Bridge to Nowhere

Fly the Rocky Skies

Wednesday Night

Kobalt, and his elite Black Guard use the Scramjets as fast transport, allowing them to be anywhere on the planet in a few hours. Kobalt has used the Scramjets, flying to any location requiring control. Meteor events increased in recent months. Whenever a meteor event involved humans, Kobalt and his team flew in to control the scene and keep the event out of the news, as they had in the wetlands of Myrtle Beach, South Carolina, early that week. The Scramjet is not a warcraft. The advanced jets were designed for speed. Scramjets are stealthy at high altitude, flying higher and faster than conventional aircraft traversing the globe unnoticed.

The trio of Scramjets soar in formation through the sky at sixty thousand feet, well above commercial aircraft. Kobalt sits behind the pilot in the open cockpit looking out the forward window, still upset that Munday got away. This trip would be unnecessary if his guard had relaxed the slippery scientist before Munday entered the rail car. The skies ahead are clear.

High above the Scramjet formation a rocky meteor enters the Earth's atmosphere. As an asteroid in space, the rocky mass had followed a stable orbit for billions of years until something unseen disrupted its rotation, causing the rock, and millions like it, to fall through the solar system. Now the rock, pulled into the grasp of our planet, enters Earth's atmosphere, and becomes super-heated. The space rock's fragile composition cannot withstand intense heat and pressure. It bursts into a thousand fragments glowing against the evening sunset.

That rocky orb is not alone. Hundreds of space rocks follow, all with different shapes, sizes, and compositions. Some asteroids are rocky rubble piles, loosely congealed pieces of dust and rock, spinning together through space, while other asteroids are solid metal, composed primarily of iron and nickel.

A group of meteors enter the atmosphere above the jet formation. They come in fast. The aircraft systems pick them up. Alarms sound.

"Jack, we have multiple incoming. Who's firing at us?" asks the pilot.

Alarms continue to sound as the copilot checks radar, sensor readings, system monitors, and exterior cameras. "I'm tracking several objects but they're coming in too high, and way too fast to be any conventional threat. We're not in danger. Look up there." The copilot points out the front window.

Kobalt pushes himself between the pilots to look out the cockpit window. A tight grouping of fireballs moves across the sky above them.

"Look, they're spreading out," says the pilot.

"Wow, what a sight. There must be twenty separate asteroids," reports the copilot.

"Meteors," corrects Kobalt.

"Based on their speed and rate of decent, looks like the West Coast will have a meteoric sunset," says the copilot.

"The forecast tonight is partly rocky with scattered atmospheric explosions," the pilot jokes.

"Get us to New Zion." Kobalt growls.

"We're almost there. Slowing airspeed, decreasing altitude. We have a turn in thirty seconds. We'll be on the ground in five minutes," the pilot states.

As the jets turn, three fireballs streak across the sky from the east. One fireball explodes in a brilliant flash. A second fireball disintegrates much less dramatically, burning up and disappearing in a silent puff. A third fireball stays together. The pilots and Black Guard watch the meteor crash into empty farmland. The impact sends a plume of dirt and smoke high into the sky.