The Gemini Divergence (47 page)

Oberst Graff was already in the room with two
other soldiers, and three Russian Cosmonauts tied up and gagged in
chairs.

When Graff noticed Schwerig, he started to
snap to attention, but Schwerig instantly stopped him, verbally
snapping, “Please, dispense with the protocol, we have work to do.
Which one is the commander?”

Graff responded, “They will not tell us, Herr
General, but this one has more pronounced epaulets,” as he pointed
to the man seated to their left.

Schwerig than kicked the foot of the supposed
commander and interrogated, “Вы капсула командира, (Are you the
capsule commander)?”

The Cosmonaut remained silent, so Schwerig
slapped him across the face.

The Soviet Commander, remaining silent,
lifted his head back up and sat as straight and defiant as he could
whilst in bondage.

“Fine,” Schwerig responded, “we will start
with him. Torture him till he talks, and do it in front of his
companions in order to soften them up. I want to know if they were
aware of our presence before we captured them, whatever technical
information that you can attain from him, and if he will switch
sides and work for us. We can certainly use people with inside
information.”

“And the others?”

Schwerig looked at the other two cosmonauts.
The other male seemed scared, but the female was averting her eyes
from Schwerig and had an angry look on her face.

Schwerig changed his tone and spoke kindly,
“Как вас зовут, мой дорогой, (What is your name, my dear)?”

The female cosmonaut reacted by trying to
avert her look farther behind herself, in a vain attempt to ignore
him.

Schwerig then gently grabbed her chin and
turned her face, so that he could see it. When he did, she finally
looked into his eyes.

He was instantly overtaken with her beauty,
but remained stoic as possible in his stance.

He was stunned that the Soviets would send a
woman this attractive on such a dangerous mission, but then
remembered how the Soviets used women with the same contempt as men
back in Stalingrad, at times seeming oblivious and indifferent to
the female soldiers… feminine side.

After a brief pause while he regained his
posture, he snorted, “Contact me when you are done with the
commander,” Schwerig then turned and snapped his fingers as he
pointed towards the door, signaling whoever was controlling the
door, to open it.

The portal then opened just in time for
Schwerig to exit.

*~*

Volmer was working in his laboratory with a
Russian weapons expert named Vladimr Kuznetsov when Lemay
approached.

“Mr. Volmer, I am so glad that I found you
and Dr. Kuznetsov together.”

“Oh really?” answered Volmer, “Why is
that?”

“Because I wanted to know if you had any
ideas for a space weapon, and if you did, what those may be. We
desperately need to have a way to fire back at the Overseers.”

Lemay then turned to Dr. Kuznetsov, “Dr. what
solutions have the Soviets come up with?”

Kuznetsov answered, “Well the Soviets have
employed a diametric inertial opposition cannon, in order to keep
true trajectory as well as angle of incidence.”

Lemay shook his head like he didn’t
understand as he quipped, “How about that in English this
time.”

Volmer, who was used to talking with Lemay,
stepped in, “General, what he is trying to explain is that the
Russians figured out that if they just fired a gun in space, it
would be no different than firing a rocket. So every time they
fired the gun, it would change the position of the capsule… To
remedy this problem they made a gun that is able to fire in both
directions at the same time, so that one gun would counter the
effects of the other.”

Lemay responded, “Hot damn, does that
work?”

Volmer continued, “In theory, yes. In
practice, they ran into problems because of the temperature
differences in space. In the dark it is 300 degrees below 0 and in
the sun, it is 300 degrees above 0. That makes the flash point of
the powder vary dramatically. It was impossible to make the powder
mix correct unless they developed a gun that could change the
powder mix of the cartridges automatically with the temperature
change.”

“So, they gave up on the gun?”

“No, they decided to control the interior
temperature of the gun.”

“Did that work?”

“Intermittently… for Russians, that has
always been good enough. Of course, Americans would complain wildly
about the flaw.”

“Yeah, I wouldn’t put up with that myself,
and I wouldn’t expect any of my men to either. What are we going to
use?”

“Dr Kuznetsov and I have theorized that we
could use electromagnets to propel burning magnesium projectiles
towards their ships. If the velocity was not as high as desired,
the extreme temperature of the burning magnesium would melt a hole
in many things.”

“Will it burn in space?”

“Oh yes, at any temperature. Magnesium
manufactures its own oxygen when burning.”

“Build the damn thing, and call me when it’s
done. I want to see it with my own eyes.”

*~*

Inside of one of the main hangers, within the
central hub of Schwerig’s station stood Schwerig.

He was going through his usual leg work,
checking up on the maintenance of his personal squadron.

He scanned around himself to see if there was
anything else that may need his attention, casually glancing over
his head at the saucers parked inverted above him and the work
being done on them as well.

Because, the inside of the hanger was within
the wheel of the rotating station, yet the floor of the hanger was
away from the center of rotation, there was effective gravity on a
continuous hanger floor that looped over Schwerig’s head and came
back around to his present position again.

The sides of the station hanger, in which for
description purposes were like the hubcaps of a wheel, where an
extremely large array of windows.

Any occupant of the hanger would be able to
see the beautiful vista of the Earth through one window, the hustle
and bustle of squadron activity within the hanger, and the splendid
backdrop of our galaxy of stars and the solar system, through the
opposite window.

Oberst Graff approached and saluted.

Schwerig casually returned the salute and
sneered, “Yes, Oberst, what is it?”

“Herr General, I am sorry to report that the
Soviet Commander has succumbed to the torture and perished before
we were able to attain any information of measurable merit.”

“That is unfortunate indeed.”

“What would you like for me to do next?”

Schwerig ordered, “I want you to discharge
the female cosmonaut into my custody and have her guarded in my
quarters until I arrive there later… I will question her myself, in
my own way.”

Graff was taken a bit by surprise, so he
questioned Schwerig, “Are you sure that is such a good idea, Herr
General?”

Schwerig snapped, “Wow, that is peculiar,
because I was under the impression that you liked your new rank of
Oberst. Perhaps I was mistaken.”

“No mistake, General Schwerig. I will see to
it immediately.”

“I thought so,” sneered Schwerig, “Oberst
Graff, I think that you are a splendid executive officer, but you
may be getting a bit too chummy with me if you think that you have
the right to question your commander like that.”

*~*

Von Braun was giddy as a school child as he
gave President Kennedy and his entourage of dignitaries a tour of
his facilities.

He had waited and prepared for years to have
an audience with the leader of the free world, in order to sell the
merits of his life long plan to send men to the moon.

The doctor was particularly proud of his
co-Disney created animations of his concepts.

Kennedy, McNamara, Lemay, and Symington, were
all blown away at the exhibition of the animated shorts.

The two normally quibbling men were equally
uncomfortable with the way that Von Braun was successfully wooing
Kennedy with the skills of a veteran car salesman.

Even with their ongoing rivalry, they found
themselves continually making eye contact, and nonverbally
communicating mutual dismay as Von Braun continuously put his arm
around Kennedy and offered him drinks and Cuban cigars as he played
out his thoroughly prepared spiel.

McNamara saw the dollar signs rolling, as
Lemay feared encroachment on his power and control by Von Braun’s
famously hypnotic presentations.

As they looked at one presentation about
ICBM’s that Von Braun had been working on for Lemay, Kennedy asked,
“I don’t remember this part of the plan. Are these to be used in
the divergence?”

Lemay leaned forward and said, “Why yes sir.
Russians, Germans, it makes no difference. Americans will sleep
much better at night once we put these in their silos.”

Kennedy quickly looked at McNamara behind
Lemay’s peripheral view and shot McNamara a facial expression that
communicated, “What the hell is this?”

McNamara silently gestured with his face and
hands, “There will be no missiles with this plan,” then he silently
pointed to Lemay and gave an exaggerated roll of his eyes to
signify his opinion that Lemay must be crazy.

Kennedy then rolled his eyes in amusement of
how Lemay and McNamara could carry on bickering like children for
so long and redirected his attention back towards Von Braun.

“Dr. Von Braun?” asked the President, “I
understand that you are averting the danger to our test pilots by
using monkeys. But I am worried, when we ramp up these programs,
will there be a substantial increase in the mortality of our test
pilots?”

“Oh, well there is always a danger to our
brave test pilots, but they are all quite aware of the dangers of
their jobs. We do everything possible to mitigate the risks,
especially because most of the sciences that we are venturing into,
are of unknowns; therefore there are always unknown and
unanticipated dangers. Luckily, we have intercepted and recorded
much of the Soviet and German radio transmissions while they were
in their experimental phases. We can avoid many mistakes that they
have already made with that knowledge.”

Kennedy looked relieved and said, “I have to
admit, I am blown away at all of this, I have been briefed about
your work, but I never knew that there were actually so many
possibilities.”

Von Braun smiled and put his arm around
Kennedy once again. As he started to guide the President away from
Lemay and McNamara he boasted, “Mr. President. Permit me to show
and tell you more about the infinite possibilities of my
research.”

*~*

In Schwerig’s quarters the female Cosmonaut
appeared from his bedroom wrapped in nothing but a blanket.

She sat in a chair facing the picture window
and stared out over the Earth while she sobbed gently.

Schwerig then entered the living room tucking
in his pants as he walked, and spoke to her in Russian, “its
beautiful isn’t it? You could be part of this. We are years ahead
of anybody on Earth. Your country and America are unable to stop
us. Your countries need massive government programs with bottomless
coffers to ferry people, such as yourself, out here, but we can
come and go with the ease that you might take your car to the
grocery.”

Svetlana wiped her tears and said, “I will
have no part of Nemetskii filth… I would prefer to die… My mother
was raped by Nemetskii soldat at Stalingrad; you could very well be
my perverted incestuous father… since you were there.”

“You didn’t seem to mind lying with a German
back in my bedroom.”

She looked disgusted and retorted, “I gave
myself to you deliberately, so that I would never be your victim. I
have to live with these thoughts forever, so I prepared myself if
this were to ever happen during my service to the Red Army. I would
rather live my life knowing that I freely chose to be a whore than
be forced to be a lifelong victim.”

Not missing a chance for a smart remark,
Schwerig responded, “Well then, nothing inappropriate took place
after all.”

She snapped a glance back at him with a
silent look that could melt stone.

Schwerig, seeing the look, quickly lost his
smile and picked up her flight-suit, then tossing it to her said,
“Get dressed. I will take you back to your surviving comrade.”

She angrily caught the clothes and stood up,
unwrapping herself from the sheet and throwing it into the chair.
Then she started putting on her own clothes as she spoke, “You will
never be able to take over my country, and you can’t win.”

Schwerig turned away from her as he finished
buttoning up his uniform, “We don’t want it anymore.”

Before he finished his sentence, he started
to laugh inside at the irony of what he was about to say and it
showed as he said, “There is far more space, out here… ‘in space’.
The Raumsfahrtwaffe has found its lebensraum, unsurprisingly,
within raum.”

He turned back around to see that she had
finished dressing, although she had only donned her flight suit to
just above her waist level and tied the sleeves around her stomach,
exposing her tank top undergarment.

On her shoulder he could see a small,
feminine tattoo of the red star.

He commented, “It is a little unusual for a
female to get a military tattoo isn’t it?”

“I didn’t get it for the reason that men do.
I got it for a situation like this, where an enemy has disrobed me
against my... better judgment. With this, I will never be out of
uniform, and any enemy that would shoot an unarmed uniformed
soldier, would be a true coward.”

Schwerig smiled, “I admire your forward
thinking and preparation. It is a pity that you won’t join us. I
could use such a mind on my staff.”

She then spit at the ground between them.