Age of Power 1: Legacy Read Online Free PDF Page B

out an asteroid almost the same distance away as the
Moon. Still, we did our human best.
    On the night it
happened, videos popped up on YouTube showing the flashes from the explosions
near the Moon. It was during Iowa’s daytime, so all we could do was hear about
it and look at the pretty pictures. The military told us that it would work.
The asteroid was at just the right point that, when that much force was
unleashed, the nuclear warheads blast waves should have pushed it outward.
    To the world’s
horror, Yama’s trajectory didn’t change by one single degree. It fascinated the
scientists, of course. They kept saying that the pressure waves from such
firepower should have worked. A few hoped to solve the problem by the time the
rock hit us.  Why?  Because they wanted to
know, and Armageddon or no, at least they would die having cracked that
mystery. They knew that it would be the last cosmic mystery they would ever
have a chance to solve.
    Physicists kept
describing the very bad day we would have. They did it so incessantly, that I
muttered something about them looking forward to it. I was thinking that often
about scientists since the start of this insanity. And the more I heard their
talk, the more I was beginning to be convinced I was right. But Mom said
something that made me think twice. She said they were scared too. So scared,
that they could focus only on the job at hand, talk about Yama, or go insane
with fear and desperation as the rock closed in.
    Thinking about
that point, I realized that everyone was only doing exactly what they knew how
to do. Scientists did research to stop this or explain the failure. The
religious prayed, hoping that a God or Gods would answer before the coming
‘Day.’ And the politicians promised. Everyone else did his or
her best to run and find a way to survive. And some of us just accepted
it, as Mom had.
    Dad though, Dad
had tried finding ways to get us down to Mexico. But Mom knew what the impact
numbers meant. She wasn’t a super genius or anything, but she could figure out
what would happen after the first blast. Calmly determined, she ticked off all
that would happen after the impact. She brought up slow starvation, burning
forests, the freezing of the northern hemisphere, and the likelihood of an ice
age after the fires.
    Then it would
get nasty.
    Dad would argue
about Riverlite being inside the asteroid’s blast radius. Mom would come back
with facts about the fate of the survivors in increasing detail. After hours of
denial, of anger, and every effort he could come up with to convince Mom, he
slumped on the couch in the living room.
    Okay, there was
a lot more fighting, and he did a lot more to try to save us. He made calls and
tried calling in favors. He lost friends trying to get us on a fast flight to
safety. Either people didn’t return phone calls, or they would tell him he was
out of luck. Finally, Dad had to accept that it was just not going to happen.
    In the end, we
didn’t run. Instead, we watched from our living-room windows as townspeople
abandoned Riverlite. It frightened me, and the only thing that kept me from
freaking out was thinking about my friends, especially Brand, and hoping they
would get far enough away, to be safe. Intellectually, I knew they wouldn't be.
    To my surprise,
while watching the lines of cars going south, I found that I still could hope.
I didn’t feel the despair I was seeing on television or in Dad’s eyes, when he
thought no one was looking. I don’t know why, but while I accepted Mom’s
explanations and backed up her arguments, a part of me—a deep part of me—still
couldn’t wrap itself around the possibility of dying. At least, not right
then. It would come ,  I was sure .
But way down at the pit of my soul, I kept feeling as though something would
stop this. Maybe I believed we'd have a miracle or that a last minute
rescue would come.
    But no miracles
came, and the asteroid continued coming. Still three days