“Jesus, ma’am. I’m glad you’re not announcing that to the whole crew.”
“No worries, Commander. The odds of that are actually miniscule. I’m more concerned about what might be waiting for us at our destination.”
“Dirac’s message said that everything seems fine with the Kostroma.”
“It probably is, but would they know otherwise?” She switched on the comms circuit to main engineering. It was time to call the one other person who had already done the same trip to Dirac.
“Chief Engineer Waters, please report to me in the C2C.”
Jake Waters arrived a minute later, fresh-faced and grinning as always. Telomerase drugs were taken by nearly everyone in the western world, but they had an especially pronounced effect on baby-faced people like him. Waters was thirty-nine but looked more like a traditional college boy. The bright blond hair and everlasting grin didn’t do anything to age his appearance.
“How is the engine coping, Cheng?” the captain asked. It was the time-honored nickname for a ship’s chief engineer.
“Running perfectly, ma’am. We just hit max acceleration, and the reaction temps are steady at six-point-six keV. The grav plate sync is amazing, countering the interior g-forces to within one millionth of a percent every five hundred microseconds. This ship could give the ol’ Millennium Falcon a run for its money.” Behind him, Beth Yamada smirked and rolled her eyes.
“Blasphemy,” Pierce replied with a quick grin. “Now, come talk to Commander Yates and me about something.” The three of them walked away from the middle of the C2C and huddled in a back corner of the room where they could whisper out of earshot of the others.
“What I want to talk to you about is weapons,” Pierce said quietly. “Handheld weapons. I’ll brief the crew about this in a minute, but we’re heading out to Dirac because another ship inbound for the station, the supply craft Kostroma, didn’t respond to a query from SPACECOM. There’s also some fishy information on the news from its spaceport, so it’s possible that Kostroma might be hijacked, or maybe disabled. Most likely everything is fine, but CS-Kenya sent us to investigate, and we’ll get there just after they do. If hijackers really are on their way, we may need something to fight them on the station.”
“No shit?” Waters said. “I mean, understood, ma’am. Do you think it is that it’s true?”
“Pretty unlikely, since it shouldn’t be too easy to do. Moreover, we received a message from Dirac itself not fifteen minutes ago, explaining that they had contacted Kostroma and heard back that everything was kosher. But the ship wouldn’t say otherwise if that was true. In case we’re not just being paranoid, I want us to be able to fight back.”
“Yes, ma’am. Well, I suppose Chief Sandoval’s little armory isn’t going to be adequate.”
“Twenty stun guns, probably not. Not if we’re facing armed men.”
“How many, do you think?”
“I have no idea. Given the size of the Kostroma, it could be hundreds. Realistically, I think it’ll be no more than one or two dozen, since they’ll have needed to sneak aboard that ship.”
“And there’s only fifty-six of us on this ship. What kind of armory does Dirac have?”
“According to Abe, one hundred stun guns of the same type that we have,” Yates replied. “They don’t want real firearms on a space station any more than we do, for the same reasons.”
“And their armory is in the middle of the Hub,” Pierce said. “Right next to the Ops Center if I remember correctly, which is close to the main dock. Anyone entering from the dock is going to be able to get there within seconds, so let’s assume we can’t use them anyway. We’ll need to improvise something more dangerous.”
Waters looked absently across the room in Yamada’s direction, nodding to himself.
“I don’t think we can improvise useful firearms with what we have onboard, but maybe something like grenades.”
“What do you mean?”
“Our EVA spacesuits. They all have compact hydron-superoxide fuel cells for portable power. They’re rectangular and weigh about two kilos, but if you’re strong you could throw that a ways. So like, when we’re working outside the ship for hours with power tools, we just plug their cords into a spacesuit’s power source instead of having the tools all charged individually. The suit batteries get recharged by ship’s power, in the maintenance shop.”
“You could turn them into explosives?”
“Sure! Under the right conditions, I mean. They become unstable if they’re overcharged enough, and my guys could rig the maintenance shop’s charging equipment to ignore the safety limits. I’d have them wrapped in a wax-clay nanotube composite. It’ll add a little extra weight to them, but otherwise they’ll be too hot to handle. We could 3-D print some insulation casing. We could also print simple circuitry for triggers and give them a delayed activation like a regular grenade, like five seconds. Depending on their charge, they’d explode with a static electricity burst anywhere from maybe one to two thousand millijoules.”
“How much does it take to be lethal?” Yates asked.
“Around thirteen hundred. But even thirty will at least make most people flinch. And it’s static, so it’ll spread to anything nearby.”
“That could do as much damage to us if we’re nearby. It may be close quarters on Dirac. Electricity could conduct back in our direction.”
“Oh, definitely!” Waters replied. “You’d have to be careful. And, uh, kinda lucky. But like you said, ma’am, they’d be a lot more dangerous than stun guns.”
“How many of those batteries do we have?” Yates asked.
“Right now, over a hundred!” Waters exclaimed. He was met by Pierce waving her hand downward for him to lower his voice. He continued in a whisper. “Sorry, ma’am. Normally we have twenty-four, two each for our EVA suits, but all the technicians who’ve been working on our cannon overhauls just left their suits onboard until they come back. They also left plenty of spare tools and other gear. No need to bring all that back to Earth during their holiday leave, right?”
“Get started as soon as you can,” Pierce said. “Make sure you’re in Engineering Control when we need to make the big flip for deceleration, but otherwise I want you to focus on this. Get anyone in engineering department you can spare into putting these things together.”
“Aye aye, ma’am! I hope this all turns out to be nothing. It’s not like anyone onboard really has that sort of combat training. Anyway, before we arrive I should do some preparation with anyone going onboard. Make sure they know how to use these things.”
“We should have enough time, Cheng. And let us know if you or your guys come up with any other ideas.”
Waters nodded and walked briskly away. “Didn’t even occur to him to be nervous about the situation,” Yates mumbled. “He could be the poster-boy for high-functioning autism.”
Waters crossed through C2C and out the hatch on the opposite end of the room. For a moment, Pierce saw the friendly look exchanged between him and Beth Yamada.
“Is everything alright, ma’am?” Yamada asked as the captain took her seat again.
Pierce met her eyes for a second, then took a deep breath as she grabbed the microphone for the 1MC. “Onboard Lincoln, this is the captain,” she announced. “Well done to all departments on handling the emergency sortie and making the ship ready for high-g transit. We will arrive at Dirac Station in just over four hours. Now that we’re in a steady acceleration, it’s time to fill you in on the reason behind this sudden trip.”
Port Akdeniz Marina
Antalya, Turkey
1:45 p.m. (1045Z), 24 December 2065
Anyone who might’ve seen the family would know they looked out of place, walking with luggage down the dock toward the lone fishing boat moored along the quay wall. The five of them had waited in their car for the right moment when nobody was around to notice. It was a short wait. It was late in bluefish tuna season, and every other boat was already out at sea, trying
to make their quotas before the season ended, and the civilian marina was on the other side of the harbor. Only the six-man crew of the boat noticed the people walking towards them, one of whom they recognized.
“Borakan, it’s good to see you boys again,” Dr. Ozker Ozcan said, shaking the captain’s hand as he stepped onto the boat from the gangplank. “You’re about to make this old man and his family very happy.”
“You’re about to make me happy with what you’re paying me for this one, Oz.” The captain addressed the rest of the family. “Come aboard, everyone, quickly now. Asim here will show you below and get you out of sight.” Oz’s wife Semiha, their son Kerem and his wife Safiye, and Safiye’s mother, Dilara Demirci, walked onboard and went down to the boat’s hold. It stank of fish even worse than the topside deck, but none of them complained. Their minds were all on other things.
“Five people instead of one, five times your last fee. Seems like a fair deal to me. I’m sorry this one means no more repeat business from me.”
“It’s alright. I think we’ve had enough of the risk anyway,” Borakan said, which surprised Oz. The boat captain had asked about new business a few times in the last month. “There’s a new customs chief in the port, and his ass is even tighter than the last guy’s.”
“I see. Well, you’ve been fair and reliable over the years, my friend. And I appreciate that you never asked too many questions.”
“Never wanted to, though I’ll miss the money. But I’ve been nervous every time since that young man a few years ago. I heard rumors about what happened to his parents.”
Oz looked down before speaking again. “You know, I told that young man not to go. Pleaded, even, but he was awfully stubborn.” He sighed. “Well, let’s not discuss it. Except to say that it’s why my family is going with me. I’m just glad the security goons never discovered your involvement. Before long, it wouldn’t have worked out too well for me either, eh?”
Two of the boat’s crew cast off the mooring lines as the pilot started the engine and slowly moved the boat away from the dock.
“You might want to take one last look at the shore of Turkey, Oz. The next time you come up topside, we’ll be well out to sea.”
Oz did for a few minutes, but he decided not to stay on deck for too long. Someone from shore might notice him and see that the rotund, gray man on the boat didn’t belong with the crew. But he also knew that he might become melancholy if he stared a while. He had other children and grandchildren, and he couldn’t have taken them all along. All were oblivious to his other life in the Seventh Arrow, and to what he had done with the Isyan rocket. For their welfare, he simply had to hope for the best. With any luck, the Plan would do away with the Silver’s government well before their reprisals began.
He at least wasn’t fleeing for his own sake. He was now a man who knew too much, so he was leaving to safeguard the Arrows. His involvement with the Isyan rocket was about to become obvious, so his arrest and interrogation were guaranteed within hours if he stayed in the country. He knew he had to flee or risk bringing down the resistance. If all worked out as planned, though, he’d be able to return in a few days.
Oz settled in with the others in the cargo hold as the boat got underway. After a few hours in the Mediterranean, everyone would be setting foot in Greece.
RFSS Kostroma
1120Z, 24 December 2065
Colonel Terzi stared at the navigation screen, watching the inbound tracks of both Kostroma and Lincoln to Dirac. Kostroma would dock first by only sixteen minutes.
“Doctor, I’m trying to game out this suggestion of yours, about seizing this DA warship once they dock. The secondary dock is in the Labs section, so they’ll head there. We can be ready to take them with ten minutes to spare if all goes as planned, but suppose our access to the Labs is delayed? If we don’t achieve surprise and the warship learns we’re coming for them, they can detach at will. And if they do that, we’ll never escape on this ship.”
Damn, Demirci thought. I was hoping he wouldn’t consider that in time.
“What did the simulations suggest is the likelihood of a delay in that part of the raid? Twelve percent? And even then, probably not by more than a couple minutes?”
“Yes, but that’s based on the best available information. Who knows what’s unavailable? If they’re alerted before we dock, the station’s crew may be able to delay us longer than we’d like. Time is an important factor now that this warship is coming. Suppose that we allow Lincoln to arrive first. We create an excuse to delay our arrival until they’re already docked. Otherwise they might not dock at all if they learn the raid is happening as they approach. It may be easier to seize the ship if they’re already there.”
Demirci refrained from looking at the time as he ran through the numbers in his head. We’ll only have twelve minutes between our docking and the station’s loss of comms. It’s too narrow a window. We need to dock on schedule. For me, it’s a bigger risk to wait. He shook his head.
“I think initiative is more important. If anyone challenges us or figures out that we’re not the Russian crew before we dock, we run the risk of getting locked out. Then we can’t accomplish our mission or flee in this ship. But the first place we’ll take on the station is their operations center, and that’ll include their communications to the warship. Lincoln won’t be warned. Still, we do need to get to the Labs before the warship is there, that’s the most important thing. Once we’ve seized the station, whether the Lincoln has docked or not they’ll be in the same position the entire DA will be in once we return to Earth – we’ll have hostages to negotiate with. And once our mission is successful and we have the antimatter, we’ll have an even bigger bargaining chip. Audacity will beat caution.”
Terzi slowly nodded, and noticed Major Yilmaz doing the same.
“Alright, this is what we’ll do. Our split into three teams instead of two will be temporary. I’ll take and hold the Hub’s Ops Center with three men. We’ll be the ‘green team’. Major Yilmaz, speed will be crucial. You and your men get to the Labs as fast as your legs will carry you. Take four other men including Doctor Demirci and secure our antimatter. We’ll call you ‘blue team’. Captain Yazici, you and three others will be ‘red team’, and you’ll seize that warship. Go to the secondary dock and get inside their ship so quickly that they won’t be able to detach from the station. Pay no mind to casualties.” Yilmaz and Yazici each acknowledged with a quick “Yes, sir,” neither showing a moment of concern.
Terzi chuckled. “Doctor, I’m glad you’re with us. Perhaps you should have been a strategist instead of a scientist.”
USS Abraham Lincoln
1150Z, 24 December 2065
Thirty of the crew were gathered in the mess decks, all fiddling with the “hydro-bombs” Jake Waters had issued to them after describing how they worked. Chief Sandoval began the meeting by distributing the ship’s armory of twenty stun guns. The thirty gathered in the room represented over half the crew, those picked to go onboard Dirac Station if need be. Above the din of conversation, Pierce could hear some voices marked with fear and there were a few jokes, but for most, there was a running commentary of disbelief.
“This is nuts,” Lieutenant Tom Clark muttered upon holding the device issued to him.
“Let’s hope so, Lieutenant,” Yates said as he walked around. Clark had a reputation as the XO’s protégé, another New Orleans-born officer who had managed to follow Yates since their tour on the Jefferson together. “This is an improvised mission, and nobody here is trained for it. But if our suspicions are right, then both Dirac and us will be in for a world of hurt.”
“It’s not just that, sir,” Clark said. “It’s these crazy things. We’re treating them like grenades, except they’re heavy enough that we can’t throw them far. The electrical bursts are going to shock the hell out of us.”
“Can I take issue with the name?” Chief Sandoval asked in Waters’s direction. “Calling it a hydro-bomb implies that it inv
olves water.”
“Yeah, I thought about that,” Waters said. “The fuel cells are hydron-superoxide, so I thought about ‘hydron-bomb’ or ‘hydron charge’ or ‘static bomb’. But hydro-bomb just rolls off the tongue easier, right?”
“Okay, enough,” Pierce said, raising her voice above the crowd. “Listen up. More likely than not this will all amount to nothing, and then we’ll laugh about this on our way back home. But while we hope for the best, we plan for the worst. We’ll be powering down the deceleration and arriving at Dirac in an hour, so Commander Yates, Chief Sandoval and Lieutenant Commander Waters will be spending this hour going over the layout of the station. I want you all to assume that we’re actually going to have to fight armed intruders there. Don’t tell yourselves otherwise until we know otherwise.”
A spattering of hushed comments arose between the crewmembers as they took their seats. While Waters brought up the station’s schematics on the wall screens, Pierce could almost feel the room’s temperature drop a few degrees.
CHAPTER 10
The White House
6:59 a.m. (1159Z), 24 December 2065
Erik Stendahl and Eli Drennan entered the Situation Room separately. Diandra Stone was already present; she thought it best to arrive before the others, considering her office was only a few feet away. Also filing into the room were the fifteen regulars on the National Security Council: the Joint Chiefs, the Secretary of State, the Vice President, and others. The Director of Naval Intelligence was also there at Stendahl’s request. The attendees chattered about the Mediterranean cable breaks, but only Stone, Stendahl and Drennan were aware of the Plan. The door opened once more, and everyone around the table stood to attention.
“Alright, everyone,” President Loughlin announced as she and her chief of staff walked into the room. “It’s Christmas Eve, it’s seven am, and the screen on the wall still says we’re at DEFCON Four. It would be nice to give the American people a holiday present and change that number back to Five today. What have you got for us this morning, Dee?”
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