The HoneyBee and the Mako aerospace vehicles were the overt side of the operations. Though the MakoShark was known to exist by friendly and unfriendly governments, its capabilities were still a tightly kept secret.
Dimatta and Williams stayed with Delta Green until it was parked in Hangar One, then performed their post-flight checklist. A second MakoShark, tentatively coded Delta Orange, was parked next to them, but it was a month or more away from completion. When they were finished, they walked over to the nearly deserted dining room, which was always open, and sat at a table by the window. The view was of flat expanses of sand, a few clumps of brush, and far off, the flat gray runway.
The menu was limited outside of the normal three meal times, and Dimatta was forced to settle for reheated sauerbraten.
George Williams ordered a salad heaped with tomatoes and cucumbers and red onions and sprouts, oil-and-vinegar dressing on the side. No nighttime chef was going to overdo the dressing for him. Williams was a fitness freak. At six-two and 160 pounds, he appeared five or six years younger than his thirty-three. The bright red hair and green eyes added to his youth.
When their plates were delivered, Williams said, “You know what they put in that stuff, Cancha?”
“Yes. And I wholeheartedly approve.” Dimatta forked a chunk of the beef into his mouth and closed his eyes, savoring the flavor.
“It’s going to clog up your whole system.”
“I’ll die a happy man. Your problem, Nitro Fizz, is you don’t know how to enjoy life.”
“You’re going to die before your time.”
“We may all die before our time,” Dimatta said. “But you’ll have ulcers, worrying like you do. Me, I’ll be fat and satisfied. And if we had any unattached women around here, I’d be more satisfied.”
The hub was gigantic, a cylinder of 300 feet of diameter by 200 feet of width. One half of it was constructed like a honeycomb, containing twenty-eight cells, eight of them large enough to accept a Mako or MakoShark behind closed doors. The smaller cells were used to port resupply rockets or for the containment of fuel and other stores.
On the interior end, each of the hangar cells had a window and control station overlooking the hangar. From there, the docking operator could suck the oxygen/nitrogen atmosphere out of the hangar, open the outer doors, guide the Mako or the MakoShark inside, and then close the doors and recharge the atmosphere. The MakoSharks were kept out of the view of satellite eyes and earthbound telescopes. Additionally, it was much easier to service the craft inside the mother ship. Bobbing around in clumsy spacesuits outside the space station encouraged accidents.
McKenna spent part of the morning — Themis’s artificial day was keyed to Eastern Standard Time — supervising the servicing of Delta Blue. The interior, vaultlike door to the hangar was open, and technicians moved freely into and out of the hangar, propelling themselves through the zero gravity with accustomed ease. Grab bars were spaced throughout the hub for the purpose of initiating or arresting movement.
Delta Blue floated in the middle of the hangar, secured only by a half-dozen bungee straps. With her momentum matched to that of Themis, the straps were necessary only to prevent rotation or fore-and-aft movement if a technician pushed off her skin too hard. The dark-blue finish seemed to absorb light from the fixtures mounted all around the gray-painted bay.
The cockpit canopies and the payload bay doors were open as a service technician scurried about with a vacuum hose, seeking any trace of dirt or dust. Minute, foreign objects floating in the station’s atmosphere were taboo. The passenger module had been removed and lashed to one side of the cell, along with another passenger module and several cargo modules. One of the nice things about a weightless environment was that almost any heavy task could be accomplished by one person.
Fuel hoses from the feeder outlets of the hub were attached to the craft, tended by another technician. A flashing red strobe light mounted in one corner indicated that fuel was being transferred. To further emphasize the danger of that operation, a low-toned chime kept repeating itself.
Inside the pressurized hangar, environmental suits were not necessary, and everyone, McKenna included, wore the light blue jumpsuits that had evolved as the clothing of choice aboard Themis. They were comfortable, allowed freedom of movement, and were easily maintained. The soft-soled boots were incorporated as part of the jumpsuit.
When the tech with the vacuum was finished with the forward cockpit, McKenna pushed off the wall, shot across thirty feet of space, and grabbed the windscreen. Twisting around, he pulled himself down into the seat and locked his toes under the rudder pedals to hold himself in place.
Powering up the computer, McKenna called up the MakoShark’s maintenance log. The computer automatically kept a record of the hours used on all of the critical subsystems. Upcoming maintenance requirements were flagged. McKenna scrolled the log up the screen, but did not see anything imminent. A couple more flights, and the doppler radar was due for calibration. The turbo-ramjets would go for another 1500 hours before requiring overhaul.
The chime went silent and the red strobe quit blinking as the fuel technician detached his special fittings and began to retract the hoses into their receptacles.
McKenna didn’t have his helmet, with its microphone, so he reached into the crevice between the seat and the side of the cockpit and found the alternate microphone. Tapping in the frequency for Themis’s maintenance office on the radio pad, he said, “Beta One, Delta Blue.”
A few seconds passed before someone got to the console. “Beta here.”
McKenna recognized the voice of Lt. Col. Brad Mitchell, who was the chief vehicle maintenance officer.
“I’m ready to dump data.”
“Okay, hold a minute. Delta Blue. Go.”
McKenna keyed the command into the computer pad, and all of the updated maintenance data files from the MakoShark were transferred into Beta One’s computer files. Beta One maintained current files on all vehicles operating outside of the atmosphere.
“Okay, got it. Anything pressing, Snake Eyes?”
“I don’t think so, Brad.”
“Is Shalbot out there?”
McKenna looked around and saw T.Sgt. Benny Shalbot, the head avionics technician, hanging onto the hangar door frame. “He’s here, just thinking about it.”
“Well, tell him to get his ass in gear, then get over to Hangar Four. Delta Red’s got a nav radio problem.”
Delta Red was a reserve craft.
“Got it, Brad. Blue out.”
McKenna released his toehold, tapped the seat sides with his fingers, and rose out of the cockpit.
“Hey, Benny, your boss is looking for you.”
Shalbot, a gnome of a man with curly white hair, a bulbous nose, and an infectious grin, said, “And if I’m not careful, Colonel, he’s going to find me.”
Shalbot shoved off the door frame, towing a large black box behind him, did a somersault in midflight, and landed with practiced ease on the nose of Delta Blue.
“He said something about a navigation radio problem on Delta Red,” McKenna said.
“Fuck. Second time in two trials. I’m going to have to change it out. You got any glitches, Snake Eyes?”
“None that Tony or I picked up on.”
“Good.”
Positioning the black box — one by three by two feet in size — in midair above the windscreen, Shalbot opened its lid and withdrew a long umbilical cord. Diving head first into the cockpit, he plugged the multiple-pin connector into a receptacle at floor level on the left side of the cockpit. He rose feet first out of the cockpit, tucked his legs, and rolled upright.