The Gemini Divergence (35 page)

Graff went with one crew into one of the
sides of the outer rim, and Schwerig went with the other crew.

As they started to cut, fumes started to fill
the compartment and people started to gag, but Schwerig was
amazingly, not fazed.

Graff shouted back, “Oberst, what about the
fumes?”

Schwerig responded loudly and to the point,
“Would you rather die?”

Back on the ground, Lemay turned to a female
aid standing behind him by the door and with a huge smile asked,
“Can you go fetch us something to snack on, honey… the boys and I
have the game on, and none of us want to leave during the big
play?”

She looked slightly agitated, but responded
anyway and left the room.

Back on the station, as the cutting torch
crews were nearing completion, the demolition team was floating the
charges to be set into the opposed compartments.

Schwerig instructed them to start setting
them immediately, even though the cutting was not yet complete.

Once the cutting was completed, Schwerig
ordered the crews back into the spoke and showed them were he
wanted them to start cutting.

President Truman silently inquired of Volmer,
“Dr. Volmer, if they manage to get that part of the station
severed, what is going to happen when it falls back to earth? Is
there going to be a nuclear explosion?”

Volmer answered, “There won’t be a nuclear
explosion, but when the reactor can no longer be cooled, it will
melt through its shielding and turn all of the water that is
surrounding it into instant steam. So it will be like a large ocean
vessel’s boiler exploding. “

Truman then reiterated, “What then will
happen to all that debris when it falls?”

“It will most certainly burn up. When objects
traveling at that speed collide with the atmosphere the friction
will be immense, everything will burn to ashes, and then that is
all that will fall to earth, ashes.”

Lemay who had been listening over Volmer’s
shoulder responded, “I know you have never been wrong about stuff
like this before, but I sure hope your right.”

In space, the demolition crews had completed
placing the charges and Schwerig then commanded the remaining crew
members to retreat into the spoke, abandoning the reactor
section.

Once inside of the spoke Schwerig ordered the
doors shut as the last men entered from the reactor control room,
trailing along the wires that would be used to ignite the charges
that they had placed.

Lemay asked Volmer, “Where exactly over the
Earth do you believe that they are at this moment?”

Volmer looked at his watch, and then at the
ceiling as he thought, “Oh, they should be passing over the
continental United States for the next few minutes.”

Lemay and Truman glanced at each other with
extreme concern in their facial expressions.

The demolition technician that just completed
wiring the detonator held it ready as he looked at Schwerig for his
cue.

Schwerig looked around the room in the spoke
and ordered the doors towards the hub opened. After they were open,
he turned back around and nodded to the demolition technician to
proceed with the detonation.

The technician winced and braced for a blast
as he turned the actuator on the detonator. The room jolted and
shimmied as the sound of the muffled blast vibrated though out the
entire station.

Outside of the station, debris silently flew
out into space from both blast areas.

Schwerig sat listening to the debris hitting
the outer skin of the station as he was hesitantly hopeful that his
plan had worked so far; the rim had been severed and the reactor
was only held on now by the station spoke that they were presently
occupying.

Schwerig told the demolition team leader,
“Start placing the charges now.”

“But Oberst, the walls are still hot from the
cutting torches. They haven’t even finished yet.”

“Do it now, Feldwebel, or I’ll personally
float your ass out of the station door.”
“Jawohl, Herr Oberst, replied the team leader, as he reluctantly
felt the wall for its temperature, before he placed his charges on
it.”

As the cutting torch team finished with the
cuts, the construction team leader turned to Schwerig and gave him
a thumbs-up.

Schwerig responded, “Get your crew and your
equipment out of here and move them to the station’s center
hub.”

The construction team leader quickly floated
his team and their equipment, through the open doors towards the
center hub.

Schwerig noticed that Lemay had not made any
comments for some time.

He hoped that meant his radio technicians
were finally able to turn the intercom/radio connection off, but
actually Lemay didn’t want to show Schwerig that he was growing
very concerned about the possibility of a nuclear reactor exploding
over the continental United States.

Graff asked Schwerig, “Oberst, How long do we
have before the reactor melts down and blows up?”

Lemay and Volmer, both perk up to listen more
intently.

“How should I know?” snapped Schwerig, “our
overambitious atomic scientists were apparently not ambitious
enough to install a count down timer. It appears as though they
believed that there would never be an emergency.”

“Herr Oberst,” interrupted the demolition
team leader, “The explosives have all been set. The charges that I
have set in this compartment are about equal to the combined
charges of both of the other two compartments.”

“Very good Feldwebel,” responded Schwerig as
he stood as erect as he could whilst floating and commanded,
“alright, everybody out, jetzt.”

Crew members began evacuating the outer
chamber of the station spoke; the demolition team leader being the
last one out, towing the detonation wires as he egressed from the
chamber.

Once he had arrived at the station hub, where
everyone else was waiting, he began splicing the wires in order to
ready the detonator. He showed frustration with the difficulty of
achieving a normally easy task, in the absence of any gravity. He
realized how much we take gravity for granted, using it for a third
and fourth hand to achieve the simplest of tasks.

Once he was finished he gave a final
thumbs-up to Schwerig, who replied with a sharp, “Jetzt!”

Outside, in the silent vacuum of space, the
station sat quiet for a moment. Then, still in silence, the
explosion instantly sent debris in a radial pattern from the
perimeter of the severance ring. Most of it continued to travel
through space, but some of it strikes other parts of the station
with incredible force.

Schwerig floated standing firm for his men to
see. Even though he had some fear, he didn’t show a bit of it to
his men.

He listened as the entire station sounded
like it was coming apart at the seams, groaning and creaking, as
well as the sound of debris pounding the outer hull like they were
receiving machine gun fire.

Outside there was silence as the severed
section started to pull away from the station.

All of the former Kriegsmariner submariners
instinctively started to close bulkhead doors throughout the
station, as if they were on a sinking vessel.

Suddenly alarms started ringing again from
the debris that has penetrated other parts of the station, and
causing sudden depressurization in some compartments.

In the chaos of men clamoring for safety,
additional confusion was added by the men looking out the windows,
shouting in joy as the reactor section started to move away from
the station.

Lemay looked at Volmer for some translations,
but Volmer replied with, “I am very confused, some are pleading for
help, while others are euphoric with joy.”

“This is no time for celebration!” Schwerig
chastised the euphoric crew members, “We have crew mates in need,
and we still don’t know if we are in the clear from when the
reactor explodes.”

Volmer quickly translated Schwerig’s burst
for Lemay.

Lemay silently commented to others in the
room with him, “Boy, you have to give the guy credit. He never
drops the reins, does he?”

Schwerig quickly started pointing at people
and dividing them into groups, giving each of them urgent tasks, to
save others and secure the station.

After he had meted out every urgent task, he
floated over to a window to see how far the reactor section had
floated away.

It was about 100 meters from the station
already, and still moving away, spinning end over end as it left
the station.

He sighed with relief that the other station
was behind them at the time. In all of the commotion, he had failed
to check the location of the other station, once the one he was in
had stopped rotating.

As he looked behind, he could see that some
of the men were finding places to stop and rest.

He instantly bellowed, “What are you doing?
There is still much work to do. I need some technicians working on
the backup power to get this thing spinning again. This instant…
Move!”

Lemay looked at Volmer and asked, “Is there
any way that the reactor is still going to get them?”

Volmer responded, “If it gets two to three
hundred meters or more away from the station before it explodes,
they are in the clear. Unless, by freak happenstance a piece of
shrapnel large enough to cause significant damage returns to strike
them, but the odds are now in their favor.

Truman stood and asked, “Do you think that
they may be more civil about an agreement now?”

Lemay answered, “Mr. President, I think that
both teams are holding significant hands now… I believe that they
will talk, instead of living in constant fear of another hit.”

Schwerig looked out his window just in time
to see the reactor section explode.

It exploded like nothing he had ever seen
before. Once the steam pressure blew the section apart, the vacuum
of space began dissipating the steam so quickly, it appeared as
though it was being pulled apart, rather than blown apart.

It blew debris in every spherical direction,
much like an exploding fireworks display.

He braced as the ever expanding spherical
wall of debris overtook his station.

Again, it sounded like their station was
being shot at. Alarms that had many times been turned off already,
started to sound again. The halls again echoed with men’s cries for
help, but Schwerig suddenly felt relieved.

He knew that the worst of the situation was
over… They made it.

*~*

People all over America saw the brief white
flash in the sky. But, many more saw the resultant falling
stars.

Citizens everywhere came out to see the
dazzling display of an unannounced meteor shower along with a rare
showing of what they thought were the Northern Lights.

~~~**^**~~~

The Cold
War / The Holloman Accord

Christmas and New Years passed by, leaving
the cold remainder of winter, and a new, wildly popular President
Elect for the United States… Ike Eisenhower.

Millions of discharged war veterans elected
the general that they had followed loyally during the war to be
their new Commander in Chief and President. Most felt that he was
more than qualified to stand up against the Russians and jump start
the post war economy.

In January of 1953, Ike was inaugurated and
Truman peacefully stepped down. Then Ike was briefed that the
spectral foo fighter lights from the war were more of a national
concern than he may have ever thought. He was told about the recent
escalation of Nazi aggression, and about the most recent American
ambush victory.

The Truman administration had been trying to
come to some sort of understanding with the Nazis because it would
have been far too much of an embarrassment, and cause much unneeded
questioning of legitimate authority, if the American public were to
find out that WWII really hadn’t ended.

Eisenhower decided to escalate the saber
rattling and demonstrate America’s burgeoning military prowess by
immediately testing the new hydrogen bomb as well as increasing the
testing of Von Braun’s latest development for the United States,
the Redstone rocket.

The U.S. contacted the Raumsfahrtwaffe to
give them a heads up about the pending tests in order to allow them
to monitor and witness the potential of the new arsenal.

Before January of 1953 had passed, America
demonstrated its new Hydrogen bomb for the entire world to see.

The Redstone rockets were tested as well, but
brought less fan fare from the press, although rest assured that
the powers of the world were well aware that the new rocket meant
that the U.S. was capable of delivering that bomb to any location
on the planet.

Unbeknownst to the rest of the world, the
Raumsfahrtwaffe also realized that the bomb could now be delivered
to any place in orbit as well.