April

by Mackey Chandler

  "Why not?" Mrs. Baily asked. "Might they not be in some danger?"

  "Think about it," Jon invited her. "Whoever stayed here had no way to get out once he was inside, unless he had help. Don't you guys make sure the person visiting leaves, before you allow it to shift to a new position?" he asked. "So whoever stayed in here had to have someone on the outside to help him get shut in and a way to signal them when he wanted the hall back to get out. I really doubt he'd try to control it from inside blind, even if he could hack the system. I'm afraid it even applies to your husband if he works at the business."

  "Oh no. My Mr. has been divorced from me for years and is dead now. That's exactly why we were divorced, because you couldn't trust the little swine."

  "You understand then. It'll be our secret and we'll let you know what happens when we catch the fellow."

  Mrs. Baily nodded her smug approval. She seemed to enjoy secrets.

  Chapter 24

  The USNA SP James Kelly, out of Edwards AFB, California was already lifting when April and Easy were making their plasma burn from ISSII. A white wedge of ceramic metal composite and bucky foam, laced with carbon fiber mesh, it rolled down a runway and lifted off, riding on the back of an aircraft which was almost a mirror of the wedge above.

  When it passed through twenty thousand meters at Mach 2, the variable geometry scramjet in the space plane portion above ignited and with a boost from two expendable solid/liquid hybrid rockets sandwiched between the two shapes, it climbed rapidly. The bottom lifter fell away and returned to a landing as a remotely piloted vehicle. The scramjet gradually changed the shape of its internal passage as it sped up and smoothly switched with overlap, from oxidizer enriched JP-6 at lower speed, to methane and then liquid hydrogen as the air flow through the engine could not be slowed enough for the calorie rich fuel. It air breathing engines peaked out at thirty thousand meters and Mach 9+. It's pure rockets carried it the rest of the way into orbit.

  Some of its fast black-bodied cousins might pass it below fifty thousand meters, flying on a shockwave of external combustion, but to pull up in a ballistic arc which would leave the atmosphere they lost the velocity to attain a full orbit and they lacked the true rockets of this beauty. It was a big lovely plane and hard to put a scale to in its geometric whiteness, until you could find a view which allowed you to see the pilots forward view ports. Then you realized it was as big as most anything men had made to leave the ground. It did not have to seek an orbital path immediately, but needed to do so if it would retain enough fuel to maneuver significantly above the atmosphere.

  For all its size it was mostly a fuel tank and had less cargo volume than a World War Two era Gooney Bird, the DC-3. It could carry the usual strategic weapons which everybody had avowed they never wanted to use, but had touched the earth with fire four times, in Japan, Iran, Kashmir and Korea. It had a laser of some power, for space use mostly, driven off its bank of advanced ultra capacitors and it could mount missiles in internal bays, which served it for defense or destruction of other foes in the atmosphere, but were of limited use in orbital conflict.

  All these devices were of no primary use, for the mission the commander had been given. For this mission there were six very hard and special men, with lots of equipment as special as them, in the space which had been configured for passengers. The seats they had hastily installed were special too. Not what a business suited gentleman would be comfortable in, but ideal for men enclosed in combat space armor, which made them look like some sort of misshapen crustaceans.

  They were instructed not to destroy the craft they were to intercept, but capture it and its occupants alive. They had every confidence they could do so, in the manner of men everywhere who do such things for a living. To entertain a doubt about your own effectiveness or ability in their trade. was to set the stage for hesitation and failure.

  * * *

  While the James Kelly was still climbing out and on the wrong side of the Earth to see the unnatural light of the Easy Lewis climbing further away from them, the heavenly vessel whose name might be translated "Pretty as Jade" and was for English speaking controllers called the Jade, was climbing a semi-expendable booster from the East Wind launch facility, to the same destination. It might have been viewed as a less elegant solution to the same needs, but in the end it cost a lot less, with not much less flexibility.

  The crew flying was four, but they displayed much more optimism, by carrying only two armored, suited hulks in the rear to carry out their mission and a hefty fuel load in a removable tank, which occupied the majority of the cargo hold not needed for the two soldiers. They were already above much of the atmosphere and in a position to see when their quarry lit off its spectacular drive.

  The pilot and the number two already could see it, when the weapons tech said the obvious. "He goes. Now it will be harder." The mission they were charged with was easier however, because they were to recover only one passenger of the Happy Lewis and a second if it was easy, but the rest and the vessel itself they had no orders to treat as having any value to save or recover.

  In several locations people were scrambling to get other players in the game, that were not as ready to move as these two. And preparations were being rushed to push ahead missions which might be effected by these events, including the launch of the USNA HS Cincinnati and the Mini SP Big 'Nuf. The Chinese were prepping a sister ship to the Pretty as Jade, the Moment of Contemplation, or Moment, in an effort which was beyond any rational expectation of their ground crews. They were pushing their men with stimulants and long hours. Actions not conducive to the attention to detail a spacecraft requires. But the head of their space agency was a genius who had proved able to lead an industry to new peaks of accomplishment.

  Unfortunately it had been in producing environmentally friendly sonic cleaners and computer vending machines for custom clothing. However, when an auto-tailor cuts your hem a little long, it doesn't have the same consequences as an error in servicing a space shuttle.

  * * *

  Aboard the Happy Lewis, Easy had been drilling April in using the laser system. "I wish I had stopped and let you cut the antennas off the station," he said. "I just was moving with the moment and didn't think. It would have been good experience. There's nothing out here really to aim at to get a feel for the controls."

  "I'm considering something which might get me some practice," she offered. Now was a good time to tell him while their voice com was isolated from their passengers. She went ahead when he just waited. "If we engage whatever they send out to intercept us and survive, then we're fully committed. We can't be in any deeper, so we should go for broke. I think before we go home we should take an orbit slightly below the geostationary band and as it turns over us, shoot up any of the communications sats we know belong to China or the USNA. Especially the military ones."

  "It's one of the few things we could do to really hurt them. I think it might actually make some of the people down there understand this isn't just something between a few nuts and their beloved government and doesn't involve them. And it might be effective enough to give the people back home heart to join us and rebel instead of just handing over the Rock and us too.

  "You want to deliberately provoke them now?" Easy asked.

  "You ask that, after the speech you gave Earth Control? Why not?" April countered. "If we get home without any more trouble what is waiting for us? A laundry list of charges from murder and damaging public property, to slander and impeding navigation. And if they do send someone to intercept us and we fight them, then add piracy to the charges I'd guess. If the USNA is still in charge of M3 we end in chains. If we take out their sats and nobody joins in what have we lost? A thousand years in jail and ten thousand are the same. My dad says there are people who would rebel. How better to see if they will act than to lead by example?

  "Yeah," Easy agreed, visualizing it, eyes big, "billions and billions of dollars of sats. The land lines could never carry the load. And all the peop
le who moved out in the country and work at home, would find their data links gone and the car radios would be silent. Automated vehicles like the border patrol use would be useless. The soda machines wouldn't call in to be filled up. Video and even voice com would be down."

  "They would be back to a hand full of local video channels. Most people are not even set up to receive broadcast TV anymore. It's only used by the little guys like college stations now and you have to buy a receiver to plug in your set. Most people don't bother. I could think of things it will shut down for weeks," Easy marveled.

  "The other countries would also see we are not taking their sats out, over Europe and Africa," April pointed out. "It might incline them to speak for us. Or at least stay out of it. They could easily figure a few intemperate words and they'd have a few billion EM of their junk blasted out of orbit. Seriously, you can't have much of a reputation as a mellow and lovable character after the farewell speech to Earth Control."

  "Let's see how the others feel about doing this," Happy suggested.

  * * *

  The President of the United States of North America, Peter Hadley, was not much to look at. Instead of the alert, firm and vital face people expected from TV, they saw a chinless stooped old man with pursed fish lips and droopy eyes. Of course not many people ever got to see him face to face. Security concerns meant except for the very highest of officials, he was never face to face with anyone if he could avoid it.

  There were so many people lined up to bag him, like a buck on opening day, they took no chances. Like the last three presidents, he did nothing approaching a genuine a public appearance. Even some heads of state came away, not realizing they had sat and talked to a double.

  Public perception of his appearance was really not a problem, once computers had gotten fast enough to alter appearance electronically in real time. It was a big shock for some people meeting him for the first time, much like visiting a relative in the hospital at death's door and finding a shell of the person they had remembered.

  It was also not coincidence that the last three Presidents had presided over the USNA, instead of the USA. The number of patriots North and South of the old borders, who had resented the strong armed inclusion of Canada and Mexico into the Union, after years of creeping assimilation, were what pushed the Navy into completely closing the President off from the public. Instead of blood enemies across oceans, there was now a considerable number within the new borders. The annexation might have been better accepted by referendum, but it was imposed by legislative decree. The two countries had been brought in by economic blackmail, given the choice to join up, or face a fully closed border within weeks and economic ruin.

  Now the problem with illegals on the Southern border, was pushed back to the border with Guatemala. That border had already been a problem for Mexico. But interstate travel restrictions now kept USNA citizens where they were, unless they were wealthy or penniless, so it was less a problem for the original states. It had been no real choice to go military for Presidential protection. The scandal and failure of the Secret Service in the assassination of '47 had forced the Navy, already heavily involved in the President's security, into pretty much assuming the whole responsibility.

  It was a task not everyone involved had been eager to assume, given what failure could mean to careers and even entire bureaucracies. The military solutions they devised were predictably different than what a civilian agency would have used. They also worked - so far. The reality of current politics was, almost nobody made a live appearance to the public or press anymore, unless they were the number three executive or lower in their organization. The assassinations of several tobacco executives and several CEO's who had left entire industries stripped of their pension funds earlier in the century, had made the same sort of precautions standard for large corporations also.

  The President might appear before the nation sitting in the Oval Office. But the current reality was a flimsy White House was too open to a missile attack, to have the man sitting there in a known, targetable location at a set time. The journalist who reported the actual absence of the great man at his desk while appearing to be there live on national TV, was now working as a termite control technician in Tallahassee. The Magic of Electronics had been bypassed by him with a simple telescope, because someone forgot to close the drapes.

  So when the President at his working desk, received his appointments secretary and went over the outline of his day, it was as his protective services preferred, in a deep, deep, bunker, somewhere beneath the hills of West Virginia.

  The secretary hid it well, but his dominant feeling was one of dread and fear. Nothing satisfied President Hadley anymore and a flare up of his temper had become something everyone around him feared. More than the man was removed from the public eye. His actions were so shielded from scrutiny, that basically his whim had the power of law now.

  After detailing the lack of progress being made in the secret civil war in Quebec, the briefing moved on to problems with pouching of mineral deposits in the deep ocean and how permits were let to grant rights to mine historic landfills for recoverable resources. The demands of Historians to preserve artifacts from the dumps was slowing down the reprocessing and adding too much to the costs.

  There was another bill coming before Congress which his party wanted defeated, hiking the permit fees for printing out permanent hard copies of any document and granting credits and incentives for reusable print media. There was a bill also of concern, which would add several more trees to the endangered species list, including Black Walnut and Boxwood. There was considerable pressure to make genetic testing at the border a requirement for admission to the Continent. The purpose was to deny entry to anyone who showed nonhuman sequences in their genome. Several cases were in the courts, protesting the law was applied to people who carried spontaneous mutations. The president felt allowing a sample to be taken when applying for a visa was sufficient.

  "About the matter with the asteroid, Roger. Are we on track for a smooth acquisition of that resource and no problems with the Japanese over it?"

  "Yes sir. Still moving forward and they are making no claim to it. It was entirely a matter of private parties staking a claim. The principals just happened to be residents of Mitsubishi 3. Even though some of them work for the company, it was a matter of private sector investment, which simply conflicted with long established international law. And it is the American subsidiary in any case. There is some problem on the Second International Space Station which seems related. There is a Chinese national, a lady scientist, who is attempting to defect to Mitsubishi 3 and they are upset. We're going to arrest all the people involved and sort it out. Do you think we should offer to return the lady, before she has a chance to get to M3 and claim asylum?"

  "Well as refreshing as it is to see someone defecting to us, it might be better to toss a bone to the Chinese before it complicates things. Now is no time to allow one person to distract us. Emphasize we will hand her over, after we arrest her. No use in letting them get too cocky. You don't know what field she works in, to have them so upset?"

  "No. She's Tibetan. Her ethnicity might be part of it. They're still touchy about Tibet. But what can it matter? She's just coming alone and you know these people can't develop anything today without a budget of billions and a staff of thousands."

  "Yes, I wish we could count on a few youthful geniuses, to invent whole new industries in their garage, like they did a hundred years ago. The economy could use a dose of it, but I'm afraid those days are gone forever."

  Frank thought he would not be surprised if he got a ticket from a Homeland Defender, if he so much as parked crooked in his garage, much less invented anything in it outside of zoned use. The old bat across the street brazenly spied on him from her window with binoculars, even though he worked for the White House. But he didn't say anything. To complain about anything was to be suspect in one's loyalties.

  Chapter 25

  Easy and April had con
sidered all the possible weaknesses in their homemade stealth conversion. They turned the ship, so the nozzles of the engines were away from any radars mounted on a pursuing ship. They angled the forward ports so they would probably reflect anything clear of both the radiating vessel and LEO itself and they hoped nothing in the antennas would effectively reflect a signal back to a search radar. They were silent in the radio spectrum themselves and would watch passively for any other vessels. They prepared the machine gun for action and tied it down with elastic cord ready to clamp on the lip of the open lock. Eddie had also been trained in use of the two small Russian anti-tank missiles. The missiles and gun depended on them closing to very short range, to fight effectively. It was also necessary they pump down the whole cabin.

  While they still had their helmets open they polled their passengers.

  "April has the thought we are in trouble as deep as we can go and there isn't much worse they can do to us than they already are able and willing. Given we are certain they are going to attack M3, her thought is to take advantage of our position and damage the USNA and China as deeply as we can, by attacking their satellites before we burn back home. Perhaps our efforts would inspire resistance on M3, or it might just add to the laundry list of charges. I'm already in as much trouble as a pilot can be, refusing traffic instructions from every agency that has an interest. How do you folks feel?"

  "If there is no support for me when we reach M3, the authorities seem determined to aid the Chinese in capturing me," Nam Kah explained. "I say fight while we have the power to do so."

  "Of course I will resist the Chinese, or any who would aid them for my wife. I know I can't speak for him, but I can't imagine our director of security taking part in such an unjust arrest. Jon is a good guy."

  "Assuming Jon is still director when we get back," Happy pointed out.