It was all happening in an unbelievably short amount of time. Jones had put his stopwatch on the fourth plane’s unloading. Sure enough, the big package was taken off and the Super Guppy was back in the air in less than two minutes.
Throughout it all, Jones could hear Doenitz chuckling in the background. The German officer knew exactly what Jones was doing and what he was thinking.
“Your timepiece is probably slow,” the Nazi said through a perpetual haze of cigarette smoke. “Unless, of course, it is of German manufacture…”
Just like the big Antonov cargo planes before them, the Super Guppies just kept on coming.
There were twelve of them in all. They would arrive in groups of four and would be attacked by the horde of the off-loaders as soon as they touched down. Once their cargo was disgorged, they went back out on the runway for take-off. The only thing it could be compared to was an auto race like the Indy 500, where a pit crew could gas up a race car and change all four tires in seconds. The Germans managed to make even that kind of operation look slow.
The Guppies were making the round-trip to the Double-Trouble base in the wilds of Cuba in record time, too, cutting down what should have been at least an hour-and-a-half flight and turnaround to a round trip lasting no more than 45 minutes.
This meant that shortly before noontime, all of the nuclear warheads that had originally been stored down inside the weapons stockyard in Cuba were now lined up in neat little rows, just off the partially reconstructed runway at the KSC.
The first Cult battleship was spotted off the coast at 1300 hours.
Unlike their Nazi allies, the Cult were not slaves to keeping a schedule. This battleship, the rather infamous Ishima, had been the first gunship pulled out of the firing line once the Cult command had ordered their battleships to stop bombarding the Florida coast around 2 A.M. that morning.
Under new orders, the Ishima had made for Cuba at top speed, arriving in the northern port city of Talmero around 6 A.M. Here it took on a piece of cargo that was too heavy even for the Supper Guppies to handle. Just as the Ishima began securing this load, two more Cult battleships appeared off Talmero. Then two more, and two more. A total of seven Cult battleships had been pulled off the line and sent to this Cuban port. At the moment, their mighty engines and tremendous draft were needed for something other than supporting nine enormous guns.
The special cargo were the components for the three Energia rockets that had also been kept at the secret Double-Trouble base. Only the battleships had enough deck space—barely enough—to take on all stages of the rockets and transport them up to Kennedy quickly. Loading them was no problem, as it turned out. It was getting them up to the KSC where the Cult nearly dropped the ball.
The Ishima was late in arriving back at the KSC because its captain had miscalculated the tides getting in and out of Talmero. He was two hours behind schedule, just as the six other ships would be. But this time was more than made up during the unloading of the Energia pieces off the battleships, once again due to Nazi efficiency.
In anticipation of the battleships’ arrival, the Fourth Reich engineers had laid a pontoon bridge out into KSC Bay, building an unloading platform at its terminus. As soon as the Ishima reached this floating dock, Nazi engineers swarmed aboard her, and taking over the battleship’s cargo crane, unloaded the first three stages of the first Energia rocket.
These components were quickly put on a rolling cart the size of two railroad cars and using a track laid down previously by the engineers, they were pulled by hundreds of Nazi troops up to the beach, through the dunes, and over to the area around launch pad 39-A, deep inside the space complex.
Once the Ishima was unloaded, it sailed away to be replaced by the second battleship, and then the third, and so on. This gigantic unloading and transporting operation proceeded throughout the afternoon and into the night until, by 2200 hours, all of the pieces for all three Energia rockets were close by the 39-A launch pad and already in some process of reassembly.
The only involvement of the UAAF in any of this was the employment of the Ch-54 Sky Crane, which helped out by taking some of the more delicate Energia components off the battleships and depositing them up near 39-A. This was the only assistance General Jones would allow in the unloading operation, though UA equipment and manpower would have sped things up even more.
But Jones was already weighed down with the burden of dealing with the Nazis and the Cult in the first place.
He would rather risk being late for the end of the world than to have the mortal sin of collaboration on the souls of all his men as well.
It was near dawn the next morning—three days before the end—when the Cult battleships anchored in KSC Bay began disgorging cargo of a different kind.
Each ship was now being served by its own floating gangplank, courtesy of the Nazi allies. The huge vessels had been silently riding the tides since the unloading of the Energia rockets, their lights extinguished, their crews silent and out of sight.
But now—symbolically, with the rising sun—the Cult sailors began appearing on deck. They were dressed in combat fatigues with sidearms but no larger weapons. There were seven ships in the harbor in all; combined, this put the number of Cult seamen on hand at close to 7,000.
On word from each individual ship commander, the sailors began filing down their walkways. Several ships’ bells began ringing and klaxons began blaring in traditional Cult fashion as this small army trooped across the pontoon bridge and up into the KSC.
If the sight the day before of the Nazi troops landing at the KSC had rankled those in the remaining UAAF forces, then the appearance of the Cult members coming ashore was enough to get their blood really boiling. All of the KSC defenders knew what was happening, knew about the comet and why the Fourth Reich and the Cult were here. But actually seeing the loutish Cult members land unopposed was almost too much to take. Many of these UA soldiers had fought against the ruthless Cult in the last Pacific War and against their allies in the recent Southeast Asia conflict. By their actions alone, they considered them to be subhuman, thoroughly brainwashed, and not worthy of the ground they walked on.
As it turned out, this was an opinion shared by the Fourth Reich Nazis as well.
It took two hours for the crews of the seven battleships to disembark and walk to the agreed-upon staging area out near the rebuilt shuttle runway.
Jones was still in his perch atop the VAB building, watching over the KSC like a king trying very hard to prevent his domain from being further infected by the heathens. For once, Doenitz was not at his side. The Nazi commander was down on the field, where the Cult crews were gathering. He’d told Jones his staff had planned a short ceremony to welcome and show solidarity with the Cult crews and that he would have to preside over it. He invited Jones to participate as well. Jones replied that his desire was to be far away from this event as possible; he vowed to stay on top of the VAB until the ceremony was over.
Now, staring out through his powerful binoculars at the area abutting the runway, Jones could see the long, ragged line of Cult sailors standing at what approximated attention in their ruffled, undisciplined ranks, their brows beginning to sweat in the hot Florida sun.
A small platform had been constructed in front of them, and sure enough, Doenitz and the rest of his officer corps had taken their places on it, as had the five remaining top officers for the Cult. Lined up also as part of the ceremony were the crisp heavily armed troops of the 2nd Dresden Combat Brigade, which had landed the night before. At approximately 6,700 men, they nearly equaled the number of Cult sailors who had come ashore.
A public address system had been set up, and even in the high winds atop the VAB, Jones could hear Doenitz’s distinctive Prussian voice droning on and on in front of the restless Cult troops. While the speech was going on, a team of Nazi construction troops had continued working on a trench directly behind the Cult assembly point; the sound of their heavy machinery nearly drowned out what Doenitz was
saying.
Still Jones watched the whole thing through his spyglasses, taking special note of how long Doenitz’s officers spoke, as opposed to the Cult COs, who’d barely croaked out a few words before the Germans had whisked them away from the microphone. This went on for about a half hour. Finally, Doenitz took to the podium again.
Jones considered putting away his spyglasses at this point. The last thing he wanted to do was hear Doenitz speak again. But then he noticed something very unusual happening down on the parade ground. Doenitz had just spoken a few distinct words in German into the microphone. But unlike his speech, these were more direct, almost as if he were giving orders. Jones could see looks of confusion and bafflement come across the Cult officers on the stage and the sailors lined up before them. The soldiers of the 2nd Dresden Brigade took one step forward.
Then they all fired their weapons…
There were screams and a kind of mass grunting—Jones could hear it all the way on top of the VAB. There was also a huge cloud of white smoke and the pop-pop-pop of many automatic weapons firing at once. But it was over very quickly. When the smoke cleared and Jones was finally able to refocus his binoculars, he was astonished to see piles of Cult soldiers lying shot at the feet of the Nazi troops. Those who weren’t dead were now being dispatched by Nazi troops walking among the massive sprawl of bodies. The Nazi construction troops now came forward, the same ones who’d been digging the trench behind the Cult troops as they’d listened to Doenitz drone on and on. Using the back-hoes and bulldozers, they began pushing the bodies of the Cult sailors into the huge trench and covering them over, even though some of the victims were wounded and still alive.
Jones stood frozen while he watched the surreal scene, not quite believing it. With typical Nazi efficiency, all of the bodies were buried and the ground atop their mass grave covered and smoothed over in about ten minutes’ time. Then the Dresden Brigade packed up its gear and returned to the Pad 39-A area, where they’d been helping the Fourth Reich combat engineers restage the Energia rockets. The Nazi construction crew also returned to work, going about the business of fixing up the odd holes still left in the five-mile runway as if they’d done nothing more than take a short coffee break.
As for Doenitz, he jumped into one of the Fourth Reich’s trio of swift Lynx command and control helicopters and was soon setting down atop the VAB building. He approached Jones with an arrogant smirk, the ever-present cigarette holder dangling from his lips.
Hardened combat veteran though he was, Jones was actually sickened by what he’d just witnessed.
Once again, Doenitz was able to read his thoughts. He just shrugged and shook his head.
“There will now be more breathing room for both of us,” he explained to Jones coldly. “And it will smell a whole lot better around here, too.”
Another full day passed.
For the most part, Jones maintained his vigil atop the VAB, Doenitz rarely leaving his side.
Though Jones remained reticent, the Fourth Reich officer persisted in many attempts to engage him in conversation about a wide variety of subjects, from music, art, history to various military campaigns, to the comet that was speeding towards Earth.
As the sun began to set and the stars came out on this particular night, the unnamed comet was now visible to the naked eye. It was now much larger than the brightest star in the Big Dipper, brighter than everything else in the sky at the moment, save for the three-quarters waning moon. Very soon, it would be brighter than this as well.
But Jones refused to talk with Doenitz on matters other than the mission at hand, which was constructing the Energia rockets and getting them launchworthy as quickly as possible.
Still, the UAAF commander was amazed at how fast Doenitz’s troops were doing just that. The Nazi CO received updates on the work out on Pad 39-A every half hour, and he never hesitated a moment to relay the news of their progress to Jones. By 2200 hours, the first two stages on the first rocket had already been powered up; the third would be on-line soon. The loading of the first batch of nuclear weapons for lift into orbit was progressing swiftly as well. A total of 14 warheads would go up on the first launch attempt. If these made it, another 18 would go on the second Energia rocket, and then the remaining warheads would launch on the third. If everything went right, there would be 44 nuclear bombs of all shapes and sizes in orbit in less than 18 hours.
After that, the whole matter would be out of the hands of all those at the Kennedy Space Center and in the hands of those who were orbiting high above it.
It was close to midnight when Doenitz received a report stating that the first Energia rocket was ready to go, all stages were in place and powered up, the load of 14 nuclear warheads tucked snugly inside its payload bay.
When the Nazi officer snidely passed the news on to Jones, the UAAF commander came very close to accusing him of lying.
How could it be? Jones pressed himself, staring at the ghostly glow coming from Pad 39-A, about five miles away. How could a huge Energia rocket, the most powerful in the world, be moved, reconstructed, powered, loaded, fueled, and ready for launch into orbit in less than 36 hours—and actually 10 hours ahead of schedule?
It just didn’t seem possible.
As always, Doenitz read his mind.
“The answer is simple, General,” the Nazi told him, his face dark, his lips dispersing streams of cigarette smoke as he talked. “You see, we’ve been planning to do just this for a very long time. Capture this base, construct the rockets, load the nuclear devices, and launch. My men have been going over this very procedure every day, every week, every month for nearly a year. Believe me, after all that time, they know how to do it, when to do it, and how quickly it can be done. So you see, the actual completion of the mission is the only challenge left for them. They’ve chosen to do it both quickly and efficiently. For their spirit. For their beliefs. For their Fatherland. It’s hard to beat that kind of enthusiasm, is it not?”
Jones was loath to give Doenitz any reply, but finally his Irish got the best of him.
“Werner Von Braun and his Nazis put NASA into space the first time,” he replied icily. “You’re just doing it again under different circumstances. I mean, let’s face it, you guys are the follow-up crew. The Wiederholenz. And surely you, above anyone else, would agree that while history always seems to repeat itself, it usually forgets the guy who comes in second place.”
Doenitz’s reply was a long, angry stream of cigarette smoke that came fairly close to touching Jones’s nose.
“Fair enough, I suppose,” he said, in his most sinister voice. “But believe me, General, there are some things that history won’t repeat…”
It was exactly 0600 hours that morning when the bottom stage of the first Energia rocket ignited.
It sent a huge billow of flame across the bottom of Pad 39-A and out onto the wetlands and marshes beyond.
The rocket remained frozen for five long seconds. Then, slowly, gradually, it began to rise. It cleared the tower easily enough and, as these kinds of ballistic missiles usually do, began to pick up speed at an incredible rate the further it climbed into the sky.
Jones watched the thick missile rise into the air, the enormous swastika adorning its sides making him cringe. His eyes actually got moist with anger and hopelessness as the rocket began to disappear from view. Doomsday was coming, he thought, and we’re relying on the Nazis to give humanity one last shot. After all his years of fighting, and sending men to die for Liberty and what was right, what kind of an end was this?
But it was another question that had been really haunting him, one that was even more disturbing: what will the Nazis want if this impossibly bold plan actually works?
The very notion felt like a kick in Jones’s stomach every time it occurred to him. As he watched the Energia finally fade into the morning sky, he could see the Nazi ground crews already moving the second Energia stages to the launching pad, this even before all the smoke from the first had cleared
away.
As always, the efficiency and coordination was rather frightening.
Maybe it would have been wiser, Jones thought, to just let the comet hit the earth and be done with it.
The second Energia went up at 1300 hours, seven hours to the minute after the first, and according to Doenitz, a full 90 minutes ahead of schedule.
The third and final rocket went up at 1800 hours, 6 P.M., just as the sun was beginning to set in the west, maybe for the last time.
Jones had watched all three launches from the VAB, Doenitz at his side, never missing a chance to pester him about the fabulous job all his good little Germans were doing. For the most part, Jones continued to ignore him, while also secretly marveling that what was happening before his eyes was real and not some kind of bad dream.
Night fell again and the great comet came out and stayed out. It was brighter than the moon this time, and tomorrow it would be brighter even than the sun. The only time Doenitz ever shut up was when he was staring up at the huge chunk of space ice that seemed so unflinchingly on course toward the earth.
They stood like this, watching it in silence, for a long, long time. The base below was quiet, too. There really was nothing left for anyone to do but wait. All of Doenitz’s troops had undoubtedly gone to sleep. All of Jones’s very anxious UA soldiers were undoubtedly awake, eyes lifted in rather pathetic hope, like Jones. And even a little like Doenitz.
The night grew clear, and with each passing hour, the comet got bigger and brighter. Around midnight, Doenitz began speaking again. This time, his voice was less stern, almost human.
“You know, General,” he began, “we had a number of very mysterious occurrences happen to us during this long ordeal. Missing men. Missing ships. Strange radio messages. Especially recently. We thought it was you. Your counterintelligence people, trying to spook us, as you say. It wasn’t you, was it? Reading biblical passages out over the airwaves?”
Death Orbit Page 33
