Chapter 3

"Wonder Star looking good. Closure rate is 3 feet per minute, estimate 4 minutes until docking with Space Station, how copy?" Said a female voice from the radio.

"I copy 4 minutes to docking with station." Steve repeated dutifully.

"Still looking good. Closure rate constant and 3 minutes to docking." Said the voice.

"Two minutes to docking. Safe all thrusters and engines. No further use will be required. Safe all military ordnance. No side arms or weapons are allowed on the station itself, and may I be the first to welcome you back from your mission. One minute to docking, in the grove."

"Contact in 10 seconds... 5 seconds and 4... 3... 2... 1... contact! Status board shows good seal. Locking clamps activated. We show pressure at normal our side. Open hatch your side when ready."

"Roger station, copy ready to open hatch. My board shows green and will open hatch and debark Wonder Star shortly. Wonder Star out."

Steve shut down most systems, and set status to standby on others. The Station was now providing power to the ship via it's huge solar collectors. Power flow to the ship was nominal.

"Okay, we have good contact with the station and are docked. We can go onboard anytime we want." Steve told Bob and Jessica as he exited the flight deck.

Steve pushed on a portion of the ceiling of the craft, and a little door popped open.

He looked the readouts over quickly, and pushed the 'Okay to exit' button. With a sound of air escaping a section of the ceiling detached and slide back revealing a short two foot crawl space ending in the stations exterior docking airlock. He reached up, pulled a handle and turned. It opened slowing inward, and Steve could see a face peering at him from the other side of the now open airlock. It grinned at him, and extended a hand. Steve grabbed his niece and told her to keep her arms and legs together and shoved her towards the waiting hands. She floated the short distance to the waiting hands and was pulled through.

Steve gestured for Bob to go next. With a grin and a salute, Bob pulled himself up and disappeared into the little tunnel. Taking a last look around to make sure he had done everything needed to shut down the ship with the exception of needed computer systems, Steve finally left the ship behind.

There was a hectic round of hugs and handshaking going on for several minutes.

Finally everyone settled down and everyone was being introduced to the new comers.

"As nominal head of the station, I would like to thank you and your crew for what you accomplished by saving the earth. Oh it's hurt. But it can recover from what has happened to it thus far. If that huge chunk of rock had impacted the earth, nothing would have survived it. Your efforts have ensured that life will go on, and we will have something to return to when the weather clears.

"We watched through a live feed from the Hubble as you destroyed that monster. We watched you launch at the others. Sir, you did well, and if you hadn't had to use two rockets at that monster, we think you would have gotten them all. Only three of 6 got through, and one of those was actually one target that was greatly destroyed and calved into two separate rocks. As it was, you greatly reduced it from it's previous size."

While a party atmosphere existed on the International Space Station, the earth was being struck by hundreds of thousands of lighting bolts, generated by a total earth covered storm. Tornado's swept back and forth through the United States Midwest, not unusual in itself, except for the incredible number of them. Over 500 tornados were tearing up homes, cities, and the countryside.

At sea, the Atlantic spawned an unbelievable number of Hurricanes. The pacific had over 30 Typhoons going at the same time. What was unusual were the tornados that were going through France, Germany, and Italy. The entire weather engine of the Earth was disrupted due to the impacts.

The Atlantic Ocean was having earthquakes due to the birthing process of the new volcano that was still rising from the depths. Tons of water were still being converted to steam, but the land still rising was almost at the surface now. Finally, with a great groan, the newly formed volcano thrust up above the oceans surface.

Hot rock and ash were thrown into the sky, only to be driven back down by the torrential rains that had been caused by this Atlantic Meteor strike to begin with. Still the earth rose, and water receded from a newly forming land mass.

Now the volcano was not exploding from hundreds of tons of water pressing on it.

Water was still being converted to steam, but at a substantially less prodigious rate.

Already the volcano reached a height of 800 feet above sea level. A new land mass was forming in the Atlantic ocean, that had never existed there before.

The earth surrounding the volcano slowed and finally stopped shaking with quakes. Tremors still happened frequently, but the serious jarring quakes were gone. Slowly, the glow in the crater dimmed, Finally going dark. Rain poured down from above, cooling the newly formed dome of the new volcano. Lower down on the slopes of the new volcano, vents still gave off steam, but they too were sealing.

In China, the tons of dirt that had been thrown into the air with the last strike from the asteroid, was washed out of the sky by the rain. Winds howled and gusted from 60 to 200 miles per hour.

The soldiers that had been gathered at the Russia, China border were mostly dead by now. Most incinerated from the thermal nuclear artillery shells that had been thrown their way.

On the North and South Korean border much the same had happened. South Korea had pulled most of it's soldiers south, and the American General in charge had lobbed 7. 4 Kiloton Nuclear tipped artillery shells at the massed troops. This caused the demilitarized zone to become deadly radioactive zone. North Korea was stopped in it's tracks at that point. In a gesture of spite, North Korea fired one of it's long range Nuclear missiles at Seoul South Korea and it took out most of the northern section of that city. A cease fire was then in effect after that. Winner, none.

Over 100,000,000 people were already dead in the US. This was a huge portion of the United States, and it was going to get worse. Creeks had long since overflowed their banks. Rivers were starting to reach flood levels.

Greg decided he could not afford to wait any longer. He had over 600 miles to drive to get home to safety, and he had lives depending on him. He had studied his maps, and chose to go down highway 3 to Interstate 90. The bridges on 90 were all well above flood level as were the interstates themselves. A couple places were going to be dicey, but he was confident they could do it. If there was one thing Montana did well, it was make strong bridges. Run off and flooding from the mountains were common and Montana had learned to deal with that.

So four days after the impacts, Greg gathered his people and had them go over every vehicle that was parked in warehouse 80 one more time. He had two people in the Deuce and a half, and two in the truck hauling the remaining supplies and material. Two people were to go with the 1000 gallon fuel truck.

Three people in each of the three Hum V's. All weapons were loaded and the selector switch set to safe. All with the exception of two 45 cal. Side arms were in the racks in the vehicles.

"Alright ladies and gentlemen, it's time to do this. We can't afford to wait any longer. Although the sever winds have let up, the rains are still pouring down at an incredibly prodigious rate. I will take the lead and the rest of the convoy is as follows:

"Sgt. Thompson, you're behind me. Then comes the Sfc. Ballerton with his Deuce.

After the Deuce comes the supply truck, followed by the Fuel truck. Lt. Preston will follow as the rear vehicle. Convoy freq. Will be at 20.05, and call signs are you bumper numbers.

"There will be two fueling stops this trip. MREs (meals ready to eat) are already distributed. One case per vehicle. Eat as much as you want. We switch drivers every four hours. We will try to keep going until we reach our destination. In case of an attack, first priority will be to defend the fuel truck. If no attack has happened by the time of the second fueling, then priority of defense is the ammunition and supply trucks.