One Thousand Years (22 page)

He
wondered what he could do here. If escape is impossible, then how
can he destroy the Reich from here? He was already on the most
powerful ship in the solar system. Why would he want to leave?

*

He
crawled into the Tiger expecting to see technicians still plodding
through the hardware. The cables were mostly gone except for one
that ran along the floor and terminated at a plug. The back cabin
was still empty.
He knew that this meant the F-7 main energy weapon
was still out but he surmised that the engines must have been sealed
back in place ahead of schedule. The SS may be in a fluster but the
Luftwaffe mechs were on top of things.

The
cockpit dome had one difference: The SS side-panel was open. This
wasn't unusual for a ship returning from a mission. The few times
McHenry had looked into a side-panel, they had already been cleared.
They only presented a simple array of functions that were already
available on the main controls. McHenry immediately thought of Barr,
and wondered,
could it be that this one wasn't cleared?
He
hoped against hope that some remnant of the last mission might
remain.

He peered in, seeing almost immediately why the side-panel was open.
The crew had been using it to organize the maintenance schedule.
He continued looking anyway.
There was still a chance that something could be left over.

The first page of the side-panel's display looked promising.
Some of it, like sensors and communications,
was a duplicate of options he knew were on the Tiger's main panel,
and could be projected onto the dome itself.
He understood the communications panels all too well,
having tried to access them the first chance he was alone.
He gathered that the Tiger, while joined to
Göring
,
was under something like a Faraday cage,
which prevents the emission of any radio signals.

The
side-panel was also designed for quick access to an information
library. He could see that it tied into the navigation system.
Nothing new for him there.

Stepping
back in the options tables, he found something else that turned into
a dead end. Finally, he came back to the first page, and wound his
way back into the maintenance schedule where he first found it.

McHenry
was not willing to give up. He compared the main items in the
schedule with those listed on the dome, hoping to find a disparity.
But there were none. Compared to the options on the main dome, the
side-panel's organization layout was surprisingly easy to follow.
Airframes, sensors, communications, life support and the unterkarbon
net were all marked in green. He stepped down several levels, past
several tests that had been checked off.

But,
elsewhere, there was so much work left to be done. Weapons, engines
and the storage bay were all marked red as still in repair. A quick
view revealed that the main energy weapons were still out. There was
a long list of things to do, much of it, he knew, were at
Göring's
thirtieth-century equivalent of a machine shop. There was a bigger
surprise on the engine schedule page. It was the surprise that would
change everything.

The
first level of the maintenance checklist was red, but everything
below that showed mostly green. The only items in red revealed they
were awaiting a long series of inspections, followed by a high-power
engine test, and then a test flight. He had to do a double-take.
The actual repairs had already been made.

As
best as he could tell, with his limited understanding of German
technical language, this Tiger was probably able to fly. It was down
only administratively. It made no sense that their bureaucracy
worked this way, but he wasn't going to think about it any further.
This was his only chance. He would take it without further thought.

He
quickly started the inner banks of engines. This, too, was nothing
out of the ordinary. He had seen them do this on low power turns
without closing any of the doors. The Tigers were designed to mask
their energy output to avoid detection. He just needed to hope
nobody tried opening the doors before he could get away.

He
unstrapped himself, whirled around, kicked himself through to the
main cabin, and took a look around to verify he was alone, and that
the door was sealed. Then, swiftly, he pushed himself back.

McHenry
was supposed to wait for all the indicators to turn green, but he
knew he didn't have time to do this the regulation way he had been
taught. They must have some leeway, he reasoned.
Once he lights the outer banks,
Göring
would pick up on this quickly.
He would hold that off until the end. Checking the
unterkarbon net status, he could see that the Tiger's net was wrapped
around the side of the ship facing space. The side against
the ship would naturally be exposed to detection by
Göring
.
He needed to pull away while turning the visible side so as to
become invisible to them all as
quickly as possible, jinking constantly until he could be sure he was
completely cloaked. That would be a lot to do at one time. The
indicators were now eighty percent green. That was enough, he
decided.

All
at once, he reached for the outer door controls, sealed them, and
started the main banks. He didn't wait for a reaction from
Göring
.
The Tiger pulled away at top speed while he spun and jinked, and
jinked again. The unterkarbon net
sealed. He jinked again.
Göring
itself became
invisible to sensors as the distance increased. That implied he was
also out of
Göring's
sensor range. Was he really safe?
He jinked again.

Göring
became visible again for a brief moment when it
released a shower of fire. They were trying to kill him, as he knew they must.
He jinked
yet again, and then ten more times, but always increasing the
distance between them. There was another shower of fire but it was
so far off that even the spray of energy could not reveal the massive
ship.

“I'm
sorry,” he said to no one in particular. “I am a
soldier.”

Now, it was time to take it down.

He inventoried his weapons, what few there were. But it wouldn't matter.
Fighting
Göring
directly would be madness.
His only chance was to keep them thinking that they could catch him in
time to contain the damage to the timeline.
Once all hope is lost, and their timeline is irrecoverable,
there is no telling what they would do.
McHenry wondered momentarily about that.
They must have a contingency plan,
he thought.
How long will they simply sit back and watch as they've been doing?
Would they contact today's Berlin and offer their ship, crew,
and technology to Hitler?
Or does Mtubo just take over and become the new
Führer
?
That would be ironic.

And what would the Grauen be doing in the meantime?
He briefly considered seeking them out, and forming an alliance,
but what would their reaction be?
Just because they're at war with the Reich
doesn't mean they'd be friends with the United States. But this
wasn't his decision to make. He had his oath as an Army officer.
This should only be for President Roosevelt to decide.
But what if he can't get to the President?

Either
way, his lone Tiger would be outnumbered. He thought he had a better
plan, but it was chancy. He needed to get down to Earth.

He
worked the navigation panel to plan his descent, a job he could never
have done with his old slide-rule. It would be a direct path until
touching atmosphere, at which point he knew detection will become
possible until he slowed sufficiently that the Tiger could absorb the
heat. He would be jinking again, but only a little bit, and then
turning again into his destination.

*

Alarms
rang throughout the
Göring
. The men and women in
Kontrolle
performed like clockwork. Two panes appeared on the lower
section of the dome displaying Mtubo and Stern.

“Prepare to launch the ready-alert Tiger,”
ordered the
Kommandant
.

“Have
you lost him?” shouted Mtubo on the screen.

“Yes,” she replied, speaking coolly under the circumstances.
“I am ordering a Tiger to defend Berlin in the event that the American
thinks he can do something stupid. We will send the remaining Tiger
to recover or destroy the one that was stolen as soon as we know
where it is.”

“Do
not destroy it,” Mtubo ordered. “We will want it back
for Operation Spartacus. Spartacus is more important than preserving
our future.”

The
dome became silent. The
Kommandant
knew it was a shocking
statement for the crew, most whom were not even cleared to know what
Spartacus was. “
Herr Oberführer!
” the
Kommandant
cautioned.

Mtubo
continued: “You are right, of course, about protecting Berlin.
Adolf Hitler must be protected in any possible history. It is a
matter of principle. Beyond that, we will need the Tigers. There is
no doubt now that Spartacus will proceed as soon as we finish here.
That will happen regardless of whether we have three Tigers, or two.
What are your plans to locate the Tiger?”

The
Kommandant
took a deep breath. “Eventually, the
American will want to land. It is unlikely that he has developed the
skills to enter the atmosphere without being detected. We will sight
him on reentry first, and plot a likely destination. The pursuit
Tiger will then find him on the surface very quickly. They will
carry a second crew to bring it home.”

*

Kathy
Dale stood at attention before the door to Stern's office, waiting,
not too patiently.
There was no need for her to be there. She could
easily make her case over a video screen — even on a secure
channel — but she knew that personal visits work best. Older
generations are more easily persuaded in face-to-face meetings. It
was always that way.

The
door opened. “Enter,” Stern ordered.

“Excuse
me, Herr
Standartenführer
,” said Dale, standing before
Stern's desk. She remained at attention when the door closed behind
her. “I request to join the pursuit mission.”

Stern
raised an eyebrow. “I do not see how or why,” he said.
“You were restricted to the ship because of what you know. We
see Grauen every day now. For you to be captured alive would be a
disaster that the Reich could never recover from.”

“Sir,
I beg to suggest that, with Spartacus now in the plan, a test of
Brücke is more important. There may never be a better time.”

“Brücke?
You are getting ahead of yourself.”

“Sir,
assuming that Spartacus succeeds...”

“It
will
succeed,
Sturmbannführer
.”

“Yes,
sir, of course.
When
Spartacus succeeds, we will not know
what shape this ship will be in. We may not have more than one
chance to initiate Brücke. Here we have an opportunity to run a
small scale test.”

Stern
looked back to the screen, which now showed Dale's report.

“I
found several sections of the history sequence for a proper test.”

“This
is a very good idea,” he said, scrolling through the pages of
text and charts. “Still, are there no others who could run
this?”

“Sir,
I am the only one who has the expertise that is also a flight
officer.” She didn't smile when she said that, but she wanted
to.

*

The
pursuit Tiger was configured for four people, two in front, and two
behind them.

Bamberg was in the pilot's station, grimly checking its systems while
Hamilton strapped into the SS station beside him. Vinson remained
floating loosely behind them, waiting for the second SS officer to show.

“Any
idea when we're leaving?” asked Bamberg.

“I
can't tell. My side-panel is locked at the moment. They must still
be deciding how much data we can take with us.”

“But
you were just in ops. You must know something.”

“Only
that the rechner suggests he was interested in the American Vice
President's trip to Russia and China.

“That
is something,” said Bamberg, bringing the western hemisphere
charts up on the dome. The Tiger's rechner would have the optimum
path plotted out when the orders come in, but it was prudent to study
the options in advance.

Hamilton
looked up from his inactive side-panel. “The American is
giving up so much in the hope that he could live as a primitive
again.”

“Let's
not forget,” said Bamberg. “He thought from the
beginning that he was a prisoner of war. He believed it was his duty
to escape.”

“On
that, any of us would do the same if we were in his boots,”
said Vinson.

Hamilton
shook his head. “Those are two different things. He's
escaping from higher civilization back to the primitives. And he's a
black man, at that. What duty does he owe those people?”

“He's
a nationalist at heart,” said a fourth voice. It was Dale,
entering the cockpit.

Vinson
turned. Their eyes met.

“I
thought they pulled your flight status,” said Hamilton.

“Special
project,” she answered cryptically. “
Oberführer
Mtubo and Stern are amending the orders now. You will lead this
Tiger because you're senior, but you and Bamberg become the retrieval
crew for the other Tiger when we arrive. Vinson and I will stay
aboard this one. We will complete the mission while you return to
Göring
.”

“That's
only fair,” Hamilton conceded sarcastically. “You are
the two who brought back the American in the first place. It is
fitting that you be the ones who terminate him.”

Although
visibly shaken, the others remained silent. Hamilton's sleazy grin
twisted and faded. Dale revealed nothing. She floated back to the
cargo pod and opened the latch, exposing five androids, seemingly
inert in their packed positions. They were still wearing the
old-style gray SS uniforms, but their relatively small-sized,
twentieth-century statures reminded her of McHenry.
“How can one primitive man be so much trouble?” she
said, thinking out loud.