by Bob Blanton
“Here I go,” Liz said as the Hover Fox launched itself into the air. It made a vertical ascent to one hundred feet in just two seconds. “Whoa, that was fast,” Liz said.
“What happened?” Catie asked.
“The grav drives provide more lift than we accounted for,” Liz said.
“Cer Liz, the lift was accounted for,” ADI said.
“I mean than I accounted for,” Liz said. “I was using the same lift settings I used for the other Hover Fox.”
Liz went through a set of maneuvers with the Hover Fox. “Man, this thing is agile,” she said, “better than the Cobra I used to fly.”
“Do a full flight transition, then come home,” Catie said. “Daddy and Uncle Blake are waiting for an update.”
“I’ll be there in twenty,” Liz said as her Fox roared off toward the north.
◆ ◆ ◆
“Okay, so what do we know?” Marc asked.
“Both models work as designed,” Liz said. “The second one is just more agile, a much better combat plane.”
“As I suspected, there are other advantages to the grav drives,” Catie said. “We do need to upsize the fusion reactor so we have enough power for both weapons and the drive, unless you’re willing to give up the plasma cannons when the drive is active.”
“That’s unacceptable,” Liz said.
“I agree,” Blake said. “Make them right or don’t make them at all. We don’t want a pilot to be confused about when his weapons work.”
“Okay, let me think,” Marc said. “To make them, we have to use printer time, plus we use more of the rare elements that make up the drive. On top of that, we risk exposure of the Sakira,” Marc said.
“The first model is perfectly adequate to deal with the pirates,” Liz said.
“Okay, then let’s start making them,” Marc said. “Catie, plan on at least four of them with the grav drives; we’ll hold them in reserve, but with limited exposure, so only you, Blake, Liz, and Fred are to know about them.”
“Got it. I think I can print the other three sets over the next two months,” Catie said. “What do we do with the Foxes we modified?”
“Scrap them,” Blake said. “We don’t want to risk a pilot on a Fox with a potentially compromised airframe. You can pull out the unaffected parts and reuse them.”
“I agree,” Marc said. “How long to build one with the new design?”
“Another week,” Catie said.
“How are you doing it so fast?” Blake asked.
“Started it two weeks ago,” Catie said.
“Girl, you do like to play poker,” Blake said.
“Sure, what was there to lose,” Catie said. “I was confident we were close enough we could make it work.”
“Okay, so we just need to train a few pilots, and then we’ll have an interesting shipment to China ready to go,” Marc said.
“Can we hold the one unit back for training until we get the ones from manufacturing?” Catie asked.
“I think that’s okay,” Blake said. “Minimal stress, just get them used to takeoff and landings.”
“How many do we build?” Catie asked.
“Make ten,” Blake said. “That should cover us.”
“Can I change the design of all the Foxes to accommodate the grav drives?” Catie asked. “We don’t have to install them. And the change doesn’t impact the planes in any other way, no extra mass.”
“I agree,” Blake said.
“Then do it,” Marc agreed. “I like having options.”
◆ ◆ ◆
“Do you think we’ll see a pirate attack on this one?” Kal asked as they watched the Chinese freighter head away from Delphi City.
“I hope not,” Marc said, “but I expect it.”
“Won’t they be surprised when those Foxes pop off the deck,” Catie said.
“Yes, they’ll be surprised,” Marc said. “I just hope we can get a few prisoners out of it.”
“That last pirate still claiming to just be a stowaway?” Blake asked.
“That’s the last thing the Chinese told us,” Kal said. “He’s sticking to that story, of course; with the penalty for piracy in China being execution, what choice does he have?”
“They still won’t give him to us?” Blake asked.
“Nope, Sam’s tried several times,” Marc said. “They just refuse.”
“When do the Foxes join up with the freighter?” Catie asked.
“Three days,” Kal said. “We don’t want anyone to know they’re aboard. We rotate the pilots every four days after that.”
“Couldn’t convince any of the pilots to do the whole eighteen days?” Blake asked.
“No, you know what babies they are,” Kal replied. “Just goes to show you how soft you get when your job is just sitting in a cockpit playing with a joystick.”
“I wouldn’t call our pilots soft,” Blake said. Then after the challenging look Kal gave him, he added, “Of course, most of them can’t measure up to your guys.”
◆ ◆ ◆
Catie was running to the boardroom. ADI had just alerted the board that there was another pirate attack underway.
“Why didn’t the captain call us before now?” Catie asked as she reached the boardroom where Blake and Marc were already reviewing the situation.
“The pirates had all comm channels scrambled. It wasn’t until the pilots reached their Foxes and were able to use the quantum link that we knew anything,” Blake explained.
On the display, they could see one Fox hovering next to the freighter below the line of sight. The second Fox must have been next to it, providing the camera view.
“Did they fire at her yet?” Catie asked.
“No, they’re just approaching at high speed,” Blake said. “Everyone is waiting to see if they’re hostile or not.”
“They look pretty hostile to me,” Liz said as she walked up next to Catie. The camera mounted on the freighter’s comm tower was showing the second vessel kicking up a huge wake as it approached the freighter.
“Here it comes,” Kal said just before the pirate vessel fired a cannon shot across the freighter’s bow. The two Foxes immediately popped up from behind the freighter and flew toward the pirate ship. The first one immediately used its plasma cannon to take out the pirates’ cannon.
“We’re telling them to surrender,” Lieutenant Pike said, “but they are still jamming communications.”
“Fire across their bow again,” Kal ordered.
“Yes, sir,” Lieutenant Pike replied. He fired one plasma cannon burst across the bow of the pirate ship. “Scrambler is off!”
“Sink it, use a plasma cannon to put a hole at the waterline!” Catie yelled. “Hurry!”
Marc relayed Catie’s order then turned to his daughter, “Please explain why I just ordered them to sink that ship?” he asked.
“They blew the last one up,” Catie said. “This way, the crew can abandon ship--you wanted prisoners.”
“The pirates are abandoning ship,” Lieutenant Pike announced.
“What makes you think they’re going to blow this one up, too?” Marc asked.
“Communications,” Catie said just as a huge explosion went off. Turning back to the display, everyone could see the ship was gone.
“Any survivors?” Blake asked.
“It looks like we have four or five,” Lieutenant Pike announced. “We’ll start picking them up.”
“How did you know?” Blake asked.
“Communications,” Catie said again.
“You think it was a remote detonation?” Kal asked.
“Yes. As soon as they reported their failure, it seemed probable that whoever blew the last one up would blow this one up too,” Catie said.
“Well, you certainly called it,” Kal said. “How do we bring the prisoners here? We don’t want the Chinese to get them.”
“We send a Fox with a passenger carrier strapped to it,” Liz said.
“A passenger carrier?”
Kal asked.
“Hey, I plan ahead,” Liz said. “It’s basically a metal box that will strap to the bottom of the Fox. It’ll be good enough for the few hours it will take to get back here. We’ll need to send a medic out to make sure we take care of any injuries first.”
“Do it,” Marc said. “I want those prisoners here ASAP.”
“On it,” Kal said, and he immediately started issuing orders through his comm.
◆ ◆ ◆
The prisoners readily admitted that they were under orders from Russia. Marc had Ambassador Hannaford present the evidence to the UN and make a formal protest. The Russians with U.S. support denounced the evidence as circumstantial and contrived.
“You will not succeed in besmirching my country’s good name,” Ambassador Lobanov told Ambassador Hannaford when he caught her in the elevator after the assembly meeting.
“It is not your country’s good name that I am besmirching, but the current leadership,” Ambassador Hannaford replied. “We both know that your government was behind the attack on those freighters.”
“Lies!” Ambassador Lobanov said. “You would do well to remember that Russia is a powerful country.”
“I know you are powerful,” Ambassador Hannaford said. “But know this, Delphi will not be intimidated.”
“Why would we need to intimidate you,” Ambassador Lobanov said. “With the wave of our hand, we could wipe Delphi City from the map.”
“Is that a threat?”
“No, it is a promise. We will not let you destroy the economy of Russia. You need to decide how important it is to sell your reactors. What good will it do you if you all have to swim.”
Marc had prepared Margaret for the possibility of such a blatant threat. She reached into her purse, and Ambassador Lobanov’s security detail immediately reached out to restrain her.
“Don’t worry,” Margaret said. “I just have a present for the ambassador.” Margaret pulled out a small ball and handed it to the ambassador. “We keep these around Delphi Station. We use them in some of our manufacturing. Some of them are enormous, up to ten meters in diameter. Tell your masters that we’ll be delivering its larger brother to Iwaki Island tomorrow at twelve-oh-seven GMT. I’m sure your scientists will be anxious to watch the delivery.”
◆ ◆ ◆
“What is going on?” the president asked as he entered the situation room at the White House.
“Mr. President, Russia’s military has just gone to high alert,” General Wilson said.
“Why?” the president asked.
“We’re not sure,” General Wilson said. “But a meteorite just hit Iwaki Island; it is a small island in the Kuril Islands just south of the Kamchatka peninsula.”
“Why would that put them on alert?”
“After that show at the UN yesterday, the fact that it is a Russian island, and that it was just hit by a meteorite that came in at a seventy-degree angle and hit that island dead center makes one pause.”
“Wasn’t Kamchatka hit by a meteorite just a couple of years ago?” the president asked.
“Yes, it was,” General Wilson said as he referred to his notes. He was shocked that the president would remember the event. It had resulted in an explosion equivalent to one-hundred-seventy kilotons, ten times the power of the atomic bomb that destroyed Hiroshima. “The estimates are that this was a rather small explosion compared to that, just over seventeen tons.”
“So why all the excitement?”
“The Russian ambassador was overheard making threats to the Delphi ambassador,” Director Lassiter said. “We did not get details of the conversation, but the Delphi ambassador didn’t seem intimidated, and she gave the Russian something.”
“What?” the president asked.
“It looked like a metal ball,” Director Lassiter said.
“If they have the ability to drop iron meteorites with precision, then we definitely have a problem,” General Wilson said. “The data I’ve been given shows that a four-meter- diameter iron meteorite dropped at the same angle as we just saw, would match the Kamchatka meteorite in power.”
“That means that they essentially have nuclear weapons,” the president said with awe. “That is terrible news.”
“Yes it is, and an iron meteorite traveling at that speed would be impossible to intercept,” General Wilson said.
The president flopped back into his chair. “We are screwed. I knew we should have dealt with them sooner!”
“Sir, we need to find a way to neutralize them, or at least get them on our side,” Secretary Palmero said.
A colonel came rushing into the room. “Sir, we have further news from NASA.”
“What is it?” General Wilson demanded.
“The Russians have just lost five of their spy satellites,” the colonel said. “NASA says they just disappeared.”
“I think we know who’s behind that,” Secretary Palmero said. “It appears that they’ve decided to take the gloves off.”
Chapter 15
Whose Asteroid?
“Daddy,” Catie said as she knocked on the door jamb to Marc’s office.
“What’s up, Sweetie?” Marc answered.
“I’ve been thinking about the asteroid,” Catie said. She walked in and sat down in the chair in front of his desk, curling her legs underneath herself.
“And?”
“I think there is something wrong with it,” Catie said.
“In what way?”
“What’s the probability of an asteroid of that size being on a vector between Paraxea and Earth, and at that velocity?”
“I don’t know, I would assume it is very tiny,” Marc said.
“Too many zeros to count,” Catie said. “But what is the probability that someone from Paraxea launched an asteroid of that size toward Earth for some unknown reason?”
Marc jerked forward in his chair. “I would assume the same number of zeros,” he said.
“No, and when you add in Commander Centag’s murder of Sakira’s captain, it’s only about twenty million to one,” Catie said.
“I assume you’ve gone over this with ADI?”
“Yes, Captain,” ADI said. “I apologize for not recognizing the disparity in the probabilities. But when Cer Catie asked me to calculate them, it seemed too much of a coincidence.”
“I should have listened to Sam,” Marc said.
“Why, wasn’t she just being superstitious?” Catie asked.
“I don’t think so; I suspect she intuited the probabilities but couldn’t tell what it was that bothered her,” Marc said. “So, what do you think we should do?”
“We should go and have a look at it,” Catie said.
“Blake, Sam, Admiral Michaels, my office please,” Marc said into his comm.
“What’s up?” Blake said as they entered the office. Marc pointed to a chair and held up one finger signaling he wanted to wait for the other two.
Blake’s office was right across the hall, so he was the first to arrive. Samantha came in right behind him and pulled up another chair at the meeting table. Marc was just moving over to the table when the admiral came in. They both sat down as Catie moved her chair to the table.
“Catie has come up with something I think you should all hear,” Marc said. “Catie, please repeat your theory.”
After Catie finished going over it again, Samantha pointed at Blake, “I knew you jinxed us,” she said.
“Oh, come on,” Blake said, “don’t tell me you’re superstitious?”
“No, but I just knew it was going to be a problem,” Samantha said. “And the timing couldn’t be worse; we just threw the gauntlet down with the Russians.”
“We had to do that,” Marc said. “They would have started sinking our freighters if we hadn’t.”
“They might call your bluff,” Admiral Michaels said.
“Who said I was bluffing,” Marc said.
“You wouldn’t seriously destroy a Russian city,” Samantha said.
&
nbsp; “No, but I would drop a few rocks close to one, and make it clear to the population where they came from,” Marc said.
“Let’s deal with one crisis at a time,” Blake said. “We should send a mission to see what’s up with the asteroid,” Blake said. “It should be obvious if it’s being controlled by Paraxea.”
“What use would a huge asteroid like that be?” Marc asked. He was looking at Admiral Michaels.
Admiral Michaels took a couple of minutes before he answered. “First, it is obviously a big weapon. Second, it might be hiding something. It is big, which means it could shield something. Third, maybe resources. It could be made up of the kind of material they would want to use once they got here.”
“I agree,” Samantha said. “We have to find a way to get a look without being detected by someone on or behind that asteroid.”
Marc looked at Catie, whose eyes had grown big. “Okay, what did you think up?” he asked her.
“We could use our own asteroid,” Catie said. “We could mount gravity drives on it and an observation system, then fly it by the other asteroid. We wouldn’t have to get that close.”
“Wouldn’t that tip them off? The same probabilities would apply,” Marc asked.
“Yes, but we would use a small asteroid and send it from a vector off from the side, like it was in a huge solar orbit. We could shut everything down and run the observation recorders off capacitors when we’re in range of the big asteroid.”
“How big an asteroid?” Blake asked.
“Six meters,” Catie said. “It has to be big enough to handle three of the gravity drives.”
“If we use the small ones, it could be smaller than that,” Blake countered.
“But we need to be able to accelerate it hard. Those drives just barely have any power,” Catie said. “If we use the bigger ones that we used when we got our asteroids, we can push the asteroid out from our asteroid belt, on a perpendicular vector, and then bring it back past Thalia at an oblique angle. That would hide its origins and give us the best look at what’s going on there.”
“Would we be able to recover it?” Marc asked.
“Sure, it’ll be able to accelerate at ten-Gs, so we can cover the distance fast,” Catie said. “And since we’ll have the gravity drives, I think we should pick up another asteroid from the belt, preferably two.”