Prometheus and the Dragon (Atlas and the Winds Book 2) (25 page)

“Ma’am,” he nodded. “That was a good speech you gave. I know it was a hard thing to do, but now it’s behind us, we still need to keep our eye on the ball.”

“John and I were just discussing that,” she said. “So what is it you’re thinking?”

“We need to acquire at least one of the Stormhaven carriers,” he said.

“You aren’t planning another mission like the
Eagle’s
are you?” she asked, shocked.

“No ma’am,” he said. “But we need it to start carrying larger payloads to the lunar surface. If New Hope is going to be America’s lifeboat, we need to give it all the effort we can.”

“What can we offer Stormhaven that they don’t already have?” she said.

“Another member for their Alliance,” John said from across the room. He got up, walked over to stand behind her, and looked at the screen. “If we sign on, we could guarantee there’d be no legal disputes to their territorial claims to the lunar surface. From a technical standpoint, they’re squatting on International Trust territory.”

“Do you think that matters to them?” she asked. “Like anybody up there could throw them off it.”

“That’s true now,” he said, “but you’ve got to remember, there is a chance that those colonies will be up there for a hundred years or more. Who knows what they’ll face. We’ve got to think about their future and not just ours.”

“Hmm,” she said, thinking back over the changes in the last hundred years. There were so many things that hadn’t been anticipated that had come to pass. His suggestion almost made sense.

“Have you read over their Alliance Charter and Bylaws?” she asked.

“I have,” Lange said. “It’s a respectable document. If the future of the Earth is built from these colonies, it’s a solid foundation. I can send you a copy of the documents if you’re interested.”

“I would like to see them too,” John asked. The President nodded.

“Can you approach Stormhaven and see if there might be any interest in letting us into their club?” she asked. “Tell them what we need, and see what they might want from us.”

“Absolutely,” Joshua said. “They’ve actually got several former astronauts working for them.”

“Why am I not surprised,” she said, shaking her head. “Just keep me posted on your progress.”

***

Lunagrad Base, Boscovich Crater, Luna:

Yuri Romanov had hung up his space suit for a desk, figuratively speaking. Now, even as dangerous and uncomfortable as working outside was, he’d rather be doing that than trying to be an administrator. Fortunately he wasn’t alone in his job. Sergei Titov was stuck in the same position.

They shared the small Operations Center with a half-dozen other technicians coordinating their respective departments, and overseeing the endless stream of almost trivial details. Yuri was ostensibly in command, even though he was several years younger than Sergei and had far less experience, especially when it came to keeping the peace with an international crew.

Commander Romanov sat staring at the closed door. He’d just spent a half-hour with six men shouting at each other in the small, claustrophobic cubicle that was his office. The four Russians had been complaining that the Arab rover driver and his boom operator were intentionally making their job harder. The Russians were assigned the task of dragging out the inflatable habitat modules that the Arab crew had unloaded for them. Language difficulties, or maybe the lack of general communication, had prevented the Russian team leader from getting the point across that, if they dropped the inflatable where they had dropped it, they’d have to physically drag it almost eighty meters to where it belonged. Even on the moon, with its light gravity, it still weighed almost 400 kilos, and moving it by brute force was not something they wanted to do.

When the driver ignored the team leader’s request to move the load, and turned his vehicle to leave, the angry Russian threw a hammer at the rover, shattering the canopy and causing the Arab to run over another piece of equipment parked nearby. From there the fight was on. Sixteen men jumped in to separate them, and before it was over two had been sent to the med bay with minor injuries. It could have been a lot worse, but fortunately the Russian spacesuits were tough.

Once the men had calmed down, he’d reassigned the driver and the team leader to separate shifts in different parts of the base. Finally, he and Sergei could talk.

“How did you do it comrade?” Yuri asked, pouring them both a small glass of vodka. “You worked with so many people from different countries, and you were all packed into such small space. How did you not kill each other?”

“There were difficult moments,” the doctor said. “Especially when US took over operations, but in all my time up there we only had one major situation. Was when we were forcibly ejecting other countries’ astronauts from Alpha.” Sergei sipped at his vodka. He didn’t usually drink when he was on duty, but since the Commander had thought it appropriate, he raised no objection.

“Why did it work there for decades, but we cannot keep peace here for more than few weeks at a time?” Yuri asked, finishing his drink in a single swallow.

“Perhaps because we were from so many places, and not just from two,” he said. “Except during Hammerthrow, there was no time Alpha was dominated by one nation. For most part, command rotated between Americans and our people. Everyone else was guest, and dependent upon us for ride home. It made things orderly and polite.”

“Here Arabs know they own us. If not for their money, we would have no base,” the Commander said, pouring himself another measure of vodka. “They feel entitled, and we feel like slaves.”

“I don’t know if I would put it so bluntly, but you are essentially correct,” Sergei said.

“Incoming message,” the computer voice announced, interrupting.

“Open channel,” Yuri said, turning to face the screen in time to watch the face of Director Markovicz appear.

“Commander,” Markovicz said. “Earlier this morning our peacekeeping forces began withdrawing from our occupied portions of Israel. We are ending our involvement there, and focusing what remaining resources we have on domestic security, and expanding Lunagrad Base.”

“Has Pan-Arab Alliance been informed?” Romanov asked.

“Not yet,” the Director said. “We expect will be some dissatisfaction with their leaders. We are informing you of this decision so you may be ready for response from Arab crewmembers. I appreciate this may make your duties more challenging, but do whatever you feel appropriate to keep discontent from interfering with construction of Lunagrad.”

Yuri looked over at Sergei, who was listening but keeping his reaction concealed. “When do you expect their government will inform them of change in situation?”

“Even though we have not officially announced our withdrawal, I suspect they are aware already. I have no expectations as to when word may arrive at Lunagrad. You are on your own up there. Do whatever you must to keep control,” the Director said, his expression making sure the full weight of his meaning was understood. “You must not fall behind because of political actions taken on Earth. Do I make myself clear?”

“Yes sir,” Romanov said. “Perfectly.”

***

Chapter Sixteen:

The Birth of the Archangels

Stormhaven:

Cole called this meeting, the first one he’d requested in over a year. They’d been holding lots of one-on-one sessions, but this was different. A full meeting of everyone he considered his command staff. Viki, Dave, Sophie, and Danielle were logged in from Sentinel, while Cole, Tom, Daryl, and Doug Shapiro were sitting along one side of a conference table in the Physics Lab. Shapiro was technically just an observer, and still on the government’s payroll, but he’d become their acting Director of Security, and had pulled his share of weight more than once.

Mica had blended the wall screens so the table on Earth was pushed up against the display, and the one in Sentinel lined up to match. Both tables were equipped with wide field cameras. The resulting images were assembled to look as though they were all seated around a single table, as long as they ignored the fact that one side was three seconds out of phase with the other.

“I want to discuss my idea for what we need to do for the five months we have left here,” Cole said, pausing to make sure the four in the Colony knew where he wanted to start. Shapiro opened a transcription program on the tabletop, glancing at Cole to make sure he didn’t mind. Officially he was to report to William Worthington, but they’d held several meetings in his presence that had somehow never been relayed to Homeland Security. Cole had a gut level trust in him since the very first moment they’d met, and it didn’t hurt that Mica read every report he sent, just to be sure.

Cole nodded, and went on. “It’s my understanding that the colony is finally over the hump,” he said.

“Yes, we’ve gotten to the point where we’re self-reliant,” Viki confirmed. “We’re actually stable to about 75k, and the population is only at 42,000 so far.”

“Do you think we could expand to 125k?” he asked, waiting for a reply.

“In five and a half months?” she asked, shocked. “I don’t think so, but I’m not an engineer.”

“Daryl?” Cole asked. “What about it? Do you think it would be do-able?”

He sighed, doing some calculations in his head. “Not if we keep our focus on building ships. If we convert the line to building habitats and life support gear, then probably.”

“How many ships are in production now?” Cole asked.

“Three. The
Lynx
will be out the door tomorrow night, and the other three are within a couple weeks. We’re about to hang the trusses for the next one, but they won’t start for a few days yet,” Daryl said.

“Then that’s it,” Cole said. “After these three are done, I don’t want any more carriers built. We’ve got more than enough to finish what we’re doing, and I want the colony expanded substantially before we run out of time.”

“Why?” Viki asked, after the delay.

“I have a new mission, and we’re going to need to house about fifty to sixty thousand refugees,” he said. “Mostly children.”

“I should have seen this one coming,” Tom said, shaking his head. “I don’t think it’s a good idea.”

“So we’re talking about shipping up kids?” Dave asked. “What about their parents?”

Cole took a deep breath and looked down, shaking his head. “We’ve been approached by hundreds of families in the last forty-eight hours offering to give us their children if we’re willing to take them to the colony. Just their kids.”

“Oh Jesus,” Viki said. “How can we refuse? What a terrible thing to contemplate.”

“I don’t know how we could make it work. You sound like you’re talking about fifty thousand children,” Dave said. “How are we supposed to take care of them? Half our population would be orphans.”

“Could it be done?” Cole asked, looking at Viki and riveting her with his eyes.

She squirmed a little, letting the silence hang for a long time before she nodded. “Probably,” she said. “It’ll be tough, but I don’t see how I could say no and live with myself tomorrow.”

Cole nodded, and turned his attention back to Daryl. “I want the last three ships plated in mono-carbon, like the
Dancing Star
and the
Draco
. How much time will that take?”

“A couple extra weeks,” he said.

“Get it done,” he said. “I want their cargo containers outfitted to carry strictly passengers.” He opened a drawing on his tabletop, and flipped it toward the Fabrication Chief.

“Since the US lost the
Aquila,
they’ve offered to join the ISA in exchange for us giving them another ship. So I want the
Lynx
delivered to Canaveral as soon as it’s ready,” he said. “Once that’s done, we’ll rechristen the
Dancing Star
as the
Michael
. The other three will be the
Gabriel
,
Uriel
and
Raphael
.”

“Archangels,” Viki said.

He nodded. “The Archangels will be responsible for gathering children from around the world and transporting them to the colony. We’ll need to include medical personnel and a Diagnostic Gas-Chromograph Analyzer with each ship to screen the children before we take them,” he said. “I don’t want to end up carrying something that would become a plague in a closed ecosystem like the colony.”

“What about genetic problems?” Tom asked.

“Those won’t affect the general population. If we screen them for that once they get here, we can keep them from being a problem in future generations,” Viki said, jumping headlong into Cole’s plan.

“I just don’t want to see some of our people bumped from their position to make room for orphans,” Tom said. “We’ve got a lot of people in our organization that deserve to go. And I don’t just mean people who live here in the community.”

“I understand that,” Cole said. “That’s why I wanted to make sure we could make enough room first. We’ve only got seventy-five thousand people in all of our companies, so the goal of making the colony house 125k is realistic.”