"I suppose that would be unexpected," Marshall agreed. "We'll have to wait to hear from James to find out if that's the case."

"He got back to the old NASA compound today?" Mansfield asked.

"Yes, a few hours ago. He's at mission control now, probably waiting as anxiously as we are. I just hope the connection to the Australian National Observatory is clear enough for him to determine whether the bomb exploded."

Months ago, James Armour obtained permission for exclusive use of an Australian observatory for the moment the nuclear bomb was scheduled to detonate. It would be daytime in the United States when the probe intercepted the comet and therefore impossible for Armour to witness using a telescope located on American soil. The United States had few astronomical outposts in the Pacific, none of which possessed the necessary equipment to view the comet or explosion. That left Australia as the only ally the Americans had in the nighttime part of the world. A few well-placed phone calls from the famous American astronaut James Armour and the Australian government had been more than happy to grant use of this observatory for one night. They had even been so kind as to set up a direct video link from their telescope to mission control.

"Are we sure the Aussies aren't monitoring the use of the telescope?" Mansfield asked.

"I suppose we can't be a hundred percent sure of that," the President said.

Marshall watched as both of Mansfield legs nervously bounced up and down. The Chief of Staff looked like he wanted to run a marathon.

"How much time is left?" the President asked. Mansfield had not checked his watch for at least thirty seconds.

"Ten minutes."

CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE.

November 25, 2014-10 minutes, 5 seconds until Interception...

Neil had this code committed to memory for well over a year now and his fingers quickly danced over the numeric keypad. Neil pushed ENTER on the keypad and pushed a button on his digital watch, perfectly synchronizing the two.

10:00...9:59...9:58...

Neil spoke the deactivation code out loud, having memorized this one as well. This time he would not be using it. He took a deep breath and one last glance around the largest of the probe's three rooms, the room where he'd spent the majority of his life for four and a half years.

No time to get sentimental now, he thought, turning his back on the room forever as he entered the cockpit.

Directly in front of him, Neil stared out the window of the cockpit, still in awe of the sight of Comet Clement, now just nine and a half minutes away. The probe approached the comet from the side. Neil programmed the computers to plot a course that would have the probe intersect with the path of the comet seconds after the comet passed; the navigational computer screen indicated that Clement would pass in less than thirty seconds.

More important than the navigational computer, and even more important to Neil than the comet itself, was his picture of Emily that he taped to the window. The picture had begun to lose its adhesion to the glass window. Before sitting in the pilot seat to begin the final part of his mission, he ran his fingers over the picture to make sure it would stay stuck to the window.

Neil strapped himself into the lone pilot seat and watched the countdown on the navigational control approach zero.

"Enabling reverse thrusters," Neil said loudly to himself.

For the first and only time during the long mission, the reverse thrusters were fired, the result of which greatly reduced the speed and forward progress of the probe. Soon just drifting in space, Neil found it difficult to avert his gaze from the picture of his smiling daughter. His eyes began to fill with tears but he quickly wiped them away.

This is no time to get upset.

The mammoth comet, now a mere 10 miles in front of Neil, sped by the probe in one quick, magnificent movement. With no time to lose, Neil pushed a button to switch the guidance system to manual as the probe intersected with the comet's long tail. It was time for Neil to prove that he was the right astronaut for this job.

He delicately pushed the control stick to the left, careful to stay calm and not allow his rushing adrenaline to overcompensate his flying. Although he'd practiced and trained for thousands of hours to fly a space vehicle, this was the first time he had ever actually done so. And since the fate of the world and humankind rested on his actions now, Neil knew he had to control the situation.

With a light touch and flying expertise, it took only seconds for the probe to turn. Perfectly positioned in the comet's wake, he aimed for a course slightly below and to the left of the comet. The probe was ready for the final run of its mission. A look at his watch revealed only five minutes until detonation.

"Firing main boosters," he said.

Neil pushed the last button of his life and the probe shot forward, sharply thrusting him back against his seat. The comet had greatly distanced itself from the probe in the half-minute it took Neil to turn the space vehicle, but now it grew larger in the cockpit window.

Battling against extreme g-forces, Neil held steadily onto the control stick, attempting to keep the probe on target as best he could. He knew he had to be ina specific spot near the comet if the deflection was to have a chance to work; he was grateful that the navigation computer was there to tell him whether he was on that correct line. A quick glance at the computer screen told him that he needed to rise a little to be within the acceptable range.

It was almost impossible to keep the probe steady. The control stick seemed to be pulled forward, thus dropping the probe on a lower course than needed. Pulling back as hard as he could without overcompensating, Neil glanced at the computer and saw he had the probe in the exact position needed. The control stick continued to fight against him but he held firm, determined to succeed.

The comet's tail became increasingly difficult to fly through the closer the probe approached. When Neil first entered the tail, there had only been space dust and scattered small rocks. As he continued to fly closer, the space dust became thicker and the rocks became bigger and closer together.

A healthy, strong man would have found these flying conditions difficult. After years of malnutrition and muscle atrophy, Neil wondered if he had the strength to make it through to the end. Sweat poured down his face and into his eyes, which stung and made him blink uncontrollably. With both hands struggling to control the probe, he knew impaired vision would be something else he'd have to deal with.

Neil fully concentrated on flying as the seconds slowly ticked by. He felt like he'd been flying forever but a glance at his watch showed that only a minute had passed.

Four minutes until detonation. I need to hold on, he willed himself.

Neil looked at the picture of his daughter on the window. It gave him strength to his burning arms and shoulders that he desperately needed. The tape on the window began to peel back again and Neil prayed the picture, and his strength, could hang on a few minutes longer.

You aren't really that high up. Just don't look down.

Even as she thought that, Emily looked down. By occasionally glancing at her grandmother's house while climbing, she had gotten a vague idea of how high she'd gone. But looking straight down was a totally different frame of reference. She clutched her body tightly against the branch she'd just climbed upon. Emily was about fifteen feet above the ground but considering her fear of heights, she might as well have been hanging onto the wing of an airplane cruising at 30,000 feet.

Unable to pull her eyes away, Emily stared down at the ground with a feared sense of awe, the way a person can't help but look at a grisly car accident. The longer she looked, the more her balance seemed to wobble. She barely noticed that the tree's bark dug painfully into her hands. The wind seemed to steadily gain strength. For a few apprehensive minutes, Emily completely forgot why she climbed the tree in the first place.

The eggs. If I don't hurry, this wind is going to knock them over.

Emily forced her eyes closed and raised her head. If she could keep her eyes aimed up and concentrate on climbing branches, she would have a chance to save those eggs. After taking a few deep breaths to calm her pumping heart and unsteady nerves, Emily opened her eyes and began to climb again.

She climbed for the next few minutes, refusing to look down, gripping every branch firmly as she pulled herself up.

When her arms finally began to feel like spaghetti, Emily stopped, sat down on the branch and looked around to see where she was. Amazingly, she'd stopped on the exact branch that held the bird's nest. As the wind continued to blow, the nest hung on heroically. But Emily could tell it would lose the fight with gravity at any moment. After giving herself a moment to catch her breath, she reached out one hand toward the nest, making sure to grip the tree branch with her other arm. With her arm fully extended, Emily was still well short of reaching the nest. Her only option to save the eggs was not one that appealed to her very much.

I can't give up now, not after climbing all the way up here.

She kept her eyes solely on the nest and lay flat on her stomach, wrapping her arms and draping her legs as tightly as she could around the branch. The branch seemed stable enough to hold her weight but Emily knew there was a chance it could break. If that happened, the fall to the ground would not be pretty and the rest of her body could end up like her legs. The smart thing was to climb back down the tree and allow nature to take its course with the nest and eggs, but nothing could convince her to quit, not even the thought of further bodily harm.

Slowly she crawled forward, inching her way across the branch, trying desperately to keep her head and eyes up. Every inch felt like it took forever, as the branch began to dip lower and lower the farther along she moved. By the time she reached the nest, the branch still somehow supported her weight.

Emily kept her left arm wrapped around the branch as she reached out to the nest with her right hand. Her movements were careful and slow, but she soon felt the nest against her fingertips. The first thing she did was push down the edge of the nest that was closest to her. This balanced the twig-and-grass-assembled bird shelter and moved the eggs, which had been inches from falling. They no longer appeared to be on the verge of collapsing.

Is this good enough? Emily wondered, as she wrapped her right arm around the branch again. No, it has to be moved. It could easily tilt again.

Again she reached out for the nest. Once it was firmly in hand, she slowly pulled it toward her, keeping it level to avoid the eggs from falling. She barely moved the nest a few inches when it hit a snag and caught on part of the branch. Emily tried to maneuver it around whatever it was stuck on but the nest did not want to budge.

She stubbornly refused to give in but frustration clouded her judgment and she resorted to pulling on the nest with all the power she could muster.

Emily watched two eggs crash through the tree branches before she even realized she'd pulled the nest loose. She lost sight of the eggs before they hit the ground but did not have to see them hit to know they were crushed.

Tears of anger and frustration soon began to fall from Emily's eyes as well and the young girl took little solace in the fact that she had saved at least two of the eggs.

And I think it's gonna be a long, long time, 'Til touch down brings me 'round again to find, I'm not the man they think I am at home, Oh no, no, no, I'm the Rocket Man, Rocket Man, burning out his fuse up here alone...

The lyrics of an old Elton John tune playing in Neil's mind seemed poignant to his life's path.

He quickly glanced at his watch, which just reached the thirty-second mark. His eyes darted back to the navigational computer screen, which reported that the probe was in the exact position, approximately two miles behind and one mile below Comet Clement. This was the position calculated by the 'Inner Circle' as the spot where the nuclear weapon would prove most successful. Far enough away so the bomb would not destroy the comet, but close enough for the blast's waves to push the comet as needed.

Neil found the reserve energy needed to finish the mission and realized that as the seconds of the mission ticked by, the seconds of his life ticked by as well. He was flying through space dust that greatly impeded his view but that no longer worried him; the navigational computer told him that he was exactly where he needed to be.

His watch beeped once as the time ticked down to fifteen seconds. The next time he heard sound from the watch, it would be the last thing he'd hear.

"Fifteen...fourteen...thirteen...," he counted out loud.

When he reached twelve, Neil sensed a slight movement on the cockpit window and his eyes moved away from the computer screen. The picture of Emily had finally come unstuck from the glass and floated just out of reach.

From nearly the first moment that Neil accepted this, the doomed astronaut wanted the last image he'd see to be his daughter's smiling face.

Neil needed that picture. His hands had been on the combative control stick the whole flight, fighting to keep the probe steady. As soon as the picture sank toward the ground though, he released his right hand. With less than ten seconds left, panic rose inside of his chest and he fumbled clumsily with the seat belt that held him in place. Neil expected to hear his watch beep at any moment but was able to get the belt unlatched quicker than he thought.

Keeping his left hand holding the control stick as steady as possible, Neil reached for the picture floating away. He was sure that doing so compromised the probe's perfect positioning but at that moment, he did not care. The picture of Emily was still out his reach and he did not hesitate to take his left hand off the stick as well. It was a spur of the moment decision that defied every goal he'd worked toward the past five years but having the picture in his hand was the most important thing in his world.

Neil flipped the picture over and stared at the smiling face of his daughter. His watch beeped and in the split second before there was an intensely white light, Neil had time for one final thought as he looked at the photograph.

He could not decide if this image of Emily was the last thing he saw while alive or the first thing he saw in Heaven.

Transmissions from the space probe took nearly an hour to reach mission control. James Armour was the only person in the empty room waiting to discover if Neil Peterson had set off the nuclear weapon. If the doomed astronaut followed the schedule, then the nuke would have detonated already. Armour could only wait for signals from the probe to reach him from deep space. The President already called him twice for updates.

"No, sir. I'll be sure to call as soon as I receive confirmation," he'd told Marshall, in almost the exact words, both times.

An hour after the scheduled detonation passed, the computer image of deep space and the computer readouts of the probe's systems still showed no evidence of change. As another ten minutes ticked by after the approximate time Armour expected the nuke to blow, he began to wonder if Peterson had gotten cold feet.

No sooner had this thought popped into his mind when Armour saw a small white light appear on the computer-generated telescope image. Simultaneously, the computer readouts from the probe went black.

He did it, Armour thought. God bless him.

For a moment, Armour felt ashamed that he ever doubted Peterson. The man had been through the most grueling space mission any astronaut ever attempted and came through in the end. It would take at least a week to chart the progress of Comet Clement to make sure its path changed enough to avoid hitting Earth but Armour felt positive about the mission's success.

Peterson died for the most noble of causes and while it was still not known if he'd succeeded or not, he gave humankind a chance at survival. That was all Armour could ask.

CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX.

December 4, 2014...

Ten days after the nuclear detonation in deep space, the three remaining members of the 'Inner Circle' had their answers, which they'd waited five years to hear. Marshall and Mansfield sat on the edges of their seat while James Armour presented his findings.

On the large screen at the head of the conference room was a picture of deep space, with a small white dot circled in the middle. The three men recognized this picture as that of Comet Clement, an image they had seen countless times before. This time, there was something slightly different about the picture.

"This was taken at the moment the bomb detonated," James Armour explained. "I'm not sure if you can tell or not, but the image of the comet seems to have grown bigger than it was before. The reason the comet appears bigger is because of the flash of light from the explosion. Together, the comet and the light from the explosion appear to be one bigger dot; in actuality, they are two separate images. This picture, along with the fact that all of the computer readings from the probe went black, proves that Neil Peterson detonated the bomb."

"Tell us something we don't know," Mansfield said, exhaling a deep breath of irritation.

"You have already informed us of this," President Marshall intervened, "and we are anxious to hear what you've found after charting the comet's new course."

Armour clicked a few buttons, quickly skipping several slides in his presentation until he reached the end.

"This was the projected path of the comet before the nuke exploded," he said.

On the screen was a quick animation of the comet striking the globe, hitting the northernmost part of Brazil. It was an animation they'd all seen since the initial days of the comet's discovery. Armour clicked another button.

"After the detonation, the comet's path has indeed changed," he said simply. Another animation was displayed on the screen.

This time, the comet did not strike northern Brazil.

December 5, 2014...

Marc Hudson waited nervously at the main gate of the Washington shipyard, watching steam come from his mouth after every breath. He stared into the distance, waiting for his boss's limousine to arrive. Tyler Ainsworth Jr. had not been to the shipyard in several months while attempting to procure the essential funds needed to continue their project The project progressed nicely since Tyler's last visit and Marc was excited his boss would soon view major headway that had been made. His excitement was far overshadowed by the feeling of nervousness, though.

Tyler still hadn't procured the proper funding but more importantly, he informed Marc not only of his own arrival, but also of the arrival of his 'key investor.' This person had been a mystery to the personal assistant ever since Tyler mentioned him over a year ago. In a conversation between boss and assistant, Tyler had seemingly slipped and mentioned the 'importance of this investor's opinion about the direction of the underwater project.'

"Investor? What investor is that, sir?" Marc had asked his boss.

"Nobody, don't worry about that now," Tyler told him, speaking with such finality that Marc dared not ask further questions.

Out of curiosity, Marc accessed the company's financial records but found no donations or unusually high stock sales over the past few years. Whoever this 'investor' was, Marc deduced that he had not invested any money into the company. And for Tyler to place such trust in a person, Marc realized this investor had to be very important in one way or another.

It also meant that Marc was no longer Tyler's most trusted advisor, a fact that left the personal assistant greatly perturbed. If his boss was hiding the identity of this person from him, what else could Tyler not be telling him?

You're overreacting, Marc told himself countless times. Whoever this person is, did Tyler put him or her in charge of the shipyard in his absence? No. Stop worrying so much.

Whatever the reason for keeping the investor a secret for so long, Tyler apparently concluded that now was the correct time for Marc to know more.

When a limo appeared on the horizon, Marc walked to the guardhouse and instructed them to open the security gate. The long black limousine drove into the shipyard compound and parked. Marc rushed across the parking lot just as his boss appeared from the backseat.

"Mr. Ainsworth, it's so good to see you again, sir."