Though the satellites were now destroyed, they had left a terrible legacy. In their final minutes, they had begun deploying the viral pathogen that Madeline and Ayala had worked so hard to counteract. As the team had predicted, their antigen to the super-virus had not spread as quickly as it needed to in some of the more sparsely populated areas of the world. John had described to the team the way the aliens’ virus would be deployed using viral cluster pods launched in a wide spread pattern to either side of the orbital path of the satellites. The pods would then fall to Earth in two bands three thousand miles apart, sweeping east to west. Once the pods were in the lower atmosphere, they would break apart, releasing their deadly cargo, which would then filter slowly to the ground to seed the world with a plague of biblical proportions.

There was a specific point in each pod’s descent when the pathogen was most vulnerable, and it was in that window that Martin and Jack now intended to try to stop some of them.

Working in the team’s favor was the fact that the pods were only being actively distributed in that three-thousand-mile-wide band, though ‘only’ was used loosely here. Once the pathogen was on the ground, it was designed to spread the old-fashioned way, through the sputtering coughs and sneezes of the sick and dying. So outside that pod’s band, it would be subject to the same limitations as the antigen, which had the advantage of being deployed months ago. But any countries that were inside that three thousand mile wide band and were not already sufficiently protected by the antigen would be devastated by the disease. Their populations would be literally wiped out in a matter of weeks.

With less than 40% of the populations of several countries in the Middle East immunized with the antigen that would mean a 60% kill rate. Tens of millions of people dead.

So into this weakest spot in the world’s defenses flew a single B-2 Spirit Bomber armed with more explosives than a flotilla of World War Two flying fortresses. They knew it wouldn’t be enough to completely stop the killing, but it might limit it, and that was the best they could hope for.

“Jack!” shouted Martin, somewhat impatiently.

“What, Martin? I said I’m on my way.” said Jack, swigging some Gatorade as he climbed back up to the cockpit. Settling into his seat the empty pilot’s seat, he checked the instruments with experience bordering on reflex.