The technicians directing the boarding ushered through a mixed group, among them Charlie Hu, carrying a canvas bag slung over one shoulder. He stopped in front of Keene and regarded him evenly.
“Well, Lan. . . .”
“I guess it’s time, Charlie.”
Hu looked past Keene, and his brow knotted. Cavan and Alicia were standing watching, but with Colby and the military officers, not with the line that was moving forward to board.
“I changed my mind,” Alicia said in answer to the question written across Hu’s face. “I’m too much the romantic. . . . Lan going off all the way to Texas to find this woman. I have to see what happens.”
Hu looked at Cavan. “I can’t do anything. She’s crazy,” was all that Cavan had to offer. Hu frowned; then his eyes moved to Keene. Keene said nothing. Theirs, along with Keene’s, meant three extra places available.
“We do have a couple with two young sons,” the Launch Supervisor said, keeping his tone neutral. “They’re next on the draw, but we had to put them down for the second launch.”
Sariena and Gallian had gone. The remaining passengers were moving through quickly. Charlie looked from Keene to the others, and then around. The family was standing anxiously a short distance away, where they had been told to wait in case something changed. “Shit!” He unslung his bag, and stepped aside to join the others. Without further ado, the Supervisor waved the family forward, and a technician followed them into the access tunnel. Keene and the others began making their way up to the control room where they had talked to Idorf earlier, from where the launch would be initiated.
Thirty minutes later, the first Boxcar roared skyward trailing a plume of flame and quickly vanished into the turbulent overcast. There would be no guidance from the ground, or even knowledge that it had reached the Osiris unless a contact was reestablished through Amspace or via some other means. Piloting would be entirely manual and rely on the homing signal that Idorf had promised. It would take about an hour for the Boxcar to climb to the distance that Idorf had pulled the Osiris back to and match its orbit.
With the first launch completed, the crew that had been working to free the doors of the second launch bay was able to go back outside and resume. Until they were through, there was little for anyone else to do. Charlie Hu and Colby remained in the control room with the engineers keeping the communications vigil. Alicia, who was a trained nurse, was helping with the casualties. Keene and Cavan, the leaders of the two military squads and their aircrews, accompanied by six of Mitch’s twenty-two Special Forces troopers, went out to the hangars by the runway area to check their aircraft.
* * *
Most of the buildings had sections of roof or wall torn away, and all were missing windows. The spaces and roadways between were covered with rubble and broken glass. One office block had been cleaved through the middle by a steel-frame tower which now lay twisted amid piles of desks, file cabinets, wall sections and other wreckage that had spilled from the sagging floors. A number of cars, some turned over on their sides, were buried under wreckage, two more thrown against the chain-link fence separating the runways from the launch complex. Medics wearing helmets with red crosses were tending a blood-covered figure on the ground, while APs and others struggled to extricate another. Three more forms laid out nearby were not moving.
The runways beyond were littered with fallen gravel and wind-blown debris. An earthmover with a blade would be needed to clear the way before any takeoffs could be attempted. True, the Rustler could get off vertically or from a football field if it had to, but it gulped fuel doing so. The control tower was a splintered shell open to the winds and looked out of commission, although figures were moving around inside. The other base buildings were all damaged, and a fire had started in one of them. The group from the launch complex walked on, saying little, their boots crunching on the grit and gravel. Keene stooped and picked up a piece curiously. It was still warm, not especially dense, like a bit of sinter from a furnace. A year before, it had been part of Jupiter.