Stormhaven Rising (Atlas and the Winds Book 1) (38 page)

“Sir, with all due respect,” Shapiro said, feeling the ice crumbling under the weight of another elephant, “the situation down there is at the very least, unpredictable. I cannot guarantee you’d be safe.”

“I appreciate your concern, Agent Shapiro, but I am a veteran of more than one military conflict. Danger is part of the territory.” The old diplomat picked up his file. “I have a responsibility to my citizens in Stormhaven to make sure they are not being adversely affected by the situation. Now if you will please excuse us ...” He nodded at his assistant and turned to leave.

A Marine guard stepped into the door, blocking the exit with his looming frame. Ambassador Kuromori stopped and without turning said, “Surely you don’t intend to hold me here. This is already an International Incident, you do not want it to become a crisis. Am I making myself clear Agent Shapiro?”

Douglas hung for a second between the reality of his orders and the force of Kuromori’s words. The soldier stood watching the old man without emotion. “Please, Ambassador. This does not need to be confrontational. If you can give me a chance to stabilize the situation—“

“I fear you are ill-equipped to find stability in this case.” He turned, drilling his gaze into Shapiro with a searing intensity. “I would hate to cause you any more difficulty, but if you do not allow us to leave, my assistant will be forced to hurt your guard in a most embarrassing manner.”

The guard tensed, but remained immobile. His side arm was still in his holster, but he’d unsnapped it during the exchange. The air froze solid between them for several seconds until the agent nodded. “Very well Ambassador. You are free to leave.”

“I am glad you understand the delicate intricacies of negotiation, Agent Shapiro.” He smiled, all the fierce determination gone from his face and the benevolence of his aged wisdom once again serenely riveted in place.

“Just pass that idea to them over there.” Shapiro nodded toward Stormhaven. “They seem to think we’re being inflexible.”

Bowing deeply he said, “I will indeed pass the word that you are a reasonable and wise man. Good evening to you Agent Shapiro.”

The small woman followed the diplomat through the flap of the tent, a flash of something shiny in her hand the only indication she’d pulled a weapon during the tense moments.

***

Washington:

“We’ve got another problem to deal with.” Norman Anderson stood in the President’s office, watching her finish reviewing the details of the Chinese launches. She held up one finger as she scanned the technical information. She didn’t understand what most of the numbers meant other than that they represented the orbits and current positions of the twenty-two spacecraft.

“You already know about the launches?” she asked, finishing the document and closing it on her screen.

“Yes Ma’am,” he nodded, looking grim. “And so does about a third of the world’s population by now.”

“Probably so,” she said, closing her eyes and rubbing her temples. “I hadn’t thought about that, but you’re right. The Chinese launches are always visible from Japan and the Philippines, aren’t they?” She nodded for him to sit down.

“In fact, we just received a disturbing news report from Japan,” he said, opening a file on his epad and linking it to her desktop monitor.

“There have been thirty-five deaths in Tokyo as a direct result of panic,” he said. “Japanese news has provided widespread coverage of our launches and the closure of the ISS. Now they’ve seen the massive launch efforts in China, so the general public is thinking that we’re in the opening stages of a nuclear war with China.”

“Oh, God,” she said, reading down the report as he talked. It described graphically how several people were trampled to death outside a bomb shelter under the World Bank building in downtown Tokyo. A security officer had also been beaten when he’d refused to let the mob into the shelter. He was not expected to live.

“The problem is that nobody’s made an official announcement about what’s going on,” he said.

“So what’re they doing to calm people down?” she asked, pulling out her bottle of antacid again. It was half-empty and she rattled it, thinking she was definitely going to need more before long.

“They’ve gone on the air with a strong denial of the war rumor,” he said, “but without some cover story, things are still tense. The Nikkei Index dropped through the floor after they announced their withdrawal from the ISS Accord, and it’s already fallen another ten percent today alone. The announcement hasn’t done much to stop the sell-off. If it continues for another day the impact to Japan’s economy will be staggering.”

“We’d be having the same problems here if the public had seen the Chinese launches up close,” she said.

“CNN, SNN, and GNS are all over the story,” he said. “So far they’ve mostly been covering the mob panic and the stock market, with the Chinese launches as a footnote, but the focus will eventually shift to the cause of the hysteria. When it does, there are going to be some very direct questions we’re going to need to address.”

She folded her arms on the desk and laid her head down trying to consider the effect this was going to have. The Japanese economy was still the fourth largest in the world, trailing just behind the US. If it took any more hits it was going to ripple outward until the whole world felt it. “We’ll need to make a statement backing them up,” she said after several moments.

She sat up and grabbed her epad to make a note. “I’ll also ask Eddie if we can afford to covertly prop up the Nikkei like Bush did for Wall Street during the second Iraqi War.” She didn’t think the Secretary of the Treasury was going to approve of the idea, but she had to ask in case Japan went into a freefall.

“Has China said anything yet?” she asked, getting up to pour herself another cup of coffee. It was going to be a long night, so she passed on the scotch that had been calling her name all evening.

“Xinhua has made an announcement that they’re going to be carrying a live conference with Director General Jiang Xintian of the CNSA tomorrow night, our time,” Anderson said, twisting in his chair to talk to her.

“Any guesses as to what he’s planning on saying?” she said, leaning on the cabinet and taking slow sips of her coffee.

“Nothing’s been said from an official standpoint, but we know he’s been put in charge of the
Zhen-Long
project that we’re assuming to be their mitigation plan,” he said.

“You think they’re planning on going public?” she asked.

“It’s possible. Maybe even probable,” he said, shrugging. “They might have opened up to the western economic model, but they’re still authoritarian in how they run their government.”

“Yeah I know,” she agreed. She walked back over to her desk and opened the top drawer to pull out a manila folder. She stared at the papers, hovering in indecision. It was a copy of a declaration to put the United States into a state of emergency. She picked up the pen that sat along the edge of her monitor and drummed it idly on her desk blotter. Norman didn’t move, didn’t blink.

“If I sign this now,” she said, “it doesn’t matter what statement we make. It’ll be a tacit confirmation that we’re about to start a war. Everybody will leap to the same conclusion.”

“That’s possible,” he said. She could see on his face that he wanted her to sign it anyway.

She hesitated, turning the pen over in her hand and feeling the weight of it, sliding it back and forth in her fingers. “We’ll bake the rest of the world, for the sake of keeping our people in the dark.” She shook her head. “Is it worth that, to hide the truth for a while longer?” She studied Norman. He sat there knowing she meant the question rhetorically.

“Isn’t there something else we can do?”

“We’ve been trying,” he said. “I ordered an assault on their news infrastructure several days ago, trying to collapse their online capabilities. The PRC is much more dependent on their online networks for communication than the US, so I was hoping if we could shut down their internet we’d be able to force them consider the consequences of taking this public.”

“I take it that it’s had no effect?” she said, clicking the pen open and closed with her thumb as she spoke.

“That’s not entirely true,” he said. “The virus we launched is digging in. So far it’s only managed to knock out about seven-percent of their network. It’s still progressing toward critical mass but it may be several weeks before it manages to choke them out.”

“And there’s nothing we can do that would make them change their minds,” she said, clicking the pen open and holding it still for the first time since she’d pulled out the folder.

“Short of actually starting a war, I don’t think so,” he said.

“How long will it take for you to get control of the news if I do this?” she asked.

“Twelve to twenty-four hours,” he said. “We’ve got to get the major broadcast networks under control, but that’s the easy part. It’s the independent webcast news services that will take the time. Getting their servers locked down will be the problem. We’ve also got the challenge of cutting the international weblinks.”

“So, for most of tomorrow, we’re going to still have the fact that I’ve signed this paper flying publicly. People are going to freak out Norman,” she said. “Everyone will be screaming that war’s coming.”

“We can call up the Guard and have them on standby,” he said. “The Emergency Powers Act lets you do that. Sign it now, call out the Guard before you announce—“

“I can’t do that either,” she interrupted. “I’ve got to tell the State Governors that we’re federalizing the Guard before I can call them up, and that’s going to look like we’re confirming the rumors.” She closed the folder and set the pen on top of it, having made the decision to wait a while longer.

“Yes Ma’am,” he said, an expression of resignation settling over his features.

***

The Storm Approaches

Lunar Resource Station, Promontorium Heraclides:

At least there was a down and an up, but that was where the familiarity ended. Adjusting to life in the LRS was in many ways tougher than getting used to the weightlessness of Alpha.

The first challenge Susan faced was the smell. It hung like a heavy ashen blanket that clogged your throat and clung to everything, until it oozed through the ventilation system. The only habitat that didn’t reek of the dust was the main residence, and even it had a faint tinge of putrid ash.

The problem came from the fact that no one ever took off their space suit during the day. The buildings of the LRS covered almost ten acres, and except for the living and garden areas, nothing was contiguous. To get from one building to the next meant suiting up. Fortunately the EVA suits ran at the same pressure as the base itself, so it had become policy to drop your pack, helmet, and gloves in the rack inside the airlock, and suffer with the discomfort the rest of the time. But that also that meant the outside dust was tracked everywhere.

Another issue she’d run into was that she was not only the youngest member of the crew, she was also the only woman currently stationed at the LRS. She was in command of five guys. The men never questioned her authority or her competence, but she could feel the tension in the air every time she had to claim privacy for personal matters. It frustrated her almost as much as them, because she’d never had issues with modesty, though she could tell that they were uncomfortable.

Since she’d arrived it had become apparent that she and Randy weren’t going to be continuing their physical fling, even though she would have been more than willing. After she’d told him about the bigger mission, he’d become distant. She could tell he was struggling with it even though outwardly he acted the same.

She’d spent the first day learning the LRS and planning how she was going to conduct the site survey. It wasn't what she’d trained for, and wasn’t what she wanted to be doing, but the circumstances left her zero discretion.

Staring down at the maps on the workbench in the Geology Lab, she was beginning to understand this was not something she was going to be able to keep secret. It was going to require a lot of cooperative effort just to support the logistics.

After Randy finished dropping the Mobile Prospector Lab and they uncrated it, she intended to get them all working on assembling it and verifying that nothing had been damaged in shipment. Once it was ready to roll, she’d have to get it provisioned. That’s when the questions were bound to start.

The MPL had been designed for two-week sorties with a crew of two, though in theory she knew it could operate indefinitely with only one passenger, providing she could get food dropped to her along her route. Using solar power during the daylight and fuel cells to keep the life support and equipment running during the two-week-long nights, it was possible to stay out until she found a site. She’d have to hunker down in one area once the sun set, because the fuel cells couldn’t keep both the life support and the drive motors powered until sunrise, but that was the reality she faced if she wanted to cover any real area. The MPL was slow. Real slow.

The LRS sat on the Promontorium Heraclides, on the edge of the Sinus Iridum, a location that had been chosen for its geology and topography, not its architectural potential. Oriented with a generally southern slope, its rocky soil spent the day baked by the sun, making construction here a daunting task no matter how much effort they wanted to throw at it. There was no easy local site to build anything as large as what her orders implied.