Mindscape: Book 2 of the New Frontiers Series by Jasper T. Scott Page B

They’re going to ask why we spread out our defenses if we knew the attacks were coming from the wormhole.”
    Anderson frowned and nodded. He’d argued for positioning the fleet along the hemisphere facing the wormhole from the start, but the president and the rest of Fleet Command had opted for a more comprehensive defense. Now his arguments had been vindicated, but at what cost? This wasn’t exactly an I-told-you-so moment. “One of our captains sacrificed his ship to intercept his target. It went down with all hands. Give the media that story to run with. Everyone loves a hero.”
    Wallace nodded gravely. “I heard. The N.W.A.S Washington —Captain Grekov. The media will certainly run with that story whether I give it to them or not, but I don’t need to tell you how bad it looks for us that the only captain willing to put himself in the line of fire to protect Earth was an ex-confederate. That’s only going to cast more doubt on our administration and create even more divisions. Citizens from ex-confederate states might even try to form their own party for the next election, and if they get elected, we’re in for a whole lot of trouble.”
    Anderson frowned. “Sir, I think we have bigger problems right now than the election.”
    Wallace clamped his lips together and nodded. “You’re right. Of course we do.”
    “Sir,” the sensor operator interrupted, “I’ve finished my calculations.”
    “Go on,” Anderson said.
    “The missile likely had around ten metric tons of throw weight assuming it used up all its fuel on approach.”
    Anderson considered that. “And what kind of energy would be released by a ten ton object moving at a third of the speed of light?”
    “Approximately fifty-four point six exajoules, sir.”
    President Wallace’s brow furrowed. “What the hell is an exajoule?”
    “Ten to the power of eighteen joules,” the sensor operator replied.
    Anderson shook his head. “Give us a meaningful reference for that, Lieutenant.”
    “Yes, sir. That’s approximately equivalent to a nuclear weapon with a yield of 13,000 megatons. Our biggest nukes are in the 250 megaton range, so imagine more than fifty of those all going off in one spot in the Gulf of Mexico.”
    Anderson paled, and he and President Wallace traded worried looks.
    The sensor operator noticed the looks on their faces and hurried to add, “That’s still relatively small when compared with some other events in Earth’s history. The Chicxulub impact, for example, was thousands of times stronger.”
    Anderson felt as though a crushing weight had just been lifted from his shoulders. The Chicxulub impact was what had made the dinosaurs extinct. If this was thousands of times weaker than that, then maybe the effects wouldn’t be so deadly. “So this isn’t an extinction level event?” Anderson asked.
    “No, sir.”
    “Thank God.”
    “What will the tsunami be like when it hits the Gulf Coast?” President Wallace asked.
    “That’s tough to say until buoy data comes in, but according to standard computer models and the ocean depth in the area of impact…” the sensor operator trailed off while he ran some more calculations. “Wave height at the nearest coastline could be as high as sixty meters.”
    Anderson blinked in shock. “That’s going to level everything it hits!”
    “Yes, sir.”
    “How long do we have?” President Wallace asked.
    “About half an hour for the closest areas.”
    “Hopefully that’s enough time for people to get to higher ground. Anything else we need to worry about?” Wallace asked.
    “An Earthquake. My bet is that’s already registered… it has.”
    “How bad?”
    “Seven point one on the Richter scale. As for the other effects we can probably expect to see firestorms. We’re lucky that the shock wave is too far from the coast to light fires, but ejecta from the crater is going to come raining back down and burst into flames as it re-enters the atmosphere. The bigger chunks