Solar Strike AKA Solar Attack Page #2

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Try rerouting it through circuit 4

Joe?

Joe! Where'd he go?

I don't know.

Get him back, Jim.

This is Galileo. Come in, ground control.

A power outage?

How the hell could that be possible?

It's got to be an instrument malfunction.

On every instrument? No way.

Get me radio communications now.

This is Galileo. Come in ground control.

Telemetry's back up.

We're getting a signal.

Joe, can you hear me?!

Come in, Galileo

What the hell happened, Lucas?

I had a full system shut-down.

We lost you here. You just...

vanished from the tracking screens.

What's going on?

I don't know. Everything just shut down.

All of the instrumentation, life-support,

booster rockets, everything.

That's not possible.

What was it, Lucas?

Tell me you've got this under control.

We're working on it, Joe, as soon as I...

Joe! Joe?!

Joe!

Galileo to base.

Galileo to base. Do you copy?

JOE!!

We have full signal loss: No telemetry.

Larry, check the emergency

transponder frequency.

No go!

Satellite tracking indicates

multiple targets on Galileo flight path.

We have confirmation that Lucas Foster's

space launch has turned tragic.

Half an hour after launch,

these images were filmed over California

detailing the doomed mission.

Foster Aeronautics won't comment on

the status of pilot Joe Johnson

and whether he was able to

safely jettison...

Oh my God! What happened?

Lucas lost the MAV, Joanna.

An explosion.

What about Joe?

We don't know.

There's no sign of an ejection pod.

Here he comes. Here he comes.

No comment.

A statement. Please!

What happened to the MAV, Dr. Foster?

I don't have any comments at this time.

Lucas?

Hello, Joanna.

Lucas, I just heard. I'm so sorry.

Did Joe get out?

Is there any way he could have ejected?

It doesn't appear so.

We're assuming the worst.

If there's anything that I can do...

Thanks, but for now uh, there isn't.

Lucas, I'm just trying to

help you out here. Please.

What do you need?

Access to all the data that you have,

uh, tracking, flight logs, Sims...

All right.

Just before the explosion,

there was... a brief power loss.

A power loss?

I have no idea what caused it,

or if it's related.

But it just cut out for a second.

- Joanna?

- Yeah?

This isn't a Brad thing, is it?

It's you that's asking?

Yeah, Lucas, it's me.

And I am so sorry.

Thanks.

It's a hell of a time

for something like this.

In a Russian-built vehicle as well.

Gonna do wonders for

the President's stress level.

Excuse me, Admiral.

I fail to see the relationship.

The Russian submarine fleet is running

maneuvers off the Greenland coast,

Colonel Alby.

They got twelve submarines in the water.

It's a Security

Council-approved exercise, Admiral.

Exercise, sure.

See the thing is, we don't want 'em

backsliding into Communism,

so we say, "sure, go ahead, have fun".

I still don't see what that

has to do with the MAV explosion.

If they so much as float a boat

even an inch over approved lines,

I want to know about it.

- Do you all hear me?

- Yes, sir.

I want to know because

the President expects me to know.

Now these exercises aren't "hostile"

but we have good reason to suspect that

three of their subs

are carrying nuclear missiles.

Now. If a Russian-built space vehicle

blows up in mid-air.

Colonel, are you going to be the one to

trust Russian subs, with onboard nukes?

I see what you mean

about stress levels, Admiral.

Lucas! I've been lookin' all over for you!

You need to see this.

What is it?

We just started gettin'

the feeds from the MAV.

We picked up a methane spike.

It's off the charts.

Sensors must've failed in the explosion.

This can't be.

Yeah, but look at all the other data,

it's right on.

This is crazy. This can't be right.

Joanna, this transmission

just came in from Japan.

This is their very latest data.

And this is from

the Southern Observatory in Chile.

And this is Anchorage.

The photo you are looking at, is the CME

that we believe took out the solar probe.

According to calculations,

the mass from this emanation

would've hit the earth's atmosphere.

Right about the time

that Lucas lost his MAV.

Yes.

These new views show the sun emitting

multiple CME's in a short time-span,

the sun has never done anything

like this before.

Well, not in recorded history, anyway.

How long has this activity been going?

If these motion

calculations are accurate

then the CME cluster is on the ecliptic

heading towards sector 12.

Which brings the earth

directly into its line of fire.

Yes.

Joanna?

You know,

I've been looking all over for you.

Brad, we have a big problem.

How big?

Where'd you get this?

Why didn't we have this?

A friend of mine at the Southern

Observatory heard about the MAV

and he thought that we might be

intrigued is what he said.

These are huge. It's like...

the sun is shedding its skin?

Yeah. But why hasn't Joanna...

she would have known about this.

- Are you sure this is right?

- Well, it's accurate.

Let's run it again.

Lucas. What are you doing here?

You scared the hell out of me.

Well, don't worry, I'm about to scare

the hell right back into you.

Why didn't you tell me about the CMEs?

When?

Every news reporter in town has turned your

building into an impenetrable fortress,

you're no longer answering your

cell phone, and your secretary...

oh, excuse me, secretaries,

all four of them

happen to think that

you're out of the country,

even though you're doing a

press conference in the same building.

Did you know?

Tell me you didn't know.

I just found out about it an hour ago.

Look, Lucas.

The power failure in the MAV

had to have been caused by this.

The CME was hitting the same area.

It's the only explanation.

The CME didn't just cause the electrical

failure, the CME obliterated the MAV.

That's impossible. These solar events

do not just randomly blow things up.

The CME didn't blow it up,

it ignited methane

in the upper atmosphere.

And that blew up the MAV.

Oh no, no.

You did not come down here

just to start in on this again,

did you Lucas?

Joanna, before the MAV blew,

it took a Methane reading

that was off the charts.

There's been a shift

going on in the atmosphere,

the likes of which we've never seen.

You mix that in with this solar event,

and you have a recipe...

For destruction, yes. I know, Lucas.

I lived with your theories for six years.

Joanna, if my theory is right,

this event is no recipe for destruction.

This is a recipe for extinction.

Lucas, what happened yesterday

was a tragedy.

It was a horrible freak accident,

but the MAV was outside of the D-7 belt!

It was above the ozone,

it was vulnerable.

We are not!

The CMEs that I saw are like nothing

we've ever encountered before.

Not only will they take out anything

in the outer atmosphere,

they're packing enough power

to break through the ozone,

especially with those cute little holes

we keep punching into it.

I am done listening to this.

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