Jeremiah acted as though he wasn’t certain it was a good idea, but his ear to ear grin gave him away. She left feeling rather smug.
“Captain West, how’s it look?” he asked.
The test pilot, Alex West, came well recommended. Well past 60, he’d cut his teeth in the F-18 test program and had more than 10,000 hours in various high-altitude, faster-than-the-speed-of-sound platforms. He was also the only pilot that had responded to Jeremiah’s offer who was helo-qualified.
West shrugged and checked his displays. “Considering this is officially the strangest ship I’ve ever strapped myself into, it looks fine.”
Jeremiah was surprised someone as qualified as West came to him, especially since the money he offered was anemic. “The heyday of my career is behind me,” he admitted. “The opportunity to get into space one more time is impossible to resist.”
West’s copilot was exactly the opposite. Lloyd Behm was an Air Force Academy dropout. Though he was at the top of his class, it turned out he wasn’t Air Force material. His piloting ability, however, was top notch. After winning two Red Bull Championships on the high-performance plane circuit, he was looking for a challenge. Going into space qualified. “This is going to be awesome,” Lloyd said, smiling from the copilot seat.
“A great disaster,” Alison whispered into her microphone.
“I heard that,” Jeremiah said. “Do we have a countdown?”
“Seems redundant,” his range control officer said. “It’s not like there’s going to be a blastoff.”
“Good point,” Jeremiah agreed. He waved at the bank of LCD screens. “Azanti, you’re cleared to take off when ready.”
“About fucking time,” Alex said. “Engineer?”
“Well,” Alison said, “the interface hasn’t been trimmed out, but you have power!”
“Seems to work well enough,” Alex said as the Azanti left the improvised cradle and rocketed straight up into the morning sky.
“Mach 1!” Lloyd called out as a shudder passed through the craft. “Mach 2, Mach 3, Mach 4. Alex, easy man, this thing isn’t hypersonic rated!”
“Nose temperature approaching red line,” Alison warned.
Alex nodded, and slid the throttle back until their acceleration slowed.
“Max Q,” Alison said.
“No need to throttle back, I guess,” Alex said. There was silent agreement, so he held the speed.
“Altitude 100,000 feet!” Lloyd said. “Yahooooo!”
“Throttle forward,” Alex said as the atmosphere thinned. He glanced at the track and angled their ascent. The controls weren’t as linear as he liked, so he touched one of the tabs on the yoke, adjusting the trim. “Better,” he said.
“How’s it handling?” Alison asked.
“Surprisingly well,” Alex said, glancing out the wrap-around, one-piece, polyacrylic view port. “And you can’t beat the view.”
Lloyd looked up from his instruments. “Are we in space?”
Alex checked his angles again, adjusted their vector, and glanced at the radar altimeter. They passed 350,000 feet. “You are now.”
“Azanti, OEE flight control.”
“OEE go ahead,” Alison replied.
“We show you in powered orbit. You need another 4,000 MPS for self-sustained orbit.”
“Noted,” she said.
Alex said, “Roger that,” and pushed the throttle forward again. As before, there was absolutely no sensation of motion in the ship. A moment later ground control came on.
“You’re nominal, Azanti. Congratulations.”
The flight control supervisor’s voice was almost inaudible over the roar of applause from everyone except Jeremiah Osborne. He knew he should be excited like everyone else, but all he felt was bittersweet defeat. After all those years of developing and finishing the Azanti, it gets into orbit for the first time because of an alien device, no bigger than a toaster, that no one knew how to work.
In the background, he listened as the controllers gave reports on the craft’s condition. They’d used barely five percent of the hybrid hydrogen fuel cells, beefed up for this trip, to reach orbit. They went through an agreed-upon series of tests of the drive mechanism to see how it responded outside the atmosphere. Sending complex power waveforms into the drive, they spun, yawed, and rotated the Azanti. They used the built-in RCS, reaction control system, thrusters to do the same. The alien drive was efficient and used almost no power in the process.
Captain West spoke up, “Recommend we go to Stage Two.”
“I disagree,” Alison replied. “We need to take this step by step, and that’s not a step, that’s a leap. We don’t know how long that orbit will take!”
Everyone in flight control looked at Jeremiah. “How are consumables?”
“We have human consumables for 96 hours nominal,” the specialist replied over her intercom.
“Fuel?” Jeremiah pressed.
“That’s unknown,” Alison said. “We used very little getting up here. But we don’t know how that will change, the farther we get from a gravity well.”
“Worst case, we turn around,” Lloyd suggested.
Jeremiah held up a hand as conversation buzzed. It quickly quieted down. “Can we plot a free return, just in case?”
“No problem,” flight control reported.
“Oh Lord,” he heard Alison whisper. He needed to remind his engineer just how sensitive the microphones were.
“Flight, you’re good for lunar orbit,” Jeremiah said, to more applause.
“Mr. Osborne?” Jeremiah looked up and saw one of his assistants running over with a phone. “It’s Space Command, sir!”
Jeremiah smacked his forehead. “I guess no one thought to file a flight plan?”
In space, the pilots were exchanging high fives. Behind them, in one of the three rear seats, Alison looked like she’d just received a diagnosis of terminal cancer. Alex turned to offer her a high five, and saw the look of horror on her face.
“Cheer up, ma’am,” he said, with his typical big smile. “What could possibly go wrong on the maiden voyage around the moon of a ship that’s never been in space?”
“And not designed to leave Earth orbit.” Lloyd added. Lloyd winked at Alex, who gave him a wry grin.
“Assholes,” Alison said as she turned her attention to her boards.
“Ground control is uploading guidance,” Lloyd informed them.
“Did you get your calculation of approximate G forces at liftoff?” Alex asked Alison.
“Computer says 120 gravities, nominal.”
“Never felt a thing,” Alex commented, “and I didn’t get past 20 percent throttle.”
“And the power input of 20 percent was arbitrary,” Alison pointed out. “I can flip a switch and 20 percent becomes 2 percent. Or .002 percent for that matter.”
“What’s the limit?” Lloyd wondered.
She shrugged and considered. “The device has to have a limit, unless we’re wrong about more than how gravity works. But the real limit is our input voltage. Based on that, I can increase power by five orders.”
The younger pilot did the math in his head. “So, top acceleration is on the order of 60 million gravities? You’ve got to be shitting me, right?”
“That’s what the math suggests. I guess we’re going to find out.”
“Azanti to OEE,” Alex transmitted, “we have your uploaded telemetry. We are preparing to break orbit in five minutes.”
“Acknowledged, Azanti. The clock is running.”
The crew worked for a few minutes entering data into the computer and estimating numbers. “Looks like we have the solution,” Lloyd said and displayed the data.
“That’s a lot less than we used to get into space,” Alex noted.
“You hotshots are the ones who insisted we leave orbit. At least, let me widen our base measurements before we go all ape shit.” Alison demanded. Alex nodded in agreement. She did have a point, as they didn’t know what the drive might d
o away from a planet.
The clock ticked down, and the captain linked the flight controls to the computer. This would be their first test of the automatic systems. The timer reached zero, and the power meters showed power flowing to the drive. Outside, the stars moved as the ship aligned with its new course and accelerated.
“Smooth as a newborn’s ass,” Alex said, with a thumbs up.
The ship accelerated smoothly for five minutes. Lloyd used the onboard radar system to take measurement readings from established sources to estimate their distance from Earth. “We’re nominal to profile,” he told them. Everyone nodded. Even Alison was beginning to feel confidence.
“Approaching midpoint,” Alex told them. “MECO in five…”
Alison glanced up and saw something white streak out of her view. “What was that?”
“Uhm…” said Lloyd, “the moon?”
Alison tried to focus her eyes, and comprehend the sight of the stars turning into long streaks of light. “Oh, FFFFFUUUUUUUU…!”
* * *
Vance rotated the fine-tuning knob on the shortwave radio as everyone else in the lodge gathered around on stools, listening quietly. Even the three dogs, which had been acting like bunch of hyperactive preteen boys since the new arrivals two days before, sat quietly by their owners. Perhaps they could sense the tension in the air. Four hours earlier, the cellular network failed, followed shortly by the broadband DSL. Vance reached everyone via radio, and brought them in quickly. By the time they all arrived, he had extended the shortwave antenna to its full 20-meter length, and was surfing the bands. It didn’t take him long to find what he was looking for.
“…York City,” a refined voice was saying. “National Guard units have arrived in Humvees and tracked vehicles to assist police. All are wearing riot control gear. Widespread reports say there have been intermittent reports of, I’m reading this directly from the AP, cannibalism!”
Vance moved the dial to another preset channel.
“…a running firefight with rioters near Redondo Beach. LA County Sheriff’s units have requested assistance from the National Guard, however the Governor has, thus far, resisted these calls, referring to them as reactionary responses to minor civil unrest.”
He moved it again.
“…of over 3,000 micro Sieverts per hour. We say again, stay in your homes. Civil defense warnings are in place!” The broadcast broke into static.
“What the fuck was that?” Belinda asked, her eyes wide. “Did he say 3,000 micro Sieverts?”
“Yes,” Vance said, “that’s a radiation reading, right?” He struggled to remember how much it was. Prepping for a nuclear war was way out of vogue.
Belinda shook her head. “That’s as much radiation as the average American absorbs in an entire year! How long is that exposure, and from what?”
Vance had heard whispers on the web about a nuclear bomb going off in Mexico, just before his connection failed. It hadn’t seemed big enough for him to share the details, so he hadn’t mentioned it. He was about to tell them, when the broadcast restarted.
“Civil defense, through FEMA, has issued a warning for the Gulf Coast of Florida, from Naples to Pensacola. An incident in Mexico released significant amounts of airborne radiation, which crossed the Gulf of Mexico, and is currently impacting the Florida coasts. This radiation is hazardous, and extended contact can be fatal. Residents should stay indoors. Avoid going outdoors, except in emergencies. Exposure levels of over 3,000 micro Sieverts per hour are possible. We say again…” Vance turned down the volume. The room was deathly silent. There was his confirmation.
“Try the BBC,” Tim suggested. Nicole nodded.
“Do it,” Ann prompted. Vance turned to the preset, afraid of what he’d hear. He almost laughed in relief when he heard the British announcer. Then he listened, and felt his blood turn to ice.
“…all contact. The same for Cairo, Bombay, and Riyadh. Capital and densely populated cities all along the Arabian Peninsula are going dark at the rate of one an hour. The plague, just declared a pandemic by the World Health Organization, has struck with frightening speed. The WHO experts, uncertain about methods of transmission other than bodily fluid transfer from an infected person or animal, have recommended that everyone stay in their homes and await further instruction from government officials.”
“That sounds familiar,” Vance snorted.
“Animals?” Harry asked. “God, did he say animal bites?”
His wife nodded. “He did. And, if animals can pass it, insects, like mosquitos and biting flies, can pass it, too.”
“Thank goodness we’re in South Texas,” Ann whispered.
“Still,” Vance said, “we have sand fleas and other biting critters. Tim, take your wife, break into our stores, and find the bug spray. Ann, let’s give all the dogs flea and tick treatments. We don’t want to risk them getting it.”
“We brought some for our girls,” Tim noted as he and his wife headed down to the underground storage area.
Vance played with the dial for a few minutes, listening. The fact that so much news was out there, flowing one way into his radio, told him a lot. He plugged in a microphone, and warmed up his transmitter. “This is San Antonio calling, WBB7884,” he sent his identification. “Call sign P, I say again, call sign P. Standing by.”
He released the mic and waited. It only took a second. “Call sign P, this is Flagstaff calling, KFR9113.”
“Peter, good to hear your voice,” Vance said with a sigh.
“You too, Vance. Shit’s hitting the fan.”
“Agreed. Sending code, ready to receive?”
“Ready,” Peter said.
Vance flipped a switch and grabbed a keyboard. The computer would translate what he typed and send it to his friend, hundreds of miles away, via Morse code. The pulses were in code, only decipherable with a code key they’d shared many months ago, a cypher based on the date, day, and hour of transmission. The computer he used, tied into the shortwave set, automatically selected the correct cypher.
“Internet here is down, over.”
“Here as well. What do you think the source of the interruption is, interrogative?”
Vance thought for a moment. “Did you hear about the nuke in Mexico, interrogative?”
“Speculation only, over.”
“No speculation. Tune to 129.45 kHz. Will stand by, over.” Vance reached under the table and retrieved a bottle of water from the cooler, marveling at the results. He performed a simple action, and he had pure, ice cold water. But for how much longer? The radio beeped, and Peter was back.
“Oh my God, over.”
“Exactly. I believe the POTUS used the Internet kill switch. The shit truly has hit the fan. Cities on the Arab Peninsula are going dark. The BBC is full of the stories, over.”
“Wow, over.”
“I’m advising everyone to bug out if they can, over.”
“Shouldn’t we wait for an official declaration of emergency, interrogative?”
“I don’t think there will be one. The kill switch tells me everything I need to know, over.”
“I’m afraid you are right, over.”
Vance nodded and typed. “Sending signal, please pass it on, over.”
“Acknowledged. God be with you. Signing off.”
“And you as well, signing off.”
He glanced up and saw Ann reading over his shoulder. She had one hand over her mouth, the other protectively over her stomach. He nodded to her and could see tears welling up in her eyes.
“I never really thought this would happen,” she whispered.
“I did,” he said. He spun the dial to a preset, unplugged the code machine, and switched to the mic again. “This is San Antonio calling, this is San Antonio. Code B, I say again, code B.” He repeated the call, without his license number, for a full five minutes, then shut down the transmitter. Less than a minute later, he heard another voice. “This is Flagstaff, code B.”
Then another vo
ice. “This is Little Rock, code B.” And another. “This is Wichita, code B.” And a weaker voice. “This is Ft. Collins, code B.” And then a barely audible one, full of static. “This is Davenport, code B.”
Vance turned from the radio to his girlfriend, and she came into his arms. “What do we do now?” she asked.
“Survive,” he said. Outside, there was a loud gunshot.
* * *
Dr. Lisha Breda listened to the phone ring for over a minute before she put it on the cradle. “Edith?”
“Yes, Doctor?”
“Are you sure this is the number for the CDC?”
The young woman carefully put aside the slides she’d been organizing, removed her gloves, and dropped them in a bright red pail, then opened her laptop. A couple of taps brought up the answer. She repeated the number. Lisha listened, then looked at the screen on her phone. They matched. “That number is listed in the database as the director’s line.”
“Do I have any other numbers listed?”
“Someone named Dr. Curie.”
Lisha nodded. They’d worked together before. Curie was more than a little unusual, but he was a brilliant virologist. “Give me that number.”
The phone only rang twice before he picked up. “Got those test results?”
“Not right now,” Lisha laughed.
“What?” asked the confused voice on the other end.
“David, this is Lisha. Remember me from the symposium in Nice two years ago?”
“Lisha Breda, the insufferable flirt?”
Lisha blushed and chuckled. She did tend to become a tad flirtatious after a few glasses of wine. “Yeah, that’s me. How have you been, David?”
“Great. I was hoping to see you again sometime.”
Lisha nodded. She bet he was. He was extremely introverted. Flirting with him was like giving a steak to a starving puppy. “Listen, David, this isn’t a social call. I have some important data I need to get into the field, and all my other contacts have gone dark.”
“I know. They’re restricting phone traffic. I’m surprised you got through to me. This is the first call from outside the CDC I’ve gotten all morning. What do you have?”
Turning Point (Book 1): A Time To Die Page 31