The payload bay was multipurpose. Bomb and missile rack modules, cargo modules, and up to two passenger modules could all be jacked into place. The passenger modules, used primarily with the civilian-oriented Mako, were nine feet long, containing four airline-type seats, environmental control, and a large TV screen on the forward bulkhead. Passengers didn’t care much for the windowless, plastic tubes, complaining of claustrophobia.
Though Delta Blue was currently not fitted with them, four pylons could be attached to the wings inboard of the engine nacelles. Either the short or the long pylons added to the multi-mission capability of the MakoShark. They accepted external fuel tanks, cargo pods, electronics modules, and a variety of lethal weaponry.
Brackman thought she was the most beautiful and functional craft the Air Force had ever acquired, well worth the number on its price tag.
“What do you think, Marian?” Alvin Worth asked.
“It doesn’t look like it should cost seven hundred and fifty million dollars,” she said.
Thorpe sighed audibly.
The phone in Brackman’s armrest beeped softly and he picked it up.
“Sir,” the communications specialist in the cockpit said, “you have a priority one radio call. You should probably take it up here.”
“Be right there, Sergeant,” Brackman said, then excused himself and walked forward, bending to clear the low ceiling height. He supposed McKenna wanted a private conversation. In the cockpit, he closed the door and took the headset handed to him by the specialist.
“Semaphore,” he said, giving the code name for Commander, Space Command.
“Semaphore, Delta Green One”
That was Dimatta.
“Go ahead, Green.”
“We’ve got a problem, sir.”
“What kind of problem?”
“Delta Green’s gone.”
“Gone? What the hell do you mean, gone?”
“Hijacked, I guess, General. She’s disappeared.”
“That can’t happen,” Brackman said, trying not to let the heat of his temper carry over into his voice.
“I know, sir, and that’s what really pisses me. It did happen. And I’ve got four dead.”
“Goddamn it!”
“Sorry, sir.”
Brackman nudged the communications specialist’s shoulder. “Get Delta Blue on a secure frequency.”
Lieutenant Colonel Amelia Pearson was strapped into her office. It was probably the most efficient, technologically supported, and tiniest office ever designed. It was a four-by-four-by-seven-foot cubicle with padded walls and no windows. The door was a gray nylon curtain fastened to plastic balls sliding in tracks at the top and bottom. It was intended to provide the occupant with a psychological sense of privacy and an environment which enhanced concentration.
A computer and communications console with three cathode ray tube displays was recessed into one wall and served as the “desk.” It allowed for visual access to three documents simultaneously, or if she split the screens, to six documents. Additionally, she could tap into any of the radar or video monitoring systems.
There were four such offices in the command module located on Spoke One of Themis, the Space Command’s space station. Besides herself, they were assigned to the commander of Themis, Brigadier General James Overton; the deputy commander, Colonel Milt Avery; and the 1st Aerospace Squadron commander, Colonel Kevin McKenna. Pearson thought the expenditure for McKenna’s office had been wasted. He used his cubicle for sleeping as often as he used it for duty chores.
Across a roughly hexagonal-shaped corridor from the smaller cubicles was a much larger compartment staffed twenty-four hours a day by one of the three communications operators on board. The nooks and crannies left over were fitted with other compartments housing computer and electronics gear, safety equipment, and emergency environmental suits.
The entire module was forty feet in diameter and sixty feet long, and the command center, on the outboard end of the module, was twenty feet deep by almost the full diameter of forty feet. A four-foot diameter, round porthole provided a view of the earth and was the central focus point of the control room. Not much thought had been given to aesthetics. Conduit and ducting was a fiberglass and steel maze against the gray bulkheads. Consoles and black boxes were secured where they were functioned. Velcro tethers, rather than chairs, were placed in appropriate locations to keep the people operating consoles from floating away.
“Amy!” General Overton didn’t use the intercom system when people were within shouting distance.
“Coming, sir,” she called back, then saved the report she was writing to the mainframe computer’s laser disk storage.
Pearson released the strap holding her to the padded wall and pushed out into the corridor. Using one of the many grab bars spaced throughout the station, she deflected her flight toward the command center.
She had become so accustomed to the environment of Themis by now that the acrobatic methods of getting around were second nature. She had not planned on becoming a gymnast. With a doctorate in international affairs from the University of California at Los Angeles, she had also read at Trinity College before signing on with the Air Force. In her mid-thirties, Pearson was unmarried and intensely devoted to her career. The devotion did not interfere with the confidence and grace with which she traversed the corridors of either the Pentagon or Themis.
She was tiny at five-feet, four-inches and gave the impression of atomic particles on the move. McKenna sometimes called her hyperactive. Her dark red hair was cut somewhat longer than the Air Force cared for, and in zero-gravity, she kept it in place with a denim headband. She had pale green eyes that seemed constantly in search of clues, reasons, and solutions. The light blue, zippered jumpsuits favored by station personnel didn’t disguise much of her lush figure.
Floating into the command center, she found several technicians manning monitoring stations and Overton at the main console near the port. The view through the porthole was currently centered on the Caribbean Sea, glowing with hazy greens and blues. An eruption of Mauna Loa the week before had sprinkled ash in the atmosphere, resulting in a diminished clarity.
The space station’s commander had gray overtones — hair and eyes, but he was slim and fit and long at six-four. He was forty-four years old. Aggressive and ambitious, Overton was also loyal to his subordinates, and his decisioning was always weighted with a concern for their welfare.
As Overton turned his head to look for her, she saw that the creases in his forehead had deepened.
Pearson glided across the center, pulled her knees down to assume a head-up position similar to Overton’s, and took hold of a grab bar on the side of the main console.
“Problem, General?”
“Damned big one, Amy. Delta Green’s been hijacked.”
That had to be impossible. “How?”
“We don’t know, yet. Brackman said it was on the ground at Wet Country”
“Dimatta and Williams?”
“They’re all right, but I understand there are some other fatalities. Damn!”
Overton didn’t usually display much emotion. Part of his job was to observe the attitudes and behavior of his subordinates and transfer them off the station if it appeared that the delicate balances in human relationships were in jeopardy.
“Brackman wants to keep a lid on this for as long as possible,” Overton continued.
“Where’s McKenna?”