Lisa pulled up the screen for long-range sensors. “We're not going straight to the Revenge?”
“Nope,” he replied, adjusting his oxygen. “I want to play with her a bit, see what she feels like.” Punching the igniters, both engines lit simultaneously with a deep thump.
“OK, gotcha. Sending navigation coordinates to your screen.”
“Thank you...” he grinned sardonically, easing the throttles forward. “Visors...” He pulled the Reaper into an arcing turn, the Sun passing across the sky. “Damn, that's bright,” he breathed, still squinting with the gold visor down. “Ready kiddo?”
“It's dark, sort of,” she squinted, “we're wearing sunglasses and we're in a badass ship... hit it.”
“Hold on, going full-on Mach-stupid...”
“I haven't gone ffunnhhhhhh...” Lisa's body was squeezed mid sentence as her brother hammered the throttles the full length of their travel, the ships artificial gravity gyro fighting to equalize the cockpit gravity.
Steele's vision narrowed, his field of view going momentarily gray before the gravity system began to stabilize and the pure oxygen automatically pumped into his suit brought him back. “Still with me?” he panted.
“Barely,” she wheezed, gulping oxygen. “I haven't had the opportunity to push her that hard... holy crap...”
Jack eyed his scope, “Coming up on the Revenge...”
■ ■ ■
“Somebody's in a hurry,” noted Ragnaar, watching the incoming marker on the sensor screen.
“Ours I hope,” commented Brian without looking up.
“Aye, sir...”
“Lieutenant Arroyo's shuttle in and secured?”
“Yes sir.”
“Then that's probably Admiral Steele, you can clear him for approach...”
Ragnaar was double checking the Reaper's incoming telemetry, “I don't think he plans on stopping, Commander...”
“Why not?” Brian looked up as he brought his coffee mug to his lips, the Reaper flashing past the bridge in stone-throwing distance at full throttle, a thousand foot long trail of fire breathing dragon propelling it through the darkness, the full burn lighting up the inside of the bridge like daylight. Proximity alarms were sounding throughout the ship and Brian suddenly realized he was wearing his coffee. Very fresh, very hot coffee. “Jesus H. Chr... Son of a fucking bi... Dammit!” He pulled at his shirt and pants trying to hold the steaming cloth off his body, his empty cup rolling on the floor. “Admiral or not, I swear I'm gonna kill him...”
Maria pounded down the corridor toward the bridge, passing the Marine sentry on duty and through the blast doors, sliding to a stop at the bridge's upper ring, Brian Carter dancing around in a coffee stained uniform. “What the hell was that? Are we hit?”
“Steele...” growled Brian.
Maria angrily placed her hands on her hips, “What did he do this time?”
“Crazy bastard,” was all Brian managed to say through clenched teeth as he staggered past her off the bridge to change his uniform.
■ ■ ■
Throughout Jack's rigorous test flight of the Reaper, he maintained a watchful eye on her engine temperatures, forcing cones and thrust nozzles. The new metal treatment protocol that Chief Engineer Hecken Noer had been testing on her was successfully proving out his theories on heat dissipation. Temperatures edged into the yellow, but just barely. And any reduction in throttle allowed them to cool down swiftly. Although the treatment he'd devised was a time consuming process, it was a substantial improvement on performance. If applied across the board to the Conquest's stable of fighters, she would have the fastest fighters in the fleet. Whether it improved fuel economy or not was another question to be answered. It reasoned out that way, but it would bear out with time.
Steele lined the Reaper up with the stern of the Revenge, matching her speed, automatically triggering the docking computer. A small HUD screen in his cockpit mechanically unfolded and lit up. Carefully following the guides on the dedicated docking HUD, he eased the Reaper underneath the Revenge and held it steady when prompted; a pair of docking clamps reaching down from the belly of the frigate, locking onto the fighter and drawing it up. The throttles, now controlled by the docking computer, zeroed themselves and Jack released the fighter's controls. Fitting into the impression in the hull of the Revenge, the Reaper became part of the bigger ship.
Halfway through shutdown, the engines silent, the only remaining sound being the air system, Steele shut down his electronics and sensors. “Do me a favor, send our test data over to Engineering for Hecken Noer...”
“Sure.” Lisa pulled up the data file from the Reaper's computer, her gloved fingers pipping on her keyboard, sending it to the Conquest. “Sent.”
A sliver of light appeared from above, widening as the frigate's hull plating opened, a face peering down through the top of the canopy. “Seal is good Admiral. You can release your canopy... We'll get you out of there.”
■ ■ ■
“I have a bone to pick with you...”
Steele knew it before Brian said it, and not just because of his irritated look. “I know, I heard... Sorry about that.”
Brian's eyes shifted around, lowering his voice, “I almost burned my... junk off. That's not funny...”
Jack did his best British accent, “Your fun things and wiggly bit? Heavens no...”
Brian frowned, “You were so close you set off our proximity collision alarms...”
“I was a good two miles away...”
“Twelve hundred feet,” countered Brian.
“And you've flown an arm's length from the hull chasing a bogie, what's your point?”
“That's in a fight, that's different...”
“That reminds me,” interrupted Jack, “pack an overnight and head on over to the Conquest...”
“For what?”
“Pappy's got you scheduled for a flight. You need to put in some stick time.”
Lisa strolled past, heading to her quarters, her gear bag slung over her shoulder. “You'll love the ejection training. Fun ride.”
Brian shot Jack a quizzical look, “What's this then?”
“Don't worry about it, Bri. I think he just wants to get you some stick time to keep your quals up to date. Gotta shake the rust off once in a while.” He patted Brian on the shoulder, “Don't worry, you'll be back before we get home. I'll take care of things around here till you get back.”
“That's what I'm afraid of...”
CHAPTER TWENTY SIX
GREEN BANK, WEST VIRGINIA, NATIONAL RADIO OBSERVATORY : ICU
Dr. Michelle Fabry, at a petite five-foot-two with blond hair and blue eyes, was not your typical astrophysicist. While she was a research fellow at the largest fully steerable radio telescope on the planet, she was not quite a fashionista, but she preferred her heels to flats, she never wore her hair in a bun, and a pocket protector would never have the audacity to sneak into her wardrobe.
Morning had been a nonstop attack of meetings and it was good to be off her feet for a few minutes. With her feet propped up on an open drawer of her desk, she sedately ate her deli sandwich, occasionally sipping her diet soda while reading the news on the laptop perched on her desk. They were starting to call Chicago, Chiraq because of all the violence and murder there. The Chief of Police was blaming it on the weather... again. First it was too cold, now it was too hot... whatever.
“Mitch..! Mitch..! MICHELLLLE..!”
Prompted by the urgency, she dropped her half-eaten sandwich on the deli paper and bounced to her feet, running out of her second floor office overlooking the control room below. She leaned on the walkway's railing, “We do have an intercom you know...”
“Mitch, get down here...!”
“I'm eating lunch can't it wait..?”
“Now, Mitch, NOW!” Sitting at the control console, David was beside himself with excitement, the others in the room as visibly agitated as he was. He was holding the headset tight over his ears, “Hurry
Mitch, I'm losing it, HURRY!”
With quick dainty little steps, her high heels clicking on the concrete, she ran to the stairs. “I'm coming, I'm coming...” She was forced to slow for the stairs to prevent pitching herself down to the bottom and breaking her neck. “Pipe it, David, put it through the speakers...” Her heels clacked across the floor towards the console.
David Weller slid the headphones off his head and tossed them on the console in disappointment, “Never mind,” he mumbled, “its gone. I lost it.”
“Please tell me you were recording...”
“Well yeah, but...”
“Play it back then,” she waved. “What was it? What did you hear?”
“A conversation.”
She paused mid-reach for a set of headphones at a neighboring station, her eyes narrowing, “Are you sure?”
“Positive.”
“I... whe... what's our target?” She lifted the headset off the console and held one earpiece to her ear.
“We're mapping Harding-Konos 452...” he replied, punching the playback key.
Michelle Fabry covered her other ear with the palm of her hand and closed her eyes, listening to the quiet hiss and rhythmic sound of the cosmos. “All I hear is the pulsar from 452...” Her eyes popped wide open and then her face relaxed, tossing the headset onto the console. “That's English,” she pointed at the console. “I don't know how, but you caught a military flight or something...” David shook his head and rewound the digital recording back again. “What do you mean, no?” she asked.
He picked up the headset and held it out for her, “There are more voices. Listen until it all fades back to the pulsar.” He shook the headset in her direction, “Listen...”
She slid the headset over both her ears and David set the recording back in motion. Knowing what to expect, Michelle listened intently watching the faces of the others around her, listening on their own headsets. There was a second voice, and a third. She felt unsteady on her feet, lightheaded, she reached for a chair, sitting down. Then there was a fourth voice. The first was definitely English, American-English. Although it was too laced with static to catch more than word fractures. The others didn't sound like anything she'd ever heard before, but they were definitely in a conversation, the banter going back and forth. As if it was moving, it dropped off into the quiet sounds of the cosmos again and she sat there staring at the smiling faces staring back at her.
Michelle's brain was still processing it all when she jumped to her feet still tethered to the console by the headset which shot off her head when she lurched forward. “Give me those coordinates!” she pointed, moving to the center station looking up at the flat screen readout. “Find it! Find it!”
She started looking around vigorously, “Glasses, where did I put my glasses?” David tapped his forehead and she reached up realizing they were sitting up near her hairline. Pulling the gold rims to her nose she began reading the spatial coordinates on the big screen. “RETASK! Come to...”
“You can't do that, Mitch! We're in the middle of a map...”
“Save it, where it's at,” she said frantically. “We'll come back to it and start with an overlap...”
“Mitch, you know that never works. We'll have to start all over again...”
“This is me not caring,” she snapped, pushing him out of the way, he and his chair rolling clear of the station. She dropped to one knee and began entering the new coordinates for the dish, pulling it off station. The one-hundred meter dish began to swing away from Harding-Konos 452. “Samantha, are you listening?”
“Yes ma’am.”
“Record at the first sign of a signal...”
“Yes ma’am.”
“David, do something useful and call NASA. I know they don't, but see if they have anything up there and tell them what we're listening to. See if they have any answers.” She looked to her right, past Samantha, “Sean, call Hat Creek Observatory and see if SETI has ears on this. If not, send them the coordinates. The more confirmation we get on this the better...”
Samantha suddenly perked up, sitting rigid in her chair, “I've got something...”
“Record,” ordered Michelle, pulling on her headset. She was watching the numbers change on the screen as they marked the swing of the dish, still heading to its intended mark. When it finally slowed to a stop the target was no longer in the center. “It's moving,” she breathed.
“What?” David rolled up alongside her. He had the phone handset tucked under the earpiece of his headset, cradling it on his shoulder, chatting simultaneously with someone over at NASA as he typed on the keyboard around Michelle. “Yes, that's right, it's moving. Yes, I'm setting the dish to track the target. Hold on a moment...”
“What do they want?”
“They want to know the distance of the contact...”
“I've got it here,” shouted Samantha. She turned slowly to look at them, her eyes wide. “It's IN our Solar System...”
Sean waved his hand from the other side of the room, phone receiver still clutched to his ear, “Hat Creek just said the same thing! They say it's near Neptune!”
■ ■ ■
Moments after David's phone call with NASA, the NSA was aware of the developing situation. During the last half of Sean's phone call to SETI, the NSA was listening in. And less than an hour after they'd first discovered the signal, a black helicopter from NIOC, Navy Information Operations Center, at the neighboring Sugar Grove Research Facility, made a low pass near Green Bank. Following a low circuitous approach so as not to interfere with reception of the Green Bank dish, it landed out in the field near the control building. The NIOC over at Sugar Grove was home of the NSA's ECHELON program and the black helicopter was not a welcome sight. Neither was the group of men in black who were climbing out of it. When the nervous secretary in the front office attempted to call the Pocahontas County Sheriff about the wayward helicopter, she discovered the phone lines were inoperable. And in the heart of the United States Radio Quiet Zone, cell phone service simply doesn't exist. Even their internet was down. They were cut off. Isolated.
Michelle Fabry caught the panicked secretary by the shoulders as she ran into the control room, pointing and stuttering. “Deep breath, Katie, deep breath... what is it?”
“Helicopter... guns... black... coming... front door...” she gasped.
“Is the front door locked?”
Katie nodded vigorously, her strawberry blond locks bouncing. “Door... glass... they break...”
“I know, they can break the glass. Stay calm.” Michelle glanced around at her team, “Back up the signals, thumb drives, satellites, whatever you have... hide them.”
“We have triple redundancy,” offered David.
“I know, do it anyway. Hurry people!” She hustled toward the front office expecting an urgent tap on the door glass any second. “Katie, how many of them were there?”
The secretary kept up alongside Michelle, “Six. I think...”
Michelle pointed toward the front office as she headed for the front door, “Call the Sheriff.”
“The lines are dead...”
“Try again,” she instructed curtly. But halfway between the office and the entrance she could see there was no one at the door, which gave her pause. She turned back to Katie who was attempting to get a dial tone. “Are you sure they were coming here? Because I don't see anybody...”
The secretary held up the phone's receiver and shook her head, setting it back onto the cradle, “Still dead...” She blinked, staring past Dr. Fabry out through the glass door at the empty field, “The helicopter,” she pointed, “it's gone...”
Michelle turned back toward the door, “It was right out there?”
“At the top of the hill,” added Katie, appearing at her side. “Right there,” she pointed.
They walked closer to the door to get a better look and Michelle studied the wild grass between the hill and the entrance. “Are you sure you saw...”
“I swear
,” promised Katie, her hand resting on the door's push bar. “I saw them climb out...”
The face that suddenly appeared, spied at them through mirrored goggles, the face and head obscured by a black tactical balaclava. Michelle's heart jumped and she started, jumping back with a scream, staggering on her high heels and landing on her butt, Katie dropping to the floor beside her, unconscious with fright. Her heart pounding in her ears, Dr. Fabry could barely hear the man outside the door.
Dressed completely in black tactical assault gear, he tapped on the door glass with the muzzle of the M4 carbine that hung casually across his chest. “Ma'am, open the door...” He waited momentarily, staring at her, another man arriving at his side dressed in a black business suit. “Ma'am, open the door. I don't want to have to break the glass...”
The man in the business suit stepped up to the door holding his government credentials against the glass. “We're not here to hurt anyone, Dr. Fabry. Just open the door please.”
Michelle Fabry rose to her feet, a bit unsteadily, her heart still pounding, brushing herself off, divided between opening the door and helping Katie.
“Open the door and we will help her, Dr. Fabry. I apologize; we didn't mean to frighten you...”
Michelle reached over and rolled the deadbolt open, backing away and dropping to her knees at Katie's head. “Nice going whoever you are. Get your jollies from scaring women...?” she commented gruffly.
The man in the suit walked past her, motioning towards the women, two agents in tactical gear entering behind him, locking the door behind them. One agent took a knee next to unconscious secretary; the other pulled Michelle to her feet by her elbow.
“Walk with me, Dr. Fabry. Let's have a little chat.”
■ ■ ■
Sitting behind her desk, Dr. Michelle Fabry felt like a cornered animal, the man in the suit pacing back and forth between her desk and the door.
Wings of Steele: Revenge and Retribution Page 37