He was halfway through it when the speaker beeped and the tape stopped.
He had an unusual infrared radiation.
If he could have sat up, he would have, but he was already upright in the cubicle.
Checking the ID in the upper right corner, Conover saw that the location was northern China. The time was 0140 hours local, 1740 hours Zulu (Greenwich Meridian Time).
He ran the tape at normal speed and watched the change in the time.
The burn lasted for eight minutes and twenty seconds. The track was easterly.
He dumped the data to the computer and entered the codes asking for a calculation of velocity, trajectory, and anticipated orbit.
Then he hit the intercom, “Val?”
“Right here, Major.”
“Where’s the CO?”
“Asleep.”
“Rouse him, will you? And wake Captain Abrams, too. Right away. Then try and track down Colonel McKenna. Hook me into Tac Two.”
“Coming up.”
When he had the link, Conover pressed the keypad, “Delta Red, Alpha”
“Go Alpha.”
“Delta Green’s in orbit. I want you back at Alpha to fly cover.”
“Roger, Alpha. Red’s on the move.”
General Overton’s voice came over the intercom. “What’s up, Will?”
Conover reported what he had seen on the tape. “I’m going to launch Yellow, too, and take up a position off the station along with Red. He’s been in space for over twelve hours, General, and we don’t know what for.”
“You think he’d attack Themis?”
“The thought crossed my mind, General. All of a sudden.”
“We’ve never sounded general quarters on a space station before, Hannibal. I’m not sure they know what it means,” Brackman said.
“At least Major Conover has been thinking of possibilities,” Cross said. “They’re damned scary possibilities.”
“Ten or twelve direct hits by Wasp IIs would take out most of the modules and the hub,” Brackman said. “We’d lose her, sure as hell.”
“Along with our most advantageous base for the MakoSharks. A hell of a lot of years and effort down the drain, Marv. What’s the defensive posture?”
“All Themis can muster is her radar and infrared sensors, none of which are much good against a MakoShark. They’ve activated all of their out-looking video cameras. Deltas Red and Yellow are stationed fifty miles off. That’s the extent of it.”
“Where’s McKenna?”
“We gave him permission to accompany Pearson to Phnom Penh. She’s got a lead that’s promising.”
“Dimatta?”
“They’ve got one more trial to run on Delta Orange.”
“What do you think of scrapping it and commissioning Orange for active duty?”
“I’ll go with Dimatta’s recommendation,” Brackman said.
“Are you going to recall McKenna?”
“If we go completely defensive, Hannibal, and put all of the MakoSharks around the station, we’ll never get to the end of this. My suggestion is to let McKenna and Pearson have a few more hours.”
“All right, Marv. But this hijacking of one space craft suddenly seems a great deal more serious than we may have been taking it. I’m going to have the CNO move the Seventh Fleet’s southern task force down into the South China Sea. And I believe the Eisenhower is steaming in the Indian Ocean. We’ll move her east.”
“For what purpose, Hannibal?”
“We can get a hell of a lot more recon aircraft in the air, and we can up the odds of spotting Delta Green if she returns to the area.”
“Okay, good,” Brackman said.
He had Milly Roget track down Dimatta at Jack Andrews Air Base, which took ten minutes.
“This is Major Dimatta, General.”
“How do you feel about the new MakoShark, Major?”
“Well, sir, good, I guess.”
“You guess?”
“We’ve had a few glitches to correct, but all of the systems seemed to be tuned in now.”
“But you have reservations?” Brackman asked.
“Nothing substantial, sir. It takes awhile to make the fit.” Brackman knew what he meant: the fit between human and machine.
“You have one more trial scheduled for weapons and countermeasures?”
“Yes, sir.”
“Would you omit it, Major?”
“Well, yes, sir, we could.”
Brackman told him about the potential threat to Themis. “We can be wheels up in fifteen minutes, General.”
“Go, Major.”
McKenna was sprawled on the narrow bed in his tiny hotel room, thinking about going down the hall and tapping on Pearson’s door, when a timid hand rapped on his own door.
He got up, thinking she had come to her senses, and opened the door.
It was the desk clerk. “Sir, you have telephone call.”
McKenna followed him down the one flight of stairs to the claustrophobic lobby and to the single telephone the hotel could boast. He leaned on the counter and picked up the receiver. There was a buzz on the line.
“McKenna.”
“Milt Avery, Kevin.”
“What’s up?”
“I’m going to be cryptic since your phone system doesn’t sound all that secure. Our missing child has climbed to new heights.”
“Got that.”
“And there’s a concern that the goddess might be the subject of the child’s attention.”
Themis a target? McKenna chastised himself for not considering the likelihood of that scenario.
“I’ll get the others and we’ll head right back, Milt.”
“Not just yet, Kevin. The boss has activated the new baby and there will be three in attendance. The boss suggests that you pursue your present course. Just check in with me every few hours, okay?”
“Will do,” McKenna said.
He went back up the stairs to his room, but he didn’t think he would sleep well, and it wouldn’t be for thinking about Pearson.
The refueling had not gone smoothly.
Nikitin had located the HoneyBee rocket in the orbit where they had left it, and Maslov had easily negotiated the course to reach it, using deft pulses of the Orbital Maneuvering System (OMS) to match the rocket’s velocity and track.
The problems arose as a result of Bryntsev’s and Filatov’s inexperience with working in a weightless environment. Bryntsev, who had been a command pilot on Tupolev Tu-26 bombers, which NATO codenamed Backfire, had once been in the Mako program, but he had not lasted long enough for a check ride into orbit.
The two men had had a rough ride into orbit, ensconced in space suits in the jury-rigged seats of the payload bay. The inability to see anything other than bulkheads and structural members had raised their apprehension during the insertion, and when Maslov had opened the payload doors next to the HoneyBee, both men had become immediately disoriented.
He had talked to them calmly and reassuringly over the intercom connection, telling them to examine their backpack readouts, the amount of gas in the cylinders, the fuel supply for the thrusters, the security of the tethers.
He had to coax them into releasing their restraints and pushing themselves down out of the bay into the limitless void of space.
Once they were clear of the craft, Maslov had fired the MakoShark’s thrusters and rolled it slightly, so that he could see through the canopy the two men floating near the HoneyBee rocket. The Earth was low to his left, and it tended to capture the attention of the two, distracting them. They were connected to the MakoShark by long, snaky tethers of nylon rope and intercom cables. The intercom cables precluded the use of the space suit radios, which might be overheard by eavesdropping radio scanners. They took a full twenty minutes to become accustomed to using the miniature thrusters of their EVA packs to maneuver their bodies into working positions.