WEDNESDAY, 2 JULY 2042

US Joint Chiefs’ Command/
Control Bunker
The Pentagon, Arlington,
Virginia
0947 hours GMT

General Montgomery Warhurst took his seat next to his boss, five-star Admiral Charles Jordan Gray, in the bunker’s main briefing room. The chamber was already crowded with both high-ranking military personnel and civilians, so many that while the main players sat around the huge, oval table at the center, perhaps a hundred more, secretaries, assistants, and aides, took seats in a gallery to one side, connected electronically to their bosses through PADs and console touch screens.

Warhurst looked about, not nervously, but with a distinct sense of being a fish out of water. The commandant of the US Marine Corps was not normally an invitee to meetings of the Joint Chiefs, which consisted of the chiefs of staff of the Army, Navy, and Aerospace Force, and their entourages. In that respect, at least, the Marines were still considered to be an appendage of the Navy, though there’d been talk for a long time now about giving them a seat of their own on the JCS.

The big table was so crowded because a number of other high-powered guests were present as well: Louis Carlton Harrel, the national security advisor; Archibald Severin, the secretary of defense; Arthur Kinsley, the director of Central Intelligence. All looked worried. The tension, the worry, the fear in the room all were palpable.

“Big turnout, CJ,” Warhurst said sotto voce as he opened up his PAD on the table in front of him. “All the VIPs are out.”

“Most of ’em. There was talk that President Markham would be here, too,” Gray murmured. “Canceled at the last minute. Harrel, over there, will be briefing him later. This whole session is being recorded for his sake, too, so be sure to put on your best camera smile when you say your piece.”

“Should I bow and say ‘Mr. President’?”

“No, but be sure to keep a rein on that temper of yours. The word is we’re going up against the Aerospace Force.”

“They developed a counter, too?”

“Yup. And Harrel and the president are going to have to decide which one to use.”

“Easy. Deploy both. If number one plan fails, we still have number two, and we double our chances of getting out of this alive.”

“We may not have the resources for both.”

“Resources! You mean funding? My God, CJ, the UNdies are dropping a goddamn mountain on top of us, and the bean counters are worried about money?”

“Money is always a problem, Monty, even in war, when everyone pretty much prints what he needs. But there are other assets we’re going to be scrambling for, too.”

Warhurst nodded. “The LSCPs.”

“And HLV assets.”

“We’ve both been saying for years that we needed a bigger permanent presence in space,” Warhurst said. “An orbital military base with its own booster reserve, and at least one Lunar base and manufacturing and fuel-processing facility.”

“And there’s always something more urgent on the table,” Gray replied. “The word is we’re short of prepped Zeus IIs. That’s where the bottleneck is, right now.”

“Damn. We can’t kill asteroids if we can’t get off the friggin’ planet.”

An Aerospace Force colonel called the meeting to order. A moment later, Admiral Gray was standing at his place, addressing the listening personnel.

“Gentlemen and ladies. You’ve all seen the reports from Langley. The UN has just drastically upped the ante in the war by launching a weapon of unprecedented potential destructive force. Computer simulations confirm that, if nothing is done to alter Asteroid 2034L’s present course, it will strike the central United States at precisely 2032 hours EDT on Monday, 15 September. The projectile appears to be aimed at our command/control facilities at Cheyenne Mountain and will strike with an estimated yield of two hundred to three hundred megatons. While we can evacuate the military facilities in the target area well before 1-Day, the infrastructures of our NORAD and Space Command centers will be destroyed, along with the entire state of Colorado and a considerable portion of the west-central United States. Evacuation of civilians from an area stretching from Nevada to Missouri and from Wyoming to Texas is, quite frankly, completely beyond our capabilities. We estimate direct civilian casualties in the range of four to six million. We have no way of estimating civilian casualties caused by the starvation and thirst, disease, lack of medical care, and civil unrest that will certainly follow the strike, but they will certainly run into the tens of millions. In short, the effect will be similar to a massive nuclear strike against the continental United States, lacking only the aftereffects of radiation to make the comparison perfect.

“When news of this impending catastrophe was relayed to the Joint Chiefs last week, I directed the other members of the JCS to submit detailed plans by which we might counter the UN threat. Two plans have been submitted, and we will now hear summaries of both.” Turning, Gray nodded to General Grace Sidney, the Aerospace Force chief of staff. “General Sidney? Would you care to start us off?”

Sidney stood, tapping out a key combination on her PAD and bringing up an animated graphic on the big board at her back, and on the PAD screens of all of the people present. The room lights dimmed. “Thank you, Admiral.

“Our approach is straightforward and simple…I might even say elegant. On or before Thursday, 24 July—that’s just three weeks from tomorrow—a pair of Zeus II heavy-lift boosters will put two SRE-10 Sparrowhawks into deep-space trajectory. That is, they will not be placed into orbit but will be launched essentially straight up, on a high-energy boost that will put them on a direct intercept vector with 2034L. At an altitude of twelve hundred miles, each Sparrowhawk will launch two modified VB-98 Star-burst missiles, each carrying a single GB-8020 thermonuclear warhead with a yield of forty megatons apiece. Each Sparrowhawk will also launch three additional VB-98s, each carrying cluster decoy munitions.”

On the screen, the mission unfolded in animated graphics, as two delta-winged craft climbed straight out from the Earth, then released a total of eight slender missiles before starting the long fall back home.

“The Sparrowhawks will fall back toward the Earth, reenter, and glide to dead-stick landings. The missiles, which will have been modified with solid-fuel boosters to give them a high sustained delta-v, will proceed toward the target behind the decoys, on a trajectory that will take seven days. The decoys will detonate at precisely determined points to confuse enemy tracking and scanning. They will also disperse clouds of microchaff, which will scatter any antimissile laser fire from the Sagittaire and also make radar tracking of the warheads difficult.

“Both missiles will arrive at the target on Thursday, 31 July. They will be precisely targeted and will employ radar altimeters that will detonate them on this side of the asteroid, within ten to thirty meters of the surface. We will launch two warheads to double our chances of success, just in case the enemy is able to get through our masking cloud. Only one needs to get through.

“The explosion’s shock wave, imparted by some six kilograms of vaporized material from the warhead, will be negligible in vacuum, of course, but the radiant thermal energy will be enormous, sufficient to convert a thin layer of the asteroid’s surface, amounting to some fifty metric tons, to vapor. That vapor will escape the asteroid on that side at a velocity of four kilometers per second, imparting a lateral delta-v to the body of some ten to fifteen centimeters per second.

“Now, ten centimeters per second doesn’t sound like much, but in forty-one days that amounts to a change in vector of just over 397 kilometers…almost 250 miles. If we were trying to prevent a dead-on, center-of-target impact on the Earth, of course, we wouldn’t have a chance, since the radius of the Earth is over six thousand kilometers. But—and this is crucial to this problem—we don’t need to change 2034L’s path by anything near that much. The asteroid’s inbound course, remember, deflected by the Moon’s gravity and again by Earth’s as it comes up from behind, is delicately balanced. Every computer simulation we’ve run shows that if we can change the path by as little as 125 kilometers away from Earth as it passes from the nightside to the dayside, there will be absolutely no chance of a collision. The asteroid will continue past the Earth and on in its orbit about the sun. There is a remote chance of a collision on another orbit at some date in the remote future, but plenty of time to deal with the possibility before it becomes a danger.

“If both warheads reach their target and detonate, the asteroid’s delta-v is increased to something closer to twenty to twenty-five centimeters per second, with a total displacement over forty-one days of almost eight hundred kilometers. One warhead will do the job. Two will simply ice the cake. We will be attempting to intercept and deflect the body while it is still beyond the Moon, which gives us an excellent chance of completely screwing the UN calculations here.” She looked around the table. “That concludes my summary report. Are there any questions?”

Harrel, the national security advisor, tapped his finger rapidly on the tabletop, a quick tic-tic-tic of sound in the near-silent chamber. “General Sidney,” he said, “if two missiles are good, wouldn’t four be better? Or ten? Or fifty?”

“We are looking into the possibility of multiple launches. Unfortunately, our assets are badly limited at the moment, and the best we can do within the next three weeks is two launches, as I’ve just outlined for you. If we can get additional Zeus II boosters on the pad at Vandenberg or Canaveral, we will certainly see about maximizing our chances with as many additional launches as possible. Of course, the closer the asteroid gets to the Earth, the harder it is to change its course enough to do any good.”

When there were no further comments, Admiral Gray stood again. “Thank you, Grace. General Warhurst? What do you have for us?”

“Yes, sir.” Warhurst stood at his place, tapping his own combination into his touch pad. The large wall screen lit up with scrolling columns of data, while an inset window showed a graphic animation of a pair of LSCPs intercepting the asteroid as it tumbled toward Earth. “Gentlemen. Ladies. We do not propose to screw around with this thing. One-SAG, of the US Marine Space Tactical Command, is ready to land a special assault force of fifty Marines on Asteroid 2034L. We project a launch from Vandenberg employing two Zeus II HLVs.” He glanced at General Sidney and wondered what she was thinking. There would be only two heavy-lift vehicles available until mid-August.

“After engaging and destroying any UN forces stationed on the asteroid or in the immediate vicinity,” he continued, “they would land directly on the surface. They would carry with them twelve DS-50 thermonuclear devices, which they would plant…in this pattern.” On the screen, the graphic showed twelve bright green points embracing the slow-tumbling, roughly potato-shaped body in a dodecahedron. The two LSCPs lifted from the asteroid and swung back toward Earth, moments before the twelve points flared up together in a fireball of incandescent fury. As the fireball dissipated, only an expanding cloud of glowing dust motes remained.

“Our information suggests that 2034L is a carbonaceous chondrite, which means its mass is friable, fairly soft, and not densely packed. Twelve thermonuclear explosions in the five-to-ten-megaton range should serve to vaporize nearly all of the asteroid. Any surviving fragments will be small enough that they will burn up upon entering Earth’s atmosphere.”

Kenneth Morrow, the secretary of technology, cleared his throat. “Ah, General Warhurst. I’ve reviewed your figures, and must say that your people have worked this out in considerable detail. However, there are a few points I’m not clear on. You say that twelve ten-megaton H-bombs should vaporize nearly all of that thing. Can’t you guarantee a clean sweep? Disintegrate it? Maybe by using more bombs….”

“With all due respect, sir, there’s no such thing as a disintegration ray. Not yet, anyway. That asteroid masses some hundreds of millions of tons. We can transform a very great deal of that mass into gas or droplets of liquid rock, but the mass doesn’t just go away. It’s still there after the blast, and most of it is still heading our way. What we hope to achieve, here, is to disperse that mass, from one big lump into trillions of grains the size of sand and bits of gravel. A hundred million tons of sand will burn up in the atmosphere. A hundred-million-ton mountain will not.

“The plan calls for twelve thermonuclear devices in order to melt and disrupt all of 2034L, right down to its heart. More devices would not do a better job.”

“Might there be a possibility of some of the nuclear devices detonating ahead of the others?” Secretary of Defense Severin asked. “Wouldn’t that disrupt your dodecahedron?”

“That is a possibility, sir. We believe the technology is good enough to guarantee near-simultaneous detonation…within a few thousandths of a second. If we’re that close on the mark, all of the warheads would detonate before they could be disrupted by a neighbor. But I would be lying if I said it was a sure thing.”

“And yet the survival of the United States may be riding on this operation, General,” Severin said, thoughtful. “Possibly the survival of the entire world, if our UNdie friends have miscalculated with this damned thing.”

“How soon could your people be ready to go, General?” Admiral Gray asked.

Warhurst nodded his thanks to his friend. Morrow had interrupted his report and gotten him off the track. Now he was back in the groove. “One-SAG is already on full alert. We need to arrange to borrow a ride to orbit from the Aerospace Force, of course. We would need those two HLVs General Sidney mentioned to boost our LSCPs into an intercept trajectory. We could have the ground-to-orbit transports mated to the boosters by the first week of August. The, ah, Army’s setback in May has left us a bit short on deployment vehicles. So we’re having to scramble to get the LSCPs.”

“Screw you, Monty,” General Turner, the Army chief of staff, said pleasantly.

“However,” Warhurst continued, “I’m told we can have two LSCPs fueled and ready by 25 August. Eight days to target, at that point. We could be on 2034L by 2 September. That would, incidentally, allow time for a backup mission to be readied, just in case the first mission had to be scrubbed or met with defeat.”

“I thought the Marines never admitted defeat, General,” Severin said, grinning.

It might have been meant as a joke or jibe. Warhurst responded seriously. “Those of us planning the broad strategy always consider that possibility, Mr. Secretary. Always. To do less would be criminal negligence.”

“One last question, General Warhurst,” Harrel said. “You mentioned the possibility of combat. Of having to clear the asteroid and the vicinity of enemy forces.”

“According to our intelligence, sir, the French warship Sagittaire is tucked in next to the asteroid. We suspect that she’s there to protect the UN investment, so to speak. If missiles are fired, if troops are deployed to stop their toy, they have people on-station with whom they can counter our move. They may also be in place to provide last-minute course adjustments, right up to the last moment.”

“A suicide mission?” Severin asked.

“No, sir,” Warhurst replied.

“In other words, they’re expecting 1-SAG. They’d be ready for them.”

“Sir, in every opposed amphibious operation in the Corps’ history, the enemy knew we were coming. What they won’t be expecting is the ferocity of the assault.”

“Maybe,” Harrel said. “Maybe. But that ferocity isn’t going to do us a damned bit of good if they laser your LSCPs out of the sky before you can deploy.”

“If you’ll read the full briefing, sir, you’ll see that we have anticipated that. An initial strike with low-yield nuclear weapons will blind the Sagittaire’s sensors, and convince the enemy that we are trying to use missiles to destroy or deflect the asteroid.” He glanced around the table. “So…if there are no further questions, that concludes my report.”

“I have a question, General,” Grace Sidney said, raising her hand.

“General?”

“Your plan seems awfully…complicated. And risky. You could lose a lot of men out there.”

“There’s always that risk. If we don’t try, we know we’ll lose a lot more here on Earth.”

“Is there a threat to Earth from radiation?”

“Negligible. The hot debris would largely be scattered on the solar wind. And we’ll still be intercepting the asteroid outside the Moon’s orbit.”

“Well,” Harrel said, folding his hands. “Two alternatives to put on the president’s desk. That’s two more than we had when this mess began. I will let you know of his decision.”

“Sir,” Warhurst said, “if I might suggest, we can begin implementing both the Marine and Aerospace Force alternatives, at least up to the point where we have to decide on one plan or the other in order to allocate the booster assets. It will save time.”

“Of course, of course. We may well have to rely on both plans, with one serving as backup for the other, as additional HLVs come on-line. You will be informed. Thank you, both of you, for your presentations.”

“Nice job, Monty,” Gray said later, as the crowd began breaking up. “I think we’ve got a good chance.”

Warhurst shot a hard look at the admiral as he folded up his PAD. “CJ, I don’t care who takes the honors with this thing. It’s not a game, and it’s not about next year’s budget. Frankly, her idea might be the better one.”

“Why is that?”

“If nothing else, she can launch sooner than we can, because of the snafu with the LSCPs. The farther away from Earth that we can intercept this thing, the better.”

“Do you really think a couple of missiles launched from near-Earth space can do the job better?”

Warhurst sighed. He felt tired, deflated. “Hell, if I knew that…” He ran a hand through his hair. “Admiral, I know what Marines can do, even against impossible odds. I know what having trained men on the site can mean to an op, as opposed to remotes or robots or surveillance cams. My honest-to-God, gut feeling is that it’s better to handle this with men than with machines. And if you need men, the Marines are ready.”

“I think you’re right, Monty. We’ll just have to see if Markham agrees with you.”

Alexander Residence
Arlington Heights, Illinois
1615 hours CDT

“Someone is coming up the walk.”

Liana looked away from the E-room wall screen, startled. Someone?

The door’s recognition software knew all of her friends, all of the neighbors or Church of the Divine Masters acquaintances who might come to call. Delivery people, postal servers, and police all wore small transponders in their clothing, like military IFF beacons, that identified them to smart doors.

So who was coming up the walkway that she didn’t know?

Rising from the sofa, she walked to the front door. “Display,” she said, placing a hand on the small flatscreen mounted there.

Her!

Liana heard her door asking the visitor to leave her name and a message. She was tempted not to answer, to pretend she was out, even though the car in the port outside gave the lie to that deception.

What was Teri Sullivan doing here? Didn’t she know that David had been arrested?

“Hello,” Teri’s voice said over the door’s messager. “This is Dr. Theresa Sullivan. I work with your husband at the Institute. Ms. Alexander? I need to talk to you.” A moment passed. “Please answer the door!”

Liana waited a moment more, trying to decide. Then, abruptly, she jerked the door open. “Excuse me,” she said, putting all of the ice she could into the words. “I didn’t recognize you with your clothes on.”

The other woman closed her eyes, face reddening, but then she opened them again. “Please. May I come in? I need to talk to you.”

“I can’t imagine about what.”

“About David.”

“The door didn’t recognize you,” Liana said. She felt angry, and hurt. What was this woman doing here? What was she thinking? “I would have thought David would have keyed it for you. Didn’t he bring you here for a fast screw on nights when I was out?”

“No, Ms. Alexander. Never.” She drew a deep breath. “Look…it’s true. I have slept with David. And obviously you’ve seen some of my v-mail to him. I’m…I’m terribly sorry if I’ve offended you.”

“Offended me! You bitch! You were trying to take my husband!”

“Ms. Alexander,” Teri said softly, “I’m afraid you lost him long before I came on the scene.”

Liana trembled on the brink of losing her last shreds of control. She’s right, damn her. Maybe there really isn’t any hope for us. With difficulty, she drew back, took a couple of breaths, and managed to put the ice back in her words. “David is not here. I can’t imagine what you and I could possibly have to talk about. Good-bye.”

“No!” As Liana started to close the door, Teri barged forward, blocking it with her leg. “No, you don’t understand! I need your help to get him out of prison!”

That stopped her. “What are you talking about?”

“Look…last week I was talking to David’s lawyer. She says they’re not letting anyone in to see him. She’s right. I’ve been trying.”

Liana nodded. “They told me he was in transit, whatever that means. And they’re not returning my v-calls and messages anymore.”

“Same here. I…I’ve been thinking about this all week. Trying to, well, trying to work up my nerve to come here and talk to you. His lawyer said that we might be able to rally some support from people David knows.”

“What, all those archeologists and scientists and things?” She shook her head. “I don’t know any of them.”

“I do…what I was wondering was if we could go through his correspondents’ list on your home computer. There might be others on the list who could help. Or people who know people. If you let me copy that list, I could send out a letter, asking for help. Or…you could do it from here, but I’m afraid your home connection might be monitored. I have a system that will get the messages out, no matter what.”

Liana drew herself up taller. “Maybe you don’t understand, Dr. Sullivan. David’s and my marriage, well…maybe you’re right. Maybe it’s all over. So why should I want to help him? Or you, for that matter?”

“Because it’s the right thing to do? Because the damned government is trying to pull a disappearing act with one of its citizens, and can’t be allowed to get away with that shit? Maybe because, even if your marriage is over, you two still loved each other once, cared for each other, and wanted what was best?” When Liana didn’t answer, she added, “Look, I know you want to strangle me, and maybe him, too, but there’s time for that later. The bastards are magleving David, and we’ve got to do something about it!”

Liana stared at the woman for a long several seconds, then finally stepped back from the door. “C’mon.”

She led the way to the E-room and sat again on the sofa. Reaching out, she tapped away at the touch-screen keyboard, closing the novel she’d been watching and bringing up David’s private system. She typed in the word “Sphinx,” then navigated with swift, sure strokes on the touch screen to his correspondents’ list. “There you go.”

Names and v-mail addresses scrolled up the screen…perhaps a hundred of them.

“Lots of scientists,” Teri said. She pointed. “That name, Kaminski. He’s a Marine. David told me once he was exchanging a lot of mail with him.”

“I’ll make a copy of the list for you.”

“Thank you.”

“Don’t thank me. Just take the thing and get out of here. I don’t want to see either of you, ever again.” Her mother wouldn’t have approved, Liana knew, but she was changing her mind about the whole question of divorce. Some things could never be forgiven, even in the light of the Divine Masters.