by Jon Land
“Jesus …”
“Deflector shields?” Petersen asked the copilot.
“Still holding. I’ve got four green lights.”
The killer satellite sent out another charge, catching Pegasus just as Petersen lowered her into an evasive dip. Impact rocked her hard and Blaine’s head snapped back in a whiplash. Vibrations rattled through the shuttle, forcing his teeth to clamp together.
“We’ve lost a deflector shield!” the copilot reported, his eyes on a red light that had joined the three green ones.
“I’m gonna rotate the ship to protect the side with the lost shield,” Petersen said, starting the maneuver.
The killer satellite angled itself for another attack. Its shape flirted with the targeting grid square on Blaine’s screen but never quite locked in. He fired on timing and again a pair of ice-blue rays shot out, joining up on one of the thing’s winglike extensions. Once more a dazzling display of white light exploded outward, individual streams crossing and converging into the blackness of space.
“Range thirty-five hundred meters …”
The satellite fired another of what Petersen could only identify as some kind of energy torpedo. Again their visors turned opaque, saving them from the bright flash which seemed everywhere at once, enveloping all of Pegasus in its white-hot aura. The shuttle shook the hardest it had yet, and felt as if it were stumbling in space. The cabin lights flickered, faded, came back on.
“Main battery’s shorted out!” the copilot screeched. “We’re running on emergency power. Second deflector shield’s gone and a third’s weakening!”
“Don’t tell me,” Blaine interrupted, “we can’t take another hit like that one. Scotty, where are you when we need you? Beam us the hell out of here.” Then something occurred to him. “Get me closer to it,” he told Petersen.
“You crazy?”
“Absolutely. Give me a shot at a closer hit.”
Petersen pulled back to minimum speed as his wounded bird continued to float backward in orbit. “Just so you remember it’ll have a closer shot at us too. …”
“Range twenty-five hundred meters,” the copilot reported. “It’s gaining. Two thousand …”
Blaine caught the satellite within his square and fired both cannons. The lasers blasted into the metallic skin, the resulting parade of shooting lights brighter and eerier since Pegasus was closer to them. A few seemed to pass right by the viewing panels, looking like the tails of an all-white fireworks display.
A blinding flash erupted from the satellite’s center. Blaine involuntarily raised his hand to his eyes to shield them. He had barely gotten it up, when the blast came. The copilot’s head slammed against the instrument panel, opening up an ugly gash on his forehead. Once again the cockpit lighting faded and came back on dimmer.
“Range seventeen hundred fifty meters,” the copilot muttered.
“I’m gettin’ us the hell outta here!” shouted Petersen.
“The energy torpedo, did you see where it came from?” Blaine asked rapidly.
“What?” the captain returned as he began to roll the shuttle.
“There was a black spot in the middle of all those reflectors. It’s gotta be a door in the base the thing has to open to fire at us. I saw it!”
“That doesn’t mean you can hit it,” Petersen pointed out.
“But if I can, it’ll mean a direct shot to the guts and kiss that thing good-bye.”
“Terrific,” Petersen moaned.
Pegasus had come all the way around now and was fleeing at top acceleration toward the sharpening California coast.
“Range fifteen hundred meters,” said the copilot. “Auxilliary power’s just about had it. We’ve lost the left laser cannon and can only generate a few more bursts from the right. … Range seventeen hundred fifty.” Then, to Petersen, “We’re pulling away.”
“Only until the gas runs out…”
“That’s it!” Blaine screamed. “Turn this thing around!”
“Huh?”
“Turn it around and kill all the thrust and defensive systems. Just leave me a final burst from the laser cannon.”
“Have you gone fuckin’ nuts?” Petersen challenged.
“No! Think! The thing moved right on top of Adventurer before it fired because she couldn’t defend herself. The satellite sensed that. It doesn’t think, it just responds. We’ve got to make it respond the way it did with Adventurer.”
“Range twenty-five hundred,” from the copilot.
“Captain!”
Petersen squeezed his lips together and fired the maneuvering jets to roll Pegasus around toward the satellite once more. When the maneuver was complete, he killed the main batteries to the shields and cut back to standard computer orbit.
“Range two thousand and closing,” announced the copilot. “Fifteen hundred and closing…”
Blaine locked the thing into the center of his firing grid. He had to be sure, had to make his last burst count. His hands felt stiff as boards, but they’d do the job well enough.
The satellite kept coming at them, growing into more of the individual cubes of the grid as it approached.
“Range one thousand and closing …”
“What the hell are you waiting for?” Petersen shrieked. “Kill the fucker!”
The killer satellite loomed near them like a giant hawk spreading its wings over its prey, the steel support legs looking like talons.
Blaine raised the joysticks so the center of the firing grid was in line with the area of the satellite where the door had opened to release its last energy torpedo.
“Range seven hundred fifty meters …”
Blaine saw a black area in the shape of a square appear amid the thing’s reflective surface, indicating the door had opened again. He closed his eyes and squeezed both red firing buttons.
There is no sound in outer space, but there is vibration, and the one that came when the last burst of Pegasus’s laser cannon pierced the guts of the killer satellite shook McCracken’s stomach up to his mouth. His teeth snapped together and he felt himself slammed backward against his seat. His eyes closed for an instant, and when they opened, he wanted to hoot and holler for joy and would have if he could have found his breath.
Because the viewing windows were filled with a beautiful circle of silent orange which absorbed the remains of the killer satellite into oblivion. What few particles remained showered harmlessly toward the ridge of the Earth’s atmosphere.
“Heeeeeeeee-yahhhhhhhhh!” Petersen shouted, one hand struggling to control Pegasus from the shock waves and the other slapping Blaine on the shoulder. “We did it! We fuckin’ did it!”
And Pegasus passed over the California coast.
The expiration of the blue light on the main monitoring board in Houston had sent most of the mission control personnel to their chairs with heads bowed, weeping silent tears. Nathan Jamrock sat stone-faced amid it all. He held the direct line to the President in his hand and wished there was something encouraging he could say.
Then all at once a voice split through the thick silence and tension in the room, seeming to come from heaven or somewhere almost as high.
“Houston, this is Pegasus. Sorry you boys missed all the fun. …”
Petersen said more, but nobody could hear him through all the shouting and screaming.
“The heat shield’s my biggest worry,” Petersen repeated at the close of his report. “We can get all other necessary functions patched up good enough, but we’ve lost a lot of tiles, maybe as many as a third from the nose area.”
Nathan Jamrock swallowed four more Rolaids. The knots in his stomach didn’t loosen. “What about the bottom?” he asked, aware that the heat shield on the shuttle’s underside was the most crucial.
“Tiles ninety-five percent accounted for, but I can’t tell what reentry might do to them after what this tub’s been through.”
“They’ll hold tight, Paul. I glued them myself. But things will get a little hot.
”
“We’ll wear our summer clothes, Nate. Oh, and there’s something else. The shifters sustained some real bad damage. Looks like you guys got an excuse for them not working this time around.”
“I’ll take the responsibility.”
“How’s the weather at Edwards?”
“Clear, calm, and sunny by dawn. That’s 6:03.”
“We’ll set down by seven.”
“I’ll have the band waiting.”
“And a bathroom.”
“A slight change of plans, Paul,” Blaine said softly after they had completed seven hours of grueling repairs that included Petersen having to spend some tedious moments on the outside of the craft to realign Pegasus’s navigational beacons.
“Uh-oh …”
“See, Paul, any way you cut it, I’m still a wanted man. There are still too many people working for the guys who put that thing up in space, and I’m a threat to them. Getting a medal from the President would be nice, but staying alive’ll do just fine for now.”
Petersen shrugged. “I guess you know these people pretty well.”
“Too well. Omega’s not over. It won’t be until all the people in positions of control are exposed. They’ll be waiting for me, if not at Edwards, then somewhere else down the road.”
“I understand. What do you want me to do?”
Blaine told him.
Pegasus reentered the atmosphere right on schedule. The loss of so many heat shield tiles forced the cabin temperature up over 110 degrees, uncomfortable but not life-threatening, and most important the underside shield worked magnificently. The retrieval crew on the ground at Edwards Air Force Base in California broke into spontaneous applause when it was announced that the shuttle was on its way.
In Houston Nathan Jamrock had sworn off Rolaids once again and returned to cigars, which seemed to have an infinitely superior effect at settling the stomach. On the main board, the blue blip represent Pegasus came lower and lower. Then came a three-minute radar lapse before ground spotters at Edwards and the surrounding area would make their first visual sightings.
“You see her yet?” he asked his direct link on the scene in California.
“Is she off your screen?”
“What are you talking about?” Jamrock demanded, tossing his cigar aside. “She’s been off my screen for over three minutes now.”
“There’s no sign of her here, sir.”
Another phone rang on Jamrock’s raised terminal. He picked it up and told his man in California to hold on.
“Houston, this is California tracking. We just picked up your returning shuttle on our screen.”
“Where the hell is it?”
“As near as we can tell, making a descent into the Utah salt flats. …”
Jamrock started grasping for some stray Rolaids tablets.
“Thanks for the lift,” McCracken said as he walked down the steps of the space shuttle Pegasus.
“The pleasure was all ours,” Petersen answered from the doorway. “You can fly with us anytime.”
Blaine begged off. “Once is enough for one lifetime.”
“Suit yourself.”
A Land-Rover driven by Johnny Wareagle raced down the barren flats toward the shuttle’s position. Blaine waved to him.
“Sorry I had to make you miss the reception party at Edwards,” he apologized to Petersen.
The captain winked. “I hate parties.”
They smiled at each other and Blaine walked off. The Land-Rover pulled to a stop and he climbed into the passenger seat next to Wareagle.
“The spirits were with you up there, Blainey.”
“They made pretty damn good astronauts, Indian.”
Epilogue
“THERE’S JUST ONE thing I don’t understand about all this,” Sandy Lister said after McCracken had completed his account of the events since he and Wareagle had left Maine. She lay propped up on pillows in a room in the discreet doctor’s office. A hospital had been out of the question under the circumstances, and she was making a fine recovery from her wound here. The damage to her leg would not be permanent. “If Hollins was behind the plot from the start, why’d he agree to let me interview him?”
“Because he didn’t plan to tell you anything some good investigative work couldn’t have told you anyway. And he was afraid that if he turned you down, you might have dug deeper and come up with something about his link to Krayman Industries he couldn’t let be uncovered.”
“Makes sense. So it’s over then.” When Blaine didn’t respond, Sandy’s face grew concerned. “It is over, isn’t it?”
“I don’t think so,” he said finally. “I mean in the minds of Washington it is, and that’s the problem. There are hundreds of people out there, maybe thousands, who owe their positions to Krayman Industries. Sahhan’s troops are still out there, too, along with the mercenaries. And don’t forget the billions of Krayman Chips in place all over the country. So it wouldn’t take much for a smart man in the Krayman hierarchy to pick up right where Hollins and Dolorman left off. With a few modifications, the Omega command could still be given.”
“Are you telling me the government would allow that to happen with everything they know?”
“They don’t know a damn thing. All they have to go on is what I told them from the space shuttle, and I was vague. They can’t move because they’ve got nothing to move on.”
“What about Terrell’s suggestion to get the names of Krayman Industry plants from the computer on Horse Neck Island?”
“Without the specific access codes, we wouldn’t have a chance.”
“Then you’ll have to go in and tell them everything.”
“How far do you think I’d get? Do you think Hollins’s people will simply stop gunning for me? I don’t. The kill order stands. I trust the President well enough, but that’s as far as it goes.”
“What if I tried my network, or a different one?”
“Try anything, lady, but don’t expect to get very far. We’ve got no proof, and without it anyone who takes this on camera would look like a damn fool. Besides, you think that boss of yours was the only one in television Krayman Industries had in its pockets?”
“So you’re saying Washington will do nothing if left to itself?”
“By doing nothing, they’re accomplishing something—saving their asses. The people at the top fear embarrassment more than assassination. They can’t risk exposure of how close they came to losing control. It makes them look ineffective, which is just what they are, but so long as the illusion holds up, who’s to know? Even if I got by Krayman’s people, I’m not sure I’d be able to find anyone in the capital to listen to me. Remember what Terrell said about everything coming down to one group seizing control from a weaker one? Well, if everything about Omega comes out, that might just happen—quite legitimately—on Election Day. They can’t take that chance.”
“So the bad guys want us dead and the good guys want us quiet,” Sandy concluded grimly.
“There are no good guys, just levels of bad.”
Sandy raised herself up more. “Then why don’t you just walk away from it all, find yourself your own private island in the Caribbean?”
Blaine shook his head. “No, I can’t. The job’s not finished and if it stays that way, the country just might be. I still believe, Sandy. When you come right down to it, that’s all I’ve got.”
They looked at each other for a long moment. Sandy tightened her features. “You could have sent flowers and a card, Blaine, but instead you came in person. This is all leading somewhere, isn’t it?”
“Yes, but I’m not sure where myself. All I know is that you’re right about exposure being our best, our only chance to stay alive and end this for certain.”
“But how?”
“I’ve got this crazy feeling, but before I can pursue it I’ve got to ask you some questions.”
“You gonna tell me what this feeling is?”
“Not until I’m sure. When I am, you’
ll be the second to know. Let’s just say there’s only one way to expose Omega irrefutably and only one man who can help us do it. It’s a long shot, but it’s all we’ve got.”
“Ask away,” Sandy told him.
Christmas had brought with it forty-degree temperatures and the beginnings of an early thaw. The boatman had spent his holiday with his whiskey. Between swallows he had started repairs on his battered craft. The island was quiet now, less ominous, sulking in the shadows across the bay like a beaten bully. The boatman was finally alone, which was just the way he wanted it.
The sloshing of shoes through the slush made him poke his head through the opening in the boat’s engine compartment. A big, bearded man was approaching, better groomed and less anxious than the last time the boatman had seen him.
“Good afternoon,” said McCracken.
“Seems to be,” returned the boatman as he climbed back upon his craft’s deck. “If you come to bring me a Christmas present, friend, you’re a day late. And if you’re after my boat again, you might notice she ain’t exactly seaworthy.”
“It’s not the boat I’m after, it’s you.”
“Don’t think I caught that, friend.”
“I think you did … Mr. Krayman.”
The boatman’s face lost all its color. He pulled his frame to the dock and sat down on the edge.
“How’d you know?” was all he said.
“I didn’t. At least, I wasn’t sure. But I did a little research on the car crash that supposedly took your life five years ago in New York. Fire made identifying the bodies impossible, and one was actually unaccounted for.”
Randall Krayman’s gaze grew distant. “They came out in a helicopter to make sure they’d finished the job.”
“Dolorman’s men?”
“Or Hollins’s. It didn’t much matter.”
“And you hid from them by burying yourself in the snow just like you did two nights ago on the island, correct?”
Krayman nodded.
“That woman with us Christmas Eve was a reporter,” Blaine said by way of explanation. “She’s been researching you for months. She told me about your brave enlistment in the army and subsequent training in which you learned how to use an M-16. You saved our lives by emptying a clip into Wells’s men. That was obviously no fluke.”
