Galactic Mail: Revolution! (Childers Universe Book 3)

by Richard F. Weyand

  “What's to keep the whole thing from just blowing straight up into the air?”

  “The munition itself is in a heavy canister that is open on one side. I have a little model here.”

  Misra took the cloth cover off the model on the table. It was the size of a five-gallon bucket, with a four-inch-wide slot cut in its side for about a third of its circumference.

  “That's the nuke?”

  “No, this is the containment.”

  Misra reached inside the slot and pulled a cylinder about the size of a twelve-ounce drink bottle out of the middle of the canister.

  “This is a model of the munition.”

  “That's it? That's the nuke?”

  “Yes. As I say, it is a tiny device. Very low yield, as nuclear explosives go.”

  “And that canister's enough to hold a nuke?”

  “A tiny nuclear device, for a very short period of time, yes. That's all we need to direct the charge. it doesn't have to be impenetrable, just harder than the side of the building's basement.”

  “Which is concrete.”

  “Which is concrete. The containment is gold-titanium alloy. Gold-titanium alloy is four times stronger than steel, at about two gigapascals. Good structural concrete is at best 50 megapascals.”

  “Forty times as strong as concrete?”

  “Yes. It's been very effective in testing.”

  “No doubt. Do the munitions all go off at once?”

  “No, they're staged. Actually, they all go off at the same depth, but the impacts are staged, so the munitions arrive and detonate in a circle. If they all went off at once, the center of the building might be blown up into the air or the walls blown out to the sides by the combined over-pressure in the basement. Setting them off in a circle, in sequence, rocks the center of the building in a circular pattern, and pulses the overpressure. That assists the implosion.”

  “Wow. And this works?”

  “We believe so. We don't have any big buildings no one is using at the moment to try it out on, but the testing we have been able to do, on concrete walls and such, has been in line with predictions.”

  “But it won't take out the whole city or something?”

  “No. The failure mode is likely to be that it won't take the building down. It will still not be a nice place to be when the building gets hit, though, even if the building doesn't come down. The overpressure pulse within the building from the initial device will be fatal to anyone in the building.”

  “What about radiation?”

  “It's not really a problem. As I say, it's a very tiny device, and it has been designed to be clean even so.”

  “Understood, Dr. Misra. And you have two of these missiles for me at the moment?”

  “Loaded on Quicksilver and ready to go, Ms. Dawson.”

  Dawson's last meeting was with George Enfield.

  “We need to go to Odla. Something's up over there,” Dawson said.

  “Problem with Security?” Enfield asked.

  “I think so. Vissente Van Laar is one of Padma Kosar's hardliners. And communications from Mauro Ikeda are off.”

  “Off?”

  “Wrong somehow,” Dawson said. “Micheli can't put her finger on it, but there's been no video, and his text-only communications are not like his normal. Like he's trying to signal something, but doesn't want to push the envelope too hard.”

  “Got it. OK. When you want to go?”

  “How about after a decent night's sleep? First thing tomorrow?”

  “Works for me.”

  Taking Odla

  As they were on the shuttle up to the Quicksilver, Dawson told Enfield she had sent a mail to Ikeda the night before telling him she was coming to pay a visit.

  “Are you sure that was wise?” Enfield asked.

  “If you want to gather up the mice, put out the cheese.”

  “Rats in this case.”

  “I suspect so,” Dawson said. “We have to know. We can't leave him there, to strike at his leisure. Van Laar will probably think this is his big chance. How lucky can he get?”

  “Hopefully not luckier than us.”

  “Just check your rig before we go down to the planet.”

  Once aboard Quicksilver, Dawson met with the specialist on the little missiles, Bill Rodriguez. They were in a single container in one of the Quicksilver's three weapons racks, the other two holding beam weapon drones. They would also be taking ten full hunting parties – a hundred drones – with them to Odla, but they would remain in hyper, at the drones' hyperspace-1 limit, and she wanted some ready-access firepower along in orbit.

  “OK, so this is the building we might have to take down,” Dawson said as she pushed the base map and building plans to him in VR. “I think we want to use the smallest setting on the wall toward the rest of the base, bigger on the sides facing away from the other buildings, and small again on the side opposite from the other buildings, so we don't throw debris toward them, but I'll leave the exact settings up to you.”

  Rodriguez considered the plans in VR.

  “Not a problem. I can dial this in, I think. I take it you want me to err on the low side.”

  “Well, we're going to be down there, in this location,” Dawson highlighted the map. “So, yes, a little finesse would be appreciated.”

  Rodriguez chuckled.

  “I understand, Ma'am. Easy does it. No problem.”

  On the way to Odla, Dawson prepared some command files and some recorded messages. She also reviewed the personnel files of the security people as well as the people in the regional manager's office.

  When they got to Odla, she was ready.

  Their shuttle landed on the roof of the Administrative Building. They were met by a young woman in civilian office wear.

  “Good afternoon, Ms. Dawson, Mr. Enfield. I'm Mr. Ikeda's personal secretary. If you will please follow me.”

  As the secretary led them into the building, Dawson logged into her account in the Odla computer systems. She had checked it and Enfield's from orbit, and they were uncompromised. She thought. She signaled to Enfield through the VR.

  Dawson to Enfield: Not Ikeda's secretary per files.

  Enfield to Dawson: Note stance, walk. She's Security.

  Dawson to Enfield: Facial match. Security. Armed agent.

  Dawson tapped into the security video feed from Ikeda's office.

  Dawson to Enfield: Ikeda's office. Two right, two left, officer in the near left corner. No body armor.

  Enfield to Dawson: How about the fainting scam?

  Dawson to Enfield: Sure. I'll take the right.

  They were shown through the executive offices, which were awfully quiet at the moment, as the secretary kept up a light patter. At Ikeda's inner office, the secretary opened the double doors wide. and motioned them in. They could see Ikeda seated behind his desk, looking out the side window of the corner office.

  Dawson and Enfield walked through the double doors into the room. Both doors closed suddenly behind them, and there were two armed agents on either side, about eight feet away, guns drawn and pointed at them.

  “Freeze!” a security officer in the corner said.

  At finding themselves in a trap, Dawson's eyes rolled up into her head and she fainted. She fell bonelessly, like a puppet whose strings had been cut, twisting as she fell. Enfield jumped back to be clear of her fall, while rotating to his left. With all five of the Security people watching Dawson fall, he hit the release on his holster, raised the pistol and opened fire.

  Security's attention turned back to Enfield as he started firing, but as Dawson fell face first onto the floor she rolled onto her back and opened fire, having hit the release on her holster as she fell.

  Enfield double-tapped the two guards to the left, and Dawson double-tapped the two guards to the right while lying on her back on the floor, holding the gun above her waist and shooting over her knees. Enfield then shifted his aim to the officer in the corner behind the two guards, who had belated
ly gotten his gun out of the holster and was raising it, and shot him through the head. The doors started to open and Dawson shot past Enfield and hit the secretary just behind and under the point of her chin, the perfect head shot from her floor position. The secretary's gun clattered to the floor.

  The Security people did get off two wild shots, but neither hit Enfield or Dawson.

  Dawson got up from the floor, walked over to where one of the four Security people was moaning, and dispassionately shot him in the head.

  Dawson and Enfield both reloaded and put their half-empty magazines in the empty position, then holstered their weapons.

  “Are you OK, Mr. Ikeda?” Dawson asked.

  Ikeda didn't answer, and Dawson walked over to the desk and checked on him.

  “He's cold. Refrigerator cold. Bastards killed him and they took his body out of the fridge to use him as a prop.”

  Enfield touched the chair.

  “Chair's cold, too. They probably just wheeled him in, chair and all. Well, that's why his mails seemed off. He wasn't writing them.”

  “OK. Well, two can play rough.”

  Dawson triggered one of her command files on Quicksilver.

  Enfield walked over to the Security officer.

  “This Van Laar?”

  “No, that's Nakano, his second in command. I can see Van Laar in his office in the VR. He's trying to figure out why his video from Ikeda's office cut off just after we walked in the door.”

  Dawson looked out the side window of the office. The view though the main picture window behind the desk was of the shuttle field, but the side window looked out toward the Security Building barely eight hundred feet away.

  “Come on, let's get into that inner office. I want to get away from these windows.”

  “Wait. You're going to nuke that building? We're right on top of it.”

  “All the more reason not to be next to the windows. They're reinforced, but even so. Come on.”

  They went through the double doors, walked past the body of the secretary, and took a sheltered position behind the secretary's desk in the outer office.

  “So now what?” Enfield asked.

  “I sent a message out over VR in Mr. Van Laar's voice, from his account, calling all his people to muster in the Security Building.”

  “Won't Van Laar countermand that?”

  “He's cut off from VR, and locked in his office.”

  “How can he be locked in his office?”

  “He has his door rigged so he can lock it from his desk, but the easiest way to do that is to use the computer system. He should have put in a dedicated circuit. I wouldn't have been able to take it over.”

  Dawson watched Van Laar try again and again to unlock the door with the switch under his desk, and finally resort to pounding on the door.

  “He's pounding on the door now. But that won't help. He made sure his staff couldn't open it from the outside.”

  Dawson and Enfield both got a warning ping in the VR. They lay on the floor and covered their heads with their arms.

  The shuttle trip had been timed so Quicksilver's orbit would put it overhead for their first hour on the planet.

  The small missile came in ballistic after the initial two-minute burn got it started. It shed its nose cone at five thousand feet and deployed its four warheads. They spaced themselves out both horizontally and vertically by using their steering flaps and dive brakes as they targeted the ground on the four sides of the Security Building. They adjusted their orientation with finicky precision as they fell, ensuring their blast directions were aligned toward the walls of the building. Each impacted a foot away from the basement walls, penetrated to a depth of twenty feet, and detonated, in succession.

  Each explosion blew in the basement wall in the sub-basement, turning tons of concrete into blocks of shrapnel that took out supporting columns not intended for lateral loads. Each explosion also rocked the building away from it, especially the larger-yield strikes on the longer front and back walls. Each explosion, after the microseconds it took the containment to fail, shot dirt and gravel straight up into the air and excavated a half-round crater against the side of the building.

  The Security Building stood for several seconds, and then in slow motion fell in on itself into its ruined basements.

  The Administrative Building shook to the series of four explosions. As soon as they were over, Dawson jumped to her feet and ran into Ikeda's inner office, looking out the side window. She saw the Security Building hesitate, seem to shudder, and then collapse.

  Enfield walked up behind her.

  “Well, that's impressive. Didn't even break the windows.”

  “Dr. Misra will be happy. Just like he planned it.”

  “Do you think anyone is still alive in that mess?” Enfield asked.

  “No. The pulses of overpressure in the building from the explosions would have killed everyone even before the building collapsed.”

  They watched for a few minutes as fire spread through the debris, and the dirt and gravel that had been shot into the air fell like rain around the destroyed structure.

  “This is the fourth building I've taken down with all hands in the last three weeks. I'm getting really tired of this,” Dawson said.

  “You didn't have much of a choice. It's like I asked you a month ago. How ruthless are you prepared to be?”

  “I know. But I think my ruthless is running out.”

  Dawson took a deep breath and let it out slowly.

  “All right,” she said. “Let's see if any of Ikeda's headquarters staff survived the brief reign of the late chief of Security.”

  Dawson set the computers to reviewing the surveillance tapes to determine where the headquarters staff was. The answer hit her hard.

  “Oh, God,” Dawson said, and sat heavily in one of the side chairs of Ikeda's office.

  “What?” Enfield asked.

  “Ikeda's inner circle – his chief of staff, second in command, secretary, all of them – were being held in the basement detention area of the Security Building. They're all gone.”

  Dawson looked out at the burning wreckage of the Security Building, then around Ikeda's office, at the six bodies laying in expanding pools of blood, the blood splatter on the walls, and the bloody mess on the ceiling of the short entry corridor.

  Enfield sat in the other side chair.

  “Pat –”

  Dawson looked at Enfield with tears in her eyes.

  “Just tell me this will all be over soon. I'm getting tired of being the angel of death, wreaking destruction wherever I go.”

  She closed her eyes, and tears slid down her cheeks.

  “I can't guarantee that, Pat, but I do think we're getting to the end of it. Never lose sight of the goal. We need to keep Galactic Mail from becoming a galactic tyranny. With what we've seen so far, we were closer than we thought. Mad Empress Padma was right around the corner. It's been a near thing. But I think most of the large-scale destruction is probably over.”

  Dawson nodded at him, wanting to believe. She heaved a huge sigh, then wiped the tears from her face and eyes angrily.

  “OK. Pity party's over. Let's go rescue anyone I haven't killed.”

  With the small detention area in the Security Building full, the rest of the headquarters staff had been held in a large area in the basement of the Administration Building. Dawson and Enfield went down to the basements to release them. The guards who had been set at the locked doors had left in response to the fake call from Van Laar to report to the Security Building, and had likely also been killed in Dawson's attack on Security.

  In contrast to the regional administration, the division offices on Odla were largely unaffected. The division manager had kept her head down and acquiesced to Van Laar. Turning a blind eye to his excesses had saved them from his wrath, and the division staff and headquarters were intact.

  Dawson made the division manager the acting manager for the region pending the results of Turner's
staffing effort, and she and Enfield headed back to Kalnai.

  Unfinished Business

  It was several days later Turner reported to Dawson on their progress in staffing up the new corporate headquarters on Kalnai.

  “It's going really well,” Turner said. “When we first started, I couldn't believe the magnitude of the job. But I was looking at it all wrong. Sylvain told me to worry about the department heads, and let the department heads work on their own staffing issues. Not to try to do the whole thing myself.”

  “Costa's been a help, then?”

  “He's been great, Pat. First thing, he knows absolutely everybody. At least that's what it seems like. Second, he knows all the subtleties of those personnel records. It turns out there are all sorts of little key words and phrases that have hidden meanings. If it says, “Performs flawlessly in his current position,” what it really means is, “Don't promote this guy, he can't do the next job up.” How would you know that? But Syl knows that and all the other little subtleties. And third is, he works his ass off. You always think of the big shot as somebody who just sits around, but this guy's not afraid to work, and he's fast.”

  “So what's our status, overall?”

  “We have recommendations for most of the department heads for you, as well as department sizes required, office space required, that sort of thing. We're refining those now. We should have a full package within a week.”