Deep in space, a million-ish years before humans walked the earth, a white-hot star reached critical mass. Its gasses swirled violently, imploded and then exploded—sending all the matter in its star system off at wild angles and nearly impossible speeds. An eighty-kilometer fragment from the innermost heavy gravity planet shot away on a ballistic trajectory that would intersect with planet Terra far into the future.
The planet splinter approached Terra from above the elliptical, its heavy metal and diamond composition nearly undetectable, not that humans had yet been able to put aside their differences enough to collaborate on a planetary asteroid defense system. The shard split the atmosphere above northern Canada, melting and burning most but not all its mass. Smoke and ashes spun away as it hurtled toward the earth. The remaining fragment, even more dense for having been refined by friction-born heat, plunged spear-like toward the Aleutians and drilled hundreds of meters into the junction of the Pacific and North American tectonic plates—awakening long dormant magma and altering the earth’s mantle to previously improbable angles. It couldn’t have stopped the cataclysm, but none of the world’s observatories had had their telescopes pointed in that direction; astronomers were all looking elsewhere. Only a Canadian farmer, trudging toward the house after finishing the milking, saw the meteor roaring overhead with an eye-tearing brightness. He hadn’t even climbed the porch steps when a massive shock wave flattened everything in its path. The farmer didn’t even have a split second to grasp the connection between the two.
Sci-Fi Adventure/Socialogicol commentaryTrilogy, using the scenerio instigated by this event is currently under consideration at a publisher. Stay tuned for further publication updates.