Comet! (an Ell Donsaii story #5 )

Comet! (an Ell Donsaii story #5 )

"Comet!" is the fifth in a series of near future SciFi/Thrillers whose young heroine Ell Donsaii has a nerve mutation which has rendered her a genius and an athletic phenomenon. In â€œComet!â€ she and her team begin exploring outer space using the wormholes she produced in "Rocket." Unfortunately Comet Hearth-Daster is on a trajectory to strike the Earth. Though it is smaller than the object that wiped out the dinosaurs, it still weighs 300 million metric tons and if it hits it will wipe out civilization and may render the human race extinct.

Excerpt:

Walking to the machine shop to talk to Manuel, Ell passed behind Brian and Fred walking across the room. A shock went through her. Brian had a pistol in his hand! Horrifying images of a disgruntled employee gone wild and shooting people flashed through Ellâ€™s mind. She felt herself slipping into the zone. Heart throbbing slowly in her ears she slid up behind Brian and, grasping his index finger with her right hand, plucked the gun from his hand with her left. As she did so she was somewhat relieved to note that his finger had been outside the trigger guard and, as she brought the Smith and Wesson toward herself, to see that the safety was on.
â€œWhat the hell!?â€ Brian shouted as, to him, the gun was ripped out of his grip. He turned wildly to see Ell holding it, eyes laser focused on him. The look on her face, usually so friendly, was deadly fierce. In somewhat of a panic he remembered thatâ€”at the Olympics several years agoâ€”this girl had taken a weapon away from one of a group of seven hardened terrorists and shot them all!
The popular descriptions he had heard of the episode and about her shooting had been hard to countenance at the time, but now he felt his heart thumping wildly in his chest. Without difficulty, she had ripped the gun out of his hand so quickly that his fingers were stinging. He suddenly had no doubt whatsoever that she could kill him before he could even begin to stop her. His hands slowly went up in surrender. â€œWhat?â€
Fred found himself stepping away from Brian, more frightened by the unfamiliar and terrifyingly intense young woman in front of him than he would have dreamed possible.
Quietly Ell said, biting the words off one at a time so that her speech would be slow enough to understand, â€œWhy, do, you, have, a, gun?â€
Brian waved his hands placatingly, â€œWeâ€™re worried about another terrorist application of the ringsâ€¦ Thatâ€™s all... Really!â€
Ell aggressively tamped down her zone. She narrowed her eyes. â€œWhat?â€
â€œWeâ€™ve been brainstorming things terrorists might do with ports. We got to supposing, â€˜what if a terrorist carried a port onto a plane.â€™ He could point the port at someone and have his buddy terrorist back home shoot them through the port!â€
Ell said, â€œWouldnâ€™t workâ€ her voice grating like a steel rasp. Her eyes narrowed, â€œWhy do you have a gun here?â€
Fred said, â€œWe were going to try it and find out.â€
â€œOh my God! Where?!â€
â€œIn the dangerous reaction room where we tested the rocket motors.â€
â€œOK, Iâ€™ll grant you it should be tested, but not with a gun! The math predicts that as the velocity of an object entering a port increases, the energy drawn to keep the portal open increases. At first it should increase so slowly that you hardly notice it but it increases exponentially starting at aboutâ€¦â€ she looked up at the ceiling, â€œat twenty two meters per second it should begin to get noticeable.â€ She looked up again, â€œAt around thirty meters per second a graph of it should be climbing very steeply and at around thirty one meters per second it should approach infinity.â€
Fred got a glassy look, â€œThirty meters per secondâ€¦â€
Ell said, â€œSixty seven miles an hour. Starts climbing at forty nine mph and is infinite around sixty nine mph. A pitcher throws a baseball faster. A bullet would hit the port and turn the port and itself into shrapnel. Test it if you want, but donâ€™t have anyone in the room, set it up mechanically.
Country USA
Binding Kindle Edition
ReleaseDate 2012-10-12
Format Kindle eBook

Country	USA
Binding	Kindle Edition
ReleaseDate	2012-10-12
Format	Kindle eBook

Comet! (an Ell Donsaii story #5 )

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