April (54 page)

"Yeah it should work." The guys use an omni-directional antenna around the station. But besides the construction shack, most of the scooters have a dish for longer range work at the same frequencies and once their system detects a weak signal it will automatically switch over to the dish."

"You have to fly in a scooter and can't be stopping to aim an antennae, so the dishes are made to auto locate and lock on a signal. If you are positioned just right sometimes you get an unexpected auto lock on and can talk to a moon buggy or a hopper shuttle on Luna with a scooter radio. It amused us when it would happen, because sometimes it was hilarious the confusing things both parties would say, before they figured out who they had locked on."

"We should connect with somebody even if the shack is not in line of sight. Once we are both on the dishes, the local net will not hear what the local boy is saying to us, unless the shack patches it in. But our signal will cover the whole work area there around M3 from this far away, so we have to make sure we don't mind anybody on the local suit and ship channel hearing what we have to say."

Singh Nam-Kah spoke up again. "Are you sure you want to break this secrecy wide open? Is there perhaps the possibility you will just be publishing our part, in what many others will regard as a criminal act?

"Nam-Kah, there is no way the USNA is going to let us get away with destroying their space plane, even if they would cover it up to the public. The Chinese and the USNA both know their ships are gone. They may not know the last confusing seconds in detail, but both governments were talking to their ships when they were destroyed. They know who to blame. Wasn't anybody else out here but us, who could be responsible, even if they hadn't got a word off before they were destroyed. They could charge us or they could just punish us in secret. We could disappear and never be seen again."

"I've seen black ops just for the purpose of destroying enemies of the country in secret. Hell - I worked some of those ops myself. No. We're committed. There's no way to go back and undo the deed," Easy assured her. "And although
you
didn't decide to open fire on the station to escape, I doubt if you would escape blame for what we did, just for coming along as a passenger. They would say you were aware it might come to violence when you decided to defect. We don't have anything to lose now."

"Then I suggest you put the whole thing out before the world. Tell everybody they are going to take M3 over and steal the Rock before it happens and before they have a chance to capture us and make us disappear. And since losing those shuttles doesn't seem to be enough to cause them alarm, let's do as April suggested and take their satellites out, until they damn well notice and acknowledge there's a problem!" she said, with uncharacteristic anger.

"OK." April said. "Then we better make sure if we make contact through the construction gang we upload everything we can while we have a channel. Because the government might figure out how to cut off our communications again quickly. We should send a message to our families and Jon. I think I can get Jon on the channel to talk, even without asking for a tie in," she said, remembering the 898989 number. I want to run the satellite idea past him and see what he thinks.

"How are we going to make it believable and make a European or an African news channel pick it up and put it on the Earth nets?"

"Didn't you tell me your brother is rather mercenary, when it comes to money and business deals?" Easy asked.

April looked at Easy funny. "Well yeah, mercenary is not the word I used, but it is pretty accurate. He will take advantage of me, even though I'm his sister, if I let him get away with it. I had to warn Jon to watch him with the scooter deal, because he could end up with most of the funds in his pocket and not feel the least bit badly about it. It's embarrassing sometimes, but what can I do?" she asked.

"I suggest you
use
it. Let's not beg somebody to take our story as a freebie. Human nature being what it is, people don't value what you offer for free. Let's send the data to everybody who needs to know. Jon, Jeff and Heather, your parents, my Ruby. And let's make sure the construction guys all know through our contact, because the grapevine those guys have will spread it across a couple dozen countries within a day." "But to get the story to the media, lets tell your brother to
sell
the story for as much as he can get and you'll split whatever he can get with him. In fact, suggest maybe he can sell it several times, if he moves fast enough."

"It's brilliant," April admitted. "Absolutely brilliant. It will harness every bit of his business skills. There isn't any better way to motivate him. But we all contributed to this story and we're taking all the risks. I'll tell him he has an equal share with all of us on board, not a split. It's plenty generous for him sitting home safe to do what just comes naturally. So, what do we send? How do we tell the story?"

"I wouldn't try to edit it. Let the writers and news organizations edit it. It's their area of expertise after all," Easy suggested. "Just take the raw files from the camera arm shooting and our radio log. Once they have the story they will go looking to prove or disprove the political side locally. I know it will be missing parts, but there is enough there to get the outline. And there have to be Earthies who can verify it from their end. They've never had video of a space battle. I doubt if spaceships have ever fought within sight of each other. It will wow them big time."

April suddenly jerked with realization. "Easy, I can add the missing elements you want. Including Jan talking to us in the boom at ISSII, about M3 being taken over. Since this is my first flight and everything is so new, I've been running my suit camera and recorder anytime I was in the suit. I wanted a complete record to review and learn from later, so I've recorded from the time we walked in the shop to ride the
Happy Lewis
up the elevator to now. The only time I shut it off was when we were out of our suits cleaning up, or sleeping. The problem is going to be running through and editing out stuff we don't want them to know about - like about the package Nam-Kah brought. Not only when we talked about it, but anytime it shows on the video as she is loading, or if it shows strapped down back there."

"Are you sure the earlier stuff isn't overwritten?" Ajay wondered. "Suits usually only have a Terabyte module in them and the video fills it fairly fast."

"No Dr. Singh. Your boy's friend Heather knew I was going to record as much as I could and loaded a better video compression program and she installed a 800 terabyte module in the suit and gave me another to put in if the first ever filled up. I have the whole trip basically."

"Well then. Let's assemble a file." Easy suggested. "It's a shame you don't have footage of yourself scrubbing up unsuited. That would suck in a huge audience of young Earth bucks." He was incredibly fast and ducked in time as she swung at him.

* * *

Jon had just sat to eat and hadn't taken a bite yet, when his pad gave the irritating buzz which meant he had a high priority call, not just a personal message. He put down the fork with a sigh. Looking at the steam rising off his hot food. He'd probably have to dump it and leave. The screen flipped open, showed his man Skip.

"Jon I have someone in the storage locker right now. Thought you'd like to know. Here's what he looks like." His picture shrank to a small square in the corner and the full screen showed a young man in the locker, loading a quantity of ammunition from the separate box into the hard case for the assault rifle. If he tried to use it, he would be very disappointed to find out the tip of the firing pin had been broken off by Jon's people, before they replaced it in the case. It would sound right if you dry fired it but it would not hit the primer. It was not however Doris' father.

Jon could not place the fellow and a casual match did not turn him up in the department data, so he was not someone who had come in since they started recording all the shuttles for face data. His clothing was probably work clothing, although it was not a jump suit and did not have any logos. It was more like what someone would wear for maintenance work if they expected to stay in spin.

"Good work Skippo. As long as he doesn't take the missile pack just let him go and we'll track him. Even if you lose him we have a face now. So don't take any risks. If you can find out where he lives, then put another camera there. Make sure who is in the rental office this shift helping him too. Call if you need a partner to do it right or anything else." And he closed up the pad, happy his food was still hot.

As he was finishing up desert Skip called back. "Jon your fellow with the assault rifle has gone to Chalmer's apartment. And I have a news bulletin for you. Mrs. Chalmers was on the last shuttle down for Hawaii. What you want to bet she is connecting home to Canada?"

"Probably Skip. You happy with the camera coverage Frank set up? You having any trouble covering? Need anything?"

"No troubles mate. Frank and Margaret are super to work with. Just wish there were three of each of us. You know? Then one could take a turn to sleep."

* * *

"This is Easy Dixon calling anyone on the M3 construction gang. Anybody out there in a scooter? I'm way out at 35K using a dish. You should set your radio switch to auto-track on your long range dish, to reach back to me." He forced himself to watch the clock in his screen corner count off fifteen seconds and asked again. "Easy here. Anybody read me on the work crew?"

A fuzzy voice came back with lots of noise in the background. "Easy this is Jason pushing tanks into storage in a scooter. You're so faint the dish had a hard time locking on. Are you in trouble again? Shot the hell out of a whole shift, last time we had to chase you with tanks dry. Don't tell me you decided to start an interstellar voyage
again
."

"Jas we have a little problem here," Easy explained. "We went over to ISSII and the damn Chinese tried to shoot us up, then tried to ram us with the yard tractor. We left without clearance and the Chinese and the USNA both tried to intercept us. We need real badly to get patched into the local net there and upload news to our families we are OK. We also want to upload some video and news to them, to pass on to the media, because the USNA is going to come pretty soon and lock down everyone on M3 and take over before the Rock comes into final orbit. We figured you guys should know to expect a big ship load of soldiers any day. They'll probably ship most everybody on M3 home before they're done. Can you help us?"

"Easy I'd be happy to, but you're coming through all full of static and drop outs. If you send me video it's going to be all corrupted and take forever. Marty is in the dispatcher's shack right now. He's an OK fellow. Switch over to the dispatcher's channel and let me tell him to put a big dish with some serious gain on you and he can take your download a lot better. Besides, I'm supposed to be working and using the dish disconnects me from the omnidirectional feed for the local work channel. It's not safe to stay off it. He can route you through his big dish and still talk to all of us locally. I'll tell him where to point from my dish's attitude and he'll call you in a minute. Hold on now," he signed off casually.

"Is this Marty trustworthy Easy?" Dr. Singh was worried about being transferred.

Before Easy could reply a new voice boomed out of their headphones. "Hey, Easy what the heck are you doing? You think I'm your private telephone operator?" This time the voice was without the static and distortion.

"Well hard as it is to believe, somebody tried to shoot my delicate little lovable butt off Marty. If we try to speak to Earthside control they just give us the run around and tell us to sit tight and shut up. We had a little run in and were given firm word the USNA is coming in to lock you guys down and take over with military. But I guess you won't mind if they cut your contract short and send you home. It's not like you do anything but blow all the extra money when you hit dirt anyway right?"

"Huh! If I go back home to Mama without my full pay and bonus, I better pray the shuttle crashes and burns. How sure are you about this? All these vacuum rats will go nuts if they're locked down in quarters and can't work. Show us what ya got."

"Here's our message files all in the clear. The rest is a big load even compressed. You're welcome to see all of it and share it with the whole construction crew. My ship owner Bob Lewis, is supposed to send the video on to some of the news people, so we're giving just part of it to him encrypted and after he has a chance to use it he's instructed to share it with everybody on M3. We cut out some stills for you to have right away though. Enough to back up the story. Then if you want to send it to your families or friends Earthside go ahead. Look about 12 minutes into it and you'll see the head of security at ISSII telling us the USNA is going to lock us down. Is this agreeable to you?"

"Sure Easy. Don't mean to call you a liar either. You've always done your job and known what you were talking about. Just something like this - you don't take it as gossip. I'll route the mail to your people right now and put the files in our server with a blurb in the wake up calls and shift news, for each of the next four shifts. You going to be coming back in here to M3 or what?"

"We don't know yet Marty. Depends a lot on what we hear from Earthside after this hits the news. We are out at geostationary level orbit and may stay out here awhile if we're going to get shot at again."

"You look at the preface, which has still frames of our video and you'll see why we might not be welcome when we return. It shows two ships dying. Here's your data feed now. Don't disconnect us down when it's done. We have a code we want to try in the system or I may get back to you on voice." Easy touched the send icon on the screen and watched the file feed steadily. He didn't relax until it was all safely transmitted.

"Okay, you want to try this contact routine with Jon?"

April punched in 898989.

* * *

"They what?" Bob Lewis asked, when Jon called and explained about the video files he was receiving. "Since when did our scooter have all these weapon systems bolted on?" I don't remember budgeting any such thing and it sounds expensive. Is the ship still whole or do they have damage?" he wanted to know.