gentlemen to make this thing work. Clear?”
“Yes, sir.”
“Keep working at ways of intercepting those missiles. The people won’t support a government that can’t protect them.”
“Overall popular response has been good, Mr. President,” Harrel said. “Surprisingly good, under the circumstances. The bombardment seems to have united most of them.”
“I would remind the president,” Gray said, “that an outside attack like this usually doesn’t have the effect on the morale of the target population that the attackers hope. The Germans learned that when they tried to bomb England during the Blitz. We learned the same thing in Vietnam a generation later.”
“Agreed. But it’s been a long time since Americans have been involved directly in a war like this, gentlemen. Unless you count a few shells from U-boats and Japanese subs in World War II, we’ve never suffered a bombardment…and the last time enemy troops were on our soil was the War of 1812. These attacks on our government buildings and institutions are designed for three things, as I see it. They want to demonstrate they can hit us, and keep hitting us as long as they need to. They want to break our morale. And they want to drive a wedge into our people, between the Nationalists and the Internationalists. The Internationalist Party, you know, has already come out in favor of a negotiated truce and immediate incorporation into the UN World Government. They could gain a lot of converts if this bombardment goes on. If we can’t show the people a damned positive turn in the battle, and fast, well…” He didn’t finish the sentence.
“Operation Freedom is the way to go, sir,” Gray said quietly. “Once we have control of Earth orbit, we’ve got the high ground, as it were. The Hecate laser aboard Shepard Station proved its effectiveness this morning. We’ll be able to turn it against enemy launch sites…maybe hit those European arsenal ships that have been tossing cruise missiles at us from the North Atlantic. We might even consider laser attacks against their capitals…or against the UN building in Geneva.”
“Who’s on the Freedom op?”
“The Marine commandant himself is running the show, Mr. President. He’s already left for Cheyenne Mountain. The unit tagged for the mission is First Platoon, Alfa Company, First Marine Strike Battalion.”
“They’re good?”
“The best. They’re the unit that brought our people out of Mexico City. They’re at Vandenberg, where they’ve been training for orbital combat operations.”
“Who’s in command?”
“A Lieutenant Fuentes, sir. CO of the rescue team at the embassy.”
“Well, I hope to hell he can pull it off.”
“Fuentes will do it if anyone can, Mr. President.” Gray decided not to tell Markham that Carmen Fuentes was a woman. Sex had stopped being an issue in the American military decades ago, but even now there was the unspoken but very evident assumption in government and in the chain of command that a man was needed for a man’s work. So far as Gray was concerned, Fuentes had proved herself and then some at the US Embassy in Mexico City. Warhurst trusted her…and, more to the point, the men and women in her platoon trusted her. He wasn’t going to risk interfering with that.
He just hoped she had what it took to pull off her mission. Right now, it looked as though the very existence of the United States of America was hanging by a thread.
NINETEEN
TUESDAY, 12 JUNE: 1412 HOURS GMT
Star Eagle transport Michael
E. Thornton LEO 0712 hours PDT
The Star Eagle Michael E. Thornton, a single-stage-to-orbit SCRAMjet transport, had cleared the lower reaches of Earth’s atmosphere and was accelerating now on her rockets, thundering through the fast-thinning traces of air toward the sunrise. Lieutenant Carmen Fuentes, encased in Class-One/Special armor and riding in what by now was effectively vacuum, couldn’t hear the rockets so much as feel them. The passenger module was a quick design that Marines jokingly referred to as “economy class,” with thin padding over hard steel skeletons of chairs.
It was not the most comfortable way to ride to orbit.
The last whispering rumble of the rocket engines died away, leaving Lieutenant Carmen Fuentes and the twenty-two men and women with her in the Star Eagle’s passenger compartment in the free-falling light-headedness of microgravity. The green light at the head of the compartment winked on, indicating that it was safe to move about. Fuentes unsnapped her harness, grabbed a handhold on the overhead, and pulled herself around to face her people.
“Listen up, everyone,” she said over the platoon channel. “I want all of you to stay strapped in. There’s nothing to see in this tin can, so you might as well stay buckled. You’ve all got your TD-patches, so you shouldn’t be spacesick. Any of you do feel sick, use your barf bags. Just remember, it’ll be a long time yet before we can unsuit.”
The passenger compartment for this flight of the Thornton was deliberately unpressurized, which meant the Marines had to stay sealed in their armor all the way up.
“I got the word a few minutes ago,” she continued, using the general talk frequency. “The McCutcheon’s lifted off from Florida and is on her way. We’ll have our backup at the target.”
She could almost sense the relief among the armored forms facing her. The Keith B. McCutcheon was another Star Eagle, identical to the Thornton, but she was coming to orbit with only a few Marines and technicians on board, riding in a pressurized passenger compartment. There would be doctors on board, and a small, microgravity surgery; most important, it would provide the Marine assault team with a place to go, shuck their suits, and stand down for a while. The op at the ISS was expected to take a long time, longer than their suits could carry them.
Fuentes resumed her seat. There were no windows, no display screens, and nothing to see but the cargo bay interior. From time to time, Thornton’s captain called back from the Star Eagle’s cockpit, updating her on their status.
“Lieutenant?” the ship’s captain said eventually. He was a Navy commander named Bryan Mason. “We’re coming up on the target. I’m cracking your overhead now. Make sure everybody’s tied down back there, and watch the light.”
“That’s a roger. We’re all secure here.”
“Copy. Opening up.”
Like the old shuttles, the Star Eagle possessed long, twin doors above the cargo area, and those were slowly opening now, the movement completely silent in the vacuum, though Fuentes could feel the vibration through the hull when she touched it with her glove. She looked up and watched the dark gray hatch panels sliding apart, revealing the inexpressibly lovely, deep blue of the Earth hanging above their heads. She glanced back down at her platoon, watching for the signs she’d been warned about…thrashing about, shaking, any of the possible physical reactions indicating that someone might be going into panic.
There were none. The platoon had been well briefed and well trained.
As the doors swung aside now, sunlight blasted into the interior, darkening the polarized visors of every Marine in the bay. Earth was impossibly blue, impossibly brilliant, a swirl of azure ocean, white dapplings and currents and sweeps of clouds, and a tawny patch of desert. Fuentes had thought she knew
