The Forgotten Outpost
Page 22
Diego quietly slid into his spacesuit and buckled his boots. He grabbed his helmet and exited the living quarters.
He walked briskly over the metal grate and down the hallway carved in ice. He was ready to kill if discovered.
He passed the control room door and climbed over a railing. He dropped several meters in the low gravity onto the hangar floor. Hundreds of industrial robots moved around the hull of the giant ship, welding and riveting and soldering. Cranes in the ceiling lowered sections of the hull as robotic arms emplaced them with mechanical precision.
Diego moved quickly along the ice wall. He entered the airlock and put on his helmet. He rode the elevator up. The door opened and he stepped out onto the ice. He bounded across the crater to the Moon Runner, punched the panel and climbed into the hatch. Once he cleared the airlock, he sat in the pilot’s chair and powered up the ship.
The little ship blasted out of the crater and shot upward from Enceladus’s icy crust. Diego checked the sensors for anti-spacecraft weaponry. No missile or laser cannon systems were tracking. No spacecraft followed him from the surface.
By now, Pristina may have stepped out of the shower to find him missing. She would tell Sonny and the others. About now, they would be realizing how stupid they were to have trusted him. They would know he betrayed them and they were doomed.
Regret pained him. What never should have been never would be. She was lost to him now.
Titan was still concealed by darkness behind Saturn’s shadow. The moon grew larger in the infrared display.
The sensors picked up a gunship in orbit. It was coming about.
“T-FORCE Gunship, this is Major Diego Zanger. Hold your fire. I am inbound to Titan. I say again, hold your fire.”
“Inbound ship, you are not authorized in this sector. If you continue on your current heading, you will be destroyed. We are cleared to engage.”
“T-FORCE Gunship. Hold your fire. This is Major Diego Zanger on a mission for the SSIS. Confirm with SSIS HQ. I say again, this is Major Diego Zanger inbound to T-FORCE MAIN.”
The radio went silent. The gunship sped toward him, looming large in the forward screen. An alarm sounded in the cockpit as its big gun acquired a lock.
“Major Zanger, you are cleared to land at T-FORCE MAIN. Landing Pad 6. Welcome back, sir.”
“Roger that. Setting heading for Landing Pad 6.”
The little Moon Runner flew past the giant gunship. Diego could see the captain and crew on the bridge.
“Looks like some people down there will be happy to see you,” the captain said. “They’re sending up a fighter escort to guide you in.”
“Roger. It’s good to be back.”
Five drone fighters shot out of Titan’s atmosphere and flew in behind the Moon Runner as Diego orbited Titan. They dropped down into the atmosphere in formation.
Diego shot through giant clouds as he descended into the dark tholin atmosphere. His sensors displayed mountains and a river valley, then the immense expanse of Kraken Mare.
He zoomed high over Camp Hammersteel, alight in the darkness below. Soon the towers and skyscrapers of Cassini City appeared through the clouds. Diego circled the glowing city with the fighters behind him.
The computer guided his spacecraft toward the landing pad atop the SSIS building. He set down on the pad as the fighters circled and zoomed away.
Diego put on his helmet and exited the ship. He entered the airlock, waited for it to fill with breathable air, then took off his helmet. The airlock door slid open.
Col. Butcher was waiting for him, as were Maj. Mangal, Horace Fontaigne, Michael Helms, and several other military and intelligence personnel.
Diego stood before them in his spacesuit. “Sir, there’s no time to waste. The Tesla Project is nearly complete. It’s a ship.”
“Not here, Major,” Fontaigne said. “You can tell us more in the secure briefing room.”
Butcher put his arm around Diego as they walked to the elevators. “We thought we lost you, son. It’s good to see you.”
“It’s good to see you, too, sir.”
“Where’s Robodan?”
“Patience, Colonel,” Fontaigne said. “Would you like to change out of that suit and clean up before you brief us, Major?”
“Negative, sir. There’s no time.”
They entered the briefing room and sat around the table. Diego briefed them on the ship that was being constructed under the ice on Enceladus and the plan to take out the gunships and bombard Camp Hammersteel.
“The Tesla Project is real,” Fontaigne said. “I knew it.”
“We’ll conduct an immediate spaceborne assault on Enceladus,” Butcher said. “Our CAV scouts will seize the ship. Gunships will provide space support.”
“Excellent,” Fontaigne said. “This is clearly the break we’ve been waiting for. Nice work, Major.”
Butcher stood from his chair. “I need to get back to Hammersteel.” He turned to his assistant. “Get operations on the secure line. I’ll send the warno to the Forward Command Post commander. Fontaigne, have your people contact the Space Force Gunship Squadron commander. We need those gunships en route to Enceladus now. We can’t let that ship break through the ice.”
“Michael, you heard him.”
“I’m on it, boss.” Helms looked at Diego and smiled. “You did it, man. I didn’t think you would, but you pulled it off. You’re a hero, Zanger.”
Helms rushed out of the room.
Butcher gathered his laptop and handheld as he prepared to exit, hurrying his assistant who was busily typing into a handheld. Butcher looked at Diego.
“Robodan. Is he on Enceladus?”
“I don’t know, sir.”
Butcher turned and walked out of the room with his assistant in tow.
Fontaigne looked at Diego and shook his head. “We really thought we lost you, Major. You went dark as soon as you hit the streets of Cassini City. They’ve got a genius hacker working for them. He wiped you from our biometrics systems. He masked you and your honeypot from our surveillance system.”
“Russ Belfrey.”
“Yes, we’ve been searching for him for years. He’s a menace. A danger. The most wanted hacker in the Solar System.”
“He’s on Enceladus. They know I’m gone and may have scattered by now.”
Fontaigne put his arm around Diego and they walked together out of the room.
“Belfrey was a true prodigy. He was one of ours. A brilliant mind. He’s been designing ships and computer systems since he was a child. And weapons. He designed our surveillance and biometrics systems. But he turned. The Neo-Fascists turned him.”
“I saw the specs of the energy gun he’s armed his ship with. If it goes operational, those gunships won’t stand a chance.”
“We’ll get to the ship before it launches. You’ve done a great service to the Solar System Federation, Major. And to Titan. Governor Cone will be pleased.”
Fontaigne guided Diego to a private suite. “Get cleaned up. Colonel Butcher will want you back at Camp Hammersteel for the assault, not here sitting around a monitor with a bunch of desk jockeys. We’ve had our best analysts, hackers and human intelligence collectors trying to figure out what the Tesla Project was without getting anywhere. But what we needed was a man of action. You’re a man of action, Major. Michael was right—a hero.”
Diego stood in the doorway to the suite. Fontaigne shook his hand. “I’m going to brief the Governor. He’ll be pleased. This is great news before the announcement of the Marko verdict. It’s just what we need.”
Diego went into the suite and sat on the couch without removing his spacesuit. He used the remote to click on the wall-sized flat screen. He signed into his account and checked his messages. He opened the last message from Havana that came in hours ago.
She was crying.
“Don’t cry, Mom,” Tegan said.
Havana got up and shut the bedroom door and sat back down in front of the camera. She wiped
her eyes.
“I’m sorry, Dee. I just don’t believe them. I know I’m not supposed to say it over a non-secure network, but I just don’t believe all this nonsense about a top-secret mission. I don’t know if you’re dead, or in some kind of trouble, or maybe it’s all a big joke you’re playing on us and you’ve found somebody new. I don’t know what to think. I’ve been coming on here sending you these stupid messages, but I feel like I’m just sending them out into the ether and you’re not hearing me. I wish you could hear me, Dee. The kids miss you. I miss you. I love you. Not hearing from you is tearing me apart.”
Diego opened the previous message about George’s lacrosse team winning first place in their division. There was a message about Tegan getting straight A’s on her report card. Another about George’s rowdy birthday party with a pack of pre-teen boys, and one of Havana showing off a new dress.
Diego couldn’t stop watching. He clicked the next video. Havana was at the kitchen table drinking wine with a couple friends. She was obviously tipsy.
“Hi, Dee. We’re hitting the bottle tonight. Right, ladies?”
“Hi, Diego,” the ladies said in unison.
“Clara’s with me.”
“Hi, Diego, you big hunka man, you.”
“And Jody.”
“Hi, Diego. We met at George’s back-to-school night. I’m Shelby’s mom. Come back safe, OK?”
“Me and Jody have been hanging out a lot this past year. You have to meet her husband Dave. Super cool guy. And handsome, too. Hubba hubba.”
“Oh, that’s Jody,” Diego said to himself. “I remember now.”
The room intercom buzzed. He answered it.
“Major Zanger, the next flight for Camp Hammersteel leaves in thirty minutes.”
“Roger, I’ll be right down.”
He stripped out of the spacesuit, rinsed off in the shower and changed into the trousers, shirt and jacket hanging in the closet. He caught the elevator and rushed to the main landing pad.
He jumped in the back of a TH-60 and sat by the window. He watched the city skyline fall away as the bulky aircraft lifted upward and then shot forward over the plain toward Kraken Mare. Titan was still dark but orbiting out of Saturn’s shadow. Half of Saturn was aglow in the dark sky.
The TH-60 circled Camp Hammersteel and lowered onto a landing pad. A passenger bridge extended and connected to the TH-60 door. The bridge locked, and the door slid open.
Diego walked up the bridge and down a stairwell to Camp Hammersteel’s main thoroughfare. He walked briskly down the empty corridor past containerized housing units. He arrived in his room and quickly changed into his uniform. He stopped at HQ and signed out his pistol from the arms room. It had been retrieved from the plain along with his handheld.
He jogged up the stairs to the Tactical Operations Center and walked into the entry control point. He flashed his badge.
“Welcome back, sir,” Staff Sgt. Ozawa said.
“It’s good to be back.”
Diego entered the TOC and walked down the hallway to the operations room. Staff officers rushed down the halls. Each office seemed in motion with urgent activity.
Diego pushed open the door to the operations room. He walked in past the battle desk. The galleries were filled with soldiers. Col. Butcher was at his chair at the table in the center of the floor behind the battle desk. Gov. Fareed Cone sat next to him. The two big screens on the wall showed live footage of three gunships orbiting Enceladus. Troop landers were approaching the moon.
Diego made his way up the stairs to his place on the third balcony. As he walked up the stairs, someone started clapping. Others joined in. Then everyone in the room was clapping. All eyes were on him as he took his place in the information operations section.
Col. Butcher stood up from his chair and turned.
“Diego, come down here.”
Diego walked back down the stairs and walked up to the colonel who shook his hand.
“Yeah, Major Zee,” someone called out.
“Right on, Major.”
“Hooaah, sir.”
Butcher raised his hand and the applause ceased. He looked up at the soldiers assembled in the galleries above him.
“What you see on the screens behind me was made possible by Major Zanger—by his courage and his willingness to take risks for a cause greater than himself. This man is an exceptional officer and a great soldier.” Butcher turned to Diego. “All of us thank you, Diego, for what you have done.” He turned and looked up at the galleries. “They’ll be time for awards later. Now get back to work. We have a mission to accomplish.”
Cone stood from his chair and shook Diego’s hand. “It’s good to meet you, Major. I’ve heard great things about you.”
Butcher gestured for Diego to sit next to him. He was orchestrating the attack on Enceladus from his seat at the table. He glanced back and forth from the screens on the wall to his computer to the electronic maps on the table in front of him. He busily typed messages, issued orders and requested information.
Cone sat next to Butcher, quietly watching the screens.
Diego watched on the big screen as a dozen troop landers descended toward Enceladus and set down on the ice outside the crater that he had escaped from only hours before. Cavalry scouts jumped out of the landers in squads. They wore white armor with black visors. They held their rifles at the ready as they bounded over the ice and took up fighting positions on the crater’s edge.
One squad leaped over the ledge and bounded down the steep slope toward the crater floor while the soldiers above them covered them. The lead squad moved swiftly, taking cover behind ice boulders, expertly using the terrain for cover and concealment.
They reached the entranceway, concealed in ice, that led to the hangar below. The squad members disappeared behind ice boulders and outcroppings. One soldier bounded for the entranceway door and quickly emplaced a breaching charge. He took cover.
The charge detonated, sending shards of ice cartwheeling upward with the shockwave. The squad moved quickly down the hole. The soldiers up on the crater’s edge descended into the crater and bounded toward the entranceway.
A video feed from a camera on the squad leader’s helmet played up on the big screen. The scouts entered the hangar. The big black ship appeared on the screen. The industrial robots were gone.
Two scouts took up a position against the hull of the ship next to an open panel. They quickly climbed through the opening as their squad members watched from the prone, scanning the hangar with their rifles.
The two scouts leaped out of the opening in the hull.
“It’s rigged to blow! Go, go go! Get out of here!”
The scouts scrambled back up the entranceway. All the soldiers in the crater bounded toward the crater walls.
A massive explosion erupted under the ice. The ice floor of the crater expanded like a bubble that burst in a powerful blast of fire and ice.
Butcher banged his fist on the table. “Get the medics down there. Get accountability now. Why isn’t Bandit Troop securing the blast zone? Get Lieutenant Colonel Idris on the line.”
The casualty reports started to come in. Three dead. Fourteen wounded. Six missing. Medics were carrying the dead and wounded back to the landers.
Butcher remained engaged, barking out orders and demanding information from his staff while in constant communication with his battalion commander on the ground on Enceladus.
Cone leaned in toward Diego. “It’s unfortunate they blew the ship. I was hoping we could capture it and maybe some Neo-Fascists, too. Regardless, the ship is not a threat to us now. In that sense, this mission has been success.”
Cone stood up. “I need to get back to the capital. I’d like you to come with me to debrief me on your adventures over dinner. I’ve got so many questions. I’ve cleared this with Colonel Butcher. Come.”
Butcher barked orders to his staff, checked messages and scrolled through screens. He didn’t notice as Diego stepped away.
Diego followed him through the passenger walkway to his aircraft parked atop the TOC on the VIP landing pad. It was a civilian aircraft, built for comfort rather than speed and firepower.
Diego sat across from Cone who continued talking on his handheld. The aircraft lifted off from the landing pad and circled over Camp Hammersteel. It then shot out over the plains to Cassini City.
Cone looked up from his handheld. “The ship. How much of it did you see?”
“I walked under it, saw it from a control room and looked at the specs. Russ Belfrey showed them to me.”
“Was there anything unusual about it? Anything… otherworldly?”
“It was big. A highly advanced design. The gun was impressive. He called it a Tesla Wave Gun and said it could destroy our gunships at standoff distance. He said the gun used a fusion helix reactor to power the beam.”
“I knew Russell before he turned on us. A true genius. An evil genius. He’s an odd bird, an iconoclast who employs an unconventional mode of thought. Sometimes his thinking goes against the tenets of modern physics—against the Federation, against the greater good. We thought we could control him. We thought he was too smart for Titan and were eager to send him to Earth where his talents would be of use to us. But he resisted us and spiraled downward into the gutter with criminals, terrorists and Neo-Fascists.”
Outside the window, the gleaming spires and towers of Cassini City appeared in the darkness.
Their aircraft flew toward the city and drifted down through the clouds toward the Titan Government Complex—a cluster of skyscrapers and domes centered by the Governor’s Mansion.
Their aircraft flew between the towers and set down on a landing pad atop the Governor’s Mansion. Cone and Diego waited for the passenger bridge to connect and exited the aircraft.
They walked down a broad staircase. They entered a carpeted hallway and walked past offices where clerks and functionaries worked at computer screens. On the walls of the hallway were framed portraits displaying the faces of the governors of Callisto, Europa, Ganymede, Io, Mars, Venus, and of course, Cone himself, Governor of Titan. The portrait of the President of the Solar System Federation was last, mounted on the far wall of the hallway.