Chapter 2: The big bang

Kathmandu, Nepal

Dr. Wahid Khan gazed at the screen. He with his teammates, Dr. Li Xhiang and Harry Crastor had been sitting for almost 10 hours straight. The screen showed a tiny blip moving, while another screen simulated the trajectory in real-time.

"Li, any changes?" Wahid asked for the 10th time in the last hour.

"Sir nothing, you should take some rest. Please, I've been telling you, you look so bad"

Wahid sighed and stood, He headed towards the sofa and slumped, and he started to doze off.

20 days ago Wahid received a call from his office to come immediately. He was stationed in Nepal, an Observatory for Comets. Dr. Wahid and his partner Dr. Li Xhiang both worked on a computer that could simulate the trajectories of incoming comets and could even trace where they were coming from. Before that, they both worked with a few astronomers on the comets that have hit Earth.

When Wahid got there, there was confusion in the air. Wahid went straight to the computer but was stopped by Li, who took him to another room.

"Doctor, we have traced a comet and it's projected towards the earth."

"Li, that's what we see almost every week"

"Yes, but our software traced it coming from Oort cloud."

"What? that's where the comet came.. the name...I can't remember."

"The Comet, that killed the dinosaurs, that caused the Chicxulub Crater."

"Li, 90% of all the comets are stopped by our giant friend, Jupiter. The rest by other debris, and even if any meteoroid manages to enter our atmosphere, it'll get heated up and vanish, like so many before. Now let's calm everyone down, come on my friend."

Both of them observed the trajectory for a few days. Li, a young man in his mid-30s, was from Wuhan, he joined NASA and joined Wahid's astronomical team. He and Wahid had been close. Wahid a 55-year-old scientist, professor, was from Pakistan, preferred the Nepal observatory because it was close to his hometown, Kashmir.

They both continued checking up on the Chicxulub Comet and it seemed pretty conventional.

Until a week ago, one of the interns observed an 85° change in the trajectory. Wahid and Li both came from their residential places to see. Wahid assumed there had to be a glitch, while Li insisted that it might be due to collision as there was debris projected as well. Wahid checked the calculations again and re-ran the trajectory, and it was the same. Both of them worked on it for about an hour before deciding it was a calculation glitch when Li looked at the screen again.

"Sir, look"

The blip changed the angle again, Wahid moved closer towards the screen. And the blip moved again, now moving in a zig-zag.

Li couldn't believe his eyes either.

"Sir.. it looks like.."

".. It's avoiding the debris"

Li panicked and held Wahid by his arm

"We have to call someone"

And Wahid immediately called his HQ, and after several runarounds, he got to the right place, IAWN, the International Asteroid Warning Network. He explained the whole situation and gave his insights regarding it. It sounded crazy out loud, but, Dr. Wahid explained his observation, there's an object moving towards the earth and it's maneuvering itself around the space.

He hanged up the call after he was done, and looked at Li, who was as confused as he was. They both moved towards the screen to see the blip.

"Li, we have to name it"

"It has to be Chicxulub Comet 2"

Wahid let out a weak laugh.

About an hour or so later, their phone rang. Li put it on the speaker. There was a deep and authoritative voice on.

"Greetings, I'm General Charles Winston. I'm sending one of my men to your observatory. If you need anything, let him know. We'll meet soon if what you're saying is true."

And the line disconnected.

Soon they both received a call separately on their phones from a private number that their guest is arriving soon. They were asked to clear their office and send all scientists and interns back to their homes. Only a few essentials remained with them. Li and Wahid both took turns to observe the trajectory, and both kept a log of every change in the movement. The blip changed the angle several times but always returned to the original trajectory, this worried Wahid a lot; clearly it wasn't a comet, or even an asteroid. Li correctly ruled out the possibility of it being an asteroid as it was getting smaller. This was another reason that Wahid called his HQ immediately. An unidentified object travelling from at least 2000 astronomical units would accumulate a lot of ice and dust around it, and would start shedding it as it would get closer to the Sun. These thoughts led Wahid to believe it could be a spaceship travelling from or beyond the Oort Cloud.

Wahid's train of thought was interrupted by a call from the security, a chopper was requesting permission to land. He gestured Li to get ready and headed out to greet their support from the HQs. A young American man stepped out of the copter, he was skinny and had glasses on as well. He was carrying a few binders with a bunch of papers trying to get out of it. He came straight to Wahid and barely managed to held out his hand.

"Dr. Wahid, huge fan. I'm Harry Crastor from IAWN."

"IAWN? I was expecting DoD!"

"Sir, it is DoD, and you must be Dr. Li Xhiang? So nice to meet you!"

Li nodded and helped him out with the binders. Harry went in and Wahid looked at a few papers that had fallen out. They were all the trajectories leading to different points on the earth.

"Sir... Sir... Dr. Wahid?"

Harry tried to wake Wahid up, Wahid opened his eyes to see Harry in his usual worried face.

"What's the change, harry?"

"It just crossed Venus"

"WHAT? How's that possible?"

Li raised his hand while keeping his eyes fixed at the screen

"With all the excess ice and gas shedding off, it's getting faster"

"Li, Can we get an estimate on the speed?"

"Sir, it's showing 0.2C"

Harry seemed confused, no one or thing has ever reached even 1% of speed of light, let alone 20 percent.

Wahid made a few gestures in the air to calculate the time remaining.

"That leaves us about 2 hours before the impact, what about the size?"

"It's 30 meters more or less"

"Then our only chance is if it sheds enough weight before it enters our atmosphere, the rest will be taken care of by friction"

"Yes, Dr. Wahid, if it actually is a comet" Harry added. He got a ping on his phone and moved to the side. Wahid leaned over the table in front of the screen.

"What the hell is it?"

Harry put his phone aside and started packing the stuff.

"Harry what are you doing?" Dr Wahid asked.

"We are moving" Harry kept packing stuff up "and luckily our General has traced possible impact point here"

Li was now standing, looking excited as a puppy dog.

"So where are we going"

"Whiteville, North Carolina"