SubOrbital 7, page 9
Feodor frowned at the cakes and Krozkov chuckled inwardly. Krozkov had chosen tea cakes for the meeting because they were covered in powdered sugar, and he knew Feodor would not want to touch them—it would get powdered sugar all over his sculptured mustache and beard.
Feodor flicked his eyes suspiciously up at him.
He thinks I’m perversely toying with him, thought Krozkov. And what a peculiar little perversion it must seem!
In truth, it was one more variation of his means of keeping his close associates off balance. Just little things, so that they were always a hair’s width on the defensive. So that they always felt their lower rank, though Krozkov made a point of never overtly bullying anyone. It had to appear that he was in command through sheer charisma. If anyone pushed back hard, he simply disappeared them, without comment.
The others got the message.
He was not short on charisma. It was one of the many gifts the Holy Father had bestowed on him. He went to church once a month and said, “Thank you for making me who I am.”
Sometimes he thought he detected a curiously attentive silence in response. Such strange feelings one got in the cathedral…
All this passed through his mind in a flash as he nodded toward the hand computer. Feodor put a pleasant, businesslike expression on his face and unfolded the device. It started out the size of a large smartphone, but opened up it became seamlessly smooth, and as wide as the old laptops. He muttered voice commands; it scanned his irises, and he made some haptic passes over it that always looked mystical to Krozkov.
Then he passed it over. “You see,” Feodor said, “the satellite imagery is definitive. It’s one of their SubOrbital covert operations craft. The reports of the survivors suggest United States Army Rangers. The question is, should we expose them on the world stage? Let everyone know they’ve engaged in this reckless adventurism, this assault on Moldovan national sovereignty—an act of mass murder, in fact.”
Krozkov looked at the memo accompanying the satellite shots.
“The Thieves in Law say the prisoners escaped alive. Hence, my friend, the Americans can perhaps use the testimony of the hostages to justify their operation. If the prisoners are taken to the USA, they will fill the news media with their claims and charges. They will weep on camera about torture. They saw one of their own die in our custody. That will summon the ‘How sad, how pitiful!’ All the usual. It could lead to onerous sanctions.”
“We can insist that we had nothing to do with it. It’s all the Thieves in Law’s doing,” Feodor said, shrugging.
“American intelligence seems to know that this branch of Thieves in Law is our asset. It may be that this Olek Syrkin—who is suspected of being a traitor—is with them, and they have Ildeva. They will talk, and worse, these men—Magonier, Dupon, and Dhariwal—are intrinsic to NATO’s orbital military plans, intrinsic to EuroIntel, but most especially they are developing technology that the Americans will use against us.
“They are the key researchers. That is why we took them, and Lutzoff was stupid enough to get himself killed. He sent us little of use. So what has to be done is obvious, and there is no time to consult with our beloved leader.”
Feodor blinked. “You do not ask the President?”
“Anatoly will understand. There is no time for procrastination. I will give the orders. It will be done carefully. With deniability. But—it will be done.”
Feodor opened his mouth to protest, but Krozkov silenced him with a gesture. Taking his phone from his pocket, he made the call.
EIGHT
Alexi? How you holding up?” Burkett was crouching in the narrow aisle beside Syrkin, holding onto an armrest to keep from floating away. Syrkin was still staring upward as if the blood was still there.
“How do I feel? How do you think, Lieutenant! You people used my brother and then you shot him. And what’s going to happen to Lieutenant Carney? Nothing.”
“I’m going to file a recommendation that he’s court-martialed,” Burkett replied quietly. “We all had orders to watch out for Olek. He should have paid attention. But—friendly fire happens, Alexi. I lost a very good friend that way and it hurts like a son of a bitch. It must be way worse when it’s your brother—has to be. I’m just lucky Carney didn’t shoot me too. Hell, he missed me by a hair, man.” Burkett wished he could think of something better to say. “I don’t even like my older brother, but if it happened to him, I’d feel it. Hard.”
Syrkin chuckled sadly. “I didn’t like Olek much either.” His voice was slightly slurred. Rodriguez must’ve given him a Xanax or something, Burkett figured. “I didn’t even know him so much,” Syrkin went on. “He was my half-brother, raised apart from me. In Bulgaria. He came out to America when he was a teenager, tried life in the blessed US of A with me and my folks. I got to know him some, but he didn’t like the… the way women are in America. He thought they were insolent or something.
“He didn’t like it when the FBI came and interviewed him,” Syrkin continued. “Somebody told them he had connections to Bulgar mafia—the TiL in Los Angeles. I didn’t trust him so much. I didn’t like the way he talked about America. But a couple of assholes tried to beat me up for my phone one time and he came rolling up on them and bam—man, he rubbed their faces in the dirt for it. Really stood up for me. And you know…” He licked his lips. “Bowling is very big in Eastern Europe.”
“Is it?” Burkett was a little confused by this seeming non sequitur.
“I didn’t know how to bowl. He showed me how, when he lived with us. He was very patient with me, until I was able to make a lot of strikes. It increased my confidence a lot. He said, ‘If you can learn that, you can learn most anything.’”
Burkett nodded. “He had some wisdom.”
“He didn’t have enough wisdom to keep away from gangsters, but you know, we grew up without our father. My dad’s brother, he was always a street guy, and he was another father for Olek.”
“Understandable he’d go that way,” Burkett said. “I’m not sure I’d have done anything else if I was in his position.”
Syrkin looked at him, in a sidelong kind of way. A look of cold suspicion.
“You’re managing me, Lieutenant, saying stuff like that.”
Burkett shook his head. “I mean it. Alexi, I’m deeply sorry we lost track of Olek. This is on me, too. I should’ve kept him close—shouldn’t have let him slip off for the intel. I’m guessing he wanted to get a cash reward from the CIA. We found the intel on his body.” Which was now in a body bag, floating in a storage closet. “But… when he didn’t come back…”
Burkett had been chewing it over in the back of his mind since Olek Syrkin had been shot. Part of Alpha Team’s job was to pick up all the intel they could, but there hadn’t been time on this mission.
He ran the events back in his mind. Olek rushing off into the darkness. Then Tango shooting at Lemuel from a rooftop. Burkett getting involved in identifying the point of fire—at which point Olek took off. Long minutes had passed—then the Captain was ordering them to rendezvous. Burkett figured Olek had lost his nerve, was actually blowing off the exfil…
“I told Alpha I’d get them to Beta and the Captain, then I’d go back and make sure of Olek,” Burkett said. “We went through the woods toward Beta’s position, then Olek came out behind us…”
Syrkin closed his eyes and Burkett wasn’t sure he was listening.
“He was a hero,” Alexi murmured. “He wanted relocation and money, but it was Olek who saved those prisoners. Gave us what we needed to find them. Moscow would never have let them go. He saved them, Lieutenant, and we shot him for it.”
Burkett heard a thruster-burn and felt the orbcraft change course.
“Lieutenant Burkett?” Strickland’s voice in his headset. “Captain? We have a blip. We’re trying to figure out if it’s space debris but… I don’t think so. Moves like a bogey.”
“We’ll talk again, Alexi.”
Burkett pushed off a little too hard, so that he had to catch himself on the bulkhead up front, sending a stab of pain through his right side. Maybe the bullet that struck his Kevlar had cracked a rib. Ignoring the pain, he made his way onto the flight deck.
“What we got?”
“We’re evading… whatever it is,” Ike said, “but it’s following us!”
“Where’s the Captain?” Burkett asked.
“Right here,” Mayweather said, drifting up from behind. “How close is it, what velocity?”
“Velocity,” Strickland said, breathlessly now, “is… it’s accelerating! It’s—”
“Hold on for evasion!” Faraday yelled into his headset, hands moving over the controls. Burkett and Mayweather clutched the sides of the hatch as the S-7 fired its main thrusters and underside pitch thrusters, veering up relative to the Earth, heading to a higher orbit. The vessel trembled with the acceleration and the inertia nearly yanked Burkett loose from his hold.
“It’s following—still accelerating!” Strickland called over the roar of the thrusters.
“Firing port lateral—” Faraday began.
A reverberating metallic crash rang through the S-7 as it was struck aft, and the orbcraft wrenched sharply to starboard. Someone screamed and Burkett was torn from his handholds and thrown back, tumbling through the air, smacking his head on the back of a seat—then Rodriguez caught him.
The orbcraft whipped into a new angular velocity as Faraday regained control. Inertia snatched Burkett from Rod’s grasp and flung him to port, sending him into the bulkhead. Burkett struck curving steel with his left shoulder and grunted with the pain.
Rodriguez unhooked from his seat, pushed toward him, helped Burkett to an upright position—the medic’s face was blurred.
Hit my head, too.
“Thanks for that ballpark save, Rod,” Burkett said. His eyes cleared and, looking dazedly around, he saw Mayweather disentangling himself from Des Andrews. Burkett grabbed an overhead hold-ring with his right hand. His left arm was numb. Faraday and Strickland frantically called out corrections and readings.
“Lost port-lateral thrusters six through eleven,” Faraday said into the headset.
“Lieutenant, how’s your head?” Rodriguez asked. “You got a little blood there…”
“Just dinged a little, Rod. I’m okay. Check on those scientists, will you?”
“Yes sir. Best stay put till you’re sure you don’t have a concussion, Lieutenant.”
Rodriguez moved off toward the civilians. Heart banging, Burkett looked around for fire or smoke.
Nothing so far.
Everyone was talking at once and an alarm siren was wailing.
“Air pressure stable,” Strickland said.
The orbcraft steadied but a variety of items floated over the seats—pens and hand-screens and a patrol cap and someone’s jacket. Some of the Rangers were getting up to see what they could do.
“Switch off the alarm, goddamn it,” Mayweather called out. “We’re alarmed already!” It shut off. “And keep the talk down to what’s necessary!”
“You okay, Lieutenant?” Dorman asked, drifting up to him. “Saw you smack that bulkhead. Feel like anything’s broken?”
Some of the feeling was returning to Burkett’s left arm and he stretched it.
“Doesn’t feel like it. Shoulder hurts, but not like a fracture.”
“What the hell happened, Lieutenant? Debris strike?”
“Debris doesn’t change direction to hit you. Missile impact.” Burkett tugged on the ring, sailed back through the cabin—clumsily, his boots clunking once into a chairback. Head buzzing, shoulder throbbing, he kept going, working his way into the aft compartments passage, where he floated up to the rearmost hatch.
It was inset with a thick glass window that looked out on the storage deck, a large compartment with a curved ceiling. Most of it was taken up by the two LTVs. There were crates locked down to either side, heavy weapons racks, extra oxygen. Two oxygen tanks floated in the air, knocked loose from their moorings. If the chamber had been breached, the tanks would’ve been sucked to the crack in the hull.
Then he spotted it: the bulkhead on the right was misshapen, dented inward. Faraday had veered just before impact, so the missile hit them glancingly, detonating but not penetrating their armor. Nevertheless, it had done some damage.
“Burkett?” Mayweather’s voice in the headset. “We’ve lost some of our systems. Long distance comms are down, some of our thrusters aren’t answering, and Strickland thinks we’re leaking fuel. Air pressure’s steady. What’ve you got back there?”
“Indication of impact in the aft hold, but no breach, sir. I’m reluctant to open the hatch without a pressure suit. It could be a slow leak.”
“Get back up here. But, uh—put Private Dorman on it, to keep watch back there. Leave it sealed for now. Have Andrews, Cha, Dabiri, and Lang go through every other compartment on the craft, inspect for damage, and report. Let ’em know what you think happened.”
“Yes sir.”
Squinting against the pain in his head, Burkett floated forward, issued the orders, saw that the air litter had been cleaned up—Lemuel was chasing down the last bit—and noted Rodriguez checking over Ildeva. He guessed Rod had given Dupon a strong painkiller, because the scientist’s head was drooping, his arms limp in the air.
“What has happened, Lieutenant?” Magonier asked as Burkett passed. His first impulse was to put the man off—but then, whatever the S-7 was in for, the civilians were in for it, too.
“We think someone hit us with a missile. We don’t know who yet. Good news is we’re not losing air pressure. But—we have some systems damage. Going to assess that now. Call Rod over if you need anything.” He pushed on before the scientists could press him for more information.
“You okay, Art?” Mayweather asked as Burkett pulled himself into the flight deck.
“Nothing broken, Captain. You?”
“I’m good. Andrews has a bloody nose from my kneecap.”
“Any more bogies?”
“Not so far, Lieutenant,” Strickland responded. “But we’re off course—in a whole different orbit. Evasion and impact threw us into Compass orbit. We’re about 2,040 klicks up.”
“Compass? Jesus…” That was MEO—medium Earth orbit. They were seriously out in space now. “We going to have to evade satellites?”
“There’s still a lot of empty out here, but maybe.”
“I hear something about a fuel leak?”
“Yeah,” Mayweather said, the syllable a sigh. “Tank two. It’s going fast.”
“Any chance of an explosion?”
Faraday and Strickland looked at each other. Ike cleared his throat. “Um… not impossible. The methane’s vaporizing, could accumulate in empty spaces in the tank, and there’s oxygen mixed in with it. A spark…”
Burkett’s mouth was suddenly paper dry. “Can we use the fuel anytime soon? I mean, if we try to use it—does it increase the risk of a detonation?”
“Actually—yeah, it does.”
“We got time to patch it up, somehow?”
“That’d take a lot of plan-and-prep,” Faraday said. “Not sure we could carry it out without risking an explosion. That methane’s melting.”
Burkett nodded. The methane-oxygen mix was kept frozen, and they were on the sunny side of the Earth now. Likely the break in the hull allowed the exposed tank to heat up—the cracked tank released vaporized gas into the space between the hull and the tank. The gas was steadily seeping into space, but on its way out it was danger-hot. He shook his head—and the pain from the motion made him regret it.
“It’ll leak out before we can use it. Safest thing would be to jettison the tank.” Frowning, he added, “I should know if that’s possible, but I don’t.”
“There is a way to do that,” Faraday said. “That section of hull opens from here—if its motor is still functioning—but that’s a lot of fuel we’ll lose if we dump the tank. We had just enough to start with.”
“We’ll have to figure something out,” Mayweather said. “There’s high risk of an explosion. Jettison the damaged tank, Lieutenant Faraday. Make sure it leaves our vicinity tout suite.”
“Yes sir,” Ike said, opening the cover on a control panel.
“Are the comms down, Sergeant?” Burkett asked.
“Long-distance comms, yeah,” Strickland said. She winced. “I should’ve sent a message to base when we were first being targeted, but—”
“You were busy,” Mayweather said. “You didn’t have time, and the two of you got us through this intact.”
So far, Burkett thought. Why should there be only one attack on them?
“So, who fired this thing at us?” Faraday asked.
“Could be a mistake.” Mayweather shrugged. “Maybe accidentally triggered.”
That seemed far-fetched to Burkett. “You think it was surface-to-orbit, sir?” he asked.
“Radar, lidar, and heat signature suggested it came from behind us, at the same orbital altitude,” Sergeant Strickland said. “And it tracked us for a while—following a parallel course.”
“Meaning it wasn’t fired from the surface,” Mayweather muttered. He rubbed his forehead. “That leaves our own stations, some kind of accidental missile launch, or the Chinese, or… the Russians.”
“We just got all up in Moscow’s face,” Burkett said, nodding.
“Krozkov,” Mayweather muttered.
“It’s a good possibility. He won’t want our guests to make it to debriefing.”
Mayweather took a deep breath. “Once we make absolutely sure we’re not losing air pressure, our priority is to communicate with control, and then get back to base. Meaning we have to assess our thrust and navigation capabilities, and available fuel.”
Getting to the geosynchronous point for re-entry within reach of Base Three might be possible, Burkett guessed, but re-entry meant using large amounts of fuel for braking and course correction. Without that capability, they’d burn up in the atmosphere.
“We could link up with a fuel source,” Faraday suggested. “If we could communicate our position.”
