January 1, 1995 is a day few of us will forget. While the world was rejoicing over the coming of the new year, radioactive sludge, leaking out of the corroded vats left over from the Manhattan Project, had made its way through an underground stream to a chemical waste containment which, itself, was failing. A never-before-imagined chemical reaction caused instant spontaneous supercombustion with dire consequences. At 03:02:19 AM, Mountain Standard Time, the ground temperature at Hobbs, New Mexico reached 1,012,000 degrees Fahrenheit as nuclear fission occurred. An earthquake of 7.2 magnitude was recorded at a seismology center in Odessa, Texas, nearly 200 miles from the center of the blast. Nearly eight percent of the land mass of the United States was affected directly, while no estimates could be made of the damage from the resultant radioactive cloud, combined with millions of tons of strewn soil and rock, much of which was blown completely out of the atmosphere. The human, animal, insect and plant toll has yet to be tallied.
On a scale of catastrophe, the Hobbs Armageddon, as it came to be known, ranked amongst the likes of the American public school system and the meteor collision which caused the extinction of the dinosaurs. Fortunately, Station One was locked in a fixed orbit above Iowa and incurred no direct structural injury. Less fortunate was a cluster of satellites above California, Colorado, Mexico, Texas and, of course, New Mexico. In all, 14 satellites were damaged and seven were put out of commission altogether. Two-thirds of the Internet went offline. Five million homes and businesses and six space stations, including Station One, while unscathed by the explosion, were left without electrical power due to the destruction of their low-orbit microwave transmitters.
Station One's backup power generators had been built without the anticipation of such rapid growth as had occurred in the previous months, and each began to fail in tandem. Engineers worked desperately to keep up with repairs, but theirs was a losing battle. The Station was left with neither communications nor vital life support. The Station, was doomed. Commander Jang was on the verge of a breakdown, but held himself together enough to coordinate the evacuation procedure. Most residents were shuttled to a safehaven which the U.S. Government had hastily constructed in Oregon, while some opted to head for the Epsilon moon base.
Jang, himself, boarded the last ship to Oregon. Taking a seat next to a rear-facing window, he began fighting a mental and emotional war within himself over whether to look back; he knew if he did look, his abandonment of the Station could not be permanent. As the pilot of the evacuation shuttle signalled over the intercom that the ports were about to be closed for entry into the Earth's atmosphere, Jang took a deep breath. With the face of true warrior, maintaining his pride even in the face of defeat, he peered back over his left shoulder for a momentary view of the greatest achievement of his life, now completely barren and void of life. At that very instant, in Jang's heart, time seemed to stop. At that very instant, in Jang's heart, the rebirth of the Station began.