Prometheus and the Dragon (Atlas and the Winds Book 2) by Eric Michael Craig Page B
Book: Prometheus and the Dragon (Atlas and the Winds Book 2) by Eric Michael Craig
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Authors: Eric Michael Craig
Tags: asteroid, scifi action, scifi drama, scifi apocalyptic, asteroid impact mitigation strategy, global disaster threat, lunar colony, technological science fiction, political science fiction, government response to impact threat
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Salvation.
For all that the Nephi was a work of art, and would carry the hopes of thirty-one million Latter Day Saints, it had to serve first as an unprecedented piece of engineering. With a crew of twelve men and two women, it began transforming from vehicle to structure the moment it settled onto the regolith.
Anchoring itself into the loose soil with dozens of pilings that drilled down until they bit into bedrock, the true work began. Four walls were driven from the base of the Nephi down into the soil, creating a chamber with a regolith floor. Air was pumped into the room to create an area where the crew could work without the need for spacesuits. The crew unmounted a gargantuan drilling machine from its cradle and connected the laser cutting heads to its crawler and umbilicals. Less than four hours after setting down, they watched as the machine nosed over and began descending into the ground. The lasers, shattering and melting their way through the regolith and rock with equal ease, kicked out a continuous cloud of dust, vaporized metals and gas that were vented through a long pipe extending several hundred yards across the crater floor.
By the end of the first day, they’d tunneled a gently sloping gallery twenty feet in diameter and almost two hundred feet down. The melted surface of the walls shined like polished marble shot through with veins of metallic ores that shimmered and reflected in a hundred hues.
Bishop Zane Clayton, the spiritual leader of the Foundation Ward, the Church’s designation for his crew, knelt in the Celestial room giving thanks for their Prophet and his divinely inspired wisdom. Above him the crystal clear ceiling spread in an open panorama of the true Celestial Kingdom, stars in an infinite black sky. Gazing up into the whole of creation, he felt the love of Heavenly Father like never before, and he knew they had begun to walk the final steps in the True Path of Salvation.
Tomorrow, they would start building the first chamber of the Repository, a vault for storing the genetic materials of every member of the Church. Frozen eggs, waiting to be fertilized, sperm samples, and genealogical records from as far back as King David. A bridge from what was, to what is yet to be. Everything necessary to guarantee, when the Lord returned to Earth, there would be an Army of the Faithful there at his side. The Saints would live on, even after Lucifer had finished his time in the world.
***
Chang Er Prefecture, Tycho:
Becki Czao, as the Western world called her, leaned against the window, asleep on her feet. She’d been giving interviews to everyone, and had become the golden darling of the Zhen-Long , and the Voice of the New Chinese Vision. She’d charmed them all, flashing her beautiful smile and wowing the world with her quick wit and genuine charm. And even if it was a mask, they never knew. She’d become China’s ultimate talking head.
Outside, crews were beginning the delicate process of mating the warhead to the boosters. Altogether, it was an improbable design by Earthly standards, no more than a ball of girders nested in a ring of twenty four engines. The helium-cycle warhead, in its armored chamber, hung from a gantry crane, slowly being lowered into the center of the framework. Pipes snaked between the engines and the array of fuel tanks, with enormous cable trunks swinging open between two black boxes that were the process controller and the inertial positioning sensors. It was wider by far than it was tall, and in truth looked more like a sewer treatment plant than a missile. It had no beauty, except to the engineers, and to them it was an absolute work of art.
For the world, she’d sung such glowing songs of praise she made it sound like an angel. A gift from heaven. She wove pure magic from golden threads, each spun with meticulous care and placed lovingly into the political tapestry they called truth: Propaganda as an art form.
She’d found her gift, and her
For all that the Nephi was a work of art, and would carry the hopes of thirty-one million Latter Day Saints, it had to serve first as an unprecedented piece of engineering. With a crew of twelve men and two women, it began transforming from vehicle to structure the moment it settled onto the regolith.
Anchoring itself into the loose soil with dozens of pilings that drilled down until they bit into bedrock, the true work began. Four walls were driven from the base of the Nephi down into the soil, creating a chamber with a regolith floor. Air was pumped into the room to create an area where the crew could work without the need for spacesuits. The crew unmounted a gargantuan drilling machine from its cradle and connected the laser cutting heads to its crawler and umbilicals. Less than four hours after setting down, they watched as the machine nosed over and began descending into the ground. The lasers, shattering and melting their way through the regolith and rock with equal ease, kicked out a continuous cloud of dust, vaporized metals and gas that were vented through a long pipe extending several hundred yards across the crater floor.
By the end of the first day, they’d tunneled a gently sloping gallery twenty feet in diameter and almost two hundred feet down. The melted surface of the walls shined like polished marble shot through with veins of metallic ores that shimmered and reflected in a hundred hues.
Bishop Zane Clayton, the spiritual leader of the Foundation Ward, the Church’s designation for his crew, knelt in the Celestial room giving thanks for their Prophet and his divinely inspired wisdom. Above him the crystal clear ceiling spread in an open panorama of the true Celestial Kingdom, stars in an infinite black sky. Gazing up into the whole of creation, he felt the love of Heavenly Father like never before, and he knew they had begun to walk the final steps in the True Path of Salvation.
Tomorrow, they would start building the first chamber of the Repository, a vault for storing the genetic materials of every member of the Church. Frozen eggs, waiting to be fertilized, sperm samples, and genealogical records from as far back as King David. A bridge from what was, to what is yet to be. Everything necessary to guarantee, when the Lord returned to Earth, there would be an Army of the Faithful there at his side. The Saints would live on, even after Lucifer had finished his time in the world.
***
Chang Er Prefecture, Tycho:
Becki Czao, as the Western world called her, leaned against the window, asleep on her feet. She’d been giving interviews to everyone, and had become the golden darling of the Zhen-Long , and the Voice of the New Chinese Vision. She’d charmed them all, flashing her beautiful smile and wowing the world with her quick wit and genuine charm. And even if it was a mask, they never knew. She’d become China’s ultimate talking head.
Outside, crews were beginning the delicate process of mating the warhead to the boosters. Altogether, it was an improbable design by Earthly standards, no more than a ball of girders nested in a ring of twenty four engines. The helium-cycle warhead, in its armored chamber, hung from a gantry crane, slowly being lowered into the center of the framework. Pipes snaked between the engines and the array of fuel tanks, with enormous cable trunks swinging open between two black boxes that were the process controller and the inertial positioning sensors. It was wider by far than it was tall, and in truth looked more like a sewer treatment plant than a missile. It had no beauty, except to the engineers, and to them it was an absolute work of art.
For the world, she’d sung such glowing songs of praise she made it sound like an angel. A gift from heaven. She wove pure magic from golden threads, each spun with meticulous care and placed lovingly into the political tapestry they called truth: Propaganda as an art form.
She’d found her gift, and her
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