Prometheus and the Dragon (Atlas and the Winds Book 2) by Eric Michael Craig Page A

here.”
    “That was the most unbelievable thing I’ve ever seen,” he said. “Scared the hell out of us, but as far as we can tell we’ve got no damage. Other than maybe some soiled underwear.”
    “Hey Tony, can you get a bearing on any debris from the drone with your approach control radar?” Carter interrupted. “Our targeting radar is up, but it’s a tight beam. I can’t tell if there’s anything left.”
    “Stand by,” Tony said. After several seconds he came back. “Yeah, we’ve got it, and it’s moving out fast. It’s 25,000 miles from where you hit it, and heading for Mars at almost 150,000 miles an hour.”
    Carter flopped down in his seat and covered his face with his hands, exhaustion and relief tearing tears from his ragged soul. He leaned forward, resting his elbows on the console in front of him.
    “We’ve just reestablished communications with Earth,” Tony said. “The President wants to get a report.”
    “Yeah, give us a second,” Susan said. “Carter’s a little ... well, just tell her we’re all ok and we’ll get back to her.”
    ***
     
    Mount Weather, Virginia:
     
    “Apparently it was a plasma discharge, as Dr. Jacoby suggested,” Danielson said while they waited for Carter Anthony to come online. “There was a much higher gas density around the guns than we’d anticipated when we designed them, and some of the gasses were heavier molecules. If something like that crossed the particle stream, the nuclear reaction would have had sufficient energy to ionize the surrounding area.”
    “Will it happen every time they use them?” The President asked.
    “I doubt it,” he said. “Do you remember when we discussed that if we were to build the guns on Earth, it would have blown away a large portion of the atmosphere?”
    She nodded.
    “Chances are the same thing happened there,” he said. “The force of the reaction probably blew a hole in the pseudo atmosphere that’s developed since the Zhen-Long detonations.”
    Carter Anthony appeared on the screen beside Danielson, his face split by a huge smile even though his eyes were red.
    “Are you ok, Doctor?” the President asked.
    “Yes ma’am,” he said. “It’s just been a long time since I had ...” he stopped, swallowing hard, “any real hope.” His smile wrinkled but clung to his face. She could see how hard he’d been pushing himself in that instant, knowing that although she felt the weight of the world on her shoulders, he felt the weight of eternity.
    She didn’t know what to say. Her words felt flat in her mouth even before she said them. “So I take it the test was a success?” she asked, not knowing what else she could say.
    “Unqualified,” he said, sniffling and wiping his nose with the back of a finger. “The drone survived the pulse exactly as we’d wanted, and the secondary beams detonated the plasma. By now it’s 50,000 miles away.”
    “And the guns themselves were undamaged?” she asked.
    “We’re checking,” he said. “But the discharge doesn’t appear to have had enough energy density to have done much. The electronics survived, and the hardware out there is much more resilient. We’ll go through everything to make sure, but at this point I think we’re ready to start pushing Antu as soon as it comes back into our sky.”
    “When will that be?” she asked, starting to feel the same surge of hope he was riding.
    “Thirteen days,” he said.
    And then the wave broke over her too.
    ***
     
    Zion Repository, East of Schuster Crater, Luna:
     
    The Nephi sat heavily on the surface of the moon, a temple in the dust. Shining towers nestled against the base of a mountain in the center of a small crater, gold on gray, and as dazzlingly out of place as it was striking in its stark beauty. A self-propelled Temple , blessed by the Prophet himself, the Nephi was also to be the front portal to what would become the Zion Repository of the Saints. The latter-day version of the Plan of