“Charlie,” Keene shot across. “Would it be feasible for the ship in front to intercept the ID code from the ship following, retransmit it, and use some kind of ECM to blot out anything else from the ship behind?” he asked.
Hu looked at him strangely for a moment, then nodded. “Sure . . . if you had somebody who knew what they were doing. Just about any ship would carry the equipment you’d need.”
Keene moistened his lips. He looked back at Idorf. “That view of the Kronians is a fake,” he said. “They’re not there at all. The background is being manufactured.”
Idorf’s face hardened. “Target both objects,” he instructed off-screen.
Keene felt perspiration on his forehead. Everyone else was leaving it to him now, with no idea of how his mind was working. There was no time to debate with them.
Voler and his party had left at first light in a T-43 jet transport, heading south and climbing. Keene did a quick mental calculation, then added several hours for storming a launch pad, taking up a shuttle that had been readied in hope of arriving emigrants, making orbit, and maneuvering into position. “Guatemala,” he muttered aloud. “That’s where they went. They seized a shuttle at Tapapeque. That’s what the lead ship is.” Colby looked emptily at Cavan. Cavan shook his head and shrugged. Keene followed his reasoning through, visualizing in his mind what would happen if the seized shuttle were allowed to dock with the Osiris by an unsuspecting crew expecting other Kronians. A FAST team, armed and waiting to go, would take the ship in minutes. And then, the full extent of what was intended unrolled itself in all its ghastliness. The Boxcar and everyone in it were sacrificial. Idorf was being urged to fire on it—with his own people aboard—to provide a diversion and maximize the surprise when the shuttle carrying Voler and his force docked.
And with extra room aboard the Osiris thus created, and its defenses neutralized, how many more of Voler’s “elite” would be brought up afterward? With all but a skeleton crew to fly the ship eliminated, how many of their kind would go to Kronia, and with what intentions? And so it would start, all over again.
“Captain Idorf,” Keene said. Despite himself, the words came out shakily. “Ignore what he’s saying. There is no Doctor Stacey. Target the lead vessel only and fire. The one following is BZ650, and your people are aboard it.”
If Keene’s reconstruction of events was correct. . . .
The room around him had frozen into statues, all staring at him. From the screen, Idorf’s eyes interrogated him silently. Both of them understood that there could be no discussion or inviting of second opinions. “You are certain of this?” was all he said.
How could Keene be? His shirt was sticking to his back, his throat dry. He closed his eyes and nodded mutely. Idorf gave the order.
And somewhere high above the Pacific, a spacecraft and several score human beings flashed briefly and turned into vapor that dispersed into the swirling gas clouds of Athena’s tail.
Hawaii lost contact before Idorf was able to identify the vessel that remained.
* * *
The second Boxcar was launched a little over an hour later, into the night. By then, everyone remaining was too exhausted to contemplate evacuating before morning. There were several incidents that night involving bands from outside coming into the base, presumably looking for supplies and weapons, some involving sporadic shooting. Mitch and Penalski posted extra guards on an extended perimeter around the hangar, with the reserves sleeping under the wings of the Rustler.
PART THREE: ATHENA—Bringer of Death
39
Next morning, two of the Special Forces troopers had disappeared. So had two girls from the base that they had been seen spending a considerable amount of time talking with. It could only be concluded that they had unilaterally deemed their military careers to be over.
The showers in the changing rooms at the rear of the hangars still worked and delivered hot water, and for fifteen minutes Keene abandoned himself to the luxury of washing away the feeling of two days and two nights spent in the same clothes, and of getting rid of the all-pervasive red dust. It got in the eyes, in the ears, and in the nostrils, and lodged in the creases of collars, hoods, and seams until it found a chink to get inside. It itched and it burned, and when rubbing and scratching broke the skin it caused sores that inflamed. “The plague of boils,” Keene thought to himself as he applied a soothing cream to painful areas on the sides of his neck and the backs of his hands, then covered them with adhesive dressings. Then, wonder of wonders, he put on a clean change of underwear, shirt, and pants from the bag he hadn’t opened since before leaving the hotel in Pasadena.