“Farrell?”
“It’s good from our point of view. At the moment we have no purchase on this issue whatsoever. As soon as we have military in the area Colonel Shaw becomes a player again, and her words as well as ours will carry real weight. I’ll look in to this Anthony Karjalainen, and we’ll think about what sort of governmental structure we might be able to put in place.”
“Mr Vice President?”
Gerard White drew a deep and deliberate breath. “You know what I think. This is over the top and provocative. This isn’t foreign policy as I would run it. I don’t know if maybe the last seven years have got us thinking about these things in the wrong way. If we’ve become too used to wielding our swords rather than our powers of persuasion. But if you think this is the right thing to do then you have my support.”
“I do think it’s the right thing to do and I think Secretary Andrews and Secretary Farrell agree with me. This is what we are going to do. Audrey, can you get me an update on how things are going with the Aloadae?”
“Yes, Mr President.”
“And Charles, look in to this Anthony Karjalainen or any other suitable characters that we might need if it comes to it.”
“Yes, Mr President.”
“Mr Vice President, I appreciate your support, but if you want to keep your distance from this in public go ahead. It might be useful for us to have some doves on board when it comes down to the negotiations. Okay?”
“Thank you very much, Mr President,” said White. “I guess that suits both of us.”
“It does,” said Cortes.
“Where are we at?”
“We’re good.”
“What’s good? You know the president is about to launch a war against Mars. It better be good. It better be better than good.” White walked beside Sherman as they ambled around the lake in Bachman Park. Two Secret Service personnel were keeping a discreet distance sixty metres behind them. Another two were sixty metres ahead.
“We have what you asked for. They’re assembling the assault teams. All commanders, all combat vets. We have someone.”
“Are they in?”
“I can’t say yet. The teams are still being put together. But we have candidates.”
“And these are reliable people? The candidates?”
“Very.”
“What do they know about what’s required?”
“Look, they’re all current or former commanders, from the program. They’ve all been to war, they know what the score is better than you do. They’re cynical about Cortes and the wars. They’d be onside even if they weren’t being compensated. You can trust them.”
“I wouldn’t trust anybody who’d rat out their comrades for money. You haven’t dealt with anyone directly? Deniability is central to this. If anything goes wrong, nothing touches me. Better yet nothing touches you. You’re discreet, right?”
“Always.”
“This thing that’s happening needs to not happen. Now, a spanner in the works, food poisoning, whatever it takes. The more mundane the better. Failed health and safety checks, I don’t care. We just need those refits to take as long as government commissions usually take, or even longer, and we need the budgets to spiral and we need everything to go wrong that can go wrong. All plausible, all untraceable. You understand that?”
“I understand. We’re running interference.”
“Exactly. Interference, delay. That’s the mission, and nothing beyond. Helios have told defence they can have those ships ready in four months. In a pig’s eye. We just need to help them be as inefficient as we know they can be.”
“We can cover that.”
“When are they making the final selections?”
“Soon. It’s all hush-hush. We’ll have someone.” Sherman stopped walking and White was forced to stop too. He turned to face him. “I know this is all softly-softly delaying tactics. But what do you really want? These two machines are state of the art, cutting edge designs, now with experimental engines, too. There are a millions things that could go wrong with them. Just an enquiry into a serious failure could take months, years to complete. Even then it might not find anything, particularly if we’re careful. That would heap on even more delays.”
“I hope you’re not saying what I think you are. That is off the table. Understand?”
“Mr Vice President,” said Sherman, smiling for the first time that afternoon, “you misunderstand me. All I’m saying is we can throw popcorn from the back row and be a pain in the ass, and add the odd day or week here and there, or, with such highly technical, experimental machinery we might nudge something the right way and all of a sudden there’s a major setback. That’s what you want, isn’t it?”
“I want those ships to stay right where they are. I want absolute distance from anything that happens up there. And I want it to happen simply, with minimal fuss. Goddammit, I’ll bet this is the first time in their history that Helios will actually hit their deadlines on time.” He started walking again and Sherman followed on just behind his shoulder.
“I’ll see to it that that doesn’t happen, Mr Vice President.”
Sherman had always been a shady character. He revelled in it. Even his legitimate dealings, of which there were many, had dubious undertones. He liked operating at the margins. He liked late night meetings in dodgy bars. He liked stepping over the line. He was the sort of man who might win the lottery then steal a tin of beans from the local supermarket.
He liked to keep his contacts separate from each other. To all of them he had a murky background. Contacts, connections with others, no doubt, but names or faces? Who knew? You couldn’t ask him, either. He was a master of obfuscation and evasion and if he ever sensed you were anywhere near figuring something out on him he would be gone. You’d be dropped - a security risk in the real or imagined world of Rodney Sherman.
Sherman pulled into a space on the deserted top floor of a parking garage at one of the out of town malls. He waited half an hour before getting out of his car and walking leisurely to one corner of the level. From there he could see the open car park and access roads beyond, and the mall itself off toward the left. It was 02:40.
As if it had melted from the darkness itself a figure appeared beside him. Sherman barely acknowledged the man as he reached into his jacket and pulled out a packet of cigarettes. He offered one to Sherman, who shook his head in refusal. The man lit his cigarette and inhaled from it deeply. He flicked his match over the side of the building, where it lost its flame and disappeared into the darkness.
“We’re good,” he said.
“We are?” said Sherman.
“Yes. The final selection has been made. They’ve been assigned to the assault teams. Assignments to each individual vessel will come later. But we’re in.”
“What about communications once they’re aboard?”
“We have channels.”
“Are you sure? Those are military ships. Security is going to be through the roof.”
“Relax. We know what we’re doing. And we’re very discreet.”
Sherman nodded. “What do you need from me?”
“Further instructions and money.”
“The money comes when I know he’s in. The instructions remain those we already agreed to. Disrupt the refit, stop the Aloadae from leaving for Mars any time soon.”
“You think it’s a he?”
“I don’t give a shit. The less I know the better. When I know he - or she - is onboard and causing delays you get the money.”
“How?”
“Same as before. That okay with you?”
“It’s good.”
“Don’t contact me unless absolutely necessary.”
“Of course. Anything else?”
Sherman shrugged. “You should think about quitting smoking. It’s a disgusting habit.”
The man took a deep drag from his cigarette. As he grinned back at Sherman plumes of smoke streamed between his teeth.
Askel worked diligen
tly on the refit project. She had made three EVAs in eight weeks. The first was to inspect the ion drives that the ship needed for manoeuvrability. The second was to take delivery of the NFJ engine, delivered into orbit from Earth on a HLV boneshaker, just as she had been. This third time was to oversee the moving of the engine into place on Ephialtes.
The original engine had been removed early on. It was a simple yet time consuming reversal of the installation process. The ship could still manoeuvre with the ion drives. The main engine was for speed. They had been orbiting sans main engine for most of the time Askel had been aboard.
Askel had a three dimensional overlay of Ephialtes, the new engine and the construction drones manoeuvring it projected virtually in front of her. She studied it carefully and compared it to the actual events, which she could see by refocusing through the overlay and simply looking around. She could speak to the teams operating the drones through her com. She was untethered and could, with a few quick bursts from her jetpack, make her way to wherever she needed to be in the mix. The Earth turned lazily below her.
“Bring the rear end around a bit,” she said into her com.
“Five degrees lower,” came the reply.
“Five degrees. Make it seven?” said Askel.
“Affirmative, seven.”
“Ephialtes, please prepare the mounts.”
“The mounts are ready.”
“Okay, please stand by.” Askel moved herself until she was behind the engine. She could see it was lined up pretty well. “Drones one and two, please begin the approach to Ephialtes at no more than one metre per minute”
“Roger.”
Askel used her jets to circle the engine, looking for any damage or other anomalies. She checked the alignment was good, or good enough, then moved back for a better overview. Behind her was the Earth, one of the most magnificent sights in the solar system, but she was fully immersed in what amounted to threading a very big needle.
“Cameras three, five and seven, how do we look?”
“Uh, this is camera seven, you need to move up by about eight centimetres.”
“Camera five, we are within the tolerances here.”
“Camera three, we’re good here too.”
Askel floated around to drone seven’s position to check for herself, and seeing the problem said, “Drone one, just a two second burst, please.”
“Roger.”
She saw the small burst of gas from one of the jets on drone one. The movement it created was so small as to be imperceptible. “Camera seven, how are we looking now?” she said.
“Camera seven, looks good to me. In the zone.”
Askel’s eyes were fixed on the end of the engine as it approached the bay. It was smaller than the space it had to fit into but the margins were slight. “Cameras three and five, are we still good?”
“Three’s good.”
“Five. Good here.”
“Drone team, give me your relative speeds, please.”
“Drone super here, we have 0.83 metres per minute.”
“Keep it there,” said Askel. “Mount team, stand by.”
“Copy, standing by.”
The bulk of Askel’s work on this particular job was now done. The engine was aligned and now slowly moving into position in the engine bay of Ephialtes. She spent an anxious ninety minutes checking and rechecking all the information coming into her headset and making verbal enquiries to the three major teams on the operation. When the engine was in place temporary mounts tightened around it. The clunks as the mounts fell into place reverberated around the huge vessel. Askel only heard them second hand through her com. When the eighth and final mount clunked into a locked position Askel heard the cheers too, and the clapping of hands.
“Askel, I think we have a new engine. Thanks very much, you can come on in now.”
Askel smiled. “You have the engine. Now we just have to wire the damn thing up. Well done all of you, but we’ve a long way to go yet.”
She stayed a while to look at the engine and hoped she would be able to deliver on all she had promised. She watched the construction drones make their way back to their bays and finally spun around for a view of the Earth.
“It’s amazing, isn’t it?” she said into her com, to no one in particular.
“It is amazing, Askel, but we need you back in here. Propulsion have a question about the mounts.”
“Okay,” said Askel as she made her way to the airlock and prepared to get back to work.
Askel’s plans had been thorough and well thought out. They had gone mostly to schedule with only a few minor delays. There had been some personnel issues too, but that was behind them now. Once the work was under way Askel was busy every waking moment. She knew her plans were good, but they were only plans. The real world, and ‘problems arising’, were where the real skills came in. The world as it was and as it was represented in the plans, schematics and records diverged somewhat. Thinking on the fly and reacting was what Askel was good at. Improvising and making the best choices given the limitations and materials available.
Now the engine was in position she had some real meat to work with. Real world data to mix with her plans. The engine was mounted on temporary mounts. They would need to be replaced with stronger permanent mounts, which in themselves were a little miracle of design, accommodating the original specification of Ephialtes with the newer spec of the prototype NFJ engine, where the mounts were in a different position.
She set at the work with abandon, pulling extended shifts and often working long into the night. When she wasn’t at her terminal she could be found in grimy overalls, deep in conversation with the engineers right there, getting literally hands on to any issues arising. Askel could solve problems and muck in with anyone from grease monkeys to senior project engineers.
Work was progressing. They had slipped behind their schedule but only by a couple of days. It was a huge project, involving manual labour, software design, cabling as well as man management, accounting and above all engineering.
Less than a week after the NFJ engine had been fitted it was fired up for the first time, albeit briefly, for some cursory testing. More real-world data for Askel to work with. She plugged the data into her models and refined here, re-jigged there then retested, then back round again. Test, process results, refine design, rework the system and back around to test.
Askel had enjoyed running marathons back on Earth. She applied the same mentality to the huge task in front of her. Head down, concentrate on the immediate task. Forget what’s happened, don’t think about what might happen, concentrate on now, make it work, move to the next task. She processed her work like a machine. She held her consciousness off to the side, like she was blocking out pain. Her mind was tightly focused on the task. The task was all that mattered. Each task was a sequence of small tasks. Take each task, break it down into smaller tasks, do the task, move to the next one, carry on. One foot in front of the other. It was tiring, oppressive but also strangely liberating.
Two weeks on from the installation of the engine the permanent mounts were finished. The major cabling to the new engine was complete and the overhauled software control systems were at beta stage two. They had caught up, as well. They were now just one day behind schedule. With the engine installation nearly complete Askel could spend more time working on the other systems. Life support, food, oxygen, waste processing and auxiliary power all had to be more resilient for interplanetary travel. From low Earth orbit it would be possible to, in effect, bailout to the Earth below. The dropships were designed to get to the surface of the Earth in minutes. In an emergency it would be possible to evacuate the mothership. A hundred and forty million miles away from home there had to be alternatives should things go wrong. The NFJ engine needed only a fraction of the fuel that the chemical engine needed. The extra space gained was utilised to make more resilient fallback systems for anything critical to the survival of the crew. Additional space was needed too for munitions; at suc
h a long range there would be no opportunity to be restocked from a friendly bone-shaker. The ship was being made into a self-sufficient long-distance spacecraft carrier.
One evening Askel was working at her terminal when she received a call from Rawls. “How’s it going?” he said.
“Good. There have been wrinkles - you heard about the spill duct - but we’re on top of it now. I estimate we’ll be done pretty much as estimated on the work schedule.”
“That’s incredible,” said Rawls. “When we sold that to Andrews I thought you were kidding. I don’t think we’ve ever brought a project in on time. I thought it would be twice as long as the estimate, minimum.”
“Is that the extent of your faith in my abilities?”
“Well, I have to be honest, maybe it was, but it certainly isn’t now. I knew you were good Lund, I just didn’t realise you were this good. I guess I’m going to have to give you a raise. That or fire you; you’ve got me looking over my shoulder.”
Askel smiled. “You don’t have to worry about me, Rawls. Should it ever become necessary I’ll stab you in the front, not the back.”
She heard Rawls chuckle down the line. “That’s good to know,” he said. “Can I take this date to Andrews? I doubt she’ll really believe it either. I’d love to see the look on her face.”
“Well,” said Askel, “it’s still only an estimate, but go ahead. We’ve done all the heavy lifting, as it were, although we did do some actual heavy lifting. The next four weeks are really snagging and finishing off. I guess it might be Murphy’s Law that some minor thing will hold us up for weeks, but it shouldn’t, not on paper anyway. Take the date to Andrews.”
“I’ll do that. Anything you need from me?”
“Just your ongoing support.”
Ephialtes (Ephialtes Trilogy Book 1) Page 25