“Oh, this is truly humorous!” snapped Sharon O’Neal.
“What’ve you got, mum?” asked Michaels over the radio.
Sharon shook her head inside the bubble helmet of the battle suit and snarled, “The clamps on Number Four launcher are bent!”
The fast frigates had never been designed for war. But human ingenuity had managed to work around some of the problems. The answer in this case was external Missile/Launch Pod Assembly systems for antimatter armed and driven missiles; the frigates could fit six of the big box launchers, each of which stored four missiles. However, because the frigates also lacked storage space, there was only room for two extra M/LPAs, and attaching them meant that a team had to go out of the ship, presumably in the midst of a battle.
Despite careful husbanding of the weapons, Captain Weston had finally used up all twenty-four missiles. Although there were still occasional emergences, she had determined that it was worth the risk to try attaching the spare stores. Which was why Sharon, two human techs and an Indowy were EVA with a box launcher. And a warped clamp.
Michaels studied the picture of the clamp in the monitor. “We’ve got a spare that will work, mum.”
“No,” snapped Commander O’Neal. “We’ll shift to Number Five.”
“We lost the feed to Five, mum,” Michaels reminded her.
Sharon shook her head and snarled at the tiredness that was clouding her thinking. Even with the near miraculous Provigil, combat fatigue crept up on you. She had to remind herself from time to time that she wasn’t functioning at top form, even if she thought she was.
“We reloaded Three,” she said. “Two and Six are gone.” The blast from the Posleen nuke had been too close. It was probably what had done the damage to the current launcher. If it had exploded forward of the ship, where the deflector screen still was not fixed, instead of under it, the entire crew would already be talking to the angels.
“And we’re getting intermittent faults from Three, mum,” Michaels finished. “I think it’s repair the bloody thing or go with one launcher.”
Sharon nodded. She knew her preference but it was really a decision for the captain. As long as they were EVA, the team was sitting ducks. “Captain Weston?” she asked, knowing the AID would switch channels.
“I was listening,” answered Weston, her voice raspy from hours of giving commands. Sharon winced at the fatigue in the officer’s voice. They all were on a thin string. “We need all the launchers, Commander. Sorry.”
“That’s fine, ma’am,” answered Sharon. “That was my call as well. Bosun?”
“I’ll break the clamps out of stores, mum.”
“We’ll get started on getting these removed.” She shook her head again. Working EVA was hard under any condition; working EVA with the specter of suddenly being a target was for the birds.
She turned to the Indowy technician, to ask his help in removing the device, but stopped as her eyes widened.
It was a sight she never expected to see with her naked eyes, and one she expected she would never see again, as the Posleen Battle Dodecahedron translated out of hyperspace. The tear in reality caused localized energy buildups that caused distortion of the stars behind it, so the ship seemed to almost appear out of “cloak,” with a ripple like water. The surface of the ship sparkled for a moment more with static electricity discharges and then it was there, fully emerged and seemingly close enough to touch.
“Emergence,” yelled the sensor tech, startled out of a fatigued half doze. “Angle two-nine-four, mark five!” His eyes bulged at the distance reading. “Four thousand meters!”
“Lock-on,” called Tactical, the weapons tracking lidar and sub-space detectors locking onto the gigantic signal.
“Fire,” snapped Captain Weston, automatically. Then her eyes flew wide open. “Belay that order!”
But it was an eternity too late. The weapons tech had been on duty for eighteen straight hours and fire orders were a reaction that bypassed the brain. His thumb had already flipped up the safety cover and depressed the switch.
A pyrotechnic gas generator fired as the clamps holding the missile flew open. The gas pushed the eighteen-foot weapon far enough away from the ship that it was safe for it to kick in its inertial thrusters and antimatter conversion rocket.
Safe for the ship. But not safe for the weapon installation team. Or the pod of antimatter missiles they were installing.
CHAPTER 58
The White House, Washington, DC,
United States of America, Sol III
0526 EDT October 11th, 2004 ad
“Mr. President, it’s time to leave,” said the chief of the Secret Service Detail.
Thomas Edwards stared at the view-screen on the wall of the Situation Room. The occasional flickers of red across Fairfax County were getting closer and closer to the Fairfax Parkway. A solid bar represented the advancing Posleen chasing the remnants of Ninth and Tenth Corps up U.S. 28. He assumed that once they reached U.S. 29 and I-66 they would turn east towards D.C. and the nearest bridges. Unless the scattered forces could outrun the Posleen to the bridges, none of them would survive.
He had watched Monsoon Thunder. He knew all about retreats under fire. And ignominious defeat. He had been sure that those well-supplied and prepared corps could face the Posleen and live. All of his advisors had been sure. And he and they had been wrong. Completely and totally wrong. And it had led to the worst military disaster in American history.
And that was not the worst of it.
The view-screen also showed that the roads were packed with refugees. Most of them were in Alexandria or almost across the Potomac, but the distance between them and the enemy was reducing on a minute-by-minute basis. Soon the first reports of refugee columns overrun by the Posleen would come in. And he could do nothing about it.
“I’m sorry,” he whispered to himself.
“Shit happens, Mr. President,” said an unexpected voice.
The President looked at the doorway. The Secret Service chief was accompanied by Marine Captain Hadcraft, commander of the Guard Force. The hulking combat armor seemed totally out of place in the White House.
“Shit like this doesn’t happen,” snapped the President. “Not here. Not to us.”
“What? You thought because this was Earth it would be different?” asked the captain with a faint note of scorn. “Well, welcome to our world, sir.”
The President turned his chair to look fully at the Marine, who was being glared at by the Detail chief. Since the Marines were really loaners from the Fleet, there was a certain amount of friction between them and the Secret Service, friction that contradicted tradition.
The Marines had protected the American President since the days of John Adams. They had a longer and deeper tradition of it than even the Secret Service. But the Service had always treated them as the hired help. It was the Marines who held the perimeters while the Service took the close-in Protection detail.
With the splitting of the Marines to the Fleet, the Detail had assumed that they would take over full responsibility for Presidential protection. Instead, personnel were rotated out of Fleet and detailed to the Presidential Protection Unit. And that created two rifts between the Detail and the Marines. The first had to do with cost and the second with divided loyalties.