The Best of Bova

by Ben Bova

  Hanging grimly to a handgrip, he said, “I want each of you to get into your pressure suits, starting with you, Miss Stromsen. Yang, take over her console until she . . .”

  The chamber shook again. Another hit.

  “Can’t we strike back at them?” Stromsen cried.

  Hazard asked, “How many satellites are firing at us?”

  She glanced at her display screens. “It seems to be only one—so far.”

  “Hit it.”

  Her lips curled slightly in a Valkyrie’s smile. She tapped out commands on her console and then leaned on the final button hard enough to lift her boots off the Velcro.

  “Got him!” Stromsen exulted. “That’s one laser that won’t bother us again.”

  Yang and Feeney were grinning. Hazard asked the communications officer, “Let me hear what the Graham has been saying.”

  It was Buckbee’s voice on the tape. “Hazard, you are not to attempt to change your orbital altitude. If you don’t return to your original altitude immediately, we will fire on you.”

  “Well, they know by now that we’re not paying attention to them,” Hazard said to his three young officers. “If I know them, they’re going to take a few minutes to think things over, especially now that we’ve shown them we’re ready to hit back. Stromsen, get into your suit. Feeney, you’re next, then Yang. Move!”

  It took fifteen minutes before the three of them were back in the CIC inside the bulky space suits, flexing gloved fingers, glancing about from inside the helmets. They all kept their visors up, and Hazard said nothing about it. Difficult enough to work inside the damned suits, he thought. They can snap the visors down fast enough if it comes to that.

  The compact CIC became even more crowded. Despite decades of research and development, the space suits still bulked nearly twice as large as an unsuited person.

  Suddenly Hazard felt an overpowering urge to get away from the CIC, away from the tension he saw in their young faces, away from the sweaty odor of fear, away from the responsibility for their lives.

  “I’m going for my suit,” he said, “and then a fast inspection tour of the station. Think you three can handle things on your own for a few minutes?”

  Three heads bobbed inside their helmets. Three voices chorused, “Yes, sir.”

  “Fire on any satellite that fires at us,” he commanded. “Tape all incoming messages. If there’s any change in their tune, call me on the intercom.”

  “Yes, sir.”

  “Feeney, how long until we reach our final altitude?”

  “More than an hour, sir.”

  “No way to move her faster?”

  “I could get outside and push, I suppose.”

  Hazard grinned at him. “That won’t be necessary, Mr. Feeney.” Not yet, he added silently.

  Pushing through the hatch into the passageway, Hazard saw that there was one pressure suit hanging on its rack in the locker just outside the CIC hatch. He passed it and went to his personal locker and his own suit. It’s good to leave them on their own for a while, he told himself. Build up their confidence. But he knew that he had to get away from them, even if only for a few minutes.

  His personal space suit smelled of untainted plastic and fresh rubber, like a new car. As Hazard squirmed into it, its joints felt stiff—or maybe it’s me, he thought. The helmet slipped from his gloved hands and went spinning away from him, floating off like a severed head. Hazard retrieved it and pulled it on. Like the youngsters, he kept the visor open.

  His first stop was the bridge. Varshni was hovering in the companionway just outside the airtight hatch that sealed off the devastated area. Two other space-suited men were zippering an unrecognizably mangled body into a long black-plastic bag. Three other bags floated alongside them, already filled and sealed.

  Even inside a pressure suit, the Indian seemed small, frail, like a skinny child. He was huddled next to the body bags, bent over almost into a fetal position. There were tears in his eyes. “These are all we could find. The two others must have been blown out of the station completely.”

  Hazard put a gloved hand on the shoulder of his suit.

  “They were my friends,” Varshni said.

  “It must have been painless,” Hazard heard himself say. It sounded stupid.

  “I wish I could believe that.”

  “There’s more damage to inspect, over by the power generator area. Is your team nearly finished here?”

  “Another few minutes, I think. We must make certain that all the wiring and air lines have been properly sealed off.”

  “They can handle that themselves. Come on, you and I will check it out together.”

  “Yes, sir.” Varshni spoke into his helmet microphone briefly, then straightened up and tried to smile. “I am ready, sir.”

  The two men glided up a passageway that led to the outermost level of the station, Hazard wondering what would happen if a laser attack hit the area while they were in it. Takes a second or two to slice the hull open, he thought. Enough time to flip your visor down and grab on to something before the air blowout sucks you out of the station. Still, he slid his visor down and ordered Varshni to do the same. He was only mildly surprised when the Indian replied that he already had.

  Wish the station were shielded. Wish they had designed it to withstand attack. Then he grumbled inwardly, Wishes are for losers; winners use what they have. But the thought nagged at him. What genius put the power generator next to the unarmored hull? Damned politicians wouldn’t allow shielding; they wanted the stations to be vulnerable. A sign of goodwill, as far as they’re concerned. They thought nobody would attack an unshielded station because the attacker’s station is also unshielded. We’re all in this together, try to hurt me and I’ll hurt you. A hangover from the old mutual-destruction kind of dogma. Absolute bullshit.

  There ought to be some way to protect ourselves from lasers. They shouldn’t put people up here like sacrificial lambs.

  Hazard glanced at Varshni, whose face was hidden behind his helmet visor. He thought of his son. Sheila had ten years to poison his mind against me. Ten years. He wanted to hate her for that, but he found that he could not. He had been a poor husband and a worse father. Jon Jr. had every right to loathe his father. But dammit, this is more important than family arguments! Why can’t the boy see what’s at stake here? Just because he’s sore at his father doesn’t mean he has to take total leave of his senses.

  They approached a hatch where the red warning light was blinking balefully. They checked the hatch behind them, made certain it was airtight, then used the wall-mounted keyboard to start the pumps that would evacuate that section of the passageway, turning it into an elongated air lock.

  Finally they could open the farther hatch and glide into the wrecked storage magazine.

  Hazard grabbed a handhold. “Better use tethers here,” he said.

  Varshni had already unwound the tether from his waist and clipped it to a hold.

  It was a small magazine, little more than a closet. In the light from their helmet lamps, they saw cartons of pharmaceuticals securely anchored to the shelves with toothed plastic straps. A gash had been torn in the hull, and through it Hazard could see the darkness of space. The laser beam had penetrated into the cartons and shelving, slicing a neat burned-edge slash through everything it touched.

  Varshni floated upward toward the rent. It was as smooth as a surgeon’s incision, and curled back slightly where the air pressure had pushed the thin metal outward in its rush to escape to vacuum.

  “No wiring here,” Varshni’s voice said in Hazard’s helmet earphones. “No plumbing either. We were fortunate.”

  “They were aiming for the power generator.”

  The Indian pushed himself back down toward Hazard. His face was hidden behind the visor. “Ah, yes, that is an important target. We were very fortunate that they missed.”

  “They’ll try again,” Hazard said.

  “Yes, of course.”

  “Comma
nder Hazard!” Yang’s voice sounded urgent. “I think you should hear the latest message from Graham, sir.”

  Nodding unconsciously inside his helmet, Hazard said, “Patch it through.”

  He heard a click, then Buckbee’s voice. “Hazard, we’ve been very patient with you. We’re finished playing games. You bring the Hunter back to its normal altitude and surrender the station to us or we’ll slice you to pieces. You’ve got five minutes to answer.”

  The voice shut off so abruptly that Hazard could picture Buckbee slamming his fist against the Off key.

  “How long ago did this come through?”

  “Transmission terminated thirty seconds ago, sir,” said Yang.

  Hazard looked down at Varshni’s slight form. He knew that Varshni had heard the ultimatum just as he had. He could not see the Indian’s face, but the slump of his shoulders told him how Varshni felt.

  Yang asked, “Sir, do you want me to set up a link with Graham?”

  “No,” said Hazard.

  “I don’t think they intend to call again, sir,” Yang said. “They expect you to call them.”

  “Not yet,” he said. He turned to the wavering form beside him. “Better straighten up, Mr. Varshni. There’s going to be a lot of work for you and your damage-control team to do. We’re in for a rough time.”

  Ordering Varshni back to his team at the ruins of the bridge, Hazard made his way toward the CIC. He spoke into his helmet mike as he pulled himself along the passageways, hand over hand, as fast as he could go:

  “Mr. Feeney, you are to fire at any satellites that fire on us. And at any ABM satellites that begin maneuvering to gain altitude so they can look down on us. Understand?”

  “Understood, sir!”

  “Miss Stromsen, I believe the fire-control panel is part of your responsibility. You will take your orders from Mr. Feeney.”

  “Yes, sir.”

  “Miss Yang, I want that simulation of our position and altitude updated to show exactly which ABM satellites under hostile control are in a position to fire upon us.”

  “I already have that in the program, sir.”

  “Good. I want our four lifeboats detached from the station and placed in positions where their heat shields can intercept incoming laser beams.”

  For the first time, Yang’s voice sounded uncertain. “I’m not sure I understand what you mean, sir.”

  Hazard was sweating and panting with the exertion of hauling himself along the passageway. This suit won’t smell new anymore, he thought.

  To Yang he explained, “We can use the lifeboats’ heat shields as armor to absorb or deflect incoming laser beams. Not just shielding, but active armor. We can move the boats to protect the most likely areas for laser beams to come from.”

  “Like the goalie in a hockey game!” Feeney chirped. “Cutting down the angles.”

  “Exactly.”

  By the time he reached the CIC they were already working the problems. Hazard saw that Stromsen had the heaviest work load: all the station systems’ status displays, fire control for the laser-armed ABM satellites, and control of the lifeboats now hovering dozens of meters away from the station.

  “Miss Stromsen, please transfer the fire-control responsibility to Mr. Feeney.”

  The expression on her strong-jawed face, half hidden inside her helmet, was pure stubborn indignation.

  Jabbing a gloved thumb toward the lightning-slash insignia on the shoulder of Feeney’s suit, Hazard said, “He is a weapons specialist, after all.”

  Stromsen’s lips twitched slightly and she tapped at the keyboard to her left; the fire-control displays disappeared from the screens above it, only to spring up on screens in front of Feeney’s position.

  Hazard nodded as he lifted his own visor. “Okay, now. Feeney, you’re the offense. Stromsen, you’re the defense. Miss Yang, your job is to keep Miss Stromsen continuously advised as to where the best placement of the lifeboats will be.”

  Yang nodded, her dark eyes sparkling with the challenge. “Sir, you can’t possibly expect us to predict all the possible paths a beam might take and get a lifeboat’s heat shield in place soon enough . . .”

  “I expect—as Lord Nelson once said—each of you to do your best. Now get Buckbee or Cardillo or whoever on the horn. I’m ready to talk to them.”

  It took a few moments for the communications laser to lock onto the distant Graham, but when Buckbee’s face finally appeared on the screen, he was smiling—almost gloating.

  “You’ve still got a minute and a half, Hazard. I’m glad you’ve come to your senses before we had to open fire on you.”

  “I’m only calling to warn you: any satellite that fires on us will be destroyed. Any satellite that maneuvers to put its lasers in a better position to hit us will also be destroyed.”

  Buckbee’s jaw dropped open. His eyes widened.

  “I’ve got fifteen ABM satellites under my control,” Hazard continued, “and I’m going to use them.”

  “You can’t threaten us!” Buckbee sputtered. “We’ll wipe you out!”

  “Maybe. Maybe not. I intend to fight until the very last breath.”

  “You’re crazy, Hazard!”

  “Am I? Your game is to take over the whole defense system and threaten a nuclear-missile strike against any nation that doesn’t go along with you. Well, if your satellites are exhausted or destroyed, you won’t be much of a threat to anybody, will you? Try impressing the Chinese with a beat-up network. They’ve got enough missiles to wipe out Europe and North America, and they’ll use them. If you don’t have enough left to stop those missiles, then who’s threatening whom?”

  “You can’t . . .”

  “Listen!” Hazard snapped. “How many of your satellites will be left by the time you overcome us? How much of a hole will we rip in your plans? Geneva will be able to blow you out of the sky with groundlaunched missiles by the time you’re finished with us.”

  “They’d never do such a thing.”

  “Are you sure?”

  Buckbee looked away from Hazard, toward someone off-camera. He moved off, and Cardillo slid into view. He was no longer smiling.

  “Nice try, Johnny, but you’re bluffing and we both know it. Give up now or we’re going to have to wipe you out.”

  “You can try, Vince. But you won’t win.”

  “If we go, your son goes with us,” Cardillo said.

  Hazard forced his voice to remain level. “There’s nothing I can do about that. He’s a grown man. He’s made his choice.”

  Cardillo huffed out a long, impatient sigh. “All right, Johnny. It was nice knowing you.”

  Hazard grimaced. Another lie, he thought. The man must be categorically unable to speak the truth.

  The comm screen blanked.

  “Are the lifeboats in place?” he asked.

  “As good as we can get them,” Yang said, her voice doubtful.

  “Not too far from the station,” Hazard warned. “I don’t want them to show up as separate blips on their radar.”

  “Yes, sir, we know.”

  He nodded at them. Good kids, he thought. Ready to fight it out on my say-so. How far will they go before they crack? How much damage can we take before they scream to surrender?

  They waited. Not a sound in the womb-shaped chamber, except for the hum of the electrical equipment and the whisper of air circulation. Hazard glided to a position slightly behind the two women. Feeney can handle the counterattack, he said to himself. That’s simple enough. It’s the defense that’s going to win or lose for us.

  On the display screens he saw the positions of the station and the hostile ABM satellites. Eleven of them in range. Eleven lines straight as laser beams converged on the station. Small orange blips representing the four lifeboats hovered around the central pulsing yellow dot that represented the station. The orange blips blocked nine of the converging lines. Two others passed between the lifeboat positions and reached the station itself.

  “Miss Stroms
en,” Hazard said softly.

  She jerked as if a hot needle had been stuck into her flesh.

  “Easy now,” Hazard said. “All I want to tell you is that you should be prepared to move the lifeboats to intercept any beams that are getting through.”

  “Yes, sir, I know.”

  Speaking as soothingly as he could, Hazard went on, “I doubt that they’ll fire all eleven lasers at us at once. And as our altitude decreases, there will be fewer and fewer of their satellites in range of us. We have a good chance of getting through this without too much damage.”

  Stromsen turned her whole space-suited body so that she could look at him from inside her helmet. “It’s good of you to say so, sir. I know you’re trying to cheer us up, and I’m certain we all appreciate it. But you are taking my attention away from the screens.”

  Yang giggled, whether out of tension or actual humor at Stromsen’s retort, Hazard could not tell.

  Feeney sang out, “I’ve got a satellite climbing on us!”

  Before Hazard could speak, Feeney’s hands were moving on his console keyboard. “Our beasties are now programmed for automatic, but I’m tapping in a backup manually, just in—ah! Got her! Scratch one enemy.”

  Smiles all around. But behind his grin, Hazard wondered, Can they gin up decoys? Something that gives the same radar signature as an ABM satellite but really isn’t? I don’t think so—but I don’t know for sure.

  “Laser beam . . . two of them,” called Stromsen.

  Hazard saw the display screen light up. Both beams were hitting the same lifeboat. Then a third beam from the opposite direction lanced out.

  The station shuddered momentarily as Stromsen’s fingers flew over her keyboard and one of the orange dots shifted slightly to block the third beam.

  “Where’d it hit?” he asked the Norwegian as the beams winked off.

  “Just aft of the emergency oxygen tanks, sir.”

  Christ, Hazard thought, if they hit the tanks, enough oxygen will blow out of here to start us spinning like a top.

  “Vent the emergency oxygen.”

  “Vent it, sir?”

  “Now!”

  Stromsen pecked angrily at the keyboard to her left. “Venting. Sir.”