“That’s science fiction, right?” the major scoffed. “I don’t watch that sort of stuff.”

“An asteroid probably wiped out the dinosaurs, sir,” Crichton explained, trying not to sound as if he was speaking to a child. “It’s not science fiction, it could happen at any time.”

“But we’d get warning, right?” the XO asked. “There’s some sort of a group that watches for that sort of thing. They thought one was headed this way a couple of years ago…”

“No, sir, we wouldn’t,” Crichton said, shaking his head. “Not unless we were extremely lucky. Spacewatch can only scan about ten percent of the sky. An asteroid can come in from anywhere. But, again, there’s no evidence that it’s an asteroid strike. Asteroids will pick up debris, lots of it and big debris when you get a fireball like this, described as this one was which was that it seemed to be at ground level. Chondritic meteors can do an airburst, that’s probably what happened in Tunguska…”

“They teach this in NBC school?” the operations officer asked.

“No, sir, but there have been recognized impacts in the last ten years; this is real information,” the chemical specialist said. “Do you want it?”

“Go ahead, Specialist,” the battalion commander said. “But your point is that this doesn’t appear to be a meteor.”

“No, sir,” the confirmed. “I’ve caught what I can from the news while I’ve been running around. There’s a big ball of dust over the explosion site and news helicopters have been staying away from it for safety reasons. But they’ve noted that the damage path is damned near circular. Very unusual for a meteor.”

“Why?” the XO asked.

The Specialist sighed. “Angles, sir.”

“Sit, Crichton,” the battalion commander said. “Then explain. This is all new to me, too.”

“Thanks, sir,” he replied, grabbing a chair, then holding his hands up like a ball.