Prometheus and the Dragon (Atlas and the Winds Book 2) (12 page)

“When will that be?” she asked, starting to feel the same surge of hope he was riding.

“Thirteen days,” he said.

And then the wave broke over her too.

***

Zion Repository, East of Schuster Crater, Luna:

The
Nephi
sat heavily on the surface of the moon, a temple in the dust. Shining towers nestled against the base of a mountain in the center of a small crater, gold on gray, and as dazzlingly out of place as it was striking in its stark beauty. A self-propelled
Temple
, blessed by the Prophet himself, the
Nephi
was also to be the front portal to what would become the Zion Repository of the Saints. The latter-day version of the Plan of Salvation.

For all that the
Nephi
was a work of art, and would carry the hopes of thirty-one million Latter Day Saints, it had to serve first as an unprecedented piece of engineering. With a crew of twelve men and two women, it began transforming from vehicle to structure the moment it settled onto the regolith.

Anchoring itself into the loose soil with dozens of pilings that drilled down until they bit into bedrock, the true work began. Four walls were driven from the base of the
Nephi
down into the soil, creating a chamber with a regolith floor. Air was pumped into the room to create an area where the crew could work without the need for spacesuits. The crew unmounted a gargantuan drilling machine from its cradle and connected the laser cutting heads to its crawler and umbilicals. Less than four hours after setting down, they watched as the machine nosed over and began descending into the ground. The lasers, shattering and melting their way through the regolith and rock with equal ease, kicked out a continuous cloud of dust, vaporized metals and gas that were vented through a long pipe extending several hundred yards across the crater floor.

By the end of the first day, they’d tunneled a gently sloping gallery twenty feet in diameter and almost two hundred feet down. The melted surface of the walls shined like polished marble shot through with veins of metallic ores that shimmered and reflected in a hundred hues.

Bishop Zane Clayton, the spiritual leader of the Foundation Ward, the Church’s designation for his crew, knelt in the Celestial room giving thanks for their Prophet and his divinely inspired wisdom. Above him the crystal clear ceiling spread in an open panorama of the true Celestial Kingdom, stars in an infinite black sky. Gazing up into the whole of creation, he felt the love of Heavenly Father like never before, and he knew they had begun to walk the final steps in the True Path of Salvation.

Tomorrow, they would start building the first chamber of the Repository, a vault for storing the genetic materials of every member of the Church. Frozen eggs, waiting to be fertilized, sperm samples, and genealogical records from as far back as King David. A bridge from what was, to what is yet to be. Everything necessary to guarantee, when the Lord returned to Earth, there would be an Army of the Faithful there at his side. The Saints would live on, even after Lucifer had finished his time in the world.

***

Chang Er Prefecture, Tycho:

Becki Czao, as the Western world called her, leaned against the window, asleep on her feet. She’d been giving interviews to everyone, and had become the golden darling of the
Zhen-Long
, and the
Voice of the New Chinese Vision.
She’d charmed them all, flashing her beautiful smile and wowing the world with her quick wit and genuine charm. And even if it was a mask, they never knew. She’d become China’s ultimate talking head.

Outside, crews were beginning the delicate process of mating the warhead to the boosters. Altogether, it was an improbable design by Earthly standards, no more than a ball of girders nested in a ring of twenty four engines. The helium-cycle warhead, in its armored chamber, hung from a gantry crane, slowly being lowered into the center of the framework. Pipes snaked between the engines and the array of fuel tanks, with enormous cable trunks swinging open between two black boxes that were the process controller and the inertial positioning sensors. It was wider by far than it was tall, and in truth looked more like a sewer treatment plant than a missile. It had no beauty, except to the engineers, and to them it was an absolute work of art.

For the world, she’d sung such glowing songs of praise she made it sound like an angel. A gift from heaven. She wove pure magic from golden threads, each spun with meticulous care and placed lovingly into the political tapestry they called truth:
Propaganda as an art form.

She’d found her gift, and her voice. The problem was, the world was round and so the news never slept. Neither had she, for two days. Nor would she for another two. Then
Zhen-Long
would be on its way, and all that would be left, would be to wait.

And sleep.

***

Unity Colony, Eastern Mare Frigoris:

It had been heartbreaking work, digging graves for sixty-one in the cold, dark ground, under the glare of the unforgiving stars. Jon Merrill had spent his time beside his crew, taking turns on the excavator, carving headstones with a laser cutter, clearing the mangled debris and crying tears of grief and outrage with them. But the time had come to pick up the pieces and move forward, and he knew it was his place to take the first steps so they would follow. He walked out to the rim of the crater and looked down into the chasm of their broken dreams. His heart sank and words failed, so instead he walked the narrow path down to the pile of beams. Grabbing the hook of the first Skycrane in line, he looped its cable around a piece and sent it on its way.

He worked in silence, using hand signals rather than his radio, and looking around he realized everyone else followed suit. The quiet seemed more befitting their task, and until the mid-shift call came over the com, not more than ten words were spoken. He trudged up and over the rim, again leading his crews to the mess hall, where they cracked their helmets and recharged their air tanks while lunch was served. Gradually, conversations broke out and the mood drifted back toward normal. Finished with his food, he walked over to the rack to grab his helmet and pack, and was met by several of the team leads.

“Mr. Merrill,” Calvin Grady said, holding his hand over Jon’s LSU. “I know you’ve been here with all of us through this, but you don’t have to keep doing it. We can take it from here.”

“I know you can,” he said, looking around at the determined faces of the others. “But this is where I belong. I should have been here when ...” He stopped, looking down at the floor and biting his lip.

“No sir,” Grady said. “You were where you needed to be then. And that’s where you need to be now. We can handle the physical work, but we can’t do what you do. It takes something special to hold on to the vision. To lead and inspire. That’s your gift.” It was Grady’s turn to run out of words.

Sucking in a deep breath he went on, his voice a little softer. “I know I’m speaking for all the crews when I say that, knowing you’re willing to tough it out right here beside us, means more than anything you could have ever said. You honor us, and the memories of those buried up there on the ridge. Now, let us build this colony, for you, and for them.”

***

Chapter Eight:

The Dawn Over Megiddo

Sentinel Colony:

Danielle Cavanaugh was sick when she landed, and the light lunar gravity only made her stomach more unruly. She’d tossed off the unloading operations to Derek King, her First Officer. She’d been running the
Cassiopeia
mostly between places on Earth, hauling things around in LEO. She’d spent almost every night at home, in Stormhaven. In all, she’d only made three or four translunar flights, so she’d been hoping to take a walkabout while she was here. It had changed so much since her last run.

“I’ll be in my cabin,” she said, standing up and feeling the room twist around her. “I’m thinking lunch isn’t going to make the return flight.”

“Sure thing boss,” he said, watching her leave. “We should be on the downhill side in about three hours. You want me to get you up?”

She shook her head, kicking in the afterburners to get to the bathroom before she had total containment breach. She made it, just.

The next thing she saw was bright lights in her eyes, and a face over her. She recognized it. Sort of. “What happened?” she said, her voice sounding distant in her ears. The room was spinning sideways, and whatever she was laying on was looping end over end at the same time. It was an unpleasant sensation and she hoped if she closed her eyes it would go away. It didn’t.

“You passed out,” he said. “We’re going to do some tests, but for now you just lie here and let us figure out why.”

“Ok,” she whispered, drifting off into the fuzzy outer edges of awareness.

“Danielle,” the man was back, gently shaking her shoulder. “I need to ask you a few questions, if you don’t mind?”

“Sure Doc,” she said, remembering he was a doctor, but having trouble placing a name to his face. This time when she opened her eyes, the bright lights were much less offensive, and the room looked a lot different. Less like an ER and more like a bedroom. “Where am I?” she asked, looking around the room for clues.

“In Sentinel,” he said. “I’m Tobias Cochrane, your doctor. We met once back in Stormhaven just before I shipped up here.”

“I remember you,” she said. “You played conga one night with Cole.”

“Yeah, that was me,” he said grinning. “Not the high point of my career.” He shook his head. “Anyway, I have to ask you, when was your last menstrual cycle?”

“Excuse me?” she asked, knowing where this was leading and not liking what it meant. “I don’t know. I’ve been a little busy.”

“I’d bet it was a little more than six weeks ago,” he said.

“No. No way. I’ve got a ship to fly,” she said.

“Not anymore,” he said. “We sent it on its way about three hours ago. You’re officially off the rotation.”

“No, I’m not,” she said, enunciating her words.

“We can’t let you make the runs back and forth,” he said. “The radiation is too dangerous for a developing fetus.” He paused, and looked at the epad in his hand. “We already did a complete genetic workup, and it all came back normal, at this point anyway.”

She sat up and swung her legs off the bed. The dizziness was gone, but the room was spinning anyway. “This has got to be a joke,” she said, leaning her face into her hands.

“Not today,” he said. “But if it’s any consolation, it looks like your daughter will be the first born here.”

“You know it’s a girl?” she asked.

“Yeah. Like I said we did a complete workup,” he said. “We’re planning on doing it with all children born here, just to make sure we don’t run into too many genetic recombination problems.”

“So you know who the father is?” she asked.

“Yes,” he said.

“I’m not going to tell him for a while,” she said. “He’s got a lot on his plate right now.”

“I understand,” he said.

***

Chang Er Prefecture, Tycho:

There was no thunder, no clouds of billowing smoke, no blinding flash of fire, it just took off. The gantry towers tilted back and it heaved itself up from its nest of steel. Scraps of things left around the edges of the pad scattered like leaves, and small curls of dust carried outward on the exhaust gases. But there was no rage, no fury. It just moved.

For the space of a moment the entire Earth held its breath, hanging in that instant between now and the future, when the clock stops and eternity stares back at the world. Blink, it’s nothing, then blink, and it’s everything.

In the next heartbeat, humanity rose to the challenge, and hope accelerated away into the blackness.

There had been prayers, and more than a few speeches, but ultimately it had come down to the moment when the button had been pushed. Prefect Czao Yeiwan had been given the honors. The Chinese National Anthem played, and when the final chord echoed away, he did his part. It was a flawless launch, and that was a good thing, because it was watched by eight billion people. It was China’s moment in the sun, and they played it for all it was worth.

They fed the real time telemetry and images from the onboard cameras into an international web server, so that all of humanity could watch as it hurtled toward its rendezvous with Antu. Two hours after the launch,
www.zhen-long.com.prc
became the busiest website in history. Each important milestone was preprogrammed into the display, including an up to the minute plot of where it was on its big looping orbit. Everyone downloaded the free countdown clock screensaver.

Countdown to rendezvous: 177 days: 11 hours: 14 minutes.

At that point Antu would still be 142 days from Earth.

***

Mount Weather, Virginia: