from Savior One. Copy?”
“Savior Two copies…go ahead.”
“Charlie, this is worse than we thought. We need to land and send rescue parties to search for survivors. I want to take a ship close to Earth and see what we have left to work with. Get your team together and give me a timetable of when you think it might be safe to land. MBR’s farming dome will be our permanent base for now.”
“Yes, General Mitchel, we’ll get to work on it immediately.”
The three Saviors were repositioned to land on the moon in an attempt to save what was left of humanity. The ships carried sixty thousand people. Would humanity rise from this catastrophe? Could it bounce back? Fighting men and women, scientists, doctors, and farmers had survived. The mission would be a Herculean undertaking, and it would severely test the resilience of the human species to build from absolute destruction and the ultimate depths of despair. But this story is not about humanity’s resurrection from Nomad’s destruction; it is about a man who returns to Earth far in the future. This is the story of Commander Orlando Iron Wolf.
Part 2
The New World
Chapter 4
N omad had hit planet Earth and knocked it off its axis, tearing away the southern pole. It would be fifty thousand years before the comet’s orbit brought it back to Earth. As the centuries passed, a small spacecraft remained trapped in coma of the comet, its compact but powerful engine playing a tug of war that kept the ship from being consumed in the comet’s nucleus. The ship’s lone occupant remained frozen solid in an experimental cryonics chamber. The comet sped through the galaxy, passing binary suns and skirting black holes, quasars, and blue giants. It streaked past alien planets where inhabitants marveled as it appeared in their night skies and eventually disappeared. Some worshiped it as a god or an ill omen; others were scientifically advanced enough to study it. None suspected the lone hitchhiker slept frozen in its coma.
As Nomad traversed the galaxy, it lost about half its size after violent impacts with asteroids, meteors, and several moons. The tiny ship in its coma had been pulled in deeper after one collision with an asteroid many centuries ago. The ship was now frozen to the comet’s surface. Its diamond-hard shell protected it from damage; its nuclear engine remained operational and pointed inline to the comet’s trajectory. It was actually propelling the comet to some small extent, causing the comet to spin awkwardly, propelled by the thrust of the wide-open engine. The ship’s computer kept the engine operational, firing it at intervals, repeatedly trying to break it free from Nomad’s surface.
Eventually, Nomad completed its vast orbit through the Milky Way and returned to the small solar system it had visited so long ago. If Nomad were sentient, it would say it wasn’t a terrible comet or a doomsday harbinger; merely that it was a traveler. It would recognize the solar system it was now entering and remember it had collided with a small blue planet. It would recall that there were eight planets in the solar system, some with multiple moons; a ringed planet; a hulking orange one with a red spot; and the small blue one, now with two moons. One of the moons orbiting this watery blue world was dead and cold; the other was blue like the planet it orbited. Nomad would remember the larger of the two blue marbles; a diversity of life had thrived there when it streaked through this remote part of the galaxy fifty thousand years ago. It had damaged the planet when it collided, and the planet had inflicted its own damage on the comet; yet both had survived. Now, Nomad was back to drop off something it had taken on its previous visit.
Nomad lost more of its mass as it came within the gravitational pull of the huge orange planet. Large pieces of the comet were torn loose and crashed upon the moons in orbit around the gas giant. It continued
“Savior Two copies…go ahead.”
“Charlie, this is worse than we thought. We need to land and send rescue parties to search for survivors. I want to take a ship close to Earth and see what we have left to work with. Get your team together and give me a timetable of when you think it might be safe to land. MBR’s farming dome will be our permanent base for now.”
“Yes, General Mitchel, we’ll get to work on it immediately.”
The three Saviors were repositioned to land on the moon in an attempt to save what was left of humanity. The ships carried sixty thousand people. Would humanity rise from this catastrophe? Could it bounce back? Fighting men and women, scientists, doctors, and farmers had survived. The mission would be a Herculean undertaking, and it would severely test the resilience of the human species to build from absolute destruction and the ultimate depths of despair. But this story is not about humanity’s resurrection from Nomad’s destruction; it is about a man who returns to Earth far in the future. This is the story of Commander Orlando Iron Wolf.
Part 2
The New World
Chapter 4
N omad had hit planet Earth and knocked it off its axis, tearing away the southern pole. It would be fifty thousand years before the comet’s orbit brought it back to Earth. As the centuries passed, a small spacecraft remained trapped in coma of the comet, its compact but powerful engine playing a tug of war that kept the ship from being consumed in the comet’s nucleus. The ship’s lone occupant remained frozen solid in an experimental cryonics chamber. The comet sped through the galaxy, passing binary suns and skirting black holes, quasars, and blue giants. It streaked past alien planets where inhabitants marveled as it appeared in their night skies and eventually disappeared. Some worshiped it as a god or an ill omen; others were scientifically advanced enough to study it. None suspected the lone hitchhiker slept frozen in its coma.
As Nomad traversed the galaxy, it lost about half its size after violent impacts with asteroids, meteors, and several moons. The tiny ship in its coma had been pulled in deeper after one collision with an asteroid many centuries ago. The ship was now frozen to the comet’s surface. Its diamond-hard shell protected it from damage; its nuclear engine remained operational and pointed inline to the comet’s trajectory. It was actually propelling the comet to some small extent, causing the comet to spin awkwardly, propelled by the thrust of the wide-open engine. The ship’s computer kept the engine operational, firing it at intervals, repeatedly trying to break it free from Nomad’s surface.
Eventually, Nomad completed its vast orbit through the Milky Way and returned to the small solar system it had visited so long ago. If Nomad were sentient, it would say it wasn’t a terrible comet or a doomsday harbinger; merely that it was a traveler. It would recognize the solar system it was now entering and remember it had collided with a small blue planet. It would recall that there were eight planets in the solar system, some with multiple moons; a ringed planet; a hulking orange one with a red spot; and the small blue one, now with two moons. One of the moons orbiting this watery blue world was dead and cold; the other was blue like the planet it orbited. Nomad would remember the larger of the two blue marbles; a diversity of life had thrived there when it streaked through this remote part of the galaxy fifty thousand years ago. It had damaged the planet when it collided, and the planet had inflicted its own damage on the comet; yet both had survived. Now, Nomad was back to drop off something it had taken on its previous visit.
Nomad lost more of its mass as it came within the gravitational pull of the huge orange planet. Large pieces of the comet were torn loose and crashed upon the moons in orbit around the gas giant. It continued
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