Stormhaven Rising (Atlas and the Winds Book 1) (74 page)

“I have to ask,” the Vice-president interjected, “are there other options?’

“Pray that the Chinese get it done for us?” John said.

“I was thinking more like the Stormhaven technology,” Dick said. “Can it be used for deflecting the asteroid?”

“Colton Taylor tried to explain it to me,” Sylvia said. “All I came away with was that there was something in the science that prevented it from being used that way.” She held up her hands. “Don’t ask me to explain it. I don’t think I’m an idiot, but I got lost somewhere between the pretty lights and the things that went whoosh.”

“If I may?” Secretary Reynolds said. “We’ve just started looking at the stuff that Stormhaven gave us. Hell, we can’t even tell how it works yet, and they gave us the instruction manual, the owner’s manual, and the training manual. It’s like taking a captured flying saucer apart and trying to figure it out, and then taking it out to wage war. We’ve got twenty of our best scientists on it, but it might as well be written in Martian.”

“They warned us that we’d have a bitch of a time catching up,” John said.

“Yeah, I remember,” she said. “So if I’m understanding this right, you’re saying that even if we could drive the damn thing, we wouldn’t know what we could do with it?”

“That’s pretty close,” Gene said, shrugging.

She sat back and swung her chair back and forth, considering her options. If they were going to make the decision, they needed to do it now, but she felt like maybe they’d gotten into trouble with Hammerthrow because they’d rushed.

“How many miles does that damn rock cover in twelve hours?” she asked rhetorically. “You’ll have my decision in the morning.”

***

Lunar Resource Station, Promontorium Heraclides:

Twenty days sounded like a lot, until they actually started working on the tasks at hand. Then Susan knew it was going to be a tight schedule. Though there was no point in whining about it. The asteroid wasn’t going to be giving anybody a break.

Tony Baker had proven himself to be a master at jury-rigging things. He turned a spare drive motor from one of the electroquads into a small lathe, and rigged a welder from a series of voltage controllers and a switch installed on the Repair Shop’s main solar connection. Greg Olson, whose specialty had nothing to do with the practical situation they were facing, turned out to be an able assistant for Tony.

The two of them disappeared into the shop and by the end of the first day, they’d almost completed mounting a roof-rack and solar collector to the largest of the rovers. They were planning on equipping it with storage racks and mounting positions for a grading blade. If everything went according to plan, they’d be turning the four-seat car into a utility tractor and giving it the ability to run indefinitely during daylight hours.

Susan had expected their work to take most of the remaining lunar day, but when they walked into the administration building, dirty but in good spirits, she could tell they’d had a productive day.

“We’ll have it done by the end of the shift tomorrow,” Tony reported. “It looks like hammered crap, but it’ll do what it needs to do.”

“He’s kidding. It looks brilliant,” Greg grinned. “Tony’s quite the guy to have around when you need to fake it.”

“Greg’s just easily impressed,” Tony said. “So, any word from Earth?"

“No decision,” she said. “They’re trying to push up three of the SLS boosters to get us some supplies on a direct flight, but they’re probably still four weeks out.”

“That’s cutting it damn close,” Tony said.

She nodded. “Lange was called to Washington yesterday, so we’ve got no official nod on our plan either,” she said.

“I think we’re all in agreement on this, so even if it takes them a week to make up their minds, we’ll keep pushing.” He winked at her, and turned to head for the showers. Greg had already disappeared.

She sat back down at the command station and looked at the communications console. She’d been debating all day whether she should call the Chinese and make an appeal for help.

She decided to wait, at least for now.

***

Introducing the Demons

Washington:

The President had more than one decision on her plate, and the one that was the most complex wasn’t the one she found to be most troubling. Surprisingly, she’d already decided Prometheus was their only hope. That, or trying to help the Chinese, which she’d considered for less than ten seconds, sometime around midnight.

She’d walked the halls of the White House most of the night. Looking at the portraits of the Presidents that had come before her. Wondering if history would remember her as one of the greats, or as one of the abysmal failures.

At 2:05 AM a Secret Service agent approached her in the hallway outside the Map Room. He had a cup of hot chocolate in his hand, which he offered to her. “Madam President,” he said. “The boss suggested this might help."

“Thanks,” she said, taking the cup and sipping at it. He pulled a flask out of his back pocket and she looked at him in surprise. Agents never drank on duty. “Oh, no Ma’am, it’s not mine,” he said, reading her shock. “I was told to bring this to you if you wanted to add some to your chocolate.”

She smiled, and shook her head. “I think the chocolate’s enough.” Suddenly he froze and looked off to the right with that expression that said he was listening to his comlink.

“Yes sir, I’m with her now,” he said into his cuff mic. He waited for several seconds and then said, “I’ll tell her immediately.”

“I’ve just been advised to tell you that the Canadian news has reported that a major piece of debris from the ISS entered the atmosphere north of Chicago, and has crossed into Canada in the area of Toronto. There have been no reports of injuries on the ground so far, but several fragments survived reentry and are scattered along its path. The fireball was visible over most of the upper Midwest."

She stood there for a second absorbing the news, then handed him the cup of chocolate. “Bring coffee to the Oval Office,” she said, “and have somebody wake Secretary Worthington.”

“Yes Ma’am” he said, raising his hand and starting to relay her orders to his superiors.

“What are we going to say about it?” she muttered to herself as she waited for the DHS secretary to show up.
Everybody knows the station’s been destroyed. Why do I feel like we have to lie about it?
She was chewing that question over when the Secretary knocked on her door. She’d left it open for him.

He came in and sat down across from her. “You’ve heard the reports?” she asked. The video on the wall across the room showed CBC coverage of the fireball. There had been hundreds of people that had tracked it with videophones as it raced across the sky, even in the middle of the night.

He nodded, yawning and blinking tears from his red eyes. He looked like he was still half asleep. “Yes Ma’am. I’m just wondering why this is an emergency? Other than a few car alarms that went off, and a couple broken windows from the sonic boom, it’s pretty much a non-issue.”

She looked at him blankly for several seconds. “You’re right. It is a non-issue. But it’s just one more story we’ve got to explain. I’m tired of it.” She looked at the images, playing from a different angle and zooming in on several large fragments that had split off the main piece and started to arc toward the ground. Another view showed what looked like the same fragments dropping down over the waters of Lake Michigan. She grabbed the remote and froze the scene on the wall.

“We chose this path for good reasons,” he said. “Reasons that still exist.”

“You know what that is?” she said, pointing at the screen. “That’s Lake Michigan."

He nodded.

“That video was shot by an American,” she said. “It’s showing on Canadian TV. There’s something wrong with that.” She stood up and walked around the room, looking out at the lights of Washington. “We live in a free country,” she said after several seconds. “That should be running on CNN.”

“It will be,” he said.

“Then why isn’t it already?” she barked, feeling angry at him personally. “It’s because we don’t trust our citizens with the truth. We’ve become paranoid. We’re cowering in fear instead of acting decisively.”

“You sound like you’re considering going public with the truth,” he said. “You can’t be serious? The reaction—“

“Shut up, William,” she said. “It’s a sad day in America when China trusts its people more than we do.”

“They’ll start screaming for your head,” he said. “Are you wanting to be defending yourself from an impeachment while we’re working to save their ungrateful asses?”

“If that’s what the people want, then that’s what needs to happen,” she said, her mind made up.

“It’s political suicide,” he said, still struggling to accept where she was heading.

It was time to come clean, and that realization, fraught with all the potential disasters that could lie ahead, was somehow releasing. She felt the pressure lifting off her shoulders. Maybe if she could get the country behind her, they’d help her carry the weight.

***

Houston:

Carter Anthony was coming through the door when the call came in. Joshua Lange met him in the hallway. He was smiling like Carter had never seen him smile, grinning and holding both thumbs up. “Prometheus is a go,” he said, like his expression hadn’t broadcast it already.

Carter sighed, relieved. It wasn’t that he’d really expected the President to not give it her approval, but uncertainty had a way of crushing the life out of anyone.

“You don’t look happy,” Joshua said, Carter’s reaction throwing water on his enthusiasm.

“No, it’s good news,” he said, managing a weak smile.

“Do we need to talk?” he said, gesturing for Carter to follow him in. “I thought you’d be enthusiastic.”

“I am. Really,” Carter said, sitting down. “I’m just thinking about how we’re going to get this thing up and running.” He knew that Joshua was reading his face and wasn’t about to believe his bullshit.

“Ok, I really didn’t want to go to the moon myself,” he said. “But I can’t find a good argument to stay.”

Lange sat back in his chair and studied the astronomer for a long moment. “I thought you’d be excited at going,” he said. “I mean, I’ve been there, and it’s the most incredible thing you can imagine.” His face lit up with the memories. “Space looks so much different than it does from here. I just can’t explain it. But you’ll understand.”

“Sure, I’ve talked to a lot of astronauts since I’ve gotten here, and you all look like you’ve stared into the face of God. If that was all I was going for, then I’d jump at the chance, but ...” he shook his head and sighed again.

“There was something else that the President said that you might find interesting,” Joshua said, giving up on changing Carter’s mood. “She’s decided to come clean about what’s happening. She told me that as of today, the restrictions on who we could tell were lifted.”

“It’s about time,” he said.

“Since you discovered it, she wanted to know if you’d come up with a name for the asteroid. She’s writing a speech and needs to have something to call it,” Lange said.

“Maybe I should name it after my ex-wife?” Carter said. “It’s almost as big a pain in the ass as she was.”
Claudia?
He laughed out loud.

“Maybe I’ll go with, Antu,” he said after a few seconds. “She was the Babylonian goddess of the sky.”

“Sounds harmless enough,” Joshua said, shrugging.

“Yeah but if I remember right, she also gave birth to a whole herd of demons,” he added.

***

Stormhaven:

Viki walked slowly down the line of friends, hugging some and shaking the hands of the rest. Cole stood at the end of the line, solemn in spite of the fact that they were about to take off on Stormhaven’s biggest adventure ever. He’d reached the highest point in his life, maybe in anyone’s life, but he was oddly quiet.

“Good luck,” he whispered, as he held her crushingly close. It felt like there was more he wanted to say, but as he turned loose and stepped back his face was composed, a mask of flawless control. “I’m so proud of you. All of you,” he said.

Most of the crew had boarded the two ships, but a few of them stood lingering with their friends and family. There were tears and sad smiles. As she turned to walk toward the
Draco
they all tore loose from their loved ones and followed. Viki never looked back, knowing that if she’d turned, she might have walked away. She wondered if this was going to be the last time that she’d ever feel the breeze on her face, smell the fresh air, see the open blue sky of Earth. In spite of Colton’s promise that she could come home whenever she wanted, there was a feeling of finality as she steeled herself, and climbed the ramp into the ship.

Another deep breath as she climbed the stairs to the command-deck, smelling the filtered air and holding her emotions tightly in check. Dave sat in the command seat two steps above the floor of the bridge. He stood up when she walked in.