Worlds in Chaos (48 page)

38

The bay doors had been freed when Keene and the others got back to the OLC complex. Boarding of the second Boxcar was about to commence. Mitch and Penalski disappeared to organize the guarding and resupply of the two planes, while Cliff, the Rustler’s second officer, left with an airframe mechanic to help the two pilots working on the Cessna. Cavan went with Keene up to the control room.

Colby and Charlie were with a group around the console handling the Hawaii link, which was showing Idorf on one of the screens. He was looking suspicious. The atmosphere seemed confused. Idorf spoke before Keene or Cavan could ask anything.

“I was told that you were having trouble with one of the shuttles, that only one had been launched. How is it we have two craft approaching? I hope this isn’t some kind of trick, I’ve seen enough of them already.”

The Launch Supervisor, who was standing immediately in front of the screen, shook his head. “The other Boxcar
is
still here. . . . We’re as baffled as you are.”

“Did our delegation leave in the one that was launched?”

“Yes, of course they did.”

“How do I know that? Something strange is going on here.” Idorf moistened his lips. “I’m deploying an X-laser as a precaution. It can be recovered later if this is a false alarm.” He proceeded to issue orders to others off screen.

“
What is it?
” Keene hissed at Charlie.

Hu indicated a display showing the projection of a hemispherical radar plot being generated by the
Osiris
’s radars. “There are two ships closing up there. One’s leading the other by about a hundred miles. Nobody can figure it.”

“Which one is the Boxcar?”

“We don’t know.”

The Supervisor turned around, saw that Keene and Cavan had joined them, and shook his head. “We don’t have any ground-station or satellite data to go on anymore. What can I tell him?”

“Maybe there was something up there already that latched onto the
Osiris
’s beacon,” Cavan mused.

“Maybe.”

Idorf looked back. “So far we have had no identification response,” he said. “Why are there two if you only launched one? How can we even be sure that either of them is the one that you launched? Once again, I have to take precautionary action.” As he spoke, a blip detached itself from the
Osiris
symbol on the radar plot and began moving away toward a standoff position. Keene felt his stomach tightening. He had seen this before. Visions raced through his mind of a ghastly mistake about to unfold.

“We think one of them might just be something that picked up your beacon,” the Supervisor said. “Don’t do anything hasty, for God’s sake.”

Idorf’s brow creased. “What are you implying? I can assure you that I don’t relish being in this position. But need I remind you that one attempt has been made already to take this ship by armed force?”

“
What?
”

“It happened yesterday,” Colby said from the back of the group. “Four of them. We’re not sure where they were from.”

The Supervisor glanced back, read the confirmation on Keene’s and Hu’s faces, and looked again at the screen. “I . . . didn’t know about that,” he told Idorf.

Idorf looked away, off-screen, suddenly. “Just one moment. . . .”

“What happened?” one of the techs next to Hu murmured.

“They didn’t get even close,” Colby answered. Idorf looked back. “Apparently we have just begun receiving an identification transmission . . . BZ650 . . .” He glanced away again. “Which is as we were given to expect.”

“That’s it! That’s the Boxcar!” the Supervisor confirmed. Exhalations of relief came from around the room. Keene’s muscles untightened. He moved forward into the viewing angle of the screen where Idorf would see him.

“Hello, Captain. It’s no trick. Who the other ship is, I don’t know, but I can vouch for these guys.”

Idorf’s expression relaxed. “Ah, Landen Keene! You, I know I can trust. Why didn’t you tell me sooner that you were there?”

“I only just arrived. We’ve been kind of . . . busy down here.”

Idorf nodded. “I can imagine. . . . A moment, Lan. . . . Yes, okay, we’re getting a beam from them too, now.” Again, he looked away to follow something that was going on nearby. Then, tension around the control room rose again as his face took on an ominous frown. Evidently, all was not so well after all. “They’re saying they have an emergency,” Idorf reported. “They’re being pursued by an armed vessel that’s attempting to use them as cover to get to the
Osiris
. They have weapons trained on them. They’re asking us to fire on it.”

Keene and Cavan exchanged looks. Neither had anything to offer. There could be craft up there from just about anyone with launch capability, in who-knew-what state of desperation. This wasn’t exactly a time to be expecting everyone to be displaying rational behavior.

“The beam is definitely coming from the lead ship?” Charlie Hu queried.

“We can’t tell. . . . And apparently it’s not clear that they are receiving our signal. They’re not acknowledging, just transmitting.”

“Who is sending to you? Who do you have on your screen?” the Supervisor asked.

Idorf paused to check off-screen once more. “Dr. Stacey.”

The Supervisor looked around, puzzled. “Stacey? Who in hell’s he? . . . That’s not right. Who’s commanding the Boxcar?”

“Corlaster,” somebody said.

“That’s what I thought.”

“He says he’s the senior person aboard, and in control,” Idorf informed them.

Somebody had produced the passenger list and was scanning it frantically, but nobody had heard of the name.

“Can you copy us here with your incoming channel?” Keene said after a few more mystifying seconds. Idorf nodded and made a signal mutely to somebody. One of the technicians seated at a console near Keene read a code and entered a command. . . . And moments later, Keene found himself looking in astonishment at the features of Herbert Voler. Colby gasped somewhere behind him. Cavan was staring in disbelief. Nobody else in the room knew Voler or recognized him. Fey was to one side of him, Queal slightly to the rear on the other with the shoulder of somebody else showing next to him.

“Well, is this your man or is it not?” Idorf snapped. “Be quick. The range is closing.”

Meanwhile, Voler was imploring, “
Please
, if anyone there is receiving us, our situation is critical. This is Doctor Stacey, in command of Boxcar BZ650 from Vandenberg, calling
Osiris
. Repeat, we are being pursued by unknown craft that is armed. Suspect intention is to use us as cover to board and seize your ship. Imperative that you intervene and destroy. Your delegation is aboard with us, and their lives are in jeopardy.”

Then Voler moved to reveal the view along a cabin extending behind him. Soldiers in combat jackets were in the nearer seats. And behind them, farther toward the rear were . . . the Kronians! All of them. Keene could make out Sariena’s black tresses distinctly and, beside her, Gallian’s white crown. Clearly, the image was being faked. As much would be evident to the others in the room as well. Besides the obvious fact that Voler’s people had not been aboard the Boxcar, Sariena was wearing a green tunic, as were the others. When she went aboard the Boxcar, she had changed into freshly supplied light blue Air Force fatigues.

“This is Captain Idorf of the
Osiris
. We are receiving you, BZ650. Can you hear me?”

But either Voler couldn’t or was pretending not to. “This is urgent. Boxcar BZ650 from Vandenberg calling the
Osiris
. We are closing to dock with you. . . .” Everyone in the room was looking bewildered. The Supervisor threw his hands up helplessly. “What in hell’s going on?” he pleaded. “Who are those other people?”

“What do I do?” Idorf demanded.

Keene thought frantically. There was no reason for Voler’s group to think anyone might be monitoring this latest stunt, let alone anyone who knew them. They had banked on being able to get away with faking the image because they had presumed this encounter would involve only the
Osiris.
On the screen, a figure behind Voler moved aside, showing itself to be Beckerson, at the same time uncovering more of the cabin beyond. Several of the soldiers had rifles propped between their knees. The Kronians had been wearing green tunics when Mitch’s force got them out of the turboprop just after it had landed early that morning—the tunics they had been wearing since they were hijacked in Washington. The picture was a superposition of Voler and the others with him, which was genuine—they were up there now, inside one of the ships—and a background taken aboard the aircraft in which the Kronians had been flown to California the day before. The two had been combined to give the impression that the transmission Idorf was receiving was coming from the Boxcar just sent up from Vandenberg. But the ship was transmitting the Boxcar’s correct identification code. The Boxcar with the Kronians aboard was up there in orbit somewhere. It had to be the radar blip that was
following
.

“Charlie,” Keene shot across. “Would it be feasible for the ship in front to intercept the ID code from the ship following, retransmit it, and use some kind of ECM to blot out anything else from the ship behind?” he asked.

Hu looked at him strangely for a moment, then nodded. “Sure . . . if you had somebody who knew what they were doing. Just about any ship would carry the equipment you’d need.”

Keene moistened his lips. He looked back at Idorf. “That view of the Kronians is a fake,” he said. “They’re not there at all. The background is being manufactured.”

Idorf’s face hardened. “Target both objects,” he instructed off-screen.

Keene felt perspiration on his forehead. Everyone else was leaving it to him now, with no idea of how his mind was working. There was no time to debate with them.

Voler and his party had left at first light in a T-43 jet transport, heading south and climbing. Keene did a quick mental calculation, then added several hours for storming a launch pad, taking up a shuttle that had been readied in hope of arriving emigrants, making orbit, and maneuvering into position. “Guatemala,” he muttered aloud. “That’s where they went. They seized a shuttle at Tapapeque. That’s what the lead ship is.” Colby looked emptily at Cavan. Cavan shook his head and shrugged. Keene followed his reasoning through, visualizing in his mind what would happen if the seized shuttle were allowed to dock with the
Osiris
by an unsuspecting crew expecting other Kronians. A FAST team, armed and waiting to go, would take the ship in minutes. And then, the full extent of what was intended unrolled itself in all its ghastliness. The Boxcar and everyone in it were sacrificial. Idorf was being urged to fire on it—with his own people aboard—to provide a diversion and maximize the surprise when the shuttle carrying Voler and his force docked.

And with extra room aboard the
Osiris
thus created, and its defenses neutralized, how many more of Voler’s “elite” would be brought up afterward? With all but a skeleton crew to fly the ship eliminated, how many of their kind would go to Kronia, and with what intentions? And so it would start, all over again.

“Captain Idorf,” Keene said. Despite himself, the words came out shakily. “Ignore what he’s saying. There is no Doctor Stacey. Target the lead vessel only and fire. The one following is BZ650, and your people are aboard it.”

If
Keene’s reconstruction of events was correct. . . .

The room around him had frozen into statues, all staring at him. From the screen, Idorf’s eyes interrogated him silently. Both of them understood that there could be no discussion or inviting of second opinions. “You are certain of this?” was all he said.

How could Keene be? His shirt was sticking to his back, his throat dry. He closed his eyes and nodded mutely. Idorf gave the order.

And somewhere high above the Pacific, a spacecraft and several score human beings flashed briefly and turned into vapor that dispersed into the swirling gas clouds of Athena’s tail.

Hawaii lost contact before Idorf was able to identify the vessel that remained.

The second Boxcar was launched a little over an hour later, into the night. By then, everyone remaining was too exhausted to contemplate evacuating before morning. There were several incidents that night involving bands from outside coming into the base, presumably looking for supplies and weapons, some involving sporadic shooting. Mitch and Penalski posted extra guards on an extended perimeter around the hangar, with the reserves sleeping under the wings of the Rustler.