Spokes Ten through Sixteen were military-only, housing laboratories, repair and storage areas, fuel and ordnance, and the like. It was assumed that civilians would not take kindly to knowledge of the kinds of weaponry that were aboard the station. And civilians as well as much of the military complement were denied up-close looks at the MakoShark.
At the end of their spokes, four modules were residential, containing sixteen individual sleeping quarters, recreation/dining spaces, kitchens, and personal hygiene stations. The personnel complement was divided into separate dormitory areas for safety, rather than for organizational reasons. With an accidental blowout in one of the residential modules, three-fourths of the space station’s human contingent would still be intact. Orientation lectures stressing those kinds of safety measures for temporary residents, like a physicist or biologist, brought an ashy shade to their faces.
McKenna and Tang took hold of grab bars at Spoke Sixteen to stop their momentum, and he tapped the large green button mounted on the bulkhead. The automatic door rotated two inches to free itself from the locking tangs, then swung open on its massive hinge. The hinge was mounted solidly to the bulkhead, and two bars from the top and bottom of the hinge met in a “V” at the center of the round door, which pivoted on an axle at the point of the “V” Every door on the station automatically closed in the event of decompression.
McKenna offered a hand to Tang and pushed her through the hatch. Once he was clear, he tapped the red button on the other side. The door closed behind them as they tugged their way down the spoke. It was twelve feet in diameter and double walled. Between the walls ran the ventilation ducting, electrical conduits, heating and cooling coils, and thick insulation. Since the satellite did not rotate, there was a hot side and a cold or night side. One mainframe computer was dedicated to the task of cooling and heating the satellite’s skin in order to keep the variance of several hundred degrees bearable to the inhabitants.
Along the spoke’s thirty-foot length were access panels for maintenance and two yellow hatches; they were the only decorative aspect of the tube. The only windows, large portholes, on the station were located in the Command Center and in each of the three dining rooms. They were positioned so as to prevent the client contractor’s visiting scientists from viewing MakoShark arrivals and departures on the hangar side of the hub.
Visitors also were unaware that the yellow hatches in the residential spokes provided access to lifeboats. The boats attached to the spokes were nothing more them capsules with thirty days of oxygen and edibles, but knowledge of their presence could be upsetting to delicate academic minds.
McKenna and Tang floated past the section of sleeping and hygiene compartments and into the dining room. These spaces were also the only recreational areas, and they had actual tables and chairs to which people could fasten themselves. Board and card games were available. Electronic games were attached to one bulkhead.
The kitchen was against yet another bulkhead in the form of O’Hara’s three dispensing stations, which he had labeled “Junk,” “Back Home,” and “Cuisine.”
They perused the offerings in each specialty.
“Light lunch for me,” Tang told him, selecting a salad encased in a plastic pouch.
McKenna opened a clear plastic door in the “Back Home” dispenser and picked up a chicken-fried steak sandwich. He floated across to the microwave oven and zapped it for two minutes.
Tang retrieved coffee pouches, sailed them to him, and he heated them, also.
Then they towed their luncheon to a table and strapped themselves down.
Two off-duty techs were zapping asteroids or something at one of the electronic games, but otherwise the compartment was deserted. A pink, dawnish view of Antarctica dominated the porthole. Streaks of dark gray crevices ran like veins through the pink ice.
McKenna ripped the tape from the straw for his coffee pouch and took a sip. The coffee was as good as that in any American truck stop.
“How are the kids, Polly?”
She gave him one of her great smiles. “Danny likes his school, or so he says. And I’m going Earth-side next week for Maggie’s fourth birthday.”
“It’s about time for you to stay Earth-side, isn’t it?”
“I’m going to do one more six-month tour. God, I’m going to miss it, Kevin.”
He opened his sandwich pouch and took a bite out of it. There was no gravy, and it wasn’t as crumbly as it should have been, but it wasn’t bad. Most of their food lacked textures and liquefaction that was natural on Earth. Gravy and crumbs tended to float around and get in the way of other activities.
“You haven’t reported in,” Tang accused.
“They’ll find me if they need me.”
“Tell me about Amy,” she said. She had soft gray eyes that laughed a lot, and they were amused just then.
“Amy?”
“Come on, McKenna. You two got a thing going?”
“Hey, where do you get that?”
“Everyone knows the relationship has changed. Since the New Germany bit.”
He was spared answering by the PA system.
“Colonel McKenna, contact the Command Center,” Overton ordered.
“Excuse me, Polly.”
He released his Velcro seatbelt and shoved off the chair for a wall-mounted intercom.
Pressing the pad labeled “Cmd Cntr,” he said, “McKenna”
Overton responded, “You want to come over here, McKenna? We’ve got a UFO closing on a HoneyBee.”
Chapter Six
Comrades Shelepin and Pavel were late and arrived at the airfield just a few minutes before the encounter was to take place.
As the two generals deplaned from their civilian-marked Dassault MD.315, a thirty-year-old, twin-engined transport that could traverse Southeast Asia without raising eyebrows, the ground crews were already winching the camouflaged hills back into place over the pierced steel plank runway.
Oleg Druzhinin crossed the field to the runway’s edge to meet them.
Druzhinin always felt diminutive and colorless when confronted with the mass of Shelepin. He could have been obese, but his immaculately tailored gray suit made him a block of granite. His face was beefy, and his piercing blue eyes were magnified by the lens of his wire-rimmed spectacles. His hair was full, trimmed carefully over the ears, and barely tinged with gray.
Sergei Pavel was several centimeters shorter than the Chairman of the New World Politburo. The Deputy Chairman had watery, pale eyes and sunken cheeks, and he was almost completely bald. He favored dark fedoras, even in the sweltering heat of Kampuchea. He, too, was dressed in a suit, but one which was fitted loosely to his emaciated frame. Both men wore ties, which Druzhinin thought demonstrated their inability to adapt to the climate.
Druzhinin greeted them warmly, and with only a modicum of deference. As Commander of the New World Defense Force, he also served in the role of defense minister on the Politburo.
“Oleg Vladimirivich,” Shelepin said, “the days have slipped by so quickly.”
They had not met as a group for three weeks. “And still they seem to drag, Anatoly. I had hoped you would arrive earlier so that I could show you the most recent accomplishments we have made here.”
“Perhaps later,” Shelepin said.
Anatoly Shelepin was a man who cared little for the details. He dreamed in global proportions, and he expected others to take care of the minutia. He did not see MiG-25s and Su-24s; he saw air power.
He also did not acknowledge defeat. As a younger officer in command of ground troops in Afghanistan, he had never suffered a defeat. Rather, he had redirected his forces into new offensives. Perhaps that was why he had achieved his stars so early in his career.