The Silent War

FLIGHT PLANS

Pancho knew she had to think swiftly, but the fog of fatigue and radiation sickness made her feel as if she were wrapped in heavy wet blankets.

Propellant bingo, she said to herself. There’s still enough juice for an automated landing. But not enough to reach the base. Override the automatics and push this bird as far as she’ll go? Do that and you won’t land, you’ll crash on the landing pad—if you get that far. Let the bird coast and come down wherever it reaches? Do that and you’ll land in the middle of nowhere. No, you won’t land, you’ll crash on the rocks.

“We have a good track on you, Ms. Lane, and we’re getting some satellite imagery, as well,” said the Malapert controller’s voice. “You’re not going to reach the base, I’m afraid. We’re gearing up a search and rescue team. If you can find a reasonably flat place to set down, we’ll come out and get you.”

“Copy search and rescue operation,” Pancho said, her throat painfully dry. “I’ll set her down as close to the base as I can.”

If I can stay on my feet long enough, she added silently.

“Malapert?” she called, her voice little more than a croak now. “Malapert here, Ms. Lane.”

“Better include some medics in the S R team. I got me a healthy dose of radiation.”

The barest fraction of a second’s hesitation. Then, “Understood, Ms. Lane.”

Okay, Pancho said to herself. Now all you gotta do is stay awake long enough to put this bird on the ground without breaking your neck. She wanted to smile. If I wasn’t so pooped-out tired, this would be kinda fun.

Some half a billion kilometers away, Dorik Harbin decided to leave Samarkand’s bridge and inspect the ship personally. They were fully enveloped by the radiation storm now, and although all the ship’s systems were performing adequately, Harbin knew that the crew felt edgy about flying blind and deaf inside a vast cloud of high-energy particles that could kill an unshielded man in moments.

The monitors on the control panels were all in the green, he saw, except for a few minor pieces of machinery that needed maintenance. I’ll get the crew working on them, Harbin thought as he got up from his command chair. It will be good for their morale to have something to do instead of just waiting for the radiation level to back down to normal.

He gave the con to his pilot and stepped to the hatch. Turning back for a moment, he glanced once more at the radiation shielding monitors. All green. Good.

Aboard Cromwell the skipper awoke minutes before his number one called on the intercom. He hauled himself out of his bunk, washed his face and pulled on a fresh set of coveralls. No need to brush his hair: It was shaved down to within a centimeter of his scalp.

He entered the bridge and saw that all the ship’s systems were operating within nominal limits. And they were still sailing inside the cloud of ionized particles. Its radiation intensity had diminished, though, he noted. The cloud was thinning out as it drifted outward from the Sun.

“Are we still shielded against radar?” he asked his communication technician.

“Theoretically, sir,” the man answered with a nod.

“I’m not interested in theory, mister,” snapped the skipper. “Can the radars on Vesta spot us or not?”

The technician blinked once, then replied, “No, sir. Not unless they pump up their output power to two or three times their normal operational mode, sir.”

Not unless, the captain grumbled to himself.

“You holler out loud and clear if we get pinged,” he told the commtech.

“Yes, sir. Loud and clear.”

Pointing at the weapons technician, the skipper said, “Time for a skull session. In my quarters.”

The weapons tech was actually a physicist from Astro Corporation’s nanotechnology department, so tall he was continually banging his head on the hatches as he stepped through them, so young he looked like a teenager, but without the usual teenaged pose of sullen indifference. Instead, he was bright, cheerful, enthusiastic.

Yet he looked somber now as he ducked low enough to get through the hatch without thumping his straw-thatched head against the coaming.

“We’ll be at the decision point in a few minutes,” the captain said as he sat on his bunk and gestured the younger man to the only chair in the compartment.

“Eighteen minutes,” said the physicist, “and counting.”

“Is there any reason why we shouldn’t release the missiles then?”

The physicist’s pale blond brows rose questioningly. “The plan calls—”

“I know what the plan calls for,” the captain interrupted impatiently. “What I’m asking is, are the missiles ready to be released?”

“Yessir, they are. I checked them less than an hour ago.”

The captain looked into the youngster’s cool blue eyes. I can fire off the missiles and get us the hell out of here, he told himself.

“But if we wait until the final release point their chances of getting to Vesta without being detected or intercepted are a whole lot better,” said the younger man.

“I understand that.”

“There’s no reason I can see for releasing them early.”

The captain said nothing, thinking that this kid was a typical scientist. As long as all the displays on the consoles were in the green he thought everything was fine. On the other hand, if I fire the missiles early and something goes wrong, he’ll tell his superiors that it was my fault.

“Very well,” he said at last. “I want you to calculate interim release points—”

“Interim?”

“Give me three more points along our approach path to Vesta where I can release those birds.”

“Three points short of the predetermined release point?”

“That’s right.”

The kid broke into a grin. “Oh, that’s easy. I can do that right here.” And he pulled his handheld from the breast pocket of his coveralls.