CHAPTER 47

The only thing that saves us from the bureaucracy is its inefficiency.
-- Eugene McCarthy

17 August

"I don't have my damned White House pass with me," Barry Gibbon said through clenched teeth to the impassive guard at the rear gate to the presidential palace. "I have been held captive for three days and I have had no time to go to Langley to retrieve it. I'm the President's space science advisor and I need to be in on the decisions being made about that whirligig in orbit. I know who's behind it and Crane needs me, so get Steve Milton on the line and he'll authorize a temporary pass!"

"All such requests must go through the chief of staff," the guard said, then added coolly, "Sir."

Gibbon leaned close enough to the young woman that the corrupt stench of a long-neglected body hit her nostrils. "Then call!"

***

In the White House Situation Room, NSA head Milton waited impatiently for President Nolan Crane to get off the phone. Other factions of the National Security Council listened in or conducted their own phone conversations with other hot spots. Crane -- a vital, handsome man in his late forties -- expressed constant irritation at the intrusive event diverting everyone's attention from the ongoing presidential campaign. His election advisors sat closer to him at the cluttered table than either the chairman of Joint Chiefs or Milton.

"And I don't care what it costs to redo the spot," President Crane said in a voice that would have been considered a petulant whine in anyone of lesser power. "I want to tie in with this future stuff." He listened, then said with extreme agitation, "You know what I mean. Future stuff!"

He slammed the phone down, saying, "Geez, what's it take to get a little vision from those wonks?" He turned to Milton. "What should we do?"

Milton looked up at his president and shrugged. "There are ways to bring them down."

"What exactly do you mean when you say 'bring them down'?"

"He means," Gibbon said, striding through the doors to the situation room, temporary pass clipped to his jacket pocket, cane wisping against the thick carpeting, "that we have got to knock them down at any cost."

The professor pointed to the TV monitors. On one, a woman newscaster described the launch of the spaceship, cutting away to spectacular videos patched in from NYU Flight Control, then to scenes around the campus. Police and news crews encircled the dorms, immobilizing the surrounding streets.

"This is a major crisis, Mr. President. The press is loving it. They're calling it SpaceCopter and Crockett-Rocket and Flibberty Belle and Bladerunner. As long as those kids are up there, they ridicule NASA, endanger UNITO , and pose a threat to national security. If they return safely, it only compounds that threat."

Milton, obviously in grim agreement, picked up a phone from the bank of dozens around the table and demanded a connection to NYU.

Crane rubbed the back of his neck. "Let's concentrate on priorities here. It's very important that our response not have a negative effect on the election. National security is all well and good, but if I'm not sitting here next January Twentieth, national security can go squat. They're just some college kids. I say ignore them. Hell, give them a medal and we'll pick up even more of the youth vote. Invite their grandparents and I'll talk about family val--"

"You can't slough them off that way, Nolan!" Gibbon spoke to the president as if scolding a pupil. "They built a spaceship in a run-down warehouse. A spaceship that NASA knew about and purposely avoided developing! If they stay safely in orbit for more than a few hours, every space case from San Diego to Atlantic City will try to shoot himself into the sky. Do you want to be the one who let a bunch of school kids make monkeys of the world's only remaining superpower?"

The chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff spoke. His accent betrayed his Georgian origin -- European Georgia, that is -- which still gave some of the older military men and women the willies.

"It is the opinion of the Pentagon that subnational ownership of spacecraft is as impermissible as subnational ownership of submarines, and for the same reason. The dominion of the United States is insufficient in both realms, and a subnational presence on either frontier is detrimental to our long-term interests."

"November Fifth is the longest term anyone here must consider," one of Crane's spin doctors declared. "Three kids hot-rodding in outer space is insignificant unless it impacts on the campaign! A hundred going up wouldn't matter if there were no foreseeable impact."

"What about the first one that doesn't make it to orbit?" asked a woman from the CIA. "Better to scare everyone out of it now by being firm than to see wreckage falling from here to India. That would be some impact for you."

"We can bring them down with an ASAT," Milton offered. "No one will know what happened. We can issue a statement that their ship probably broke up under stress and get Congress and the DOT to slap sanctions on all private rocket construction, for safety reasons, until the UN takes control. We ought to put a lid on it before you have a junior Buck Rogers land on the moon and start selling real estate."

"You people don't have any idea what this means," Gibbon said. "The actions of those kids completely undermines the integrity of the Interplanetary Treaty!"

The others stared at him as if he had dropped his pants.

"What," Crane asked, "does that have to do with anything? I know it's your baby and all, but--"

Gibbon stiffened. "The Treaty controls access to space in all signatory nations, and authorizes suppressive strikes against any non-signatory nations. Allowing those brats to stay up there would be the same as allowing homesteaders into Antarctica. It would violate the treaty and UNITO is authorized to use any means necessary to prevent private exploitation of resources that are the birthright of all."

The national economic advisor, Bret Wood, smirked. "A birthright no one can claim is no birthright at all."

Gibbon smirked right back. "The United States is bound by treaty to obey the United Nations."

"Not until January first," a small voice said from the far end of the table. The woman who spoke was not only physically small -- shorter than the diminutive NSA chief Milton -- her voice lilted softly in a high register. She was Helen Zylstra, the US ambassadress to the UN.

Gibbon glowered at her. She was the one who had abstained from a yea vote on IT. He said nothing, but tension seared between them.

She paused hesitantly for a moment, then said, "If you really want to be technical, UNITO doesn't have more than token power over space travel until 12:01 AM Greenwich Mean Time of January First next year. The next three and a half months could legally condone a sort of land rush -- I mean, a space rush -- for any government or subnational who wants to establish a living presence in Space. And I guess some people determined humanity's future important enough to search for a loophole and discovered one big enough to blast a rocket through."

She turned her petite blond head toward Gibbon and on her lips lay not a smirk but a warm and confidently beaming smile.

Milton offered the phone to Crane. "Be that as it may, Mr. President, think of the positive press if you can talk them down safely."

Crane took the handset. "This is the President of the United States. May I ask who I'm speaking to?"

"I'm Carla Pulaski, sir. NYU Flight Control."

"Well, good morning there. I'd like to speak to the pilot in command."

Carla patched his call through to Crockett. The president exchanged greetings with the spacefarers, then asked, in his most folksy re-election voice, "Well now, Davy Crockett, what the heck are you doing up there?" While he spoke, a constant stream of notes from Milton, Gibbon, and a half-dozen other advisors crossed in front of him. Some even tussled with others to convey their own instructions to the Commander-In-Chief.

Crockett grinned widely; it made his free fall-puffed face look expansive and caused his cheeks to bunch up like an older man's. "Mr. President, I offer you greetings from New Alamo, an orbital allodial freehold."

Crane covered the phone and said loudly, "What the hell is an 'allodial freehold'?"

Most shrugged. Gibbon said, "Ignore his babble. Just tell him what danger they're in. Scare them down."

Crane, though, read instead from a note handed him by one of his campaign staffers. "Thanks, Davy. You know, you've done your ancestor's memory well by putting that spaceship into orbit. Now that you've made your point, I think you'd better come down from there."

The image on the monitor kept its grin. "And if we decide to stay, who can forbid us?"

Another note, this one from Milton. "You can't simply just set up housekeeping up there," Crane read from the scrawl. "Space belongs to all mankind."

"Since we're part of mankind, it belongs to us, too," Crockett replied in his Tennessee drawl.

"Space exploration is the responsibility of the government." This note from Gibbon.

"Maybe yes, maybe no. Space has been explored plenty. It's time to settle here. And space migration is an individual act."

Crane, handed another piece of paper, changed his tack. "How can you even be sure you'll survive in orbit? NASA spends billions on--"

"You guys overprice everything. Watch us and see how it's done."

Crane covered the mouthpiece again to say, "He's enjoying this! Give me better notes!" He said into the phone, "Now, Davy, I know you're all wrapped up in the legends about your famous namesake, but..." he glanced down to read yet another note -- this one again from Milton, "don't you know how many laws you're breaking? Illegal possession and use of unlicensed hazardous materials, operating an aircraft without a pilot's certificate, launch of a spacecraft from a facility not operated by NASA or approved by the Department of Transportation, reckless endangerment, failure to file a plan for flight through a positive control zone, arson, trespassing..." He paused to ad lib, "There's a lot more I could mention. Why, you could go to prison for a couple centuries for all this when you come home..." He looked up to see his chief of staff making a violent hand motion across his throat. "Not that you would!" he hastily added. "All we want is for you three kids to land safely and we'll pick you up wherever you splash down." That last caused him to think, never a good idea for Crane. "Do you kids even have passports?"

Crockett's expression collapsed into puzzled rage at the pettiness of the objections to his feat. "Passports!" he said in a growl. "Passports? We don't need any stinkin' passports!" A gloved finger jabbed toward the camera. "We're leaving this crummy planet and settling a new one. Maybe not on this trial flight, but on the next! We've downloaded all our technical information onto The Net and every other computer bulletin board in the country, so anyone who wants to join us can build a ship to do so. Just don't try to stop us or -- or..." He reached behind him to unstrap his flintlock from its mounting place on the bulkhead. "Or Ol' Betsy here will have something to say in the matter!"

The President looked genuinely shocked. "You can't have a gun in outer space! That violates the treaty we signed with the -- "

"We didn't sign your damn' treaties. We're fed up with your jabberin' and jawin'. Y'all all can go to hell -- We're going to the stars!" With that paraphrase of the original Davy Crockett's most famous outburst, Crockett cut off communication and put the rifle away, then turned to his computer.

Friedman stared at Crockett, aghast. "I don't think it was such a good idea to antagonize a man who has ten thousand nuclear warheads at his disposal."

Crockett, all too cocky in his rage, said "What can they do -- shoot us down with the whole world watching?"

***

Somewhere in England, an F-15 painted grey with low-resolution ID roared down a runway and blazed upward into the afternoon sky on afterburners. Secured under its left wing hung a larger-than-usual missile.

***

At NORAD, the jet's takeoff generated a radar blip on a skywatcher's personal radar screen. The computer readout next to the blip registered its rapid ascent. The skywatcher, Cpl. Maureen Loftus, punched a button and spoke into her headset.

Capt. Lee, standing by Gen. Dorn, responded to her call.

"What do you mean they won't confirm it?" He turned to Dorn. "Sir, we have a jet ascending over the Atlantic at high rate of climb. The C.O. at the air base denies it, stating no unusual activity--"

"Put it on the main screen," Dorn demanded. The red sine wave indicating the spacecraft's ground track and the blue line of the aircraft's trajectory did not seem to be heading toward intersection, but it was not the plane that was the problem. "ASAT," the general muttered with cool anger. "Somebody plans to blow those kids out of the sky." He picked up one of several red phones. "Get me the President."

At that moment, a civilian programmer for NORAD rushed up to Dorn with a handful of computer printouts in his hand. "General Dorn!" he said nervously. "Someone's tapping into our main data flow!"

***

Bernadette saw the second line appear on her screen.

"We've got a bogey on an east-west ascent," she said. "NORAD's tracking it."

Friedman peered over at her screen. "Oh God," he said. "They're going to shoot us down!"

The image suddenly vanished, replaced by static.

Bernadette glanced up. "They've blocked our tap!"

Crockett's pulse quickened at the deadly turn the joyride just took. Then his resolve strengthened. Turning to the videocam, he switched to a second voice channel to ask, "Carla -- are the media still listening?"

"What do you think?" she answered.

"Patch me in." After a pause to assume an outraged composure, he said, "Mr. President, People of Earth -- Someone down there's about to take a potshot at our spacecopter from somewhere in England. We'll have further news on this atrocity as it develops. In the name of Free Space, we are not afraid to be martyred."

"I am so," Friedman muttered under his breath.

***

The President shouted on the phone to Dorn. "Well, I didn't authorize it." He looked up at Milton. "Did you authorize it?"

Milton pursed his lips and shook his head. If he did, he would never admit to it anyway.

"Well, let's send it back to base," Crane told Dorn.

"No response, sir."

"Damn it! We can't shoot down a bunch of kids right after they announce it to the world."

"It certainly won't look like an accident," Milton said, "but maybe we can pin it on the Chinese."

"After he told the world it was launched from England?"

"Our old standby, then -- terrorists."

Crane could barely control his anger. "What terrorist," he said through gritted teeth, "owns an anti-satellite missile and the jet to launch it?"

At NORAD, Gen. Dorn turned to Capt. Lee, his decision instantly formed. "Dispatch a jet to intercept that aircraft and bring it down."

"Too late!" Corporal Loftus shouted over the intercom. "He's launched!"

Up on the giant screen, an orange point of light branched away from the blue line.

Dorn, voice level and steely calm, reported this to the President.

After a moment of deliberation, Crane demanded to be reconnected with Crockett. Carla patched him through.

"Kids?" Crane's voice grew silkily gentle. "I know you won't hold me or the office of the presidency personally responsible for this, but it does seem as if there's been a... um, little breakdown in communication with one of our air bases in Great Britain. After all, you've got to expect, well, funny things to happen when you go around launching rockets without permission. Now, you must admit that was wrong, or at least very, very unwise."

Bernadette snidely said, "If you all weren't so trigger happy, we wouldn't be in this mess--" Davy laid a hand on her arm in an attempt to calm her.

"Well," Crane said, "be that as it may, I've just been informed that an F-15 has, well, it's sort of fired a missile at you. Now, we're not entirely to blame in this. After all, you did take us by surprise, and information flow is a problem this administration has been working on for some--"

"Is it an ASAT?" Crockett demanded.

"Why, yes it is. It's a kinetic kill device that's-- "

"Launched at 100,000 feet altitude by an F-15, goes into orbit, explodes, and peppers the target with a load of buckshot-sized shrapnel."

"Why, that's right, I think. In any case, it's coming your way."

The three spacefarers stared mutely at one another for an instant, then broke into frantic activity. Bernadette switched her screen to onboard radar and told the others to seal their helmets and switch to personal oxygen. Friedman loudly worried about using fuel for evasive maneuvers while rotating the spacecraft into a correct attitude for escape.

"Stand by to fire engines!" Friedman cried.

Crockett interrupted the procedure. "We can't maneuver until the warhead has exploded, otherwise the missile can compensate and still intercept us. After the warhead explodes, all we need is one good kick to get us out of the buckshot's path."

"But we'd only have seconds to react!" Friedman appeared genuinely frightened.

Crockett smiled as he locked down his helmet. "Leave that to me."

"I was afraid you'd say that."

Crockett punched in orders for a three-second burn. Sam routed radar info and fire control to Crockett's console. His gloved finger hovered over the command key.

At an indicated distance of sixty-five miles and a combined approach velocity of 12 miles per second, the radar blip suddenly burst into a dimming cloud of smaller dots, each one denoting a possible spacecraft-killer.

With a karate-like shout of energy, Crockett jabbed his finger at the command button. The engines ignited with alarming bangs and the rotor whirred back up to speed, causing the ship to creak and pop. The force of acceleration rammed the trio back into their seats.

Davy clenched his jaw and whispered, like a prayer, "Remember the Alamo."


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