As the hatch opened, he grasped the broomstick and then kicked himself and it out into the vacuum. Nothing seemed to move, not the points of light that were planets, nor the small disk that was Dubiety. He glanced down at the ship, then up and beyond. His eyes picked out a small greenish white disk—the Thomist ship.
He slowly straddled the broomstick and pointed it at Dubiety, not that it would carry him any fraction of the distance toward the hazy planet, and flicked on the gas jets. With what the Thomists were doing to the Federation fleet, the farther he got from the dropboat, the better.
Only after eleven minutes, when the jets gave out, did he press the large distress stud on the front of the emergency pressure suit.
As a certain chill began to creep over him, another set of words whispered through his thoughts.
… consign him to the darkness that lies beyond all darkness, to the blackness so deep that it has no shade, for out of the void came he, and into it will the return be …
34
29 LAYU 6746 F. E.
The inbound trip back toward Ceres station had been long and boring, but that was the way space travel was. All interplanetary or insystem travel seemed longer because suspension cradles weren’t often used and because more than a few FIS missions were single-pilot.
Roget checked the distance again. Another two hours remained until Digger flight reached the accelerator’s grav net and they could begin the exterior-assisted decel. Without the magnetograv decel, they would have had to spend another two to three days for decel on the return leg, and he’d been cooped up in the needle far too long as it was. Like the accelerator, the decel net was harder on the needles. It also required a mass base, such as a moon or a large asteroid, and the environmental purists claimed that the continued use of the system had significantly changed Ceres’s orbit. Roget had no idea whether the claims were true, but he didn’t see that it would matter much one way or another. Ceres was big enough that the changes wouldn’t go unnoticed and far enough away from anything but other asteroids that it shouldn’t make that much difference.
As he sat and waited out the last hour or so of the mission, Roget couldn’t help but think about the pirate colonists. Had they wanted to stay outside the Federation so much that they were willing to risk everything? How could anyone take such risks?
He almost laughed. The squirrel run had been almost as much of a risk. A little larger pirate torp or a slight variation in course, and Castaneda might not now be with them. The same could have been true of himself, he acknowledged. Any mission against comparable weapons was dangerous, and even missions against militarily inferior opponents carried risk.
Was the Federation that unbearable? There was no point in thinking about that, not when he didn’t have any real alternatives.
Before him, the board shimmered, then somehow changed. In front of him, where the farscreens and displays had been, was a wraparound canopy, and on the lower section were projected displays. Roget/Tanner blinked, but the clear, wraparound canopy did not change. The clarity didn’t help much, not in the darkness outside the aircraft.
His eyes kept a continual scan across the heads-up display and on the destination, the ultratanker Deep Resource, bound for Long Beach. While the tanker held something like six million barrels, even with all the green fuel sources that the United States had developed, that still amounted to just one day’s oil imports—and that was with thirty dollar a gallon gasoline and power rationing.
A short burst of static was followed by a transmission. “Blackbolt lead, do not engage unless attacked. I say again. Do not engage unless attacked.”
“Bolt Control,” Roget/Tanner replied, “understand negative on engagement unless attacked.”
There was no response, and Roget did not key another transmission. His eyes were on the RRD display, which showed two ships—high-speed SEVs from their speed—closing from the west on the big tanker. If Ops hadn’t wanted him to keep the SEVs from diverting or sinking the tanker, why was he leading a flight out some four hundred miles east of Luzon in the middle of the night?
Because they want you to stop the interception with plausible deniability. Roget understood that all too well. He also understood that, at the moment, the good old USA needed every tanker it could get, at least until the Colorado shale projects were fully up and running.
He checked the RRD again.
Roget/Tanner had “official” orders not to attack the Chinese SEVs, but that didn’t mean he couldn’t warn them off in a way that would allow the tanker to continue onward toward its destination. Behind the night-visor, he moistened his lips. Then he linked to the fire-control computer.
After a moment, he nodded. It just might work.
“Bolt two, Bolt three, Bolt lead going down for flyby and recon. Hold position.” He eased the stick forward and the AF-76 Raven screamed downward through the thin cloud layer. He leveled off at two thousand, headed directly toward the nearer SEV.
He switched to the CF, the common ship frequency. “Unidentified vessels, you are nearing hazardous waters. Approaching the Deep Resource may endanger your ship. I say again. You are nearing hazardous waters. Approaching the Deep Resource may endanger your ship.”
“Unidentified aircraft, you are within Federation airspace. Bear off.”
Roget snorted. The ChinoFeds claimed almost all the airspace in Westpac beyond Midway and Johnston Atoll, even if they didn’t usually aggressively patrol more than three hundred miles eastward from their various “protectorates.” Australia had fallen, as much a victim to global warming and drought as to the ChinoFeds, and so far Japan had held out, alone, but with a century of falling birthrates and economic difficulties, how much longer the Japanese could remain independent was yet another question.
“Blackbolt lead, two scrammers inbound. ETA in five.”
That was all Roget needed—hostiles with greater speed.
“Bolt two and Bolt three, hostiles inbound. Stand by to take all measures for self-defense.” What that really meant was to use the advanced standard hand missiles against the scrammers at the slightest provocation.
Roget adjusted the target setting. Just a patch of water, he told himself. Just a patch of water.
Target destination has no identified target. Confirm launch, requested Roget’s targeting system.
Roget flicked his thumb over the glowing green stud on the stick and pressed down firmly.
As soon as the first missile was away, Roget turned the Raven slightly south, not that he needed it, and checked the second SEV.
Target destination has no identified target. Confirm launch, repeated the targeting system.
Roget pressed the green light a second time. Confirmation wasn’t needed when the system had a target lock-on, but Roget couldn’t do that. Not in this situation. The software and satellite systems would confirm that he had not fired at either SEV. Not that the ChinoFeds or the cowards in Washington would be happy, but Roget had just followed orders to warn off the Chinese vessels.
He watched the RRD as the first missile plowed into the water just in front of the high-speed surface effect ship, leaving a temporary crater in the water, just enough to allow the heavily armed vessel to plunge forward, losing its air cushion and steerage, not to mention its engines, as it nosed into the water and waves surged over the bow, all the way up to the bridge.
Roget grinned momentarily, waiting for the second missile impact.
The effect was the same for the second SES.
Bolt lead, Bolt two. Scrammers in range.
Bolt two, Bolt three. Defense permitted this time. I say again. Defense permitted this time.
He watched the RRD as four standard hand missiles flew from the other two Ravens toward the incoming scrammers. Neither CF aircraft clearly expected the navy pilots to launch first, because in moments debris was sifting downward.
Roget eased the stick back, edging power up, and the Raven rose through the cloud layer.
Bolt flight, form on me.
Roger.
Roger, Bolt lead.
Both SEVs were dead in the water, disabled if not sinking, and the skies were clear except for the three navy birds headed back to the all-too-old and tired Reagan. And the Deep Resource was on course for Long Beach and a fuel-starved United States of America.
Blackbolt lead, interrogative status? The transmission was faint, but clear.
Like everything that the navy has, thought Roget. Two unknown vessels apparently suffering mechanical damage. Resource vessel on course. No other aircraft in sight. Let Ops sort that one out.
Understand no other aircraft in sight.
That’s affirmative this time.
Report approach.
Bolt Control, will report approach.
Roget/Tanner checked the RRD, but the skies remained clear—for the moment and the mission.
Once more darkness swirled and one kind of blackness replaced another, and the night-visor vanished, replaced by the screens before Roget.
Roget shook his head. While he’d had short memory flashbacks during his training, they had been brief, almost momentary. This one had seemed far longer. Why? Because Tanner had been an atmospheric combat pilot?
In what little information he’d discovered about Tanner, there had been nothing about his attacking Federation aircraft … and Roget certainly hadn’t read anything about the Federation’s efforts to sink or divert oil tankers to energy starve the old American republic. All the histories just mentioned that excessive reliance on offshore energy sources had been a factor in the fall of old America.
Again, he reminded himself, he’d just have to cope. Telling anyone would cost him everything.
… interrogative status … The partial and garbled transmission brought Roget up short. He and the other two needleboats had to have been crossing some sort of systemic energy flux or dead zone.
BeltCon, Digger lead, returning this time. Estimate one five to approach perimeter.
Digger lead, understand one five to approach. Interrogative comm status.
BeltCon, comm is green. Transit of dead area. Comm is green.
Digger lead, report approach.
He could report his flight’s approach. That he could do, even as he pondered how the ancient Americans had handled the unauthorized destruction of two aircraft and the disabling, if not the sinking, of two Chinese Federation warships.
Not for the first time, he also wondered again just how Marni Sorensen had managed to select the “memories” of an ancient hero that would resonate with him. Or had she injected him with snippets of memory from Tanner that his own mind had interpreted and expanded? How much really was Tanner and how much came from him? And did those memories make him part Tanner? Would he ever know?
35
27 MARIS 1811 P. D.
Darkness and cold swirled around Roget, and sounds he could not hear clashed and merged into a symphony he had not composed, a life he had not led, a path he had not followed … and yet had. From the darkness, he emerged into an even more immediate coldness.
Where Roget stood was chill, mainly because a torrent of cold air poured down on him from somewhere, cooling the sweat in his short silver white hair. He blinked as the lights around him intensified. All around him people were talking, generally in low and intense tones, and he found himself nodding to something he had not heard.
A slender young man in a navy blue blazer and a white shirt dashed up and stopped short of Roget. “Sir … St. George is coming in … coming in big. That should do it.”
Do what? Roget did not even try to verbalize the question, belatedly realizing he was remembering yet another bit of Tanner’s past.
“Joe! You can talk to them all now. It’s about time…” came another voice from behind Roget/Tanner.
“Past time … they’ve been waiting hours,” said someone else.
“… didn’t go off and leave people, like some … waiting here with everyone else … why he’ll win…”
“… indeed, now, there will be time to wonder if I dare…” Roget’s words were to a tall and slender brunette woman, standing beside him. “After all this, Cari…”
She smiled sympathetically and warmly and said, “Go ahead. This is what you wanted, Joe … it’s your moment.”
“It’s yours, too. I wouldn’t be here without you,” he replied. “April isn’t the cruelest month. November is.”
“You’d be here, dear, even if I weren’t. Nothing could have stopped you.”
“It wouldn’t have meant much without you.”
“You’d have found someone. You’re too good to be alone.”
He started to reply, but behind him a chant rose, swelling like thunder, or the cymbals of an unseen orchestra.
“Go! Go! Go!… Go … for … Joe! Go! Go! Go! We want Joe!”
Roget/Tanner glanced over his shoulder toward the crowd.
“You’d better talk to them before they shout down the roof,” suggested Cari.
“No, Mrs. Tanner … he needs someone to do a proper intro.” Mike Penndrake stepped up to the couple. “He just can’t walk out there. They expect someone to tell them how special he is and how special they are.”
Penndrake’s sweaty square face looked more greasy than exercised, Tanner thought, but he nodded. “Make it short, Mike.”
“As short as I can.” Penndrake offered a wide smile, the kind that was all too common among political operatives, Tanner/Roget had come to learn. Then he turned and stepped up to the podium and the small microphone, which he picked up. He tapped it several times, and the crowd’s murmurs and the chanting died away.
“Welcome to Tanner election headquarters, such as it is.”
Laughs rippled across the crowd.
“In just a moment, you’ll all be hearing from the man you all supported, the man you came to see. I’d just like to remind you, not that you need any reminding, that from the day he was born, all through school, this man has lived an exemplary life. At a time when patriotism was often equated with stupidity and treason, he put his life and his career on the line. He stood off an entire ChinoFed force to assure fuel supplies for America. He was wounded three times in the Westpac War, and each time, he came back and flew again. If we’d had more men like Joe Tanner, all the Pacific would still be an American ocean, and Japan would be our ally and not a ChinoFed fiefdom.” Penndrake paused, just for an instant. “Now … for the good news. We just got the results from St. George … and Joe Tanner is the new senator from the great state of Utah! I give you Joe Tanner, a genuine war hero who knows the cost of war and the price of peace … a man for the times ahead.”
With a broad smile Penndrake stepped back and gestured toward Tanner/Roget.
The gymnasium erupted once more in cheers and whistles.
Roget/Tanner turned from Cari and stepped forward to stand behind the battered wooden podium. He smiled and looked back to his left where Cari stood, her face thinner than it had once been, but still holding the quiet supporting enthusiasm that she’d always offered.
As Tanner waited for the cheering to die down, smiling warmly, he surveyed those in the crowd, many of them older and graying, others looking scarcely old enough to be adults, trying to let everyone know that they were welcome. His eyes dropped slightly to the group standing on the floor just below the stage and podium. The stylish redhead stood there, looking up at him, her deep green eyes bright.
Susannah appeared far younger than when Roget/Tanner had last encountered her … or remembered her.
Tanner smiled directly at her, then raised his head and cleared his throat. “I can’t tell you how much everything that all of you have done means to me. A year ago, no one gave us a thought, and without all of you, every last one of you, we wouldn’t have had a chance. I don’t want to kid any of you, nor mislead you. This is a great victory, but it’s only the first battle in a long fight to reclaim our heritage. For too long, those in power in Washington have strangled our industry and technology with
meaningless regulations that neither improved our economy nor our environment. They squandered billions on weapons technology that did not work and refused to fund what did. They exported jobs while watering down education so that all too many of our children struggled to compete in a global economy. They bailed out multinational financial corporations while bankrupting average citizens…” Tanner/Roget held up a hand for silence. “I’ve said all this before, and you listened, and you acted, and you all gathered behind us … and that’s what this great country of ours needs more than ever—the will and effort of determined people like you who make real and meaningful change possible. Thank you! Thank you, each and every one of you…”
Tanner/Roget lowered his head for a moment, then raised his eyes and looked out at the crowd cheering in the antique gymnasium …
Streamers fluttered from the high ceiling, and lights strobed and flashed … and the sounds all died away into a deep silence.
A different kind of chill encased Roget, one that did not let him move hands or feet, or even his eyes.
“You’ll be all right.”
Roget heard the words, and the voice was familiar, but he couldn’t identify the speaker before another kind of blackness, warmer, more comforting, swept over him.
36
29 MARIS 1811 P. D.
Roget opened his eyes, wondering if he could even move. He was lying flat on his back. He blinked. That was good. Then his eyes took in the overhead, a pale green. He started to take a deep breath, then stopped. His chest and lungs hurt. So did his legs, and his head ached and throbbed. He closed his eyes. That didn’t help with the headache. So he opened them and studied the ceiling again. At least it wasn’t blue. At least he wasn’t in a Federation sickbay or brig.
Slowly, he turned his head.
He lay on a bed in a small room. Beside the bed he could see a bedside table and a chair. The room had no windows, and the door was the translucent green type he’d seen only on Dubiety. An acrid smell hovered around him. It took him a moment to realize that he—his sweat—was the source of the odor.
Haze and the Hammer of Darkness Page 29