Roberts had barely gotten the last word out when Webster stood and screamed, “No, God damn it!” Allowing the emotion of the day to take over, he shot fiery glares at his subordinates for several seconds, fists on table, then continued with his tirade; “I’ll be damned if I’m the one escalating two fucking bombs into a full scale nuclear war. I won’t do it, damn it. We’ll fight them on the ground.” He looked around the room. “We’ll fight them on the ground. Just get me enough men to hold them off for two or three days, and I might have a different solution. But either way, no authorization. Unless we get fucking nuked, that order stands.”
Harvey closed his notebook, looking up at the military men to get their attention. He dismissed them with a quick ‘thank you, gentlemen’, prompting them to leave the room. The president, ignoring the exchange, bowed his head and swore. Since the nuclear disaster most of his most trusted men had gone overseas in a desperate attempt to smooth things over. The tide had shifted in favor of the enemy, and they needed all the overseas friends they could find. Thus far, few had shifted allegiances. Not nearly enough to make a difference at any rate.
In the meantime, the president was stuck with the junior varsity team. Given the high level of military standards, it was hardly a detriment, but it was uncomfortable nonetheless.
Webster took three deep breaths, lifted his hands from the table as if realizing they’d been there all that time, and relaxed his expression. “Harvey, would you be so kind as to work up a list of names for these good folks I’m supposed to be commanding. It’s getting damned tedious having to call everyone ‘Hey you’.”
“Of course, Randall,”—the chief of staff always referred to him by his given name when nobody else was within earshot—“anything else?”
“Not right now. Not unless you’ve got a valium in your pocket I don’t know about?”
They laughed. This president drank just as copiously as his predecessors, but he’d never been known to use anything stronger. They both knew he wasn’t about to start now. Roberts himself was a teetotaler, from a Mormon upbringing, so the request was absurd enough on it’s face to be funny. It turned out to be the only laugh they shared all day.
* * *
General Secretary Zhang’s office was spartan, befitting a communistic ruler unconcerned with the trappings of power. He exerted his influence in other ways, without need for ostentation. All those summoned to his office were answerable to him, or otherwise in his debt, so there was no need for pleasant surroundings. When he was offering praise or awarding a commendation, it was handled in a more formal venue, a reception room in the political bureau or some other such setting. His fear-inducing, tiny office was used only to chastise or condemn. Many of the men and women who entered left in disgrace; demoted, dismissed, or worse. For those unfortunates, the decor represented the very least of their concerns.
Today was his meeting with the Soviet ambassador. Although his office didn’t carry the same weight with foreign guests, in his mind the circumstances were the same. He wanted to make the man suffer, even wanted him dead in his most rage-enflamed moments. He would have settled for tearing up their treaties and tossing him out, if such a move were possible. But their ties ran deep, with common purpose and a united history. He couldn’t destroy that so easily, much as he might want to.
“Mr. General Secretary, let me assure you my government deeply regrets the unsanctioned actions of those few men who committed this heinous act. It was as much a surprise to us as it was to the rest of the world. We are as appalled as you are.”
Zhang raised an eyebrow, his eyes locked on the ambassador’s face. His laser-focus so intense, he actually saw a bead of sweat pop out high up on the man’s forehead, just below the spot where his hairline used to be. This pleased him, and he stared all the harder in an effort to provoke something more.
But the ambassador was well trained. He never broke, instead sitting back and waiting for Zhang to respond.
Zhang knew the man wasn’t going to bend. He had delivered his message. They could go on for hours, and nothing more would be forthcoming. He thought to ask what the SST was planning to do to fix this disaster, but the reply would be meaningless statecraft; ‘As I expected, Mr. Ambassador. A rogue element. Most unfortunate.’
Zhang stood, and the ambassador looked as if he were about to break a smile. Zhang wondered if he should’ve have sweated him out, just a minute or two more. Too late. He walked the Russian out of his office.
When they got to the doorway, Zhang watched the ambassador go. Neither men looked at each other as they parted ways. Zhang was sure he would be on the first plane to Moscow, to report back and fill in his replacement. There would be no keeping his position after this.
He turned to his assistant, a severe woman of nearly sixty who’d been with him since the early days. A familiar figure, if not precisely a comforting one. “Send for General Wei,” he ordered.
“Yes, sir,” she replied with curt professionalism. “Shall I direct him to the war room?”
“No,” Zhang said, “bring him here.”
She paused for the briefest moment, then nodded and picked up the phone.
43.
“The deployment team is in the final stages of prep,” the flight administrator reported, holding up his training-protocols binder. “I decided to keep them in place, given the logistics of this”—he waved the binder around the cramped confines—“facility, and the fact that most of the necessary training equipment was available offsite.”
President Webster tapped an imaginary watch face with a questioning glance.
The administrator read his intent correctly, adding, “It’ll be tight, but they’ll be ready.”
“And what about Dean Eckert. Will he be ready?” The president had asked the same question several times. This time, he was posing the question to a senior administrator—if he didn’t get a straight answer this time, he would be forced to threaten consequences.
Fortunately, he didn’t have to. “He won’t be, Mr. President. Not by a long shot. There’s no way to train a civilian in such a short period.”
“In that case, why—”
“However,” the administrator continued, “I have to factor in his unique understanding of deployment mechanics. Given the time lag from ship to control, his direct, physical presence is mission critical. That being the case…he’ll be ready enough.”
“Jesus, Mike. Ready enough?”
“That’s all I can give you, Mr. President. I’m sorry.”
The fact that this might be a suicide mission wasn’t lost on either man. There were more uncertainties than any time since they earliest days of the space program. But those missions, fraught with danger though they were, at least had a number of animal test flights to gauge off. They had no such luxury here. If they didn’t succeed, there would be no second chance.
“Okay, Mike. Thank you. Oh, and one more thing—I’m going aboard.”
“Sir?” the administrator balked, “That’s highly irregular. I’m afraid—”
“This whole fucking mission is highly irregular,” Webster snapped, “I’m not sending that crew up into space without looking them in the eye first, and letting them know what they’re up against. It’s not a request.”
Even though the administrator was ostensibly in control, he didn’t dare go against the boss. “I’m sorry. Of course, Mr. President. I’ll make the arrangements immediately.”
* * *
John Masters was fast losing track of time. There were no shortages of timepieces in the mountain, but he’d been shunted from one small room to the next—with no outside light to make judgements it had become a rather disorienting series of encounters. Since he’d met with the president, he’d been grilled by various officials and interviewers, in what felt like an endless barrage of like-minded questions. He’d answered them all to the best of his ability, and now he was back with the president.
Webster being a tall man, his lanky legs covered a good amount
of distance with each stride. John Masters considered himself in fairly decent shape, but trying to keep up left him winded. All along the busy hallways, soldiers ducked out of the way, or were forced to stand aside. They offered quick salutes and held position just long enough for the president’s party to pass. Masters had no idea how to react. Whether he, too should salute or not. Judging from the fact that Webster himself wasn’t returning every salute, he figured that expedience outweighed protocol here.
As they moved deeper into the mountain, the crowded corridors began to thin out, until they were all but deserted. The only personnel this far down were sentries, and now Webster was carefully returning the salutes. Military personnel, in their back and forth with the president, were engaged in the ritual, while the civilians simply strove to keep pace with the boss. The entire affair was a confusion of roles and recognitions, with Masters feeling very much the fish out of water. He decided to take his cues from his peers, slowing a bit and trying to blend into the back of the pack.
They finally arrived at a gigantic, steel, double-wide door, with soldiers on either side. After snapping to attention for the entourage, they stepped aside, then the one on the left turned to touch a glowing panel with his full palm. Silently, the enormous hatch swung aside, opening up to an unbelievable sight.
Unsure of what he was looking at, Masters looked around for guidance. But most of the group was reacting in the same jaw-dropped fashion. Every one of the civilians stopped dead, just inside the doors, and were looking around in wide-eyed wonder. Beyond the expansive room itself, every eye was drawn high up to the pinnacle, to an object at dead center that rose up, narrowing into a familiar looking, sharp-tipped nose cone. Taking in the enormous height of it for several seconds, Masters then let his gaze drift slowly, almost reverently, from the tip all the way down it’s sleek, elongated body. It seemed an impossibly long time before his eyes finally landed on the wide, vapor-swirled base of the gigantic missile that loomed before them.
“Space Force One,” the president said in a reverent tone. “With God’s help,”—he made a barely noticeable ‘sign of the cross’ motion—“our salvation.”
44.
The president needed a cosmonaut. Having representatives from alternate space agencies was key to offsetting the notion that America was going at it alone. An international crew would reassure the world that nations were working together, helping each other figure out how best to handle the crisis. And despite recent advances by the Chinese, the Russians still boasted more space know-how than anyone outside of NASA, so cosmonaut it would be.
Given the current state, however, acquiring said cosmonaut was not going to be easy. The answer came in the form of a young woman from Tajikistan—a breakaway province, and allied with America against their Soviet oppressors. And the woman in question, Larisa Denisova, just happened to be a bona fide, Soviet-trained Cosmonaut.
It didn’t hurt that her decorated career easily stacked up against any of the crew selected thus far. Stationed in orbit thrice, with an arm’s length of female firsts back in her test-piloting days, and an intimate knowledge of deployment procedures from her time as a consultant to NASA. Eminently qualified, she would represent herself, and the world, extremely well. Webster hoped she might even begin easing some of the tensions, hailing from enemy territory as it were. Perhaps even provide the spark of cooperation needed to help find a way out of their current stand-off.
Aside from Cosmonaut Denisova, there were two other non-Americans. Arvind Kashani was one of the foremost authorities on gravitational vacuum theory, and would assist Dean Eckert during the spacewalk phase. Payload specialist Ruka Saito of Japan, too, was the best at what he did. His job was to ensure ‘the solution’ arrived in orbit in one piece, and would play a vital role in the early stages of the deployment as well. Having adopted a simple moniker for the apparatus, the solution was literally the key to the whole mission, and nobody knew the inner workings of it quite as well as Ruka Saito. Not even Dean Eckert himself was as well-versed on the mechanics of the machine that would save the world.
The remainder of the crew was an all-American mix of NASA regulars and special operatives, along with extra-orbital specialist Jane ‘Jo’ Osborne, requested by Colonel Douglas specifically. It went without saying that someone from the Offworld Threat Defense Agency would be tagging along, but even though she was more than qualified for the task, they’d had to jump through a number of hoops to find her a seat. A number of higher-ups felt she was too close to the mission, and too attached to key personnel, namely Eckert and Douglas himself. In the end, however, her expertise won out, and she was added to the roster.
Since their return trajectory placed the craft squarely in enemy territory, it would be up to Jo to extract the astronauts while concealing the craft, should the need arise. While the mission called for the loss of equipment, it was best to avoid handing military secrets over if it could be helped. Should they manage to keep the ship hidden, an air wing could be dispatched several hours later to destroy what remained. Secondary to the recovery of the crew, of course.
* * *
Commander Mansfield was running drills—in essence sizing everybody up and getting them used to being a team. There wasn’t time for much more, so he was letting a lot pass in order to keep things moving. “Okay, not bad. Not bad… Make sure to keep your heads up though, no looking down at your boots. Too easy to get tangled up that way. Next up—Evans! Kashani! Walk our good doctor through…”
Systems Specialist Ed Evans stepped forward, then came the gravitational expert, Arvind Kashani. They waited ten seconds or so, then gave Dean a tandem glare when he didn’t join them as expected. When he did manage to get there, he stumbled, a direct result of staring down at his boots. The commander pretended not to notice. Jo rolled her eyes.
Embarrassed, Dean looked away, inadvertently catching the eye of the exotic looking, petite woman who’d thus far remained quiet. He knew her only from the introductions. Her thick Slavic, ‘Hello, I vould like to thank you all for zis opportunity’ had been charming, but otherwise unremarkable. Smiling at him now, she was the first to make him feel at ease in this pressure-cooker. He attempted to smile back, but it came out all wrong, reminding him of his shameful alter-ego Dean Dorkert from Lincoln Junior High. She was still smiling, though. In light of that fact, he decided he didn’t feel quite so dumb as old Dorkert.
“Denisova!” Mansfield shouted. It was like he’d picked up on Dean’s interest, and decided to throw cold water on it. “Join the party. Seems like the good doctor’s going to need a little brushing up.” Then he added in a more biting tone, “That and a kick in the ass when he falls behind.”
The Russian woman stepped up, her military bearing as impressive as everyone else, Dean and Jo aside. But Jo at least acted the part, even if she didn’t look it. Playing the ‘disinterested expert’, unimpressed with the snap and polish, she was nonetheless doing what was expected. Dean was fresh off the turnip truck in comparison, and the worst part was, he knew it. He vowed to push himself as hard as the others, starting this very instant. Unfortunately his internal pledge came on top of another order from Mansfield, which sailed clear over his head, leaving him behind the class once again.
This crash course was far from comprehensive. Under the gun like no mission before, all timelines were severely compressed, months into hours, days into minutes. And the responsibilities of this bunch didn’t include any actual flying—Shane Douglas would be serving that purpose, pretty much exclusively—so the bulk of the training consisted of fast and loose explanations, essentials only, with a heavy emphasis on knowing when to stay out of the way. But there were still plenty enough complicated tasks to worry about, even at the bare-bones level; vital matters such as suit procedure, spacewalking techniques, and ship’s systems. Their task was to familiarize themselves as fast as humanly possible.
Joseph Mansfield had actual spacefaring experience, as did the others under his command. Only Jo and Dean
had never been to orbit. But once again, Jo, trained as a mission specialist long ago by her agency, knew what she was doing. The ODTA, Jo included, had conducted joint operations with the military, properly preparing her for what was to come. Her training had been unorthodox, having taken place in multiple countries under several covers, but she knew her way around a capsule.
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