“And even if they can get inside the perimeter force field, do any of them have anything which will kill those goddamn Alamo Avengers?” Wilson asked. He was aware of Anna giving him an anxious glance. Tiny slivers of gold rippled out from her eyes as she realigned her virtual visual display to access the security data directly.
“I do not believe so,” the SI said. “One of the causes of the Alamo Avenger’s enduring reputation is the sheer power contained within it. They were hugely cost-ineffective to build, had a poor range, and limited tactical ability. Yet their effectiveness against United Federal emplacements was almost one hundred percent. The Single Star Republic came very close to its goal of turning Austin into an Isolated.”
“You mean we don’t have guns inside the complex big enough to take them out?”
“No. But the Security Directorate does have the necessary firepower, especially given the age of the Alamo Avenger force field generator design. However, you will have to wait until they arrive. Their Anshun deployment should start in twenty-five minutes.”
Wilson took another look at the display screen. He and Anna had set up their command post in a crew office that had several network systems and arrays installed, though precious little else. The walls and flooring were still raw structural panels; ducting ran across the ceiling like a pair of dull-silver serpents twined in a mating position. So far, three console screens were set up to show crude representations of the starship’s internal status, while the remaining two were being fed images from the cameras around the assembly platform. There hadn’t been a repeat of the explosion in the assessment room beyond the gateway, but that wasn’t what he worried about seeing now.
“Are they under the perimeter yet?” he asked the SI.
“Most definitely. The volume of earth they are ejecting behind them has not decreased. Our best estimate already puts them one hundred and eighty meters inside the force field. They will probably surface soon.”
“How long till they reach the gateway?” Anna asked. Her OCtattoos had sunk into quiescence. She was looking directly at the screen that showed the camera image covering the gateway from inside the assembly platform.
“The shortest time is six minutes,” the SI said. “To derive that, we are assuming they will continue underground until they are underneath the complex’s buildings before surfacing. That tactic means they will not have to expend any energy breaking through the building wall’s force fields.”
“Okay, let me have it straight: Can the Alamo Avengers break through the gateway force field?”
“If their original specifications have not been downgraded, our estimate is that it will take at most two shots from a particle lance to break through the gateway force field’s cohesion.”
“Son of a bitch.” Wilson growled it through clenched teeth. He kept telling himself that it wasn’t even dying in this body that frightened him—there was enough bandwidth in the satellite link to download his memory into a secure store right up until the last instant. No, it was being unable to defend the project from some bunch of half-assed anarchist terrorist freaks. The project didn’t deserve this; they were trying to achieve something noble and right with the starship. No piece-of-shit trendy-cause rebel outside the political process had the right to screw with that. Not to mention the time and money and—goddamn it!—lives which had been poured into its construction.
“I can probably route some additional power from the ship to the platform’s force field generator,” Anna said. Platinum spirals were rotating slowly around her eyes as she studied a network schematic within her virtual visual. “One of the niling d-sinks is partially charged; that should give us enough power to last for hours. I think I can route it through the superconductor cabling; we just have to reprogram the umbilical junctions to reverse the flow.”
“Can you help us with that?” Wilson asked the SI.
“From our analysis of your resources, your power output is actually capable of exceeding the force field generator’s designated input,” the SI said. “However, the generator was never designed to withstand the kind of stress inflicted from a particle lance. One Alamo Avenger could break through relatively quickly. Two in combination will require less than ten seconds.”
“Fuck it!” Wilson raged. “You have to close the gateway for us. They cannot be allowed to destroy this starship.” He wanted to add: It’s not fair, the Second Chancedeserves her shot at history, she shouldn’t die like this, not stillbirthed.
“The fireshields erected around the gateway network are proving exceptionally resolute,” the SI said. “We have so far broken three. The fourth utilizes one hundred and sixty dimension geometry encryption. It will take us several minutes to crack it.”
“We don’t have several minutes!”
“Our calculations are not in error.”
Wilson twisted his body to look at Anna. She was floating in front of the console, gazing at the screen that displayed the ship schematic. Her hands pressed tight against the console i-spot; gold glyptics chased slow strange patterns across the stretched skin of her forearms.
“Is there any kind of weapon installed?” he asked desperately.
Her virtual hands were pulling data out of the array as if by brute physical force. “No, sir. Nothing.”
“Goddamnit!” He punched at the nearest surface with his free hand, sending his body into a nasty twist, which strained the hand he was holding himself in place with.
“Any sign of them breaking surface yet?” He was just going to have to leave it all to the SI, and pray it could break the fireshield in time.
“No,” the SI said.
“Okay. Will you please set up a store to receive the memories of everyone on board. If you can’t close down the gateway, they’ll have to be transferred to the clinic which performs the re-life procedures.”
“We will do that, of course. But there is now a new problem.”
Anna gave Wilson an anguished look. He could see how hard it was for her to keep going, the effort it required to stay resolute. Executive management was hardly training for this kind of situation. He would have to consider that carefully later—once they survived this. In the meantime there wasn’t much he could say to help. “What now?” he asked levelly.
“Anshun Civil Flight Control is tracking two unauthorized spaceplane launches from an island close to the equator.”
“What kind of launch?”
“Unknown. But they appear to be accelerating into a retrograde orbit.”
It took Wilson a second to work out the implication. “They’re heading for us,” he murmured.
“It would appear so, yes.”
“How long?”
“If their acceleration remains constant, eight minutes.”
“Have you got any idea of their size?”
“From their radar return, they appear to be medium-lift spaceplanes. If so, they will mass around two hundred and fifty tons each, unloaded.”
Wilson didn’t even try to do the math in his head. Two hundred fifty tons impacting at a combined speed of twice orbital velocity… “They don’t even need to carry a warhead,” he said. And it didn’t matter anymore if the gateway was switched off or not. If the Alamo Avengers didn’t get them, then kinetics would.
Somebody somewhere really hates us, Wilson thought. Why, though? What’s the point, wewill get to the Dyson Pair eventually. I’ll re-life, and by Christ I’ll fly this ship yet.
And with that the muscles in his arms locked in shock. “Anna! We pressure tested the fuel tanks two weeks ago. I remember the schedule.”
“Yes,” she said cautiously.
“Is there any fluid left in the tank?”
The concrete floor in cosmic radiation test laboratory 7D quaked slightly. Equipment juddered along benches and desks. A soft roaring sound was just audible, its volume increasing in tandem with the ferocity of the quakes. Cracks began to appear across the floor, with little splinters of concrete flaking off to jump and spin across the now-unstable surface. Ceiling-mounted cameras scanned back and forth. But the only illumination in the laboratory was a pale amber emergency lighting that had come on after the complex generators had been sabotaged. It provided a poor resolution.