Project Aura (28 page)

The helicopter carrying Valika and Cesar landed on the rear deck of the
Gagarin
. They quickly off-loaded and were met by Tanya Zenata. Cesar wasted no time on pleasantries.

"Have the modifications been completed?" he demanded.

"Yes, sir," Zenata responded.

"The computer?" he asked.

"We're putting it on-line as per Professor Souris's instructions. She left it programmed. All that is needed is for someone to initiate the program."

Cesar smacked his hands together. "Excellent."

He headed forward, leaving Valika and Zenata.

"What is going on?" Zenata asked. "What does he have planned?"

Valika had a weapons case in each hand. "It is best for you not to know."

*****

Souris was back in her body, inside the helicopter, but she was still connected to Aura. A quick systems check told her power was very low and she would have to shut it down soon, but she was still relishing the contact she had made with the Psychic Warrior in the other computer. She had felt the man's essence, an experience unlike anything she had ever encountered before. Reluctantly, she returned to the real plane and shut down Aura.

"To the airport," she ordered the pilot.

*****

"What happened?" McFairn demanded.

General Mitchell was at the back of the main control room for Space Command, trying to make sense of the various reports his people were giving him.

"Something got into the computer," Mitchell said. "We're off-line and sealed in."

"'Something'? Like what?"

A young officer ran up and gave the general an iPad. McFairn waited impatiently as the general read.

"We don't know," Mitchell finally said, sparing her a moment before going back to the information.

McFairn felt a trickle of sweat go down the center of her back "What did it access other than the DefCon Four alert and knocking your mainframe off-line?"

"Damn," Mitchell swore as he scrolled. "It got into the DefCon Four codes."

For a moment McFairn thought she had been found out, but she realized it was worse than that.

"Which exact codes?"

"Whoever did this got the unlock code for something in MILSTAR." Mitchell frowned. "Why would someone want that?"

McFaim knew exactly why someone would want that, and the pieces fell into place: the Ring experimenting using a satellite as a retransmitter and now stealing the unlock code. They were going to appropriate the system and use it in conjunction with Aura.

"How long will it take to get the computer back online and get communication with the outside world?" McFairn demanded.

General Mitchell shook his head. "We don't know. We hope in a couple of hours, but this is unprecedented."

McFairn checked her watch. A couple of hours. By then CS-MILSTAR would be deployed.

"What about the shuttle?" she asked. "If we're off-line, who has ground base control?"

"Houston," Mitchell said.

"I need an outside line," McFairn said. "ASAP."

"We're doing the best we can," Mitchell said.

"Do better."

*****

"If the code has been compromised, we can't take any chances," Dalton said. "We stop both: HAARP and the Mithrans."

"How?" Jackson asked as she tossed aside the towel she had been using to wipe fluid off her face. "The Ring's got some sort of weapon they can use against us as Psychic Warriors. We just learned that the hard way."

"And HAARP is shielded on the virtual plane," Mentor noted. "We have no influence with Washington. We're helpless."

Dalton had been considering the problems as he was warmed up and brought out of the isolation tank. "How long until the CS-MILSTAR satellite is on-line?" he asked Mentor.

"Two hours, five minutes."

"They were leaving Saba," Dalton said. "And the psyche I ran into..." He paused as he mentally searched through the various images he had picked up. "Naldo said something about a ship. I saw a ship in the psyche I ran into. A large one. With big satellite dishes taking up most of the deck space."

Mentor was already at a computer, typing. "Fortunately we're not locked up like Space Command. We tap into the commo trunk going both ways, but we're outside the complex, not under control of their mainframe, so we still have an outside link." He continued typing, then paused. "Here it is. The
Gagarin
. It's Russian. According to the CIA, it's currently located about two hundred miles from Saba."

Dalton nodded as he peered over Mentor's shoulder at the image on the screen. "That's it. That's what I saw."

Hammond was also looking. "They could use that as a mobile HAARP-type platform. Those dishes would be perfect"

"We know where the Ring is now," Dalton said, "and we know where HAARP is."

"In opposite directions from here," Jackson noted.

"And what about Barnes?" Hammond threw in. The body of the third member of their PW team floated in its isolation tank. "He's out there somewhere, but I can't reach him."

"Keep trying," Dalton said.

"I will."

"I'll take care of the ship." Dalton turned to Jackson. "You've got HAARP."

"How?" Jackson asked.

"We don't have time to get there any other way than via virtual jumps," Dalton said.

"But--" Jackson began.

Dalton halted her by holding up his hand and turning to Mentor. "You said we're tapped into Space Command's commo. Can we order the shuttle to abort the mission?"

"No. We don't have the proper authorization codes."

"What do we have codes for?" Dalton asked.

Mentor frowned. "What do you mean?"

"This thing was founded as an alternate command post for the President for God's sake," Dalton said, slapping the side of the computer. "We've got to at least have access to all National Command Authority functions, even if we don't have the authorizations, right?"

Mentor shook his head. "We don't have any control. The President would bring his own authorizations here."

"Then we have to get some help that doesn't require authorization, right?"

"What kind of help?" Mentor asked.

"We have access to both normal MILSTAR communications channels and GPS, right?" Dalton pressed.

Mentor was thoughtful. "Yes."

Dalton grabbed a chair and indicated for Jackson to pull one close. "I have a plan if we can find the right pieces to play."

*****

Souris transferred from the helicopter to Cesar's Lear at Colorado Springs. As the plane accelerated down the runway, she contacted the
Gagarin
via SATPhone.

"Yes?" Cesar answered on the first ring.

"I have the code."

"Give it to me."

Souris rattled off the letters and numbers.

"I've got it," Cesar acknowledged.

"I’ll be there in six hours," Souris said.

"It will be over by then," Cesar said.

"I know." A smile crossed Souris's face. "I know." She had her laptop on her knees and was typing in what she had learned about the Psychic Warrior program. Aura no longer interested her, nor did Cesar. She cut the connection.

*****

McFairn stood in front of the large stainless steel vault door. Her pulse was racing and she forced herself to slow her breathing before she fainted from hyperventilation. A part of her was almost grateful that she couldn't send the code to Boreas. But that part was overwhelmed by the knowledge that the code had been stolen; regardless of how much she agreed with Boreas, she knew that she would rather be on his side than whoever his enemy was.

*****

Dalton felt the embryonic fluid around his feet, then legs as he climbed into his isolation tube. The process was as brutal as all the previous ones, but his focus was on the upcoming mission. They had found the right piece for Jackson to use in Alaska, but hadn't been able to find him anything near the
Gagarin
. He was going in on his own and hoping he could come up with something once he was on the ship. At least it wasn't virtually shielded.

"Focus on the white dot," Hammond's voice echoed inside his head.

The cargo bay doors of the shuttle swung open to space. Sitting in the lower level of the flight deck, facing the cargo hold, Eagle Six had his hands on the controls for the Remote Manipulator System (RMS), a fifty-foot-long articulating arm The tip of the RMS was attached to CS-MILSTAR. Earlier, while the doors were still closed, he had gone in and removed the locking bolts on the satellite, freeing it.

*****

Boreas checked the computer program for the tenth time in the past hour. It was all set. Millennia of battling would be over in a minute. If he could get the unlock code for CS- MILSTAR. He pressed redial on his SATPhone once more.

He cursed as the phone rang and rang without an answer.

*****

The dishes on the
Gagarin
shifted in orientation, aiming toward the nearest MILSTAR satellite. In the communications center, Cesar was with Valika, the crew under strict orders to leave them alone.

"We will destroy HAARP first." Cesar said. "Then, I think, maybe the Pentagon."

Valika frowned. "Senor Cesar, I do not see why-"

Cesar smiled. "Valika. Call me Hector."

"Why are you doing this, Hector?"

"Because it is--" A confused look came across Cesar's face. "Because." The confusion disappeared and anger replaced it. "Goddamn it. Can't anyone do what I tell them to, just because I tell them?"

"I'm sorry, sir," Valika said.

"We have the power!" Cesar said. "Don't you see that?"

"But it makes no sense for you to do this."

"You are like Naldo," Cesar said. "A coward."

Valika stiffened. After all she had done for Cesar, he was treating her like the Soviet Union had done to its faithful soldiers, turning its back on them. She got up and left the communications center, slamming the hatch behind her, leaving Cesar staring at the program on the computer screen.

In the small cabin she had been allocated, Valika looked around. Her weapons cases were laid out on the bed, along with the small bag containing her few personal items. She tried to calm down, but her chest hurt and she felt as if she might be ill.

She realized this was the sum of her life. The original of the photo that Souris had used in the simulation, of her parents, was in her bag. Valika sat down next to the case holding her sniper rifle and took the picture in her hands.

*****

Jackson saw the field of antennas. And she could feel the psychic wall like a dog would feel an electronic fence. She hung in the virtual plane, waiting, close by. While she was there, she cast about searching for others, but there was nothing just the cold wind over the icy mountains.

"
Mentor?"
she relayed through Sybyl.
"Are you there?"

"I'm here."

"Have you pinpointed my help?"

"Yes,"
Mentor replied. As he relayed the information she needed, Jackson was already moving.

*****

The two B-2 bombers were "hot," meaning they had live ordnance on board. They'd been in the air for eleven hours, having taken off from their home base at Whiteman Air Force Base in Missouri and flying a complex route, designed to test the crews' abilities en route to their practice target.

Each plane was loaded with a conventional Block 30 weapons package: forty MK-82 five-hundred-pound bombs and thirty-six CBU-87 combined-effects munitions, each weighing a thousand pounds. Almost forty thousand pounds of ordnance was packed inside each aircraft, more than ten B-17 Flying Fortresses could carry. The bombs were loaded inside the fuselage on cylindrical racks, which allowed them to be dropped at a high rate of speed.

The two bombers were flying north at high altitude having gone feet dry over the southern coast of Alaska. Their designated target was an Air Force bombing range in the middle of the state.

They were using GATS/GAM to conduct their mission: Global Positioning System Aided Targeting System/GPS Aided Munitions. In normal speak, that meant the two-man crews were basically surrendering control of targeting and even flight path to the computer, which had the location of the objective programmed in and which was updating the flight path every one thousandth of a second using Ground Positioning Satellites that fixed the aircraft's position within two meters. The computer would not only get them to the target, it would release the bombs in a predetermined order to cause maximum destructive effect.

It was cutting-edge technology and something the crews of the planes didn't particularly care for, as they were little more than observers.

*****

Jackson found the two B-2s by following the GPS downlink. She flew above them on the virtual plane, admiring their sleek lines. While only 69 feet long, each aircraft was over twice that wide, at 172 feet. The smooth black surfaces were designed to make the aircraft virtually invisible to radar, and also served to make them almost invisible as they flew through the dark night sky.

Jackson slid into the first bomber. She found the master computer and entered it, flowing along the electronic paths inside.

*****

Eagle Six's hand barely twitched on the controls, but the RMS magnified the effort and the CS-MILSTAR satellite lifted off the floor of the cargo bay.

*****

"The mainframe is still booting," General Mitchell told McFairn. "But we have found access to an outside line. It's an old one. Landline. As far as we can tell, it's a regular phone line that someone forgot about."

"Where?"

Mitchell led her out of the building they were in, into another that held stacks of crates. In the rear an old rotary dial phone hung on the wall. "One of my men checked it. It has a dial tone."

McFairn grabbed it. There was indeed a dial tone. She began dialing.

*****

Dalton saw the ship below him, the large dishes facing the sky. He jumped once more, to the unoccupied flight deck at the rear of the ship behind the smokestack. He slipped from the virtual plane to the real. He assumed the form of Cesar and began moving forward along the port side.

He wished he had as clear a plan as Jackson did. He was winging it but he figured his years of Special Operations experience would come up with something.

*****

Mentor checked his watch. Five minutes until CS-MILSTAR was supposed to be on-line.

Hammond was at the computer console. "Barnes is out there, but he's not responding to my attempts to contact him through Sybyl." She scrolled down. "His pattern isn't right."

"What do you mean?" Mentor asked.

Hammond shook her head. "I don't know. It's just not right."

*****

Boreas glanced out the windows of the control center. Even on this moonless night he could make out the white peaks of the Wrangell Range. He glanced at the red digital countdown at the front of the control room as it clicked through four minutes.

His desk phone rang. He ignored it and hit redial on the SATPhone. The desk phone continued to ring. He stalked over to the desk and grabbed the receiver. "What?" he yelled.

"It's McFairn. I have the code."

*****

Jackson left the first B-2 and went into the second. She knew what she was doing now and this time it went quicker.

*****

Eagle Six had the arm at full extension. He locked the controls for a second and removed his hands. His palms were wet and he wiped them on his flight suit before regaining the controls.

"Status?" he called out

"Green," the payload master replied.

"Position?"

"Right on."

"Attitude, velocity?"

"Within parameters."

Eagle Six pulled a trigger and the end of the arm released the satellite. He spun ninety degrees to the right, to a communications panel, and accessed his private, secure link

"Boreas, this is Eagle Six. Over."

"This is Boreas. Over."

"CS-MILSTAR is deployed. Operational in two minutes. Over."

"Roger. Out here."

*****

"What the hell?" the pilot on the lead B-2 exclaimed as the plane banked to the right. He checked his navigation computer, then turned to the mission commander in the right seat. "We're off course."

The commander had already noted that and was furiously typing into his keyboard. "I can't access control."

"Shut it down then!"

"I can't" The commander slammed a fist down on the keyboard. "Where are we headed?"

"I have no idea."

A red bulb lit up in front of them. The mission commander swallowed hard. "We're weapons hot."

*****

Dalton cut through a cross corridor on his way toward the bridge and paused.

Jimmy
.

He was perfectly still as he faded slightly from the real plane, accessing the virtual. He knew he was vulnerable, floating on the cusp between the two planes, but he felt Marie.

Two doors down. Left.

Dalton waited, knowing as he did so that he was running out of time to act never mind come up with a plan. But there was nothing more from Marie.

He returned solidly to the real plane. He walked down the corridor and pivoted left in front of a door. He grabbed the knob and threw it open.

A woman was sitting on a bed, several plastic weapons cases next to her, a frame in her hand. The woman who had thrown the strange grenade at the villa in Saba. She jumped to her feet

"Cesar! You've reconsidered?"

Dalton had to trust Marie. She wouldn't have sent him in here without knowing more than he did. He shifted avatars, assuming his own form.

The woman was as fast as his change, her hand snaking to the shoulder holster and having a gun pointed at him before he had finished transitioning. "Who are you?"

That was an interesting question, Dalton realized, one he wasn't sure how to answer.

"You're American?" the woman asked.

Dalton nodded.

"A Psychic Warrior?"

"Yes. Sergeant Major Dalton."

"I'm Valika." The gun was still pointed at him. "Why are you here?"

"To stop the transmission."

"It is bad, isn't it?" Valika asked, the muzzle of the weapon lowering slightly.

"Yes."

"Cesar is not himself"

"He's being manipulated."

"By who?"

"A group. They-" Dalton searched for words. "Live on the other side. In the virtual plane."

Valika nodded. "Souris has also been corrupted by them. And they’ve changed her. I knew it. I knew something was wrong all along."

"They mean to kill everyone on the planet. Co-lateral damage in their own war."

Valika shook her head, but not very convincingly. "Cesar says the satellites will target specific places on the planet."

"The MILSTAR satellites blanket the world," Dalton said. "And he's not in control like he thinks. Is Souris here?"

"No."

"Why do you think she's not here?" Dalton didn't wait for an answer. "She's going to a shielded location. Everyone on this ship will be killed when you transmit."

"The bitch," Valika muttered. "I never trusted her."

"There isn't much time," Dalton said.

"What can we do?"

He noted a long case on her bed and he had the spark of an idea. "What's that?"

"Barrett fifty caliber."

Dalton smiled and he knew Marie had pointed him in the right direction. "Strategic target interdiction."

"What?"

"Something I trained on in Special Forces." Dalton was opening the case. "Grab a couple of extra magazines."

*****

Boreas's eyes were locked on the red numbers counting down. :58 :57 :56

*****

Cesar was also watching the same numbers on the screen of the computer that Souris had programmed. He briefly wondered where she was. She had not called in for a while.

It did not matter. His gaze went back to the screen and the distant stare returned.

*****

Jackson released out of the trail B-2's computer into the virtual plane, flying along with the two bombers. She watched as they both smoothly completed the turn, led by their guidance and targeting systems, and their bomb bay doors opened.

The first cylinder of the lead plane dropped down into the opening and cycled through, spitting out bombs.

*****

Boreas leaned forward to hit the red transmit button just as the first MK-82 landed on the leading edge of the field of antennas. The second impacted a half a second later.

Mixed among the five-hundred-pound high-explosive bombs were the cluster bombs. Two hundred meters above the ground, the casing of each thousand-pound cylinder split open, dispensing 202 bomblets. The "footprint," as the Air Force called it, for each CBU was two hundred meters by four hundred meters. As the heavier MK-82s dug out ten-foot-deep craters, the CBUs cut huge swaths through the antenna field, slicing metal like cheese.

Boreas was stunned as the thud of the first explosions reverberated through the control center. He ran to the window and looked out, seeing flash after flash in the darkness as bombs exploded.

*****

Jackson was satisfied the HAARP field had been wiped off the face of the Earth by the first B-2. She was right behind the second one as its first cylinder unloaded.

She'd manipulated the GATS/GAM on that one to target the HAARP control facility. She knew forty thousand pounds of ordnance was overkill for one two-story building, but the bombs were available.

*****

Boreas never saw the B-2, five thousand feet above in the night sky. He also didn't see the first MK-82 as it hit the roof and tore through to the first floor.