He pushed a little harder on the joystick, picking up speed, then released the button, coasting rapidly. In under a minute he began to see debris whirling slowly past, mostly just ragged pieces of metal of every conceivable size. Exquisitely careful with the joystick now, Burkett used very little maneuvering gas when he had to swing wide of the space junk. Then he got back on the radial line.

  Another three minutes and he saw the metal-and-plastic hourglass shape of the combine, up ahead. Still no sign of Andrews.

  “Des, do you read me?” he called.

  Still only static.

  He got closer, within fifty meters of the object, and Des Andrews emerged from the other side of the combine. His headset crackled.

  “Y’…’kay, Lieuten…?”

  Burkett waved in answer, and Andrews waved back.

  In under a minute, he and Des were floating side by side in the shadow of the combine, their suit lights illuminating the dark side of the device. It was about thirty meters in length, and the widest parts at both conical ends were twice as wide as the “waist” where the cones met. Hardened charcoal-colored plastic panels alternated with thin steel around the cones. Two of the panels near the object’s waist had circular switches.

  The radio being unreliable, Burkett gestured for Des to carefully lean forward, to touch their helmet facings. They did so with a soft clack. Des was only inches away, but his voice transmitted through the glass sounded as if it were coming from a distance.

  “You heard my orders on the radio?”

  “No sir. We were headed for the combine, I figured I’d better go to it. Either that or go after you, but I couldn’t see you, Lieutenant.”

  “You did right. Let’s switch on Griskin’s toy.”

  “Sir—couldn’t this thing be switched on remotely?”

  “It won’t switch on remotely. InterplanetaryEx was afraid someone would hack the code remotely and misuse the combine.”

  “Misuse it like we’re going to, Lieutenant?” Burkett smiled. A little light irony out here felt good—like they were back on Earth.

  “Look to your right—see those two switches? They open the panels—you’ll see a green button. I’ll give a signal, and we each press a button simultaneously, and then a keypad will light up. Then we each put in a set of numbers. Mine is 550, and yours is 798. That’ll light it up. Then it’ll take our orders, if we can get the damned radio working. One thing at a time.”

  He pulled away, reached out for the nearest panel switch, and turned it. The panel slid aside. Des moved to the other panel—too far away for one man to accomplish both operations—and opened it.

  When Des gave a thumbs-up, indicating that he had located the green button, Burkett gave a hand signal. They pressed the buttons… and inside the panel a keypad lit up. The codes were entered…

  …and nothing happened.

  Burkett waited, one gloved hand on the panel frame. Then he felt a vibration pass through the metal, into his hand, and a moment later the two ends of the hourglass shape lit up, the light glowing an eerie green from small circular openings around the object’s dual bases.

  That’s it, he thought. Back to the S-7.

  Burkett turned and used his helmet’s zoom, trying to get a fix on the orbcraft. No sign of it. He checked to see if he was looking at the S-7’s position. He was—but he wasn’t. Because the orbcraft had moved.

  It was gone.

  * * *

  “What the hell do you mean you lost contact with them?” Chance demanded, sitting up. The motion sent a lance of pain through his left shoulder and he gritted his teeth as Lieutenant Colonel Baxter replied, the regret in his voice coming through even on the hand-screen.

  “The Russians are jamming them. We shouldn’t be talking about this—”

  “The fuck you say. If they’ve been shot down, I need to know it!”

  “We have no evidence that’s the case. The Agency’s being informed. You’re on sick leave. I just took your call because we’re…” He seemed reluctant to say “friends.” “…because we’ve worked together a long time. That’s all I know.”

  “Just tell me—Base One. Fully evacuated?”

  “All except the launch crew in the interceptor bunker.”

  “Bodies taken out?”

  “Yes. All of them. Volunteer team of Rangers went in, documented it as fast as they could, and took out the body bags. Everything you said checks out.”

  “That last bit I already knew—I was there! This is bullshit. If no one’s at Base One, where’s ground control for the S-7?”

  “Mobile unit a mile from SB-2. Only essential personnel.”

  “Yeah, well, I’m essential, whether they know it or not, and I’m going over there.”

  “You taking too many painkillers, Chance? You’re not talking rationally. You’ve got a busted shoulder. Lie there and wait for information.”

  “I don’t take orders from you, Baxter.”

  “If you don’t chill out, I’m going to call Director Blackwell,” the Colonel said. “I’ve got to go; we’re still trying to establish communication. I’ll let you know if we succeed.” Before Chance could reply, Baxter broke the connection.

  Grimacing, Chance started to get out of bed, just as Rosella, the plump Filipino military nurse, came in.

  “You don’t get up, Mr. Chance,” she said. “You need the head I’ll bring you a bowl or whatever.”

  “I’m checking out of here. I’ve got business.”

  “You are going nowhere till you’re properly discharged.” Her voice was calm, and yet chilled with authority. “You’re still healing. You could get an embolism if you go bumbling around. Lie back down or I’ll call an MP.”

  On the other side of the partition, Frelling hooted with laughter.

  “She’s got you by the nuts, chief!”

  “Frelling, shaddup,” Chance snarled. He stared at Rosella. “What do you think you’re doing?” She was injecting a clear fluid into his IV.

  “You’re going to take a nap, Agent Chance. Nurse’s orders.”

  “The hell I am! I… it’s… oh Jeezus. I think I… have to… to lie down.”

  TWENTY-SEVEN

  What are we going to do when Burkett gets back and finds us gone, Captain?” Megan Lang asked, floating up to grip the flight deck hatch frame. “We’re about fifty klicks from our former position.”

  “I’m fully aware of that, Sergeant,” Captain Mayweather said irritably. Was she doubting his strategy? His orders?

  Because he sure was doubting them.

  As he hung onto a strap, watching Sergeant Strickland and Dr. Magonier working to add a new fixture on the radio, to do an end-run around the jamming, Mayweather was seriously doubting his own judgment. Partly it was because he’d had very little sleep in the last seventy-two hours—which wasn’t ideal for making good decisions—and partly because… Syrkin.

  He was haunted by all that had happened with Alexi Syrkin.

  “It’s a… complex situation, Sergeant Lang,” he said. He’d almost said a bloody mess. “Just before the radio went down, we were radar scanned by the pricks in the battle station. There’s a good chance they might be planning to spend one of their remaining missiles on us. Radar and lidar has them set up near their original position over Base One, but closer to us.

  “We’ve moved to an area that’s more difficult for them to target, just temporarily. But I still want them to know we’re here. It seems to have restrained them from firing the missiles so far, so I’m staying within their radar range. Burkett and Andrews have a job to do, and we’ll pick them up en route to our staging position.”

  But if we don’t time it right, he and Andrews are going to die out there. Only we can’t confer with them because of the radio jamming…

  Megan nodded. Something in his tone seemed to have struck home.

  “Yes sir. I understand.”

  “Any progress on that thing, Sergeant Strickland?” he asked. Magonier had a plan to piggyback their radio comms on their radar transmissions. It’d be an intermittent pulse of communication, but it might work. Magonier had had been part of a team that had developed the method for EuroIntel.

  “Oui, yes, j’espere—yes,” Magonier said, screwing a wire down onto a modulation device. Both he and Strickland wore magnetic boots so they could work without floating away. “Radio will now go through this unit. It is on a quite different frequency than any the Russians would think to jam.”

  “Okay, we can try it now, sir,” Strickland said, standing up and moving, her boots clanking to her seat. She activated the radio, and Mayweather spoke.

  “Lieutenant Burkett, we have a new system in place. There may be some lag. Do you read me?”

  “I read you. Only you moved the ship, so…is this goodbye?”

  “Don’t tempt me, Burkett. Russians were getting a fix on us, we had to dodge it. What’s your status?”

  “Mission complete, we’re heading back to—to where you were before anyhow.”

  “Yeah!” Lang said, happily slapping the bulkhead.

  “Actually, Andrews is towing me back. I ran out of maneuvering nitrogen. Told him I could get him a job with Triple-A, but he’s not interested.”

  Even Mayweather smiled. “A relief to hear your voice, Art. We’ll meet you there.”

  * * *

  It was getting hot in the orbcraft. The coolant system was overburdened, partly because the air filters were choked up. Holding onto the strap at the hatch, looking past Faraday and Strickland at the flight deck’s readout, Burkett had his eyes on a green blip in the holographic chart: Griskin’s combine.

  “Is the combine out of the junkyard?” he asked.

  “Yes sir,” Strickland said. “Moving slow, exactly the way we told it to move.”

  With luck, he thought, if the Russians notice it, they’ll take it for just more space debris. They were focused on the S-7 and Base One.

  Burkett coughed. Over the last hour he’d noticed he wasn’t breathing easily. He thought the air was becoming a little blurred, like a slightly steamy window. Certainly, it smelled heavily of everything human, along with solder smoke and old food. There was something else in the air, too—a sense of imminence.

  This is it. One way or another, it’d all be over soon. He’d seen the Rangers typing into hand-screens. The solemn looks on their faces told him it was letters to family. Goodbye letters. Hoping they had a chance to transmit them before it was over.

  The S-7 sent an updated status report to Lieutenant Colonel Baxter and Sergeant Prosser. Then they carried out a short main-engine burn, along with maneuvering thrusters, and now the orbcraft was on its way to the zenith position a quarter-klick “above” the battle station. Soon the assault team would have to get into biosuits.

  There was no way to get into the battle station—not alive. The Russians would be in close control of the airlock, but there might be another way to capture Gogol-1.

  “Where’s the Captain?” Burkett asked, glancing over his shoulder.

  “Doing something in aft storage,” Faraday muttered. “I think he was looking for a spare air filter. God knows we could use one.”

  “How far from attack position?”

  “Forty-two kilometers and ninety meters,” the pilot said.

  “Oh shit!” Strickland burst out, gaping at one of her monitors.

  “Any chance of a more professional announcement, Sergeant?” Burkett said.

  “Gogol-1 has launched three missiles, sir! They’re headed for SB-One!”

  “They’re really booking, full speed and direct,” Faraday muttered, looking at the screen.

  “There’s no one there,” Strickland said. “What’re they hoping to accomplish? Do they really want a world war?” As they watched the blips on the holo monitor, several Rangers crowded into the hatch behind him.

  “In upper atmosphere now,” Faraday murmured. “Slowing, feathering for heat resistance. And… ah! The interceptors have launched!”

  Another two breathless minutes—Strickland checking for anything coming in their direction, too, and not finding any—and then—

  “Direct hit on two missiles! They’re down! But one got through!”

  “Is there another interceptor?”

  “Yes,” she said, almost inaudibly. “Um—yes sir. It… seems to have missed. Russian missile has directly impacted Building A.”

  “Three billion dollars in Drop-Heavy command infrastructure,” Burkett said, unable to keep bitterness from his voice. “I… we…” He didn’t finish it out loud. We were supposed to stop that from happening.

  Suppose it triggered a world war.

  “The base was deserted, though,” Faraday said. “Nothing but drones there. That’s something.”

  Burkett nodded. “Yeah.”

  “What’s gone down?” Mayweather said on the headset. “I couldn’t get it clear.”

  “Russians launched missiles at SubOrbital Base One, Captain,” Burkett said. “Two shot down, one got through. Building A is destroyed. No one was there to be killed, but—”

  “Agency thought they might have four of those things left. They may have saved one for us, Lieutenant.”

  “Seems likely.”

  “Everyone feel as physically shitty as I do?”

  “I believe that would be a big yes, there, Captain.”

  “Break out the energy bars. The powerful ones with the cognitive enhancement. Everybody gets one. Team Alpha into biosuits, right now—and everyone else gets their butts back in seats. We’re due to be in combat range in about eleven minutes, if the computer’s right.”

  “Yes sir.”

  Team Alpha for this operation was Lance Corporal Cha, Cpl. Tafir Dabiri, Sgt. Megan Lang, and Burkett. As Burkett finished issuing orders, Sergeant Prosser called from SB-2 with a news report.

  “President is finally growing a spine,” she said. “He’s warning that if Gogol-1 gets any reinforcements or even resupplies, he’ll consider it an act of war. Any further rocket launches by Russia into space, at this point, will be also regarded as an act of war. He’s demanding that the battle station surrender before anyone else is hurt. The Russian foreign minister claims Gogol-1 was only defending itself and says that there are no plans to order a surrender.

  “CIA reports to Drop-Heavy that Krozkov is reportedly taking over the Kremlin—anyway, he’s in charge of all this, and Veronin is a no-show.”

  “Not long ago Veronin was banging his shoe or something at the UN,” Burkett said.

  “He’s gone to ground somewhere,” Prosser said. “Leaving Krozkov in charge of the ROA.”

  “Great,” Burkett replied. “Krozkov in charge. He’s hawkish on everything.”

  “If the President is growing a spine,” Faraday said, “how are we not getting reinforcements?”

  “Because the Russians say that will be an act of war against them. Things are hair-trigger, Lieutenant Faraday. Best thing is to end this quickly. We can’t just starve them out of that thing, because they fired on a US base. We need to take Gogol-1 down for that. Maybe that’s the President’s political calculation—for the next election.”

  “Sounds like Alpha had better suit up fast,” Burkett said.

  * * *

  They were in their biosuits, apart from the helmets, when Faraday called.

  “Lieutenant Burkett, to flight deck!”

  Burkett pushed off, drifting rapidly forward—by this time expertly, using chair backs to correct direction. He was there in seconds.

  “Lieutenant,” Strickland said, “there are two objects right in our path—I thought they were just space junk, and maybe they’re supposed to look like it, but they are identical. Stellated dodecahedrons, computer says, each about three meters in radius. They look like goddamn Christmas tree ornaments.”

  “Identical? Those are orbital mines! How close?”

  “One thousand meters and closing!”

  “Evasive, Ike,” Burkett said as he gripped the strap and checked the holo monitor.

  “Already on it, sir,” Ike said as his fingers danced over the controls. “Hold on!”

  “On my way forward,” Mayweather said in the headset.

  The monitor showed the two objects, one directly above the other, relative to the trajectory of the S-7. The orbcraft fired braking retros, then forward attitudinal thrusters so the vessel tilted to slide down below the oncoming mines. Burkett held on against inertia as they burned to undercut the mines, and glanced back to find Mayweather holding onto the back of Rod’s seat, his face strained.

  “Where are the mines now?” Burkett said, trying not to shout the words.

  “One’s close behind us—”

  “Jesus God, I left the aft compartment hatch open,” Captain Mayweather burst out, turning and pushing madly toward the rear.

  “Captain, send Dorman, he’s in the back of the cabin!” Burkett shouted. But racing to the aft, Mayweather ignored him. He rushed to the aft hatch.

  “My fault, I gotta close the…”

  Strickland scanned the data. “Maneuvering thrusters knocked one of the mines off toward Griskin’s junkyard, but the other one—”

  There was the perfect merging of a thud and a clang as the ship wrenched in space. Only the computer’s thrust stabilizer kept them from spinning off into infinite night. The impact of the exploding mine, coming from the rear of the vessel, threw them forward and then backward. Burkett was wrenched from his hold, flung toward the aft, tumbling over the cabin seats. His head spun as his body did the same, but he glimpsed a ceiling ring and grabbed it, arresting his motion, grunting from the jerking in the joints of his right arm and shoulder.

  No time for anything to be dislocated, he thought.

  The vessel stabilized and Burkett caught his breath. “Depressurization in the aft compartment,” Faraday said in his headset. “All other areas of the ship have airtight integrity.”

  Rodriguez’s voice was next. “Lieutenant Burkett, you’d better come back here…” There was something especially grave about his tone.

  “Coming. Ike, get back on track for now. Stay alert.”

  “Roger that, Lieutenant.”