Chapter 17

Evan

The alarms blared and interrupted his train of thought. Evan looked up at the screen covering the wall. A red dot near Buchanan blinked.

"What happened?" he shouted above the noise. Strategos Jenssen stepped closer.

"Sir, that´s one of their missiles, and in a few…" He didn´t complete the sentence, as the projected trajectory appeared as a dotted red line.

"It´s headed straight this way," Evan said.

"Legacy," Jenssen whispered as someone killed the sound of the alarm.

"How long?" Evan asked. Strategos Alexandrov from Strategic Assets answered in a dry tone.

"Minutes, sir. We don´t fully know their capability, anything between fifteen and forty-five minutes, depending on the missile. We´ll know more in a few seconds."

"Can we shoot it down?"

"We´ll know soon enough. That´s what we´ve trained for, sir, but we can never guarantee anything. If we had the orbitals, we´d stand a better chance." Evan waved him off.

"Alright. The rest of Strategos Command should be in the bunker within five minutes, right?"

"Yes, sir."

"Good enough. Now, Strategos Jenssen, how could this happen?"

"Well, sir, I told you their cyber defenses were better than we anticipated. They must have gotten through and launched as soon as they were able. It’s just one missile. My people tell me they still control the rest."

"Sure about that?" Evan said. Strategos Jenssen nodded confidently.

"Yes, sir. We may even have an idea of how they got the one missile back, so we can prevent it from happening again."

"Good." He turned toward Alexandrov. "How long?"

"It is ballistic, sir. Eleven minutes and sixteen seconds, sir."

Evan could hear Alexandrov´s gasp. This was much faster than anything the Covenant had in their arsenal. It would be the longest eleven minutes of Evan’s life though. He watched the blinking red dot crawl steadily closer to Legacy and growled between his teeth.

"They took out our orbital platforms, so they have some sort of secret weapon. If we launch our ballistic missiles, they may just as easily take those out as well. How long does it take to reach Buchanan with cruise missiles?"

"About forty-five minutes, sir," Strategos Alexandrov replied.

"Have Missile Command stand by. I want the birds in the air the second I give the order."

 

 

Tina

Tina was aware of the fighting going on in the valley below. There were flashes of light, and she had heard the whine of scramjets above. She didn´t know which side they belonged to, but she knew the war had already started.

A bleep alerted her on her infopad. She looked down and saw Ramon´s face waiting for her to answer.

"Speak to me, Ramon," she said.

"Tina, all hell is breaking loose," he said excitedly.

"I´d think so. Fill me in, would you?"

"Well, there’s been some kind of cyber battle, or whatever you call it. First, Buchanan—that´s the good guys—lost all their nukes and most of their comms, and the bad guys—the Covenant—managed to take out their military high command. But Buchanan had a backup system, so the show´s being run by military intel now, headed by this woman called Selma. They managed to regain control of one of their missiles and have launched it against the capital of the Covenant."

It´s going nuclear, Tina thought. That was the worst-case scenario in any war. Once the attack-retaliate routine got started, the spiral wouldn´t stop until one side had eradicated the other. Or they eradicated each other.

"This is bad," was all she could say.

"Shefania is furious with us," he said. Even in the midst of tragedy, Tina couldn´t stop from smiling.

"We expected that. Will she help us?"

"She´s on her way as we speak."

"Then let´s just hope it´s not too late."

 

 

Dave

Dave was rounding up everyone from the Frost Observatory as they entered the clearing.

"Keep out of that area over there," he said to someone walking too close to where Tina and Ramon´s shuttle had stood, shooing them back to the others. Tina had just told him about the ark that was coming and how they planned to save as many people as possible. She had also told him how Ramon had convinced his superior, someone called Shefania, to disable the Covenant´s orbital platforms so they couldn´t launch their nukes from above. That should at least buy them some time.

Dave looked over at a shackled figure standing face down with two strong men beside her. He took a deep breath and tried not to think about it. He wondered if Liz would ever be herself again or if she would have to live out her life in chains to protect others—and her. He shook it off and walked over to Tina.

"That´s all of us. A hundred and twenty people, give or take."

"I just wish we could take more," she said. "There´s room for several thousand in the ark. If we could get some of the people from the city up here…"

"I have an idea," Dave said, tapping his infopad.

Moments later, Dr. Simms’s face appeared on the screen.

"Ma´am, I need a favor," Dave blurted.

"Well, son, you´d better hurry. The enemy´s coming this way, and you know what´ll happen then." Dave felt his blood freeze over, but forced himself to stay focused.

"Ma´am I need you to put me in touch with EMCOM." Dr. Simms seemed to hesitate before she shrugged.

"Just a moment."

Her image disappeared and another, a black screen with the words EMERGENCY COMMAND in bold red letters at the bottom, appeared.

"This is EMCOM. Speak," a distorted voice said.

"Dave Wagner here, with most of the scientists from Frost. We just had an airship take us into the mountains. Any chance you could route it back here? We´re trying to save a lot of people."

"Aren´t we all?" the voice replied drily.

"Listen to me. You know what the Frost was designed for in the first place. Well, they´ve returned, and they are willing to evacuate as many as they can take." Dave was growing desperate. They had to help. After a long silence, the voice returned.

"Wagner, I can do better than that. We have an airship coming in from the east. I´m sending them your way. Five minutes tops. Just make sure the landing patch is clear of people," the voice said. Dave realized this was a different voice, an older woman´s voice.

"And David, will you please tell Renee that Selma said hello?" That made absolutely no sense to Dave, but as long as he got his ship, he didn’t care.

"Sure," he said.

"Good. And take good care of Miss Atlas for me." The image disappeared.

Atlas! Dave gaped at the blank screen.

Sue was coming.