“How many people do we have down there, General?”
“Just the three.”
The President’s eyes narrowed. “And the Russians?”
“Twenty.”
The Secretary of Defense spoke up, her voice sharp and emphatic. “There’s still the possibility that sphere has five hundred American men and women.”
The President turned to General Painter. “Could that be true?”
General Painter bit down the fear that churned in his gut. “No, Mr. President. The last communication we received from the crew of Habitat Zero was in October 22, 1963. If they are still alive down there, you’d have to wonder, why they haven’t made contact?”
The President ran his eyes across the rest of the members of his statutory attendees. His Vice President, Secretary of State, Secretary of Defense, Secretary of Energy, Secretary of the Treasury. Their faces all showed steely resolve.
“All right,” the President said, “Let’s take out the sphere.”
Susan Borg, his Secretary of State, warned, “That might trigger a conflict between us and the Russians.”
“Margaret?” he asked, turning to meet his Secretary of Defense directly. “What do you think?”
“I think that analysis is highly unlikely, sir. You can get around any mishaps, simply by contacting the Russians directly, and advising them that you plan to destroy the sphere, which is one of our own vessels. No one can argue that you were trying to enrage war, when you shoot down your own vessel.”
The President arched an eyebrow. “So you approve of the idea?”
“No, sir. My concern isn’t about escalating to war with the Russians. My concern is entirely for our own people. There have been reports that the original colony of people on Habitat Zero are still alive.”
“That might be true, and it might not be.” The President liked to walk around the room when he addressed the committee. “The point becomes moot here. You see, one thing we know for certain, inside that sphere, there we have more advanced technology than anywhere else in the world. If we do nothing, the Russians will board the sphere and take command of it. Once that happens, we will be well outside our grounds to destroy the damned thing.” He changed his tack, as though the committee’s acceptance of his speech, a foregone conclusion. “All right, any other concerns?”
No one spoke.
“Good. General Painter, make the arrangements. I want the sphere nuked.”
“Yes, Mr. President.”
Chapter Fifty-Four
Inside the Pentagon Command Center, the Secretary of Defense breathed hard as she watched the live feed coming in from the USS Michael Monsoor.
There was silence in the room.
The decision to destroy the sphere had already been made. Now it was merely a case waiting and watching as the fine men and women of the US Navy implemented the decision.
She watched the torpedo fire.
Given the extremely devastating power it was about to commit, the little torpedo — at just 19 feet in length and 21 inches in diameter — seemed surprisingly small as it whirred its way through the water before turning its head vertical and nose diving toward the sphere.
The nuclear torpedo was tethered to the USS Michael Monsoor via a communication cable, which provided real-time data including its built-in sonar and video feed.
The video feed became useless after three thousand feed when it entered the ocean’s midnight zone and everything became dark.
The sonar continued to show what little was in front of the torpedo as it raced to the bottom of the Mariana Trench.
Traveling at a speed of 55 knots, it took just over 6.1 minutes to reach the sphere.
The Secretary of Defense involuntarily held her breath as the sphere came into visual range of the torpedo’s sonar.
On the top left-hand corner of the video feed, a number showed the reducing distance in feet between the torpedo and the sphere.
It entered the last 1000 feet.
The Secretary of Defense fixed her eyes on the sphere, praying that Sam Reilly and his crew had gotten out and that she had been wrong about the original crew of the Habitat Zero program.
A moment later, the sphere disappeared.
The torpedo circled around the location where the torpedo had been and then stopped, leaving a visual feed of the sonar view of the seafloor below.
The President stood up, and turning to General Painter for clarity, said, “What the hell just happened?”
General Painter said, “We’re working on it, Mr. President. It might just be a fault with the communications cable. Maybe our live-feed has frozen.”
The feed showed the torpedo was circling in a classic predator-prey attack mode, searching for and trying to acquire its target.
The Secretary of Defense shook her head. “That doesn’t look like a video-feed issue to me.”
The President said, “Then, do you want to tell me what the hell happened to my damned sphere!”
“I think it’s obvious, Mr. President.”
“What?” he replied, in an unrestrained voice.
The Secretary of Defense straightened the hem of her suit. “Well sir, I believe the crew from Habitat Zero are still alive, and they just took evasive maneuvers to avoid being destroyed.”
The President’s eyes narrowed. “But Habitat Zero never had its own propulsion system… it was towed out into the Pacific and then sunk to the bottom of the Mariana Trench.”
The Secretary of Defense suppressed a grin. “It appears, sir, the crew have upgraded Habitat Zero.”
Chapter Fifty-Five
Sam Reilly watched the news report he’d been waiting for.
The members of the United Nations had banded together to reprimand the Russian government after investigations revealed a large-scale nuclear waste storage facility had been discovered beneath the Andaman Sea off the coast of Thailand and Myanmar. It had been used for nearly sixty years to dispose of nuclear waste.
Sam watched it with pleasure.
The next report showed Commander Baxter speaking to a group of News Reporters. It had now been two weeks since Habitat Zero had official declared its Independence from the United States of America. Its commander stated that his committee believe that seeing as the sphere had been run as an Independent state for more than seventy years, without any acknowledgement or aid from the United States, it was entitled to now be recognized as such.
During the report, the Commander noted that they had just delivered their letter of such intent to the Security Council of the United Nations, asking for admission to the UN.
Sam grinned.
They would have an uphill battle trying to secede from the United States. It was a battle he didn’t envy them. Nor did he believe it mattered what he thought they should do. The fact was, they had been lied to for nearly seventy years. There were children on board who were now in their late sixties, who had never seen the sun, let alone, been to the United States.
It all made for a horrible situation.
But he was pleased that the people of Habitat Zero had come through with the strength and resilience to let the world know what they want.
His phone rang.
It was the Secretary of Defense. “Did you watch the news?”
“Yes,” Sam said, noncommittally.
“Wasn’t that a nightmare,” she said. “Don’t they know they’re going to have hell to pay if they want their Independence.”
“Yeah, I figured,” Sam said. “Just wait until the lawsuits start to flow. You know someone will still remember about the judicial system. Someone will want compensation. From what I hear, DARPA knew about Habitat Zero and was using its unique group of people to develop technology for them, through the use of their original Commander — a Mr. Ray Smyth — who had kept the entire population in the dark about the truth.”