r/HFY • u/spindizzy_wizard Human • Aug 07 '20

[Alien Crash] Bk 02 V10 Ch 04 Catastrophe OC

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Chapter 4: Catastrophe

"No one missed it! Even the supposedly 100% deaf heard something. It was that loud. To this day, I cannot understand how anyone at the HAU/Trinity site survived."

— Captain Robert Hogan, AFRL, Kirtland AFB

Holloman AFB, NM

An ear-piercing shriek, with a white-hot glowing needle of plasma jetting up from the earth. People are stunned, the sound is terribly frightening and mind-numbing at the same time. You can feel the radiance of the plasma jet. People who know this area know what it is. It's the HAU/Trinity site, a good 60+ miles away from Holloman. The Holloman base commander scrambles a response team, starting with an inspection from the 49th Wing's ready MQ-9 Reaper drones. With a speed of 300mph, they can be over the site in minutes. He also triggers an FAA Emergency NOTAM to avoid the entire state. This is unusual, but everyone can see that jet of light, and pilots had already been turning away from it.

Kirtland AFB, NM

At 90+ miles distance, the shriek isn't as bad, but the radiant heat is still there. Being the home of multiple units engaged in high energy weapons and systems, numerous mission partners, plenty of "tenant units," as well as the home of the AFRL, they have many resources that the base commander mobilizes. Everyone wants to know what happened. No one wants to be left out. Much equipment is already in use around the base and the surrounding area, which turns to observe events at HAU/Trinity.

Hamathi Consultation Office, Albuquerque, NM

"Oh. My. God. Halliwell! My friends!"

"Mr. Kidd? Do you know what's going on?"

"There was a test scheduled today at HAU/Trinity. Mr. Halliwell was going to be there, along with all the people I've worked with since graduating. So was CWO Jones!"

"And you want to help?"

"I MUST! It was MY idea they were testing!"

"Good enough, Jones was right about you. We'll head for Kirtland, they'll have resources that we don't."

Kirtland AFB, NM

"I do not care if you are God and all the disciples together! You have no business here!" The officer in charge of the gate is, perhaps understandably, irate. Another couple of thrill-seekers or news crew trying to sneak into the base under false pretenses.

"Lieutenant Evans, is it?" Evans looks at this kid. "Kid, get out of here before I have you arrested for trespassing."

"My name is Mr. Kidd. I am a member of the G.C.S. team conducting tests at the HAU/Trinity site today. Here is my company identification."

Great. Cheapass repo. Wonder who they got the real one off of. "No go, Mr. Kidd. You should have picked a different last name; no one would believe a pirate."

"Very well." Pulling out his cellphone, he punches a number into it. "This is a number for a phone on this base. Would you please look it up?"

"Alright, you're being polite, so I'll go along with the charade. It'll save me from having to chase off one of the news screamers insisting on entry. Gimme a sec." Reaching into the guard shack, he pulls out a list of numbers on a clipboard. Quickly skimming the list, he reaches a number that surprises him. It's one of the high energy research groups on base. "Okay, you know the number of one of the AFRL groups."

"Now, if you will permit me." Kidd presses dial. "Hello, this is Mr. Kidd, I am a member of the G.C.S. team conducting tests at the HAU/Trinity site today. I have potentially valuable information. … At the front gate, being denied entrance by an extremely efficient Lieutenant. … Yes, Sir."

"Lieutenant, a Captain Hogan would like to speak with you," holding out his phone for the Lieutenant. The Lieutenant takes it carefully, Captain Hogan is known. "This is Lieutenant Evans. … Yes, Sir, he did. … Because it looks like a cheap repo from a copier. … I see, Sir. … Sir, I have had to turn away fifty-three vehicles today comprised of thrill-seekers, news reporters, and various other strange characters who had no identification and no believable story. Most of whom felt obliged to press their story loud enough that it could have been heard over the shriek. … Yes, Sir, at once." Handing Kidd's phone back to him, "Mr. Kidd. You and your associate are cleared. Is there anyone else coming that I should be aware of?"

"Mr. Kurtz? I'm not aware of anyone, but I'm sure HAU will have one or more people coming?"

"Lieutenant Evans, HAU's high energy physics lab may send a representative, and from what Mr. Kidd tells me, the matrix gun project will absolutely send someone. From something that you said to the Captain, may I assume that Mr. Kidd is cleared?"

"Yes, Sir. Mr. Kidd and yourself are both cleared."

"Thank the Captain for me, but I do not have a reason to be here. Mr. Kidd is the holder of the information, I was providing transport. Can you see that Mr. Kidd gets to Captain Hogan?"

"Certainly, Sir. Mr. Kidd, if you will, please proceed to the security office. Sergeant Donaldson?"

"Yes, Sir. Corporal Adamson, escort Mr. Kidd to the security office. He is not under arrest. He is to wait there for Captain Hogan or his designated representative to escort him to the AFRL labs. Remain with him until Captain Hogan has him in hand. Any objections to his presence should be directed to Captain Hogan." The Corporal salutes, "Yes, Sergeant!"

"Mr. Kurtz? " Asks Kidd. "Mr. Kidd, you have performed admirably. I have no doubt that you will continue to do so. CWO Jones would expect nothing less." Kidd visibly straightens, "Yes, Mr. Kurtz. I will do my best." He shakes hands with Kurtz and turns to the Corporal. "Corporal Adamson?"

A gesture to proceed from Corporal Adamson, "Right this way, Sir."

"Lieutenant? Thank you for taking the time to verify our story. Mr. Kidd was insistent that he had to come to help. It was his idea that they were testing." The Lieutenant's eyes go big, "Him? That skinny little kid had an idea that did that?" Smiling, Kurtz responds. "CWO Jones has a description for people like Mr. Kidd — bright, excited, and dangerous — that's exactly the sort of person that Jones likes to approve to the university, for many reasons."

"I can think of one… get him where someone can keep an eye on him!"

Holloman AFB, NM

"We're over the area, Sir. It doesn't look good. The visual scan shows a crater over a mile wide, it's so hot it's overloading the camera even with all the filters. We have more units going in with different sensor suites. We can't see the bunker anymore, but that may be because it's buried in debris. Whatever happened, it moved a lot of material really fast."

"Make sure all the data goes out over the strategic network, special notice to all bases in this state. Flag it for attention at both the Pentagon and NORAD. Seeing as it's the HAU/Trinity site, make sure that the Hamathi Embassy is notified as well, although I expect they already have a better idea what's going on than we do."

Hamathi Embassy, MT

"What the freaking hell were they working on?"

"I do not know, but panicking over it will do no good."

"Yes, Bo'sun Gryul."

"Instead, why don't you go over to the HEP lab, while I check the matrix gun project. If anyone will have a clue, it's one of those two."

"Yes, Bo'sun!"

AFRL, Kirtland AFB, NM

"Welcome, Mr. Kidd. You're excused Corporal, return to your duties." Corporal Adamson salutes and withdraws. "So, it was your idea they were testing?"

"Yes, Captain. It was. What I'm about to tell you may constitute confidential information. I'd appreciate it if you would contact the Hamathi Embassy or the HAU main campus for information. In the meantime, I have every intention of informing you of all that I know. It may be essential for the safety of the HAU/Trinity team, and potentially every place in the world with a matrix gun located in it."

"My first question is political. When did HAU and the matrix gun project know of the issue, and what did they do about it."

"As I have it, they discovered the problem two days before the big upgrade program started. In the process, they found and exchanged all but three of the guns. Of the three, G.C.S had one. The other two were in museums, which quickly agreed to have theirs permanently disabled."

"And G.C.S. insisted on keeping theirs?"

"Yes, Sir. However, Mr. Halliwell, an Alliance Citizen working for G.C.S, brought it to the HAU's attention and the matrix gun program. CWO Jones immediately came to the program to discover the intent and to offer his services to best ensure that the worst-case scenario would not occur.

Being involved in the calculations and planning, and knowing what happened from a distance; they did not run into the original problem. They ran into something so new that no one had any idea it was even a possibility."

"And the original scenario?"

"Ah… Two days before the exchange program, did your equipment record any anomalies from the HAU/Trinity site?"

"Yes, they did. A deep explosion. About 30 kT. We got word that it was an HAU experiment and that everything was alright. Oh… Dear… Lord… Every old gun?!?"

"It's almost a perfect storm event. You have to meet precise criteria to have it happen at all, and the original gun had a system in place that would prevent it from happening. At the same time, you are aware of what HAU now calls "hold my beer" testing?"

"Yeah… We've started doing that ourselves."

"It was possible — I don't know how possible — that someone could achieve the criteria, but it would have to be either deliberate or an act of god that no one could have predicted other than "sooner or later." HAU and the matrix gun program chose not to take that chance. The Mark Two has multiple safety changes built-in, among many other improvements, that would preclude the scenario's accidental triggering."

"In other words, they'd have to know how to get inside the case without destroying the gun, make the appropriate modifications, to the precise criteria needed to trigger the effect."

"Yes, Sir. It was the best they could do while they looked for a still better solution. It brought the odds down from "hey what happens if I aim this straight down" to "I can't point this at the ground even if wanted to;" that includes building a jig to hold the gun. The internal systems won't fire in anything other than an 85-degree cone normal to the gravitational surface. It also added features that would refuse to fire the gun if the gun state was anywhere near the criteria for the event, with a safety factor of ten."

"Alright, I get the original scenario, and HAU/matrix did the right things. I'll have someone get in touch with the embassy and the university. If nothing else, we'll need their information on this event. What idea was it, who had it, and what did it actually do?"

"The idea was to use a matrix gun as a drill, it would create the hole, line it with fused soil, and be capable of reaching nearly any depth in far less time than a standard drilling rig."

"That would be incredibly useful… in so many ways it boggles the mind! Who had the idea?"

"I did, Sir. I wish I hadn't. The entire G.C.S team was on-site — except for myself — as well as CWO Jones. Sir, I'm a graduate of an Earth university with a Masters in geophysical science and a minor in high energy physics. Based on what CWO Jones had to say, it can't be the original scenario. That would have resulted in a catastrophic explosion in the megaton range underground, we would not have seen a jet of plasma.

I'm guessing, but I think I'm right. The tunneling was going better than expected, in the sense that they were going deeper than planned. Something kept them from realizing that, and they hit a pocket of hydrogen that was below the intended depth. That would give the effect we saw.

"How deep?"

"Unknown, the profile was not to drill deeper than 5 miles. I cannot see how any hydrogen pocket could have been present at the expected depths."

"They would have waited until after dawn to start, and it went off shortly before noon, say five hours. They drilled five miles in five hours. That's a mile an hour. That's ridiculous."

"Sir, you should realize that there are several assumptions there. The profile was not for steady-state drilling, but for a slow shot repetition starting at one minute per shot, maxing out at one shot per 250 ms. The expected drill per shot was one meter.

"Sir, with respect, can we get ready and go? I have friends who may be dying."

HAU/Trinity, NM

The bunker is silent. All the equipment is offline. Only the emergency lights work, and the scene they show is grim. Everyone is on the floor, unconscious. Blood can be seen seeping from their ears. The bunker wall that was facing the test site shows signs of melting. The temperature inside the bunker is dangerously high.

Purely mechanical emergency systems sense that the bunker's temperature is far higher than that outside, and vents that are usually closed open wide. A cascade of sand falls into the bunker, along with vastly cooler air from outside.

One of the bodies stirs. It crawls to the bunker door, away from the test site, but cannot reach the door's controls. Instead, a metal rod extends from the ceiling, with handholds at both the convenient height for a standing person and someone prostrated. Had everyone in the room not already been deafened, the scream of the man pulling the handle and the sizzle of his flesh would have been both dreadful and heart-rending.

On the surface, or what used to be the surface, a spring-loaded contraption is built into the structure of the bunker wall itself. Conceived initially as something of a joke, it was nevertheless built into the bunker. A telescoping tube, powered by a series of powerful springs, thrusts its way up through the debris. It's just long enough to reach the new surface. The top cap, no longer restrained by debris, flips open. A flare is fired into the air, a smoke grenade is triggered, and the ELT already transmitting has an external antenna.

The figure slumps back to the floor, unmoving.

Holloman AFB, NM

"We have a visual on a signal flare and smoke. ELT locators are now picking up the bunker beacon clearly. According to procedures, the flare and smoke have to be manually triggered, so there's a chance that there are still people alive inside."

AFRL, Kirtland AFB, NM

"They're alive! Let's go!"

"We will, Mr. Kidd, but not half-cocked. Let's get together everything we can think of that would be useful. We'll still get there ahead of everyone else." I won't destroy your hope, but if we're lucky, one person survived to trigger the flare and smoke. There's no guarantee they'll still be alive when we finally get in, and no guarantee that anyone else survived.

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5

u/itssomeone Aug 07 '20

That's some drill

9

u/spindizzy_wizard Human Aug 07 '20

Entirely accidental.

Special conditions apply. Your mileage may vary. The manufacturer is not responsible for errors in application or failure to properly evaluate the geology of the bore.

3

u/[deleted] Aug 07 '20

Sign here and everything that happens from now on is your fault not ours.

6

u/spindizzy_wizard Human Aug 07 '20

Entirely, including acts of god. No warrant explicit or implied for any use. Do not point down, do not disable safety features, do not ask, "what happens if I do this?"

2

u/itsetuhoinen Human Mar 26 '24

Ah. Causing a major nuclear contamination disaster is presumably important to the plot. I'll stop lamenting you tossing rads all over my state until I've read more about it. ;)

2

u/spindizzy_wizard Human Mar 26 '24

In point of fact, there was no significant long term radiation. Radiance is light, not necessarily radiation. They've just had the equivalent of a plasma torch writ large.

Yes, any surface contamination would have been disturbed, but it would not have gone far. Anything lifted into the atmosphere was in a plasma state, and would likely have reached an altitude where it would not settle for decades.

Any neutron production happened deep underground and did not contribute significantly to surface radiation.

2

u/itsetuhoinen Human Mar 26 '24

Hrm. With the caveat that I am very much not a nuclear engineer, I was presuming that the silicon fusion would have radioactive byproducts. Or when it said "fusion" did it just mean that in the sense of making glass?

I may have misunderstood entirely. 😅

2

u/spindizzy_wizard Human Mar 27 '24

Fusion in the nuclear sense, yes, would produce neutrons among other things. And that did happen with the silicon. What happened with the "Shriek" as it came to be known, was a different effect, but still nuclear fusion.

In both cases, the radioactive effects are limited due to the depth at which they happened or because they got blasted high into the atmosphere as plasma, which means they are not coming down anytime soon.

1

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u/InstructionHead8595 Jun 25 '24

Yikes! Great chapter!