Sky Fall by Logan Keys

Author:Logan Keys [Keys, Logan]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Published: 2019-02-20T06:00:00+00:00

8

Two Years Earlier

Wirtz nodded so subtly no one would have noticed that Griggs had entered the room. Behind the screen, he was shielded from the senator and the rest of everyone important enough to discuss this “Sol Project”.

He set the tea on the desk just out of sight, and Wirtz took it and began to sip.

“I don’t understand why I’m a part of this?” Wirtz asked the screen, holding his cup up and pinky out so that Griggs had to hide his smile. “You make it sound like I know anything about satellites and rocket ships. These men with NASA, they are the kind of people you should be talking to. Why am I in on this?”

“Because you were requested. Your careful consideration is held in great esteem. Your wisdom has been something that the American people can owe their lives to a few times over. You have a sense of danger and a sense of honor that would cast a vote of balance and this project essentially….”

“You want me to give a pass on something I know nothing about?”

That got Griggs’ attention. Wirtz seemed angry, a rare thing indeed.

The senator went on to tell Wirtz, “We have faith that you’ll be a sage voice that helps us decide what’s right. You’ve made decisions before, big ones, that even to this day citizens aren’t aware of, that helped detour major wars. Let me be frank with you, General Wirtz, we need the same man who could sway those rogue governments who threatened nuclear war to sway our own government to start a nuclear war.”

Wirtz seemed to pale, and he was distracted, but finally gave Griggs a look that said for him to leave.

In a strange change of habit, he pushed his cup towards Griggs as well. It was half full, and Griggs frowned but took the cup.

He’d never done that before. He always finished his tea.

It was a small, insignificant thing to anyone else. Perhaps they were full. Perhaps they want a different type of tea. But for four-star General Wirtz, the man who did everything exactly the same every single day without diversion, it was telling.

As Griggs was taking the cup from the room, he waited a beat near the door. His hands shook. Nuclear war? With whom?

But then he heard the senator give the floor to a man who said even more crazy things. “We have one available rocket to launch. This one, the Kepler, will take thirty-eight days to get to the sun, but it’s more unreliable, being that it travels so quickly. This one, Cassini II, which is far more reliable and cost effective, will take a year to build, and will take one hundred and fifty-eight days to get there.”

“How long do we have again?” Wirtz asked.

“Until what?”

The man from Nasa answered, “How long until our sun dies? Sir, we would have had to start building the Cassini II thirty days ago, but with a little bit of extra funding, we could make a go of it.

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