Planet Wrecker

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As Scipio watched on his wall, the asteroid with the cryovolcano approached the blue-green world. If anyone had been left alive on it, he or she would have seen the third planet as Luna-sized from Earth.

The line of former farm habitats—gently accelerated these past days—moved like giant billiard balls. They approached in silence and in near formation. That had been Scipio’s greatest decision. Should he work on one habitat at a time and send it alone at the asteroids? Or should he work on all of them and launch them together? He’d chosen a third way, working on eight at a time. Because of a thousand problems and delays, these were the only eight he’d been able to fix enough to blast out of Earth-orbit.

From hundreds of thousands of kilometers away, Scipio witnessed the first event. A cylindrical-shaped habitat plowed into the asteroid. Metal crumpled at the impact and then burst apart, flying in many directions. The hit caused trembling to shake crystals loose on the cryovolcano ten kilometers from the impact-point. The second habitat caused greater trembling. Unfortunately, the habitat’s mass was a pittance compared to the asteroid. Fortunately, another came in a line, hitting, crumpling and flying apart.

At the third strike, the combined jolts caused the cryovolcano to crack, shatter and burst apart. Giant sections tumbled down onto the icy plain or flew off into space. Each strike had deflected the asteroid a little. The trick, the point of this exercise, was to move it enough that Earth’s gravity wouldn’t pull the object down upon itself. If these strikes had occurred even two days ago, it could have easily moved the asteroid far enough off course. Now, it was going to be dicey. It would have been good to hit this asteroid with another object, but those were on other intercept courses. The targeting decisions had been made a day ago. The mass of the habitats, their velocity and the relative weakness of the engines meant it was impossible to redirect them now.