“Must have been,” I agreed. “Too bad you never knew them. Do you know how they died?”
“They died in a house fire,” Nobles said.
Funny, I thought, mine, too. Lieutenant Mars broke up our conversation. “Prepare for launch initiation. Repeat, prepare for launch initiation.”
“Shit, here we go,” I whispered, not even thinking who would hear me.
“General Harris, we set up a video array if you want to follow the operation’s progress.”
I thought that he meant some kind of an interLink display. The last thing I wanted at that moment was images of transports dragging the carcass of a battleship showing inside my helmet.
Willing myself to sound calm, I said, “I’d rather keep the interLink open.”
“They’re not on the interLink, sir, they’re on the screens behind your seat.”
“What?” When I looked at the back wall of the cockpit, I saw five rows of four-inch video screens inlaid in the wall. Most of the screens showed a small section of the battleship’s hull and a bird’s-eye view of cluttered space. The engineers must have placed cameras in the transports along the hull.
“That’s was kind of you,” I said.
“It was Spuler’s idea,” Mars said.
“Think of it as an in-flight porno,” said Spuler. “You get to watch the Tool’s penetration.”
“Spuler,” Mars said.
I tried to ignore them. Looking at the little displays, I realized just how much I wanted to scrub the mission. I felt the jittering in my hands and the throbbing in my temples. Now that the transport had landed, and the runner lights were out, I sat in darkness, seeing only by the light of the night-for-day lenses in my visor. I was scared already, and soon I would be terrified.
Trying to sound confident, I told Mars, “Pull the trigger.” Then I did something I knew I would regret; I told Nobles, “I’m shutting down our Link until we get through,” without giving him a reason why. I wasn’t shutting down the entire interLink, we might need to contact Mars; I was just shutting down the Link between me and Nobles because I could feel the panic spreading through my thoughts like a cancer, and I did not want him to hear me.
“Yes, sir,” said Nobles. He seemed preoccupied as he toyed with the switches and gear around his seat.
I removed the harness and climbed out of the chair. The artificial gravity drawing my boots to the deck, I walked to the panel of screens. When I took a closer look at some of the monitors, I saw the rear sides of transports in the corners of the screens. The engines were already running. We had started the flight without my noticing. Sometimes, that happens in space.
CHAPTER ELEVEN
I couldn’t stop myself from looking at the monitors. It didn’t matter that I wanted to stick my head in the proverbial sand; the screens bore down on me like five rows of unblinking eyes. Even when I looked away, I felt their weight upon me.
Across the cockpit, Nobles busied himself checking systems and flight controls. He flipped switches, read gauges, then turned his attention to the video array I wanted so much to ignore. He settled comfortably, and there he sat, his gaze transfixed, the reflections of the little screens showing in rows of bright squares in his visor.
In the isolation of my helmet, I began to panic. “I’m not ready for this,” I said to myself. I said it out loud. There was something comforting in hearing my own voice rolling around in my helmet; and what did it matter, I had shut off the interLink. No one would hear me.
“Did you say something, General?” For a moment I thought I might be hearing voices, then I remembered that I had not severed my Link with Lieutenant Mars.
“No,” I said. “I’m just mumbling to myself.” I thought for a moment, then I said, “I can’t do this. This is crazy, we need to call this off.”
The top screens of the array showed the view from the lead transport drones. The cameras looked out into space, but not open space. A tangle of wrecked warships filled the view, looking as impregnable as a castle wall.
I became aware of the way I was breathing, panting like a winded dog.
Light flared across thirty of the thirty-five screens, turning them white as an afternoon sun. The nuclear explosion. We’d just shot off enough bombs to destroy a small planet. The heat generated by the cataclysm would only last a moment. During that moment, metal would melt—and bodies—then the chill of space would return. What was the power of a few nuclear bombs against the immenseness of space?
The flash of the bombs vanished as quickly as it appeared, but it left ghosts on the video screens. Thirty of the thirty-five screens were outside the ship, placed in transports; the other five showed scenes inside the hull of the battleship …the Tool. These screens showed dark corridors and braced walls. Mars and his men had done a lot of work preparing the ship.
“I’m not ready for this,” I told Mars. On the other side of the cockpit, Nobles sat comfortably, unbothered by what we were about to do. Apparently, flying through nuclear explosions left him unfazed.
“It’s too late to call off the mission, General,” Mars said in a voice meant to soothe me.
“Shut down the transports,” I said. “You have control of the transports, shut them down.”
“We can’t do that, sir. There’s already too much forward momentum.”
“Shut them off,” I said, feeling frantic. I had no control over the situation, and that terrified me.
“The Tool will still hit Chastity Belt whether we cut the engines or not,” Mars said.
Now he was using the names Spuler had used, and that aggravated me. My anger cut through my panicked thoughts, and I said, “Lieutenant, shut off the specking engines.”
Mars laughed. “Does Ava Gardner know that you’re a coward?”
I heard the words, but it took a moment for them to sink in. I sat in the copilot’s chair in stunned silence, as he added, “Harris, you’re the best kept secret in the whole Marine Corps. Everyone thinks you’re such a badass, and it turns out you’re just another bed wetter.”
“You son of a bitch,” I said, looking away from the monitors. “You specking son of a bitch. If I get out of here …”
“Now I’m scared,” Mars said. “General Bed Wetter is threatening me.”
I could not think of anything else but how much I wanted to kill that son of a bitch. “Born-again clone” my ass. I would have hopped out of the battleship and dog-paddled to Terraneau if I thought I could do it. It was as I sat there fuming, trying to invent some form of revenge, that we struck the barrier. We did not slice through the broken ships, we smashed through like a hammer hitting glass, and the force nearly threw me from my chair.
I turned toward the monitors in time to see three of them go dead. The working screens showed a fractal kaleidoscope of shapes—shards of ships tumbling as they floated out of view. The five cameras located inside the battleship showed crumbled walls that looked like they might have been made out of paper.
Two of the screens in the first row showed the bow of one of the U.A. ships floating into open space. Strands of blue electricity formed around it, flexing and dancing; and then, in a flash, the section of ship was gone.
“You’re through the barrier, sir,” Mars said, suddenly sounding respectful once more. “For what it’s worth, I would have resigned my commission before I would have done what you are doing.”
“What?” I asked, my thoughts still entropic.
“You are traveling at a sustained speed of 273 miles per hour,” Mars said. “I hoped you would come through at 290, but 270 is within the margin of error.”
I still did not understand. I looked over at Nobles, who still sat staring into the monitors, looking so damned relaxed. He had his seat swiveled around, his right hand stretched across the arm of his chair and his left hand curled on his lap.