CHAPTER 9
If one can attack the center of gravity of an operational system in an idiosyncratic manner with weapons that the opponent does not possess--or even better, does not even understand or perceive--then the perpetrator can achieve catastrophic failure of that system.
Gen. Montgomery C. Meigs
U.S. Army, June 2003
Aboard the UNISPACE Assault Ship Archimede
Low Earth Orbit
September 8, 2062
Lieutenant Nathan Caden was silent and pensive, as Archimede closed on the Pharmex station. Twin cylinders, rotating about a longer perpendicular tube, the orbiting drug lab spun at a few dozen revolutions per minute, flashing like a strobe in the morning sunrise. The UNISPACE assault ship, carrying the 1st Space Raider Platoon, and a detail from 1st Nano, closed rapidly on the platform and secured itself to the mooring collar in good order.
Captain Domenic Revel ordered the troopers to prepare for entry.
"This is officially an inspection visit," he reminded the soldiers, now lined up outside the airlock chamber. "But the mandate orders say Pharmex is to be seized and secured. I intend to do exactly that. Enable weapons--and Lieutenant--?" Revel nodded toward Caden and the 1st Nano unit. "I'll need a sweep from you before we execute entry."
"Yes, sir." Caden snapped and locked his helmet down, then took Gibby, Al Glance and Moby M'Bela with him and eased past the mustered troops in full battlesuit gear into the airlock. The lock was cycled and depressurized, with the 1st Nano troops preparing ANAD for launch at the same time. When the "EQUAL PRESSURE" red light lit up, they were ready.
"Launch ANAD," Caden ordered.
Gibby hosed down the lock seal with ANAD, letting the rapidly replicating assembler infiltrate the connecting tube and sweep for any mech barriers Pharmex might have set up. In a few minutes, the assembler swarm had penetrated into the Pharmex outpost and was reconnoitering the transfer adapter of the station. Revel wanted ANAD deployed, just in case. On the ride up from Kourou, he had worked out tactics with Caden and Gibby to keep ANAD ready for action, while 1st Space Raiders fanned out around the platform and took over.
"I don't know what we're getting into," Revel had said to Caden. "But I want your buggers to cover my ass while we secure the place."
Caden had re-assured the UNISPACE commander. "Don't worry, Captain. ANAD'll keep the place sanitized."
Moments later, ANAD reported back on the qc-link. "ANAD to Hub…ANAD to Hub…nothing out of the ordinary…biowebs in the alpha compartment forward, level four isolation…a few stray proton clouds near the hull--probably cosmic ray spalling--kind of noisy over there…and some rad barriers in beta compartment, near the habitat--"
Caden saw the areas ANAD was indicating flash on his helmet eyepiece. "Hub to ANAD…no other nanomechs in the environment?"
"ANAD to Hub…none detectable…ANAD dispersing to reconswarm now…."
"Very well," Caden replied. He signaled to Revel. "Captain…ANAD reports no barriers…no hostile swarms. Detachment is cleared for entry."
Revel's voice was gruff. "Keep your formation ready for action, Lieutenant…just in case."
Half an hour later, 1st Space Raiders had occupied the entire Pharmex lab, securing all critical areas in both compartments.
Nominally limited to a crew of six, the platform currently hosted ten technicians. Nathan Caden was moderately surprised to recognize two of them: Vivonex chief scientist Rolf Holweg and security chief Hammond Steejn.
Steejn was florid and furious at the unannounced visit. He seethed at Caden.
"Quantum Corps seems to have a bad habit of interrupting vital work, Lieutenant. First, Basel…now up here. Maybe we should just hire you on…you spend enough time snooping around Vivonex, don't you?"
Caden bounded past Steejn in the half-g gravity and slipped into the central passageway of Alpha compartment, one end of the dumbbell-shaped station. "Don't blame Quantum Corps for this one, pal. We're just along for the ride." He checked with Gibby, who was right behind him, monitoring ANAD status. Gibby gave him a thumbs up. "UNISPACE and Captain Revel are running the show."
Steejn found Revel just inside Alpha Compartment, studying the controls of a containment chamber inside one of the labs.
Revel snapped a finger and four space raiders instantly appeared. "Take this man into custody." He waggled a finger at two Pharmex techs tending some equipment nearby. "These two as well."
Steejn protested, resisting the efforts of the raider troops and pulled free.
"What is the meaning of this out--"
Revel cut him off. "By authority of the United Nations Security Affairs Commissioner, I am taking control of this facility. This lab is in probable violation of public health protocols and mandates on harboring dangerous organisms. Search the rest of the compartment--" he directed two of the soldiers. They spun about and shoved their way past Steejn into the central passageway.
Rolf Holweg was incredulous. "You can't be serious…we're doing critical research here…we're already working with WHO…and others…to combat HNRIV infections."
Steejn was adamant. "This lab is fully licensed by WHO--check the files, Captain. We've complied with all mandates. This is nothing but harassment…a fishing expedition."
Revel was unmoved. "I have my orders." Before Steejn and Holweg could argue any further, they were restrained and hustled out of the compartment, then taken back to Archimede under guard.
The Captain issued orders in rapid sequence. "Secure all manufacturing operations. Furnaces, bioreactors, growth tanks, everything. Shutdown this containment chamber too…I want it capped so nothing can go in or out. Engles--" he snapped at a nearby corporal, "secure all comm links. And I mean all. Nothing goes out of here without permission. Put two men on it now."
Engles saluted and bounded off to the Operations pod in Beta compartment.
"Lieutenant?" Revel called Caden over.
"Yes, sir?"
Revel ticked off more orders. "There may be others hiding aboard…especially Gaidar. Take your men forward to the Level Four pod. I want a thorough search of this lab…samples, files, cultures, templates, everything. Start with this containment chamber. If there's anything out of the ordinary--like Serengeti fragments, that sort of thing--secure it."
Caden acknowledged and motioned Gibby, Glance and M'Bela into action. The nanowarriors deployed throughout the lab, Caden and Gibby in Alpha, the others in Beta, looking for evidence of Vivonex complicity.
It was ANAD itself who discovered the most damning data of all. Gibby had ordered a penetration of Pharmex's computer storage, with the ANAD swarm systematically reading nanobit impressions on each disk inside the servers. An hour later, ANAD signaled Gibby that it had found something. The raw data was imaged and sent back to the interface controls.
M'Bela hhmmm'ed as he studied the image ANAD had recorded.
"What is it?" Caden asked, looking over his shoulder at the IC readout.
Moby stroked his goatee thoughtfully. "Well, Lieutenant…I can't be sure but these patterns sure look like control algorithms."
Gibby took a look himself, calling up basic replication routines on the IC for comparison. "Bingo, Lieutenant. I'd say Moby's nailed it. These patterns are like mirror images of ANAD's own basic replication instruction."
Caden had hoped and prayed they wouldn't find any such thing. He'd already failed to stop the investigation before…now evidence was piling up. He’d sent off warning after warning, all properly encrypted, make sure Gaidar’s not on board, Quantum Corps’ got a warrant…Pharmex was a key node--Wei Ming had indicated as much. If Quantum Corps took down that node--
"Are you sure, Moby? Rep routines look alike…maybe this is HNRIV stuff…you know: viral growth patterns, or something."
But Gibby was not so easily dissuaded. Before long, ANAD's scan had turned up electronic maps, maps of human brain architecture, maps of the limbic system,
and maps of swarm dispersal and effectiveness. Nanobotic swarms.
Gibby pored over the data, shaking his head. "Looks like we hit the mother lode, Lieutenant. I'd bet a month's wages Pharmex does more than just make vaccines for HNRIV."
Captain Revel had heard and seen all he needed to. He listened impatiently to alternative explanations from Caden, but ignored them.
"Pharmex is hereby placed under UNISPACE custody." Revel motioned his platoon leader over. His name was Horkum. "Nobody else aboard this garbage dump?”
Horkum shook his head. “She’s clean as far as we can detect, Skipper.”
“Very well. Place all operating systems in a safe mode. Make sure containment and the Level Four lab are secured. Pick three of your men for a detail…I want a skeleton crew of techs only…they'll stay behind and make sure Pharmex stays shutdown." Revel marched off, back to the Archimede. "Mssrs. Holweg and Steejn are in custody and will be returning to Kourou with us."
Lieutenant Nathan Caden knew better than to argue. He told Gibby to re-capture ANAD. "I'll get Moby and Glance. Looks like our work here is done."
Caden went forward to the Level Four lab. Outside the chamber, a small compartment was crammed with consoles and keyboards. Two UNISPACE troopers were on duty inside. They nodded grimly at Caden.
"--just checking for residual nano, boys. Making sure ANAD didn't miss anything."
The lead trooper wore a mottled white on white battlesuit and a frown. "Captain says this place is off limits."
"No sweat, Sergeant. I'm just doing my job." The UNISPACE sergeant let Caden pass into the compartment. For good measure, the Lieutenant had carried a mobile IC panel. He knew Gibby and Moby were safing ANAD even now, but the gear made him look official.
Inside the compartment, Caden read off controls and displays labeled Comm/Swarm Interface and Synaptic Cartography. Studying the layout of the place, he realized it was the same facility he and Glance had seen in the control center at Vivonex Central Lab in Switzerland.
Here's where they control the swarms. Serengeti's brain--
Lieutenant Caden was worried, though he tried not to show it. At least, they hadn’t collared the ex-Balki dictator yet. Somebody had finally listened to all his warnings. That would have stirred up Red Hammer something fierce. He eased his way around the compartment, trying to make sense of the gear, trying to figure out what to do next. Now, thanks to UNISPACE, the control linkage between Red Hammer and the airborne superswarms of Serengeti mechs had been broken. The duty troopers had already safed all the equipment and, per Captain Revel's orders, secured all comm links to the ground. Now, he supposed, the swarms would revert to their default programming, whatever that was. Red Hammer was no longer in effective control of their little beasties. The trouble was: Caden was being paid to keep Quantum Corps and everybody else from interfering with the Project. Caden hadn't the slightest idea what the Project was about, only that it drove everything Red Hammer did and that he was being paid, quite well he had to admit, to keep all of UNSAC's goons away from it.
He was especially worried now, because Red Hammer might well come after him, for breach of contract. But there wasn't much he could do. Maybe he could convince Revel to let him stay behind with the custody detail…that might give him the chance to restore some of Pharmex's functions, if he could figure them out.
"Lieutenant--" it was Moby, his head stuck through the compartment hatch, between the two troopers. "Lieutenant--it's Major Kraft. He wants to speak with you…he's patched in through the ship."
Shit.
Caden made his way back to Archimede and her main cabin. Her exec, Lieutenant Commander Sumida, was on duty.
"He's on Comm C," the UNISPACE pilot said. "--right here." He indicated a small nook behind the flight deck. Kraft's gruff face was lighting up a vidport. Caden made himself visible and filled in the Major on what they had found.
Kraft seemed distracted. "Winger's here, Lieutenant. He's coming along okay, but he's not ready for duty yet."
"Major, I'd like to stay aboard with the UNISPACE detail, check out this place. We may be able to figure just how Red Hammer and Vivo are controlling the swarms."
"Negative," Kraft said. "Get back to Table Top, as soon as you land. CINCQUANT's got new intelligence on Red Hammer and their connection with Vivonex. Plus I'm working up a new mission plan. With the control link to the swarms broken, I want to act fast to contain the swarms. Winger's got some ideas."
It figures, Caden thought. "Major, I--"
"That's an order, Lieutenant." Kraft's tone of voice brooked no dissent. "As soon as you hit Kourou, get your gear together and get back here…on the double."
"Yes, sir." Kraft's face vanished. Caden forced his fingers to unclench. No sense stewing about it here. He'd have to make something happen from the ground.
Archimede undocked from Pharmex in good order several hours later and moved off to de-orbit. The custody detail remained aboard--four 1st Space Raider Platoon troopers and the balance of the Pharmex techs who hadn't been arrested. Holweg and Steejn chafed in restraints in the main cabin, surrounded by rest of the UNISPACE force. Caden and the 1st Nano detail were secured in their seats in the rear of the cabin.
The big winged bird shuddered as her de-orbit engines fired, and Caden felt like he'd been kicked in the back by an elephant. They'd started the burn over Central Asia, heading for landfall on the northeast coast of South America, the Kourou spaceport.
Out the porthole beside his head, Caden spied the bright white bumps of the Himalayas, poking through late afternoon sunlight above streaks of wispy cirrus clouds, casting shadows for hundreds of miles. Further south, the setting sun made bright reflections off the green dappling of the Indian Ocean and the Bay of Bengal. As Caden turned back to the cabin, his eye caught a flash in the darkened furrows between the mountain ranges below. He turned back and saw it again--a red strobe flickered for an instant, and was gone. Then again--
A series of pulses followed.
Seconds later, Archimede shuddered again, and her de-orbit engines abruptly shut off. Caden froze in his seat, mesmerized by the red pulsing light illuminating the darkened valley below them. What the--
And then he knew what it was.
Archimede had been hit. A directed energy beam, arrowing up from a source deep in the Himalayas, had struck the ship. The shudders got worse, as Archimede's engines cut in and out. Suddenly, the ship began a slow roll to starboard.
Up front, the flight deck was in an uproar. Sumida and the ship commander, Lalande, fought the controls. Captain Revel squeezed forward, poking his face into the deck.
"What is it--what's happened?"
Lalande stabbed a button again, and swore. "No dice, no dice, dammit! She's out--Captain…something's hit us. Main engines offline…attitude control offline…verniers are out…we're drifting--"
"Are we still in orbit? What's our speed?"
"Mon Dieu, Captain…we're--I can't get this rotation stopped. We're drifting and we're helpless--"
Sumida's face was grim. "And we're dropping out of orbit fast!"
Revel's eyes widened as the ship's gyration brought the earth back into view. Now nearly in nightfall, Central Asia and China passed quickly below them, more than two hundred miles below them, and the pinpricks of city lights were just coming into view across the Yangtze River valley. Ahead lay the vast black basin of the Pacific Ocean.
Revel knew there was no way they would ever make Kourou and the South American coast.
The infirmary at Table Top occupied the north wing of the Operations center, with a scenic view of Hunt Valley and the still-snowy peaks of Buffalo Ridge. Johnny Winger chafed at the view, spectacular though it was. He was feeling fine, a little cloudy at times, but otherwise okay. Doc Murchison and the rest of the medics had pronounced him fit for light duty, pending final neural function tests tomorrow. Winger was more than ready. He knew
the only way he'd be able to get back to 1st Nano was to pass the Doc's tests…and that meant at least one more nanobotic probe to look for traces of residual Serengeti or other infestations.
Better to get your head buzzed by nano-buggers, he figured, than to rot to death in this place, wearing scratchy pale blue hospital robes and gaming Warhawk for the millionth time on the infirmary's ancient jalopy gamemasters.
Winger knew the Major'd never let him near ANAD if there were still a chance his head still harbored enemy nanomechs.
He watched a Quantum Corps liftjet circle for a landing, passing over the parade ground stands at Drexler Field less than five hundred feet above the ground, then banking sharply to the north of the Ops center and the hangars and the main ordnance bunker before leveling out for its final approach to the northwest liftpad.
To hell with this, he told himself. He decided to go see how Dana Tallant was doing, quarantine or not.
Tallant was comfortably ensconced in her own recovery room, one floor above Johnny Winger's, but still inside the quarantine suite. She was in bed, her back against propped up pillows, studying something on a datapad. The bedcovers were littered with papers and charts.
"Planning your escape, Lieutenant?" Winger grinned as he barged in and alighted himself on a stool beside the bed.
Tallant smiled wanly. "Not really, Wings. I thought I'd just rule the earth from right here…it's a lot more comfortable. Plus the food--" she shrugged and they both laughed.
"You heard about the UNISPACE raid? The Major says Gibby and ANAD found pretty damning evidence against Vivo…definite connections with Red Hammer. The Pharmex station was a key control node…but now it's out of service for good."
Tallant put down her datapad. "I guess the big question now is: how many more links are there? And what about those airborne swarms…what happens to them now?"
"Yeah, there's only about a million and a half infected people. I haven't talked with the Major yet. I suppose WHO and WCDC are working on that now."
Tallant leaned back, stared out the windows at gray clouds gathering to the north of the mesa that was Table Top Mountain. "Wings, somebody's got to hunt down and isolate those swarms…especially the ones no longer under control. We can't just leave them floating around like those clouds out there."
Winger agreed. "I heard Doc Macalvey and WHO were working overtime on possible antidotes to counteract the effects of Serengeti." He rubbed his head and grinned. "You and me might be the first guinea pigs, too. Whatever they come up with, I'm sure it'll be some variant of a nanobotic device, sort of an anti-Serengeti mech."
"But we haven't had much success dealing with Serengeti, so far at least."
Winger's face darkened. "No…but there's got to be a way to beat those bastards. We've both seen the mech up close…the architecture's not radically different from ANAD. Similar effectors, similar propulsors, a few bells and whistles, but nothing obvious that would give the buggers such an advantage. I wonder--"
"What?"
"Are we just losing our touch? It happens, you know. Atom-grabbers get cautious, stuck in a rut, always using the same tactics for the same situation."
"There almost has to be something in the processor, Wings. Either that, or Red Hammer's figured out a way to network and link the bots in real time, someway we can't detect yet."
"Whatever antidote is designed," Winger was sure, "it'll have to be well proven before it's released to the public. With so many victims…scattered all over the world…it'll be a bitch to administer…if we can stay ahead of the epidemic at all."
Tallant looked at Winger, kind of oddly. Both of them had chafed for days at the prospect of continued isolation. Winger looked back at his opposite.
"What are you looking at?"
Tallant shrugged, shifted around in her bed, then with a groan, got up and went to the window. "Just wondering if your head buzzes like mine does. Maybe it's my imagination. I was sort of wondering if you were--you know--"
Winger smirked at the thought. "Really me?" They both laughed at that. "I guess I am…how should I know?"
"It's a hell of a thing, Wings…when the bots get inside you. Inside your head."
"I had weird dreams."
"Me too. Still do. I've told the Doc about them, but I couldn't say if they're natural or--"
"Artificial?"
"Everybody around here looks at me in such a creepy way…like they're half expecting my head to crack open and billions of bots to come flying out."
Winger understood. "They don't trust us. They don't know whether either of us is in control of our brains. That's what Serengeti means…thousands, maybe millions of people running around like robots, or puppets or something. Jerked this way and that. Somebody else, somewhere else, pulling the strings, zapping new thoughts or impulses or memories through your head. If you weren't crazy before--"
"I know exactly what you mean," Tallant admitted. "I just want to get out of here, prove myself, get back with the unit. Do something. I'm tired of being an experimental subject. Or a case. I'm just fine, Wings. At least, I think I am--"
"Hey, Dana…you ever have any--I don't know how to describe it--"
"I call 'em foggy moments. And yeah…once in awhile, I still do. I told the medics about it."
"What did they say?"
She shrugged, wrapped her arms around her shoulders and came back to the bed. "Residual effects. There's no real evidence of infestation anymore. I mean…nobody can find any bots in my head…at least bots that shouldn't be there. I've got probes, same as you. Defender mechs running around in my head, trying to police my skull and make sure everybody obeys the law up there."
Winger nodded. "Me too. You ever get a…twitch? A weird kind of jerk in your arms?"
"Once in awhile. They say it's the guard bots hiccupping, most likely. Or my own synapses, re-routing circuits. Something like that. How should I know…I'm no brain surgeon. I'm just a nanowarrior. Just let me get into the field again, me and ANAD. We'll grab some atoms and make the bastards pay."
"Amen to that." Winger looked at Tallant awkwardly. She seemed to sense he had more to say.
"Wings, what the hell is it with you? You look like a dog about to be swatted."
"Maybe I should be swatted. I'm sorry, Dana…about Lion's Rock. I--" he hung his head, kicked at imaginary dirt clods on the floor. "I made a bad decision."
"What do you mean? You did everything by the book."
"Not everything. When we went in, when we infiltrated that clinic, I knew Red Hammer would come after us. We should have gone in full hypersuit. That was a bad decision. If we had, you--you know--would probably not--"
Dana Tallant came over and put a sympathetic hand on his arm. "I'm touched, Wings. Really, I am. It's not like you…being so--contrite? Considerate? What is it I'm trying to say here? I mean what the hell--it was a command decision. And you were in command."
"I know. But if we'd gone in with full suits, you wouldn't have been--"
"Buggered? Zonked with nanobugs?" She smiled. "I didn't know you cared, Lieutenant Winger?"
"Well, actually, it's like Major Kraft says…a good CC has to care…about the welfare of his people. You know? It's just that, with you--"
Tallant wasn't sure where this was all leading. "Yes?"
"What I'm trying to say, Dana…is that the Corps needs you. You're a damnfine officer. Helluva an atom jockey. We're like a--"
"--a team, that's what you're trying to say?"
"Exactly." Winger looked relieved she had found the right word.
They sort of half looked at each other, with a pinch of embarrassment.
At that moment, Major Kraft burst into the room. The isolation nanoweb was down and access was permitted. The Major's face was blanched and pale.
"Winger--Tallant--I just came from Ops."
"What is it, Major?"
Kraft seemed abo
ut to bite his own lips right off. "UNISPACE has taken the Vivo drug lab. But right after Archimede began de-orbiting, she was hit--lasered from the ground."
"Lasered?" Winger asked. "You mean attacked?"
Kraft nodded. "She's out of control right now, still descending out of orbit. She's coming down over the Pacific…where, nobody knows yet."
All Winger could think of was Caden and Glance, Moby and Gibby, all of them were aboard that ship.
Commander Lalande's eyes ricocheted from instrument to instrument, with a harried glance out the forward windscreen.
Speed down to Mach 16.4. Altitude was 224,000 feet. Rate of descent was fourteen thousand feet per minute. And Archimede was rolling to her wingtips, perilously close to a flat spin with each cycle. Her aero controls were useless--not enough air--and her thrusters and verniers were damaged and out of commission. He took a sideways glance at Sumida. The pilot's face was as pale as his.
They were falling out of the sky at sixteen times the speed of sound, enveloped in a fireball of ionized plasma, out of control, with no effective way to stop, slow down, turn or flatten out…not until the ship had bitten deeper into the atmosphere. And by then, it might very well be too late.
Outside the windows, flashes and streaks of plasma streamed by the ship, an inferno of flame and hot pink throbbing pulsations, as Archimede ripped deeper and deeper into the atmosphere.
Beads of sweat had broken out on Lalande's face. "Any idea where we are?"
Sumida checked a profile display, tried updating it, tried tapping it with his knuckles. "Not really. If we were following a normal path, we'd be about over the Marshall Islands about now. But--" he shrugged. "--your guess is as good as mine."
Lalande nodded grimly. "Hickam Field, Hawaii is probably our only shot to make a dry landing. If we don't disintegrate first. We'll have one shot at it…once we get below a hundred thousand feet, we should have aero control."
"Commander, we're going into a spin. And the rate is--"
"I know, I know. But we've got no choice."
Already centrifugal force was making it hard to stay in their seats. Both pilots cinched up their harnesses even tighter. "How long to the threshold?"
Lalande studied his instruments. "Airgate-One starts at one hundred thousand feet. With our rate of descent, about a minute and a half. We got power to the aerosurfaces?"
Sumida cycled a switch. "Everything's green there. Flaps, slats, elevons, rudders, stabilators…all looks good."
The moment of decision came all too soon. Lalande had just finished explaining to the rest of the crew--and their unwilling passengers from Vivonex--what he was going to do. At just the right moment--designated Airgate-One in the book--Archimede's commander would pop every aero surface he had, pop them all to maximum deflection, in a last-ditch, desperate effort to stop their spin. If it worked--and it was an enormous if--the ship could be brought under some semblance of control. If they timed it right, they might be able to cruise--glide was more like it, since the ground laser had fried their engines and fuel tanks--far enough to avoid ditching in the middle of the Pacific Ocean.
LaLande was planning on Hickam Field, Hawaii. But the airfield was probably at the far end of their gliding range. Archimede was a so-so glider, since she normally returned to land under full propulsive power. But now, she had no engines. Gliding was their only chance.
"Here she goes!" Lalande shouted. He slammed his rudders and flaps out, with Sumida straining against the ever-increasing force of the spin to cycle the rest of the aero surfaces. Archimede groaned and creaked with the strain. Both men imagined they could hear the ripping of metal against the pounding of the airstream, tenuous though it was. The ship shuddered, dropped, shuddered again, then slipped. For a few moments, they fell freely, and the spinforce ceased. Then a vicious slam banging sounded against the hull as something gave way, clattering and clanking aft in the slipstream.
"That was a flap--I think!" yelled Sumida, over the roar of the air.
But the spinforce had dropped off, noticeably lessened.
"Hold on--" LaLande gritted. "She's coming around--!"
A series of pounding, teeth-jarring shudders hammered the ship as it torqued and bucked against the force of the airstream.
LaLande slammed his stick in the opposite direction.
There was a loud groan, and then, as if a giant hand had seized them, Archimede shimmied like a dog shaking off water, rolled slightly back to port and dropped nose first, free of her spin, dropping like a fat needle deeper and deeper into the denser layers of air.
"Ahh-ahhhhhh--!" yelled Lalande, seizing and centering his controls. "We did it…Mon Dieu! We did it! I've got something--I've got control here--"
Slowly, reluctantly, Archimede swung back to a level position, waggling a bit unsteadily but out of the spin. Out the windscreen, a brilliant shimmering orange radiance was pulsating in a halo around the ship's nose. There was no distinct boundary to the glow, more a hazy, diffuse aura with throbs of amber and gold brilliance like a living, breathing organism. Torch blasts of deeper red and ocher flashed by the windows as solid particles flamed into incandescence.
From miles below, on the cool shadowy dawnlit wavetops of a coral lagoon in the Marshall Islands, a meteor burst into brilliance in the southeastern sky, outshining for a few seconds every star in the morning heavens.
Laland called up the revised descent profile on the monitor in front of him and began gingerly executing a series of steep rolls to get onto their best track to Hickam Field. Ground control had uplinked the profile a few minutes before, hoping Archimede would be able to pull out of her uncontrolled descent. Now, Lalande banked the ship hard left, and the G-meter edged up past 4.0, pressing everyone into their seats with force equal to four times their own weight. Lalande glanced hurriedly over at Sumida; they both knew Archimede would have to exceed her planned reentry g-loads by a sizeable margin, if they were to have any chance of making Hawaii.
The alternative was a rough, high-speed ditching into the ocean or an even dicier bailout at low altitude.
Neither choice seemed particularly promising.
The neon-pink glow of thousands of molecules being heated to incandescence bathed the flight deck in a surreal glow. Lalande cycled the cabin intercom, so he could talk to the crew in the aft compartment.
"Loss of signal now. We're in radio blackout. Prepare for landing. And hang on…this may be a rough one."
Sumida glanced briefly out the forward windscreen as Archimede rolled smoothly out of her steep banking turn. Nothing could be seen through the windscreen but a pink-white aura streaked with bursts of gold and deeper rose, radiating from the ship's nose like a starburst.
"Through twenty-two and Mach seventeen," Sumida called out. "Alpha steady at sixty degrees. Descent path to Hickam is nominal."
"We still have almost fifteen hundred miles crossrange to make up," Lalande replied. "Next roll in thirty seconds. This one's a doosey."
Archimede banked steeply to port, biting deep into the atmosphere, standing on her wingtips in a ninety-degree roll. The ship was blazing down into the earth's atmosphere in a corkscrewing trajectory, balancing speed and altitude to stay on the curve Kourou ground control had plotted for them. Lalande had elected to take control of the ship from the computers; the trajectory they were flying now was not one for which the guidance and navigation system had been prepared.
Now descending through 200,000 feet over the west central Pacific, Archimede had only once chance to reach the airstrip at Hickam Field. If Lalande deviated at all from the path the computers at Kourou had generated, the ship would miss Hawaii altogether.
Nobody relished the thought of what might happen then.
Several minutes later, the throbbing pink fog in which Archimede had been flying began to subside, and the air glowed by turns amber, rose, and gold before the plasma sheath surrounding the ship abated. Brilliant sunlig
ht flooded the flight deck and radio signals once again flowed into the ship's multiband antenna.
"Archimede, Kourou. Archimede, Kourou--"
Lalande responded. "Archimede, copy. We're configured for acquisition of signal."
"Archimede, Kourou. We have you at one eighty and Mach four point one. Distance eight four four miles. Nominal descent, Claude. Looking good at this point."
"I understand. We have the coastline of the big island in view now." Lalande glanced over where Sumida was pointing; they both grinned with relief.
A new, deeper voice crackled over their headsets. It was the voice of Hawaii. "Archimede, Hickam Approach Control. Welcome to the Aloha State, fellas. Here's the met report: scattered clouds at eight and eleven thousand. Winds on approach are ten knots, west-southwest. Crosswinds at the runway are under two knots. Visibility is six to eight miles. And the beaches are great too."
"We understand." Lalande checked his altitude/velocity display. "Estimating Archimede at the heading alignment circle in three minutes."
Sumida pointed out the forward windscreen. "I see Diamond Head, Claude. And that's the Koolau Range. God, isn't it beautiful?" Ahead of Archimede, the misty green slopes of Oahu's eastern mountains made dimples in the white gauze of the late morning cloud cover.
"Terminal area energy management," Lalande commanded. Sumida punched up a series of buttons on the data entry keypad, calling up the program for Archimede's approach to the runway. "Autoland acquisition?"
"Confirmed."
"Waypoint one. Here we go." Lalande eased his control stick to the left, bringing Archimede onto the outer edge of an imaginary 18,000-foot diameter cylinder. By following the perimeter of this cylinder, the ship would be properly aligned for its final, and only, approach to the runway.
With her engines disabled from the laser hit, there would be no second chance.
"Two thousand feet," Sumida called out. "Your glide slope is at twenty-two degrees. On the HAC. Preflare in twenty seconds."
Archimede streaked into the clouds for a few seconds, dropping toward the ground seven times faster than a commercial spaceliner.
"TACAN data looks good. Speed brakes to eighty percent. Coming up on the runway entry point…now."
Lalande smartly rolled Archimede out of the bank just as she dropped clear of the clouds. The green carpet of Oahu's mountains lay below them. Ahead on the horizon was the deep cobalt blue of the Pacific, and the tan ribbon of Runway Two-Fifteen.
"Preflare." Lalande brought the ship's nose up sharply, reducing their glideslope to just over one degree. The deceleration drove them deeper into their seats. "Arm landing gear."
Sumida lifted the switch cover and depressed LANDING GEAR ARM. "Landing gear armed. And we're at one twenty. On glide slope. On centerline."
The unmistakable shapes of buildings and vehicles rolling along the airfield perimeter began rushing by the windows.
"One hundred feet. Gear down."
"Gear down is confirmed. Over the threshold."
"Seventy feet."
Archimede settled gracefully over the black skid marks of Runway Two-Fifteen and the skyline of downtown Honolulu disappeared behind the mountains.
"Twenty feet."
"Ten feet."
"Touchdown, Claude."
"Speed brakes full. Elevons one hundred percent."
They both flinched as the tires bit into the concrete. Sumida lurched forward against his shoulder straps when Lalande applied maximum braking.
Back in the aft passenger compartment, the jolt seemed to awaken Nathan Caden. His eyes fluttered open and he looked around, finally daring to take a breath. His arms gripped the armrests tightly as he sagged under the full effect of earth gravity and the ship's braking. The landing rollout brought Archimede nearly ten thousand feet down Runway Two-Fifteen, to a full stop twenty-five seconds later.
Nathan Caden looked around. There was Gibby. Moby M'Bela. Al Glance. Steejn and Holweg and their Space Raider guards. Nobody seemed to be seriously injured.
But outside, a crowd had already gathered, piling out of trucks and cars and was pointing and gesturing at the ship and her graceful wings. Archimede had sustained severe aerodynamic and heating damage, both from the steep unplanned reentry and from the laser hit, leaving skin panels scorched and unzipped along half the length of her starboard fuselage.
Caden breathed a sigh of relief and sank back into his seat. They had been lucky. Pharmex was finally down, off-line, and two of Vivonex's key suspects were in Quantum Corps custody.
Then Nathan Caden shuddered slightly, wondering just who had been the real target of the laser assault.
Johnny Winger and the Serengeti Factor Page 12