Prometheus and the Dragon (Atlas and the Winds Book 2) (15 page)

“We’re not sure how they’re doing it economically, but tactically it’s one of the most brilliantly run operations in history,” he said. “They didn’t even run into resistance until they were under forty miles from the capital.”

“And the Israelis saw it coming,” Dick reminded them.

“Mehta was on the phone with me the morning it started,” she said. “I told him the Russians couldn’t afford to bring on a war.” She felt a strong sense of guilt at not taking him more seriously.

“There’s nothing we can do either,” John Herman said. “We’re where we thought the Russians were. We’re so financially overextended with Prometheus we couldn’t buy the gas to put our military on the road.”

“Let’s not forget that sixty percent of our standing military is involved in peacekeeping operations here at home,” Secretary Reynolds said. “We’ve got no manpower in reserve. Our planning strategies have always been designed around the Two-Front Scenario, but domestic deployment was never calculated into the equations. Police duty is very labor intensive. We can’t call in bombers to break up a riot.”

“So what do we have that we can send, if we need to?” she asked.

“The Navy,” he said. “And we’ve got some bombers, but we’ve pulled so many troops off their regular support duties to stand guard, that we’re going to be hard-pressed to get full staffing for an offshore engagement. The logistic side of our military is, in my opinion, incapable of stretching any further.”

“But the Navy isn’t working ground duties,” she said. “Could we press them into action?”

“As long as you’re willing to write bad checks to do it,” Gene said. “We didn’t move their manpower, but we robbed their cookie jar.”

“It wouldn’t be the first time that we wrote bad paper to carry a war,” she said, leaning back in her chair and sucking in her lower lip.

“Look what it did to the economy last time,” Dick said. “We’ve only now pulled out of that tailspin, and it was twenty-five years ago.”

“Plus we’re still sinking an assload of money into Prometheus and New Hope,” John said.

“I really don’t see how we can afford to get into this,” Gene said.

“I don’t see how we can avoid it,” she said. “If we don’t do something, in two weeks Israel is going to cease to exist.”

***

Zion Repository, east of Schuster Crater:

The
Wilford
Woodruff
arrived right on schedule, bringing with it twelve gargantuan supply containers, and more important, manpower. Loaded, the ship was bigger than the
Nephi
and carried several times the cargo of any of Stormhaven’s ships. It had been designed to carry upwards of 2,500 tons in a single run. It wasn’t a pretty ship by any stretch of the imagination, but it worked like a mule.

The Bishop sat in the small office he also used as his apartment, watching the unloading process on one of his view screens. The last of the cargo containers hung suspended on long cables less than ten feet from the side of the Temple ship. It was being lowered into position and already two men in suits were dragging the access tunnel into place. The other nine were already connected, and his people were busy unloading them into the vault. While he watched, he prayed and listened to the stirrings of the spirit.

A gentle knocking at the door startled him. “Come in,” he said, not turning away from the screen.

“Bishop Clayton, may I have a word with you?” it was a woman’s voice, and he turned toward her. Sister Parsons stood in the doorway, her head down and her expression grim.

She was the youngest person in the Ward, barely eighteen. She had been something of a child prodigy, graduating from BYU and then following through to MIT for her Doctorate in Robotics Engineering. She was as beautiful as she was brilliant, and that’s why they’d chosen her as one of the first two women for the Zion Mission. She was a perfect example of what it meant to be Mormon.

“What’s the matter?” he asked, standing up and pulling a seat out from the small table he used as a desk.

“The mail from home,” she said. “I got word my brother was killed in Haifa. That’s where he was on his mission, and apparently it’s been under attack for a while. There weren’t any details in the message...” She covered her face with her hands and broke down into sobs that wracked her body.

The location of the Repository had been chosen by the Prophet, and was a well guarded secret known only to the pilots of the ships and the Bishop himself. One serious disadvantage of the location was it was on the backside of the moon. There wasn’t any way for him to contact Earth, and no way for them to get word when something like this happened, except to have it brought in on the
Wilford Woodruff.

A wave of overwhelming emotion washed over the Bishop, and he hesitated only a moment before he her into a strong embrace, smoothing her long blonde hair with his hand while she cried into his chest. After several minutes of tears, she pulled away.

“Do you want to be released from your mission?” he asked, sitting down beside the girl and easing her into a chair. He held onto one of her hands with his, comforting her as best he knew how. His voice was soft and full of compassion.

“No,” she said around a sniffle. He looked around for a tissue, but realized they’d not had any of them sent up yet. She shook her head, wiping her nose on the back of a finger. “I know how important our work is up here. It’s just hard.”

“Heavenly Father asks us to do those things that are hard, as proof of our faith,” he said. “We walk this Plan of Salvation, and each day we are asked to face things, many of them are difficult. Things that test us against our conviction. It is these trials that give us a strong testimony of our belief. Without them we would never grow in our understanding of His divine wisdom.”

“I know that,” she whispered.

“Your brother has passed into the presence of Heavenly Father, sure in his faith and blessed by the strength you and your family show,” he said. “I know that your mother and father will understand your decision to stay with your mission, and they will be comforted in knowing that your trust in the Plan of God is strong enough to sustain you. You honor your brother’s memory with your commitment here.”

“I know,” she said, starting to cry again. “I just miss him.”

***

Chang Er Prefecture, Tycho:

Director Jiang sat, his face impassive, listening to the debate. It was difficult for him to interrupt to ask questions because of the delay. By the time he could get a word in, the conversation had moved on. So he sat, making notes.

Prefect Czao watched the Director, trying to gauge what points he’d needed clarified, or where he had wanted to ask a question, but in the end, he too had mostly been listening to the scientists discussing the rest of the
Zhen-Long
Mission.

“If the Americans continue at their present rate of deflection, it appears they may have a fair chance of success,” Dr. Lee-Chan said. He was their Trajectory Analyst, and was responsible for making sure the missile arrived as accurately as possible. “I have begun to program incremental changes in the heading of
Zhen-Long
to compensate for the deflection they have already achieved.”

“Are these course corrections going to become a problem?” Czao asked.

“Not presently,” Lee-Chan said. “But the fact that after only a week of sustained firing, the Prometheus lasers have managed to achieve any deflection at all is impressive. If they continue at their current rate, we may have a fuel issue to deal with in several months.”

“The projected consumption will increase as we approach the target as it is,” Dr. Deng, the Missile Systems Engineer said. “If they get close to their desired deflection, which we assume to be on the order of four to five minutes, our current trajectory will miss by over 140,000 kilometers.”

Jiang held up his hand and waited until he was sure he’d been seen before he asked, “I am not a specialist in orbital mechanics, but it seems to me if we anticipate this deflection and make our heading change now, we would require much less fuel for the maneuver.”

“What happens if we make this correction on the assumption they will continue with their effort, and then they have an equipment failure and cannot continue?” Lee-Chan said. “We would then miss the rendezvous in the other direction. Our current approach is the only way we can make sure we are at the right place, whether they continue or not. The problem we face is there may be insufficient fuel to complete the braking maneuver once we are in position in front of the asteroid.”

“Correct me if I am making an invalid assumption,” Czao said, “but is it not true that, if there was no braking maneuver at all, the delta-v of the asteroid and the missile would still bring about the desired placement several weeks later?”

“Actually no,” Lee-Chan said. “It is true the asteroid would still overtake the missile, but the angular velocity would carry it several thousand miles past Antu’s orbit. It is essential that when we get to the target, we still have sufficient fuel to maneuver into position.”

“Do we dare assume the American effort will be successful?” Czao said. No one spoke, and Jiang shook his head.

“Not understanding the US technology, it could be very dangerous for us to expect any consistency out of their equipment,” the Director General said. “As far as we can tell, they did a single test of their beam weapon, and that test lasted only a few seconds. I am skeptical they will be able to sustain firing for the length of time necessary to complete the deflection without having a malfunction.”

“I agree with the Director,” Dr. Deng said. “I don’t see that we have any options except to continue to make the course corrections until we reach the critical fuel limit. At least in this way we will be as close as possible to the needed heading if they should fail.”

“And, if they don’t fail until after we have reached the point-of-no-return, then what?” Dr. Lee-Chan asked.

“Then we will face other decisions,” Director Jiang said.

***

Chapter Ten:

Reactive Decisions

Chang Er Prefecture, Tycho:

Dr. Lee-Chan paced around the Control Room, occasionally glancing up at the chronometer above the display: 111 days: 22 hours: and 5 minutes into the mission. They’d just sent the latest course correction to the
Zhen-Long
missile, and were waiting for confirmation that it had executed the orders. This time they were also anticipating they would have crossed the fuel limit threshold, so this was not just the latest maneuver, it might very well be the last.

1,150 seconds out into space, the missile completed its thruster burn, aligning itself with the target once more. It sent the new telemetry update.

“Doctor, it’s time to make the call to the Prefect,” Dr. Deng said, stepping up quietly beside him and showing him the Fuel Consumption Report on a small dataport.

Sighing heavily he nodded, punching into the comlink to pass the word.

***

New Hope Colony, Plato:

Carter Anthony felt the first explosion in his feet. A distant rumble, like thunder but not quite audible. He was standing in the airlock waiting for the outside door to open so he could head out to the Prometheus Control Room to begin his shift. The pressure gate was hissing when a second thump rattled his teeth.

“Operations, what was that?” he asked, leaning against the door toggles urgently and waiting for the mechanism to release the latch.

“Unknown, Dr. Anthony. We’re checking, stand by.” The watch officer wasn’t someone he knew, so the voice sounded strangely vague. If it had been Tony he’d have expected a more focused response. The door fell open and he tumbled out onto the surface. Stumbling, he got his bearings and looked around. The sun had set about twenty hours ago and they had about sixteen more before Antu went down. The glowing plasma of the guns was visible in the distance, but otherwise nothing seemed out of the ordinary.

“Have we got anything yet?” Carter asked again. He was jumping onto an electroquad when a blinding flash erupted about half-way toward the ridge. A fireball expanded up from the surface and faded to a dull orange glow. A small cloud of debris scattered out from the base of the blast, casting a shadow ring that he could see settling.

“We’ve got an explosion out here,” he said. “Looks like it’s somewhere between the number six reactor and the main trunk.”

“We’re not showing any power fluctuations,” the ops officer said, as Carter gunned the quad and shot off in the direction of the explosion. “Geology is confirming that it looks like several small explosions on the seismos.”

Another fireball erupted further away, and clearly not along the power line. It looked to be on the edge of one of the small craters out in the open area. There was nothing there to blow up. He slammed on the brakes, skidding to a stop as another blast flashed in front of him. His helmet visor flipped closed automatically, protecting him from the glare. He pushed it up manually, overriding the safety.