“We would have had to ask the Russians, they had the first sex in space that we know of.”
“How the hell do you know that?”
“A guy’s gotta know what he’s in for on a journey like ours,” he said, pulling the sheet over them to keep the chill off.
They lay there in companionable silence, Bianca toying with the sparse hairs on John’s chest. When their breathing was back to normal, she asked, “Are you okay with this?”
He looked down at her and asked, “Why? Did I seem distracted?”
“No, it’s just, well you know, I woke you up that way—”
“Hold on there. I thought I poked you awake.”
“I may have exaggerated a little. I just want to make sure you’re okay with what happened.”
He paused, thinking, then replied seriously, “I don’t know, maybe we should try it again so I can make absolutely sure,” making her laugh. “I don’t know what your plans are, but I would like to do this again, and maybe again after that. And in the process, I would like to get to know a little more about you, unless this is a mission-ending goodbye.”
She propped her head up on her hands, lying across John’s chest. “This wasn’t some kind of, how do you say—booty call. I know GST has their main office in New York, I would hope to see you as often as possible. There’s no other man in my life, if that’s what you’re worried about.” She paused for a second, then exclaimed, “I’m so sorry, I didn’t even ask if there was someone else in your life.”
John laughed. “Not hardly. There hasn’t really been anyone since Sydney.”
“That’s ten years. Be honest with me, John. Are you still carrying a torch for her? I won’t be offended or hurt if you are and this ends now.”
“No, I closed the door on her when she left Earth. I just haven’t run into anyone who’s been worth the effort.”
“And what if you were offered the chance to join her? Then what?” Bianca asked.
John went silent, as Bianca waited him out.
“I don’t know. If that happened, I would be the only white man in that colony. I have to wonder what that would be like. Maybe not so fun.”
“But if they invited you, what’s the problem?”
“I would still have to think pretty hard about that. There’s how my being there would reflect on Sydney and Joy, how would others treat them if I were there? They’ve been living as a family without me for Joy’s entire life. Injecting me into the situation now would to be one hell of a change for everyone. And I have to believe that Sydney has moved on by now, she’d have had to given the time that’s passed. I can’t see how I could go,” John said sadly.
Bianca reached around and hugged him in sympathy. “That’s John, always thinking about others first.” She turned his head to kiss him on the lips, the kiss growing more passionate by the moment. Soon they were in full-body embrace, the break having given him more than enough time to recover his ardor. The two lost themselves in each other, this time with John taking the upper hand.
Chapter 39
FIGHT THE POWER
Deep in the main command bunker for the Russian Air Force, General Rowan was in the process of ordering the deployment of secret space armaments, remnants of the Soviet nuclear weapons program. He was only able to accomplish this because the Soviet Central Nuclear Authority had been discontinued several decades ago, when the collapsing Soviet Union gave way to a somewhat more democratic Russia. However, there were still Cold War warriors around who had access to the precious launch codes for the old Soviet weapons systems.
“Comrade General, we have visual acquisition of five spacecraft in formation currently orbiting above the United States,” Air Marshal Vasiliev reported in the empty, save for himself and General Rowan, decommissioned command center.
“How far are they from our Kirov satellite?” the general asked, determined to kill those who destroyed their mission control facility.
“I must object, Comrade General. No one knows that we have two such weapons in orbit. If we fire on those spacecraft, we will be revealing to the world that we have violated both the Outer Space Treaty and SALT II.”
“Your objections are duly noted. Now answer my question, how far are those niggers from our closest Kirov nuclear satellite?”
“Eight hundred kilometers, general,” Vasiliev replied.
“Prepare to launch a full salvo at the target on my mark.”
“Yes, sir. On your mark, general.”
“Are the rockets locked onto the targets?”
“I cannot get a radar lock. But I have a laser fix on the largest ship.”
“Then fire.”
“Firing … rockets away,” Vasiliev reported.
“Time to target?”
“Twelve minutes, general.”
“Put the telescope on the main screen.”
The two watched as the rockets accelerated away from the satellite, the glow from their engines flaring bright, then dimming slightly as they pulled away.
* * *
“Alert! Alert!” G3 announced.
“What is it?” Christopher asked, jumping from his bunk, barely beating Andrea to the forward console.
“I have detected missiles launched from a Soviet-era satellite. I calculate a ninety-two percent probability that the rockets are nuclear-armed.”
“Get everyone up, G3. How long do we have until they arrive?” Andrea asked, getting in the pilot’s seat and strapping in.
“Impact in eleven minutes, fifteen seconds.”
“Sit down and strap in, Chris. Now!” she shouted when Christopher didn’t move quickly enough. “G3, all call. Is everyone up?” Andrea called out.
Chuck, Todd, Sondra and Lenny immediately informed her that they were strapped in awaiting her orders.
“Sondra, get a move on away from the planet, and push it. Chuck and Todd, rear guard on the whale, maximum shields. Lenny, you and I will shield them as they move away. Now, everyone!”
Christopher was silent as the spaceships moved away from the oncoming rockets and farther away from the planet. Andrea rotated her jumper so they could watch the incoming rockets.
“Time to impact?” she asked G3.
“Nine minutes, and increasing.”
“Any idea of the range of those rockets?”
“Unknown. I do not have any specifications on the model of the weapon nor the range of the engines.”
“G3, any idea how far away we have to be from a detonation to be safe?” Christopher asked.
“Unknown. I have no specifications on the yield of the warheads. Based on acceleration and an estimate of the size of the rocket that the yield of the nuclear payload could be anywhere from 20 to 100 kilotons”
“Time to impact, G3?” Andrea inquired.
“Thirteen minutes at current acceleration and increasing.”
“All call, G3. Okay everyone, kick it into high gear. I don’t want us anywhere in the neighborhood when those things go off,” Andrea ordered.
“Time to impact, G3?” Andrea asked as they all accelerated away.
“Twenty-two minutes. If you keep accelerating at this rate, all ships will outrun the rockets. They have ceased accelerating, suggesting they are either running out of fuel or are at maximum velocity. Recommend changing course ninety degrees offset in four minutes to allow the rockets to continue past the spacecraft,” suggested the A.I.
“You got that, everyone?” Andrea called out.
“Got it!” Chuck replied.
“Standing by,” Sondra reported.
All of a sudden a blinding light bathed the five spacecraft as one or more of the warheads detonated.
“Radiation, G3?” Christopher immediately inquired.
“Neutron radiation detected. The electromagnetic pulse has not affected any of the systems.”
“Are we protected?”
“Yes. Levels are only six percent above normal, the shields are holding.”
“Were all the warheads detonated or destroyed?” Andrea inquired.
“There is nothing showing on radar, although the electronic interference is making readings unreliable. However, I am detecting a second satellite in orbit matching the profile of the one that launched the rockets. It will pass closest to our current orbit in forty-five minutes.”
“How far away do we have to be in order to be out of range?” Andrea asked.
“I would recommend an orbit at least one hundred thousand miles from the surface of the planet,” G3 replied.
“Screw it. All call, G3. Does anyone have any objection to blasting home immediately and dealing with this bullshit later?” Christopher asked everyone.
“Hell to the naw!” Sondra exclaimed, making everyone laugh.
Lucius added, “I’m getting too old for this shit!”
“Chuck, did you and Andrea work out how we can connect up and head back at top speed?” Christopher asked.
“Sure did. Todd, let’s reconnect with the whale. Sondra, hold her steady,” Chuck said, while maneuvering into position to activate the magnetic skids on his jumper.
Once he and Todd were attached, Andrea and Lenny approached the whale from the sides at Chuck’s direction and activated their ship’s tractor emitters. Once locked into place they increased their shield coverage around all five of the ships.
“Everyone secure?” Andrea asked.
Getting the all clear from the other pilots, Andrea then said, “Set course for the colony, Lenny. The con is yours.”
The joined spacecraft pivoted around to an offset away from the sun and started off. As they began their trip home Christopher gave Earth one last look, then muttered under his breath, “I’ll be dealing with you fuckers later.”
* * *
Without warning millions of cable and satellite television subscribers lost their signals and watched screens go either black or break up into static as the electromagnetic pulse from the detonation in space either disabled or destroyed the communications satellites within range of the explosion. Moments later, electronic devices also failed as the EMP destroyed them.
NORAD’s space-based detection systems went dark, also affected. Even many of the so-called nuclear-hardened satellites were damaged or shocked offline. The ground-based radar systems that were still operational were all put on high alert, searching for signs of missile attack all across the globe.
The president was again rushed to the bunker and all of the nation’s nuclear forces were put on high alert, but on weapons hold status.
“What the hell’s going on?” President Laughlin demanded, once he arrived in the bunker’s observation room—again.
“We had a space detonation of a nuclear weapon, sir. NORAD speculates that the weapon or weapons originated from a Cold War Soviet satellite, and that they were targeting the ships of the separatists. We have no satellite communications available, sir, and large swaths of the Internet are down. Our comms are down except for hardened land lines, and civilian television is completely knocked out. The FM band is affected where transmitters were knocked out by the EMP, AM radio is just hash. It appears that there’s some panic, but that flash was visible all across the country, so people know something is up. Where possible, the armed forces are notifying local authorities that there is no sign of attack and what they saw in the sky was the accidental explosion of an unknown object in orbit. Do you have any orders to go out, Mr. President?”
“If everyone’s sure we’re not under attack,” Laughlin said, looking pointedly at the colonel sitting by the door with the electronic “football” holding the nuclear arming codes, “then let it ride. Everyone knows their responsibilities and what needs to be done. Let them do their jobs, major. Is there any sign that the separatist’s ships were damaged?”
“Based on the distance between where the nuke detonated and where those ships scrammed just before the explosion, the odds are low that they experienced anything more than the same EMP that’s futzed with all of our equipment, sir. According to the positional data we’re receiving from the detectors, it looks like they’re on a course back to their habitat, and they’re wasting no time; they’re already moving at two hundred fifty thousand miles an hour, sir, and still accelerating.”
“Thank you, major. Report when anything new comes in.”
“Yes, sir.”
Laughlin cradled the phone and yawned, wondering whether he was going to spend most of the remainder of his presidency underground. Forty-five minutes later the alert status of the nation’s nuclear forces was dropped to just above normal, but the football-equipped colonel remained in the conference room even as Laughlin retired to his bedroom in the bunker and tried to get a few hours sleep before daylight.
Diplomatic inquiries made to Russia from all over the world were met with denials about the source of the nuclear explosion. It was interesting how everyone believed that it could only have been the Russians responsible for the explosion in space, making the Russian military leadership realize that maybe their launch of the two nuclear-armed satellites decades back, wasn’t as secret as they had thought.
And though Laughlin was completely convinced of the source of the weapons, without proof he wasn’t about to start a diplomatic mash-up in the middle of the night. The last thought he had before dropping off to sleep was to wonder what was going to happen to the Russians if they did cook off a nuke toward the separatists’ ships.
* * *
Maxwell and Phillip were having a quiet lunch in the commons, sitting away from most everyone else embroiled in private discussion.
“We’ve had a day to think about it, and Chris will be back in just over a week, what do you think about him wanting to call the question once he returns?” Maxwell.
Phillip pulled out his datapad and scrolled through the message Christopher had sent, commenting, “He’s certainly thought everything through. As for implementation, he’s covered all the bases except for selection criteria. He thinks that should be up for discussion by the community.”
“What has me concerned is that his calling the question in and of itself is going to change things around here, regardless of how the community decides. I think because of Earth’s actions of late, Chris has decided that it’s time for us to end our passive attitude toward our former home. I would prefer to maintain the status quo, but these two attacks and the grabbing of Lucius and Julius have escalated things in a most alarming way,” Maxwell said. “Frankly, even I think their behavior is unacceptable.”
“The ethicist in me likes the opportunity to chart the direction of the planet in a more mature and productive way instead of letting it go to hell in a handbasket. But I’m still not sure how I feel about this,” Phillip confessed. “Is our small community going to be enough to affect real change?”
“You mean the tail wagging the dog? There will be changes and challenges. It remains to be seen what they end up being. I will say this, Chris showed considerable restraint in the end, although I did find the video of his conversation with the president quite entertaining!”
The colony was abuzz once the word had gone out that the two expeditions were on their way back from Earth with all hands accounted for. Patricia was relieved that Christopher’s temper hadn’t resulted in anyone being hurt or killed. Knowing everyone was safely on their way back, Patricia and a host of others were also anxiously awaiting the arrival of all the things that had accumulated on the colony’s wish list for the past decade. Everyone was keyed up, anticipating getting their hands on things both needed and wanted.
Peanut was quite relieved that none of the mission crew were any worse for the wear. He and Christopher were in a furiously-paced written dialogue, only part of which was about scheduling the interdimensional p
robe test. Christopher had G3 collect all the sensor readings from the nuclear explosion and transfer them to Peanut’s servers for deep analysis. Most specifically, he was looking at the efficacy of the enhanced shields, and trying, with Peanut’s help, to determine exactly how they could be configured to be a more effective protection from any such weapons in the future. He also had the engineering team start to equip all their spacecraft with enhanced shields so they could travel at the high speeds the Jupiter-equipped jumpers had demonstrated. In the process, he made arrangements to have an engineering crew run some speed tests on heavily shielded jumpers and whales to see what speeds they could actually achieve.
The next phase of the colony’s development was further exploration of the solar system and creation of additional large-scale habitats. And, based on the fact that there might not be any opportunity to visit Earth in the foreseeable future, Christopher launched an investigative panel to research mining of metals, water and anything else they would need to expand their reach to the nearby asteroid belt or the rings and moons of the solar system’s gas giants.
Things were going to change radically once Christopher returned to the colony and called the question he’d been thinking about ever since Lucius was picked up by the authorities. Launching the Jove and Svoboda missions was the clearest evidence that Earth was determined to expand its reach into the solar system as quickly as possible. The fact that two private/public partnerships had managed to form and produce such successful spacecraft was proof that unenlightened self-interest could drive efforts producing disturbing technological achievement.
NASA’s push to the moon would result in the U.S. leapfrogging everyone else on the planet and taking the first step in extending its hegemony beyond a rapidly crowding Earth, into the rest of the solar system. Under the current circumstances, this could not be allowed to happen if Christopher had anything to say about it. His days of running away were over.
* * *
During the day Bianca and John continued their medical tests and debriefings on the mission; in the evenings they hung out with the rest of the crew until it was time to retire, and Biana made no pretense about the fact that she was spending her nights in John’s room.
Confrontation Page 67