Stormhaven Rising (Atlas and the Winds Book 1) (23 page)

The glare he got as a response told him that Lange had already thought about that.

“I’m suggesting that since you’ve got assets in place on the lunar surface you can use them while they’re being ignored."

Joshua sat down, the faint edge of a smile tugging at the corners of his mouth. “We do have a new geologist at Alpha,” he said. “Maybe we could have her start looking around for a site, since the money’s already been spent to get her there.”

“Exactly,” Carter said, watching his idea take root. “It was our one-option-thinking that got us into this mess in the first place."

“I can’t argue with that,” he said.

“So I’m thinking that, without any extra expense, you could get the groundwork laid. What harm is there in that?” Carter leaned back and watched Lange chew it over.

“I like it,” Joshua said, nodding his head slowly. “Maybe Al Stanley could sell it to President Hutton too. She seems motivated not to make the same mistakes again.” His smile gained ground, as the pieces fell into place.

“We could probably justify getting a second TLS built under the pretense of training the military personnel on microgravity assembly work. That would give them something to learn on while they’re waiting on Danielson to figure the missile out.” He started making notes on a scratch pad on his desk.

“We’ve already got engines and most of the smaller components in orbit. We’d have to get a CSM boosted ...” He trailed off, engrossed in thought.

“I’ll talk to you later.” Smiling, Carter slipped out without distracting him.

***

Outside Stormhaven:

Douglas Shapiro stood with his back toward Stormhaven, watching the last of the set-up operations. The small rise where he’d been stranded had been turned from frozen desert into a small city overnight. Twenty huge tents stood on the open prairie.

Some unnamed guardsman had given this olive drab tent-town a name in response to the symbol that had been stuck on the map for the location of Stormhaven. They’d been using a large red “S” in the center of a triangle to mark the location. It looked like the patch that adorned Superman’s chest.

Over the trail that turned off the main road hung a hand-painted sign proclaiming their tent town as
Camp Kryptonite
. If Stormhaven was Superman’s Fortress of Solitude, then this camp would be his weak spot.

They now had light and heat, and a mess tent provided food and coffee. It was truly amazing to Shapiro that they’d set up so quickly and, so far
without comment from Stormhaven.

Paul Abrams had taken over coordinating between their intelligence team and the military units. Within the first hour of their arrival he’d established a secure perimeter complete with patrols and watch schedules. He’d also proposed several infiltration missions to probe the defenses of Stormhaven, and even though they hadn’t yet tried, Shapiro was starting to think it might be the only way they were going to get anywhere.

Every surveillance gizmo in the DHS arsenal had been brought in. The cube truck had been moved inside one of the tents to operate as a Control Center and its capacity had been augmented by dozens of pieces of mobile hardware. They’d set up motion detection cameras and several times during the night one of the cameras tracked a flying machine but, every time when they tried to enhance the image, they found it was too blurry to see details.

Watkins was directing the efforts of an entire IT Assault Team, but they’d still made no progress in trying to break into Stormhaven’s network. So far not a single crack had been found in their electronic defenses.

“You wanted a report?” Watkins hovered in the flap to the main tent. She didn’t want to step out of the relative warmth, but gave up and joined him where he stood by the fire.

“Is it going to say the same thing?” he asked, not looking at her.

“Pretty much.” She held her hands out to the warmth of the glowing embers. “I’ve never seen a network like this. I mean, crypto can’t even figure out if anything we’re getting is more than random garbage.”

“What does that mean?” He glanced at her for a second before turning to stare at the community in the distance.

“It’s like they’re changing the encryption, but it happens so fast that we can’t find the switches, let alone follow the content.” She turned to let the heat warm her back.

“You said we had the best hardware on the planet, and now you’re telling me they’re leaving us in the dust?”

“That’s what I’m saying,” she said. “We’ve got four Gensixes on it and we can’t even find the front end of a string before it disappears."

“So we need to be faster,” he said.

“There isn’t any way to get faster,” she said. “A Gensix is running at ten terahertz and is built on massive-parallel omni-processors.”

“I take it that’s fast?” Shapiro said, under-impressed with her technical jargon.

She snorted. “Yeah. A Gensix is supposedly the fastest machine on the planet.” She turned to look at him. “Let’s put it this way, the entire DHS intercept operations only use nine of these machines to keep track of every electronic communication in the world.”

“So you’re saying that they’ve got almost half the world’s data running around in there?” Shaking his head, he looked at her like she’d blown a gasket.

“No. I’m saying that they’ve got a computer over there that would be able to do all the work we do in intercept, and crypto, without even noticing the load. Our hardware isn’t even in the same league.”

“Why does that not surprise me?” he said. “Come on, let’s get inside. I’m tired of looking at the windows over there, hoping to catch a glimpse of something.”

Schimmel was standing in the main Conference Room of the big tent waiting for them. “I heard you coming so I decided to wait,” he said, sitting down in one of the folding chairs.

“That’s a point to remember. Nothing we say over here is secure. A good microphone and we’re compromised,” Watkins said.

“You think they’re worried about what we’re saying?” Shapiro asked, grabbing a thermos of coffee and pouring them all a cup.

“Wouldn’t you be?” she challenged. “I mean, is it worth the risk?”

“The question isn’t, ‘is it worth the risk,’ but,
is it worth the effort
. They’ve got to know we’ve been trying to poke their defenses, and they don’t seem to care.” Shapiro set the cups down on the table.

“It’s like trying to kill an elephant with a pen knife,” Schimmel said.

“So far, I don’t think we’ve managed to do anything except pick the goo from under its toenails,” Shapiro said.

“Ok. Please.” Watkins looked ill. “I’m damn tired of beating my head against the wall. I’m about to say we should try Paul’s approach and send in a team.”

“And risk pissing them off?” DeMarko slipped in through the flap.

“Exactly. But we need to get them to the table,” Shapiro agreed. “The orders from the White House were clear that we had to stall them for several months if possible. Force was to be a last resort.”

“Then call them. Invite them over for dinner.” DeMarko sat down at the table drumming his fingers.

“That might be our only option,” Schimmel said, “but order a pizza. Military food still sucks."

***

ISS Alpha:

The view was spectacular, but not the one Susan Winslow had hoped to see on her last space mission. There was nothing that said she wouldn’t be back up here once this was over, but in her heart, she knew this was it. There was a finality to the situation that scared her, even though she couldn’t explain why.

She watched a storm blow across the South Pacific, swirling and flashing like her thoughts. Mixed up. Tempestuous.

“Susan Winslow, report to control.” Scott’s voice echoed through the station.

She punched the intercom, “I’m on my way. What’s up?”

“I’ll tell you when you get here,” he said, sounding odd.

She floated past the glaring faces of the crew, feeling inexplicably like they were blaming her for their situation.
If only they knew,
she thought.

Sergei Titov was coming out of the Command Module and stopped in her path. “I have orders.” Sadness edged his voice. “I have been extended at Alpha and will not go home until crisis is over. I have been informed that need for doctor at station is great. I am to remain with Commander Rutledge.”

“I’m so sorry, I know you wanted to see that baby of yours,” she said.

“Yes, but is important to make sure son has world in which to grow up, do you not agree?”

She stared at him, not sure if she could have made the same sacrifice. Time was so short, every instant away became a huge portion of what was left. “You are so ...” she couldn’t finish the thought, so instead she pulled him into a hug.

Startled, he slipped from her embrace and said, “I understand. Is difficult time for all.”

Scott stuck his head through the door. “I just wanted to make sure you didn’t get mugged on the way here.”

“I’m ok,” she said, pushing gently away from the Russian toward the Control Room.

“What did you need?” she asked, settling against an instrument rack.

“I just got word that the TLS is inbound,” he said.

“You mean they’re calling the research crew back too? How the hell are we going to fit that many into the
Liberty
?” She thought about the crowded interior of the shuttle, unable to imagine the seating arrangements for all those passengers plus a pilot and co-pilot.

“No,” he said. “They aren’t recalling anyone. They want to get you and the
Reliant
outbound before the orbiter gets here."

She looked at him, blinking. “You’re saying I’m still going?”

He nodded. “But you’ve got a new mission.”

“What?” she asked.

Glancing over her shoulder and lowering his voice, he said, “You’re supposed to find a site for an evacuation colony.”

“Evacuation colony? That’s nuts."

“Yeah, isn’t it?” he agreed. “I think they’re only planning on a few hundred.” He held out a microdisk. “Those are your orders. All I know is that Lange said this was way below the radar. Not even the White House is onboard yet. He wanted to have you on the ground before anyone caught up with the idea.”

“Always the Boy Scout.” She smiled in spite of herself. “So how long do I have?”

“About forty hours.”

***

Deframe Work

Stormhaven:

The sun was up by the time the doors to the Fabrication Center rolled open. They’d arrived early and done the systems checks. This time they were sure the harmonic compensation was functioning. Mica had suspended assembly operations while Dave prepared to pull the
Dancing Star
out of the building.

The bridge on the huge ship consisted of five standard control consoles arranged in three terraces. The two in the lowest section served as pilot and navigator workstations, while the left and right mid-level sections were for engineering and communications, and the one in the upper center served as a command position. Although, because of the standardized design of the consoles, the designations were purely arbitrary.

Cole sat beside Dave in the front seats, and Sophie watched from the command station. She’d configured her controls for engineering support. Other than the three of them, no one else was on the huge ship. Cole decided that all the other volunteers were simply an unnecessary risk.

“Everybody ready?” Dave asked.

“Yep.” Sophie gulped, while Cole just nodded.

“Are you nervous?” Cole asked, noticing that Dave was taking his time confirming his position.

“Nope,” Dave lied. “Just being cautious. How about you?”

“Yeah, I’m scared shitless.” He winked at Dave. “Just kidding. I’m just a lousy passenger.”

“Do you want to drive?” Dave offered, taking his hands off the control panel and pushing his chair back. “I mean, it is your toy, and no one would blame you if you wanted the first flight.”

“No,” Cole said flatly. “I’m just here in case something goes wrong. You have the controls, Mr. Randall. This is your flight all the way.”

“Then let’s do it.” Dave blew out a heavy breath, sliding his seat forward into flight position. “Mica are we all clear?”

“Affirmative. All systems are nominal and there is no flight traffic in the area. You are set for manual maneuvering,” the computer answered.

“Thank you Mica. Here we go.” He slid his hand upward on the vertical axis thrusters and the ship creaked as the load on the frame shifted from the landing pylons to the engine mounts. Dave looked around the interior of the bridge.

Cole nodded. “It’s ok. It’ll flex a little when it changes position.”

Easing the thruster controls up until the contact indicators showed the legs had come off the floor, Dave smiled. It really was like the simulator, only real.