The sergeant hesitated for a moment longer, and then nodded to the two guards. Borftein and his party marched through, and Hanlon began posting men to secure the entrance. Another section of B Company materialized from a stairwell to one side of the foyer and vanished into the Communications Center, taking with them a few bewildered secretaries and office workers that they had bumped into on the way.
But no Borftein was present to save the situation at the side entrance. “I don’t know anything about it,” the SD Officer of the Bay said from the screen in reply to the call the guard there had put through. “Those orders are incorrect. Detain those men.” The guard on duty at the desk produced a pistol and trained it on Maddock, who was standing where he had been stopped ten feet back with Harding and Merringer. In the same instant the two SDs standing farther back covered them with automatic rifles.
“Down!” Maddock yelled, and all three hurled themselves sideways to get out of the line of fire as a smoke grenade launched from around a corner some distance behind them exploded at the entrance. Fire from the entranceway raked the area as the B Company squad broke cover and rushed forward through the smoke, but the first of them was still twenty feet away when the steel door slammed down and alarms began sounding throughout the Government Center.
Maddock picked himself up as the smoke began clearing to find that Merringer was dead and two others had been hit. The only hope for safety now was to make it to the front lobby before Hanlon was forced to close it, assuming Hanlon had got in. “Go first with four men,” he shouted at Harding. “Fire at any SDs who get in the way. They know we’re here now.” He turned to the others. “Grab those two and stick with me. You two, stay with Crosby and cover the rear. Okay, let’s get the hell out.”
But SDs were already pouring out of the guardroom behind the main doors of the Government Center and racing along the corridor toward the communications facility while civilians flattened themselves against the walls to get out of the way, and others who had been working late peered from their offices to see what was happening. The engineer in coveralls who had been working inconspicuously at an opened switchbox through an access panel in the floor closed a circuit, and a reinforced fire-door halfway along the corridor closed itself in the path of the oncoming SDs. The SD major leading the detachment stared numbly at it for a few seconds while his men came to a confused halt around him. “Back to the front stairs,” he shouted. “Go up to Level Three, and come down on the other side.”
On the other side of the fire-door, Bernard dropped his tools and ran back to the front lobby of the Communications Center, praying that the alarm hadn’t been raised from there. Hanlon and Stanislau were waiting outside the entrance with a handful of the others. Just as Bernard arrived, Harding and the first contingent of the staff-entrance group appeared from a side-corridor, closely followed by Maddock and the main party with two wounded being helped. Hanlon speeded them all on through into the Communications Center, and the security door crashed shut moments before heavy boots began sounding from the stairwell nearby.
Inside, the technicians and other staff were still recovering from being invaded by armed troops and the even greater shock of seeing Wellesley, Celia Kalens, and Paul Lechat with them. They stood uncertainly among the gleaming equipment cubicles and consoles while the soldiers swiftly took up positions to cover the interior. Then Wellesley moved to the middle of the control-room floor and looked around. “Who is in charge here?” he demanded. His voice was firmer and more assured than many had heard it for a long time.
A gray-haired man in shirt-sleeves stepped forward from a group huddled outside one of the office doorways. “I am,” he said, “McPherson—Communications and Datacenter Manager.” After a short pause he added, “At your disposal.”
Wellesley acknowledged with a nod and gestured toward Lechat. “Speed is essential,” Lechat said without preamble. “We require access to all channels on the civil, public service, military, and emergency networks immediately . . .”
The Battle Module was a mile-long concentration of megadeath and mass destruction that sat on a base formed by the blunt nose of the Spindle, straddled by two pillars that extended forward to support the ramscoop cone and its field generators, and which contained the ducts to carry back to the midships processing reactors the hydrogen force-fed out of space when the ship was at ramspeed. Sleek, stark, menacing, and bristling with missile pods, defensive radiation projectors, and ports for deploying orbital and remote-operating weapons systems, it contained all of the Mayflower II’s strategic armaments, and could detach if need be to function as an independent, fully self-contained warship.
The Battle Module was not intended to be part of the Mayflower II’s public domain, and restriction of access to it had been one of its primary design criteria. Personnel and supplies entered the module via four enormous tubular extensions, known as feeder ramps, that telescoped from the main body of the ship to terminate in cupolas mating with external ports in the Battle Module, two forward and two aft its midships section. One pair of feeder ramps extended backward and inward from spherical housings at the forward ends of the two ramscoop-support pillars, and the other pair extended forward and inward from the six-sided, forwardmost section of the Spindle, called, appropriately enough, the Hexagon. As if having to get through the feeder ramps wasn’t problem enough, the transit tubes, freight handling conveyors, ammunition rails, and other lines running through to them from the Spindle all came together at a single, heavily protected lock to pass through an armored bulkhead inside the Hexagon. Aft of the bulkhead, the lock faced out over a three-hundred-foot-long, wedge-shaped support platform upon which the various lines and tubes converged through a vast antechamber amid a jungle of girder and structural supports, motor housings, hoisting machinery, ducts, pipes, conduits, maintenance ladders, and catwalks. There was no other way through or round the bulkhead. The only route forward from the Hexagon was through the lock.
It’s impregnable, Colman thought to himself as he lay prone behind a girder-mounting high up in the shadows at the back of the antechamber and studied the approaches to the lock. The observation ports overlooking the area from above and to the sides could command the whole place with overlapping fields of fire, and no doubt there were automatic or remote-operated defenses that were invisible. True, there was plenty of cover for the first stages of an assault, but the final rush would be suicidal . . . and probably futile since the lock doors looked strong enough to stop anything short of a tactical missile. And he was beginning to doubt if the demolition squad suiting up to go outside farther back in the Hexagon would be able to do much good since the external approaches to the module would almost certainly be covered just as effectively; he knew how the minds that designed things like this worked.
“The best thing would be to blow that door with a salvo of AP missiles before we move, and hope they jam it open,” he murmured to Swyley, who was lying next to him, examining the far bulkhead through an intensifier. “Then maybe drench the lock with incendiary and go in under smoke.”
“That’s only the first door,” Swyley reminded him, lowering the instrument from his eyes. “There are two of them. Whatever we do to that one won’t stop them from closing the second one.”
“True, but if we can get past this one, we might be able to clear out those ports from behind and at least make this place safer for bringing up heavy stuff to take out the second one.”
“And then what?” Swyley said. “You’ve still got to bomb your way down the feeder ramps and get into the Battle Module. Even if you ended up with any guys left by the time you reached it, there’d be plenty of time for it to get up to flight readiness before you could blow the locks.”
“Got any better ideas?” For once Swyley didn’t.
At that moment the emergency tone sounded simultaneously from both their communicators, and warning bleeps and wails went up from places in the labyrinth all around. They looked at each other for a second. The noise died away as Colma
n fished his unit from his breast pocket and held it in front where both of them could watch it, while Swyley deactivated his own. A few seconds later, the faces of Wellesley, Borftein, and Lechat appeared on the tiny screen. Colman closed his eyes for a moment and breathed a long, drawn-out sigh of relief. “They made it,” he whispered. “They’re all in there.”
“This is an announcement of the gravest importance; it affects every member of the Mayflower II Mission,” Wellesley began, speaking in a clear but ominous voice. “I am addressing you all in my full capacity as Director of this Mission. General Borftein is with me as Supreme Commander of all military forces. Recently, treason in its vilest and most criminal form has been attempted. That attempt has failed. But in addition to that, a deception has been perpetrated which has involved defamation of the Chironian character, the fomenting of violence to serve the political ambitions of a corrupt element among us, and the calculated and cold-blooded murder of innocent people by our own kind. I do not have to remind you . . .”
“That has to give us the rest of the ship and the surface,” Swyley said. “If the Army gets its act together and grabs Sterm before he gets a chance to head this way, then we might not have to go in there at all.”
Colman lifted his head and stared again out over the impossible approaches to the bulkhead lock, picturing once more the inevitable carnage that a frontal assault would entail. Who on either side would stand to gain anything that mattered to them? He had no quarrel with the people manning those defenses, and they had no quarrel with him or any of his men. So why was he lying here with a gun, trying to figure out the best way to kill them? Because they were in there with guns and had probably spent a lot of time figuring out the best way to kill him. None of them knew why they were doing it. It was simply that it had always been done.
On the screen of the communicator, the view closed in on Celia as she began speaking in a slightly quavery but determined voice. But Colman only half heard. He was trying to make himself think the way a Chironian would think.
CHAPTER THIRTY-SEVEN
Inside the local command post behind the Hexagon’s armored bulkhead, Major Lesley of the Special Duty Force was still too stunned by what he had heard to be capable of a coherent reaction for the moment. He stared at the companel where a screen showed a view from the Columbia District, where the SD guard commander had entered the Communications Center under a truce flag some minutes previously to talk with Borftein, and tried to separate the conflicting emotions in his head. Captain Jarvis, Lesley’s adjutant officer, and Lieutenant Chaurez watched in silence while around the command post the duty staff averted their eyes and occupied themselves with their own thoughts. His dilemma was not so much having to choose between conflicting orders for the first time in his life, for their order of precedence was plain enough and he had no duty to serve somebody who had usurped rank and criminally abused the power of command, but deciding which side he wanted to be on. Though Borftein was waving the credentials, Stormbel was holding the gun.
Jarvis scanned the screen on the far side of the post. “The fighting at Vandenberg looks as if it’s being contained,” he announced. “Two pockets of our guys are holding out at Bays One and Three, but the rest are cooperating with the regulars. The regulars have pretty well secured the whole module already, Stormbel won’t be getting any help from the surface through there.”
“What’s the latest from the surface?” Chaurez inquired.
“Confused but quiet at the barracks,” Jarvis told him. “A lot of shooting inside the base at Canaveral. Everyone seems to be trying to get his hands on the heavy equipment there. A shuttle’s on fire in one of the launch bays.”
Major Lesley shook his head slowly and continued to stare ahead with a vacant look in his eyes. “This shouldn’t be happening,” he murmured. “They’re not the enemy. They shouldn’t be fighting each other.”
Jarvis and Chaurez glanced at each other. Then Jarvis looked away as a new report came up on one of the screens. “Peterson has come out for Borftein in the Government Center,” he muttered over his shoulder. “I guess it’s all over in the Columbia District. That has to give them the whole Ring.”
“So they’ll be coming for the Spindle next,” Chaurez said. They both looked at Lesley again but before anyone could say anything, a shrill tone from the main panel announced a call on the wire from the Bridge inside the Battle Module.
Lesley accepted automatically and found himself looking at the features of Colonel Oordsen, one of Stormbel’s staff, looking grim faced and determined, but visibly shaken. “Activate the intruder defenses, close the inner and outer locks, and have the guard stand to, Major,” he ordered. “Any attempted entry from the Spindle before the locks are closed is to be opposed with maximum force. Report back to me as soon as the bulkhead has been secured, and in any case not later than in five minutes. Is that understood?”
At that moment a local alarm sounded inside the command post. Within seconds the sounds of men running to stations came from the passageways and stairs to the rear. One of the duty crew was already flipping switches to collect report summaries, and Chaurez got up to go to the outer observation room just as the Watch Officer appeared in the doorway from the other side. “There are troops approaching the lock,” the Watch Officer announced. “Regulars—thirty or more of them.”
Leaving Colonel Oordsen peering out of the screen, Lesley rose and walked through the door in the steel wall dividing the command post from the observation room and looked down through one of the ports at the approaches to the lock below. Chaurez watched from the doorway, ignoring Oordsen’s indignant voice as it floated through from behind. “Major Lesley, you have not been dismissed. Come back at once. What in hell’s going on there? What are those alarms? Lesley, do you hear me?”
But Lesley was not listening as he gazed down at the platform below, which fanned outward from the arc lights above the lock to become indistinct in the darkness of the antechamber. Figures were moving slowly from the shadows by the transit tubes and freight rails, spread thinly at the back, but closing up as they converged with the lines of the platform. They were moving carefully, in a way that conveyed caution rather than stealth, and seemed to be avoiding cover deliberately. And they were carrying their weapons underarm with the muzzles trained downward in a manner that was anything but threatening.
“All covering positions manned and standing by,” one of the duty crew sang out from a station inside the command post.
“LCP’s standing by and ready to fire,” another voice reported.
“Intruder defenses primed and ready to activate.”
“Lock at condition orange and ready to close.”
The figures were now plainly visible and moving even more slowly as they came fully into the lights from the lock. They were regular infantry, Lesley could see. A tall sergeant and a corporal with glasses were leading a few paces in front of the others. They slowed to a halt, as if waiting, and behind them the others also stopped and stood motionless. Lesley’s jaw tightened as he stared down through the observation port. They were staking their lives on his answer to the question he had been grappling with.
Jarvis appeared suddenly in the doorway beside Chaurez. “Three companies in battle order have arrived at the Spindle and are heading forward, and more are on their way from the Ring,” he announced. “Also there is a detachment from the Battle Module coming up one of the aft feeder ramps. They must be coming back to close the lock.”
Lesley looked at the two of them, but they said nothing. There was nothing more they could tell him. He could close the lock and commit himself to the protection of the Battle Module’s armaments; alternatively, with the added strength of the regulars who had arrived below, he could hold the lock open against the SDs coming from the Battle Module until the rest of the Army arrived. It was time for him to decide his answer.
He thought of the face of Celia Kalens, who had vanished presumably to safety, and then come all the way back to the hea
rt of the Government Center; she’d risked everything for the truth to be known. Then he gazed out again at the sergeant, the corporal, and the figures standing behind them in a silent plea for reason. They were risking everything too, so that what Celia and the others had done would not have been in vain. Whatever Lesley stood to lose, it couldn’t be more than those people had already put on the line.
“Tell the men to stand down,” he said quietly to Jarvis. “Deprime the intruder systems and revert the lock to condition green. Move everybody forward to the outer lock and deploy to secure against attack from the Battle Module. Chaurez, get those men down there inside. We’re going to need all the help we can get.” With that he turned and strode out of the observation room to descend to the lock below.
Jarvis and Chaurez caught each other’s eye. After a moment, Jarvis breathed a sigh of relief. Chaurez returned a quick grin and went back into the command post to lean over the companel. “Lieutenant,” Oordsen demanded angrily from the screen. “Where is Major Lesley? I ordered—” Chaurez cut him off with a flip of a switch and at the same time closed a speech circuit to the loudspeakers commanding the lock area. “Okay, you guys, we’re standing down,” he said into the microphone stem projecting from the panel. “Get in here as quick as you can. We’ve got trouble coming up a feeder ramp on the other side.”
As Chaurez finished speaking, an indicator announced an incoming call from the Government Center. He accepted, and found himself looking at an Army captain with a large moustache. “Forward Security Command Post,” Chaurez acknowledged.
“Sirocco, D Company commander, Second Infantry Brigade. Is your commanding officer there?”
“I’m sorry, sir. He just went down to the lock.”
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