Ephialtes (Ephialtes Trilogy Book 1) (11 page)

Rawls
thought.  “I can’t give you a price, but not cheap.  And fast will at
least double the price, whatever it is.  In all of our projects we try to
keep to standardised specifications, and we keep everything as modular as
possible to simplify maintenance.  That would mean that ripping out the
current engines would be relatively painless.  We could do that in, say, a
week or less.  The difficulty would come with the NFJ engines.”

“What
difficulty?

“They don’t
exist.”

“Goddammit,
why didn’t you just say that!”

“Hold
on.  They don’t exist
yet
, but one of my top engineers is working on
NFJs right now.  She has three prototypes, two full-sized, and is
nearing the end of the testing phase as we speak.”

“She has
two?  One for each carrier, that’s great,” Audrey was saying when Rawls
cut back in.

“They are two
prototypes
.  The work is extremely promising, but putting two
untried engines in what I believe to be the most expensive vessels ever
commissioned by the USAN would come with a high degree of uncertainty and
risk.”

“I know that
Rawls.  But this is a national emergency.”

“It is? 
I haven’t seen anything on the bulletins.”

“Not
yet.  This is going to blow up in the next few days and we need to be
ready for it.”  As an afterthought she added, “You understand this all
falls under your confidentiality agreement?”

“Of course.”

“These engines;
if we sign off on the risk, you just fit them in and that’s that?”

Rawls
laughed.  “Not quite that simple.  As mentioned, we make all our
stuff modular.  Saves on costs, saves on headaches,
keeps
things simple.  The prototype engines are the same form factor as the
class of chemical engine that is currently in the carriers.  Obviously,
the NFJs don’t need the huge fuel capacity of the chemical engines, but it’s
not a like-for-like swap.  We’d have to look at that. 
And the control software would need to be overhauled, and we’d need to look at
ramping up the power of the ion drives.  Navigation and coms would need to
be looked at, too.  It could take months.”

“We don’t
have months.  If you had to do it fast, how fast could you do it?”

Rawls looked
off to the side.  “Audrey, bear this in mind.  Everything takes at
least four times as long as you think it will.  That said, if everything
goes without one single little hitch, and it won’t, then I would say, maybe,
six months?”

Audrey
thought.  “I need to take this to the president.  I will strongly
advise him that we should proceed with this course of action.  We’ll need
the nod from him, and he’ll have to find the money.  Until then, can you
proceed, with haste, to get this thing rolling?”

“I can
start.  You’re confident the president will buy it?”

“He has
to.  There’s no other course open to us.”

“Okay. 
I’ll put things in motion.”

“Who’s
working on the engines?”

“You know
her.  She was second lead designer on the
Aloadae
, for a couple of
years, anyway.”

“I know her?”

“Sure, you
must have seen her in design briefings and the like.  Tall blonde woman,
short hair.”

Audrey
thought, scanning through her internal archive but unable to locate an image of
the tall, blonde engineer.  “What’s her name?” she said.

“Askel Lund.”

Madeline
Zelman patronised the arts.  She could often be found floating through a
private viewing, or holding court at the interval of a much anticipated
première.  She supported many prominent charities and occasionally
travelled overseas to see first-hand the work that was being done with
the monies she helped to raise.  For a number of big-name NGOs she
acted as a roving ambassador, hugging the poor here, opening a hydroelectric
plant there.  She smiled graciously for the cameras, gave good interview,
looked good in pictures and was utterly unshakeable.  A desperately ill
(but still, give-or-take, photogenic) Haitian boy vomiting blood
onto her virginal white designer dress couldn’t phase her.  She looked
genuinely concerned for the boy and later shrugged a self-deprecating
smile at the cameras as aides fussed over the bloody clothing.

She had had
the colossal misfortune of having been born immensely rich.  Her childhood
had been happy and she had wanted for nothing.  All of this had left her with
a gnawing feeling that she should be doing something.  What was she
for
? 
If she wasn’t for patronising the arts and raising money and awareness for
charity, at least it kept her busy.

As the
majority owner of Helios
Matériel
Corporation she
would often be met by protesters when she attended events.  Chants,
placards, eggs.  But she was resolute.  She knew that peace wasn’t
the natural state between people.  She knew that not all people were
good.  And she believed, wholeheartedly, that the advanced weaponry that
Helios made and sold was making the world a safer place.

She had met
Gerard White through her fund-raising activities way back when he was
just starting out in politics.  She had contributed to his campaigns all
the way through to when he was seeking the presidential candidacy.  He
hadn’t quite made it that time, but he managed to get on the ticket as VP
candidate.  He balanced out Cortes.  Cortes was swarthy, he was a
WASP.  Cortes was a hawk, he was a dove.  Cortes was a hot-head,
he was level-headed, always taking the long view.

Zelman hadn’t
contribute to their presidential campaign.  She didn’t trust Cortes. 
She’d been around the world, to the non-aligned countries, and had seen
leaders like him there - generalissimos and tin-pots. 
There was something of that about him and she didn’t like it.

When White’s
wife had died four years earlier he had drifted into a relationship with Zelman
which, looking back, had always seemed inevitable.  The relationship
wasn’t secret, as such, but it wasn’t public either.  They would meet for
the occasional meal, or night, or weekend, and that suited them both. 
They were busy people.

On this
occasion Zelman had booked a suite at a swanky downtown hotel.  It was one
they had used before and had been pre-approved by the Secret
Service.  They had additionally booked the entire floor, and strategic
rooms above and below, and were in a position to maintain security from a
discreet and low-key distance.

White arrived
late.  He closed the door behind him and crossed the large and minimally
opulent living area to where Zelman was lounging on a sofa, reading a
magazine.  He lofted a bottle of champagne up in front of him and
smiled.  Zelman smiled back and nodded to the small table next the
sofa.  There was a bottle of the same champagne, their favourite Perrier-
Jouët
Belle
Epoque
, on ice in a
bucket.  White’s face fell to mock sadness.  “I wanted to surprise
you.  Well, I’ve had a two bottle kind of day, I guess.”  He took the
chilled bottle and replaced it with his own.  He poured two glasses,
offering one to Zelman.  He took a sip and sat at the other end of the
sofa, Zelman lifting her legs to make space for him then laying them back on
his lap.  He stroked her calf and took another drink.

“I’m just
finishing this article,” said Zelman, distractedly.

White looked
around the room.  He could feel himself relaxing.  It felt good.

“There!” 
Zelman exclaimed, half-dropping, half-throwing the magazine to the
floor.  “How are you, darling?  A two bottle day, you say?”

White perked
up.  “Oh, maybe not that bad, I guess.  Things are
hotting
up at foreign and defence.  We’re meeting with
Cortes tomorrow.”

Zelman was
intrigued.  “The Asian Bloc?  Are they getting antsy again?”

“No,
no.  That’s all going great.  Bizarrely enough, there are storm
clouds gathering over Mars.”

“Mars?”

“Yup,” White
sighed.  “With any luck it’ll just be a storm in tea cup but we have some
intel
 - I shouldn’t be telling you
this - that Charles Venkdt is going to poll the Martian
population on independence.”

Zelman was
genuinely baffled.  “What do you mean, independence?”

“From
Earth.  Well, technically from the parent company but it amounts to the
same thing.”

“Ha!” 
Zelman couldn’t help herself.  The very idea seemed so ridiculous. 
“Is he mad?  It’s just some internal spat at Venkdt then, isn’t it?”

“That’s what
we’re all hoping.  Because if anything crazy does go on up there there’s
not a damn thing we can do about it.”

“What about
the garrison?”

White
snorted.  “Two hundred guys gone soft.  And what use would they
be?  Firepower is only useful if you have overwhelming superiority. 
The last seven years have taught us that.  The greater your superiority
the less likely your need to use it.  Anyway, we can’t be seen to be
turning the military on USAN citizens.  That could get
really
messy.”

“Well,” said
Zelman, “let’s hope it doesn’t come to that.”

“I don’t
think it will.  But, you know, in our line we have to think the
unthinkable.”

Zelman
smiled.  “These things always seem important at the time.  In two
weeks this will all be over and forgotten about.  Let’s go to bed.”

“You know,
there could be a silver lining in this for you.”

Zelman looked
at him quizzically.

“Andrews is
talking about refitting the carriers.  Sending them to Mars, like some old
colonial warships, to give the natives something to think about.  Your
stocks will go through the roof.”

Zelman
laughed.  “That sounds like a grand idea!  I’ve tried to tell you
before,
peace through superior firepower
.  That’s the only foreign
policy you need.  They wouldn’t really go through with it though, would
they?  The Martians?”

White rose
from the sofa, reaching out for the champagne.

“Who knows
what the hell they might do.”

Rawls got off
the phone to Andrews and lay back in his white chair, kicking his feet up on
the desk.  He closed his eyes and thought.  Was what he had just told
Andrews feasible?  Probably.  Realistic?  Maybe.  He felt a
little scared.  It was an exciting - as well as
lucrative - project, and it was the risk of failure that made
it exciting.  His mind was racing a little.  Had he oversold what
Helios was capable of delivering?  Even with twenty-third century
production methods, refitting the two giant carriers was going to be a massive
task.  Intellectually, he reasoned that it could be done.  But the
fear was still there.  It was good.  And anyway, now they were
committed.

He sat the
chair back up and spoke to his terminal, “Get me Lund.”

“Ms Lund is
busy right now,” the terminal replied.

“Can you let
Ms Lund know it’s me and that it’s urgent,” said Rawls.

He brought up
some documents on his terminal and scanned through them.  He looked at the
plans for the carriers and at some of
Askel’s
recent
work on the engines.  He looked at budgets and the project management
records for the carriers’ construction.  He was sinking into the details
of the engine fitting procedure when his terminal spoke again.

“Askel Lund
for you.”

“Great, put
her on the wall.”

The wall of
his office sprang to life with the huge image of
Askel’s
head and shoulders projected two metres high, and in incredible detail. 
Her face was clean, honest and open, and her crystal blue eyes looked out
vividly from the projection.  “You wanted me?” she said.

“Hi,
Askel.  Got some ideas I want to run past you.”

Askel’s
eyes narrowed almost imperceptibly.  She
couldn’t say ‘Can’t you see I’m busy’ to the boss, but her expression hinted at
it.  “Go on,” she said.

“You worked
on the carriers.  The NFJs you’re working on now, would they work in
them?”

“No.”

“Why
not?  They’re the same form factor, aren’t they?”

“They’re not
ready.”

“No, but if
they were ready they could be made to work in the carriers, right?”

Askel
paused.  “I guess.  But there’d be no point.  They’d be overkill
for ships that just roam about the planet.”

“I’m coming
on to that.  If you could get the NFJ engines into the carriers, there’s
no reason we couldn’t get them to Mars, is there?”

Askel
paused.  “
Well .
 . .”

“Could you do
it?”

“It could be
done, when the engines are ready, which they aren’t, but it would take a lot of
time and money and wouldn’t be as effective as building ships from the ground
up for interplanetary flight.  That’s where I’d start - with
a new design.”