Stormhaven Rising (Atlas and the Winds Book 1) (34 page)

The retrieval vehicle and emergency crews tried to open the canopy to get him out, but he had waved them off, not wanting to be unzipped until he’d sucked it up.

***

Stormhaven:

The
Dancing Star
hovered twenty feet above the ground, waiting for Daryl to certify it for landing. He had a team of technicians standing on the ground under the ship, trying to figure out what they could do to get enough of the gear to drop.

There were hundreds of bullet holes and fractures spread across the underside of the ship, and many of the mechanical connections had been shredded by the attack. Only two of the gear would actually extend all the way down.

“They ripped the hell out of you,” Daryl swore, looking up at the bottom of the mangled hull. “I don’t think there’s much you can do except drop it on the ground and climb out. We’re going to need to repair the whole undercarriage.”

“Yeah, I copy that.” Dave said from the bridge. “Sorry I broke your baby.” There was a real tone of sadness in his voice.

“Hell, don’t worry about that,” Daryl said. “Let’s see if we can get you unloaded and then we’ll pull the carcass around to the shop to patch her up.”

“I am scanning two aircraft incoming from the southwest at 850 knots. ETA two minutes, fifteen seconds,” Mica announced.

“Shit. I think they want us on the deck now,” Colton said over the comlink. “Get the cameras out of the way and let’s just park it right here.

“Give me thirty seconds,” Daryl said, watching his crew scrambling. “Ok, we’re clear. Pull the gear up and put her down.”

The
Dancing Star
eased onto the dusty ground just as two F-35 Lightnings screamed overhead, rumbling the valley and announcing their arrival with a throaty roar.

“Well, I guess it wasn’t the prettiest way to come home, but at least we made a better showing than the Air Force.” Daryl turned back toward the community and walked off to get a mini and some supplies to start pulling the gear out from the inside.

He didn’t notice the screaming crowd, welcoming the crew of the
Dancing Star
home. He didn’t care about history. There was time for that later. To him it had become a whole different game, and it had an ugly undercurrent that scared him in a way that he didn’t want to admit.

***

Shock and Oh

Osaka, Japan:

“President Mito, are you watching the news from America?” The voice on the other end of the line sounded excited.

“No,” he said, glancing at the clock. It wasn’t late, except that Mito had an early meeting with the Finance Minister and had to be at the airport before sunrise. Now that JAXA had removed itself from the ISS Accords they had a monumental budget crisis developing. The international funds for the ISS supply missions were no longer coming in and he was being blamed for the shortfall, even if the decision to withdraw had not been his alone. This crisis had become the driving concern of the Japanese government, even more than the fact of the asteroid coming, if that were possible. It had also been what had kept President Mito awake for the last several nights.

“I’m sorry to wake you, sir,” she said, “but you need to see the program on SNN. They are covering the flight of the Stormhaven spacecraft. They were successful in reaching orbit.”

“Good for them,” Mito growled, trying to piece what she was saying into his current priorities. It would have been much easier except for the clinging fog of his exhaustion. “And what of it?”

“In the process, they out-maneuvered an entire squadron of F-28s,” his assistant said. “It was a most impressive display of their technological sophistication.”

“Really?” He reached for the remote control on his nightstand and jabbed the button. The picture on his screen showed a replay of the entire launch, ending with the acrobatics in orbit. Mito watched, holding his phone against his ear. “Anything that can get away from a Starhawk is obviously quite a piece of equipment,” he said, after the footage ended. It looked more like special effects than reality.

“We are sure this is not a hoax?” he asked.

“Apparently not,” his assistant said. “The US administration is claiming that two pilots were killed during the confrontation.”

“Interesting,” he said, swinging his feet out onto the polished hardwood floor. “I was not aware that the US had formally admitted to having the Starhawk, and now they are announcing that they have lost two pilots of a craft that does not exist.”

“Exactly,” she said. “Given our current predicament, I thought you might see the possibilities.”

“Indeed. Thank you for waking me.” He pulled his datapad toward him, already beginning to formulate the framework of a plan.

Surely Stormhaven would recognize that JAXA would make a tremendous ally.

***

Lunar Resource Station, Promontorium Heraclides:

“Hey Winslow, wasn’t your ex’s name Dave Randall?” Tony Baker, the LRS Chief Engineer asked, even before she’d finished cycling through the airlock and into the habitat. The green light flickered on and she reached for the helmet seal-ring to pull the fishbowl off her head.

“Yeah, that’d be him. Why?” she said, feeling apprehensive. She wasn’t sure if it was the change in environment or something else altogether.

“Because he’s a hot property in the news this morning,” Baker said, opening the inner door and reaching out to shake her hand. “He just out-maneuvered a squadron of Starhawks, and managed to fly a homemade ship into orbit on national TV.”

“Nah. That can’t be him. He’s flying rich guys around for a charter service out of Albuquerque.” She scrunched her nose at the strange smell inside the station and wondered if maybe they were suffering from some weird form of oxygen deprivation.

“It’s the dust from outside.” Randy grinned, recognizing the expression on her face. “Everything stinks for a while and then you get used to it. Worst part is, for a couple weeks, even the food tastes like that smell.”

“Oh great,” she mumbled, snapping the glove-lock open with a twist. “So what are you telling me about Dave?” she asked.

“Just what I said. He managed to fly the
Dancing Star
into orbit and toasted a Starhawk in the process. The GNS and SNN feeds carried the whole thing live about twenty minutes ago. It was some damned impressive flying that’s for sure.”

She shook her head, still not understanding. “I’ve been out of the loop for two and a half days on the Trans-Siberian Express. What’s the
Dancing Star
? I have no clue what you’re talking about.”

“You can watch the link. I’m sure it’s going to be on the demand channels all day,” Baker said, twisting her around to unlatch the PLS from her back and pulling the oversuit loose.

She shimmied out of the protective covering, peeling the thermal liner down to her spandex underwear without thinking about the proximity of the men and the outrageousness of her appearance. Her mind was on Dave and what kind of trouble he’d gotten himself into.

***

ISS Alpha:

After the fight, they’d kept Zehvi in irons leaving him strapped to one of the acceleration seats that had been cobbled into the mid-deck to carry the extra scientists down from the station. He’d been pretty much ignored since then, left to his anger by the solemn astronauts who were filling the cargo bay. For the first several hours he’d screamed at anyone within earshot, but when Commander Andrews threatened to drug him if he didn’t shut up, he’d realized it was pointless to keep it up.

Hiroko and Sergei had come by to feed him, and other than when he needed to use the facilities, his whole world had been limited to what he could see and hear from the chair.

Now Scott was floating beside him while Mike and Sergei strapped the wounded astronaut into the other seat. Because of the complexity of the loading operations they were running days behind schedule, and watching the tense movements of the three of them, Zehvi understood that they were exhausted.

“Look, I’m sorry,” he offered. “I didn’t mean for anyone to get hurt.” He twisted to face them but was met with silence and the back of Scott’s body.

“I really mean it. I was just angry," he said.

Mike pushed between Scott and Sergei, grabbing the front of Zehvi’s shirt to pull himself into his face. “Shut up. This man has lost his eye and who knows how much damage will happen because we can’t keep reentry from doing more. I don’t care why you threw your tantrum, but you need to understand that if I had my way you’d be sucking vacuum.”

Sergei reached out and put his hand on the commander’s shoulder. “Is now irrelevant. Authorities will do what they think is best. You need to focus on preparing for trip home.”

“Yeah, it’s not worth the trouble.” He pushed back from the Israeli scientist. “I swear if he says one more word to me, I’m going to put him in the cargo bay and let him ride back there.”

“I understand.” Scott glanced back over his shoulder and shook his head. “Lucky for him, we don’t have enough room in the bay."

“Who gets to stay because he’s taking the extra seat?” Zehvi asked.

“Hiroko volunteered,” Scott said. “He was an electrical engineer, and she’s the only one we’ve got up here. But I don’t think you understood that Mike said
shut up.
”

“JAXA bought in on this conscription?” Zehvi asked. “I don’t believe it.”

“She is volunteer. JAXA did not approve,” Sergei said.

The shuttle commander pulled a roll of duct tape out of a locker over the Israeli’s head and slapped a piece over Zehvi’s mouth. “This asshole’s destroyed someone’s life and all he can do is jabber. Alex and I entered the Air Force together. He’s isn’t just one of the military guys to me, he’s also one of my friends,” he said, the muscles in his jaw flexing as he bit down on his anger.

“It’s ok, Mike. It’s your ship.” Scott shrugged and went back to securing the unconscious man into his seat, ignoring the shocked rage on Zehvi’s face.

“So what will NASA say about Hiroko staying?” Sergei asked, stretching a layer of tape around the wounded man’s head to hold it during the descent.

“I don’t know, and I don’t care. I’ll put it through to Lange’s office once the
Liberty
pulls away. Hopefully it’ll be one of those points that just doesn’t matter. She made the decision based on her conscience. I agree with her."

“As do I,” Sergei said, stuffing a wad of fabric into the space beside Alex’s head. “I also know morality and politics are often mutually exclusive ideas."

“Ain’t that a fact,” Mike echoed, pushing off through the hatch to the flight deck with a parting glare at Zehvi.

***

Washington:

“How the hell did we let this happen?” Sylvia sat glaring at Norman across the large table. She wasn’t really angry with him, nor did she expect that the situation was his fault. She was just frustrated.

“What appears to have happened was a string of coincidental oversights,” he replied, looking at the table. “I can’t say there was any single thing that let them get away with it."

“For example,” General Marquez said across the video link, “There’d been a series of random satellite failures that we hadn’t tracked to a single source. It turns out that they were the result of an ongoing probe of our satellite security structures.”

“You mean they hacked the Satnet?” Al asked.

“Apparently.” Marquez looked ashamed at the admission. “We had no way to see it as a pattern until they actually launched, and locked us out at the same time. It bought them a head start before we could commit to a flight trajectory.”

“Should we have anticipated that ability?” the President asked. “I thought Agent Shapiro reported that they had repeatedly demonstrated their ability to override the communications satellites.”

“Communications satellites are far less secure than the military surveillance systems,” Marquez said. “We’re not sure how they managed to get access to those birds."

“We can’t even find their uplink facilities for that matter,” Anderson added.

“Once they got to orbit it was simply a matter of physics. They out-maneuvered us, plain and simple,” Secretary Reynolds said. “It was a brilliantly orchestrated event, even though it appears they predicated their launch on the blown sabotage mission.”

“Which was also only a coincidental failure.” Norman looked at the open file in front of him. “Agent Abrams would have succeeded in attaching the explosive device to the space craft if he hadn’t been visually spotted. Colton Taylor happened to move into position to see the operatives silhouetted against an unusually bright star field on the horizon."

“You’re kidding me. It was all in having accidentally seen the agents against the sky?” The Vice-President asked, shaking his head. “These are some damned lucky people. Maybe we should see if they’ll let us rub their bellies? We can use all the help we can get."