“Any word from.. them?”

“Sir?”

“The Styx, General. Any word from the Styx?”

“No, sir. I doubt even they could have survived this.”

Jennings rubbed his temple, closed his eyes.

A dull ache formed behind his eyes as he thought of the Styx project. There were still so many unanswered questions, so many mysteries behind the whole why and how of the debacle. If only they hadn’t tampered with the thing in the mountain… Oh well. There was no turning back. The remnants of the Styx project had been placed on Santa Fosca for everyone’s own good. The project had been a failure and the remaining specimens had been isolated on the tiny atoll.

Bad feeling…

“There’s more.”

A second flashing dot appeared as Cervera returned the projector to global setting.

“What the hell is that?”

“At 0135 hours, a tidal wave was formed five hundred miles from the Santa Fosca impact site. Waves washed over what was left of Guam. We don’t yet have a death toll, but we’re expecting the figures to be pretty high.”

“The wave covered Guam? That would mean—”

“We’ve lost contact with most of our Pacific bases. There’s casualties in the Pact zone as well. This was a big blast.”

“What could have caused an explosion like that?”

“The source of the wave is still unknown.”

“Could someone be testing out there without our knowledge?”

Cervera didn’t answer, but adjusted the projector once more. A third red dot appeared on the other side of the globe.

Close. Much too close.

“Lake Superior? Cervera, what’s going on?”

“At 0145 hours, a smaller impact wave was detected within Lake Superior by a Containment Line vessel, the Indomitable. Apparently something came down with enough force to sink another one of our Line ships, the Freeman Teller.”

“Did the Teller have visual contact?”