Two hundred miles ahead the first viral pod continued its descent through the atmosphere, itself burning with the heat of atmospheric deceleration. At the missile’s breakneck speed it covered the distance between them in only ten minutes, descending on the pod with fury. As the missile got ever closer, the pod hit an exact point in its descent and, just as Agent John Hunt had said it would, the pod began to break apart. With most of its initial velocity now spent, the heat screens were no longer needed, and now it could release its cargo to disperse on the winds onto the unsuspecting populace below.

The pod and the missile flew toward each other.

The final mile between the AGM-158A and its target would be covered in only three and a half seconds. As this threshold was passed the missile reacted, triggering the explosion that would rip it apart. In perfect coordination, the engine cut out and two small bar explosives halfway along the missile’s length detonated, slicing the missile neatly in two. The heavier rear started to fall away immediately, taking the spent engine with it. A moment later a much larger explosive in the core of the front half of the missile fired. The remaining fiberglass casing of the fuselage disintegrated as fifty smaller cylinders were blown outward by the shaped central charge. The small cylinders flew outward and forward, forming a wide circle, the explosion propelling them away from each other, even as the missile’s massive momentum continued to carry them forward and down over the descending viral pod in a wide circle, like a massive rope lassoing the alien capsule in midair.

As the small cylinders fell level with the larger alien pod they all ignited. With machine precision they detonated at once, their thermobaric payloads exploding in a ring of fire around the pod. The fire swelled inward, sucking in oxygen in a massive gulp. At the center of the blast a vortex of flame was created, rushing upward. The disintegrating alien pod was swept up by the 100m wide inferno, the beautiful and terrible fire roasting its target’s deadly cargo to a harmless crisp.

A moment too soon and the pod would not have begun to disintegrate yet, leaving its shielding in place to absorb the heat of the blow. A moment too late and the virus would have already been too dispersed, flowing on the wind in ways the computer tracking systems on board the missile could not have predicted.

But John had been very precise about the altitude they had to hit the pods, and Martin had listened. With this prescient knowledge of his enemy’s behavior, Martin had designed the missile to meet the virus pod at the exact point it needed to, creating a massive storm of fire in the sky over Kashmir, and saving almost two hundred thousand people in the rural farms below from certain death.

* * *