Prometheus and the Dragon (Atlas and the Winds Book 2) (20 page)

“Well, we know somebody was inside when it got hit,” he said, his voice sounding strained in his own ears. “Let’s take a look around and see if there was anybody outside.”

“Dave, the AI is reporting there’s a radio signal about three hundred feet away from the building on a heading of 325-degrees from our position,” his pilot said.

“That looks to be under the scrap pile over there,” he said. “Sophie, are you still squashing landers or do you have a free minute? I might need some stuff lifted.”

“I’m on my way,” she said, appearing overhead almost at once. “Where are we looking?”

“Over there,” he pointed with his handbeam toward the wreckage of one of the gun towers.

“You can’t climb over that with a suit on,” she said, dropping down to the ground. “Jump in and we’ll go check it out.”

He grabbed the railing and vaulted into the back of the mini. She cut in her landing beams and lifted slowly over the scrap heap. Dave stood in the back, leaning over and shining his beam around, trying to see anything that might look like a person.

“Hang on,” he hollered. “I think I see something moving down there.” He held his beam on the spot and she swiveled her lights onto the same area. “It looks like an arm sticking out between those two plates. See it?”

“Yeah,” she said. “But it doesn’t look like there’s enough there to be a person.” She drifted toward it, and as the lights changed angle he realized she was right. The arm was clearly not connected to anything that was living. The appearance of motion had been a trick of the shadows.

“You’re still not far enough,” his pilot said. “Another hundred feet.”

“Copy,” Sophie said, starting to move again. They made it most of the way to the far side of the pile when Dave heard a voice he didn’t recognize on the com.

“Hello?” it asked feebly. A groan punctuated the single word.

“Hello,” Dave said. “We’re looking for you. Can you help us find you?”

“I see light,” the voice said. “Not very bright, but I can see shadows.”

“Ok good, can you tell us when it gets brighter?” he asked.

Sophie swung the lights around in a gradually widening spiral, waiting. “There, I see it,” he said. Another groan.

“Sophie let’s move,” he said, even though she was already dropping toward the point where the lights were focused.

“So, I’m Dave,” he said, leaning way over the railing and trying to spot the man. “What’s your name?”

“Carter,” the man answered, gasping as if speaking took an effort.

“I know who you are,” Dave said. “Danielle talks about you all the time.” He switched channels to the US main Ops frequency.

“This is Dave Randall. We’ve found Carter Anthony alive,” he said.

“He’s alive?” Susan asked.

“Yeah. We can’t see him yet, but we’re talking to him. He sounds like he’s in a lot of pain.”

“Where is he?” she asked. “We’re sending help.”

“Can you see where we parked the
Draco?”
He started thumping on the cabin of the mini and pointed his beam down on the back of a space suit and helmet. The hand moved, looking like it was trying to wave.

“You’re clear on the other side of the Control Center,” she said. “It’ll take us ten minutes to get there in a rover.”

“I’ll send you a mini,” he said. “He looks like he’s wedged into the dirt pretty bad. You might want to bring some cutting gear, too.”

“Copy,” Susan said. “We’ll be outside the Ops airlock in three minutes.” He glanced back toward the colony, and saw that one of the minies was already heading to pick them up.

Flipping back to the local channel he said, “Hang in there Carter, we’re going to get you out. Help’s on the way.”

“I don’t think I’ll be going anywhere,” he said, trying to chuckle. “I can’t feel my legs and there’s some blood inside my suit.” Sophie had squeezed the mini down as close as she could to the trapped man, but Dave still had to jump twelve feet to the ground.

As soon as his feet hit the dirt, he knew it was going to be bad. From just above Carter’s knees, his legs disappeared under a piece of girder. There was dark black goo that looked like crystals of boiled tar.

Somewhere under the beam, his suit had obviously torn, and the only thing keeping him alive was the fact that the hole was pinched closed. Dave knew all the basic first aid, but this was going to take a doctor to save him. And maybe an engineer.

***

Chang Er Prefecture, Tycho:

Of the sixty-three men that had left on the mission, sixteen returned. Eight landers had gone, three survived. It had been a flawless operation until Stormhaven arrived. Then it went from perfect to chaos in a matter of minutes. As far as they could tell they hadn’t even touched them. Stormhaven sucked up their best shot and didn’t even blink.

General Wan was still pleased. He’d sent many men off on missions from which they never returned. He’d long understood the road he traveled was paved with the flesh of those who served. Body count was less important than objectives, and while they had indeed taken the greater losses in human terms, they had paid the price in exchange for their goals.

The only men who had returned were the rocket mortar teams and the lander pilots. Everyone else was killed or missing. The General welcomed his men back to Chang Er, standing at the airlock and saluting as each of them filed in. In his mind they were heroes.

Prefect Czao stood behind Wan, as solemn as the General was proud, his face a study in controlled emotion. Unmoving and unflinching, but steadfastly determined that they had made a horrible mistake. When the last of the troops had cycled through and were heading to their barracks, he cleared his throat and caught the General’s attention. “A word?” he asked, nodding in the direction of his offices.

“Of course, Prefect,” the General said, falling into step behind Czao.

The moment they were in his personal office, the Prefect said, “Jiuquan has been destroyed.”

Wan blinked. Several times. “When? How?”

“Right after our attack started,” Czao said, walking to a cabinet to pour himself a drink. He didn’t offer one to the General. “We don’t know what type of weapon was used, but the entire Launch Center was devastated. As far as we can tell there are no survivors.”

“Director General Jiang?” Wan asked. He stood, taking the news like a soldier.

“He was there, so we have to assume he is among the dead,” Czao said. He sat down at his desk and punched in a command. A satellite photo appeared on the screen behind him. “No one has entered the area yet because we are uncertain as to the level of radiation that may be present.”

“It was a nuclear weapon?” Wan asked, stepping forward to study the photo. “No, it couldn’t be. There is no lateral blast diffusion, and most of the structures appear intact.” He stared at the picture, trying to identify the buildings he knew. He found the gantry at the northern launch pad. The steel superstructure looked melted. It had sagged in on itself, and bulged out into a slag heap at the base. “What could cause that kind of damage?”

“We have no clue,” the Prefect said, “but it was done as a response to our attack. The American Secretary of State tried repeatedly to contact our government before this happened. After that, he quit trying.”

“I assume we are preparing to counter attack,” the General said. “We cannot let something like this go without response.”

“It is my understanding that we are waiting to see if they are planning to escalate the conflict. We started this war, if it becomes one,” Czao said.

“But their response was disproportionate to our attack. This is not acceptable,” he said, shaking his head.

“How would we have reacted if they had destroyed our
Zhen-Long
missile?” Czao said, his voice calm and measured. “This military operation struck at the heart of their desire to survive. If we fail, then the Americans, and indeed all of humanity, will be able to point at us as the ones that damned the Earth to death.”

“We will not fail, Prefect,” General Wan said, straightening himself.

“If we do, you will not have to wait for Antu to kill you. I will personally send your body to the Americans as a peace offering.” Czao stood up and waved the man from the room. Wan sputtered indignantly forming a reply, but before the words took shape in his mouth Czao added, “Do not make the mistake of thinking that I jest, General.”

***

Washington:

William Worthington had gone apoplectic when Sylvia Hutton walked into his office in the Executive Building. She was the last person he’d expected to see. He tried to tell her about the danger she was in, but she was having none of it. Seeing his reaction wasn’t about to stop on its own, she held up her hand and said, “Stow it, Will. I’m tired of living in a cave while the world still lives out here, where there are trees, and grass, and skies. If you’re so terrified about security, you go live in that cave.”

She spun on her heel and left him still stammering. She grinned to herself in spite of what still hung over her.
She was the President, damn it!

Around noon he called her to complain about the speech she’d scheduled for that evening in the Capitol Building. “You can’t be serious? We can’t secure that location. It’s way too open.”

“Will, shut up or I’m sending you to the cave.”

“But—“ was all he managed to get out before she cut him off.

Evening came, and Secretary Worthington looked older somehow than he had this morning. She grinned to herself.

She walked into the Senate Chamber like she owned the world. She actually enjoyed stopping to shake the hands of several of her allies, and even some of her more prominent opponents. She was the President, and she was going to lead the United States through its darkest hours with her head held high. It was time for her to do just that. Even if there was no future, she was determined to end the present in strength, and not cowering in the dark.

She stepped up on the platform, looking around the room and up at the full balconies above her. Squaring her shoulders and drawing in a deep breath, she focused on the camera right in front of her.

“Good evening,” she said. “Since there is no easy way to say this, I’m going to get right to the point.” She watched every face in the room freeze. She’d made sure there was no advance release of what she intended to say. Most of the politicians in the room had made their careers on anticipating what was coming, and she knew they were reading every nuance in her voice.

“Early this morning, the Liberation Army of the People’s Republic of China committed a heinous crime against the United States, and the people of the world. In an unprovoked attack, they destroyed the Prometheus Project on the lunar surface, rendering the United States’ mitigation efforts against the asteroid Antu impossible to complete.” In her pause, the silence froze the moment.

“In an effort to get the PRC to stop its aggressive actions, the United States did launch a strike against the Command Center for their lunar military operations. For this action, I take sole and personal responsibility. At this time we are uncertain as to the damage done to the Chinese Space Command Center at Jiuquan, in the Nei Mongol region of China, but we are certain of the irreparable harm they have inflicted upon us, and as a result on the rest of humanity. If Prometheus had been allowed to continue its mission, Antu, and any other as yet undiscovered potentially hazardous objects, would no longer have been a threat to Earth. This investment we were making in Prometheus would have protected not just ourselves, but untold future generations of mankind.

“We do not know what thinking has caused the Chinese people to take this action, but the time has come for the rest of us to face a hard decision. We could continue our military response to their aggression, escalating until we do enough damage to each other that neither nation can endure, or we can sit back and wait for the Chinese
Zhen-Long
Missile to reach its objective.

“It is my opinion that we should choose peace, and not continue the escalation of this conflict. In this case, with our hearts blazing in a desire for retribution, peace is indeed the harder path for us to follow. We must all stand together as one world, resolute in our faith that a merciful God will not allow humanity to be crushed down to dust.

“I now urge you all to pray with me that the Chinese hand is steady, and that their aim is true.

“Thank you and God bless.”

She closed the small binder and walked away in absolute silence. The silence still echoed behind her as she strode across the rotunda and down the front steps to her waiting limousine. But she knew it wouldn’t last.

***

Chapter Thirteen:

Hard Places and Rocks

Sentinel Colony:

The medical facility in New Hope was good for basic emergency services and light surgery, but Carter Anthony’s needs were well beyond basic services. He was barely alive when they got his legs out from under the beam. It had taken sixteen hours of non-stop work, ten people, and two of Sentinel’s minies to free him. The problem had come from the fact they had to keep his suit pinched closed, and maintain compression on his legs so that his blood pressure would not fall critically when they moved the structure off of him. It would have been a hard rescue even on Earth, but here it was almost impossible.