Rock Killer (34 page)

Roger Oaks massed 120 kilograms. His single bag, less than ten. Oaks arrived on the Moon and checked into the Selene Hotel. Very expensive, but Oaks had the credit rating. Which, come to think of it, was very unusual for someone with no activity on their credit account–unless it was a bogus account and a bogus credit rating.

Mitchel switched to the communications program and got a visual link to the Moon.

After talking to Rodriguez, Mitchel got a secure line to Mr. Kijoto’s office. Mitchel briefed the CEO on the situation on the Moon and in Syria. Kijoto approved Mitchel’s plan. Mitchel then contacted Yamauchi, the intra-lunar tug fleet commander at the LEOF, by secure signal.

***

Knecht was rubbing her eyes. She had to manually follow the spoor of hot helium left by the asteroid. Except for a short catnap while repairing the
Rock Killer
, she hadn’t slept since hours before the attack almost 50 hours ago.

The asteroid hadn’t changed direction and a second trail of alpha particles was paralleling the first. The speed at which the helium in the second trail moved, which indicated the speed of the source as the atoms left it, was slowing by 44.3 meters per second per kilometer. That corresponded to a negative acceleration of the source of one tenth of a gee. That would be the asteroid tender, she decided. It must be trying to reach the asteroid. From the speed of the rock and the speed and acceleration of the asteroid tender, she was able to predict when they would rendezvous. It was so close to the time the
Rock Killer
would reach the asteroid that she couldn’t predict which would catch up first.

She’d also found a parallel cloud of diatomic hydrogen molecules. It was much cooler than the helium from the fusion reactors. It had the speed of the asteroid, so she knew the rock was its source. She calculated from its heat that when it left the asteroid it was about room temperature. She wondered what the hell that meant.

Griffin came up behind her as she bent over her navigation computer. She stiffened at his approach.

“You need to get some sleep,” he said. “How long?”

“About three hours,” she said simply.

“You could take a nap,” he suggested. “Cole is.”

“I’m okay,” she snapped.

He hesitated a moment. “I’m just worried about you.”

She turned to look at him. He didn’t look well; it was obvious he was in a lot of pain. She’d watched him try to sleep but the pain was too much and his sleep was restless. He refused the pain medicine available.

“I’m okay,” she restated.

He reached his good arm out to her.

“Don’t,” she ordered, shying away.

He pulled back. “What’s wrong?” he asked with the hurt evident in his voice.

“What’s wrong?” she asked incredulously. “You’re just like all the rest.”

“The rest of what?”

“You treated me like a thing just like all the rest.”

“What do you mean, Barb?”

“I mean you said you loved me but you just used me and then you didn’t care.”

“I don’t understand.”

“I let you have me,” she said, her voice getting shrill. “But then you didn’t consider me worthy of normal consideration. You wouldn’t listen to me and Trudeau is dead and we almost all got killed and almost ended our mission.”

“You mean the mass driver? I didn’t understand the danger. You saved us, Barb. I appreciate that.”

She looked at him for a moment. He thought he might have dented her shield of anger.

“No,” she barked. “You still thought of me as a thing. Otherwise you would have taken my word for it. Leave me alone,” she said with a finality that indicated the conversation was over.

Griffin walked away not without pain to his arm in the high gravity. And that wasn’t the only pain he felt. He turned to look at Knecht. Already she was absorbed in her work. He couldn’t see the tears on her face.

***

The intra-lunar tug fleet commander, Masatoshi Yamauchi, contacted Director Nakajima of SRI-1960 on a secure communication. Nakajima agreed to arrange to provide what Yamauchi required.

Trusting no one else to complete the job, Yamauchi personally piloted the tug. This also reduced the number of employees that knew about the strange mission Mitchel had given him. He left the LEOF and moved toward the Lagrange point where SRI-1960 was being dismantled. The tailings were about all that was left. That would be sold cheap to NESA for radiation shielding. But one hunk of rock, about the size of car, was separated from the rest. Yamauchi picked up the boulder with the tug’s mechanical and magnetic grapples. Yamauchi then dropped the tug’s Earth orbit to about 950 kilometers.

***

The time was soon, Faruq knew. Timing was everything. General Zuabi was in Damascus on official business and could control the army; the Baath party was so angry about the inaction of the president against the Zionist state that it could soon explode; the leaders of the other United Baath Arab States were distancing themselves from him. There was hardly a member of the Party who did not know that Faruq had been instrumental in the brilliant attack on Space Resources Inc. Faruq could almost feel the party’s support swinging toward him. The time was ripe to move.

Two of the nine rotating presidential bodyguards would be on duty at the same time tomorrow. Those two had sworn loyalty to Faruq.

In less than 24 hours Faruq would rule Syria. In less than 48 hours the Zionist state would no longer exist.

***

Charlie watched out the window as the shuttle descended to the Moon. She was on the wrong side to see the SRI observation lounge. She was thankful for that. The tube extended and they walked in the shuttleport; except Charlie, she rolled.

Rodriguez met her and her escort.

“We think Whaltham, a.k.a. McConnell, a.k.a. Roger Oaks is here.”

Charlie’s eyes grew wide. “Here? Where? I want him.”

“He arrived on the last NESA shuttle.”

“Let me at him.”

“That’s a problem. He’s staying in a hotel and as far as anyone can tell he hasn’t left his room. He’s been sending out for food, entertainment, clothes.”

“Entertainment?”

“Yes,” Rodriguez said. “He’s patronized almost every ‘personal service’ in the computer bank.”

“That sounds like Whaltham,” Charlie said. Her hand moved to her cheek.

“I’ve got us a meeting with a NESA Security official,” Rodriguez said. “Feel up to it?”

“Damn straight,” Charlie growled angrily.

“Excuse me, Ms. Jones,” the nurse said. “But you were to check into the NESA hospital for an examination. You’re still very weak.”

“I’ll tell you how weak I am,” Charlie chided him. “You just make sure my b.p. doesn’t get too low.”

“But, Ms. Jones—” he started.

“No,” Charlie said. “I want Whaltham. Let’s go, Rodriguez.” She shoved the joystick on the chair forward as far as it could go. The chair lurched down the corridor with surprising speed.

The Japanese man shook his head but followed Charlie’s chair.

***

In Boulder, Colorado, Kirsten looked at her wrist computer’s time display. She had it set to Universal Mean Time, which Mitchel called “Zulu” time. It was a half hour from the time Mitchel had told her the
Kyushu
would rendezvous with Alex’s asteroid. She moved to the front window and looked out on the lawn. A reporter was standing in front of a camera. Kirsten turned back to look at the large computer screen. She just caught a glimpse of her face looking out the window of her house behind a reporter and then her face on the screen turned to look inside the house.

She moved quickly away from the window. On the screen, she moved quickly away from the window.

***

Alex returned to the control room from his quarters as the control room crew assembled for the rendezvous. He’d actually gotten in a catnap. Bente was watching her computer. She saw him enter and they exchanged small smiles.

“About half an hour, sir,” Banda reported.

Alex nodded and hit the intercom. “Taylor, how’s it going?”

“We just ran out of water except a tiny bubble that keeps breaking up. I think we should shut it down now.”

“Understood. Can we last half an hour?”

“Yes, easily, if nothing unforeseen happens.”

“Great,” Alex said. “Bente, stop the spin.”

***

Knecht looked at the monitor that showed the view though the rear-facing telescope. She could see the asteroid. She smiled and looked at her computer. Less than 15 minutes.

“Cole,” she said. “Warm up those missiles.”

Chapter Seventeen

“...can’t take another hit in the rear.”

Mastoshi Yamachi, commander of the intra-lunar tug fleet, was sweating like a first year trainee as he worked his calculations on the tug’s computer. He had to release the piece of rock at just the right velocity at just the right moment in just the right place. His task was complicated by the necessity of avoiding the powerful military radars of the U.S., China, Russia, Japan and the EU.

Yamachi worked it out on his computer repeatedly and had it calculated to the fifteenth significant digit. Unfortunately, his equipment only gave him five-digit accuracy. And the common-sense-defying reality of orbital mechanics, where one speeds up to slow down and slows down to speed up, made the task formidable. Yamachi wished more than once he could have delegated this responsibility.

And, even with all his careful calculation, Earth’s unpredictable atmosphere would do as it wished to his plans. Even the best supercomputers couldn’t model a chaotic system like Earth’s sheath of air.

Yamachi checked his numbers and released the rock. He turned his tug around and did a retroburn (although the word “burn” was an anachronism left over from the chemical rockets) with the main Masuka drive to bring him into a lower orbit where he could rendezvous with the Low Earth Orbit Facility. That, and he didn’t want to be anywhere in the vicinity when the rock hit its target.

At LEOF, he had some computer work to do to cover his trip. Officially, it never happened.

***

We’re going to make it
, Chun thought. The air was stuffy and Alex noticed he found exertion becoming difficult. The
partial pressure must be dropping
, he thought. But they were going to make it. “How long until the
Kyushu
can match orbit?”

Naguchi said, “Fifteen minutes.”

Chun smiled. “We’re going to make it,” he said.

“We’re going to make it,” Banda repeated.

***

Both the
Rock Killer
and the
Kyushu
were traveling ass-backwards, slowing to match velocities with SRI-1961 after racing to catch-up.

The
Kyushu
was closer to the asteroid, between the
Rock Killer
and her target. The
Rock Killer
was moving faster.

On the bridge of the asteroid tender the forward-looking window in the ceiling of the bridge was actually looking behind.

“Do you see that?” the navigator said.

“What’s that, mister?” Captain Takashara asked.

“It’s a ship, negative accelerating.”

“Radar?” the Captain barked.

The radar man released a pulse. His computer matched the return signal with stored profiles and displayed its conclusion.

“It’s the
Rock Skipper
,” the radar man said, incredulous. Last he’d seen that ship it was tumbling.

“Damn,” Takashara spat. “Communications, get me 1961.”

***

“What about the other ship?” Knecht asked.

“Ignore it. Are we close enough?” Griffin asked.

“Yes, no mistake this time,” Knecht replied. “But I still think the other ship—”

Griffin ignored her. If she wanted to think he didn’t consider her opinion worthwhile, he wouldn’t. “Cole, turn on your radar.”

“I have missile lock.”

“Launch missile,” Griffin ordered through clenched teeth.

***

Chun changed the intercom from “Communications” to the recently repaired line to the mass driver. “Is the driver working?”

“Soon, sir,” a voice said. It was female. Alex wondered why it bothered him more to risk a woman’s life.

“We need the mass driver in 20 seconds or we’re all dead.”

“We’ll—” The rock shuddered with the same motion as two days before when a missile hit. The intercom went dead.

“Control room, this is Perez. I’m at the new emergency doors. We just took another hit in the mass driver. The first door was breached slightly but we’ve got it controlled.”

“Survivors?”

“I doubt it, sir,” Perez said softly.

Alex spat, “Damn it!” and wanted to wallow in his anger, but Takashara cut him off.

“Nineteen sixty-one, this is the
Kyushu
, you’ve been hit and your mass driver is gone. I don’t know what you can do.”

***

Griffin smiled as he watched the mass driver tumble away from the asteroid. “Launch again.”

A missile shot forward, yawed 180 degrees around its center and, after slowing to a stop, flew at the rock.

***

Chun grimaced. “Bente, put our side to that ship. We can’t take another hit in the rear.”