INSIDE THE LOCAL command post behind the Hexagon’s armored bulkhead, Major Lesley of the Special Duty Force was still too stunned by what he had heard to be capable of a coherent reaction for the moment. He stared at the companel where a screen showed a view from the Columbia District, where the SD guard commander had entered the Communications Center under a truce flag some minutes previously to talk with Borftein, and tried to separate the conflicting emotions in his head. Captain Jarvis, Lesley’s adjutant officer, and Lieutenant Chaurez watched in silence while around the command post the duty staff averted their eyes and occupied themselves with their own thoughts. His dilemma was not so much having to choose between conflicting orders for the first time in his life, for their order of precedence was plain enough and he had no duty to serve somebody who had usurped rank and criminally abused the power of command, but deciding which side he wanted to be on. Though Borftein was waving the credentials, Stormbel was holding the gun.
Jarvis scanned the screen on the far side of the post. “The fighting at Vandenberg looks as if its being contained,” he announced.—“Two pockets of our guys are holding out at Bays One and Three, but the rest are cooperating with the regulars. The regulars have pretty well secured the whole module already. Stormbel won’t be getting any help from the surface through there.”
“What’s the latest from the surface?” Chaurez inquired.
“Confused but quiet at the barracks,” Jarvis told him. “A lot of shooting inside the base at Canaveral. Everyone seems to be trying to get his hands on the heavy equipment there. A shuttle’s on fire in one of the launch bays.”
Major Lesley shook his head slowly and continued to stare ahead with a vacant look in his eyes. “This shouldn’t be happening,” he murmured. “They’re not the enemy. They shouldn’t be fighting each other.”
Jarvis and Chaurez glanced at each other. Then Jarvis looked away as a new report came up on one of the screens. “Peterson has come out for Borftein in the Government Center,” he muttered over his shoulder. “I guess it’s all over in the Columbia District. That has to give them the whole Ring.”
“So they’ll be coming for the Spindle next,” Chaurez said. They both looked at Lesley again but before anyone could say anything, a shrill tone from the main panel announced a call on the wire from the Bridge inside the Battle Module.
Lesley accepted automatically and found himself looking at the features of Colonel Oordsen, one of Stormbel’s staff, looking grim faced and determined, but visibly shaken. “Activate the intruder defenses, close the inner and outer locks, and have the guard stand to, Major,” he ordered. “Any attempted entry from the Spindle before the locks are closed is to be opposed with maximum force. Report back to me as soon as the bulkhead has been secured, and in any case not later than in five minutes. Is that understood?”
At that moment a local alarm sounded inside the command post. Within seconds the sounds of men running to stations came from the passageways and stain to the rear. One of the duty crew was already flipping switches to collect report summaries, and Chaurez got up to go to the outer observation room just as the Watch Officer appeared in the doorway from the other side. “There are troops approaching the lock,” the Watch Officer announced. “Regulars—thirty or more of them.”
Leaving Colonel Oordsen peering out of the screen, Lesley rose and walked through the door in the steel wall dividing the command post from the observation room and looked down through one of the ports at the approaches to the lock below. Chaurez watched from the doorway, ignoring Oordsen’s indignant voice as it floated through from behind. “Major Lesley, you have not been dismissed. Come back at once. What in hell’s going on there? What are those alarms? Lesley, do you hear me?”
But Lesley was not listening as he gazed down at the platform below, which fanned outward from the arc lights above the lock to become indistinct in the darkness of the antechamber. Figures—were moving slowly from the shadows by the transit tubes and freight rails, spread thinly at the back, but closing up as they converged with the lines of the platform. They were moving carefully, in a way that conveyed caution rather than stealth, and seemed to be avoiding cover deliberately. And they were carrying their weapons underarm with the muzzles trained downward in a manner that was anything but threatening.
“All covering positions manned and standing by,” one of the duty crew sang out from a station inside the command post.
“LCP’s standing by and ready to fire,” another voice reported.
“Intruder defenses primed and ready to activate.”
“Lock at condition orange and ready to close.”
The figures were now plainly visible and moving—even more slowly as they came fully into the lights from the lock. They were regular infantry, Lesley could see. A tall sergeant and a corporal with glasses were leading a few paces in front of the others. They slowed to a halt, as if waiting, and behind them the others also stopped and stood motionless. Lesley’s jaw tightened as he stared down through the observation port. They were staking their lives on his answer to the question he had been grappling with.
Jarvis appeared Suddenly in the doorway beside Chaurez. “Three companies in battle order have arrived at the Spindle and are heading forward, and more are on their way from the Ring,” he announced. “Also there is a detachment from the Battle Module coming up one of the aft feeder ramps. They must be coming back to close the lock.”
Lesley looked at the two of them, but they said nothing. There was nothing more they could tell him. He could close the lock and commit himself to the protecting the Battle
Module’s armaments; alternatively, with the added strength of the regulars who had arrived below. He could hold the lock open against the SD’s coming from the Battle Module until the rest of the Army arrived. It was time for him to decide his answer.
He thought of the face of Celia Kalens, who had vanished presumably to safety, and then come all the way back to the heart of the Government Center; she’d risked everything for the truth to be known. Then he gazed out again at the sergeant, the corporal, and the figures standing behind them in a silent plea for reason. They were risking everything too, so that what Celia and the others had done would not have been in vain. Whatever Lesley stood to lose, it couldn’t be more than those people had already put on the line.
“Tell the men to stand down,” he said quietly to Jarvis. “Deprime the intruder systems and revert the lock to condition green. Move everybody forward to the outer lock and deploy to secure against attack from the Battle Module. Chaurez, get those men down there inside. We’re going to need all the help we can get.” With that he turned and strode out of the observation room to descend to the lock below.
Jarvis and Chaurez caught each other’s eye. After a moment, Jarvis breathed a sigh of relief. Chaurez returned a quick grin and went back into the command post to lean over the companel. “Lieutenant,” Oordsen demanded angrily from the screen. “Where is Major Lesley? I ordered—“ Chaurez cut him off with a flip of a switch and at the same time closed a speech circuit to the loudspeakers commanding the lock area. “Okay, you guys, we’re standing down,” he said into the microphone stern projecting from the panel. “Get in here as quick as you can. We’ve got trouble coming up a feeder ramp on the other side.”
As Chaurez finished speaking, an indicator announced an incoming call from the Government Center. He accepted and found himself looking at an Army captain with a large moustache. “Forward Security Command Post,” Chaurez acknowledged.
“Sirocco, D Company commander, Second Infantry Brigade. Is your commanding officer there?”
“I’m sorry, sir. He just went down to the lock.”
“What about his adjutant?” Sirocco asked.
“Gone forward to the outer lock.”
Sirocco looked worried. “Look, there is a force on its way forward to occupy the nose. We want to avoid any senseless bloodshed. Those locks must be kept open. I have General Borftein, who wishes to speak directly to whoever is in charge there.”
“I can speak for them,” Chaurez said. “You can tell the general that the news is good.”
Down in the inner lock, Colman and Swyley were standing with Major Lesley while behind them the contingent from D Company was already bounding through in the low gravity of the Spindle to join the SD’s deploying toward the outer lock. “You took a hell of a chance, Sergeant,” Lesley said.
“Fifty-fifty,” Colman answered. “It would have been zero the other way.”
“You think pretty smart.”
“We’re all having to learn how to do that.”
Lesley held his eye for a second, then nodded. “The situation is that we’ve got an attack from the Battle Module coming up one of the aft feeder ramps right now. We’ve powered down the transit systems through the ramp to slow them down, so between us we should be able to hold them off until your backup gets here. How long should they take?” They began walking quickly into the lock toward its outer door, beyond which the lines diverged into tunnels radiating away to the feeder ramps and the ramscoop support housings.
“How far have they penetrated?” Colman asked.
“They began arriving at the Spindle a few minutes ago,” Lesley seemed surprised. “How come you didn’t know?”
“It’s been kind of...an unorthodox operation.”
Ahead of them, Jarvis had positioned soldiers to cover all of the tunnel mouths, with the strongest force—concentrated around the outlet from the feeder ramps along which the SD’s from the Battle Module were approaching, and he had retired to a sheltered observation platform from which he could direct operations with a clear view into the tunnel. Lesley, Colman, and Swyley moved behind a stanchion where Driscoll and a couple more from D Company were crouched with their weapons. A few seconds later the soldiers all around tensed expectantly.
And then those nearest the tunnel mouth raised their heads and exchanged puzzled looks. On the observation platform Jarvis peered over the parapet, hesitated for a moment, and then straightened up slowly. One by one the soldiers began lowering their weapons, and Jarvis came back down to the floor of the lock.
An SD major with a smoke-blackened face and one of his sleeves covered in blood emerged unsteadily from the tunnel mouth; immediately behind him were four more SD’s looking disheveled and one of them also bloodstained around the head. Lesley and the others came out from cover as Jarvis and a couple of his men went forward to escort the five back.
Lesley and the major obviously knew each other. “Brad,” Lesley said. “What in hell’s happened? We were expecting a fight.”
“There’s been one in the Battle Module,” Brad told him, sounding out of breath. “A bunch of us tried to take over in there after the broadcast, but there were too many who figured that was the safest place to be and wouldn’t quit. It was all we could do to get out.”
“How many of you are there?” Lesley asked.
“I’m not sure...maybe fifty. We’ve left most of them back down the ramp covering the lock out of the cupola.”
“You mean the way’s clear right down to the Battle Module?” Colman asked.
Brad nodded. “But Stormbel’s people are in the cupola. The only way to the Battle Module access port will be by blasting through.”
Lesley turned to Jarvis. “Power the tubes back up and get some more guys down there fast. Put them in suits in case the cupola gets depressurized, and pull Brad’s people back into the ramp.”
“We’ve got a section already suited up,” Colman said. “Are those cars running?” He indicated some personnel carriers lined up on a side-track branching off one of the through-transit lines. Jarvis nodded. Colman turned to Swyley. “Get the section loaded up and move them on down the ramp.” Swyley and Jarvis hurried away.
“The Army’s on ifs way through the Spindle,” Lesley said to Brad. “They should start arriving here any time now.”
“Let’s hope they don’t waste any time,” Brad replied. “Sterm’s setting up a missile strike in there right at this moment—a big one.”
Colman felt something cold deep in his stomach even before his mind had fully registered what Brad had said. “Sterm?” he repeated numbly. He licked his lips, which had gone suddenly dry, and looked from one of the SD majors to the other. “You mean he’s already in there?”
Lesley nodded. “He’s been there all evening. Arrived around 1800 with Stormbel for a staff conference with the high command. They’re all in there...” He frowned at the expression on Colman’s face. “Nobody knew?”
Colman shook his head slowly. There had been too much to think about in too little time. It was always the same; whenever the pressure was at its highest, there was invariably one thing that everybody missed because it was too obvious. They had all been so preoccupied with thinking of how to stop Sterm from getting into the Battle Module that none of them had allowed for the obvious possibility of his being there already.
“What’s the target for the missile strike?” Colman asked hoarsely.
“I don’t know,” Brad replied. “I haven’t been in on it at the top level. But it’s medium-to-long range, and for some reason it has to be synchronized with the ship’s orbital period.”
Colman groaned. The target could only be the Kuan-yin. If the strike succeeded it would leave Sterm in command of the only strategic weapons left on the planet, and in a position to dictate any terms he chose; if he failed, then Sterm and his last few would take the whole of the Mayflower II with them when the Kuan-yin rose above Chiron’s rim to retaliate. Outside the lock, the first carrier loaded with troops in zero-pressure combat suits moved away and disappeared into the tunnel that Brad and his party had appeared from,
“You look as if you might know something about it,” Lesley said to Colman. “Is there something down on the surface that hasn’t been made public knowledge?”
“No...” Colman shook his head distantly. “It’s too much to go into right now. Look—“
An SD sergeant interrupted from behind Lesley. “They’re here sir. Carriers coming through the lock.” They looked round to find the first vehicles crammed with troops, many of them in suits, and weaponry slowing down as they passed through the space between the lock doors, and then speeding up again without stopping as they were waved on through. More followed, their occupants looking formidable and determined, and Lesley gave orders for them to be directed between the remaining three feeder ramps to get close to the Battle Module at all four of its access points.
Then Colman’s communicator started bleeping. Bernard Fallows was calling from the Communications Center. “I guess you did it,” he said. “But it’s not over yet. We’ve found out where Sterm is.”
“So have I,” Colman said. “And it’s worse than that, he’s setting up a missile strike right now. The target has to be the Kuan-yin.”
Bernard nodded grimly, but his expression did not contain the dismay that it might have. Evidently he had been half-prepared for the news. “Borftein’s been checking on that possibility,” he said. “It’ll be forty minutes before the Kuan-yin goes behind the rim. Sterm won’t launch before then.”
“Will the Chironians let him wait that long?” Colman asked. “Do they know he’s in there and what it means?”
Bernard shook his head. “No. We’re in touch with them but Wellesley vetoed any mention of it.” Colman nodded. He wouldn’t have risked their deciding to fire first either. Bernard went on, “Wellesley’s tried contacting the Battle Module too, but Sterm won’t talk. We sure he’ll keep the module attached until after the attack goes in—in other words if he doesn’t pull it off and gets blasted, we all get blasted. The same thing applies if the Chironians decide to press the button. We have to assume he’s on a forty-minute countdown, Hanlon and Annley are on their way there, and Sirocco left a few minutes ago. Borftein is sending through everybody he can scrape together. What are the chances?”
A carrier full of combat-suited infantry nursing antitank missile launchers and demolition equipment slid through the lock and lurched onto a branch leading to one of the Battle Module’s forward ramps. “Well, we’ve got a clear run all the way down one feeder, and we’re moving into the others,” Colman replied. “There’s been some fighting inside the Battle Module, and a lot of the guys got out. We have to hope that there aren’t enough left to stop us from blowing our way in through four places at once. Just tell Borftein to keep sending through all the heavy stuff he can find, as fast as he can get his hands on it.”