by Ben Bova
“They’ll be in full suits,” said Stromsen. “Each on his own individual life-support system.”
“How can we capture them? Or even fight them?” Yang wondered aloud.
Hazard detected no hint of defeat in their voices. The despair of a half hour earlier was gone now. A new excitement had hold of them. He was holding a glimmer of hope for them, and they were reaching for it.
“There can’t be more than six of them aboard that boat,” Feeney mused.
I wonder if Cardillo has the guts to lead the boarding party in person, Hazard asked himself.
“We don’t have any useful weapons,” said Yang.
“But we have some tools,” Stromsen pointed out. “Maybe …”
“What do the lifeboat engines use for propellant?” Hazard asked rhetorically.
“Methane and Oh-eff-two,” Feeney replied, looking puzzled.
Hazard nodded. “Miss Stromsen, which of our supply magazines are still intact—if any?”
It took them several minutes to understand what he was driving at, but when they finally saw the light, the three young officers went speedily to work. Together with the four unwounded members of the crew, they prepared a welcome for the boarders from Graham.
Finally, Hazard watched on Stromsen’s display screens as the boat sniffed around the battered station. Strict silence was in force aboard Hunter. Even in the CIC, deep at the heart of the battle station, they spoke in tense whispers.
“I hope the bastards like what they see,” Hazard muttered.
“They know that we used the lifeboats for shields,” said Yang.
“Active armor,” Hazard said. “Did you know the idea was invented by the man this station’s named after?”
“They’re looking for a docking port,” Stromsen pointed out.
“Only one left,” said Feeney.
They could hang their boat almost anywhere and walk in through the holes they’ve put in us, Hazard said to himself. But they won’t. They’ll go by the book and find an intact docking port. They’ve got to! Everything depends on that.
He felt his palms getting slippery with nervous perspiration as the lifeboat slowly, slowly moved around Hunter toward the Earth-facing side, where the only usable port was located. Hazard had seen to it that all the other ports had been disabled.
“They’re buying it!” Stromsen’s whisper held a note of triumph.
“Sir!” Yang hissed urgently. “A message just came in—laser beam, ultracompressed.”
“From where?”
“Computer’s decrypting,” she replied, her snubnosed face wrinkled with concentration. “Coming up on my center screen, sir.”
Hazard slid over toward her. The words on the screen read:
From: IPF Regional HQ, Lagos.
To: Commander, battle station Hunter.
Message begins. Coup attempt in Geneva a failure, thanks in large part to your refusal to surrender your command. Situation still unclear, however. Imperative you retain control of Hunter, at all costs. Message ends.
He read it aloud, in a guttural whisper, so that Feeney and Stromsen understood what was at stake.
“We’re not alone,” Hazard told them. “They know what’s happening, and help is on the way.”
That was stretching the facts, he knew. And he knew they knew. But it was reassuring to think that someone, somewhere, was preparing to help them.
Hazard watched them grinning to one another. In his mind, though, he kept repeating the phrase “Imperative you retain control of Hunter, at all costs.”
At all costs, Hazard said to himself, closing his eyes wearily, seeing Varshni dying in his arms and the others maimed. At all costs.
The bastards, Hazard seethed inwardly. The dirty, power-grabbing, murdering bastards. Once they set foot inside my station, I’ll kill them like the poisonous snakes they are. I’ll squash them flat. I’ll cut them open just like they’ve slashed my kids …
He stopped abruptly and forced himself to take a deep breath. Yeah, sure. Go for personal revenge. That’ll make the world a better place to live in, won’t it?
“Sir, are you all right?”
Hazard opened his eyes and saw Stromsen staring at him. “Yes, I’m fine. Thank you.”
“They’ve docked, sir,” said the Norwegian. “They’re debarking and coming up passageway C, just as you planned.”
Looking past her to the screens, Hazard saw that there were six of them, all in space suits, visors down. And pistols in their gloved hands.
“Nothing bigger than pistols?”
“No, sir. Not that we can see, at least.”
Turning to Feeney. “Ready with the aerosols?”
“Yes, sir.”
“All crew members evacuated from the area?”
“They’re all back on level four, except for the sick bay.”
Hazard never took his eyes from the screens. The six space-suited boarders were floating down the passageway that led to the lower levels of the station, which were still pressurized and held breathable air. They stopped at the air lock, saw that it was functional. The leader of their group started working the wall unit that controlled the lock.
“Can we hear them?” he asked Yang.
Wordlessly, she touched a stud on her keyboard.
“ … use the next section of the passageway as an air lock,” someone was saying. “Standard procedure. Then we’ll pump the air back into it once we’re inside.”
“But we stay in the suits until we check out the whole station. That’s an order,” said another voice.
Buckbee? Hazard’s spirits soared. Buckbee will make a nice hostage, he thought. Not as good as Cardillo, but good enough.
Just as he had hoped, the six boarders went through the airtight hatch, closed it behind them, and started the pump that filled the next section of passageway with air once again.
“Something funny here, sir,” said one of the space-suited figures.
“Yeah, the air’s kind of misty.”
“Never saw anything like this before. Christ, it’s like Mexico City air.”
“Stay in your suits!” It was Buckbee’s voice, Hazard was certain of it. “Their life-support systems must have been damaged in our bombardment. They’re probably all dead.”
You wish, Hazard thought. To Feeney, he commanded, “Seal that hatch.”
Feeney pecked at a button on his console.
“And the next one.”
“Already done, sir.”
Hazard waited, watching Stromsen’s main screen as the six boarders shuffled weightlessly to the next hatch and found that it would not respond to the control unit on the bulkhead.
“Damn! We’ll have to double back and find another route …”
“Miss Yang, I’m ready to hold converse with our guests,” said Hazard.
She flashed a brilliant smile and touched the appropriate keys, then pointed a surprisingly well-manicured finger at him. “You’re on the air!”
“Buckbee, this is Hazard.”
All six of the boarders froze for an instant, then spun weightlessly in midair, trying to locate the source of the new voice.
“You are trapped in that section of corridor,” Hazard said. “The mist that you see in the air is oxygen difluoride from our lifeboat propellant tanks. Very volatile stuff. Don’t strike any matches.”
“What the hell are you saying, Hazard?”
“You’re locked in that passageway, Buckbee. If you try to fire those popguns you’re carrying, you’ll blow yourselves to pieces.”
“And you too!”
“We’re already dead, you prick. Taking you with us is the only joy I’m going to get out of this.”
“You’re bluffing!”
Hazard snapped, “Then show me how brave you are, Buckbee. Take a shot at the hatch.”
The six boarders hovered in the misty passageway like figures in a surrealistic painting. Seconds ticked by, each one stretching excruciatingly. Hazard felt a pain in his jaws and
realized he was clenching his teeth hard enough to chip them.
He took his eyes from the screen momentarily to glance at his three youngsters. They were just as tense as he was. They knew how long the odds of their gamble were. The passageway was filled with nothing more than aerosol mists from every spray can the crew could locate in the supply magazines.
“What do you want, Hazard?” Buckbee said at last, his voice sullen, like a spoiled little boy who had been denied a cookie.
Hazard let out his breath. Then, as cheerfully as he could manage, “I’ve got what I want. Six hostages. How much air do your suits carry? Twelve hours?”
“What do you mean?”
“You’ve got twelve hours to convince Cardillo and the rest of your pals to surrender.”
“You’re crazy, Hazard.”
“I’ve had a tough day, Buckbee. I don’t need your insults. Call me when you’re ready to deal.”
“You’ll be killing your son!”
Hazard had half expected it, but still it hit him like a blow. “Jonnie, are you there?”
“Yes I am, Dad.”
Hazard strained forward, peering hard at the display screen, trying to determine which one of the space-suited figures was his son.
“Well, this is a helluva fix, isn’t it?” he said softly.
“Dad, you don’t have to wait twelve hours.”
“Shut your mouth!” Buckbee snapped.
“Fuck you,” snarled Jon Jr. “I’m not going to get myself killed for nothing.”
“I’ll shoot you!” Hazard saw Buckbee level his gun at Jon Jr.
“And kill yourself? You haven’t got the guts,” Jonnie sneered. Hazard almost smiled. How many times had his son used that tone on him.
Buckbee’s hand wavered. He let the gun slip from his gloved fingers. It drifted slowly, weightlessly, away from him.
Hazard swallowed. Hard.
“Dad, in another hour or two the game will be over. Cardillo lied to you. The Russians never came in with us. Half a dozen ships full of troops are lifting off from IPF centers all over the globe.”
“Is that the truth, son?”
“Yes, sir, it is. Our only hope was to grab control of your satellites. Once the coup attempt in Geneva flopped, Cardillo knew that if he could control three or four sets of ABM satellites, he could at least force a stalemate. But all he’s got is Graham and Wood. Nobody else.”
“You damned little traitor!” Buckbee screeched.
Jon Jr. laughed. “Yeah, you’re right. But I’m going to be a live traitor. I’m not dying for the likes of you.”
Hazard thought swiftly. Jon Jr. might defy his father, might argue with him, even revile him, but he had never known the lad to lie to him.
“Buckbee, the game’s over,” he said slowly. “You’d better get the word to Cardillo before there’s more bloodshed.”
It took another six hours before it was all sorted out. A shuttle filled with armed troops and an entire replacement crew finally arrived at the battered hulk of Hunter. The relieving commander, a stubby, compactly built black from New Jersey who had been a U.S. Air Force fighter pilot, made a grim tour of inspection with Hazard.
From inside his space suit he whistled in amazement at the battle damage. “Shee-it, you don’t need a new crew, you need a new station!”
“It’s still functional,” Hazard said quietly, then added proudly, “and so is my crew, or what’s left of them. They ran this station and kept control of the satellites.”
“The stuff legends are made of, my man,” said the new commander.
Hazard and his crew filed tiredly into the waiting shuttle, thirteen grimy, exhausted men and women in the pale-blue fatigues of the IPF. Three of them were wrapped in mesh cocoons and attended by medical personnel. Two others were bandaged but ambulatory.
He shook hands with each and every one of them as they stepped from the station’s only functional air lock into the shuttle’s passenger compartment. Hovering there weightlessly, his creased, craggy face unsmiling, to each of his crew members he said, “Thank you. We couldn’t have succeeded without your effort.”
The last three through the hatch were Feeney, Stromsen, and Yang. The Irishman looked embarrassed as Hazard shook his hand.
“I’m recommending you for promotion. You were damned cool under fire.”
“Frozen stiff with fear, you mean.”
To Stromsen, “You, too, Miss Stromsen. You’ve earned a promotion.”
“Thank you, sir,” was all she could say.
“And you, little lady,” he said to Yang. “You were outstanding.”
She started to say something, then flung her arms around Hazard’s neck and squeezed tight. “I was so frightened!” she whispered in his ear. “You kept me from cracking up.”
Hazard held her around the waist for a moment. As they disengaged he felt his face turning flame red. He turned away from the hatch, not wanting to see the expressions on the rest of his crew members.
Buckbee was coming through the air lock. Behind him were his five men. Including Jon Jr.
They passed Hazard in absolute silence, Buckbee’s face as cold and angry as an antarctic storm.
Jon Jr. was the last in line. None of the would-be boarders was in handcuffs, but they all had the hangdog look of prisoners. All except Hazard’s son.
He stopped before his father and met the older man’s gaze. Jon Jr.’s gray eyes were level with his father’s, unswerving, unafraid.
He made a bitter little smile. “I still don’t agree with you,” he said without preamble. “I don’t think the IPF is workable—and it’s certainly not in the best interests of the United States.”
“But you threw your lot in with us when it counted,” Hazard said.
“The hell I did!” Jon Jr. looked genuinely aggrieved. “I just didn’t see any sense in dying for a lost cause.”
“Really?”
“Cardillo and Buckbee and the rest of them were a bunch of idiots. If I had known how stupid they are I wouldn’t …” He stopped himself, grinned ruefully, and shrugged his shoulders. “This isn’t over, you know. You won the battle, but the war’s not ended yet.”
“I’ll do what I can to get them to lighten your sentence,” Hazard said.
“Don’t stick your neck out for me! I’m still dead set against you on this.”
Hazard smiled wanly at the youngster. “And you’re still my son.”
Jon Jr. blinked, looked away, then ducked through the hatch and made for a seat in the shuttle.
Hazard formally turned the station over to its new commander, saluted one last time, then went into the shuttle’s passenger compartment. He hung there weightlessly a moment as the hatch behind him was swung shut and sealed. Most of the seats were already filled. There was an empty one beside Yang, but after their little scene at the hatch Hazard was hesitant about sitting next to her. He glided down the aisle and picked a seat that had no one next to it. Not one of his crew. Not Jon Jr.
There’s a certain amount of loneliness involved in command, he told himself. It’s not wise to get too familiar with people you have to order into battle.
He felt, rather than heard, a thump as the shuttle disengaged from the station’s air lock. He sensed the winged hypersonic spaceplane turning and angling its nose for reentry into the atmosphere.
Back to … Hazard realized that home, for him, was no longer on Earth. For almost all of his adult life, home had been where his command was. Now his home was in space. The time he spent on Earth would be merely waiting time, suspended animation until his new command was ready.
“Sir, may I intrude?”
He looked up and saw Stromsen floating in the aisle by his seat.
“What is it, Miss Stromsen?”
She pulled herself down into the seat next to him but did not bother to latch the safety harness. From a breast pocket in her sweat-stained fatigues she pulled a tiny flat tin. It was marked with a red cross and some printing, hidden by her thu
mb.
Stromsen opened the tin. “You lost your medication patch,” she said. “I thought you might want a fresh one.”
She was smiling at him, shyly, almost like a daughter might.
Hazard reached up and felt behind his left ear. She was right, the patch was gone.
“I wonder how long ago …”
“It’s been hours, at least,” said Stromsen.
“Never noticed.”
Her smile brightened. “Perhaps you don’t need it anymore.”
He smiled back at her. “Miss Stromsen, I think you’re absolutely right. My stomach feels fine. I believe I have finally become adapted to weightlessness.”
“It’s rather a shame that we’re on our way back to Earth. You’ll have to adapt all over again the next time out.”
Hazard nodded. “Somehow I don’t think that’s going to be much of a problem for me anymore.”
He let his head sink back into the seat cushion and closed his eyes, enjoying for the first time the exhilarating floating sensation of weightlessness.
Space Weapons
Somehow I have gotten the reputation of being a hawk.
Apparently this stems from my advocacy of the Strategic Defense Initiative (a.k.a. “Star Wars”). There are some people—even people within the sophisticated science fiction community—who pin simpleminded labels on others, based on their own political prejudices.
It is sad to see reviews of my novels begin with statements such as, “Ben Bova, whose pro—Star Wars views are well known …” Sad because I know it’s going to be an unfavorable review by a writer who lets his politics blind him to the beauties of my prose!
Perhaps this situation stems from the polarization of the Vietnam era. Or maybe it goes even deeper, back to the beginnings of science fiction fandom, in the fractious 1930s.
Whatever the roots, the result is that anyone who suggests that SDI might be a concept worth exploring, that laser-armed satellites might lead to a war-preventing International Peacekeeping Force, is branded as a war-mongering hawk who wants to turn the pristine realms of outer space into a battlefield.