Lifeline

Chapter 63

KIBALCHICH—Day 72

Karen pounded on the sealed door to the command center. “Anna!” A smear of blood marked the surface where her raw fists had beaten against the metal. She heard nothing from inside. Anna Tripolk refused to respond at all. “{{FOUR HUNDRED SECONDS TO DETONATION.}}”

“Please, Anna! Open the door!” Her voice broke as she became frantic. She waited and listened, but heard no other sound from the command center. She had to get inside.

Karen felt trapped. She could not possibly get her suit on in so short a time. Four hundred seconds, less than seven minutes. Ramis was still outside.

“{{THREE HUNDRED SECONDS TO DETONATION.}}”

The computer’s voice filtered through the intercom, so she knew she was hearing the inside of the command center. What if Anna had passed out? Had some sort of breakdown? Karen knew the other woman was unstable.

“Anna, answer me! Are you all right?”

She felt like a hypocrite. Anna would not believe any show of concern from her, but Karen at least expected a response. She pounded on the door again.

Karen tried to calm herself, to think of any way possible to get into the room. Anchoring herself against the power lift floor, she pressed her raw palms against the metal and tried to push it aside, hoping it had some sort of emergency override system. But nothing happened. She saw only the intercom, no door controls. And she knew nothing of electronics anyway, nor did she have any tools, even if she could find a way to jury-rig some way to break in.

Okay, think! She ran a hand through her hair. Her reddish curls were straight, soaked with sweat. She found herself breathing faster. There had to be a way to get inside, a back door.…

“{{TWO HUNDRED SECONDS TO DETONATION.}}”

In about three minutes, some sort of weapon was going to go off beneath the Kibalchich and destroy the Phoenix. Or maybe Anna had set it to destroy all of Orbitech 1 instead.

And Ramis! Anna had locked him outside, left him unprotected. Karen had no way to contact him. He was going to be roasted in the detonation. He was going to die, along with all the other people Anna Tripolk had targeted.

“{{ONE HUNDRED SECONDS TO DETONATION.}}”

“I know what time it is! Stop reminding me!” she screamed into the intercom. After a brief pause, the computer voice spoke again.

“{{AUDIO OVERRIDE ACCOMPLISHED. VERBAL COUNTDOWN DISCONTINUED.}}”

Karen blinked in astonishment and choked with sudden hope. She had to act fast. If the computer was voice-activated, she might be able to communicate over the intercom. The computer would not know, or care, if she was physically inside the room or not.

“Computer, confirm access to command controls!”

“{{AFFIRMATIVE. CONFIRMATION AUTHORIZED BY COMMANDER TRIPOLK.}}”

“Continue verbal countdown! In one-second intervals.” She didn’t want to hear how little time she had, but still, she needed to know.

“{{EIGHTY-EIGHT. EIGHTY-SEVEN …}}”

Karen pressed her lips up against the speaker. The descending numbers seemed to roll through the lift-platform corridor, washing over her. “Computer, stop the detonation sequence!” But the computer did not acknowledge, “{{EIGHTY-ONE. EIGHTY. SEVENTY-NINE …}}”

“End the detonation sequence! Cancel! Abort! Halt! Quit! Stop!” Computer language semantics—she had to use the right word. Or perhaps only Anna Tripolk could stop what she had started.

“{{SIXTY-EIGHT. SIXTY-SEVEN …}}”

Karen screamed, “Computer, open the command center door!”

The outer elevator door slid open. Karen pushed inside, slammed at the control panel, and floated up from the floor. The door in front of her face hissed open, leaving her to stand weightless on the threshold. The air smelled stagnant with sweat. Inside, the command center was silent, daring her to enter.

Karen grasped the lip of the door and pulled herself forward, finally noticing tiny drops of blood from her battered fists smearing the outside wall. She flexed her hand, not yet feeling any pain in her adrenaline shock, but knowing it would come.

She pushed outward and sailed into the room. Anna lay slumped in the chair. The holotank in the center of the room showed a three-dimensional graphic of the nuclear weapon sitting behind the solar shield.

“{{FIFTY-ONE. FIFTY …}}”

“Anna! Stop it!”

Karen hit the opposite wall and bounced back toward Anna. Reaching out, she grabbed at the command chair, and the motion set her feet spinning. She stopped her rotation. “Anna!”

Anna Tripolk’s head hung limp.

“{{FORTY-FIVE. FORTY-FOUR …}}”

She shouted one more time at the walls. “Computer! Stop the countdown!” Then she added, for good measure, “That’s an order!”

The computer answered, “{{ACCESS DENIED.}}” then continued its countdown.

Karen breathed deeply through her nose. The War. And now, the end.

She wondered how much she would be able to feel or sense when the warhead went off. She squeezed her eyes shut.

What if Dr. Sandovaal does not make it? thought Ramis. He has pulled too many rabbits out of his hat—perhaps he cannot maneuver the sail-creatures fast enough to escape. Ramis remembered how sluggish Sarat had been at the end of its journey. Ramis didn’t even know if Dr. Sandovaal had received his warning.

He tried to open the sealed airlock door one more time, felt the vibration rippling up his arm. Anna Tripolk had locked him out, leaving only Karen inside to reason with her.

The superstructure did not look any more formidable to Ramis than when he had first arrived—had it been three weeks, already? The graphite-composite rod that held up the giant dish mirror jutted above him. Orbitech 1 gleamed a hundred kilometers away, its details masked by the distance. Ramis turned around and scanned the stars—he could make out the sail-creatures only dimly.

But that did not stop him.

If he had heard Anna correctly through the muffled bulkhead door, then this mirror was the key to the weapon system. It might aim the destructive beam and reflect it to the target, pinpointing either the Phoenix or Orbitech 1.

Ramis stared at the mirror, bending backward to see better over the curve of his faceplate. His magnetized soles clicked against the Kibalchich’s hull as he tested his stretch. He would have to add extra strength in his jump, extend himself to compensate for the brief tug of the magnet’s grip.

And if he missed the mirror, he would go flying off into space.

His time was running short. The weapon would detonate within seconds if he believed the clock on his heads-up display. He had no other choice.

The Jumping on the Aguinaldo, the trip to Orbitech 1, the hundred-kilometer Jump to the Kibalchich—all seemed minor compared to this task: a mere twenty-five-meter hop, no farther than the length of a small rice paddy … yet he was now truly alone: no hull to catch him, no sail-creature to nudge him, no weavewire to send him bouncing back if he missed.

Ramis aimed his body carefully, bending deep to get the most push possible, and jumped as hard as he could. He shot up and reached out. The ring mirror seemed to be just beyond his grasp.

He snagged the edge with his curled fingertips and jerked himself around. He felt his muscles strain with the sudden change; his arm was nearly yanked from its socket.

“Booto!” he cursed, coughing from the pain and surprised at his own profanity. Wincing, his eyes shut, he hauled himself to the surface and crawled to the unfinished side. From the impact the mirror bent, rocked against its support, and began oscillating. He tried to increase the rocking motion by crawling and swaying across the mirror.

Ramis felt like laughing. Anna would never be able to aim her weapon now.

Red lights blinked in the Kibalchich’s command center. A siren shrieked up and down the scale, making Karen jerk. Dozens of windows opened up in the central holotank, displaying a visual of the giant mirror from different external cameras. Oscillation rates, yaws, periodicity, and pitch angles all flashed in red. The mirror rocked back and forth, held in the center by the single graphite rod. The carefully configured parabolic shape had been bent from some kind of impact.

“{{UNABLE TO OBTAIN TARGET LOCK. MIRROR WILL REMAIN UNSTABLE FOR SEVENTY-FOUR POINT SIX TWO MINUTES. UNABLE TO DETERMINE AIMING ABILITY OF NEW MIRROR CONFIGURATION.}}”

The computer fell silent; a second passed.

“{{DETONATION SEQUENCE ABORTED.}}”