The Gemini Divergence (86 page)

“I’ve been doing this so long; I don’t know
how I would handle the change. It was hard enough when Jack started
working for Howard. I can’t imagine doing anything else at
all.”

“I could talk to General Fitzpatrick about a
civilian job within AFOAT. You could do what I have been doing for
the last twenty six years… I can’t do this forever.”

Gus laughed, “Come on… this is your life. Do
you really think ‘you’ could retire and do something else? Remember
what you told me about facing God?”

Volmer laughed as well and relented, “No, I
suppose I will stay busy doing this until I die… It probably won’t
be as exciting without the Overseers.”

Gus changed to a skeptical expression as he
scoffed, “We’ve signed treaties with them before Otmar. Remember?
Do you really think that we have heard the last from them?”

Volmer smiled and confidently answered, “I
think our friend Schwerig is tired now… I believe that we will have
peace as long as he is alive and we keep our end of the deal.”

“How old do you think he is?”

“Well… if he was a Major during the war… He
must have been in his early 30s -- then, so I suppose that he may
be in his mid to late 50s now, like me; but it’s not his longevity
that I worry about.”

“Really, what then?”

“Secrecy can be a forgotten time bomb. The
people that know them will retire and die… Just look at NASA now.
Von Braun retired and an army of followers, with enough time in
service, left with him. Within a decade there may be few that
remember why we have restricted ourselves to LEO. I’ll wager that
within your lifetime, somebody in power will question these things,
and when nobody gives them answers… We will return to the moon and
go to Mars.”

“God help us then,” answered Gus as he
raised his glass in salute before drinking.”

“Yes, only he knows everything,” agreed
Volmer.

Just then, the others started to converse as
the movie ended and the credits started to roll.

Jack commented, “That was pretty good,
except that they got all of that moon landing stuff wrong.” Then he
looked at Howard and joked, “Unless you’re keeping something else
from us… Willard?”

Howard looked confused, “Why did you call me
Willard?”

Everyone laughed as Jack answered, “Willard
Whyte from the movie…,” then sarcastically asked, “Who the hell do
you think he’s supposed to be?”

Howard looked confused and answered, “I
don’t know… Who?”

Everyone in the room erupted with laughter
and disbelief, “Ohhh, come on,” they chided, as some even threw
pillows at Howard, who then shrugged and brushed off the laughter
as he asked, “Does anyone want to watch ‘Ice Station Zebra’
again?”

*~*

Selected members of Nixon’s staff secretly
rendezvoused with a group of envoys from the Raumsfahrtwaffe which
were hand picked by Schwerig for their loyalty, to work out the
details of the evolving treaty.

After which, Senator Symington and some of
Nixon’s closest confidants explained their disdain for the plans to
dissolve AFOAT.

They expressed their concerns that even
after the treaty, the Soviets, the rest of the world, and the
Raumsfahrtwaffe would still need to be monitored at all times.

To that date, no intelligence service had
delivered more hard facts than AFOAT and they had continuously done
it for pennies on the dollar for what it cost the CIA to do the
same thing, and with far less embarrassment.

They suggested to the President that the
United States should dissolve AFOAT in name only.

They should relocate AFOAT’s old offices and
personnel to the old NASA offices at Cocoa Beach and make it appear
as though some of the people were being absorbed by NASA. They
would disperse the field operations into the Weather Squadrons, and
the rest into Air Force Logistics. Then, Symington further
suggested that they run the whole show under a secret umbrella
organization within the Air Force to escape nosy accountants in
congress.

Nixon agreed, and ‘AFTAC’ was created in the
beginning of 1973 and assumed the control of USAEDS as well as all
other AFOAT responsibilities.

March 1973

Nixon officially ended the war in
Vietnam.

~~~**^**~~~

Resolve and
Solace / More Loose Ends

14 May 1973

NASA launched Skylab into space, and to the
shock and disappointment of everyone who thought that they had
worked out a deal with the Raumsfahrtwaffe, they watched in horror
as they discovered that Skylab had been attacked and most of its
side had been destroyed.

It was missing an entire solar wing as well
as the thermal shielding on one complete side, making it impossible
for human habitation.

NASA quickly reported to the world that it
was a technical glitch caused by a failed separation of the nose
shields.

The Nixon administration received
confirmation of Strahlenkanone fire and that NASA had tracked the
wildcat Raumsfahrtwaffe attackers as they fled back towards the
moon.

Schwerig was immediately contacted by
Nixon’s secretly appointed space ambassador to ask what this new
and unexpected turn of events now meant.

Schwerig was aghast at what had happened. He
apologized and insisted that he had nothing to do with it. He
conveyed that he was currently chasing down the last group of hold
outs, and was extremely certain that they were the guilty party;
most certainly trying to derail the peace talks.

Nixon demanded the location of
Kreutztrager’s rogue station so that America could take care of it
themselves, but Schwerig declined the assistance. He was determined
to take care of this on his terms.

*~*

Schwerig’s patrols located Von Sterbenbach’s
station, three lunar units away from Earth, following the Earth on
its orbital track.

When they tried contacting it, they received
no response.

When they boarded the station, they found
that it was empty and abandoned.

Schwerig was baffled as to where they could
have escaped, when Faust suggested that they may be hiding in
Adlerkrallen’s secret Mare Ingenii sublunarian facilities.

Schwerig and Graff had been away when the
facilities were constructed, so this is the first that they had
ever heard of it. They were shocked to hear that Adlerkrallen was
able to build such a facility without their knowledge.

They deduced that Von Sterbenbach had
intentionally not informed them as part of his plan to force
Schwerig out.

Schwerig quickly assembled a raiding party
of any of his loyal followers that had ever actually been to Mare
Ingenii and were familiar with the layout.

He quickly called up a team of welders and
had them start fabricating some attachments to be fastened to the
bottom of all the space craft that they would be using for the
attack.

Graff and Faust were confused, but dare not
question, as the attachments just appeared to be jagged
reproductions of parts of the already existing saucer
components.

*~*

The President called an emergency meeting of
his closest staff, the Joint Chiefs of Staff, General Fitzpatrick,
Senator Symington, and Dr. Volmer.

“Do you think that this is a trick?” asked
the President.

“I don’t know,” reported Fitzpatrick, “I’ve
never dealt with the man before.”

The President looked across the table at
Volmer and Symington, “This is the third treaty and it already
looks bust… I’ve got an election coming up and something more
spectacular than any normal American could fathom is happening over
our heads, and I don’t know what to do. I feel helpless… Is this
Feldmarschall or Führer Schwerig guy for real? Will he do what he
promised?”

Symington glanced over at Volmer as the Dr.
stated, “Mr. President, I have watched my entire career as
Schwerig’s career has progressed and he has matured… And through
all of the insanity that has ensued, it has become obvious to me
that he has a resounding loyalty to what he perceives as his core
people… even as that has evolved over the years, from Nazi Germany,
to the New Swabians, then to the Fuerte Espernzians, up to the
Lunarians, now the Martians… I truly believe that he lets us
believe that he is crazy for us to underestimate his extremely
logical normalcy… I think that he will ruthlessly hunt down these
stragglers like renegades and complete this deal… I truly do.”

The President looked unconvinced and still
concerned, “But how do I validate this? I need confirmation. I
can’t run the free world on a hunch. I have to have facts… Somebody
give me some facts!”

General Fitzpatrick spoke up, “Mr.
President, our tracking facilities have reported that a new
Raumsfahrtwaffe battle station has appeared in orbit around the
moon, and a large schwarm of Raumsfahrtwaffe fighters departed it
to travel to a station that was lurking on our orbital path around
the sun, about three quarters of a million miles behind us. We had
not seen the second station until we followed the fighters, but the
second battle station is now on a course that would join the other
station around the moon.”

“There,” interrupted Symington, “He’s done
it… Schwerig told us that he would be arriving soon from Mars to
take care of Kreutztrager’s rogue battle station. That sounds to me
like he’s already done it.”

“But why hasn’t he informed us yet?”
retorted Fitzpatrick.

“Maybe he’s not completely done,”
interjected Volmer, “I told you he’s very efficient… He wouldn’t
bother us with half truths or half facts. He’ll contact us when
he’s completely done with his task at hand.”

“I hope you’re right,” answered Nixon. He
then leaned over to his closest advisor and whispered, “Has the
clean up team left for St. Louis yet?”

His advisor closed his eyes and nodded
‘Yes’.

*~*

Schwerig’s assault team was totally
surprised when he asked them all to start climbing into the
attachments and not into the space craft themselves.

They were all very amazed to discover that
all of the attachments were actually rigged up with life support
and kinetic impellers as well as a full set of controls, and could
be individually piloted for a few minutes once detached from the
mother vessel.

The actual vessels were to be remotely
controlled on their approach to Mare Ingenii.

Still very confused, everybody prayed that
their confidence in Schwerig was not misplaced.

Once loaded up, the ships departed on their
one way trip to Mare Ingenii.

*~*

After the meeting, Volmer caught up with
Symington in the Hall, “Senator, did you hear the President say
something about St. Louis? What do you think he was talking
about?”

“I don’t know for sure… but I ‘did’ tell him
the other day about my plans to meet Schwerig for the final signing
in a small town in Missouri, just outside of St. Louis. Maybe he
was referring to checking that out.”

Volmer looked surprised, “I knew that you
were from Missouri, but why there?”

“I know a little town there that has a high
population of German speaking people… No one will bat an eye at us
talking to a man with a thick German accent. You’ll see. I’ve
requested for you to be there.”

*~*

As Schwerig’s raiding party approached Mare
Ingenii, he was not surprised to be attacked by a large Jasta of
fighters just before arriving.

The fighters made short work out of
Schwerig’s flight of space craft scattering a field of debris in
every direction.

Schwerig’s men then piloted their small
craft, designed to look like varied fragments, slowly towards the
lunar surface, trying carefully to appear as falling wreckage.

Once Adlerkrallen’s fighters had disappeared
into the sub lunar base and the camouflaged craft had appeared to
fall to the lunar surface, they all began to glide just above the
regolith of the moon.

Schwerig knew that they would never be
detected only feet above the surface.

Once they regrouped, they approached a small
service entrance and remotely hacked their way into the locking
system, opening the door.

In single file they all flew into the hatch,
just barely big enough for all of them to enter.

The computer operator that had hacked into
the locking system had also blocked the open door and
depressurization alarms from being sent.

Once the tunnel way was almost completely
filled by the ships, only fitting in single file along its length,
the operator closed the outside door and repressurized the hall,
enabling all of them to disembark their improvised capsules.

*~*

President Nixon was awoken from sleep by an
aid, “Mr. President, We just received confirmation of
Strahlenkanone fire on the moon…”