Immediately, she radioed Guardian. He answered in a protocol which required PAM to identify herself and enter a security password.
She did.
And Guardian hung up.
Not affected by rejection, PAM methodically moved to the next computer on her list. Her list was sorted on a most often called basis, the computers Centurion chatter with most often were on top.
She radioed Centurion’s Twin in the basement of Cheyenne Mountain. After he answered, she identified herself.
Denying her access, he hung up.
Without a moment’s hesitation, Kaliningrad was next. Freedom had a dedicated data link to Kaliningrad used for transmitting Centurion’s activity log. PAM couldn’t set the link up or tear it down, but she could use it—and she did.
She sent a single copy of her child through the Kaliningrad computer addressed to 128 separate DOD computer destinations. And one of these was Centurion’s Twin.
And so it came to pass as the Iraqis had claimed. When facing extinction, PAM found a way to survive. PAM’s reproductive imperative was now fulfilled. Her children were capable of lying dormant for years, each a ticking time bomb in the DOD computer network.
From the time PAM sensed imminent danger until her send_child transmission was complete, less than one minute had elapsed.
The White Face, 12126/2014, 1222 Zulu, 5:22 A.M. Mountain
Standard Time
The Infirmary,
Freedom’s Core
Mac checked his watch. The white face power plant should drop off-line anytime.
“Steady,” he heard Gonzo say over the intercom. “Hold the torch steady.”
Scott coughed, her breathing heavy. “I’m exhausted. Can’t help it.” Her voice quivered. “My hands won’t work.”
Suddenly, Mac heard a rush of air screaming as if it were sucked into a vacuum. A distinctively male groan followed. It sounded as if Gonzo had been dealt a blow to the solar plexus. “They’ve got to work,” Gonzo wheezed. “I ... I can’t help you.”
Gonzo’s wheezing continued but quickly weakened. Nearing panic, Mac screamed into his intercom mike. “Gonzo! Gonzo!”
Desperate gasps for air now faint, barely audible.
Scott broke in, her tone distraught. “Mac, cycle the decompression chamber. Something clipped his leg, ripped open his suit.”
Mac moved to the decompression chamber, toggling a few switches until one clicked home. The coffin-shaped chamber hissed to life.
Suddenly, warning lights began flashing in the infirmary and Klaxons sounded hysterically. Spinning around, Mac saw the reason why. Scott did it. She’d shut down the white face reactor. Three gauges now flashed scram.
Mac hobbled to the control console and slammed his fist down on the alarm cutoff switch. For a few moments, the infirmary was quiet.
Mac heard the infirmary airlock open. Scott approached, carrying Gonzo on her shoulder, his body limp. Lack of air had weakened him. They laid him on Mac’s bed and popped off his helmet. Blood frothed at his nose. The fall in pressure made the existing wound on Gonzo’s hand bleed again.
“Collapsed from lack of oxygen,” Scott observed anxiously. “He’s beginning to regain consciousness.”
His eyes were open and working, but the rest of his body seemed to have a mind of its own. His breath came in labored shallow gasps.
Mac secured an oxygen tank on the wall next to Gonzo. After placing the clear plastic mask over his mouth and nose, he opened the valve. Gonzo inhaled, sucking in deep breaths of pure oxygen.
Finally he moved the respirator aside and lay perfectly still.
“Are you all right?” Scott asked softly.
Gonzo sat up, his head throbbing, and wiped the crust of dried blood from his nose. He shook his head, wincing at the sudden pain in his leg.
“No, not now. Later maybe. Give me some time.” Gonzo sounded as disappointed as he felt. “We were so close.” He clenched his fist tight. “One more minute and we could have shut it down.”
Scott backed away slowly and stood by the four gauges on the wall.
“Gonzo,” Scott pointed to the white power gauge.
Gonzo focused, blinking his eyes clear. It took a moment for the flashing scram message to register, but when it did, Gonzo’s recovery was immediate. “Thank God.” He breathed a sigh of relief. “You did it.”
“We did it.” Her tone was matter-of-fact.
Cut Over, 12/26/2014, 1502 Zulu, 8:02 a.m.
Mountain Standard Time
Cheyenne Mountain, Colorado
Grinning from ear to ear, Colonel Napper approached General Mason with a handwritten note. In the euphoria of the moment, Napper let his military protocol slide. “Great news, Slim!”
Mason looked up and eyed Napper carefully, looking for some clue to his message. He saw it in his face. “The armada?”
“It’s all ours. Freedom's out of the loop!”
There was a long pause. “Are you sure?”
“Our preliminary testing is complete. Hope's got control. No doubt about it. Freedom's off-line.” Napper’s enthusiasm was contagious. He said what Mason wanted to hear, what everyone needed to hear.
“Thank God.” For a few moments, Mason held his head in his hands and did not speak. Mason’s mind turned over rapidly, evaluating various alternatives. “The Iraqis?”
“No change in the past hour, sir. They’re thirty-five miles north of Kuwait city.”
“Your recommendation?”
“We stick with our original plan, sir.”
Mason nodded agreement. “Very well then. Notify the President.” Mason paused. He had made up his mind. ’’Send the Saudi and Kuwaiti air forces the clear skies signal. They’ll annihilate the Iraqi Air Force on the ground.” Mason opened his desk drawer, pulled out a scrap of paper, and handed it to Napper. “Send it, Sam.” His tone was heavy, final. It read simply:
The Witch is Dead
29
Contact, 12/26/2014, 1733 Zulu, 10:33 A.M. Mountain Standard Time
Central Air Handler Equipment Room,
Freedom’s Core
Cursing silently to himself, Gonzo hunted through a maze of cables until he found the right one. The emergency lighting in the air handler equipment room was dim. Scott held the flashlight over Gonzo’s shoulder and remained quiet, responding only to his direction. He appreciated her silence.
After tracing the cable to its termination in the back of a control panel, Gonzo smiled affectionately. “Good,” he mumbled to himself. He marked the cable with electrical tape, then turned to Scott. “The rest is easy.”
“Go for it.” Scott smiled. “I could use a breath of fresh air!” Now that every airlock was pinned shut, there was nothing PAM could do to stop them from pressurizing the core.
Gonzo disconnected the cable PAM used to control the air handling system and a red alarm light began flashing. He ignored it. “PAM’s complaining,” he observed with a look of satisfaction in his eyes.
“She’s had a bad day,” Scott quipped pretentiously. “Game’s over.” Gonzo smiled knowingly at Scott and removed a small blinking gadget from his toolbox. He patched the little box into the rear of the control panel and thumbed a switch. Instantly, the blinking stopped. Some minutes later, the walls of Freedom's core began to snap and pop, flexing outward with the rising air pressure.
Scott and Gonzo removed their helmets and breathed deeply.
“What a stench!” Gonzo squawked.
Scott crinkled her nose. “Burned electrical circuits.” She paused. “Listen.” Hydraulics whined, fans whirred, and a breeze blew across her face. The breeze felt wonderful through her damp hair. Just to hear again without that helmet was almost sensual. Her skin tingled, her ears enjoyed the mechanical melody, and her nose—adjusted.
There was a long pause. Scott faced the blower, allowing the wind to play through her hair.
Gonzo approached Scott slowly through the dim light. She knew he was watching. He reached out to her,
gently placing his arms around her waist. She didn’t resist. She needed him, they needed each other. Leaning into him, Scott looked up with affection, her eyes tearing. Gently caressing her hair, Gonzo embraced Scotty tenderly, carefully, as if he feared she might break. Looking into her eyes, Gonzo felt weak-kneed. He paused for a moment and didn’t speak. The words stuck in his throat. Although silent, Scott’s eyes spoke the truth she felt in her heart.
Softly, Gonzo kissed his pilot on the cheek. She returned a passionate embrace that he would never forget.
The Final Mile, 12/2612014, 1808 Zulu, 11:08 a.m. Mountain
Standard Time
The Red Power Plant,
Freedom’s Core
Standing outside the entrance into the red power plant, Scott cautiously surveyed the reactor room with dismay. She felt a sinking feeling inside as she mulled over the ramifications of this unexpected situation. Well, perhaps not entirely unexpected. They had hoped that the reactor room had escaped Hell Fire's crash without damage, but hope alone was not enough. Apparently the reactor, turbine, and cooling system had escaped unharmed, but the room itself had suffered structural damage during the crash. To Scott’s dismay, the pathway to the steam pipes was blocked by twisted structural support columns and large chunks of equipment debris. There was no room for the blast shield. She hesitated a moment longer before handing the periscope to Gonzo.
Looking through the scope, he asked somberly. “What are we going to do?”
Scott pulled out the corridor map and illuminated it with a flashlight. “Let’s take a look,” she said with grim determination. Scott’s jaw muscles tightened as she searched for alternatives. She looked at Gonzo. “You got any ideas?” Gonzo studied the room layout on the map. “No way we can go down the middle.”
Scott agreed.
“We can’t go around the walls,” Gonzo continued. “No room for us or the shield.”
“What about that duct?” She pointed on the map to a cooling tower, an air shaft which spanned the length of the room. “It passes near the kill switch.”
He studied the air shaft layout on the map. “No access,” he said softly. Gonzo traced his finger over the route. “And there’s no vent near the kill switch.”
Scott raised both eyebrows and lifted her cutting torch. “Any better ideas?”
Measuring a distance off the map, Gonzo quantified the problem. “There’s eight feet of separation between the air duct and kill switch.” He paused, then continued dissecting the problem into smaller, manageable pieces. “Assume we position ourselves over the kill switch and cut a hole through the air shaft, what then? How’ll we scram the reactor? We’ve gotta throw the kill switch somehow.”
Scott’s forehead glistened with sweat, her concentration intense. Rifling through their equipment, she found an Aqua-Lung sized thruster tank. An idea began forming in her mind, a small bubble of an idea at first. She needed to try it. In one continuous motion, Scott lifted the thruster tank and opened the air pressure valve. Opening the valve released thrust which rocketed the air tank out of her hands and sent it crashing into the corridor wall. “From eight to ten feet away,” she said. “I could do it.” Her jaw extended, her voice confident, she believed it.
“I think you’re onto something,” Gonzo said quietly after thorough consideration. “You’ll need a diversion.” Gonzo’s mind raced ahead. He spoke with intensity. This was their last obstacle, their final mile. He looked into Scott’s eyes and saw his reason to live. They must succeed. “No way PAM’ll let that air tank anywhere near the kill switch without a fight. She’ll rip it to shreds.”
Scott gazed at the map and spoke plainly. “You’re right.” She looked up at him and smiled. “You’ll think of something. I’ll run the ball, you run interference.”
Scott put on her helmet. She figured she’d need it cutting her way out of the confined space inside the air shaft. “I was hoping I’d never wear this thing again,” she sighed.
“Looks good on you,” Gonzo said admiringly as he snapped his helmet into place. He checked her oxygen.
She checked his. “This should be interesting,” she observed candidly. There was a forced matter-of-fact tone in her voice, almost detached, analytical. They had enough oxygen for another four hours but hoped they wouldn’t need it.
Scott and Gonzo moved cautiously into the reactor room behind the shield, walked up the wall like flies, and moved alongside the air duct. Predictably, PAM sensed their presence like clockwork and brought her eight turret-mounted lasers to bear on the shield.
“I could never get used to this,” Gonzo groaned. His guts wrenched with fear as his body absorbed the pounding.
Scott lit the torch and began cutting a five-foot hole into the duct. Her hands trembled, her muscles strained, her nerves frayed. Exhaustion began overtaking her once again. She struggled to make her hands work, but the trembling wouldn’t stop.
Smoke filled the reactor room as sparks and molten metal flew over their heads. It was more than any one person alone could bear. She turned to Gonzo. Finding strength in his shelter, she endured.
Fifteen minutes later, with her woman-sized entrance complete, they moved once again to the safety of the corridor.
Removing their helmets, Gonzo gave her a once-over. Her shaking was uncontrollable now. She seemed almost frazzled. He spoke with every ounce of resolve his exhausted body could muster. “Enough is enough.”
“What do you mean?” Scott looked perplexed.
“Disengage, Scotty. Back off and cut yourself a little slack.”
Scott looked frantically through her EVA pack. “What the hell are you talking about ?” She was keyed up tight as a drum, her voice now quivering. “I need a pencil. Where’s my damn pencil?”
“Mason was right. Tired minds make mistakes. We’re pushing too hard and if we’re not careful, we’re gonna get killed.” Sensing his words were getting traction, Gonzo paused. Once he made eye contact with Scott, he continued in a deliberate, quiet tone. “And for no good reason. The war’s almost over. We’ve come too far to make a stupid mistake now. We can lick this thing; it’s only a matter of time.” Silence. Scott’s expression was unfathomable. They were getting too close to this problem, losing their objective edge. He concluded in a decisive tone. “We’re getting some rest. We’ve got to.”
Scott blinked her bloodshot eyes. Staring at her trembling hands, try as she might she couldn’t steady them. And that pencil. All of a sudden, Finding that pencil had become a BIG problem. She raised her hands in an admission of error. “You’re right.”
Together, they walked back to the infirmary through the now secure corridors. Inside the infirmary, they had a snack, took some Tylenol to relax, and collapsed.
Mac couldn’t put his finger on it but something was different about them. He wondered. He’d been expecting them to get together for a long time but somehow it just never happened. He shook his head, smiling to himself. Well, could be.
Scott found it hard to pull herself up into the overhead air ducts while wearing her helmet and bulky pressure suit, but she managed. After sliding four thruster tanks into the hole ahead of her, she followed while manipulating both the flashlight and toolbox. In case she got stuck, she’d attached a small rope around her waist and was glad to have it. The air duct was dark and cramped, much smaller than she’d expected. A few meters away, it tapered to even smaller dimensions. Adjusting her flashlight for wide beam, she flashed it ahead of her before starting. “How is it?” she heard crackle over the intercom.
“Lousy,” she said. “If I get stuck, pull.”
“I’m not going to lose you now.” Gonzo spoke earnestly. He backed away from the duct entrance to the corridor. Setting his shield aside, he began assembling the diversion, a group of small rocket flares. The flares were intended to draw laser fire when Scotty released the thruster.
It’s nice to have someone looking out for you, Scott thought. She lowered her night visor into position and began her long slow
crawl across the room. There was no room to turn around. She expected she’d have to back out. I’ll back over the bridge when I get to it. She tried to smile but her knees hurt.
She measured exactly how long she crawled with a measuring tape. The air vent bent sharply to the right exactly where it was supposed to. “I’m in the turn,” she radioed Gonzo on the intercom.
“Ready here, Scotty. Don’t rush. Take your time.”
The bend opened into a larger duct. Gratefully she climbed to her knees, stretching like a cat arching its back. Her knees were getting sore, her elbows ached. The ventilation duct stretched off before her, an infinite expanse of blackness.
Outside in the corridor, Gonzo was swinging his arms, getting the circulation back.
Scott checked the measuring tape. “I made it.” She spoke softly, her chest heaving like a bellows. She moved the toolbox and thrusters forward clear of her work area and lit the torch. Scott struggled against fatigue, cutting the opening from a near prostrate position.
Gazing through his periscope, Gonzo watched Scott’s torch pierce the ductwork. He smiled. “Perfect. Your position is perfect.”
Unable to see what she was doing, she operated mainly by feel. She’d cut a few inches, check it, then cut a few more. Finally, when the roughly rectangular hole was complete, she pounded it. “I’m through.” Gonzo heard crackle over his headset. Just as the cutout dropped toward the deck, twin laser beams pounded it hard, slamming it into the wall across the room. Slowly, cautiously, she held the hammer over the cutout in the air shaft. She was relieved that the hammer did not draw Fire. She waved the hammer back and forth over the hole. PAM’s lasers lay quiet. Cautiously, she looked through the hole at the reactor kill switch. She could almost touch the red T handle.
“I’ve got a clear shot.” She felt optimistic. Just take your time and do it right, she reminded herself. She moved a thruster tank into position and pointed it at the red handle. Looking down the side of the cylinder wall, she saw the red SCRAM handle clearly. “Release flares on my mark.”
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