"Right," Al said and drifted off into the engineer's stare. I knew I couldn't stop him from thinking about it now. If you aren't a problem solver it is hard to explain the feeling. It's sort of like looking at a picture on a wall and realizing that the picture isn't hanging level. If it nags the hell out of you that the picture isn't hanging level, well that's the beginning of the feeling.
I left Al to think about whatever it was he was thinking. It was an exercise in futility though. There was no way we had time to develop a spacecraft that could get us to the moon. Maybe it would give him a break to do something fun. Who was I kidding? We were all scared shitless and at the same time still thrilled to be doing what we were doing.
I signed in and picked up my badge. As the guard let me into the secure area I noticed that Tabitha was sitting in the room with the lights dimmed and it was very quiet.
"The general is getting very tired, sir," Steve the guard whispered to me. I nodded that I understood. He pulled the door to, locking Tabitha and me in the room.
I slipped in behind Tabitha and was planning to rub her shoulders.
"Have a seat, Anson," she said, startling me.
"That's okay, gorgeous," I told her and started massaging her gently. "You're overworking yourself, General. When was the last time we had a good night's sleep?"
She rolled her head and stretched her neck. "Don't get me wrong, Anson, this feels great. But right now we don't have time. Sit down for second."
"Okay, what's up?"
She slid a panel open on the table and pressed a couple of buttons. "I wanted you to see this. In about three minutes two of the enemy warp development facilities will be in view of a couple of our spybirds in LEO. About four minutes later, we will pick up the other two facilities. Operations have been planned to take out those facilities. We're going to watch."
"Wait a minute. That would tip the world off. If they captured an American soldier, our meteor story is screwed." Images of a Chinese television broadcast of a beaten American soldier popped in my head.
"Don't worry, Anson. No ground troops will be involved. In fact, special black bag teams have taken over Chinese airfreight planes. These aircraft are going to fly into each of these locations. As far as anyone can tell, these were terrorist acts, accidents, who gives a damn what. We will have deniability."
"Who is going to fly those things? Will they be able to bail out in time? Then how do they get home?" I was upset. I hope these soldiers weren't asked to volunteer for a suicide mission.
"That isn't your concern, Anson." I could tell that this weighed heavy on her as well.
I hoped that if this was a suicide mission that there was a way to use soldiers that have been diagnosed with something terminal, who were going to die soon anyway, to conduct these types of missions. I guess generals have been ordering men to their deaths for thousands of years. That's something I'm not sure I could do. It takes some real balls to be a general. I'm glad Tabitha has the biggest set I've ever seen. Don't get me wrong. Tabitha is all hot-blooded American woman. She just must keep her balls somewhere besides a scrotum.
"Tabitha, are you sure that a plane crash will do enough -damage?"
"These will. Our guys have made sure that there are some extra parcels on board." She nodded and sort of smiled, although she seemed too serious for it to be a real smile. There was a sadness and a no-nonsense down-to-brass-tacks air about her.
I reached over and held her hand as the view panel went from a blue screen with "unusable signal" bouncing around on it to four split panels of static. Then the static cleared into two separate images in grayscale. The images were of very normal-looking manufacturing type districts.
After a few seconds, an area that looked to be the size of a city block in the lower left quadrant of the screen turned bright and saturated the camera. Some software took over and adjusted the image somewhat.
I didn't see the aircraft but obviously, it hit. Then I saw a streak across the top left quadrant and a second explosion. I couldn't take my eyes off the screen. I remembered how I felt back in '01 watching a similar incident live on television. It is an eerie feeling. But for these soldiers on these planes my heart swelled. I felt a sense of sorrow and pride for them.
"Godspeed boys," Tabitha whispered. I noticed tears running down her face. I swallowed hard to keep from crying myself. Just because she has big balls doesn't mean she doesn't have a big heart also.
Tabitha squeezed my hand. I squeezed back and nodded to her. The American people would never know what had happened during the last six weeks. It would all be covered up to the point that even the people who were part of it would be confused as to what really happened. I just hoped that the families of these poor soldiers were well compensated and were told that their sons or daughters, whichever the case may be, died as great American heroes.
"Three minutes or so more to the next target," Tabitha informed me.
We sat in silence for the next three minutes. The two quadrants on the right side of the panel went to static and then an image of similar industrial areas. We watched for a few seconds in silence. Then on the upper right corner of the view screen a streak appeared and the center of the screen lit into a great bright spot. The attenuation program adjusted the scene and we could see that there had been another direct hit.
Almost immediately following the third crash, the center of the lower right quadrant exploded. All four targets had been hit. I assumed that not only were there extra parcels on board these aircraft, but that they were also full of fuel. It was my guess that these facilities would be on fire for hours if not days. There would be no more warp experiments conducted there. Tabitha watched until the screens faded to static, then automatically switched to the "unusable signal" blue screen.
"This is hard, Anson." She pulled me to her and I hugged her with all my heart.
"I know." I tried not to cry either.
We both had been accepting things too quickly and then being forced to move on to the next obstacle. We had had zero time for reflection, contemplation, or mourning. First there was the Shuttle explosion, the narrow escape from dying in space, fighting terrorists, the tornados and ECC explosion in northern Florida, escaping Huntsville by the skin of our teeth, 'Becca's flubell virus, an entire state with over fifty million American citizens destroyed, and now ordering at least four people to their deaths. We both needed to cry for a while. We hadn't even been able to attend the memorial service for our fellow astronauts on the Shuttle and now there were millions to mourn.
I held Tabitha for several minutes, both of us crying. I wiped the tears from my face and then hers. "We will make it through this, the United States of America will prevail. Besides, you still owe me a honeymoon." I smiled at her—turtle-up and focus, this fight ain't over yet.
She slugged me on my shoulder right were I had been shot. "Oww!" I laughed and rubbed my mostly-healed shoulder.
"Okay hotshot, we just bought us some time. Now get me some warp missiles before the Chinese get back on their feet," she ordered.
"Yes ma'am, General ma'am!" I saluted.
CHAPTER 17
I checked with 'Becca and Sara on the progress of the miniature energy collection cubes or Mini ECCs. We were still two months away from the first one being produced and about three months away from the next four. The second and larger automated Clemons Dumbbell deposition systems (on a higher floor) were just now coming online and would be a couple of months behind the system put in place in our basement. After the first one was generated by the basement facility, production starts over. So, in four months there would be enough Mini ECCs to power six mini warp missiles or MWMs.
Jim and I had completed the design for the MWM's warp coils and apparently, Al had completed the design for the MWM airframes and internal hardware. Jim and I passed along notes and design information to the manufacturing guys a few floors up and they began to cut, roll, and weld metal. As soon as the mini ECCs were ready we could plug them into the missiles and integrate them into a Shuttle or an expendable launch vehicle (ELV). I started looking through Al's notes and design data for the blueprints for the mating hardware for the launch vehicle. When I realized that no hardware had been designed for integrating the MWMs into a launch vehicle, ELV or otherwise, I was a tad bit heated to say the least.