April 4: A Different Perspective (43 page)

"Did you feel that?"

"Shit, shit, shit. Can't talk." Jeff could tell from the stabbing motions Louis was working his board like crazy, trying to find out – something. If he didn't feel the explosion he certainly had evidence of it on his com board.

"Put your suit on," Louis told him, scowling and jumped up from the station com board, likely to put his own suit on. That seemed excellent advice, in fact Jeff was embarrassed he had to be told to do it, with his bulkhead all bulged in front of him.

* * *

Near two-hundred pellets in a ring sped past the Rock. Most of them struck nothing and continued beyond, climbing away from the Earth at a slight angle. They would reach an apogee that did not endanger the geostationary communications satellites, but a perigee that would not result in all of them reentering the Earth's atmosphere, until several other spacecraft and habitats had been damaged.

The angle was such that a small crescent of Home's rings were exposed to the cone of hazard and three pellets tore through pressure, destroying an air processing plant, a self-storage facility and the shower room for the beam dogs, with three workers just off their shift using the facility.

One pellet struck the construction radio shack, with two workers and a dispatcher inside. The only survivor was a worker in a hard suit, who still had his helmet closed. Another pellet hit a FedEx robot freighter parked, waiting for dockage and debris from that damaged an orbital shuttle inbound from New Las Vegas, but without casualties.

Seven dead and three with minor injuries was a minor car crash in New Jersey, or an unimportant Drone strike in the Trans-Arabic Protectorate, but it was a national catastrophe for Home.

* * *

>THUD< woke Eric with a jolt. The lights were out to sleep, but the emergency lights came on for a few seconds before they went back out and returned him to darkness. He called the regular lights back up and was relieved when they came on. He immediately went to the entry cupboard and got an emergency pressure suit. When he went back in the living room, both his mother and sister were peering out of their rooms, looking worried.

"Did somebody tell you to put on your pressure suit?" his mother asked, critically.

"Nobody
needs
to tell me to put it on. Something is wrong for there to be some kind of an explosion, like that noise just now and I'm not taking any chances."

"You heard how much it costs to fix one of those suits back up. We can't afford that, you need to put it back in the closet."

"No," Eric said, not arguing, just a flat refusal.

"What did you say young man?"

"I said no and if you try to take it away from me I'll fight you," he made clear. His sister was shocked speechless, mouth hanging open.

"If you don't want to put one on that's fine. I'll put on your headstone – 'She saved eight-hundred dollars.' See if I won't, but I won't die, gasping in vacuum, so you can be cheap. I have eight- hundred of my own money, if it comes to that. You don't know any better about living up here than Lindsy or I do and I say there's some kind of danger right now. I'm not going to seal up and start using suit air, but I'm going to have it on and adjusted, just in case," he told them. In fact it was unrolled and he was slipping his legs into the suit even as he spoke to them.

"You better believe I'm going to have some words with your father when he comes home," Linda threatened him. 

"Go ahead," Eric said adjusting his sleeves. "I'm not a little kid anymore. I won't do something I know is stupid, just because you tell me to. I wouldn't do something stupid because
dad
tells me either, but I don't
expect
him to tell me something this idiotic."

The com screen lit up without anyone going near it and an unfamiliar face was displayed.

"There is a pressure emergency at several places in the rings. If you find your corridor door sealed be aware there may not be pressure outside your cubic. If you find that is the case please call the com code shown on the screen and inform maintenance. I suggest you keep your emergency pressure suit close to hand and take it with you if you move about Home. It appears from the multiple locations damaged, this was some sort of attack. We have no information yet if it is over, or ongoing. Your pardon for pushing this emergency message past your filters, but it seemed vital. This is M3 com, end message," he said, awkwardly. It was obviously unscripted. He spoke into the camera and his eyes didn't track like he was reading.

Eric had everything adjusted and the front seal pulled up all the way just a few centimeters short of closing and activating the air and the helmet faceplate open. That was good you could do that, because the helmet wasn't easily removable.

"Is
our
outside door locked?" his mom asked.

"I don't have any idea," he replied. "I'll go back and check it now. If it's open I'll check as far as the elevators to make sure we can get to them and be right back."

Linda visibly forced herself not to say something, probably ordering Eric not to go out in the corridor, but swallowed it, knowing he might refuse again. Lindsy looked scared. They both stood there in their night clothes, not saying anything to each other until he came back.

"There is light and air in the corridor and nothing between here and the elevators, but beyond the elevators  there is some kind of a wall sealing off the whole corridor. It has bright yellow stripes on it and no smaller door in it. But there's a small view port and the corridor beyond the wall looks normal, but nobody walking around. Of course I can't
see
if there is air."

"Maybe we can get some news on the com," Lindsy suggested.

"Go ahead," Eric invited her, "it's the middle of the night. I'm going to sleep some more. You won't bother me." They watched unbelieving as he laid back down on the sofa bed, still in the pressure suit and turned his back to the room.

* * *

"Where are you eventually going to stop?" Wiggen asked. They had gone west on surface streets and country lanes, until late in the day they came to the start of a suburban area. When they came to a fenced in self-storage facility, the office had a sign in the window that it was closed for the day. Mel produced a card and inserted it in the gate reader to gain admittance.

He had to get out to unlock the overhead door on a unit and lift it manually. The produce truck was backed into the unit and parked. His long weapon was broken down and put in a short bag that didn't betray it's nature and they locked up and went to the smaller unit next door. The door rose to reveal a plain vanilla sedan. There were cabinets in the back and Mel opened the  trunk and tossed various bags and bundles in. He surprised her by leaving the long gun in one of the cabinets. Just when she thought he wasn't going to answer her question, he did.

"I want to go into West Virginia. I have some com gear stowed in a cache there, with which we can call Home. Before you ask again, I don't have any connection to Home, but I don't have any base or facility on the continent I'm sure hasn't been infiltrated by the Patriot Party. I have no way to remove you to Europe or South America. I didn't have the means, or foresight, to stash away a boat or aircraft capable of reaching either. If I stole one I'd still need a pilot, because those aren't among my skills. I didn't fund these vehicles and equipment out of my own pocket. They were paid for by what little petty cash I was able to divert from your protective detail. It wasn't that vast a sum."

"Well, they made a big thing about freedom to travel to Home. We'll see how committed they are to that," Wiggen said. "Miss Lewis has asked favors of me. Time to call in a favor of my own and see if she knows how to play that game."

"If she refuses, I suggest you cut her off from any more favors." Mel advised, smiling at the irony of it.

"As charitable and forgiving as you know me to be, I just might have to, Mel."

* * *

The M3 information site showed two damaged sections, right next to each other. Then a warehouse facility unhit and another damaged section, the one with an air plant. The two clustered together were separated from Jeff's by one compartment. That meant there were two emergency pressure curtains cutting off adjacent sections of the rings. He was just outside the curtain, since he walked over the black stripe of it circling the corridor, every time he approached his office.

He got the blinking orange light of a high priority message and minimized the M3 map. It was Jon from security and he was in a plain t-shirt. Jeff had never seen him like that.

"Jeff we need you to activate your plan to attach ships to the south dockage and push the hab out of our current orbit. We are slowing the spin back down already to facilitate that."

"Do you have an OK from Mitsubishi? and where do you want to move it? The plan had three alternatives."

"Lewis gave me orders to move it, not a request, on his own authority as resident manager. He said it is well within his authority to do anything to safeguard M3's physical integrity in an emergency. He says it is simply too dangerous to remain here. I didn't argue with him," Jon added. "As to where, he says L2."

"I'll start making calls right now," Jeff promised. "I'm calling the construction gang and telling them to secure all their scooters and loose materials as a balanced load, within the hour.  The radio shack will be grappled on the north hub and anything left behind will have to be towed or ferried to our new location. We should have two ships attached and start initial thrust between an hour and two hours. We'll have the other two ships on by three hours."

"You don't have to worry about the radio shack. There isn't enough of it left to be worth attaching, unless you need the scrap metal," Jon said with a fierce face.

"Anyone hurt?"

"Sally and somebody in a suit we haven't ID'd, are dead. Graham Norris was sealed up in a hard suit and it knocked him senseless. He's in the infirmary with a concussion and doesn't remember it. The Doc is looking him over for other problems."

"Bring it anyway," Jeff instructed. "Even if you have to tie it down under a net."

"Whatever for?"

"It's a crime scene. We want it for evidence. This was an attack, not a meteor." Jeff pointed out the obvious.

"You are doing my job for me," Jon declared distressed. "Be right back, I have to tell rescue and repair that the ring sites are crime scenes too and photograph and take samples accordingly." His window dropped into a thumbnail in the corner and the audio cut off.

Jeff was getting a stiff neck tilting his head unconsciously to look at the canted screen. He thought about taking it down, but decided best leave it alone if it was working and worked his neck, getting a satisfying crunch.

Jon came back to Jeff frowning, "Thanks, I don't know why I was treating it like an accident. Just couldn't get my head wrapped around something so different, I guess."

"Do you know who did this?" Jeff asked, face a mask.

"I'd be scared to tell you if I knew. When you get that dead poker face and icy voice I knew the question even before you got it all out. I had to clamp down to keep from pissing myself, picturing a couple billion megatons, hammering some country to the world's biggest parking lot."

"So you
don't
know yet?" Jeff asked again, ignoring all the commentary.

"Targeting radar on the Rock gave us exact trajectories before it was destroyed. We compared that with the traffic catalog of known objects and have a match. The militia has already launched two volunteer ships to intercept. They will arrest anyone aboard if possible, do a search and document the equipment, then destroy the object before they return. They are already under way and no, before you ask, I made sure neither was one of the ships you needed to move us."

"Thank you."

"Promise me you'll talk it over with a few people, before you kill a couple hundred million clueless Earthies and make us an even bigger stink to them," Jon begged.

"Easily, I am not eager to do so and I will consult you if it comes to that," Jeff promised.

"Thanks, gotta go and direct things. Call me if you need to," Jon offered and disconnected.

* * *

"We have a really irritating problem," Colonel Allister owned.

"Indeed?" The General said, adding a questioning tone to the single word.

"I told my boys to go ahead and wear their Patriot pins when they asked permission. I figured it would build morale and start the public getting acclimated to the new way of things. But it has spread online and by word of mouth, that if you are with the old regime, to wear a white brassard. Two of our agents with DHS here in the city were killed leaving lunch at a restaurant. They had on pins and no brassard."

"Did you capture the assassins?"

"No, they were killed about 12:30 and laid on the pavement until a local cop patrol saw them about 1500. Nobody going to their cars, or coming and going from the restaurant called it in."

"DC is different, The General asserted quickly, "Too many people owe their livelihood to the current administration and fear they will be cast loose, or even punished by the new. I wouldn't take this for the mood of the nation," he scoffed. But inside he was chilled. He frowned with thought. "How is it we didn't get a report and location off the gunshot monitoring system? It's supposed to locate any discharge within ten meters."

"We obtained video from a dry cleaner. The agents were about halfway to their car when six men in masks stepped from behind vehicles with compound bows. They shot from ten to eighteen meter range and one agent managed to draw before going down, but didn't fire. They took their weapons and IDs and disappeared in different directions. Except for a few shafts that went straight through, they were pretty much pin cushions," Col. Allister said, visibly squeamish. "I had no idea body armor was so ineffective against arrows."

"Yes, or swords, or blunt trauma from a club," The General agreed. "I doubt you'll run into such innovation on a wide scale though."

"We have had one more incident I'd term 'innovative. A foursome of Department of Agriculture agents went in a lunch place in Austin, wearing their pins. They made it back to the office before they displayed some respiratory distress. One managed to tell EMS where they had eaten, but the two in that ambulance were dead by the time they reached the hospital, poisoned," he declared. "The ambulance with the other two never showed up at a hospital. The city fire department said it wasn't manned by a crew on call and had been stolen. When a team went out to the restaurant it was empty and had been burned out before the crew running it dispersed."