"Ringo, John - Council Wars 2 - Emerald Sea" - читать интересную книгу автора (Ringo John)

The Emerald Sea by John Ringo

Prologue
The fifteen-thousand-ton asteroid had been named, in the deepness of time when
men still did such things, AE-513-49. In the latter twenty-first century, when
every chunk of ice and rock that was of any conceivable danger to the earth had
been mapped and tracked, it had been concluded that AE-513-49, which looked a
bit like an elephant's foot and was composed of nickel-iron, had a probability
of impact with the earth low enough that the heat death of the universe was a
more likely problem.
AE-513-49 had been considered for mining until it was determined that, as a
Helios asteroid, one close in to the sun, bringing out the materials would be
more costly than those on the relative "downslope" towards the outer system.
Then asteroid mining, after a very brief heyday, went away as the human race
started to dwindle and, with it, the need for metals from beyond the atmosphere.
Thus AE-513-49 had been permitted to continue on its lonely orbit, circling the
sun like a very small planet, hanging out at the very edge of the "life belt"
between the earth and Mercury.
Until a curious thing happened.
A couple of years before, small gravitic nudges were applied to it. They first
sent it inward towards the sun where it would, of course, have impacted without
any noticeable trace. But then it encountered the gravity well of the small
planet Mercury and "slingshotted" around it, headed back "outward" in the
system.
More small nudges, some of them infinitesimally faint, adjusted its trajectory
until it was precisely aligned with a point in space through which the earth
would pass. Then, for almost a year, nothing.
As it approached the earth, however, more nudges were applied. A few adjusted
the course so that it would assuredly hit the earth and, what's more, on a
particular circular zone of the earth. Other nudges sped it up or slowed it down
so that it would hit a particular point on that circle. Then, as it approached
the atmosphere, the nudges became more distinct. It was now targeted on that one
small point.
As it entered the atmosphere, thin and high, it began to fluoresce, coruscating
waves of fire leaping off of it as the lighter materials it had picked up on its
two-billion-year journey through the solar system burned off leaving the solid
nickel-iron core revealed. This, too, began to burn as it hurtled closer and
closer to the face of the earth, the metal subliming off in waves of fire.
Thus it was a melted ball of nickel-iron, hurtling downward at far more than
orbital velocities, trailing an immense line of fire behind it, that slammed to
a stop in midair thirty-five meters from an unassuming home that was sitting,
against all reason, in a pool of lava.
In keeping with the laws of physics the nickel-iron, which was half ionized by
heat, exploded outward in titanic fury. But this, too, stopped in midair and the
enormous detonation, which would have destroyed much of the local area, was
captured by some invisible force and quickly dissipated.
The nickel-iron that had once been AE-513-49 spread itself across an invisible
hemispherical barrier, practically covering the house and shutting off all light
to its interior for a moment, then slid away, bubbling as if from the
application of some tremendous energy, to join the rest of the lava.