Prometheus and the Dragon (Atlas and the Winds Book 2) (7 page)

“In other news ...” she went on, but the President turned the sound down.

“They’re way ahead of us, aren’t they?” she said, looking at her Science Advisor.

“In warhead development?” Donna asked. “Certainly. But if you’re in reference to our overall mitigation programs, I’d say we’re a little ahead. If we can hold to our current schedule, we’ll begin the deflection phase of our operation just about when they’re ready to launch their missile.”

“Well, at least that’s something,” she said.

***

Space Command, Cheyenne Mountain, Colorado:

“We’re tracking an outbound target from just outside of Moscow,” the lieutenant said over the general com. “Profile indicates that it’s a Proton-Seven booster.”

“I didn’t know they had a facility there,” Marquez said, switching on his headset. “Wasn’t that an old ICBM base?” He punched in a command to bring the trace up on his display desk.

“Yes sir,” the lieutenant confirmed. “It’s on the perimeter of the Korelev Air Test Center. Intelligence issued a report that they’ve been converting the hangars there into a staging area for their lunar operations.”

“They’d shut down launching,” the General said. “Washington said they were out of money.”

“Apparently not sir,” the lieutenant said. “It definitely fits the pattern for a lunar insertion. We’re showing a stage two separation, and ignition of a stage three booster.”

Marquez sat watching the line extend from the ground toward orbit, wondering if he should be concerned, or pray. He opted for a prayer.

***

New Hope Colony, Plato:

Carter Anthony watched the technicians climbing the number three tower. Since the quake, the alignment of the turret had been off by a little over a thousandth of a degree. It was a miniscule error, but amounted to a huge problem if left uncorrected. It was probably a simple matter of one of the cradle arms shifting slightly during the quake, but they needed to make sure, and get it fixed now, before they started testing the power handlers.

He was running an alignment calibration simulation on the remaining six guns, and all were responding. Though not actually moving, their actuators accepted the commands correctly. That was a relief. He watched the graphic with one eye while he kept the other on the astronauts starting to enter the Turret Control Platform.

“Operations to Prometheus Control,” Tony Baker said, startling Carter from his concentration. “Dr. Anthony, you’ve got a priority call from Earth.”

“Can you tell Danielson I’m busy?” he said, sighing. He’d already talked to him twice this morning, and he really didn’t need to be wasting time right now. They were twenty hours behind their timeline, but if they could repair number three without too much extra effort, he was hoping to get back on schedule in a couple days.

“Negative,” Tony said. “It’s not Camp Mars, it’s the Ivory Tower.”

“I don’t suppose Her Majesty told you what she wants?”

“Nope, not a clue,” he said. “Should I put her through?”

“If you really have to,” he said, as the image of President Hutton appeared on another of his screens. “Good morning Madam President,” he said, bolting a plastic smile to his face.

One, two, three. “Actually it’s afternoon here,” she said. “I know you’re busy up there, especially after the quake, but I was wondering if you had any clue as to when you’ll be ready to begin testing?” Her face froze as she waited for him to reply.

“The pulse gun and five of the ignition guns will be ready for the power cycle tests within a week to ten days,” he said. “We’re still trying to determine what damage number three sustained. I’ve got a crew up there trying to give me an assessment.”

One, two, three. “What’s wrong with it?” she asked.

“We’re not sure. It might be something minor, but until we get the covers off the cradle, we’re not going to know. If something’s bent, we might be needing to have replacement parts fabricated and sent up.”

One, two, three. “Can’t you go ahead with the tests on the other guns in the meantime?” she asked. Once again her face settled into stillness as she waited for the delay.

“We’re already planning on that, but we can’t run the power up to the particle emitters until we’ve got a clear field of fire. We can prove the guns will work, but we can’t hit the broad side of a barn at this point. If we try to re-aim the guns, we’re taking a chance on increasing the damage to number three.”

This time, as he waited for the President, the camera on DJ’s suit came on. He was looking down the length of the emitter waveguide. The Magnetic Lens Aperture control link was obviously bent. “I think we’ve got it figured out,” he said. “Are you seeing this?”

“Roger, stand by. I’m on with the President,” Carter said into his headset. “Sorry Madam President. One of my crew might have just found the problem.”

One, two, three. “Good or bad?” she said.

“Not good, I’m afraid. We’re going to have to rig a temporary support frame for the waveguide assembly, and replace at least one of the alignment linkages. We’ll try to straighten it here, but if we can’t, it’ll take at least a week to get a replacement part, and then we’re looking at another three weeks to mount it. I’ll know more before the end of the day,” he said, knowing she was hoping for better news.

She sat for well more than the three seconds, and he wondered if she expected him to say something. Finally she sighed. “Do what you can, Doctor. We’re running out of time down here, and now that the Chinese are saying they’re almost ready to launch, we’re going to start catching a lot of heat.”

“I understand,” he said, controlling a sudden flash of anger. “We’re all doing our best up here, but it’s not easy.”

One, two, three. “I know that Carter,” she said, her tone showing she realized she’d hit a nerve. “And we’re all very proud of what you’re doing. All of you. Just keep up the good work, and I’ll try to stay out of your hair.” She smiled and her image faded to the Presidential seal before he slapped his hand on the disconnect switch.

“Ok, show me what you know,” he said, back on the channel with the astronauts and trying to ignore the fire she’d lit under his ass.

***

Lunagrad Base, Boscovich Crater, Luna:

Yuri Romanov sat staring into the bowl of borscht. It was the same meal he’d had for the last week. One serving a day, and they only had enough for another week before even that ran out. Perhaps it was un-Russian of him, but he really hated borscht. What he really wanted was vodka, enough to help him forget why he’d volunteered for this mission, to forget about home, to forget about everything. Instead he had water, plenty of water, all of it he could ever want. As long as he didn’t mind that it smelled of sulfur and tasted a little like urine. The recycler wasn’t the best piece of hardware they’d ever built, that was for sure.

Their little base was a disgrace. Out the small window he could see the floor of the crater, littered with a hundred supply canisters, most of them still where they’d fallen. They’d been trying to drag them into some semblance of order ever since they’d arrived, but for all their effort, they still had little to show for it. Their habitat consisted of six small balloons, only one of which was buried and protected from the radiation. Fortunately there’d been no solar activity of consequence.

The three small rovers they’d unpacked weren’t enough to move the rest of the canisters from where they’d come to rest. Some of them were so heavy that even working together, they couldn’t do much more than roll the cylinders sideways. They were still waiting for the big crawler they’d been promised, but as with the food, there was a large discrepancy between the words and the deeds of the Roscosmos administration.

Like his companions, Yuri had given up. They’d even argued today about whether they should appeal to the Chinese, or the Americans, for help. Either way they were not going to be of much use to anyone. He had no energy in spite of the borscht, or maybe because of it. He slid the bowl of maroon slime back and sighed, trying to focus on the screen hanging on the wall. It showed Russian television, one of the few things up here that worked right. Just as he started having an interest in the program, one of those inane reality shows that still infected the video channels of the world, the picture scrambled into a disorganized jumble of pixels.

He closed his eyes, trying not to swear and throw his bowl at the screen, when the image rematerialized into the face of Alexander Markovicz, the Director of Roscosmos.
This is it,
he thought.
They are about to tell us we are Heroes of the Republic, making the noble sacrifice.
He clenched his teeth together but said only, “Director, to what do we owe this honor?” His voice sounded strange in his ears, tired and flat.

“Commander Romanov,” Markovicz said. “I want you to know how very proud we are of sacrifices you make for Republic.”

Here it comes,
he thought, looking at the table in front of him. “Thank you sir. We are simply doing our duty.”

Pause. “Yes, but you will be pleased to know we have just launched supply mission from new facility at Korelev, and you will be receiving twenty-four tons of consumables in first cargo carrier.” The Director smiled. “We are also restarting operations at Baikonur and two other facilities within week. You will no longer be working alone.”

Twenty-four tons?
he thought, realizing the magnitude of the commitment they’d just made to the Base. “Thank you sir,” he said, relief washing over him like a warm shower.

The water may still smell, but at least they weren’t going to starve.

***

Stormhaven:

The Communications Center had gone back to the room Colton had designed it to be. Crowded and bustling with activity, it had become the command hub for Stormhaven’s fleet. The screens along one wall showed the status and location of every one of their carriers, and a console was linked directly to each ship. Mica coordinated the traffic, but there was a human stationed at each console, watching over its shoulder and providing a direct voice-link for the crews.

The opposite wall showed their critical path, a continuously updated graphic of thousands of simultaneous tracks of progress, from supplier output to developmental milestones. Simple to take in at a glance, but almost impossible to understand in its entirety, it was a real-time assessment of their entire operation. A three-dimensional array of translucent bars represented each step, while their relative importance was shown by the thickness of the bar. The size was proportionate to the manpower or resource requirement of the job. Tasks that were completed disappeared off the right side of the display. Anything that fell behind was represented in red. The collateral effects of a slowdown in any one area were highlighted in orange or yellow.

The ultimate objective of having the colony self-sufficient and fully operational, showed at the far left of the diagram and now hovered on the edge of yellow, flickering occasionally to orange. But that was progress. When they’d first set up the display, it had been deep crimson.

Twenty more consoles faced the critical path display, each of them manned by a person responsible for troubleshooting one or more of the red items.

Colton stood across the room by the windows, watching the chaos. It was the first time Tom had seen him smile in months, so he was more than a little reluctant to pull him out of the room. He made eye contact and gestured for Cole to join him.

They’d moved the conference table out onto the balcony and Cole flopped down onto a chair. “You’ve heard about the situation this morning?” Tom asked. Cole nodded but said nothing, his smile melting into the vague look that caused Tom so much stress.

“Viki’s wondering if we might be smart to establish a relationship with the Chinese,” Tom said. “She’s hoping, if we can open communications, they might warn us next time. What’s your take on that?”

“I don’t think it’s going to do any good,” Cole said. “They don’t particularly want to cooperate with anybody, and I know they don’t want us up there.” He stared at Tom, but his eyes were focused well past him into that other dimension where he hid.

Dave walked up and started to say something, but Tom held up a finger to stop him. He’d just gotten back to Earth and was scheduled to pick up some crew for his return flight, along with some medical gear. The triage work they were doing for Unity had shown where they needed to improve their hospital facility.

“I think the Chinese are up to something other than just building their missile,” Colton said after several seconds. “I don’t know what it is yet, but something just isn’t adding up.”

“You mean like that body we found?” Dave said.

“Exactly,” Cole said, his eyes shifting to the astronaut. “They’re working something sideways up there, and we need to keep our eyes open.”

“It would have been so much easier if they’d just owned up to it,” Dave said. “Admit to taking pics or something, and then just say sorry.”

“But instead, they’re doing nothing,” Cole said. “It’s giving me an ugly feeling.” He shrugged.