Part 27 (2/2)

likely still to be functional. The other ten remained gratifyingly inert.

In condemnation of American unilateralism, sixteen nations and the European Union recalled their amba.s.sadors to Was.h.i.+ngton. Overseas corporations, bowing to public outrage, cancelled high-profile

orders for American pa.s.senger jets, oil platforms and pipelines, pharmaceuticals, and supercomputers.

The immediate human toll: another eighty thousand badly needed jobs.

As a longer-term consequence of the Second Twenty-Minute War, the s.p.a.ce control center at Cheyenne

Mountain started tracking thousands more bits of orbiting s.p.a.ce junk.

CHAPTER 33.

The helicopter thp-thp-thpped its way across the Los Padres National Forest. The heavily wooded park was lush and green, the jagged gash of the San Andreas fault unmistakable as the chopper raced over it. Spectacular scenery and engine roar alike conspired to preempt conversation. The burly, ruddy-faced pilot, in any case, wasn't terribly talkative.

Kyle peered past his reflection at the countryside sliding by beneath. The trip from Los Angeles to Vandenberg Air Force Base was, as the crow rolled the flat tire, roughly 150 miles. The view from the aptly designated scenic highway would have been superb. In a simpler world, he would have loved to have driven, Dar beside him, sharing breathtaking vistas of coastal mountains and rocky sh.o.r.e.

Of course, in a simpler world, a mission this dangerous would never have been conceived. While he yearned for the impossible, he could hope that the roads to VAFB not be clogged by misinformed protesters, nor half the world's weather disrupted by El Nino. The same climatological phenomenon that kept this forest so verdant had his wife leading a State Department delegation from Indonesian drought zones to Peruvian flood plains. The squall line barely visible to the west, far out over the Pacific, might or might not be another manifestation of El Nino. Would weather delay today's launch? Obstruction by natural causes seemed so unfair. Wasn't it enough to face the technological superiority of the Krulirim? The taciturn Air Force captain flying Kyle over the protesters pointed at something to the south. One of the Channel Islands? A s.h.i.+p? A noncommittal answering grunt seemed to satisfy her. It was just as well Kyle wasn't driving; the scenery had already lost his attention. He could not keep his mind off his problems.

The world's problems, Dar would have insisted, not his. The point of semantics made not a whit of difference. For five years, Kyle's had been a lonely voice, often the only voice, championing today's mission. For five years, he'd kept all doubts to himself-there were enough advocates for inaction. For five years, he'd awakened each day wondering if this were the day a growing deficit, or international hostility, or political expediency finally overwhelmed his tenacity.

And for five years after the fiery destruction of the Consensus, the flotilla of alien satellites circled overhead. Had they been a part of Clean Slate? In theory they had been neutralized . . . As the helicopter began its final descent to the VAFB airfield, Kyle again rephrased his thoughts. After five years of preparations, he was about to test theory with six people's lives.

* * * Tantalizingly just beyond humanity's reach circled three failed-in-orbit masersats. These inert satellites had gone untargeted in both Twenty-Minute Wars. The first time, that omission had reflected expediency-more obviously dangerous targets had drawn Earth's fire. By the second conflict, leaving alone these three satellites was a matter of strategic calculation.

Phase Two of Clear Skies aimed to retrieve one of those nearly intact artifacts. A s.p.a.ce shuttle could take a masersat on board- if it could climb far above its four-hundred-mile alt.i.tude limit, and if it could achieve polar orbit. Two extraordinarily big ifs. Raising the shuttle's alt.i.tude meant refueling it in orbit. Refueling meant somehow lofting large amounts of fuel into s.p.a.ce in a vessel with which the shuttle could mate. Flight-testing a large-capacity s.p.a.ce tanker could hardly be

done in secret.

Nor could the preparations be hidden for a new shuttle launch site. Populated regions north and south of Florida precluded initiating polar missions from Cape Canaveral. Another coastal location was required.

Somewhere, should the worst again happen, with ample empty ocean to its south. Someplace like Point Arguella, California-which, not coincidentally, lay within the borders of Vandenberg AFB.

All this activity by a reinvigorated American s.p.a.ce program-and involving a launch site within a military base-was anathema to the international community. In a world that believed-or, as in Russia's case, where realpolitik favored pretending to believe-that benevolent aliens had left behind orbiting guardians, renewed astronautical ambitions by the slayers of those masersats were intolerable.

But protests, worldwide boycotts, and the grinding recession notwithstanding, after five arduous years of preparation, it was finally time to execute Phase Two.

* * * When, finally, the weather held and the Navy drove a flotilla of seagoing protesters from the restricted seas off Point Arguella, when at last the first manned mission ever to launch from Vandenberg AFB rose on a bone-jarring, ear-shattering, column of fire . . . it was tremendously, awe-inspiringly, and blessedly anticlimactic. Kyle exited the ma.s.sively blast-proofed Launch Control Center as soon as it was safe, gazing southward until the last faint speck of a spark disappeared. The contrail twisted and tore as the winds along its length a.s.sailed it.

”Way to go, Endeavor!” Ryan Bauer gave Kyle a congratulatory slug in the shoulder. The general had become a fixture at s.p.a.ce Launch Complex Six (SLC-6, ”Slick Six” to the locals). ”I can't tell you how good that feels.”

Kyle couldn't argue. But still . . . ”That was the easy part.”

”What is it Britt says about you? Every silver lining has a cloud.”

”I should have been on board! I could have been. Plenty of payload specialists have been shuttle-trained

in two months-I could have afforded that.” But the President had nixed it, for ”national security” reasons. d.a.m.n it.

”What payload would you have overseen, besides a stomach full of b.u.t.terflies?”

”A head full of insight about Krulirim.” A seagull fluttered to a landing by Kyle's feet. ”How many of the crew have that background?”

”None-which is why you're here. Should this mission fail, we'll need more than ever what's in your head.” Bauer grabbed Kyle's arm, turning him until their eyes met. ”Leading isn't always done from the front. Trust me: I know what it's like to order others into battle.”

”Hopefully, it won't come to battle.” Kyle swallowed hard. ”But there's plenty of risk even if the masersats stay dormant.”

* * * The cabin cruiser bounced and shuddered, bludgeoning a path through high seas. Darlene for the umpteenth time patted her sleeve. The Dramamine patch was still on her arm, and still unequal to the task. With each wave crested, the boat and her stomach fell out from under her, to return an instant later with a bone-jarring impact. The worst of the storm, supposedly, was now pummeling Mexico.

”I said,” yelled Roone Astley, the amba.s.sador to Costa Rica, ”the weather is much better.” It was his boat, and he stood with maddening a.s.surance on what Darlene considered a bucking deck. He motioned

to starboard. ”The sky is getting lighter.”

Another lurch of the boat sent her reeling. Astley caught her before she fell. The bite of breakfast she'd foolishly taken rose threateningly in her gorge. Yes, the sky was brighter, which only made more horrifying the view of the sh.o.r.eline they were paralleling. The tropical downpour whose trailing edge continued to lash the boat had stalled for three days over the narrow Pacific coastal strip. The rain- saturated mountainside had come rumbling down in two.

They were nearing one more village washed away by mudslide. Except for the occasional stone chimney, nothing but snapped tree trunks at odd angles emerged from the muck. Pounding waves had churned the encroaching mud into an enormous stain stretching hundreds of yards into the ocean.

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