They went in, found Mitch, and set him about organizing some defense while Keene, Jason, and Joe went on down to the service bays adjoining the silo to check the situation. Only dim emergency lights were on, running off a battery system in the generator room that had also been left driving the refrigeration plant for the liquid oxidizer portion of the hybrid fuel mix. That was the most crucial part. It meant that the oxidizer storage tank was ready to deliver to the shuttle now—the operation had to be done at the immediate prelaunch phase. Had the refrigeration been turned off, liquefying the oxidizer would have taken hours. With a supply ready to flow, transfer could be accomplished in about fifteen minutes. Keene breathed a silent prayer of thanks to whoever the engineer had been who allowed for this kind of situation.
Jason threw switches along a panel and started the standby diesel generator. They had power. Keene heard him go into the control booth, and moments later lights started coming on in the concrete-walled rooms and equipment bays, through the stairwells and corridors, and among the ramps and service platforms around the silo above. Keene went through to the pump room and ran quickly over the valve settings. As he started up the oxidizer transfer process, Jason’s voice came from the general address system serving the area. “Okay, Joe, you should have power. The access hatch should be at green, bridge extended.”
“Right. That’s what we’ve got,” Joe’s voice shouted down from the access bridge to the shuttle, higher overhead.
“The onboard system’s showing live. I’m disconnecting power umbilicals and switching everything to internal. Okay, start getting everyone inside.”
The lower gantry through to the silo was down. While Jason went through the blast door into the silo to release locking pins and safety latches, Keene went up to the monitor panel at the access level to begin retracting the service gantries and power up the silo’s covering doors. Charlie Hu was at the bridge crossing the gap to the white body of the shuttle. Joe had already gone through to commence flight-deck procedures.
“We’re still missing some,” Charlie said. “Where are Cavan and the troops?”
“Securing the outside. It looks like trouble followed us up from the village.”
“What about Sid?”
“Sid didn’t make it.” Keene saw Charlie’s hesitation, wanting to contribute something more. “Go on inside and make sure the others get strapped down, Charlie. There’s nothing you or they can do. We can’t have everyone out there.” Charlie nodded, turned, and disappeared into the hatch.
Jason appeared, having finished his chores below. “Just the oxidizer to complete,” he announced.
“I can take care of that,” Keene said. “Where can we get a connection to the flight deck?”
“This way.” Jason led him back to a control room outside the blast wall of the silo and activated a screen on one of the panels. It showed the face of Joe, working systematically inside the shuttle.
“Roger,” he acknowledged.
“Can we get some remotes from the security cameras outside?” Keene threw as an aside to Jason. “And see if you can pick up Mitch or Cavan on the band they were using.” He turned to the screen showing Joe. “All in order here. How are you doing inside?”
“Well, if you never heard of seat-of-the-pants spaceship flying before, this is gonna be it,” Joe replied. “I’ve got a reading on the outside wind. We could never launch in this with a regular sequence. I’m programming the side thrusters to fire as we come up out of the hole and create a horizontal counter thrust. Just hope I’ve got these numbers right.”
Keene had never heard the like of it. “I don’t have a lot of confidence in first-time guesses,” he answered dryly.
“That’s why you need a pilot, not an engineer.”
A shudder ran through the structure as something large impacted not far away.
“Lan, look at this,” Jason called from another console.
“Keep the line open, Joe,” Keene said to the screen, and moved across. Jason had operated one of the external cameras to view the main gate into the compound. The three cars had arrived outside, but somebody had driven the truck back and parked it there, blocking the entrance. As Keene watched, a helmeted figure jumped from the tailboard, ran a few paces, then turned and threw something back inside. Seconds later, the truck flamed into a torch. Keene remembered the spare cans of gasoline they had loaded at San Saucillo. “Who is that crazy bastard?” he yelled.