Nine, a new story by aaron

Okay everyone, here's my newest story, "Nine"

In this first chapter, I've used some earth science and astronomy terms that not everyone might be familiar with. I've provided some definitions for these below.

Perseids

This is a meteor shower, usually visible from about July 20th to August 20. It, like many meteor showers, is named for where it seems to originate. The Perseids meteor shower originates from near the star Eta Persis, one of the stars in the constellation Perseus.

Radient

A fancy term for the origin point of a meteor shower.

Tropopause

A layer of atmosphere separating the troposphere, the lowest layer of Earth's atmosphere, from the stratosphere, the next layer of atmosphere. The troposphere is where all of Earth's weather happens. It's thickest at the equator (about 16 kilometers tall) and thinnest at the poles (about 8 kilometers tall).

Okay, that should do it. On with the story!

Nine

by aaron

Chapter I

July 7th, 12:31 PM

Palomar Observatory

80 km northeast of San Diego, California

Terry Amai looked at the display hooked up to Palomar's 18-inch Schmidt telescope, and frowned. She took several photographic records of the object the lens was now focusing on, then turned to her computer and started to examine star maps. "Edwin!" she called out. "Come take a look at this!"

Edwin Hall, one of Terry's co-workers, walked over to her. Terry motioned for him to look through the scope, while she worked on several calculations. "Hunh." he said, only mildly surprised. "A little early for the Perseids, isn't it?"

Terry shook her head. "I don't think it's part of..." her voice trailed off. "No, it's not. The radient isn't anywhere near Eta Persis, so it can't be part of the Perseids meteor shower."

"Well, where's it from?"

Terry fed in more information and waited what seemed like forever for the computer to answer. When it finally did, Terry sighed and read off the answer. "Origin cannot be determined. Likely outside Milky Way."

"What about size?"

Terry took several more photos for reference, and then started to work on its size. "Not more than 50 meters in diameter. Probably much smaller."

"Fifty? That's hardly even a pebble."

Terry nodded. "It'll be dust even before it reaches the tropopause. I'll log it, though, for what it's worth."

July 15th, 10:24 AM

Escondido

San Diego County, California

Claire sat down on the middle of the field, setting the basket of wild blueberries she had collected alongside her. Just enough for a pie, she thought to herself as she soaked in the rays of the sun. It was a warm day in July, and Claire wished she didn't have to wear pants on a day like this. Suddenly, she heard a rumbling. It got louder and louder, and Claire started to feel the ground shake. She looked up at the cloudless sky, and froze in shock. Something that looked like a meteorite tore through the sky and landed on the backside of a large hill, less than a mile away. Claire cringed, expecting an explosi