Prometheus and the Dragon (Atlas and the Winds Book 2) (13 page)

The Conference Room was the largest space in the executive office suite, and although it was slightly larger than the cabinet room in the White House, it still felt small. Perhaps because she knew there were hundreds of feet of rock in every direction.

Sylvia Hutton sat, surrounded by her entire Cabinet, and Vice President Rogers, watching the launch of the
Zhen-Long
missile, right along with the rest of the world. Part way through the program, John Herman leaned over to the President and whispered, “Think they got this out of Colton Taylor’s playbook?”

“I was just thinking that it felt a little familiar,” she said.

“Don’t ever let anyone tell you the Chinese don’t understand Western media,” Dick said, pouring himself another cup of coffee.

“The problem we’ve got is Prometheus is so much more sophisticated that it takes a scientist to explain it. It’s got no flash and pizzazz,” she said. “I mean, it’s incredible technology, and has a far better chance of success than their bomb does, but because it’s doing its job 300 million miles out in space where no one can see it, we can’t even come close to matching this kind of spin.”

“Maybe if we released the video of the test firing?” Worthington said.

“Are you out of your mind?” the Vice President said. “That was the most terrifying thing I ever saw. It looked like it blew itself clear to hell.”

“Or like it opened a passageway to some alien dimension and demons should be pouring out of it,” the President added. “It looked like something right out of a horror movie.”

“Is it going to do that every time it’s used?” the DHS Secretary asked.

“Dr. Anthony said it might for the first several seconds of operation,” Donna Jacoby said, “but after it runs for a bit it will clear the gas blanket away, and then it won’t be quite so bad.”

“I wonder if there’d be some way to get a camera on the other end of the beam,” Dick said. “If it looks like Armageddon on this end, it’d have to be unbelievable on the other end. It’s got to be quite a show.”

“I don’t think we could get a probe out there,” Donna said. “I mean, we could probably get one launched, but to get it on-site in time, we’d need to send it straight out and it’d only be close enough to get pictures for a few hours. If we sent it on a long approach like the
Zhen-Long
missile, we’d already be done with our operation by the time it arrives.” She looked at the video of the launch on the wall. As if on command, it was showing an animation of the orbits of the Earth, Antu, and the
Zhen-Long
. A line showing the distance stretched between the Earth and the asteroid.

Antu was in a wide elliptical orbit that carried it out near Mars, and then back in toward its collision with Earth. The missile followed a much narrower parabolic orbit that crossed back between the Earth and in front of the asteroid, but at a much slower speed. Antu actually caught the missile from behind.

***

Stormhaven:

Colton had taken to wandering alone throughout the Community, so it wasn’t unusual to find him anywhere. He always wore a comset, and would talk to Mica. Often he’d show up in the damnedest places, hang out for a while, and then disappear. Sometimes he’d contribute an idea or two to whatever project was going on, but more often than not, he’d just stroll away without a word.

Tom had suggested more than once that they put a locater beacon on him, but Mica pointed out she always knew where he was, even if he didn’t. “Mr. Stevens,” the computer said, waking him from a deep sleep. “Mr. Taylor is in the Fabrication Shop.”

“Yeah, so?” he said, yawning and stretching before he remembered he wasn’t alone. He’d spent the first night in many months with a warm body beside him. She groaned, but didn’t come fully awake. He rolled away from her and headed to the bathroom. The computer followed him by turning the speakers on.

“I thought it prudent to wake you, since Dr. Creswell’s team is in the process of retrofitting the
Draco
with its new armament,” Mica said. “I am aware you decided to proceed with the weapons deployment and concluded you may wish to be there when he makes the discovery.”

“Is there anyone out there who can intercept him?” Tom said, grabbing his coverall and climbing into it.

“No,” the computer said. “He is standing on the east catwalk and has already seen the work being done, although he does not seem to have recognized it for what it is yet.”

“Warn Daryl and let him know I’m on my way,” he said, slipping out through the bedroom and taking one more lingering glance at the woman still sleeping in his bed. He felt a flash of lust, but pushed it out of his mind. He needed to get to Cole before he went ballistic.

When he got to the fabrication shop, he knew it was already too late. Cole stood leaning against the railing, watching Tom walk through the door, his arms crossed and his face set in granite. His eyes were focused on the real world, and cranked up to full-on fury.

“Mica told me you were on your way,” he said. “I decided I’d find out what the hell you were thinking before I started the executions.” Cole’s voice sounded like fire dancing over hard ice.

“They’re strictly defensive weapons,” Tom said. “I made the call to go ahead after the Chinese started looking belligerent.”

“You know as well as I do that those guns can be as deadly as anything anybody’s ever built,” he said.

“I do not,” he said. “Even if they can be used for offense, that would be something we might need to consider at some point, anyway.”

“At some point, but not now,” Cole growled. The ice in his tone cracked, and more fire leapt out from beneath.

“God damn it Cole,” Tom said. “You yourself said there’s a war coming. If we’re not ready when it starts, we’re screwed, hard and dry.”

“It’s not our war,” Cole said. “If we’ve got the firepower to use, then we’re going to get sucked into it. We’re going to have to take sides, and once that happens we’re more than screwed. We’re dead. We have to keep our noses out of their shit if we want to survive.”

“Cole, we can’t do that,” he said. “We can’t pretend it doesn’t matter. There are people up there trying to save this fucking planet. They deserve some respect and all the help we can give them.”

“So who are we going to help? The Americans? The Chinese?” Cole snapped. “Which one’s doing the right thing? Can you tell me that?” He slapped his hand on the railing, making it ring. “No you can’t!” he answered his own question. “So that leaves us only one choice. To force ourselves between them to try to enforce some kind of peace.”

“I don’t see it that way,” Tom said. “What I see is that we’re sitting here, hiding our head in the sand, and denying we’ve got any responsibility to help save the planet. I’ve gone along with this run and hide crap of yours since the day you put us on this path, but it’s time to start making a stand. We’ve got enough already up there in the Colony to meet your objectives, but we also need to support them in what they’re doing. They’re fighting a noble fight.”

“So whose noble fight do we support?” Cole said, falling back on his original argument. “Because whoever it is will have built the biggest weapon in history, and then we’re going to have helped them keep it so that someday they can use it against the very world they’re trying to save. Jesus Christ, this is insane.”

“So is hiding behind a warm, fuzzy blanket of denial,” Tom said. “It’s a hard, cold, fact that if we let them fight it out, every one of those people is going to die out there.” He waved his arm in the general direction of the refugees that’d been hanging against the fences behind the launch apron.

“I walked out there the other morning and looked at them. I mean really looked at them,” he said. “There was this girl, maybe three or four. She was pressed up against the fence in front of her mom. She wasn’t old enough to understand what was going on, but she knew her mommy was scared, so she was crying. I couldn’t look at her without understanding that we need to do something for them. For
them,
Colton, and not for us.”

Cole blinked several times, but said nothing.

“Is it too much to put ourselves in the path of a war, when those people up there have thrown themselves in the path of Antu?” Tom said. “If you can go look that girl in the eyes and tell her you’re trying to save yourself, while the people that are trying to save her are dying in a pointless and avoidable war, then you go right ahead and do it. And I’ll pack my shit and leave, because I don’t want to be any part of that vision.”

***

Lunagrad Base, Boscovich Crater, Luna:

Faruq al Hassien didn’t like the Russian Commander much. In fact he didn’t like him at all. He was loud and obnoxious, drank often and almost always to excess. The drinking was only one of his problems with Yuri Romanov, if for no other reason than it served to drive a split between his people, with their Muslim sensibilities, and the Russians. They were living in a very cramped space, one would think it possible for them to show a little respect. For now, he held his tongue. There were ten times as many cosmonauts as Arab officers, but he knew that would change.

He worked as hard as any of them, spending his time learning to run the excavation equipment and making the hour-long trip to retrieve cargo canisters from the drop zone. They’d wisely moved the landing target away from the base after the second ship had nearly destroyed the antenna facilities on its second bounce. Now they drove five kilometers out into the center of the crater twice a day to haul in shipments from Earth. Every fourth or fifth one of these was more crew for the rapidly expanding Lunagrad complex, and Faruq had started to enjoy the terrified looks of the passengers after their landing. It was the one thing he and Romanov had in common.

The Arab crew had been awaiting the delivery of their own habitat, and when it arrived they set it up as quickly as possible, tying it into the base life support and dragging it out to the end of its access hall. It only took three hours to inflate it, but then they had to spend the rest of their day applying the poly-coating and burying it under its layer of protecting regolith.

Watching them working at a near frantic pace, Yuri laughed. “What, you don’t like us anymore?” he teased. “Is it my bad breath?”

Hassien bit his tongue to keep from saying it was because he looked and smelled like the son of a dog. Instead he replied, “No my Russian comrade, it is because we know you find our prayers disturbing, and we wish to do nothing more than make you comfortable in your own space.”

“Nah,” he said. “It is that you don’t like our cooking.”

“It is true you do eat many things that we find ... difficult to accept,” Hassien said, struggling to be diplomatic. “But we are quite tolerant of our differences.”
For now,
he added to himself.

“Of course,” the Russian said, thumping him on the shoulder. “Come now, we have another shipment of eggs to unload. It is your turn to drive.”

***

Zion Repository, east of Schuster Crater:

“You shall remember the Sabbath Day, and keep it holy,” Bishop Clayton said, from the stone riser that had been left in the rock at the junction of the ascending gallery and the main shaft. His Ward still consisted of only fourteen people here in Zion, but there were hundreds more with them in spirit, only waiting their turn to make the pilgrimage. They sat on plastic folding chairs, gathered near the riser, waiting to take the first sacrament ever held on the moon.

They’d worked non-stop for six days, carving almost two thousand feet into the rock, dragging cables and air ventilation ducts, polishing the floors and walls and shoring up an occasional soft spot in the roof. Fortunately there had been few, and their work, although tiring, had not been difficult. Today they would rest, after they’d completed the blessing of their new home, and had taken their lessons. Just because they were a quarter million miles from home did not change the fact that His work must be done, as it had been since the Gospel had been restored to man.

The Bishop had prepared his talk on their duty to their ancestors. To those who had come before them and who had, like they were now doing, settled in Salt Lake and throughout the southwest. The legacy their forefathers had left them in the hundreds of thriving colonies in Utah, Arizona, and New Mexico, would be carried forward on the strength of their own good works here in Zion, and in the Millennium to come when new colonies would be established in the Savior’s name. They sang hymns and prayed for everlasting faith and strength to endure to the end.

Then they sat around, because their home was also their church. It was boring to live all in one place. But they did rest.

Tomorrow the work would begin again in earnest. The
Wilford Woodruff
was due in at lunchtime with a load of cryogenic freezers, and the air and water reprocessors. Two teams would also go outside to begin making the cuts for the seed storage vaults. These vaults were to be left exposed to the hard vacuum, because the seeds they were bringing with them were not for use at the Repository, but rather were for when they returned to Earth.

Strictly speaking, the Zion Repository was never intended to be a colony, but rather an Ark. A vessel anchored in the dust, on a journey of a hundred years. Not self-sufficient, but very well provisioned.