Titan Global Pacific Maritime Base
The Alamiranta sat in its berth inside the crescent of the islet of Lehua. Damage from the storm and explosion was being more thoroughly addressed while provisions, weapons, and new personnel were brought aboard. The base was equipped with a dry dock, helicopter pads, hospital, and berths for Titan Global freighters, as well as smaller craft.
Beneath the mountain on Lehua was a command and control center that would help facilitate Titan Global operations in the future. A research facility was also located in the mountain, with Doctors Ambergris, Madison, and Nguyen having helped design the labs in coordination with Demetrius Caine months earlier.
As Catherine Caine toured the base, she walked slowly past stations in the high-tech command and control center. Several stations monitored global economic markets, climate conditions, troop movements on every continent, and situations that posed possible threats to ecological and military stability.
Perhaps the most cutting-edge tool at Lehua was GlobeNet, a sophistical computer program that gathered data on every news story in the world. It also monitored huge quantities of data on the Internet — trillions of bits of information every hour — as it cross-referenced news on any topic from every website that was publicly available. Its algorithms sought keywords that were either statistically anomalous or more prominent than would be expected. The brainchild of Joshua Ambergris, its programming was based on Chaos Theory and fractal geometry. Like many scientists, Ambergris believed that chaos was a precursor to predictable patterns. In theory, GlobeNet could provide early warnings for wars, nuclear threats, economic recessions, terrorist activity, crime, natural disasters, and thousands of other scenarios.
An entire bank of computers flashed data at incredible speed, screens blinking when patterns emerged that were shunted to other data banks where they would wait for additional correlations.
Caine surveyed several situations that she deemed noteworthy: an unknown satellite emitting unusual, coded signals had landed in the Antarctic; riots for democracy were flooding the streets of two South American cities; a Nobel prize winner in chemistry had been kidnapped by terrorists; and large African populations migrated across deserts to flee genocide.
Finally, an infrared satellite in low earth orbit was observing an orange dot in northeastern Nevada.
Catherine Caine’s Private Office
Aboard the Alamiranta
Joshua Ambergris sat in Catherine Caine’s inner sanctum, paging through notes he’d made over the past several days. He also had information garnered from Aiko’s first debriefing.
“It appears that the Chinese have considerable aspirations in the matter of space exploration,” Ambergris said. “I think the information on Ixmilan’s suspended animation might be of considerable use to their space program.”
“Are they contemplating interplanetary flights?” Caine asked.
“Perhaps. Or maybe interstellar.” He flipped a page. “Suspended animation might be of special interest to NASA as it plans its Mars Mission.”
“Very true.” Caine raised her eyebrows. “As for the Chinese, they have The Genesis Code. Who knows how they might try to apply it, whether here on earth or in space?”
“It’s a disquieting thought, to be sure,” said Ambergris. “They have a large population, a well-trained military, and they own most of the world’s assets. They may feel that this is their moment in history. Perhaps GlobeNet will pick up something in the months and years ahead.”
“Perhaps. We’ll have to make sure we stay one step ahead of them.”
“Two steps would be preferable.”
Shotgun Alley
Aboard the Alamiranta
Hawkeye and Aiko stood in the holographic simulation, fully armed. The simulator was currently programmed for jungle conditions in Malaysia.
“Impressive,” said Aiko. “My Dragons naturally conducted training exercises under diverse conditions, but this Shotgun Alley of yours looks far more efficient.”
Hawkeye looked at Aiko, who stood by his side. Hawkeye had frequently admired the Asian beauty of Grace Ngyuen, but Aiko was not only easy on the eye — she was also a soldier. The sunlight filtering through the jungle canopy fell across Aiko’s face in thin lines, making the white scar on her cheek temporarily invisible. He thought that her severe beauty had softened since joining Titan Global.
“Who is our foe today?” asked Aiko.
Hawkeye punched a keypad on the wall. “How about your everyday insurgents attempting to topple a stable democracy?”
“Is it common for Titan Global to intervene in such matters?”
Hawkeye shrugged innocently. “It happens. We spare governments from getting involved in conflicts that might be very unpopular with legislators or the citizenry.”
“Interesting. I saw a movie in the ship’s theater the other night. The heroes staged quite a lot of . . . interventions. The star was someone named John Wayne. Is Titan Six a bunch of . . . cowboys?”
Hawkeye laughed. “We wear the white hats, Commander.”
Machine gun fire erupted from a bamboo thicket to the right. Aiko and Hawkeye dove to the ground and returned fire.
Bullets from above chewed up the dirt on either side of the Titan soldiers, who rolled onto their backs and fired into the canopy. Two bodies fell fifty yards to the leaf-littered jungle floor.
“Nice shooting,” said Hawkeye. “You have a keen eye.”
Low, throaty growls drifted from behind a clump of palm fronds. A ten-foot long tiger appeared, its muscular shoulders rising and falling as the predator padded into the clearing.
Hawkeye inched backwards like a spider.
“Stay very still,” the Commander warned.
Aiko stood and began slowly waving her open right hand back and forth in front of the majestic, terrifying creature. She spoke softly in Chinese. Her other hand then moved in slow, hypnotic circles. The tiger turned and left, as if it were no longer interested in its prey.
“Incredible,” said Hawkeye. “Where did you learn to do that?”
“You in the west have your mojo, and we in the east have ours.”
“I think I’ll have to buy you a white hat.”
“Can you program the Alley so that people could ride out west and camp under the stars?” Aiko asked.
“Yes, we could do that and — ”
The voice of Catherine Caine interrupted the conversation.
“Hawkeye, please report to the command and control center,” said Caine. “We have a hostage situation.”
“Duty calls,” said Hawkeye.
He wasn’t entirely sure, but Hawkeye was almost positive that Aiko’s hand grazed his as they turned and left Shotgun Alley.
The End
Table of Contents
About Christopher Forrest
Also by Christopher Forrest
Prologue
Temple of Fire Page 15