New Title 1 (31 page)

Reya nodded, reaching for a com mike and starting to speak… then pausing a moment. Julian noticed her pause, looked to her to see what was going on, and saw Reya looking towards the main corridor entrance to CnC. Julian followed her gaze, as Reya resumed issuing orders, and saw Kris Fawkes literally running towards CnC. She was a sight to behold in her immaculately-tailored suit, her dark hair streaming behind her, and taking the strides of a long distance runner.

When she reached CnC, she skidded to a stop nearby Julian, and tried to stand poised and regulate her labored breathing. “Sir… I need to speak…”

“I hate to break it to you,” Julian said, placing a steadying hand on her shoulder, “but we already know. The first fighters have mobilized from Texas.”

Kris looked at the main board, and a pained expression came across her face. She nodded, still breathing heavily. “I tried to call… there’s more,” she managed. “Thompson… as much as ordered me… to kill you if necessary… to secure Verdant control for the United States.” Those who were in earshot went silent, and all turned to stare at Kris and Julian. Slowly, she regained her composure, and her breathing became more normal. “I hereby surrender to you… I abdicate my position as American diplomat. And I advise you to take all appropriate steps… to protect yourself, and the CnC. There will probably be others…”

“I understand,” Julian said, turning to face one of the security guards at the entrance to CnC. “Code four, Lieutenant. Seal us up!” The security guard he had addressed immediately saluted, turned to a panel on the wall, and punched in a series on its keypad. As he did so, the other guard shifted his position to the outside of the entryway, and a moment later, a set of glass double-doors began to slide out of the opposite walls on heavy gimbals. They converged on each other and connected, and a loud
hiss
signified the hermetic sealing of the room, leaving the Lieutenant on the inside of the room, and the other officer outside the doors to CnC.

Most of the technicians had watched, spellbound, as the ominous doors closed and sealed them inside. Reya, however, had kept her eyes on the main workstation, and abruptly, she looked up. “We have an incoming message,” Reya announced, pointing at a technician. “Put it on speaker.” The technician worked, and after a moment, a voice was heard throughout the room.

“This is Vice President Lena Carruthers of the United States of America. It has been brought to our attention that the satellites of Verdant and Tranquil, and probably Fertile and Qing, have developed an offensive weapons system, in violation of their U.N. charter.”

“We have?” a technician asked. Reya gave them a look to shut them up, as the voice continued.

“Given the fragile state of affairs at present, the United States feels it is in the world’s best interests if this threat is neutralized as soon as possible. Therefore, we are sending troops to occupy Verdant and Tranquil, and to secure this weapons system. We require the cooperation of Verdant and Tranquil to allow the peaceful transfer of power to our forces. Failure to do so may result in further action to secure the satellites, and may involve a hazard to the residents and inhabitants aboard the satellites. We have no desire to harm innocent citizens. Therefore we urge the commanding staff of Verdant and Tranquil to comply with this order. We require a response on this channel within one hour, time starting now. That is all.”

All of CnC was quiet after the broadcast, the only sounds being com traffic between the Wasps that murmured throughout the room, and informational streams from the GLIS. Reya looked to Julian, who seemed to be absorbed in the activity on the main board. Kris Fawkes also watched Julian from just a few paces away.

Julian finally broke the silence by muttering, “We’ve just been threatened by Cocktail Barbie.”

Reya did not bother to suppress a grin, and finally asked, “Any response?”

Julian shook his head. “They gave us an hour. We’ll respond in an hour.”

Reya nodded. “What are we going to tell them?”

Julian looked at her. “I’ll tell you in an hour.”

“Here it is.”

“Is there a light?”

“Of course there’s a light, Cal. Hang on.”

The room remained dark for a few more moments. All Calvin could see before him was a large, mostly spherical silhouette connected to the floor, and other shapes that suggested machinery stationed around it, or perhaps suspended from the walls. Then he heard a barely-audible click, followed by the activation of a light panel on the ceiling. Three more clicks signaled the activation of three more ceiling lights, until the room’s lights were all on, and the room was completely revealed.

“Yup,” Valeria said from behind him, “that’s it. The second test-bed.”

“Yeah?” Calvin approached the object. In the light, he could now be sure it was a beach-ball-sized sphere, though the wealth of modules, cables, antennas and exposed panels that festooned its surface almost hid its spherical nature. It sat on a gimbaled cart that seemed custom-made to support it, and cables ran from the sphere, and the cart, to other machines that filled the room around it. “What-all is it connected to?”

“Most of this stuff, I think, is to download and examine internal readings and monitors,” Valeria replied. “But that’s not my area, you know… I just did the calculations for it.”

“And what, again, were your calculations supposed to do?”

“They were supposed to provide an instantaneous factor that represented its composition and location at a precise moment, which would impose itself on the object during translation.”

“‘Translation’?”

“Yeah,” Valeria nodded. “It’s quantum-speak, because the thing doesn’t actually
move
, it sort of… isn’t here anymore… now it’s there.”

Calvin wasn’t sure he understood the distinction either, but that was quantum physics for you. He shook his head. “Anyway, obviously no one’s messing with it.”

“Who did you expect to be messing with it?”

“Dr. Silver… or some of her people,” Calvin replied. “I was afraid that… I don’t know… they’d be putting something inside of it. Some kind of… payload.”

“A bomb?” Valeria did not regard him as if he was crazy, but she nonetheless looked dubious. “Look, Cal, I saw this thing at various stages of construction, as it so happens. I’m no engineer, but I can tell you that thing’s so packed with equipment that there’s not enough room inside to slip in so much as a firecracker, much less a serious explosive.”

So, okay… no one’s arming the thing,” Calvin agreed. “That’s good. Is there a chance there’s another test-bed somewhere?”

“Sure, the first one… I’ve seen that one, too,” Valeria replied, and Calvin perked up. Then Valeria held out her hands as if cradling something about the size of a soccer ball. “It’s about this big. And even more packed with equipment.”

Calvin’s frustration was evident on his face. Finally, he said, “Well, if your calculations aren’t for this thing… and it’s not for the defensive system… what’s left? And where the Hell is Dr. Silver?”

~

“This goes on record as the most screwed-up day I’ve ever had out here,”
Hunter grumbled from Wasp three. Already on his third flight rotation since being scrambled that morning, he and Goldie were still doing the same thing, maintaining their position between Verdant and a small collection of sub-orbital fighters and troop carriers from the ground. The craft had entered orbit and taken up positions one kilometer below them, too far away to reliably engage, and were apparently waiting for the end of the hour that Carruthers had specified in her announcement. Which was still over twenty minutes away.

Goldie couldn’t argue with her wingman… it had been a frustrating day. Maintaining station, returning to Verdant so a fresh team and set of Wasps could hold their station, getting just enough rest to return to their refueled Wasps and go back out, back in, back out… it was unnerving just thinking about it. Then, seeing the enemy ships approach (and how else could you think of them at this point, except as “the enemy?”) and take stations below, forcing them into staring contests, waiting to see who blinked first.

Goldie knew Hunter, too, and if she knew anything, it was that he was aching for an excuse to attack the American fighters: The atmosphere-optimized design of an F-449 Raptor was configured for aerial fighting on-the-run; but in orbit, a completely different set of battle maneuvers were required, and a Wasp fighter was designed to take advantage of a three-dimensional airless playing field; the Raptors would be just naturally clumsier fighting in vacuum than a Wasp, and Hunter would be looking forward to showing them up.

“They could at least let me fire some warning shots,”
Hunter commented. Goldie knew he was kidding. But only just.

“I’m sure you’ll get your chance,” Goldie told him over the com. “Right now, just be cool.” As she spoke, she watched her monitors, her eyes drawn to her telescope display which showed multiple craft near Tranquil, a freighter, a troop carrier, and fighters. The freighter had been there, hovering outside of Tranquil, for most of the day, having taken off before the lock-down, and apparently hoping the lock-down would be eased for them to enter. But the lock-down had remained, then the ground-based fighters and troop carrier had shown up, and the hapless freighter was stuck in the middle of a potential battle zone.

Now it had finally decided to move, firing its retros and sliding away from Tranquil and the phalanx of Wasps keeping station ahead of the satellite. It edged away slowly, as if intent on escaping the field of battle without arousing concern by either party. Goldie oriented her telescope to give her a close-up of the action, and she watched it, hoping they would manage to avoid upsetting any nervous or trigger-happy airmen over there…

When, without warning, the freighter bucked, making the kind of maneuver that could only happen if a manual control stick had been jostled by someone.

“Uh-oh.”
Hunter had seen it on his monitors, too.
“That didn’t look good.”

Chatter erupted on the coms… requests for status on the freighter, warnings to mind its course. There were no responses from the freighter. And then it bucked again. The same kind of motion. Goldie was sure now: They were having control problems. As in, someone was on the bridge, fighting for control. Perhaps someone who was adamant about staying put, or on forcing themselves onto Tranquil… or maybe it had been someone like that that had wrested control in the first place, trying to de-orbit before the freighter’s pilot returned to regain control…

But it mattered little now. What did matter was that the freighter was beginning to swing out of control, in the middle of a veritable powerkeg of fighters. Com chatter was becoming urgent and insistent, and voices were rising in tension. Goldie felt a sick feeling coming to her stomach, as she imagined a firefight being started, and escalating, because of this. “Come on guys,” she muttered to herself, “get it together…”

But almost in answer to her worst fears, the freighter shifted in a new direction, this one taking it in the general direction of a troop carrier.

“Oh,”
Hunter muttered,
“that’s
really
not a good idea…”

At first, Goldie thought the freighter would simply heel over the carrier’s port side, which was already firing its own maneuvering jets in an attempt to get out of the runaway freighter’s way. But the freighter changed direction again, almost as if someone on board wanted to hit it. “Shit!” Goldie hissed, as she waited for the inevitable.

As com voices became louder and more urgent, the freighter collided with the smaller troop carrier, and the sounds of static and tortured equipment drowned out the voices. On Goldie’s screen, she could see both ships twisting away from each other, torn metal shearing away from both craft, and then a steady stream of vapor that began to emanate from the side of the freighter.

Amazingly, not a shot had been fired by either side. (
Hunter
, Goldie reflected,
must be so disappointed
.) The troop carrier was already regaining control, and returning to station, although there were still a lot of urgent voices out there. The freighter simply drifted at first, as if the collision had shut down its control systems, or perhaps incapacitated everyone in the control room. Then there was a controlled burst from the freighter’s retros, and the ship stopped its drift.

Presently, Goldie heard a voice she hadn’t heard before… for the first time, the freighter spoke over the com. They tried to relay to Tranquil’s CnC what had happened: Apparently, they had decided to return to Earth, when some members of the crew decided they’d rather force their way aboard if possible, and a fight for control had ensued.

But now, Goldie could hear other urgent voices on the freighter’s channel. Whoever was apparently in charge was now reporting that the collision had caused a severe coolant leak, inside and out, that threatened to compromise the internal atmosphere of the freighter. Now they had to request an emergency docking, before they all suffocated. It occurred to Goldie that the emergency they were declaring could be almost impossible to verify, and that the faction that had mutinied a minute ago could be fully in control now, and simply taking advantage of the leak to bullshit their way aboard. But Tranquil had no way of confirming their problem, and U.N. law was clear: In the event of a declared emergency, they had to allow them aboard.

The same train of thought had apparently run through Tranquil, and Goldie could tell from the requests from CnC that they were attempting to confirm the severity of the leak. But in the end, there was nothing they could do, and they gave their official authorization to dock.

“
Like we didn’t see that coming,”
Hunter commented wryly.

They all watched as the freighter began a careful turn designed to orient it with the docking systems on Tranquil. Goldie started to re-orient her telescope away from the freighter, and back to the fighters ahead of her… when, all of a sudden, she heard Hunter say,
“Aw, damn!”