Prometheus and the Dragon (Atlas and the Winds Book 2) (9 page)

“Hang on a second, I’ve got to get Joshua Lange in on this one,” he said. “This is too good to be true.”

“Would you like me to open a channel, or would you prefer to have me fly us directly to his location?”

***

New Hope Colony, Plato:

Randy Markham had the longest run as a lunar shuttle pilot in the history of the Corps, logging more than nine months in the
Reliant
before someone noticed that his suntan had become way too dark to be survivable. It was just a matter of time before the cells in his body began to break down, and the cancer he knew was inevitable reared its ugly head and crawled across his body. He knew it every day when he looked at himself in the mirror. His hair had begun to turn gray, way more gray than his father’s had been even on the day he’d died. He told himself it made him looked distinguished and he felt good for now, even if in the back of his mind he knew that was going to change.

They’d taken him off the active flight roster, but instead of grounding him back on Earth, they offered him the post of Approach Control Officer for New Hope. In the colony his exposure level would be no greater than on Earth, as long as he didn’t spend time outside during the lunar daytime. He’d jumped at the offer, because he knew going back to Earth and its heavy gravity would have just added more stress to his already burnt-out body. At least up here he was still on the front lines in the war against Antu. And close to Susan.

After he’d been grounded six months ago they’d resumed their affair, but he knew it meant more to him than to her. She had the weight of the colony, and maybe all of humanity, on her shoulders, and she didn’t need the extra distraction of an emotional entanglement. Instead, he tried to be a friend. A warm body to hold her when she felt the biting cold of bitter reality. He was ok with that.

At first their relationship, such as it was, had been awkward. There were very few people who had private rooms in the fledgling colony, so privacy was a luxury few enjoyed. Even those who did have their own space didn’t have any way to keep secrets. Within hours, any liaison was common knowledge, even for the privileged few. It wasn’t until several other relationships had cropped up that they felt comfortable with theirs. Now it was an occasional evening as friends. Sexual friends.

Randy strolled into the Operations Center ten minutes before his shift started, smiling with the memory of last night’s coupling, hurried and needful as it had been. It had ended with a slow night of holding each other. It had been good, and he felt good about it this morning. Of course, she’d already been gone when he got up. She was the busiest person at New Hope, with the possible exception of Dr. Anthony.

“Randy? A minute?” She stood waiting for him. He followed her into her office, a small room with a window overlooking the rest of the control stations. She shut the door behind her, something she rarely did.

“What’s up?” he asked, perching on the edge of her desk.

“Just got off line with General Marquez at Space Command,” she said, sitting on one of the chairs that faced her desk. “He’s sent up a special delivery for us, and I need to keep it low profile. Are you willing to make a run outside to pick it up once it bounces?”

“Sure,” he said. “What is it?”

“Keep it quiet?” she said. He nodded. “Weapons, and ammunition.”

“What do we need them for?” he said.

“They confirmed that Beijing Bennie wasn’t an astronaut. He was Lieutenant Teng Quon Gi of the Chinese Special Forces.”

“Oh shit,” he said.

“That’s why they sent us something to defend ourselves,” she said. “They’d apparently been aware for a while that some of the crew China is sending up is strictly military.”

“And they just got around to doing something about it?” he asked.

“They’ve been discussing sending us a security detachment eventually,” she said, “but when this guy showed up they pushed it.”

“When do the troops get here?” he asked.

“That’s probably going to take a while,” she said. “Six to eight weeks.”

“So what are we supposed to do until then?” he said. “Form a militia?”

“What a good idea,” she said grinning. “Now, are you going to volunteer to get it organized, or am I going to have to institute the first draft in lunar history?”

“I guess I have insufficient reluctance,” he said, shaking his head. He knew a lot of the astronauts were ex-military, unfortunately most of them were still Earthside, while the crew up here were mostly civilians who’d been payload specialists. That didn’t bode well for their ability to defend themselves against real troops. Especially if they were Special Forces.

***

Mount Weather, Virginia:

It was a long concrete corridor curving gently to the left, just like all the other corridors in this cave of steel. She hated it, even if it was safe. She also hated William Worthington for condemning her to this prison. For the first few months it had made sense to be somewhere the outraged public couldn’t reach her, where she could still do her job in peace. But now that the world outside had settled into a relative calm, she wanted to go home. Back to the White House. Even if it was simply another prison, at least there she could see the sky and grass. She should be able to finish out the rest of her sentence among the living, instead of buried away in this mausoleum.

Her single Secret Service escort followed her, several steps behind and far more relaxed than he would have been if they’d been outside. The layers of security that surrounded her here meant those closest to her were also some of the safest people on the planet. She envied him his simple existence.

“Madam President?” A voice echoed down the corridor from the distance, too far around the curve to see who it was. Mount Weather was a huge complex, designed at the height of the First Cold War as a bomb shelter and sanctuary for the entire US Government, plus a whole division of infantry. Right now it was occupied by the White House staff, a small security detachment, and an occasional visitor. Marbles rolling around inside a huge bucket. Silence echoed as far as she could hear.

One of her aides came rolling up on an electric scooter. “I have a message from General Marquez,” she said. “He wanted you to know that Roscosmos has resumed launching supplies to their lunar facilities.”

“Good for them,” she said. “Did he say why this was important?”

“He says they’ve launched four boosters in the last eighteen hours,” she said. “He thought it might be important for you to know, since the last intelligence received said they were still without funding.”

“I wonder who’s writing the checks?” she said. “Have Janice get William out here for an eyeball meeting.” Company was coming, even if she knew it was only because she’d called for a command performance.

***

Unity Colony, Eastern Mare Frigoris:

Thirty-six hours and they still had three bodies out there somewhere. For the first six or eight hours there’d been hope, but after that, even those who might have survived would be running out of air. By ten hours into the operation, it had gone from rescue to recovery, and the morale of the workers had tanked, right along with their hope.

The two doctors, one from Sentinel and one from New Hope, had worked side-by-side long after there was no possibility of finding more survivors, tending to the injured and trying to patch together those who had been most critical. The triage unit Stormhaven had dropped had been equipped with an adequate supply of diagnostic tools and a small surgical theater. They’d sent for more supplies twice, and finally they’d just waded through the bodies, coming out the other end of the grinder exhausted, but knowing they’d done all they could.

Twenty-two had escaped with minor injuries, and seven were still in critical condition. Body bags were lined up in rows on the lunar surface, fifty-six of them.

Jonathon Merrill, the acting Governor of the Unity Colony and the only Director of the combined space administrations who was an active roster astronaut, stood staring at the rows of black bags, his face invisible through his faceplate. His voice, when he spoke, carried the depth of his sorrow and frustration. “Those bastards,” he said quietly. He’d been in his office when the quake had hit. After he’d made the call for help, he’d suited up and joined the rescue efforts, going in only long enough to get new air and to learn the latest on what had caused it. His personal efforts had been nothing short of heroic, and his crews had started regarding him with a certain reverence afforded all great leaders.

“Excuse me?” Dr. Cochrane said. They’d been so entrenched in their own work, neither of the doctors had heard the cause of the disaster. He stood beside the Governor, bone-weary and on the verge of collapse himself.

“The Chinese,” he said. “They caused it. The quake.” Merrill’s speech drifted back to its Queensland country roots when he was tired.

“Surely that’s not possible?” Cochrane said.

“’Fraid so, Doc,” he said. “They set off one of their warheads and gave the moon a good whack in the process. Braggin’ bastards they are, they even took credit for it, they did.”

“They didn’t warn anyone?” the Doctor asked. “That’s criminal.”

“But who’s gonna impose the rule of law up here, a quarter million miles the other side of beyond?” Merrill said. “It’s a lot like the Outback usta be. Ya bury the dead, and ya keep on walkin’. It’s all we can do, mate.” He turned and trudged up the ridge, dragging his boots in the heavy dust.

***

Chapter Six:

Don’t Come Knocking Again

Chang Er Prefecture, Tycho:

The plan had been to build the booster stack for the
Zhen-Long
at Amundsen, but the damage to the support facilities had been extensive enough they’d had to reconsider whether it made sense to repair the damages first, or build the missile first. Being further from the other colonies, and well away from their usual approach patterns, the Observatory had been easier to secure. Still, in the end, it was expedience that moved the booster construction out into the far more open, but still operational, Chang Er launch pads.

It was quicker to build a new gantry and assembly hangar at Tycho, where most of their workers lived, than it was to send the heavy crews down to Amundsen to tear down and repair the old tower. So they started construction immediately, and began fortifying their territory with a wide array of new defenses, many of them hauled up from Amundsen.

Even before Antu appeared in the sky and reshaped the destiny of the world, Chang Er had been planned to eventually become a military facility. The crater itself had been a strategic choice, rather than an economic one. Turrets were to be built on the outer ridges and central peak, with SAM racks and observation posts scattered around the surrounding ejecta ridges. Almost overnight, Chang Er went from laboratory to fortress.

The expanded Communications Center became the Operations and Control Center for the People’s Army on Luna. It meant Yao Lin-Tzu had moved a step closer to the top of the organizational chart, but it also meant her boss sat over her shoulder all day. And General Wan Len-Ji had a way of being, as they said in America, a cork-sacker.

Technicians had torn apart most of the consoles in the room, moving workstations closer together and consolidating space to make room for the fire control computers. The control center looked like it had been through a war, and they hadn’t even started one yet. “Major Yao,” one of the radar crewmen said. “I am tracking an unidentified vehicle in very low orbit.”

It took her a second to realize he was talking to her. Her second promotion in less than a year, and a transfer from the quasi-military CNSA to the People’s Army, had left her more than a little unsettled. “Major Yao?” he said again.

“Yes, Lieutenant,” she said, coming over to look at his screen. His display showed an echo she’d not seen before. Their computers could not identify it. “Do we have a visual?” She glanced over at where the telescope controls were still in pieces. “Apparently not.” She sighed.

It was coming over the horizon almost directly in line with the gantry construction. “What can we tell from the bounce?” she asked, not wanting to call it to the attention of the General until she had more information.

“It looks to be substantially larger than the Stormhaven carriers, and it is much larger than the TLS or Roscosmos vehicles,” he said.

“Can we get an external video feed from anywhere?” she said, turning to one of the technicians and tapping him to get his attention. He pointed to a console sitting in the corner. It still had power, but was largely in pieces.

She grabbed the keyboard and logged into the security network, searching for a camera that was looking in the right direction. Most of the ones she would have used were still offline, but finally she got an active image and she took over manual control. “Lieutenant, where is it now?”

“Bearing seventy-two degrees, azimuth sixteen degrees and climbing,” he said. “It should be visible.”

She scrolled around, locking on the target and zoomed in to maximum resolution. It was definitely not a ship type she’d ever seen before. It looked more like a building than a vehicle. Square, with tall spires rising from its top and it seemed to be plated with some kind of reflective material.