The World Game (8 page)

CHAPTER 21

Iranian Presidential Survival Bunker

“Zardooz, you have outdone yourself!” Arjmand lay on a reclining couch in his underwear, his clothing scattered around on the floor. Two young women knelt beside him offering plates of sweet grapes and exotic fruits. Trained from childhood to accept any abuse from men, neither of them flinched as Arjmand groped and fondled them without shame, his erection straining his shorts and his breathing fast coming rapid and shallow. He started moaning and pulled the nearest girl’s hand to his member, pushing down his shorts with the other hand. In seconds he was flopping about like a landed fish as the girl’s touch brought him to a messy, climactic spatter. The atmosphere was rank with his odor as Zardooz watched on with a smirk of condescending amusement. He thought to himself that the few so called virgins he had installed were going to remain virgins with Arjmand around.

Zardooz beckoned to one of the girls who came over to him. He quietly told her to clean Arjmand up and get him dressed. Arjmand had a broadcast to make to the world.

Arjmand sat in front of a sophisticated video camera array that transmitted in 3-D. His hair had been slicked back and he now wore a traditional djabella and keffiyeh.

“On 3, 2, 1...” one of the young women, acting as producer, pointed at Arjmand signalling he was transmitting.

“I am addressing the world, in particular the United States and its lackey Israel. The great Iranian Empire has destroyed the aggressor North Korean Hegemony and our doomsday bomb has collapsed the very landmass of the United States.

These same United States started this aggression by attacking the Empire of Iran with a weapon of mass destruction, an anti-matter device. The leadership of the United States should be tried and condemned as they did to our valiant neighbor Saddam Hussein all those years ago!

They called our brother Osama Bin Laden a terrorist for fighting a limited war, and then they killed him. No longer will the Iranian Empire be subservient to any other nation.

We have retaliated to the use of the AMD with our doomsday bomb that is destroying continental USA even as I speak.” Arjmand paused, red in the face with excitement and emotion.

“Whoever is hearing and seeing this broadcast, take up your weapons, seek out the enemies around you and destroy them in the name of Allah!”

CHAPTER 22

Goddard Space Center - Skyhook control.

“Understood Mr. President. I will repeat your instructions. Load all available Skyhook transports within the hour with whatever supplies are available. Board all Goddard personnel and whoever else is on site and wishes to make a one way trip to Space City. Launch all transports within 90 minutes and instruct transport pilots to disengage from the Skyhook thirty minutes after launch.” The General’s voice was steady as he controlled his emotions. He knew exactly what was coming. “Mr. president?” He allowed his humanity to slip past the steely military armor.

“Yes General?”

“About our families? Our wives and kids?”

“General, I can’t tell you how to handle things down there. That is your job alone. However if you can get your families into the transports within the time limits then do so. There is no shortage of passenger capacity and Space City has plenty of room. The only risk is that there are no survival suits for all the passengers and only the vehicle integrity will protect them. I guess that is better than staying behind. General, go do what you have to without delay.”

The General’s shoulders moved maybe a quarter inch in relief as he acknowledged. “Thank you Mr. President. See you aboard Space City Sir.”

The General issued the orders, with carefully worded instruction regarding families to be brought into the facility. He warned the Goddard security team leaders, those that he could trust, that there may be violent reaction to his orders. Within scant moments of issuing the orders there was screaming and crying reported from several areas of the complex as some staff members who commuted hours each day saw their loved ones were doomed. The security details had to restrain three women and one man, all who had broken down emotionally, the man becoming violent when approached. Sedated, the four were taken aboard the first available transport. Freedom of the individual was no longer an option.

Three transports were being frantically loaded. There was no time for safety checking or the niceties of inventory control. Crates were strapped down wherever they would fit. Pallets of food and assorted essentials were slipped randomly into pallet bays while bales of soft goods were piled into every available gap and held in place with duct tape. Mechanics hauled hoses to reaction mass tanks and started the filling process while the three designated pilot commanders watched for obvious disaster in the making dangers that had to be corrected.

Within minutes the first staff members without incoming family attachments started to file into the passenger loading area and flight crew hurried them on board and strapped each one in. There was little talk between the passengers who did not have space suit protection or any experience of space flight and the inherent dangers. But better a reasonable chance of survival than none at all.

The first three transports were loaded and locked down ready for launch. There was no delay or traditional countdown from Goddard Launch Control. The transports simply left one after the other and three more railed in to take their place and loads.

The activity was becoming frantic with less than 45 minutes until the shock wave was due to hit Goddard and the Skyhook. The semblance of discipline and order was beginning to break down, with military and staff realizing that this was the last chance to escape certain death. People started pushing and shoving to get aboard the transports, the wailing of injured punctuated by the shouted orders of the few military controllers still trying to maintain order.

The bales and supplies were being thrown in now with no attempt to secure them or balance the loading. The three pilots huddled together in conference, looking at timepieces and comparing with the wall screen data on the shock wave approach. They came to a decision and broke away to their respective transports, each now with sidearm in hand and plain sight. They knew that there was only 8 minutes left until they had to leave to achieve the minimum thirty minutes until separation from the Skyhook.

Just meeting those constraints was no guarantee of safety or survival. No one knew how the Skyhook would react when the shock wave hit the base of the twenty seven thousand mile long tube. Such a catastrophe had never been anticipated and never tested in theory. They were soon to find out.

At thirty seconds before lift off, the three pilots activated emergency alarm sirens in their transports, loudly wailing klaxon warnings. Enough to make everyone freeze in their tracks and look for the source of the danger. In that instant the pilots closed the doors automatically, over-riding the safety switching that prevented bodies, limbs or objects from being crushed or severed in the doorway. Screams came from two of the transports as people struggling to get in were caught in the doorways. Arms and torsos were severed and dropped inside the air lock as the former arm owners writhed in agony and bled out on the gangway rolling in the bloody pools of guts and legs of those maybe more fortunate to have been killed outright. The crowd withdrew in horror at the shock of the violence and the abrupt end of life before their eyes.

After a few seconds of silence within the strident alarms, the collective anger of the mob grew, suppressing their individual will to survive, and as one they fell on the outer hull of the transport, hitting it with bare fists or anything at hand. The bloody smears and impacts did nothing to a metal skin designed to withstand meteorite impact.

The pilots saw that there was no way to push back the angry mob, so they engaged drive and started launch with seconds to spare. The grasping hands slid away as those closest to the first transport were dragged by friction against the gangway safety fence, then the transports were free and the crowds fell forward off the gangways onto the rails. Those fallen on the rails at the first and second gangways were crushed by the second and third transport as they passed. Blood flowed like water between the rails as the remaining people looked on in horror as the red streaked transports, with their only hope of survival, drew away and vanished up the Skyhook.

An engineer in the crowd, his face contorted in raw, animal anger, screamed out “Why should they get away? Look what they did! They need to pay! They need to come back and get us all or they should die!” The crowd turned to him. A single voice called out “Come back or die! Come back or die!” The engineer screamed “Follow me! I can turn off the power to the Skyhook. We can make them come back!”

The crowd parted allowing the engineer to lead the way and then surged after him, oblivious to the fact that their existence was limited to the minutes until the shock wave struck. They started chanting “Come back or die!” as they ran behind the engineer who was heading for the master control room.

The pilots of the first three transports that had left had no idea of what had occurred. They had reached the minimum separation point and from then on every second on the Skyhook was a bonus. They were monitoring the approach of the shock wave and decided that five more minutes was as much as they could consider. They had calculated to be at least ten thousand miles from the Skyhook when the shock wave would hit.

The pilots of the second group did not have that luxury of decision. They were working on separation seconds before the shock wave hit, at the very minimum thirty minute separation point.

The pilot of the second transport in this group was reporting an air lock error due to an object jammed in the doorway. He decided to put the transport on auto pilot and to go and clear the blockage. He was not looking forward to what he was likely going to find, but he activated his youniform and buddy for vacuum activity and left the flight deck. As he passed through the passenger cabin he saw the expressionless, stunned look on every face. There was no talk.

He cycled the inner lock only to find that it was deactivated due to vacuum in the air lock. The outer door was not sealed at all. The only way he could fix the problem was to open the inner lock manually and allow the cabin pressure to drop as the air was sucked out in the time it took for him to move into the air lock and close the inner door again. He clicked on his internal intercom mike and spoke to his charges. “Ladies and gentlemen, we have an emergency. We will be experiencing a drop in cabin pressure momentarily. To ensure the fastest recovery to normal pressure, please look around you and secure any loose objects of paper that may be drawn into the vacuum and prevent door closure. Do this now. RIGHT NOW!” he screamed the last to shock the passengers into action. When was satisfied that loose items and debris were secured, he turned to the inner door manual opening sequence. Peering through the small view port he could just see a lighter slit where the outer door should have been closed. The slit was interrupted towards the lower half by an object blocking the light. He hated to think what that object might be. In any case his view was obscured by the fine mist of gore that had deposited all over the air lock.

The problem he faced was simple. Either he could clear the blockage and close the outer door, taking the risk that the mechanism was damaged and all the atmosphere in the craft would vent, or leave it alone and take the chance that the inner door would hold. The inner door was not designed to withstand the forces that the outer door would routinely encounter. It was simply an emergency second defense and air lock mechanism rated for six hours of continuous vacuum. Space City was more than six hours away. Much more.

CHAPTER 23

Skyhook Control, Goddard.

The engineer had reached the control center at Goddard and along with three others who had come forward professing knowledge of the power system, were looking at the grid schematics presented in 3-D before them. The engineer had found the VR gloves that made the virtual reality concrete. He had them on and was working through the grid turning off every switch he could find. Gradually the green conduit lines represented were all turning red, until finally he narrowed down the Skyhook feed to three possibilities. Without any hesitation he shut down all three – and the lights went out. There was screaming and howls of fear from the blinded mob, the darkness total and almost tangible. Then even the sounds of terror were smothered by an increasing rushing sound, like a train coming out of a subway, hundreds of trains. The shock wave had arrived!