A Sword Into Darkness

12: “ECCENTRIC ORBITS”

“And we’re back!”

“Hey, all of you out there on the drive to work, welcome back to Pat—”

“And Terry—”

“In the Morning!!”

“If you missed the first hour—”

“Ya lazy bums.”

“Terry! Anyway, if you missed the first hour, we’re talking about what everyone seems to be talking about—namely, the unprecedented surprise launch of the Sword of Liberty off the coast of California yesterday. Now, I don’t care if you’re an old-timer and you remember the hey-day of the space shuttle, or maybe Apollo and the moon landing, or hell, perhaps you’re ancient and you remember Sputnik, Gagarin, and Shepard, but this is seriously the coolest thing to happen to space in maybe ever. I’m totally geekin’ out.”

“Yes, you are a total geek.”

“Terry! Well, I think our devoted listener-ship is with me on this one. This thing is big. This thing is fast, powerful, and sexy. It’s the answering call to all the dashed dreams of generations of enthusiasts and starry-eyed hopefuls. This is sci-fi made real! Forget multi-month missions to Mars to pick up rocks. Forget robot probes and halting, tentative steps into space. This is Space with a capital ‘S’.”

“Yeah, yeah. It’s cool, Pat. It makes those fragile little NASA rockets look like bush-league amateurs. But while you’re having a geekgasm, think about what this really is: they didn’t call it a space-explorer. They don’t call it a solar system surveyor. They called it a destroyer. Think about that!”

“What are you trying to say, Terry? Who cares what they call it?”

“I care! And you can bet your sweet wife’s fanny that the Chinese and the EU care. Our government, who only has our best interests at heart of course, has just weaponized space to a degree unheard of before now. Hell, I couldn’t even count the number of international treaties violated if I used both my fingers and toes. Why? C’mon, there’s gotta be a reason for all those missiles and lasers. And what’s with that little speech Colonel Henson gave? ‘—ready to face whatever may come … in defense and support of our planet, but against no man or terrestrial power.’ If it ain’t against no man or earthly power, who the hell is it against?! Is there some non-earthly enemy they haven’t let out of the bag yet?”

“Ha! Terry, I’m the Trekkie, but you’re the first one to jump on the ‘aliens from space’ land mine? Listen, there are no little green men on Mars. The balloon people of Jupiter aren’t coming to steal your cable or drink your beer. And the grays are just a bunch of society-influenced collective hallucinations by some sad little lonely-heart crazies. The Sword of Liberty is up there for the same reason we put up any new combat system—to defend the red, white, and blue against all enemies, foreign and domestic. We put up the first one, and I’m sure we’ll find out within the year that it was in response to something the Chinese or the Algerians intended to put up.”

“Yeah, Mister The-Flag’s-Never-Dirty? What about the Deltans?”

“Conspiracy theories, Terry? Please! That’s worse than a simple garden-variety belief in UFOs.”

“Hear me out, Pat! Who’s the major contractor on the Sword? Windward Technologies Inc. And who was the founder and former CEO? Gordon Elliot Lee. And who was the guy that first claimed the Pavonis comet wasn’t a comet at all? Gordon F-ing Lee. You’re trying to tell me there’s no connection between the company that built the first interplanetary star destroyer and the conspiracy whack-job that’s been warning us about an alien invasion for the last twenty years? Come on!!”

“You folks out there in radio-land can’t see it, but Terry just put on a tinfoil beanie, propeller and all.”

“That’s it, Pat, laugh at the crazy man wearing his underwear on the outside, but mark my words—there’s aspects to this whole space-based destroyer thing that the administration hasn’t told us about yet. The other shoe? It has yet to drop, my friend!”

“I am happy to concede the point that our beloved military-industrial complex has not been completely forthcoming—not that I would truly want them to be, but that’s the difference between us. Now, are you willing to put away the conspiracies for a minute and just agree with me that this is cool and that if anybody has to have such a thing, at least it’s our own dedicated, honorable military?”

“Okay, I’ll grant you that, Pat. It is indeed cool and I’m really damn glad that it’s USA-cool rather than Somebody-Else-cool. I’d shudder to think what this thing would be like in the hands of another nation or some private group, rather than our boys in the Navy and Air Force.”

“You and me both, brother. You and me both.”

March 7, 2045; Windward Technologies, Inc. Test and Evaluation Airfield; Vallejo, CA

“I don’t know, sir. I think I need to call the watch commander.”

Dave Edwards, retired Senior Chief, fellow USS Rivero survivor, and current co-conspirator, looked up from the wheelchair he hardly ever used and gave the young Air Force guard his most withering glare. The look from his thick, leathery face included a mixture of contempt for the Air Force Technical Sergeant’s youth, rank, and service, as well as a special disdain for the non-com’s temerity to delay one such as he.

Edwards rolled forward until the pants-covered stumps of his legs touched the soldier’s camo trousers. “Boy, do you have any goddamn clue about who the hell I am, or about the clusterfuck you’re attempting to insert yourself in?”

The Tech SGT took a quick, wide-eyed look at the crowd of civilians facing him and then looked down at Edwards’ challenging glare. “Um, yes, sir—I mean no, sir—I mean yes, sir, I know who you are. I know who all of you are, but that doesn’t make this any less irregular. More, truth be told.”

Edwards gave him a feral smile, causing the SGT to back up a step. “Well, Airman, let me make it more clear for you. There’s this big fuckin’ spaceship up there and everybody’s all abuzz about it.”

The SGT bristled at the purposeful misstatement of his rank by the retired Navy non-com. He growled out, “I’m aware of that, sir. This facility is at a heightened security posture for that very reason. Which is why—”

“No, no, screw that,” Edwards interrupted. “You’re talking about security postures and I’m talking about pissing off the President of these United States. Here’s the way it is—that big ass ship up there is too damn large to ever land again, and now that it’s on its way back to Earth, the President has pretty much got jack and shit to show off to the people of the world during her big welcome home for the asteroid-conquering heroes.

“Now, when the crew returns and lands at Andrews Air Force Base, she sure as hell would like to show the world more than one dinky spaceplane. And since she can’t present the big, impressive destroyer, it sure would be nice if she could at least show off a light squadron of spaceplanes!” Edwards pointed behind the SGT to the two Single Stage To Orbit Shuttles sitting side by side within the Windward Tech hangar. The two SSTOS were identical to the one the Sword of Liberty carried in her dorsal hangar.

The SGT glanced back at the two sleek, lifting body aerospace craft in the cavernous hangar behind him and shook his head. “I don’t know, sir. Nothing was mentioned about this at watch turnover.”

Edwards threw his hands up, exasperated. “Hence the definition of a clusterfuck! Listen here, Sergeant. I’m an old enlisted man myself, and I don’t have to tell you how screwed up and anxious officer types can get when someone changes plans at the eleventh hour, but that’s just what’s happening now. Some PR flunkies decided the Commander-in-Chief needed to present something tangible to the press corps in order to justify all the damn money they’ve spent on a destroyer no one’s ever going to see. And they decided who better to show it off than the original crew and the ones who designed the damn thing. So now I’ve got 26 civilians and two spaceplanes to fly to Washington DC and get in place before the Sword of Liberty regains orbit.

“If you go contacting the watch commander, he’s gonna think something funny is up—just like you were, don’t deny it—and he’s going to call his boss. And his boss is going to wonder why a watch commander is calling him for an authorized and fully legitimate flight, and he’s going to call his boss. And so on and so on until the White House and the freakin’ SECDEF are wondering where their damn planes are! Now I’m just a civilian nowadays, but I don’t ever recall anything good coming from the brass wondering why some mid-grade enlisted man was obstructing their grand, FUBAR planning. Do you?”

The SGT looked worried but determined to stand his ground. “Sir?”

Edwards relented. “Okay, Sergeant, you’re making this more complicated than it needs to be. Despite the fact that this whole joint’s been nationalized, and you got stuck over here to guard these here planes, do they or do they not still belong to Windward?”

The SGT opened and closed his mouth, uncomfortably trying to decide on an answer. “I really don’t know, sir, only that we’re supposed to guard this facility and everything on it.”

Edwards nodded, commiserating. “Yep. I spent plenty of years as a mushroom too. The answer is yes, they do, and these are still our planes. The government only owns the one on the ship. Now, do we or do we not have a properly filed flight plan?”

The soldier glanced down at the paperwork in his hand that Edwards had given him earlier. “It would appear so.”

“And are we on restriction? Are you under any guidance to interfere with our work here? Are we perhaps Chinese spies in disguise? Terrorists?”

The SGT smiled for the first time and looked at the assembled Windward employees and their stacks of luggage and equipment, sparing a lingering glance at Edwards’ own wheelchair. “No, sir, no restrictions. We, in fact, have orders to restrict you as little as possible.”

Edwards sighed and slumped in his seat. “Well, if I’m not a secret legless hijacker spy, and you’ve got no orders stating otherwise, how about you give us a break and let us just do our damn jobs?”

The SGT cinched his assault rifle up closer to his shoulder. He looked at the group, then back at the SSTOS in the hangar, and eventually just shook his head. “You win, sir. I’ve got rounds to do.”

The crew all smiled in relief and grabbed up their luggage. As they filed into the hangar, Edwards popped a quick wheelie and turned to face the sergeant as he began to walk away. “Many thanks to you, Sarge. I promise to take back at least half the bad things I ever said about the Air Force!”

The receding guard waved a hand and continued on, soon passing the hangar door and disappearing around a corner. The genial smile immediately dropped from Edwards’ lips and he spun about, just as Christopher Wright, the crew-training lead from the original team and another member of the conspiracy, came up behind him to push him at a run toward the shuttle. The former Army colonel asked, “Are we good, Edwards?”

Edwards shook his head. “I’d like to begin our little adventure with a prayer. Here’s mine: Please, Lord, let us get outta here before my web of bullshit flies apart and they shoot us all for treason. Amen.”

March 7, 2045; White House Situation Room; Washington DC

Secretary of Defense Carl Sykes stood straight under the baleful glare of his President and revealed nothing of the mixed anger, embarrassment, and inexplicable sense of vindication that he actually felt. He was silent, allowing the Commander-in-Chief to process what he had just said.

President Annabel Tomlinson sat primly at the center of the room’s long conference table, surrounded by the anxious expressions of her staffers and military advisors, chewing the inside of her cheek and regarding Sykes as if he were a bug. “What do you mean, ‘It’s been hijacked’?”

Sykes smiled tightly. He could feel Gordon Lee laughing at him from beyond the grave. “Precisely that, Madame President. The timeline we’ve established thus far would indicate no other possibility.”

“Perhaps you should let me decide whether or not we have another possibility, Carl. Your experience, while valuable, sometimes has a tendency to limit rather than expand your outlook.” Her features were stone still, betraying not a whit of emotion.

While he could detect no malice or disdain in her voice or the cast of her eyes, he knew it was there, an undercurrent that pulled along all of their interactions. It was an unfortunate confluence. Sykes was the best possible person for his job, the rare, wise Beltway Bandit who had worked his way up to his position through patience, politicking, and unarguable professional competence. President Tomlinson was the outsider who had swept to a landslide victory, in part, on a platform of dismantling the usual Washington machine—more or less a “throw the bums out” policy.

In Sykes’ case, he was the only competent bum she had to choose from, so he alone of all his compatriots in the previous administration had remained. Many days, she regretted her decision to advance him from Under-Secretary to SECDEF. They were fire and ice, matter and antimatter, and the day was not far off when the two would finally clash with cataclysmic results.

The last fifteen months had been more than a little strained.

Sykes sighed. “Very well, Ma’am. Here’s what we know for certain—I’ll let you be the judge. Approximately two and a half hours ago, immediately after the successful strike on asteroid 2006 UA22, all telemetry from the Sword of Liberty ceased. We queried the ship without success and telemetry did not return. Imaging radar and direct telescopic visuals showed the ship was intact, though resolution at that range prevents us from assessing directly any hull or radiator damage. One hour and twenty minutes after going offline, we witnessed a track split.”

“Track split?” she asked.

“Her radar return split into two distinct returns. Imaging showed that the destroyer had launched its single-stage-to-orbit-shuttle, or SSTOS. There are any number of reasons for this—they could have been sending the shuttle out as a staging platform for repair work, they could have been investigating some of the asteroid debris, or they could have been abandoning ship in response to damage incurred during the asteroid strike. Without comms or further visuals, we could not determine the actual reason. However, when the Sword itself got underway, heading back to Earth at a higher acceleration and a half hour before the shuttle started moving, effectively abandoning the smaller vessel, it left few other reasonable possibilities other than hijacking.”

President Tomlinson reached out and took a sip of her coffee. “You say ‘few other possibilities’ but you only give me one. Is that laziness on your part, or is there something else which supports your hijacking scenario?”

Sykes stood at ease for a moment, simply staring at her, but he eventually responded. “Yes, ma’am. While there could conceivably be some other reason for the ship to abandon its shuttle and head home immediately, there is no reason for the unauthorized launch of two additional SSTOS from the Windward Tech air field in Vallejo. That occurred an hour and a half ago, after the Sword broke off telemetry, but before it abandoned its own SSTOS and we ramped up our security posture. The reason given for these SSTOS flights was so that they could appear at Andrews for an impromptu media blitz involving you ma’am. By the time that filtered up to us and we sounded the alarm, both shuttles were off the designated air lanes and were making for high orbit. They are currently orbiting the Earth at an altitude of 3500 kilometers and have refused all attempts to communicate.

“Now, while there might be a slim possibility that these two events are unrelated, that potential becomes vanishingly small when you figure in who was aboard those shuttles and what went missing from Vallejo at the same time.” Sykes held up a finger. “That is the original Sword of Liberty crew, and,” he held up another finger, “the reserve resupply kit stored at Vallejo.”

Tomlinson stood up, shaking her head. “All right, all right, Carl! I yield. It’s a hijacking and Kelley’s taking back his ship. But why? And how the hell did a bunch of civilians make off with two shuttles and a mission resupply kit? Aren’t there weapons in there—secure, nuclear, WMD-type weapons?”

Sykes shrugged. “Answering your second question first, it’s a matter of hastily implemented procedures and narrow expectations. The Vallejo field was a civilian site with a brand new military security detachment devoted to thwarting an outside aggressor or spy, not a bunch of workers going about their own ‘routine’. And as for the weapons, they’re all inert. The railgun rounds contain no controlled explosives and the missile has no fuel and no radioactives. Unless you have a Sword class destroyer handy, they simply won’t do you any good. So, unfortunately, the security team had not been required to implement nuclear safeguards. It’s the sort of thing that would have been fixed on review of security procedures, but no one’s been in place long enough to call for a review.

“Honestly, Madame President, this sort of thing is a lot more common than anyone in the business likes to admit. We can handle almost any known threat with ease, but present us with something unique or unexpected and we either overreact or get rocked back onto our heels. If another group tried to repeat what Kelley and his crew have accomplished here, there’s not a chance in hell they’d get away with it.”

Tomlinson frowned. “But that doesn’t change where we are at the moment.” She turned and approached the large flatscreen dominating one side of the Situation Room, her wall-of-knowledge. On it was real-time telemetry of the approaching destroyer and the two orbiting shuttles. “You know Nathan Kelley, Carl. Why are they doing this? Why didn’t they throw in with us and Colonel Henson’s crew? Why would they purposefully commit treason for this mission of theirs?”

Sykes walked over to stand beside her. “For the answer to that, you’d have to have known Gordon Lee. Did you ever have the pleasure of his acquaintance?”

She smirked. “I’m an elected official and he was a wealthy industrialist. Of course, I met him. He was a major contributor to my runs in ‘36 and ‘40, but it was strictly political insurance on his part. I can’t say we ever had a conversation more than five minutes in length.”

“Well, I had the displeasure of knowing him for years—both as a Beltway operator and in relation to this project specifically. Gordon Lee was brilliant, arrogant, and of the firm conviction that he was always right. Unfortunately for anyone arrayed against him, though, that belief was too often correct. And even though the miserable old bastard is dead, he rubbed off on Kelley and the rest of them in a big way.

“They come assured by the closest thing to God on Earth that there is only one way to do this, and they mean to do it that way. This mission is theirs to accomplish, and not you, me, or the collective will of the nation is going to keep them from doing it. They couldn’t care less about treason when the alternative is violating Lee’s vision.”

The President nodded and turned away from the screen and began walking the length of the room, acknowledging one by one the other people filling it out in silence. The Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, General Volescu, nodded to her in support, support echoed on the faces of her staff and advisors. They were all behind her, but she was the one who had to make the difficult choice in this unprecedented case, and no one else wanted to be the one to take the blame in the event it turned out badly.

Suddenly, she appreciated Sykes’ unwavering frankness, even when it put them at odds with one another.

“Options? Recommendations?” she asked the room at large.

No one said anything. Whether they deferred to Sykes in his role as SECDEF, or were merely afraid to say anything, she could not tell. Perhaps “throwing all the bums out” had been rash.

Sykes stepped forward and gestured to Volescu. “Ma’am, there are three main courses of action available.” The general brought up a series of text slides on the wall-of-knowledge and Sykes continued talking. “First option is the most difficult, with the highest potential for disaster, but it gives us the most clear-cut win. We have approximately six hours until the Sword of Liberty can make orbit and rendezvous with the two stolen shuttles. Undoubtedly, she will onload the resupply package and transfer the old crew aboard, then take one of the SSTOS with her, abandoning the other for later retrieval. The shuttles themselves are not armed, and none of the civilian crew is special forces trained.

“We have a Joint spec-warfare team in Pensacola that’s been trained for zero-g, vacuum combat. We’ve never had a need for them before, but it always seemed like a good idea to have the capability. We can use our one remaining SSTOS to rendezvous with the two stolen shuttles, deploy the team, and retake those ships. We put a military crew onboard both, then when Kelley brings them aboard, we retake the destroyer.”

Tomlinson looked askance at him. “That seems very much like a ‘best case’ outcome.”

Sykes looked at Volescu, saying nothing until the Army General groaned. Volescu stood and turned to his Commander-in-Chief. “Madame President, it could go wrong at any one of a dozen points. The team may not be able to prep in time. We will be using untested pilots to do a first-time-ever rendezvous in orbit with two other shuttles who will undoubtedly be maneuvering to avoid us. Assuming we can link up, the hatches are not designed for a commanded entry from the exterior while in orbit, so we would have to blow them, which will kill the renegade crew and make it obvious to Kelley and Munoz that something is up. Then we have to get aboard the destroyer without it lighting us up, which is pretty much an impossibility. Best case, we purposely destroy the shuttle carrying most of the crew, kill all the civilians, convince the resupply shuttle to give up or die, and use the two remaining shuttles to somehow sneak aboard the Sword of Liberty and then take the big ship. Probable loss of 25% to 100% of the team, two shuttles, and maybe even the destroyer. More likely, none of it works at all and Kelley smokes our team from orbit because they’re still trying to take one or both of the stolen shuttles.”

Tomlinson grunted. “It seems like the two of you have already discounted that option. Very well, what’s next?”

Sykes turned to the next slide as it came to the fore. “Option two has a chance of succeeding, but the cost may be … prohibitive.”

She did not bother reading the slide, reading the two men’s eyes instead. “And that cost is?”

Volescu answered. “We use our anti-satellite and BMD inventory and take out the shuttles and the destroyer. A deadly weapon system, arguably the most advanced, destructive weapon system ever developed has been stolen, and we have no guarantees that Kelley and his crew only want to take it out into deep space to greet a bunch of aliens. He could intend to extort the whole world. Were this situation duplicated in a more familiar, terrestrial sphere, there would be no question. We would take the hijackers out.”

“Granted, General, but this is no simple stolen plane or tank. It’s not even a stolen submarine. This is currently our one and only existing defense against these Deltans.”

“I am aware of that, Madame President, but it is our most conventional recommended response, and it is the one I prefer. We have a decade or more before the Deltans arrive. We can build another.”

Sykes grimaced. “I agree with the General that we can build another, but not for some time. However, his option assumes we can shoot the damn thing down. I’m sure our arsenal would be effective against the stolen shuttles, but I am a great deal less sure about attacking the destroyer. It’s a good two or three tech generations beyond our missile defense network. And assuming Kelley is inclined to go off mission and is considering an attack on a terrestrial location, we would be ill-advised to make an ineffective first strike upon him. ‘Ms. Nuclear Retribution’ isn’t a real winner as far as re-election campaign slogans go.”

Tomlinson quietly considered the two men, looking from one to another. She shook her head and focused on Sykes. “Noted. Option three?”

Sykes turned to bring the last slide forward on the screen, but hesitated. “I can’t believe I’m saying this, but our third option is the one I’m going to be recommending. You, however, are not going to like it.”

“Get on with it, Carl.”

“Yes, ma’am.”

March 7, 2045; USS Sword of Liberty (DA-1); En route Earth Orbit; Mission Day 2

Nathan Kelley lay back in the Commanding Officer’s acceleration couch and looked at the Control Room’s central display. It revealed a beautiful, annotated, illuminated image of Earth with thousands of false color satellite tracks encircling it like rings, a chaotic, iridescent Saturn in miniature. It was an awe-inspiring view, but Nathan was left oddly hollow by it. He seemed to not know how to feel. At that moment, his emotions were a wild mixture of anticipation, exhilaration, contentment, and guilt—especially guilt, and for a couple of different reasons.

There was, of course, the matter of his theft of the Sword of Liberty and the risky abandoning of her innocent joint military crew. But that was largely offset by his conviction that this was the right way to go about things, that such a move was essential to the success of the mission. No, the main source of his guilt—as well as a not insignificant degree of gleeful satisfaction—was because of something he had done which was almost completely unrelated to the Sword’s intended purpose.

Kris popped up off of him with a mischievous smile. She grabbed up her shipsuit, slipping it and her underwear back on with a leisurely grace that he found much more enthralling than the fantastic image of the Earth from space.

She slapped his leg as she finished, interrupting him mid-stretch. “C’mon, spaceman. Get your skivvies on and shake a leg. We’re almost to yon orbit and’ll be strikin’ the mainsail and dumpin’ the scuppers. Ye don’t want to be caught in ye olde freefall with your ass hangin’ out all nekkid-like, do ye? Arrrrr.”

Nathan grinned and sat up, reaching for his own coveralls and paraphernalia. “It doesn’t matter how long you talk like that, you still aren’t a space pirate.”

“Space privateer, maybe?”

“Definitely not. That would involve government sanction—more or less the opposite of where we find ourselves.”

She shrugged. “Oh well, at least I’m a charter member of the 10,000 Mile High Club. And the 50,000 Mile High Club. And the 100,000—”

“And I can’t believe we did that. I’ve always been firmly against hanky-panky aboard ship. Contrary to good order and discipline and all that.”

Kris grinned, stepping in close as he finished dressing. “Well if it’s discipline you want … .” She leaned in and kissed him. “I’ll have no guilt out of you, slave. What else did you think would end up happening? A brand spankin’ new couple, alone on a damn spaceship, with nobody around for hundreds of thousands of miles, on the run from the law as it were? Face it—they’d have kicked you out of the Dude Union if you hadn’t gone for it. You’re practically a pioneering hero now!”

He smiled and kissed her back, his expression easy now, free of tension. “You’re right, Pirate Mate. Consider your leader properly abashed. Now let’s get ready to cut acceleration and maneuver for orbit.”

“Aye, aye, Cap’n! Arrrrrrr!”

They tidied up the Control Room to military precision again, then checked the instruments, verifying their position and velocity. Nathan began to search through the thousands of potential tracks as they approached, but the two SSTOS carrying their compatriots were right at the top of the track priority list. He selected the two shuttles, checked their orbital parameters, and let the computer automatically come up with a rendezvous course. With a few keystrokes, the new course was laid in and executed.

The main drive cut off and they were immediately in freefall. The ship bumped briefly as it turned to a new vector and then “gravity” returned—much reduced—as they maneuvered to join up with Edwards and the rest of the crew.

Nathan scrolled through a number of different displays, checking the status of each of the ship’s many, many mutually supporting systems. He paused at the defensive systems summary, relieved that the threat track list was blank for the moment. He had worried that as the Sword of Liberty closed with Earth and their treachery became apparent, Sykes or another trigger-happy type might try something. For the moment though, they were un-shot-at, and Nathan was glad that the fully ready laser emplacements and railgun had not been employed against missiles or other weapons from his own country.

Kris checked her own displays at her engineering console, verifying the status and health of the reactor, drive, auxiliary, and environmental systems. She really wanted to go check them out herself, but without a crew onboard, there was simply too much that remained to be done for her to have times to place hands on. Satisfied for the moment, she nodded and drifted to each of the other dedicated consoles on the perimeter of the brightly lit bridge/Control Room, squeezing Nathan’s shoulder in passing.

They continued in comfortable, busy silence for a few minutes, until Kris broke the calm with a low, “Oh, shit . . . .”

Nathan jerked his head up from his console and looked over to her. Kris floated, bent down over the Comms station, not bothering to sit in the miniscule gravity. “What’s up, babe?”

She turned to him, a half-smile frozen on her face. “You want the cool news or the ‘Holy Christ’ news first?”

He cocked an eyebrow, perplexed. “Well, if we’re not being shot at, give me the cool stuff and lead me up to the other. You do it the other way and it’ll suck all the coolness out by comparison.”

Kris grinned in full. “I’m tapped into the web, telecom network, and cable news via satellite uplink, and we’re pretty much the talk of the planet. The 24-hour news stations and sites are All-Sword-of-Liberty, all-the-time. Our website and e-mail queues are busting at the seams with traffic, and there are practically an infinite number of cell and radio-telephone calls in the hopper.”

“Are we answering any of them?”

“Nope. Just like you said, the auto-hailer and voicemail are shut down and we’re running silent, but they’re waiting anyways.”

“Any of those broadcasts or webcasts covering the hijacking?”

She shook her head. “Not a one. As far as the hoi polloi know, Colonel Henson, his military crew, and their two civilian riders are one big, happy space-family.”

“There’s no way they can’t know by now. Even if Henson’s STOSS is still too far away to make a direct call home, they have to have flagged our behavior as soon as we broke comms and left the shuttle behind. So they’re keeping things quiet. Okay. What about Dave Edwards and the others?”

Kris nodded. “I’ve got a burst data receipt from both STOSS’s. Everything’s quiet on their end and they’re standing by for rendezvous. Encryption is good and Edwards and Rainier both used the ‘Valkyrie’ code word. They’re not under duress.”

Nathan nodded back and grinned as well. “Well, everything seems to be coming together better than I hoped. That is cool. Now what’s the big news?”

Her smile grew more, flashing teeth. “The President’s on hold for you.”

Nathan’s grin dropped and he looked appalled. “Damn it, Kris. Voice or visual?”

“Visual. I’m putting it on the main screen, Star Trek style. Hope you’re zipped up, lover-boy.”

He shook his head in dismay and sat up straighter in his seat, facing the Bridge’s primary viewscreen. The view of Earth and her myriad orbits vanished, replaced by a close-in view of Annabel Tomlinson, looking perturbed. Behind her could be seen a conference room and several silent figures, generals, admirals, and civilians alike. Nathan set his jaw firmly and nodded. “Madame President, it’s an honor.”

There was the briefest, too-long pause as his signal crossed the minute gulf between them and her response flew back at the speed of light. Tomlinson’s expression remained hard, her voice icy. “How nice. Well, I would be honored if you would explain just what the hell you think you’re doing, Mr. Kelley.”

“I would’ve thought that would be completely obvious by now. We are proceeding on our mission as originally proposed and approved, before Sykes, and you, I suppose, changed things.”

“So you’re just going to take the ship that the US government built, that the taxpayers unknowingly paid for, and go haring about the galaxy to satisfy your own personal whims? You have a lot of gall.”

Nathan shook his head. “No, Ma’am. We have an essential mission for which we have trained and qualified, as well as a sense of dedication to our country and our leaders which won’t permit us to let this asset go with a lesser crew. I’m not trying to insult Colonel Henson or his team, but they are rank amateurs compared to the original Windward complement. If we wait for them to become our equals, our timeline for intercepting the Deltans at a relatively safe distance will fall by the wayside. We can’t permit that, and you should just accept it. To tell the truth, you should embrace it.”

The pause was a bit longer this time, despite the fact that every second brought them closer to Earth. Finally she spoke, her eyes seeming to lock with his even through the intermediaries of the screens and cameras. “I appreciate your position, Mr. Kelley, and I respect it in a way, but the fact remains that you are all civilians. You are not bound to the wishes of my administration, the will of the nation, or the strictures of the US Constitution. It would be criminal for me to allow you to go about your mission and enter negotiations with an alien race for this nation or for this planet. You simply haven’t the authority.”

“Well, Ma’am, then we find ourselves in a quandary, because while I might not have the authority, I’m the only one with the means. And I’m not going to give that up.”

Another pause, longer than the tiny light-speed lag. She appeared to be thinking, calculating. “Perhaps I should proceed as has been recommended, and simply shoot you down.”

Nathan’s eyes narrowed and a corner of his mouth turned up. “I don’t think ‘simply’ would be how I’d describe it. I’m not so arrogant as to believe that you couldn’t shoot this ship down—I have no idea what sort of directed energy or missile technology the DOD might have hidden away, perhaps even some tech used in the Sword’s own design. I think it would be a nasty fight, though, and not one you are guaranteed to win. In addition, I would fear for the collateral damage—both the physical kind from a statistically probable miss and the political kind when everyone sees the US shooting down her own destroyer. Madame President, I would think very carefully before listening to anyone advising you to do that.”

She nodded, more quickly this time. “I had come to much the same decision, though you might be surprised to note that I couldn’t really care less about the political firestorm such an action would unleash. Believe that or not. No, we aren’t going to shoot you down and we aren’t going to have you forcibly boarded. Instead, we are going to employ a much more subtle weapon against you.

“You are a man of honor and duty, willing to even break the law, to endanger your future as a free man if you see that as the course honor dictates. You sacrificed much in the wake of the USS Rivero’s sinking, but the biggest casualty was your tie to the traditions of military service. Both you and the Navy lost something when you resigned. I’m happy that you have found another cause to believe in, another worthy task in which to invest yourself, but your desires and your goodwill are not enough. If this mission is to be undertaken by you, the interests of the United States must be served first and foremost. Secretary Sykes, if you please.”

Nathan looked at Kris, confusion evident on both their faces. He looked back to the main screen to see the President move aside and Carl Sykes take center-stage. Sykes glared at him. “Nathan Kelley, please stand and raise your right hand.”

Nathan did so, numbly, hardly even thinking.

Sykes cleared his throat and stood at attention, his Air Force training coming to the fore. He did not bother with a note card. This was a passage each of the men knew by heart. “Repeat after me. I, state your name—”

“I, Nathaniel Robert Kelley—”

“—do solemnly swear that I will support and defend the Constitution of the United States against all enemies, foreign and domestic; that I will bear true faith and allegiance to the same; that I take this obligation freely, without any mental reservation or purpose of evasion; and that I will well and faithfully discharge the duties of the office on which I am about to enter. So help me God.”

Nathan repeated the oath of office, oblivious to the open-mouthed stare Kris gave him from off-camera.

Sykes relaxed and grinned with more than a hint of malice. “Checkmate. I know you, Commander Kelley. I know how you think, and no matter how you may have been intending to do business, you’ll do it the Navy way now. You’re my boy, and don’t you forget it. Now, Ms. Muñoz?”

Kris, fear making her eyes huge, peeked over into the edge of the camera’s field of view. Sykes smiled wide when he saw her. “Raise your right hand, Missy.”