Calvin rushed off with the three high-speed cameras. Annie began flipping frantically through the books. "Annie, I'll be right back. I've got to see Jim a sec." I told her. I ran two doors down the hall to the main lab where I was just in time to overhear Jim shouting.
"Owwch! Goddamnit all to hell!" He let a crescent wrench slip and fall on his fingers.
"Jim, you all right?" I asked, any other time I would've -chuckled.
"Yeah."
"How's progress here?"
"I'm ready to fire it up and test it. You got the control algorithm ready?"
"Yep! I just finished it. And I know how to see to steer it. You know the problem we were going to have on the Moon making one swipe then recalculating the next trajectory or swipe? Well, to hell with that. We're going to modulate the field so we can see through it. Since we will be nonrelativistic we can see through the Alcubierre warp and by modulating the outer Van Den Broeck bubble we can see right where we're going."
"Nonrelativistic?" Jim sounded shocked. "Doc, what are you planning?"
"If you can't take the mountain to Muhammad my ass. By God, we'll rip the fucking thing right out of the Earth!"
CHAPTER 19
The next five or ten minutes were a flurry of, "Go hook that up over there. Try it now. NO! Wait a minute. Turn that on first, then connect this. Okay, I'm triggering the software. The coils are on. Do we get any readings from the detector?"
"Anson, I'm reading gravity modification as expected." Jim checked the detector twice. "It works. What now?"
"Shut it off for second. Let's get the general down here."
I ran back into my office. "Annie, check on the video system and the GPS. Have the signals sent down the hall instead. That big flat panel in there will be our window. And get me a shitload of walkie talkies will ya?"
"Jim!" I yelled down toward the lab. He stuck his head out of the door.
"What!?"
"This has now become the Engineering section of our spaceship. You're the chief engineer, got it?"
"Got it. Where will you be?" he asked.
"Somebody has to drive this thing. Do me a favor and see if your spousal unit needs help with that warp missile. We're going to need it soon."
I grabbed my computer setup and made it double time to the secure room with Tabitha. I told Tabitha to open the door and let any of our crew in. "We're going to need them on call. Also, we have to have communication with the lab, uh, Engineering."
"Anson, what are you talking about?"
I held up the overview drawing of the facility that Anne Marie had found in the pile of blueprints Calvin had supplied us. "This is what I'm talking about." I thumbtacked the drawing to the wall and drew a big red circle around the facility with a whiteboard marker. If my calculations were right, and if 'Becca's claims of the energy available from the new flubell ECC were correct, we had more than enough power to warp the entire facility out of the ground and use it as a spaceship and weapon. "Where are the enemy?" Okay, I've recovered. It's time to unturtle and come out swinging and kicking!
Tabitha turned to the flat panel controls and punched in a world flat map. Six different trajectories traced out across the globe. "They got to high LEO before our missile defense systems could do anything. Now they're out of range. We're the last line of defense. The President has been scrambled to Air Force One and I'm sure Congress has been mobilized."
"Do we have any idea what their targets are? Where do they plan to hit?"
"Not exactly sure but the trajectories all track over plenty of U.S. critical targets."
A corner of the flat-panel screen sectioned off and the face of a blue-suit general appeared. "Tabitha we just got this image and we lost contact from Ramstein." The general on the other end seemed grim. A satellite image from space showed us a large dust plume where Germany used to be. The death toll must have been staggering. A second box separated on the flat panel and another satellite image popped up. "There was also an impact that looks centered on the Vandenberg Launch facility in California."
The second image showed a plume that covered all the way down to Los Angeles, California to the south and three quarters of the way up to San Jose to the north. Millions had to have been killed. I was getting to the point of being so emotionally devastated by the destruction and death, which I was mainly responsible for that I could barely function. Sheer will to see the American way of life survive and years of martial arts training pressed me to focus. I focused on what needed to get done now and I could feel remorse, and mourn, later. What other choice did I have? Keep fighting, Anson!
Anne Marie burst into the room panting for air and wielding a walkie talkie. "Anson, here. Calvin said that the video hook-up is completed. He said just turn the flat panel to channels zero, one, and two. We also distributed the walkie talkies to everyone."
"Great," I took the radio from her. "Tabitha section us off part of the panel for those three channels." She did and three nice images of outside appeared on the screen. I touched the talk button. "Calvin are you out there?"
"Right here Doc! What you need?"
"Which direction is each of these cameras looking?"
"Okay let me see. Camera zero is looking due north, one is south, and two is a little west-northwest."
"Great, thanks Calvin. Where is my GPS?" I asked and wrote front, back, and left on three different sticky notes. Then I stuck the sticky notes on the three different images. I arbitrarily chose the north view as front.
"You're talking to him. I have a handheld GPS right here. Couldn't figure out how to get it to work down there."
"Okay, that'll have to do I guess. You hold on up there and whatever you do, don't panic. We're going for a little ride." I told him.
A third panel separated off showing an image of the eastern coast of Florida. Tabitha screamed, "They just hit Kennedy Space Center. They think we will need launch facilities."
I freaked out, "Tabitha your folks!?"
"Don't worry Anson, they were moved after the hospital fiasco. They are miles away from Titusville."
"I'm glad." I felt better. I liked her parents.
"Tabitha," the other general's face appeared back on screen.
"Yes Mike."
"Track Four will be right over you in about five minutes. Track Six will be over Washington D.C. on its next orbit, we're still guessing as to Track Five's target."
I looked at the world map and zoomed in on Track Four. In about five minutes it would be right over Roswell, New Mexico. "Well I'll be damned, that's where we've been hiding all this time." I pushed the talk button and flipped my laptop on at the same time. "Jim, you there?"
"Roger that, Anson."
"Okay, Jim. Start us up. We're about to go one thousand kilometers straight up." I opened the guidance program and started it. "Jim, are you picking up my computer signal okay in there?"
"Great, Anson. I'm getting about nine gigabits per second communication with you. More than enough." The wireless modem was working well through the walls of the facility.
"Okay, Jim, I'm starting the warp field. You tell me if there are any problems in there." I toggled the warp bubble on and the lights blinked on and off for a second.
"You must have cut the outside power line and the backup generators kicked in," Tabitha pointed out.
"Jim, did the power surge damage anything in there?"
"No, Anson. We are A-okay."
"Look at the view screen, Tabitha. We can still see out through the warp bubble. I'm going to create a hole in the bubble directly over Calvin that will oscillate at a much slower frequency. That way his GPS might still function. And our communication system might still function." The cameras worked great. But I had just thought about the sample frequency of the GPS system and our communications with the outside world. It probably worked at a much lower frequency than the high-speed cameras. The communications systems used both a satellite connection and an omnidirectional digital microwave transmitter. The satellite connection w
ould be lost for now. But the omnidirectional signal would last as long as we could see a TDRSS satellite. The screen only flickered a few times but we maintained communications. Amazing!
"Calvin, you there?"
"Doc! It just got pitch black out here and the outside lights came on!"
"Don't panic, Calvin; that is a good thing. Listen, is your GPS still working?"
"Uh, yes. It looks fine."
"Great, just a minute." I turned to Annie, "Annie go help 'Becca get those missiles ready. Tell them that they have to carry them up to where Calvin is."
I punched the talk button again, "Calvin what are our GPS coordinates?" He responded with a set of numbers. I typed them into the program as zero point. Then I entered the command to increase the radial axis by one thousand kilometers. I pressed enter.
The images on the view panel were suddenly dark and then I could see star fields. Good thing the Sun would be to the east of us or we could have fried the cameras. I also started thinking about the amount of oxygen we had trapped in our warp bubble, but I quickly put that out of my mind—as big as our warp bubble was more than enough atmosphere would be trapped in it to keep us going for days or more.
"Tabitha, where is that oncoming traffic?"
Tabitha looked at the data a bit longer. "Anson, I think we're about a hundred kilometers too high and about eight hundred kilometers east of it."
I adjusted our location accordingly and pointed the left camera in that direction. Before long we could see a shiny spot in the view panel.
"There!" Tabitha pointed it out.
"Got it!" I put the software in joystick mode and guided the warp field with the tiny joystick on the laptop keyboard. I flew us to within a few thousand meters of the spacecraft. I called up to 'Becca, "Where are my missiles?"
"The first one is ready, Anson. I'm turning it on . . . now." Immediately following her reply an icon popped up on my desktop.
The RF link in the MWM was working! I grabbed the warp field oscillator program and dropped it into the MWM icon. This loaded the lights-off lights-on software into it. Then I opened the icon for the MWM, which looked identical to the control panel for the larger warp system of the facility spaceship. I clicked the pointer into the MWM control stick mode and activated it.
"Anson, the MWM just lifted a meter straight up and is hovering there. Nothing there but a faintly glimmering blue and red bubble," 'Becca called over the talkie.
"Great, that means it works." We hadn't had time to develop a nose camera for these things yet, so I was going to have to guide it from the facility cameras. Making sure the North camera had the enemy rocket in central view, I lifted the little warp missile straight up another twenty meters or so until it was in the north camera's field of view and then I toggled the main facility warp field.
"Lights off!" I said and pushed the stick full forward. The MWM shot straight about five hundred meters per second out of the realm of the facility, "Lights on!" The atmosphere outside never had a chance to realize it was in a vacuum.
"There it is," Tabitha pointed at the screen. I had over shot the rocket by several kilometers, which was apparent by the faint red plasma trail that shot out in front of the Chinese rocket.
"Just like Beggar's Canyon back home!" I told her and yanked the joystick left, right, forward, a little left, then forward full, and BANGO! The little warp missile zigged and zagged and left the light red plasma trail behind it where it ripped through and ionized the few atomic oxygen atoms per cubic meter in the upper atmosphere. A fireball filled the screen and the rocket was destroyed. Unfortunately, the MWM's power supply was dead too. "Take that you sons a bitches!" I shot a bird at the view panel.
"Tabitha, what's going on?" Mike the general asked. I didn't know his last name. It didn't dawn on me to read his nametag on the right chest of his uniform. Okay, okay, but I was busy.
"Mike, we just waxed track four's ass and we are headed for Track Six. Can you tell me where it is in GPS coordinates right now? I need lat, long, and altitude." Tabitha answered.
"Gives us a second, Tabitha."
"Anson this is 'Becca." My walkie buzzed.
"Go 'Becca." I depressed the talk switch.
"We have the second MWM ready and are sitting in the parking lot next to Calvin. Where are we?" I realized that since the human eye couldn't see fast enough, none of our crew upstairs could see through the bubble. They had no idea we were in space.
"You're asking me? Calvin is right there beside you with a GPS system. Ask him."
"Those damn numbers don't mean anything to me, other than the altitude. Are we in space?"
"Yeah. High LEO. I'm kind of busy right now. I'll call you back in a second."
The general was talking to Tabitha again. "Tabitha, what is left of Space Command is picking up a huge mass above you on radar."
"No, Mike. That's us. The mass is actually the facility we were using at Roswell. We turned it into a spacecraft. Hey get the radar guy at Space Command directly in contact with us here. We will have him guide us right to the other missiles." Tabitha took the time to smile at me.
"Great work gorgeous!" I smiled with hope we would win this thing, trying not to think about the fact that we only had one more missile left. I began steering toward the west coast of the U.S. If Track Six was one orbit away from the capitol, it would be somewhere over Asia about now. The voice of the radar operator came on the speaker of the view panel.
"Uh hello General. This is Lieutenant Phillip Black -speaking."
"Hello Lieutenant Black. This is General Tabitha Ames speaking. The large mass in high LEO that you are detecting is me. I need you to guide us into the other inbound tracks. Assume we can travel instantly in straight lines. Do you understand?"
"Uh, yes ma'am. How do you want me to guide you? I mean GPS coordinated or what?"
Tabitha turned to me. "Anson?"
"Well, how about just north, south, east, west, up, and down?" I shrugged my shoulders.
"Can you do that Lieutenant Black?"
"Easy, ma'am. Which track first?" Lieutenant Black asked.
"The one closest to flying over the U.S." Tabitha ordered.
"Roger that," Lieutenant Black said. "One of them is tracking into our west coastal waters airspace at this time. You're approximately the same altitude but are about nine hundred miles north and six hundred miles east of the target."
I adjusted by vectoring the joystick to the southwest. "How's that?"
"Uh, hold on." The max velocity Lieutenant Black was measuring for us was probably making his head spin. "Okay. Now you are about eighteen hundred miles north and about twelve hundred miles east of the target."
"Lieutenant, are you telling me I went the wrong way?" I asked a little embarrassed.
"Eh, yeah. Sorry," he said.
Tabitha seemed to frown but said nothing.
I cursed, almost laughed, and undid what I just did twice. Tabitha expressed to me later that a similar thing had happened to Jim Lovell on Apollo XIII, so I didn't feel as bad about it.
"How's that?" I rechecked my bearings. Somehow I had gotten turned around.
"Okay. Let's see. You should be within a few miles of the target. Perhaps you are a bit low. Hold one . . . yes. You need to go up by about fifty miles."
"We can't see up or down or right. Hold on." Tabitha announced.
I raised the facility up about fifty miles. It was weird for me to change from kilometers to miles all of the sudden but miles was still standard in American aviation. I had to do quick conversions in my head before I typed in the altitude increases or decreases. The joystick would've worked for vertical maneuvering, but typing in the exact distance was more accurate.
We still didn't see the spacecraft. "Hold on, Tabitha," I told her. I put a slow rotation about the center of the warp bubble. We started rotating and the star field in the camera view began to transit the screen. "There it is!" I pointed it out to Tabitha.
"Lieutenant Black. We have a visual on
the target. Please stand by to confirm target destruction." Tabitha nodded to me. "Kick his ass, Anson!"
I adjusted our altitude until we were in the same angular plane with the spacecraft, making sure it was in the center of the field of view.
"Stand clear of MWM two!" I yelled over the talkie.
"All clear, Anson!"
I translated the warp missile up twenty or so meters and pointed it straight at the enemy rocket.
"Lights off!" I pushed the joystick right through where the target used to be. "Lights on!" Again the red plasma trail followed the missile and again the big red fireball. "Scratch two!"
Unfortunately, we were out of missiles now; this one died on impact also. One half of seventy-five percent finished of a mini ECC just couldn't generate enough power to take the stress of the impact.
"Lieutenant, locate the remaining target and give us a heading." Tabitha ordered crisply.
"Roger General Ames. The final target is currently over Irkutsk, Russia."
"Hold on a minute," I said. "I can travel in spherical coordinates also. Tell me how many miles along a curve from my present location to the target. I will adjust altitude and north and south when we get there."
"Sure. I can do that. You need to travel about sixty-five hundred miles westward then three hundred to the north." Lieutenant Black was on top of his game.
"Okay, now what?" I said after adjusting our location. It took a second for the communications to catch back up. That was a big jump and it took the TDRSS satellite nearest us a second to realize that it was getting a signal from us. Then it had to determine where to route it.
Tabitha looked perplexed for a split second, "Lieutenant, this is General Ames are you still there?" Nothing but static. The flat panel was all blue except for the three windows marked front, back, and left.
"Well Tabitha, looks like we lost their signal for now." I told her. I started rotating the facility looking around for the last missile. "Do you see it?" I asked.
"No. Keep looking."
" . . . General Am . . . Lieutenant . . . Bla . . . do you copy?" The blue screens popped back on displaying imagery, missile tracks, and video of Mike the general's counterpart facility. "I repeat. General Ames this is Lieutenant Black, do you copy?"
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