Stormhaven Rising (Atlas and the Winds Book 1) (76 page)

“The holiest of books, the Bible itself, has told us that in these times, the faithful will be delivered, will be lifted up out of harm’s way. Who are we to question these words, this holy covenant with God himself? Are we to fight the will of our Divine Master?”

“NO!” came the thunderous reply. The floor itself shook.

“Are we to trust our salvation to the hands of men?”

“NO!” they screamed again, louder still.

“Then we must crush the non-believers and proclaim the Will of God unto the world!” The voices of the faithful filled the building.

“We must go forth and show the world the strength of our faith! We must not fail! The time of the Rapture is near, and we must not let the Lord see that we have been wanting. We must show Him the pureness of our faith! The power of our conviction! He can see into our hearts, and will know the truth. We must not fail Him. The day of His Judgment is at hand! Praise God, even as the fires of Armageddon burn across our lands, for they are the proof of His Divine Wisdom!”

The doors of the sanctuary burst open, and the congregation ran out into the streets, certain in their faith that they were carrying the Message of God to the unbelievers. Setting the world ablaze with their righteous fire.

But Atlanta was already burning.

***

Cape Canaveral, Florida:

Danielle Cavanaugh had her own ship, something that had come as a surprise to her. She’d expected to be nothing more than a pilot, but Colton had needed people he could count on, and he’d trusted her enough to give her command of the
Cassiopeia
. She’d been given a mission.

She was to haul the
Reliant
back to orbit. An amusing proposition since the US had been given a ship of their own. Why couldn’t they do it themselves? Or for that matter, why did they even need to use the
Reliant
anymore? It took two and a half days to do what the
Aquila
could do in less than four hours.

Her questions were answered as soon as she made her approach to Canaveral. They had loaded the
Aquila
onto a set of huge lifts, and were towing it toward one of the big maintenance hangars near the side of the runway. Towing it. With a tractor. She shook her head and laughed. They could have flown it over. The
Aquila
was still fully operational.

“Canaveral Approach, this is Stormhaven carrier
Cassiopeia
, requesting permission to land,” she said.

“Roger
Cassiopeia
,” a voice said. “We’ve marked you a landing pad near building Twenty-Three E. Can you locate that or do you need directions?”

She called up a site map for Canaveral on her screen and found the building easily. “Negative Approach, we’ve got it in sight.” She punched the location across to her pilot, a Japanese astronaut who had just completed training on the simulator and was getting his first real flight time. He moved them into position and settled the ship precisely on their pad. A small group of people stood nearby, so she was glad he hadn't bungled the landing.

“Permission to come aboard?” one of the people standing outside asked. Colton had warned her, anytime they landed anywhere, they ended up giving some VIP a tour.

“Of course,” she said, getting up and heading down to the front port to do her obligatory welcome. She grabbed Glen Warner from his station and hauled him with her. She was planning on letting him do the tour, but when she got to the entry ramp, she stopped in shock. At the bottom of the ramp was Carter Anthony, smiling up at her.

She burst into tears in spite of herself, and running down the ramp, she flung herself into his arms. “Oh my God, I was so worried I’d never see you again,” she said.

“Yeah well, I was down here to start my training, and I heard you were going to be taking the
Reliant
back to orbit, so I figured I’d see how you were doing,” he said, hugging her as tightly as she was him.

They clung to each other for several seconds before the man standing behind him cleared his throat. “Carter, you could get a room, you know.”

“What?” the astronomer said, disengaging slightly. “Oh yeah, sorry. Dani, this is Joshua Lange. Joshua, this is—“

“Dr. Cavanaugh,” he said, shaking her hand where she extended it around Carter’s waist.

“I’m sorry,” she said, wiping her tear-soaked cheeks with the back of her hand. She sniffled, and then pointed up to where Glen still stood at the top of the ramp. “Glen Warner, I’d like you to meet Carter,” she said.

“I’d guessed who you were,” he said, smiling. “Dani doesn’t usually introduce herself to a stranger quite so enthusiastically.” They all laughed, and she blushed.

“Come on in,” she said, still holding Carter’s hand as she pulled him up the ramp. “Let me show you my ship.”

“
Your
ship? You’ve obviously done well for yourself,” Carter said.

She decided she’d show them around, so she sent Glen back to the bridge. They walked through the ship, working their way back to the Command Center twenty minutes later. Even though Joshua had been in the
Aquila
, he still followed them around politely.

“So,” Joshua said, once the tour was over, “since we’ve got you here, do you think we could ask another favor? Off the record?”

At that moment Dani would have given them anything they asked for. “Absolutely,” she said, after he’d finished explaining what they needed. “I’ll just need to check with Cole to make sure he knows I’ll be a little late getting back. He’s such a
father
. If I don’t call in, he’ll sit up waiting.”

***

Lunar Resource Station, Promontorium Heraclides:

Susan sat at the console, she’d skipped dinner, as had half the crew. They were rationing food, not because she’d ordered it, but because they all understood it was inevitable. Today some of them skipped a meal, tomorrow the others would pass on dinner. It just worked out spontaneously, and she was relieved they’d not had to be forced. Later, when things got a bit tighter, they might need to be pushed, but she’d worry about that when the time came.

For now, she ignored the rumbling in her stomach, worrying instead over designs for the modifications of the MPL. Extending the life support capacity of the Lab was going to be a lot more complex than she’d initially thought, but she still believed they’d be able to get it done. They were cannibalizing parts from all over the station to do it, but once they got the small balloons set up over at New Hope they’d be able to start making real progress.

Tony had begun converting one of their two-seat rovers into another trailer, stripping it down to the frame and welding a flatbed onto it. Nobody asked what he’d cut up to make the deck of the trailer, mostly because it bore a striking resemblance to the side of a fuel-storage tank from the Pad. It wasn’t pretty, but it would work.

Sitting back, Susan rubbed her eyes. She’d been working a set of calculations to determine pressure drop across the O2 manifold when they cut it into the life support system. They’d have to adjust the pressure regulators when they hooked it up, and if they screwed the adjustments, the cobbled-together hardware would either freeze, or explode. Exploding was bad.

The calculations were a lot more like engineering work than she liked, but since she was the one that would be doing the actual cut-ins, she wanted to make sure she understood what they were up against.

She stretched, and looked out the tiny porthole towards the open ground in the center of the LRS. The sun was already pretty far to the west, but its harsh glare was still bright. She blinked, trying to see over to Building Seven where Tony was working with Owen and Greg on the Rovers. She could see them, bouncing up and down like a couple kids.

She turned up the volume on the local radio. She’d turned it down to cut out the distractions of their conversations while she was muscling her way through the calculations. “Susan, are you there?” Tony was saying.

She could see him bounding toward her, cutting straight across the open, over the top of the buried Solar Storm Shelter, rather than taking the walkpath.

“Yeah, Tony what’s up?” she said, clipping a mic over her ear.

“Haven’t they called you on the radio?” he said.

“Who’s supposed to be calling me?”

“You need to see this,” he said, stopping in the middle of the station and pointing. “Turn on the cameras over by the landing pad.”

She swung her chair around, punching in the commands to activate the monitors. A huge box sat on the regolith, and another one hung from cables several feet above the ground. It was slowly settling as she watched.

“What the hell is that?” she asked, panning one of the cameras up the cable. She zoomed back until she could see what it was that was lowering the container. It was a ship. One of the Stormhaven carriers.

“
Cassiopeia
to the Lunar Resource Station,” a woman’s voice said. “We brought you a gift from Joshua Lange. He said you might need this stuff.” She watched the cables shake and begin to retract.

“Thank you,” she stammered. “This is quite a surprise.”

“Our pleasure,” the woman said. “We’d love to hang around and chat, but I’m already six hours late and the boss gets a bit touchy if we screw up his schedule. Good luck.”

The ship began to lift away from the moon, accelerating out of site.

***

Washington:

How the call finally made it up the chain of command to Secretary Herman’s desk was beyond his understanding, but he found himself staring into the angry face of Director General Jiang Xintian. The subtitles of the translator followed the General’s voice by a split second. “How dare you allow this renegade corporation to establish facilities on the lunar surface. Their presence is a violation of international law and jeopardizes the welfare of both our space programs. The PRC demands that you put a stop to their efforts immediately.”

“General, I understand your concerns, but I have to ask you, have you ever met Colton Taylor?” John said.

The General, watching the translation on his own screen, shook his head.

“Then I really recommend you go introduce yourself. Let him know what you think, and then get back to me. Maybe you’ll have better luck than we did,” he said, clicking off the connection, amused at the thought of someone else trying to deal with Taylor.

“Fat chance he’s got.” he said, amusement boiling over into a full belly laugh. Still smiling, he picked up his hat and umbrella and headed out into the warm spring afternoon.

The End

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Eric Michael Craig is the former Director of Research for IFECT Power Systems in Phoenix, AZ. While there, he oversaw the early development of several high-tech manufacturing projects, including prototype versions of many of the inertial technologies presented in this book. His Lab work in the field of inertial mechanics resulted in the development of a proof of concept version of the engine and power systems that would have evolved into the propulsion technology described as the basis of the
Dancing Star
.

He now lives in the Manzano Mountains of New Mexico, where he is active in Intentional Community Design and Historical Recreation. He plays guitar and bass, occasionally dabbles in art of various forms, and designs and maintains his own websites.

He is 56, divorced for the last time, and owns way too many dogs.

Connect with the author at:

ericmichaelcraig.net

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Atlas and the Winds

Book One: Stormhaven Rising

Book Two: Prometheus and the Dragon (May 2016)

Book Three: Shadows in the Flame (December 2016)

Book Four: Warlords of the Night (June 2017)

Book Five: The Orphans of Destiny (December 2017)

Above the rim of Plato, Luna: