“Kaitlin Garroway for the commandant,” the lieutenant said, saluting.
“Very good, Lieutenant,” the major replied—not saluting because Marines did not salute uncovered indoors. “Good afternoon, Ms. Garroway. Please be seated for a moment. The commandant is anxious to see you.”
She ignored the hard seats he indicated and remained standing, while he touched a PAD screen on his desk. In less than twenty seconds, a door opened and General Warhurst strode out. Automatically, she stood at attention, sternly suppressing an urge to salute this man who commanded respect not because of what he did, but just because of who he was.
“Kaitlin,” he said warmly, grasping her hand. “I’m glad you managed to slip past those bastards downstairs this time.”
He was referring to the Intel people who’d grilled her last week. His irreverence drew a reluctant grin from her. “It hasn’t been too bad, sir,” she admitted.
“Good, good.” He led her into his office before saying any more. “Well, the worst of it should be over now,” he said as he waved her toward one of two comfortable-looking chairs in front of his desk. “I just heard from Brentlow. Intel’s finally decided that you’re not a spy for the Japanese after all.”
She took a deep breath and expelled it forcibly. “I was wondering, sir. Some of them were getting, well, pretty intense.”
“Hmm.” He sounded distracted.
“Is something the matter, sir?”
“Well, it’s not good. You know about the ISS, of course.”
She nodded. Even if she hadn’t been a newshound, she couldn’t have avoided learning about the UN’s takeover of the ISS. Jeff had been talking about little else since Saturday, that and what was happening on Mars.
“In a way, the UN action was good,” he said. “It verified that what your dad told us was true, which might get some of the fence-sitters around here off their asses and off to work. Anyway, at 0225 hours this morning, our time, there was a launch from Guiana Space Center. Thirty-one minutes later, there was a SCRAMjet launch from San Marco Equatorial. Both of them rendezvoused with the ISS a few hours later.”
“Two SCRAMjets? What…oh!” Her eyes widened. “They’re getting ready to meet the next incoming cycler!”
“No.” He shook his head. “We thought so too, at first. But now we believe that the first launch was a Mars Direct.”
Kaitlin knew a little about Mars Direct flights. The first three manned Mars missions had used the technique, in the years before the first cycler had been deployed.
“We’re fairly certain that the new ship is a modified Faucon 1B, with a Proton booster second stage. It appears to be refueling at the ISS now. When fueling is complete, it will be able to launch for Mars on a trajectory that will get it there in about five months.”
“And the SCRAMjet was carrying more troops?”
He nodded. “Almost certainly. Intelligence guesses another thirty UN troops, probably Foreign Legion from the Second Demibrigade. The same unit that already has a detachment on Mars.”
“Shit!” She looked up, then blushed at her unguarded expletive. “Ah…excuse me, sir.”
“S’all right. I feel the same way. And, of course, with the ISS in UN hands, even if your dad’s people win through on Mars, we’re not going to be able to bring them back.”
The realization struck Kaitlin like a punch to the stomach. She’d forgotten. All outbound interplanetary insertions used the fuel stored at the ISS spaceport to top off tanks drained dry by their struggle up the side of the planet’s fearsome gravity well. That must have been the reason the UN had captured the space station in the first place…so that they could be sure of launching their Faucon. For the same reason, the ISS maintained the fleet of tugs and high-delta-v transports that could rendezvous with incoming cyclers and transfer their passengers to a shuttle bound for Earth.
If the ISS was controlled by the UN, any cycler returning from Mars would depend on the UN’s good graces to rendezvous with them and effect the transfer to Earth orbit.
A cold anger blazed in Kaitlin. “So we’re just…abandoning them? Sir?”
The hint of a smile touched the corners of Warhurst’s mouth. “Allow me to rephrase that. As long as the UN forces retain control of the ISS, we won’t be able to bring our boys home from Mars.”
“Ah.” She wondered what unit would have the honor of recapturing the station. It was almost enough to make her want to be a Marine herself. She sat up a little straighter in her chair.
Warhurst appeared to be thinking something over. His brow was furrowed, and there was a hard set to his mouth. “We have a Marine unit going into training tomorrow at Vandenberg, for a possible strike against the ISS.” He gave her a sharp look. “That is classified, you know. In fact, I shouldn’t have told you.”
“Uh…sure.” She was confused. So why had he told her? She knew that Warhurst had an iron control when it came to revealing or concealing anything. His self-control in regard to his dead son was proof enough of that. She could not believe that it had just been a slip….
“In any case,” he continued, as though nothing out of the ordinary had occurred, “I’m afraid that there’s not a damned thing we can do to help your dad on Mars. Especially with the space station in UN hands. But there may be something we can do here. To make sure he can get back. And, possibly even more important, to make sure he knows the score.”
“Have you been able to establish contact with him yet?” Kaitlin asked. She’d been requested—ordered might have been the better word—not to use her backdoor communications route until the political situation was clearer. She didn’t like it; her question was a polite way of reminding Warhurst that she wanted to talk to her father…while at the same time she wanted to be careful not to get in the Pentagon’s way.
He shook his head. “No. And that brings me, going around Robin Hood’s barn, to what I really wanted to see you about. You told me that your father was assuming that regular e-mail would not be a secure method of reaching him, and I’m inclined to agree with his assumption. The bad guys would be stupid not to safeguard those channels. But you also told me that the two of you had an alternate means of communication to fall back on.”
“Yes, through a newsgroup that we both like a lot. I can post a message there, and Dad could just search for messages from me. They can’t shut down Usenet, and they wouldn’t be able to check all the postings.”
“From your study at CMU, Kaitlin, I assume you would know about these things. Is there any way they could search for your user name in the Usenet postings?”
She grinned. “Even if they knew which of something like eighty thousand newsgroups to search, they wouldn’t find me. I’d use my global-dot-net account, not my CMU one. That user ID is ‘chicako,’ not ‘garroway.’”
Warhurst didn’t look as pleased to hear that there was a secure way to communicate with the Marines on Mars as she’d expected. Instead he frowned, tapping his fingers rhythmically on a lone sheet of paper on the top of his desk. “I would like to be able to use that channel, Kaitlin. I would like to tell your father that we’re pulling for him, even if we can’t do anything substantial right now. I even have the letter written.” He stopped his drumming and laid his index finger on the paper. “Right here.”
“No problem, sir. I can—”
“I’m afraid there is a problem. I’ve been forbidden to communicate with your father.”
That statement hit Kaitlin even harder than the earlier one about the ISS, but she remained calm. By now she knew that Warhurst said nothing without a purpose…and that sometimes he intended to convey something