Prometheus and the Dragon (Atlas and the Winds Book 2) (36 page)

“Close the hatch,” one of the guards was repeating. “We’ve got a problem out here.”

“Is everyone inside?” she asked.

“Negative. We’ve got a hostage situation. Stand by.” A distant thumping sound echoed through the ship. Gunfire. Glen recognized it and flashed back to the first flight of the
Dancing Star
.

“Bridge crew to stations, we’re under attack,” he barked as he vaulted to his command station.

The support mini that rode piggyback on the
Gabriel
cut loose and arced over the bridge windows, several sparks flashing off its underside. More shots.

“We’ve got thirty or forty people demanding passage to the Colony. They’ve taken control of the screening tent and they’re threatening to kill the doctor,” the guard said. “I can’t get a clear line-of-sight on the action, but they’ve already shot one and sound like they mean business.”

“Are they in the shelter?” Glen asked. The tent, for all that it outwardly looked like just an ordinary canvas structure, had an active shielding system that would dampen the stun effects of their gravity laser. They’d figured if they needed to sweep the crowd with the beams, they’d want to have their own people remain coherent.

“Affirmative, there are several of them outside, but they’ve got at least a dozen inside holding hostages,” he said. “We’re trying to clear the bystanders out of the area, but they’re not moving.”

“We’re sealed up,” Talia said.

“They just threw a body out the front door. I can’t see who it is yet,” he said, pausing for several seconds. “Oh shit, it’s Doc Goodman.”

“Christ,” Glen hissed, struggling for something to do.

“I’m hearing they’re about to start shooting the rest of our people if we don’t agree to their terms,” the guard said.

“Seal off the interior interconnect to the passenger containers,” Glen said, as an idea came to him. He didn’t like it, but it might be their only way. “Then reopen the outer hatch. Tell them we’re giving in.”

“You can’t be serious,” Talia said, spinning around to face him.

“Get any of our people left on the ground into that mini, and get them the hell out of there,” he said. “We’re only going to take them high enough to blow the outer hatch. You’ll need to override the safeties so that once we’re at 80,000 feet we can get the door to open.”

She blinked at him, several times. “What if they bring hostages onboard with them?”

“Pray they don’t,” he said, trying to block the thought from his mind. “Do it,” he hissed.

Another shot rang out before they got word to the gunmen, and another body appeared on the ground outside the tent. When the outer hatch reopened the crowd surged in against the ship, forcing their way into the passenger area. The gunmen themselves were swept along with the group, intermingled and inseparable.

“Oh God, please,” Glen groaned, watching the images of the people on the inside cameras. It was a wave of human flesh, swelling and bulging forward. So many of them they couldn’t even fit into and between the seats. They stood on them unable to move, in a human gridlock. Children being picked up and held on the shoulders of parents, bodies crushed together until there wasn’t enough space to fit even a single extra person. There was no way the life support equipment would keep the people alive who had packed themselves in there. Not to the moon, not to 40,000 feet.

“What do we do now?” Talia said.

“Take off,” he said, not believing the words could even come from his mouth. His tongue felt like it was coated with broken glass, and his teeth were jagged strands of barbed wire.

“We can’t kill those people,” she said, shock and outrage hardening her features to stone.

“They’re dead already,” he whispered. His eyes stinging as he fought to control the demons tearing at his heart. He looked at her, twisting his face into a look of determination. It slipped dangerously toward terror in spite of his best efforts to remain strong.

“I don’t ...“ she shook her head and turned toward the pilot station, her shoulders shaking as she slid her hands over the thruster controls and the ship lifted.

A minute later, he hit the icon to open the hatch. The screaming only lasted a few seconds before the thinning air tore the sounds from their lungs.

But Glen Warner knew it would echo in his mind for the rest of his life.

***

Chapter Twenty-Three:

To Rage and to Despair

Lunagrad, Boscovich Crater:

Yuri Romanov would live, through no fault of his own. He was one lucky man. The knife had pierced his lung and nicked a small artery at the bottom of his heart. Another millimeter and he’d have died before they could have gotten him into surgery. As it was, he’d taken weeks to recover to the point where he could try to reassert control over his fragmented lunar base.

Fighting had reached the point where both sides struggled for dominance over critical sections of the facility. The Russians had maintained control of the communications and life support centers, while the Arabs held the gardens and most of the residential areas.

Russian support from Earth was almost non-existent, but through it all, they kept up a continuous schedule of deliveries, about two-thirds of them hauled in by Russian recovery crews. The others, including several crew capsules, were captured. On three instances the recovery teams arrived to find the capsules had been vented to the outside vacuum with the crew still inside. Eighteen Russians had died that way.

Commander Romanov had been kept apprised of the situation from his bed in the infirmary. Most of the time he spent on a ventilator tube until his lung would retain pressure on its own. When they cut him loose from the respirator, he had tried to sit up and was shocked by how weak he’d become. He wasn’t sure how long he’d been out. Even though he knew the correct date and time, it still felt like he’d only been down for a week.

“Where do we stand?” he asked the doctor as he was escorted from the hospital bed straight to his office. Sergei had protested his going back to work, but he’d refused to wait. Six men walked in front of him and three more behind, carrying tasers in their hands. One guard, bringing up the rear about ten steps back, carried a Kalashnikov. It was the first real gun he’d seen in Lunagrad, and it was a bit disturbing considering how thin the walls were and how serious the vacuum was outside.

“Situation is grave,” Sergei said, as the escorts helped Romanov into his seat. He groaned, but sat rigidly in place until the men left. “We have lost almost a hundred men and two women in fighting. We think they have lost twice that number.”

“Three hundred people in colony of only two thousand.” He shook his head, pulling out a bottle of Vodka from his desk drawer and pouring himself a drink. He looked at Titov and smiled. “For pain,” he offered.

“We still control life support and communications, but they have cut off food supplies. All we have is what they are sending up from Earth. Until we get situation under control, they have suspended manned flights,” Sergei sat down, and poured himself a shot. Yuri knew that the doctor drank little, so this said more of the gravity of the situation than even his words. “While you were unconscious, I received orders to turn off life support to sections of base that Arabs occupy.”

“And?” the Commander asked. “Was it effective?”

“I did not do it,” Sergei said. “If there were only soldiers in there, that would be one thing, but there are families. I will not give orders to kill innocent women and children.”

“Even if they would not hesitate to kill one of your own?” Yuri asked.

Sergei sat back, slamming his shot and looking at the Commander. “I do not know that they would do that. If I faced that moment, other than in abstract conversation, perhaps I would, but I cannot say now.”

“When did order come in?” he asked.

“Two days ago,” he said, leaning forward and pouring himself another drink. “I told them of my problems with their instructions, and they relieved me of duty.”

“I do not accept their decision regarding you. As far as I am concerned, you are still my second in command and my Chief Medical Officer. If they have problem, they can fire me as well,” Yuri said. “I absolve you of responsibility in matter, but I do intend to go ahead with plan to shut down their air supply. Not enough to kill them, but enough to take away their will to fight. Can this be done?”

“Yes,” the doctor said, “but they have space suits, and asphyxiation takes time to overcome person. Is likely that many of their people would realize what was happening.”

“Do we have gas we can inject into their air supply that would put them to sleep while we took their air away from them?”

“I have several, but none in sufficient quantity to flood their entire area,” he said. “If we could drive them into small enough section I might have enough, if I were to use several in combination.”

“Then we will devise plan to herd them into smaller area,” Yuri said. “You begin working on chemicals.”

***

Washington:

“What do you make of their suggestion?” Sylvia Hutton waited as her question made the round trip to New Hope and back. She watched the three department heads’ reactions, studying them as they worked together.

“I’d like to believe it’s sincere,” General Marquez said, surprising her. She expected the civilian and scientific heads to be soft on the Chinese, but for Marquez to say it, was startling.

“She made some valid points,” Dr. Anthony said. “In the best case, the colonies will be functioning on their own for several years. It’s a good idea for us to establish solid relations with our neighbors. Up here we’re more remote than any frontier on Earth ever was. Our survival may very well be interdependent.”

“So how do you want to proceed with this?” she said.

“She wants to get the other colonies involved in this?” Dick added.

“Probably so,” Susan said. “They haven’t made any formal approach to the others, but we could. We’ve already got a fair relationship with Unity, and Carter is very comfortable with the Sentinel management.”

“Do we want to treat Stormhaven like an independent nation?” the President asked. “That seems to be granting them a lot of power they don’t really have a right to claim. We’ve already given them the land grant for their colony in exchange for joining the Alliance, but this is a lot more substantial than that.”

“I might be tempted to agree, but we know Unity considers them an equal player, and God knows they’ve pulled our butts out of the fire often enough that we owe them some respect,” Dick said.

“Respect is one thing, but granting them status isn’t even something we have a right to do. That’s the domain of the United Nations,” she said.

“But the UN might be down to six members before this all blows over. Including the LDS and Sentinel,” he said. “If we wait until afterward to make the decision, you can count on the fact that they’ll be a player. We might as well do it now.”

“I’m not convinced, but it’s up to you,” she said, tempering her tone and words to give them room to start making their own decisions. “I’d just recommend resisting as long as possible, or they’ll do to you up there, what they did to us down here.”

“I see your point,” the Vice President said. “At least we have channels open to them. That only leaves the Russians out of the loop. Do we know what’s going on in their colony?”

“Not a clue,” Marquez said. “We haven’t picked up a stray radio transmission. If we hadn’t over-flown their base, we’d have no clue they were still alive. The last couple of times we’ve looked at them, they hadn’t made much new progress, but they’re still there as far as we can tell.”

Sylvia made a quick note on her epad to see if DHS had any operatives left in Roscosmos. It’d be nice to know what they might be dealing with before they sent out an invitation.

“Dick, I think it’s time for you to make the trip,” she said. “If this is going to be a full-on diplomatic press, you need to represent the colony’s interests.”

“Yes ma’am,” he said, looking down at his hands. His voice carried resignation like a noose around his neck. She knew he still didn’t want to go, but she couldn’t let him put it off any longer.

“We’ll have the
Lynx
pick you and your family up tomorrow. You’re ready, aren’t you?” she said.

He shook his head in the negative but said, “Yes ma’am.”

The three on the lunar surface watched the exchange until she turned back to the screen. “Effective immediately,” she explained, “Richard Rogers is resigning as Vice President of the United States and has accepted Presidential Appointment as Chancellor of the New Hope Colony.”

“Thank God,” Susan said. “I was afraid you were going to make us negotiate this thing without him.”

Dick laughed in spite of himself. Her genuine relief showed all over her face. “It’s not that bad,” he said. “You just have to remember, no matter what they say, they can’t eat you.”

***

Stormhaven: