Stormhaven Rising (Atlas and the Winds Book 1) (52 page)

“I’m sorry to interrupt, Gov’ner,” she said. “I’ve got the President’s office holding on Video one.”

“President, as in Sylvia Hutton?” she said, forgetting the attorney on her screen for the moment.

“Yes Ma’am,” she said. “You’re holding. They said she’d be with you in a minute or less.”

“Put it through,” she said. It wasn’t too unusual for the White House to call, but most of the time they made an appointment so they knew she’d be available. As the Governor of California she presided over the world’s sixth-largest economy, if it were considered independent of the rest of the country. In theory that made her the sixth-busiest elected official in the world, as well. Washington understood that, and there was some mutual respect that came with the territory.

The video feed came up on the screen where the ACLU was beginning its announcement, superimposing the Presidential Seal over a blue background. “Hello, AJ,” President Hutton’s face appeared a second later. Her expression was grim, almost ominous.

“President Hutton,” she said. “What can I do for you?”

“I don’t have a lot of time,” she said, “so I’ll get right to the point.” The Governor glanced at Manny and raised an eyebrow. The President paused. “Ah, you’re not alone.”

“No Ma’am. The Lieutenant-Governor is here with me. Should I ask him to leave?” she offered.

“Uhm, no it’s ok. We’re probably going to need him in on the situation as well. Hello, Mr. Olivera,” she said, including him in the conversation.

“Madam President,” he said.

“As I said, I have to be brief. I have several dozen other calls to make before I’m done for the day,” the President said. “You are aware of the severity of the threat the nation faces."

The Governor nodded, knowing that there was a lot more to the situation than had been made available, even to someone in her privileged position.

“As a result I am compelled to declare a national state of emergency,” Sylvia Hutton said. “Effective immediately, we’re federalizing the Guard so we can use them to reinforce local police services. We’re anticipating that this announcement will cause a certain degree of panic, and the Guard units will be critical in suppressing any potential violence.”

“Ok,” she said, stunned by the announcement and unsure what else to say. “I understand,” she added, but then corrected herself. “No, I don’t in actuality. What the hell is going on?”

“I’m sorry, but at this time I can’t tell you any more than what I already have,” she said. “I just hope I can count on your cooperation.”

“Of course,” the Governor said, “but it would help if I knew what motivated this decision.”

“The threat we face right now as a nation is far more serious than any we’ve faced, at any time in our history,” she said, her face showing that she genuinely believed it to be true.

“Yes Ma’am,” she said, more confused by the President’s words.

“I hope you understand we need to keep this declaration close to our vest until I make the official announcement,” the President said. “Thank you, Andrea."

The screen went back to the Presidential seal before the signal returned to the press conference. The ACLU lawyer was fielding questions, but Governor Jameson couldn’t concentrate on what he was saying, the lawsuit somehow feeling trivial by comparison.

“What the hell was that all about?” Manny said, looking as stunned as she felt.

***

Bending the Line

Stormhaven:

“We’ve got a problem,” Daryl Creswell said, blinking his bleary eyes at Cole through the comlink. “The raw material processors for the OTV lines are going to be shutting down in about sixteen hours. We’ll be out of resin and carbon fiber.”

“I was expecting that,” Cole said. “Will that leave us any reserve for those special projects I gave you?”

“Yeah, I already pulled that from stock, so we’re ok on that point. It really was only a drop in the bucket in comparison to the OTVs.”

“So when production shuts down, where’s that put us?” Cole said.

“We’ve got five ships completed now, and three in process. If I have Mica put a hold on the last one of those, we’ll be able to finish the sixth,” he said.

“Does that include the
Dancing Star
?” Cole asked.

“No,” he said. “We’ve started patching her hull with monomolecular carbon sheets. It’s a slow process, but when it’s done she’ll be something to see.”

“So you’ve got the epitaxy processor running?” Cole said, surprised. “I thought you were still a long way off on that.”

“We were, but that damn supercomputer of yours offered to lend a hand and we got it up and running in less than a day,” he said. “I do have to warn you it’s taking almost ten-percent of Mica’s processor output just to do it.”

“Holy crap,” Cole said. Mica hadn’t reached even one percent of its capacity handling everything else on its plate, including defending itself from a continuous assault from the government’s Gensix supercomputers.

“I ordered her to put a cap on how much she dedicated to the epitaxy processing,” he said. “I didn’t think you’d want me monopolizing all her resources.”

“Good thinking,” Cole said. “We’ve got no clue what else they might throw at us, and I’d hate to be stuck with an overtaxed computer.”

“At the ten-percent limit, she’s able to produce about six square centimeters a minute,” Daryl said. “That means the new skin on the
Star
will take about seven weeks to complete.”

“I assume that means we’re not going to be using this for all the hulls then,” Cole said.

“Mica’s working on designing an autonomous process controller that can handle the work. If she can do it, we’ll be able to build several chambers and then it might be do-able,” he said. “For the time being, I’d say the
Star
is going to be the only armored ship in the fleet.”

“Is it worth it?” Cole asked.

“Do you plan to get shot at again?” Daryl asked.

“Not if I can help it,” he said.

“This mono-carbon will stop anything this side of a small nuke,” Daryl said. “It even bounces lasers.”

“Really?” Cole asked. “That’s surprising.”

“It was to me, too,” Daryl said. “But the surface is absolutely smooth at the quantum level. It looks sort of reflective when you see it square on.”

“Sort of?”

“It really defies explanation,” Daryl said. “It’s dark grey, almost black when you look at it at an angle, but when you get close to perpendicular it seems to become reflective. The weird thing is that the light bouncing off the surface is not just the light that you’d expect to see, it’s most of the light that’s hitting it obliquely too. We’re not sure why it happens, unless it’s maybe trapping photons between the electrons of the carbon atoms and releasing them only in one direction."

“Does it do the same thing to radio waves?” Cole asked.

“We haven’t checked, but I’d assume so.”

“That’ll play merry-hob with military tracking systems, wouldn’t you think?” Cole said.

“As long as they’re not lined up broadside. Then you’d look like a neon sign,” he said.

“Good point,” Cole said, his mind swirling with possibilities.

“What I really called you to discuss was the end of the supplies,” Daryl said, pulling him back to the moment. “I don’t suppose you’ve got any idea how much longer the blockade’s going to last?”

“Not a clue,” Cole admitted.

***

ISS Alpha:

Lange called them the Keystone Cops. Commander Rutledge called them scary. So far they hadn’t gotten anybody killed, but the day was still young and they had about ten hours scheduled for the EVA.

Today they were going to start doing real work.

Hiroko had qualified on the station command systems and could hold the fort while both of the veteran astronauts worked outside with the trainees. In the early days of Alpha’s history, the station had been left completely unoccupied several times, so it wasn’t really that complex a mission for her, unless something went wrong. Then she was their lifeline.

The nature of the ISS had changed so much over the years that the near-space environment was filled with dancing collections of supplies that were the life-blood of the station. Food was dry-stored in a cluster of canisters that drifted high above the station, spare parts hung in another position. Consumable air and gasses were in another orbit, and so on until there was a cloud of free-floating storage containers tethered together in small clumps around the station.

The reality of physics had made the process of placing these supplies complex. They did not simply float motionless, instead they swept around in carefully timed interlocked orbits, necessitated by the desire not to string them out halfway around the planet. The construction area that had been assigned for the TLS was one of the few places where an object could be stationed in a fixed position relative to the station, without it becoming entangled in the other dancing orbits.

On the last training EVA, Scott had pulled a cable across the distance between the lower egress hatch and the spherical shell of the new lunar shuttle hull. They were planning to practice their construction skills by starting to assemble the second TLS.

Scott hung about 150 meters behind the station, watching them get adjusted to the environment. Below his feet, the Earth rolled like a slowly spinning carpet of blue and white. Continents were visible over the limb as smudges of brown, but otherwise the Pacific Ocean filled the entire field of his view.

He’d been outside often enough to be almost jaded to the sight. Almost. The military technicians on the other hand, were still wet behind the ears, so they spent the first several minutes staring down at the amazing beauty. Gangly puppies, tied together on a giant leash, stretching between the airlock and the work site.

Sergei had started his part of today’s work several hours ago, by taking the tug out to the TLS supply node to retrieve the engines and tank assemblies. He’d be making two trips before he joined them on another of the MMU to provide backup.

Scott watched the trainees tether-up and haul themselves along the line to the construction node. He almost longed for the old days, when every hand motion was choreographed and practiced until it was ingrained into the very muscles of a spacewalker. Now they’d replaced the precision with freedom, but from where he watched, the freedom had devolved into chaos. “Come on children,” he said. “Let’s get a rhythm going so we don’t spend quite so much time banging into each other. We only have a limited amount of air in these spacesuits and I’d really like to get some work done before we have to go back inside."

Hiroko watched from her observation post. “Should I send you out a lunch, Commander?” she asked, snickering in his ear.

“No comments from the peanut gallery,” he said, pushing forward on his MMU controls so that he could help keep the tow-line tight. “We’ll get them whipped into shape somehow,” he said, hoping it wasn’t just wishful thinking.

“I am inbound from parts cache, Commander,” Sergei said. “ETA five minutes.”

“Roger on the ETA,” he said. “Just make sure you swing wide with those engines, I don’t want you to get tangled up with the kids. They’re bouncing the rope around pretty seriously.” He grabbed the tether, and spinning himself backwards, let his inertia pull the slack out of the line. Several of the trainees spun awkwardly as their anchor cords jerked tight.

“Pay attention. You have to move slowly and make sure you keep synchronized with your team mates,” he said again. “Concentrate on pulling the line only in the direction you are wanting to travel. If you keep pulling sideways all you’re going to do is keep bouncing.”

“Yes sir,” several of them said in unison, garbling the transmission to the point of unintelligibility.

“Ok, all together now,” he said. “Right, coast, left, coast, right ...” He let his voice trail off as they began to move in a somewhat more uniform manner toward their destination. “That’s it, keep it up.” He turned loose of the tether and pivoting the MMU shot towards the construction site.

“Sergei,” he said, shaking his head inside his helmet while he inspected the amount of motion still in the line. “When you get back you’re going to have to grapple the hull and yank it back into place. We’re going to have to take the slack out again."

“Of course, Commander,” the Russian said. “They will learn."

“I sure hope so,” Scott said in disgust.

***

Stormhaven:

Tom wasn’t the best pilot in Stormhaven and he knew it. He also wasn’t the one most likely to take the big risk, but he’d found himself out in a mini, sneaking under the cover of the moonless night trying to get to where the guards had reported their position. It wasn’t the guards that he was trying to get to, it was Nichole.

As he crawled the mini through the line of military vehicles he’d begun to doubt the sanity of his decision. He hugged the ground, easing through a narrow arroyo between two gargantuan pieces of mobile artillery. He’d seen these things from the window of the Communication Center, but out here in the dark, their imposing silhouettes were immense. Terrifyingly immense.