Though Earthborn, Baker knew from vacations to resort habitats that the terms “artificial gravity” and “centrifugal force” were both misnomers for what held people, buildings, and loose items to the inside of the Bernal sphere-or any other rotating space station. The spin of the sphere caused everything touching it-including the atmosphere-to move in the direction of the spin, tangential to the axis. Someone standing on the outside of the sphere would be flung into space as if thrown from a slingshot. On the inside, however, such tangential motion met a firm obstacle: the inside surface of the sphere. It was this constant motion outward that caused the illusion of gravity.
Since it was not gravity, though, actions impossible on a planet were possible on a habitat. Running spinward along a latitude increased one’s tangential velocity, thus increased ones’ “weight.” Running anti-spinward decreased one’s velocity with relation to the sphere and decreased one’s weight. It was difficult to run fast enough to become weightless, generally, because the air mass moved spinward with the habitat and the relative wind one encountered running anti-spinward was enough to blow one back to the deck. That’s where the jet packs proved useful. The constant thrust was enough to combat the wind, allowing the trained pilot to jet from point to point in the sphere as if he were in freefall around Earth.
Doing so in practice was as difficult as it sounded in theory. If one tried to fly across latitudes, not only did the Coriolis effect throw one off course, but the motion of the habitat in its Earth orbit contributed to further navigational error. Before the war, it was a simple matter to link all the flying harnesses to a central navigational computer.
“What do you mean, flying linked?” Baker asked over the engines’ whine.
“NavCom broke down years ago,” Williams shouted. “We all fly by the seat of our pants here-or, more accurately, by the back of our shoulder blades.” He turned the jet up to full power, Baker’s jet mimicking the increase exactly. They flew together with the ribbon cable between them never growing more than moderately taut.
The shifting vectors of acceleration and Coriolis effect, imperceptible while walking up toward the axis, played a nauseating trick on Baker’s inner ear as the four men flew toward the battle station suspended in the center of the sphere. He closed his eyes and waited out the feeling.
You’re a pilot. You’re used to it. You’re just in someone else’s body who isn’t. It’s so strange to close my eyes and be simply a passenger, to let someone else be the pilot.
“Damage control reports all blast holes sealed,” someone buzzed in his earphone. “Full integrity restored.” He opened his eyes in time to see the cylinder of ComStat fill his vision. They sped through a hatchway and reversed engines.
“My compliments,” Baker said, about to step out of the harness. Williams nodded, disconnected the rope and wires, and waved his hand.
“Don’t desuit. Jet packs stay on at battle stations.”
“Store the fuel bottles in the safety boxes.” Vane took Baker’s and put them with the others in a thick padded box. Baker noticed that the four of them had slowly settled to the alleged floor of the building. He took one step and floated upward. The core rotated with the sphere, so it imparted its own minuscule tangential motion to everything inside, though being in it was as close to being weightless as was humanly perceptible.
“Baker’s inside, sir,” Vane said into his headpiece.
“Bring him up,” came the reply.
“They want you badly, Vir-Jord. They’ve risked a dozen Valli fighters and a deep thrust destroyer.” Powell looked Baker in the eye. Baker nodded while he scanned the room. Viewscrims covered the inside surface of the axis core of ComStat. Down the middle of the shaft hung a non-rotating cylinder composed entirely of computer consoles. A score of men surrounded the cylinder, facing outward, operating the controls that extended around them, watching their viewscrims. Most of the flickering, shifting light in the station issued from the scrims.
Baker looked at closeups of the fighters. Both he and Powell floated near one end of the cylinder, the commander securely attached to Fadeaway’s hotseat. Baker hung behind him, observing. Powell punched a couple of buttons that had turned red.
“This is no moonwalk-it’s the Infernal’s final assault. They plan to kill everyone on board. That’s fourteen hundred and twelve men, eighty-six women, thirty-two kids.”
“No reason for them to.”
Powell rubbed the bridge of his nose and snorted. “No reason for them not to. No witnesses in near orbit. They blew out our comm lasers when they arrived. And they probably want to test their new weaponry. Ever hear of the Earthside town Guernica? Or Baghdad?”
Baker shook his head. “What are they testing it for? Earth is crippled and practically dead.”
Powell shrugged, shouted a terse command into his head-set, then sighed. “You weren’t here during the War. The hatred runs insanely deep, and it’s not been softened by the years. Any war of secession creates long-lasting anger.” He gazed at the advancing warship. “There are still some Southerners that resent losing the Civil War. There are still some Americans that hate the British for the actions of King George the Third.”
“Who?”
Powell made a tired half-chuckle. “Old soldiers have little to do but read about old wars.” He slapped an array of switches from orange to red. “The ones that try to fight the old wars, though, they become dead soldiers.”
“Ten seconds, sir.”
Powell’s gaze turned toward the man who spoke, then glanced at the ship’s clock.
“Battle station red.” At his command, sirens whooped, scrims switched images, men exchanged positions. “Latest ETA for destroyer is thirty-two minutes. Prepare to repel boarders.”
“No fighter ships of your own?”
“This place didn’t have any, we couldn’t build any. We’ll have to wait until they come onboard.”
“My lifeboat has a meteor laser. I could try to pick a couple-”
“You stay here. Like it or not, you’re our insurance policy. We need your help in this, so consider yourself a hostage.” Powell turned to face Baker. “They won’t kill us until they have you. Perhaps we can take a few of them with us.”
Baker silently watched the scrims while the minutes fell away, marked only by the calm voice of an ensign noting its passage. The Valli fighters surrounding the sphere did nothing. “Ten minutes. Destroyer within attack radius.”
“Final weapons check.”
Baker asked, “What weapons?”
Without breaking his concentration on the master computer, Powell replied, “Laser rifles, gloves, even a few automatic pistols and old machine guns. Ever try to correct for Coriolis while firing inside a Bernal? Good fun.”
“This is a suicide fight.”
Powell kept his gaze on the scrims. “Don’t you think my men know that?”
“I’m the reason they’re going to die.” Baker pushed away from the command seat. “You could have spaced me and told them I wasn’t here-”
“They’d have looked for you anyway. We were doomed the moment you appeared on radar.”
“You should have blasted me then.”
“You’re probably right. We’re in for it now, though, so we fight.”
“Eight minutes. We have visual.” A telescopic view of the destroyer appeared on several scrims. Its nuclear engines no longer glowed blue-white and its shape could clearly be seen. It rotated about into attack position, an off-white armored slab a hundred meters wide and two hundred long. A battery of lasers and missile launchers crested its fore end, clustered like a giant child’s overflowing carton of lethal toys. The bottom third of the destroyer bulged elliptically to hold its nuclear fuel.
“Go to internal oxygen,” a disembodied voice commanded.