rebuild it, we'd run out of time. But if it's fixed up just enough to be able to fire even a single shot, then it might do the trick. Is that possible?" This final question was directed towards the astronomers, who in turn glanced at each other, sheepishly clearing their throats.
"Well uh…that's…not really our area of expertise. We are mere astronomers, not physicists. If you want a scientific provability that it might work, I couldn't accurately tell you. However, in my opinion…I suppose it could possibly. It would require numerous factors, some of which might happen while some might not. For example, the fact that you would need to move and rebuild something of such a colossal size is a daunting challenge in itself. Not to mention with the time limit of course. But like I said…that's not our area of expertise."
"It is an idea," Rufus admitted, "But even if we were to get it working…what would we use as a projectile? The Midgar reactors are history, and we could never gather enough Mako to shoot it. If we could, then it might be plausible. We were able to break down Sephiroth's barrier over the Northern Crater with it, so the strength of the shot would not be in question. But then, I suppose taking even more energy from the planet would not be a wise idea. Hmm…There must be something else we could use that has just as much power. If we could think of something then I dare say that the idea would have a hope of working…"
"A powerful weapon huh?" Reeve chuckled, "Hah, where's Scarlet when you actually need her. That was always her area of expertise."
"Come to think of it, I seem to recall Scarlet having a whole load of her files backed up on the mainframe here. She had the bulk of them with here in Shinra Tower, but she kept back ups here." Rufus turned to the Turks. "Did any of you come across something like that?"
"Yes sir," Elena answered at once, "They were backed up here, but due to a system crash two months ago, all previous data had been wiped out. All existing files were destroyed." One could almost hear the groans of despair of everyone in the room at the news. Except for the nervous laughter.
"Uh yeah…" Reno glanced about, grinning slightly, "About that. See, I know those files too, and…hah ha, well I also happened on them a while ago. Before the computer crashed. I saw they were kinda restricted. You know, the top secret stuff. But I stole a peak anyways, I could hardly resist. Thought they might be important, so I downloaded them onto a disk drive. You know…just in case…"
"And the disk drive?" Tseng demanded. Reno's grin grew and he strolled with that suave swagger of his over to a shelf in the office. There was a large white book titled, "The History of Shinra." Tucked away just inside was a slim diskette.
"Thought I'd put it in a safe place."
"Always the sly type," Reeve told him to which Reno gave a bow. He handed over the disk to the president, who in turn plugged it into his own personal computer built into his desk. After booting it up, he sat hunched over the screen for many minutes, clicking and typing in short bursts, his eyes focused and flipping back and forth rapidly. Everyone waited…the suspense was great.
A possible course of action had at last been determined, but without using Mako, the possibility of the cannon doing enough damage was highly questionable. Something else equally powerful would be needed. Finally, Rufus sat back in his chair, putting his fingers together, a thoughtful look crossing his face. He said nothing for a time, perhaps thinking of a way to gently let down everyone's hopes, that the half crazed Shinra weapons manager didn't have anything useful on her files of destruction.
"Everyone," he called at last, his face getting a peculiar little smile as he turned to face the group, "We just might have a way."