Hammerhead Resurrection (14 page)

Jeffrey lay on his bunk waiting. The fleet had been accelerating back toward Earth for two days. Samantha hadn’t spoken more than a dozen words to him in that time. He’d waffled back and forth from feeling justified to embarrassed. He’d only recently settled on the conclusion that he probably should have simply let her be. Not responding would have been the higher, more cordial road than calling her out.

He let his thoughts of her go, and considered the Sthenos, who now closed in from all directions, save the four nearest Earth. War was imminent, but the two silent days of waiting had gotten under everyone’s skin. The Sthenos would reach them in perhaps six hours.

The shade of his reading lamp threw a pattern of ellipses across the ceiling. He stared at them, considering the ovals of light against the chaos of the stars. What patterns existed here and now? He found himself again in a situation in which discerning patterns from chaos was the only way to scrape life away from certain death. He had to find weaknesses and exploit them in fractions of a second. His thoughts turned to his pilots, those who were to become the new Hammerheads—unmodified, unprepared. When the Sthenos attacked fifty years ago, the Hammerheads had been an experiment already in the final stages of development. He and the first wave were just coming on line when Demos had been destroyed. 50,000 dead in the first few moments of that war.

Over a quarter million men and women had fought and died to keep the Sthenos from Earth, and despite all odds, they’d succeeded. Those dead would be nothing when held in the light of this. He thought of the people going about their days in New York,
Tokyo, Moscow—millions in each, some sleeping, some committing crimes, others holding high a grandchild. He paused as the memory of Leif stepping out of the airlock, soul gutted, came to mind. There had been something worse than the loss of a wife in his eyes.

“A child,” Jeffrey said quietly to himself.

Sarah had been pregnant.

He gritted his teeth against the shock of that realization, under which fury began boiling up. As he wondered if the gluttony of the Sthenos had any boundaries, he slipped into a self-preserving daydream of a final dogfight. Flying a Phantom, a ship long since retired, he imagined himself arcing above the last Sthenos destroyer as its hull cracked wide, its guts spilling into the vacuum of space. He wouldn’t have delivered the final blow, as a Phantom couldn’t possibly take down a destroyer, but would have cleared the way. In the end, a Sthenos fighter would get one last shot in. He’d see it too late.

As his windscreen spider-webbed and blew open, he’d watch one of his Hammerheads run the Sthenos fighter down. With his ship falling to pieces, a moment of searing pain would be followed by an enveloping serenity. What would he find? His wife? The other pilots, gone now fifty years? Mako with his narrow shoulders and hawklike nose? Finally smiling? Finally at peace?

That’s how he’d like it to be.

A tapping sounded on the hatch.

Jeffrey came out of his thoughts, seeing the dark room again, the pattern of light on the ceiling.

The tapping sounded again.

Jeffrey shoved the blanket off, exposing his T-shirt and uniform slacks, now wrinkled. He went to the hatch, his support frame whirring. Opening the door, he found Vice President Delaney alone in the corridor.

“Vice President.”

She stared at him, no smile, no pretense, just a matter of fact look. “Can we talk?”

Jeffrey leaned on the hatch-frame as he crossed his arms. “Yes.”

She waited. When he said nothing more she sighed and said, “In private.”

Jeffrey backed away, sweeping his arm into the small quarters. As she entered, he flicked on the main light and closed the door.

“Please,” she said as she motioned toward the switch, “I prefer the dimmer light.”

Jeffrey turned the main light off and crossed his arms again, balancing himself on his feet, shoulders squared. “What can I help you with Ma’am?”

She put her hands on her hips. “You clearly have a problem with me.”

“Yes.”

“What the hell have I ever done to you?”

Jeffrey saw sincere and uncharacteristic frustration in her expression. “Nothing.” He said and left it at that.

“Nothing? I don’t un—”

“It’s what you did to all of us. You and those like you wanted so badly to turn your nose up at the military that you not only destroyed many veterans’ sense of self worth, you left the entire human race exposed and unprepared for what we’re facing today.”

Her hard glare faltered.

“I understand,” Jeffrey said, “you want to live in a world in which you feel safe, but saying there are no threats doesn’t make it so. Telling yourself the war was a lie or we’re somehow beyond it denies a fundamental truth. If you convince yourself there is no gravity before jumping off a building, you won’t float. Not only do you stand against me and those like me, you’re a very successful politician. That means you want and enjoy power. You might kid yourself that your desire for power is to make a positive impact, but I’ve found that those who make the real difference in the world do it quietly from the inside, not from the top.”

“There are good people in politics Jeffrey,” she said, her tone exasperated. “Thomas Jefferson said the tallest a man stands is when he stoops to help a child. You shouldn’t judge me on what you assume I am either. There’s a lot of macho bullshit in the military, but I don’t think of you as a meat-head.”

“Ma’am, I—”

She held up a hand to silence him, “I could have. Trust me, with your stony attitude, and physical stature...” She regarded him for a moment, “How tall are you anyway? Six-five?”

“Six-six.”

“I’m six feet tall, Jeffrey, and I don’t meet a lot of men whom I have to or wish to look up to, but I do look up to you, if you get my meaning. You should hear how the men and women out there talk about you. You’re their anchor.”

Jeffrey said, “I didn’t ask to be—”

“Shut up and let me have my say.”

Something in her eyes, some hurt, something fearful behind the strength caused Jeffrey to remain silent. The muscles of her jaw flexed. Her expression, coupled with the patches of lamp light across her neck, brought out the full depth of her beauty.

“You all but accused me of being a whore on the bridge.”

“I never said—”

“
Shut
—” she balled her fists, her eyes on the floor, “
up
—and let me speak, will you?”

He glared at her, her commands
restoking his anger.

“You,” s
he said, pointing her finger at him, “may doubt me. You may think I’m no better than any of those other
fuckers
out there.” When she hit the word her teeth bared and Jeffrey felt himself wanting to step back. “You may think I’m just here for myself, but I’m not. You want to know how bad politicians are?
You
try being a single woman near the top surrounded by wolves. These bastards don’t care about anyone but themselves and which of their buddies can get elected in their wake.”

Her eyes fairly blazed now, but her voice cracked when she said, “I am here…” She drew a deep breath and her arms came stiff
to her sides as she collected herself. “I am here to help. I always have been, and I’ve given up more than I’ll ever gain. And I don’t care,” she fairly growled her next words, “if you ever come to believe that. But I will
not
be called a whore.” She stepped close to him, her anger fully unmasked. “I do
not
use sex to gain power. I
never
have, and I
never
will.” She jabbed herself in the temple with her index finger. “This is what got me where I am today,” she unceremoniously gripped her breasts, “not these. Anyone who suggests otherwise can go to hell.”

Jeffrey had had enough. “What the hell then,” he leaned in on her, letting her know he wouldn’t be backed into a corner, his nose now a few inches from hers, “do you call what you’ve been doing to me? Sliding up beside me, touching my arm?”

At that her anger faltered. She turned halfway back to the hatch.

“I’m sorry,” she said in an unsure tone, “I…” Her eyes narrowed as her face flushed. For a moment, Jeffrey thought she would strike out at him, but her gaze faltered as it traced his face. Without another word, she opened the hatch and left, shutting it with a resonating thump.

Jeffrey felt bewildered.

Admiral Cantwell held his frustration close, offering an outward appearance of absolute calm. But still he found himself shifting too often in his command seat. Earth had been dark for two days. The message detailing their plan to land on Earth had gone unanswered.

“Communications,” Cantwell said across the broad expanse of the bridge. “Any status from Earth yet?” He’d asked the same question an hour earlier. Knowing he should trust the officer to speak up when new information was available did not keep the worry from catching up with him from time to time and slipping out.

The young man looked up from his console and said, “Sir, I’m still attempting to hack into a satellite. The systems are all non-responsive. It’s possible the Sthenos used electromagnetic pulse weaponry. I have a faint signal from a geostationary satellite in the Clarke belt. I’m attempting to bootstrap it now.”

Cantwell shifted in his seat. “Keep at it sailor.”

“Yes, sir.”

Pushing himself out of his seat under the heavy G’s, Cantwell walked over to the Nav-Con. Their transition from acceleration to deceleration, which they had to make in a few moments, would afford the Sthenos destroyers a perfect window of attack. “Bring up our trailing Sthenos ships.”

“Yes, sir.” She swept her fingers across the control podium.

The fleet whisked away, and the twenty Sthenos destroyers, came into view. As the groups from Saturn, Mars, and Europa approached, they hadn’t converged on the fleet; they had vectored together into a large group trailing it. The ships grew in size on the Nav-Con until each was perhaps seven inches long.

“Are they still matching our acceleration?”

“Yes, sir. No loss or gain of distance.”

They can easily outpace us. So… what are they waiting for?

“Nav-Con, please zoom in on the destroyer on point.” The lead ship expanded, extending nose to tail across the disk of the Nav-Con. The image was badly pixilated.

“No higher resolution is available at this time. A drone camera wouldn’t be able to follow our acceleration curve. These images are from the Lacedaemon’s telescopes. Would you like me to drop a camera for a single pass?”

Cantwell shook his head. “Not at this time. Take the view out again.”

“Yes, sir. How far?”

“Show me the Sthenos position relative to ours.”

The Sthenos ship shrank away, shifting to the left. When they grew too small to see, brilliant yellow sparks of light took their place. Soon, to the right, the blood-red markers of the fleet slid into view.

“Distance?”

“50,000 miles, sir.”

As Cantwell walked back toward his command seat, the communications officer he’d tasked with obtaining updates from Earth caught his eye and touched the console in front of him. His face was pale.

Understanding the young man wanted to keep what he had on his screen quiet, Cantwell walked over. A video from a low-mounted angle of a yawning blast crater played on the officer’s screen. Debris ringed the crater—flipped cars, cinder blocks, twisted I-beams—all strewn outward. Now and again, windswept smoke obscured the camera’s view. Based on the amount of debris, Cantwell guessed the crater had once been an immense building but couldn’t discern which. In the crater, a torn pipe spit the near-invisible, pale-blue flame of hydrogen gas. Beyond the crater
and a green body of water, stood a white spire.

In a quiet voice, the navigation officer said, “I now have access to several camera systems through the satellite sir. This image originated from a parking security camera.”

“Where?”

“It’s the Pentagon sir… what’s left of it anyway.”

As his mind adjusted to the knowledge, the white spire across the river became familiar—the Washington Monument. To the left of the monument, a knotted pillar of smoke rose several thousand feet into the air.

Cantwell pointed to the smoke. “Is that...?”

“The White House, sir.”

Cantwell fell silent.

The officer said, “Cheyenne Mountain’s gone as well.” He swept his finger across the screen changing the image to an aerial view of a mountain range with a city at its base. At the southern end of the mountain range, one of the many peaks had been gutted, it’s massive walls strewn outward to land among the surrounding housing developments.

“Colorado Springs,” Cantwell said in a near whisper.

“Yes, sir,” the navigation officer said, his voice still quiet. He swept his finger and the image changed to a city, sprawling across a broad plane, structure after structure.

Cantwell said, “The only area still that built up is China.”

“Yes sir. Shandong province. These were recorded before nightfall.”

The heart of the city appeared to have been cut out, leaving a bowled pit. Around the pit, tall columns of smoke threw shadows over the rooftops and streets. The crater had consumed a large portion of a runway.

“The headquarters of the PLA, sir.”

“Overall status?” Cantwell asked.

“No status sir. I only have images, but all major military installations I’ve checked are gone.”

“One hundred percent?”

“Affirmative, sir.”

Cantwell stared at the image. “How deep would you say that crater is?”

“It’s more than two miles across, so the depth must be… perhaps half a mile.”

As Cantwell stared at the crater he felt himself faltering.

Half a mile
deep? The singularity warheads could theoretically deliver that much damage. Had the Sthenos used similar tech? Could they defend against the singularities?

Cantwell squared his shoulders. “You stay on this full-time. I want to know if you hear anything new. Keep searching imagery and put together a last known picture as completely as you can.”

“Yes, sir.”

“Sir,” the Nav-Con officer said in a dazed tone with a slight tremor, as though she’d cut her hand badly and, watching blood pouring from the wound, had yet to fully feel the pain.

Cantwell held his voice calm and confident with a hint of support, as he said, “Yes, what is it?”

“The Sthenos have begun to close on us.”

Cantwell’s gut went cool as his pulse rose in his neck. He took a half second to check himself before saying, “At what rate?”

“They are…” the Nav-Con officer looked at her display. “This can’t be right.”

“What is it officer?” Cantwell heard his irritation slipping into his voice.

“They’ve doubled our acceleration curve.”

Six G’s of acceleration?

Cantwell let out his breath. He’d have preferred to swear and slam his fist on the podium.

Well… let it begin. We’ll do everything we can to end it.

He said, “Battle stations folks; this is it. Communications, get me a channel to the flight control deck.”