{And…the two people they contacted are Linnet Thompson and Clint Janus.}
Ell came to an abrupt halt, thoughts racing. {Hold on, here. When did they extend the invitations?}
{Earlier today. Well,} Quinn amended, {seeing as it’s 0400, technically it was yesterday, but—}
{Stars!} she exclaimed. {Maybe that’s why Thompson was targeted. I thought it was because she saw Peres’s kidnapper, but what if….} Her voice trailed off.
{Boss?} Quinn’s prompt effectively jogged her elbow.
{Well, what if the goal all along has been to sabotage deGrasse’s mission? If they need a biochemist that badly, then Peres’s disappearance would do it. That would also explain the attempt on Thompson, if they think to replace him with her. Or Janus.}
{About that. A priority message just come through from Colonel Fraley.} Quinn paused a beat. {He said Clint Janus accepted the offer and would be taking Peres’s place on the transport tomorrow. Shit. I mean today.}
{Find Janus,} she instructed. {Warn him he could be in danger. I’ll stay on Thompson, although now that it’s been decided Janus is going, she may be in the clear.}
{Consider it done. Anything I can do to help out from this end?} he asked.
Ell looked around at the increasingly crowded hospital. {Can you tap into the hospital feed and let me know if you see anything suspicious? There’s too much going on here for me to stay on top of it all.}
{You got it,} he assured her. {I’ll ping if I see anything suspicious.}
TWENTY-ONE
Emergency Task Force HQ
Midland
Off to one side of the City Center conference room, Cass’s maintenance techs had set up a command center.
As Cass motioned her through, Sam saw a bank of holoscreens had been set up. They were projecting the feed from SI-piloted drones, flying over the downed tube.
“How’s it look?” she asked, pulling up a seat behind them.
Owen, Cass’s first shift section chief glanced up. “Perfect. Not a single thing wrong that I can see.”
“Well, that’s a problem,” she murmured, gesturing to the controls with a questioning look. He handed them over and she ran through the sequence once more.
Owen was right; there didn’t seem to be anything mechanically wrong with tube Thirty-Three.
Behind her, Sam heard Cass’s contralto mix with Rafe’s deep bass rumble.
The major had shown up just after Sam arrived, to help coordinate base personnel with law enforcement. He stood between his wife and Hawking’s police chief, listening to the latest report from the governor.
“…biggest problems is livestock,” she heard the governor say over the main holo. “Most of Brightstar Ranch is located in that sector.”
Sam stepped away from the drone feed to hear more, looking questioningly from Davies to Cass as she joined them.
“Our biggest ranch is in the middle of the hot zone,” Cass told her. “Thirty percent of our proteins aren’t vat-grown. They come from livestock raised in the lands that abut the Flint Hills.”
Sam’s eyebrow rose. “Aren’t those the mountains that run along the lake?”
Cass nodded. “It’s backside is all tall prairie grasses, owned and operated by Brightstar.” She shook her head. “There’s no possible way to evac a bunch of—”
“Cattle? No,” Davies’ chuckle held absolutely no humor. “Sheep. Stars, sheep are even worse. No way, Cass.”
The governor dragged his hand across his face wearily, and she could see him leaning heavily against a desk in the Nimitz bunker.
“This is going to be a substantial hit,” he murmured. “Nothing we can’t overcome, but the cylinder’s going to feel it in the coming months.”
Davies shot a look at Asato. “You know you’re going to have to forcibly remove Tinker and the crew. They’re not going to abandon the ranch willingly.”
Asato grimaced and shook her head. “I’ll send a team out there now.” She glanced at Sam. “How long do we have before the radiation levels become too high for us to do evacs?”
“Let me check,” Sam said. She had her dosimetry app update with the cylinder’s STC space weather station and drew in a sharp breath. “Uh, guys? We have a small problem.”
The room fell suddenly silent and she realized she now held more than just the attention of Cass, her husband, the police chief, and the governor.
Her words had caused everyone in the room to drop what they were doing. Tense, frightened faces stared back at her from all corners of the room.
“What is it, doc?” the major prompted, bringing her attention back to him.
Sam sucked in a sharp breath, her gaze sweeping from him to Cass and then to Davies. “The weather station’s just picked up a buildup. A solar particle event is imminent.”
“How imminent?” Rafe asked sharply, and Sam abruptly recalled that the man was a pilot. It made sense that he’d have more than a passing knowledge of space weather.
“At the rate it’s building, they predict an hour and a half at most,” she told him.
Turning to the police chief, she added, “Until then, if your people are in powered armor, they’ll be fine. As far as the people in the affected area are concerned, we’ll need to work with area hospitals to set up triage stations in shelters. As evacuees show up, we can inject them with DNA repairing medical nano and radiation sickness medication.”
Davies nodded. “Any ETA on when the hole in our sheath will be repaired, Cass?”
The engineer scowled. “I won’t know until we figure out exactly what went wrong with the tube. My people are working hard to finish Thirty-Two, but you can’t rush a refit. It’ll be another two to three hours before it’s back up and functioning again.”
Rafe grasped Cass’s shoulder. Giving it a squeeze, he said, “We know you’re doing your best.”
“Yeah, but right now, that’s not really good enough, is it?” she replied caustically. “That tube was fine as of eighteen hundred, when the system SI ran its last check. Rock solid, no fluctuations. A strong, steady stream of plasma.”
Sam’s head jerked up at Cass’s mention of plasma streams. Something that had begun nudging her subconscious suddenly snapped into focus.
“You know,” Sam said slowly, looking from Cass to Rafe. “I think I might have a way to toss up a temporary patch.”
Cass looked hopeful. “What did you have in mind?” the engineer asked.
“We inject ions into the plasmasphere.”
Sam looked around and saw varying degrees of comprehension.
The governor blinked in confusion. “Plasmasphere? I thought we had a magnetosphere.”
“You do, but that’s often used as a catchall word to describe a complex, layered system,” she explained. “One of those layers is the plasmasphere.”
The governor nodded. “Yes. I’ve heard of a plasma barrier.”
Sam shook her head. “Actually, that’s…something different. The barrier’s the place where Merki’s supersonic winds hit the outer boundary, twenty-five hundred kilometers away. That impact compresses the magnetosphere, creating a bow shock six kilometers thick.”
She saw confusion cloud Davies’ face. “So which one protects us, the plasma barrier, or the plasmasphere?” the governor asked.
“Both, actually. The barrier’s the first line of defense, but when Merki starts to get a little feisty, that’s where we begin to see some of the benefits of the plasmasphere.”
She curved one palm over the other. “It’s like a barrier behind the barrier. It’s exceedingly sharp, and it responds to external stimuli. So when Merki sends a cosmic event our way, like a coronal mass ejection, your plasmasphere will actually rise up to meet it.”
Cass crossed her arms. “So, what are you suggesting? That we just inject a bunch of plasma across the hole?”
“That’s exactly what I’m saying.”
Davies straightened, the hope flaring in his eyes transmitting clearly over the holo, but S
am watched it die when he turned to see the skepticism on Cass’s face.
Rafe’s expression looked equally doubtful; Asato stood motionless, her avid gaze bouncing back and forth between Sam and Cass, a silent, watchful spectator.
Sam held up a hand, pinning Cass with a look. “I know what you’re going to say: it won’t work because the plasma cloud will instantly start to disperse.” She shrugged. “So you keep feeding it.”
Cass cocked her head. “From what? A fusion engine’s exhaust?”
Sam nodded. “Yes. If I can get a couple of experienced pilots to work with us on the flight path.”
Cass looked at Rafe doubtfully. “What do you think?”
“You’re wanting to ring the outside of Hawking with a plasma exhaust plume?” he asked, and she nodded.
“Several, actually. I’d need your help figuring out the details. I have no idea what the output of different engines are, and what would be best to use.”
Rafe rubbed one hand along the side of his jaw as he studied her intently. “Just how precise a flight path are we talking here?”
“Your pilot would have to be able to maneuver so that the exhaust plume is laid along the line where the ionosphere ends and the plasmasphere begins, twenty kilometers up.”
Davis stirred uncomfortably. “Hold on, now. That’s getting uncomfortably close to the cylinder. Let’s not make the solution worse than the problem.”
“Believe me, governor, I’m not advocating that.” Sam said. She turned to Rafe, and she knew the man wasn’t going to like what she proposed next. “We’ll need to stagger the ships around the circumference, overlapping their exhaust plumes to get an even distribution.”
The major scowled. “I’m not letting any Navy ship fly inside another ship’s exhaust plume,” he said flatly.
“We have some wiggle room with the altitude, but not a lot. That should let you stack the ships a bit, but—”
“That no-wake zone is there for a reason, doc,” Rafe interrupted. “It protects both passengers and crew from the ionizing radiation emitted by those plumes. Believe me, they’ll penetrate through even the thickest powered armor and deliver a lethal dose in minutes.”
“Seconds, actually,” Sam murmured. “What about remote flight? Can it be done with enough accuracy?”
Rafe’s eyes narrowed as he studied her silently for a moment.
He nodded slowly. “You’re in luck, Doctor. We happen to have a precision pilot visiting Hawking right now.”
At his words, she released a breath. They all glanced at Davies to see if he’d agree.
“It sounds risky as hell, but if the major thinks it can be done safely, then do it,” he ordered. “It’ll buy you some time, and save that livestock of ours in the process.”
Sam nodded and sent Cass a meaningful look. “Not much, but hopefully enough.”
The other woman nodded. “We can’t rush Thirty-Two’s refit, but once that plasma cloud’s laid down, we can tear into Thirty-Three and figure out what in stars caused it to fail.”
TWENTY-TWO
Nimitz Naval Base
Portsmouth,
Micah stood in Nimitz Base’s command center, blinking in disbelief at Zander’s image, as he tried to wrap his mind around what he’d just heard. “You woke me for this?” he demanded.
A discreet cough from Yuki reminded him they weren’t alone. “Sir,” he amended, with a quick glance at the room’s only other occupants, the base’s CO and the comm officer of the watch.
Zander’s expression didn’t change. “I know it seems like a crazy mission—”
“Crazy? Try suicidal,” Yuki muttered, causing a thin smile to ghost briefly across Zander’s face.
He gave her a brief nod, acknowledging the truth of that statement. “I know it sounds crazy, but we need to lay down a very concentrated, directed stream of plasma, ASAP.”
Micah hooked a hand around the back of his neck, head down, and began to pace. “I don’t need to tell you how dangerous this is. A Helios emits enough heavy particles to fry a Marine in heavy armor in under a minute.” He swiveled his head and shot the man a look. “You know that.”
Zander nodded. “That’s why this calls for precision flying. And that’s why I want you to do it, and not one of my Novastrike pilots.”
He leaned in closer to the holorecorder’s pickups. “The Navy has no better pilot than those in Shadow Recon. You know it, and I know it. If anyone exists who could fly this pattern without bringing harm to Hawking, it’s you.”
“Major,” Micah blew out a breath, trying one last time to get the man to see reason. “There’s dancing on the edge of a pin, and then there’s crazy stupid. Are you sure we’re not looking at the second thing instead of the first?”
“Well, there’s a third thing we also have to consider.” Zander’s brows drew together, sharp lines creasing his forehead. “Hawking’s space weather center just warned us there’s a GLE coming. It’ll hit Hawking in about an hour.”
Micah heard Yuki’s sharp intake of air at his mention of a ground level event. GLEs were at the extreme end of a solar particle event, and presented a bigger hazard than a standard SPE.
He scrubbed his face with one hand and stared at the overhead. “Way to bury the lead, Captain.”
A quiet snicker came from where Yuki stood beside him.
“Okay, say we actually consider doing this. Exactly what does this nutcase of a physicist want us to do?”
Off screen, Micah could hear the caustic words of a woman carrying clearly over Zander’s mic pickups.
“This nutcase is happy to send you the specs for how much of a plasma cloud we’ll need,” the voice said. “But I need an answer now. Can you do it, or should I be looking for another way to get this done? Lives are depending on this!”
Micah’s brows climbed into his hairline. “Spicy, isn’t she?” he commented privately to Zander, causing the man’s stern visage to break momentarily into a brief smile.
“Son, your words, not mine.”
Micah spared the comm officer a glance. “Can we get a cross-section of the area the major’s talking about up on a secondary screen, please?”
“Yessir,” the lieutenant nodded, and within moments, an image hovered beside Zander.
“Major, you have the emissions specs for a yard tug you can share with our esteemed nutcase over there?”
Zander’s lips twitched but he nodded. “What’re you thinking?”
Micah shot Yuki a glance. “I’m thinking about slaving four pairs of uncrewed tugs to our control, staged every ninety degrees around the circumference.” He returned his gaze to the holo. “Ask her if that’d create a thick enough plasma cloud.”
Yuki eyed the diagram thoughtfully. “They’re beasts, all right. If anything will do it, those can. You thinking that you’d take two pair, and I take two pair?” she asked, and he nodded.
“Exactly.” Micah then turned to the CO. “I’d feel better holding station outside the cylinder. I can set Wraith on autopilot, let the SI keep her in place, but I’d feel better if there was a human element involved.”
The CO nodded. “We’ll get you up there; don’t worry about that.”
Micah looked up as Zander returned. “Those’ll do it,” the major confirmed. “When can you launch?”
Micah turned a questioning look at the CO.
“I’m having STC clear the nearspace now,” the man said. “You’ll have unimpeded access, with no worries about cooking anyone in your wake.”
“Thank you, sir,” Zander’s relief was evident. “Case, I’ve pinged one of my flight chiefs. She’s readying a vanilla Helios now and is standing by to receive you and O’Connell.” He nodded to indicate Yuki, who gave him a crisp nod in return.
Ten minutes later, He and Yuki were onboard. They exited Nimitz Base into a space eerily devoid of other vessels. For the first time in recent memory, Micah sat at the flight engineer’s station rather than the pilot’s seat.
The icons f
loating before him represented four of the eight squat yard tugs that sat poised at the end of the base’s launch bay, awaiting his control.
He exchanged a glance with Yuki, seated across from him in what would normally be Nina’s gunnery station. With a subtle nod, he triggered the ships’ automated departure sequences.
{Launching,} he told those listening over the Helios’s shipnet. He watched as four ungainly ships fell into the black, followed by four more.
The onboard SIs were handling the takeoff and rendezvous portion of the flight. Micah would take point once the tugs were holding station above their assigned positions.
{North and East in place,} he heard Yuki say, just as his two pairs came to rest at the positions they’d tagged as South and West.
{Slaving the pairs together,} Micah announced, and the four icons under his control resolved into two.
{Ready?} he sent to Yuki privately, and received her mental assent.
He sank into the tugs’ SyntheticVision system, exchanging the Helios’s reality for the virtual one they provided. Instantly, his perspective changed. At first, it seemed like he was inside one of the South ships; then his mind flipped into the West.
Very carefully, he disentangled himself, using the tugs’ sensor arrays to find an optimal spot where he could view both ship pairs at once. Abruptly, he found himself floating in the black, staring up at the Helios in which he was ensconced.
Turning his back on that view, he reached one virtual arm to his left and the other to his right. Testing the weight of the paired ships in his mind, he felt for a balance he knew existed between the two.
Pressing back against each mental connection, he confirmed the haptic resistance necessary to keep the SyntheticVision SIs flying each pair on a steady trajectory.
{Tuned,} he reported, and heard Yuki echo the same.
A beat later, Zander’s voice came over the net. {Captain, you’re a go for Patchwork Quilt.}
{Copy that, Major,} he replied. {You be sure and tell us when we can quit, now.}
{You sure we can’t name this one Shitstorm instead?} he heard Yuki whisper jokingly.
The Chiral Conspiracy – A Military Science Fiction Thriller: A Biogenesis War Prequel (The Biogenesis War Book 0) Page 11