Jack McDevitt - The Moonfall

"A couple of militia types, we think with a missile launcher. They might be trying to bring down one of your planes."

"They picked a hell of a time to do it."

Martin could almost hear the shrug. "There's no accounting for loonies. Anyway, for what it's worth…" His voice trailed off.

"Yeah. Thanks, Oscar. Let us know when you catch these guys, okay?"

He looked up at the photo of the Delta 787 hanging over his couch. Then he changed to another line. "Janet," he said, "get me Wolfy over at the LTA." Hartsfield SSTO Launch Tunnel Control, Atlanta. 4:05 P.M.

Wolfgang Bracken picked the phone up on the first ring. "Support Services," he said.

"Wolfy?" Rob Martin's voice. "We got a call from the police that there might be somebody out there with a ground-to-air missile trying to take down the SSTOs."

Bracken delivered an obscenity. "How sure are you?"

"The cops don't know. But I think you ought to put a hold on the operation until they have a chance to look around."

"Thanks, Rob." Bracken was a squat little man with huge black eyebrows, bulldog jowls, and an absolutely hairless skull. "We just launched one."

• • • SSTO Los Angeles Flight Deck. 4:06 P.M.

Ben West was the only one of the LTA pilots who had not gotten his early experience in military jets. He had begun flying with his father's air cargo service in the Southwest, and had shown an affinity for the cockpit that eventually landed him a job as a test pilot for Allied, where he'd flown the first SSTO prototype, the Alpha-6. He was also the only SSTO pilot who had been invited into his job.

Ben was an African-American, divorced, with two teenagers. He was a bridge player of extraordinary ability, and had twice represented the United States in world competition. His kids were doing well in school, and after six years he'd finally found a woman who could engage his emotions and fill his life. Like the other volunteers of the Rainbow mission, he knew in very personal terms what he was trying to save.

His flight engineer was Tina Hoskin, who came equipped with a Jekyll-and-Hyde personality, a woman who was all quiet efficiency and decorum on the spacecraft, but whose off-duty bluntness alienated friends and occasionally offended management. She'd made too many enemies at higher levels, and Ben knew she'd never rise any higher than where she was at that moment. He occasionally wondered about the wisdom of flying with her, knowing that a lot of people were praying the plane would go down.

His copilot was Harmony Smith, attractive, cold, single-minded. If Ben was the only non-jet-jock among the flight crews, Harmony was the only one who'd done jail time. She'd once been a gunrunner. That was after six years as an air force pilot. But Harmony had come back, and the Lunar Transport Authority had thought enough of her skills to give her a chance. They hadn't been disappointed.

My two desperados. It stood to reason that when the crunch came, they hadn't hesitated to help chase down the Possum. The nature of this flight necessarily rendered it an emotional experience, and Ben was thinking just how much affection he had for the two women when Harmony mentioned almost matter-of-factly that there was something coming up behind them. Fast.

"I think it's a missile," she said, a hush in her voice.

The SSTO was too big to jink.

"Range ten miles," she said. "Closing at mach two. We've got maybe thirty seconds."

"Heatseeker?"

"Can't tell."

He'd have preferred to wait until the object got closer and then turn as sharply as he could and shut down the engines. But the spacecraft was too big and just not sufficiently maneuverable to wait. "Hang on," he said, and cut hard to port.

"Ben," said Tina, "we're getting a warning from the tower. They're telling us to look out for a missile."

"Good," said Ben. He counted to five and killed the engines.

"Twenty seconds," said Harmony. "It's turning with us."

"We need some chaff," said Tina. Chaff was routinely used by military aircraft to decoy missiles.

Ben opened his mike. "Tower," he said, "this is L.A. We've found your missile."

"We see it, Ben. We've been alerted there are a couple of loonies down there with a launcher."

"Five seconds," said Tina.

"It's on us," he told them.

The heatseeker exploded just aft of their starboard engine. The plane rocked hard to port. On the flight deck, trouble lights blinked on all over the board. Ben fought for control, expecting the fuel lines to rupture and the tanks to let go. But it didn't happen.

The tower was still talking to him.

"We're still in the air," he told the mike. And to Tina: "Any more?"

"Affirmative," she said. "Another one coming. But it's off-target. Don't restart."

Ben set the wings to manual and extended them to their full thirty-eight degrees for maximum lift.

"Starboard engine's off-line," said Harmony. "And we've got some hydraulic problems."

Tina raised a fist. "Missile's past," she said. "Sky's clear."

"Stand by to start portside." He opened the fuel line and hit the ignition. The engine roared into life.

Thank God for that.

"L.A., what's happening?"

The controls were stiff. "Tower, we have one engine offline, hydraulics. Not sure what else. But we have control."

The relief in the voice was audible. "Can you make it back?"

"Wait one." They were still losing altitude. Tina did a quick calculation and held up her thumb. "Affirmative," he said. "But we'll have to make it on the first pass."

"We'll have it wide open for you, Ben."

The plane felt heavy, awkward, slow. He had to compensate for the constant drift to starboard. And he was losing fuel from somewhere.

He checked the landing gear and was relieved to get a green light. "We'll be okay," he said.

"Maybe." Harmony's dark eyes were fixed on a point somewhere over his shoulder. "Maybe we will."

Percival Lowell, Presidential Quarters. 4:17 P.M.

Kerr gave him the news. Charlie's eyes closed and he fought to contain his rage. He was beginning to suspect there was a malevolent force loose, a white whale determined to bring everything down. "They can't repair it?" he demanded.

"Not in twelve hours."

"Then we need to find another one. There must be one squirreled away somewhere. How about the manufacturers? Goddammit, Al, somebody must have one."

"We've been looking. Allied has two of them on display in Paris and Berlin, but neither one can be gotten ready to fly in time."

"You're sure?"

"Yes, I'm sure, Charlie. Hell, they couldn't even get them to the airport by tomorrow morning."

Charlie wanted to sit down, but wasn't able to make himself comfortable in the zero-g. He'd come to hate the weightless environment. It seemed to him that nothing had gone well since his stomach tried to crawl up his esophagus right after he left Washington last week. "All right, Al," he said.

"What do you mean, 'All right, Al'? Do you want to cancel Rainbow?"

"Cancel it? It's all we have."

"No, it isn't all we have. We've still got the nukes."

The nukes. Here, as always, they were the weapon you didn't dare use. "All right," he said. "Do this: Have them target the damned thing. Be ready to fire on my command. But we aren't going to use them except as a last resort."

"Charlie, I think that's where we are now."

"No," he said. "Not yet."

"Two men were apprehended this afternoon minutes after they allegedly fired two ground-to-air missiles at one of the space planes being launched from Hartsfield Airport. At least one of the missiles was reported to have struck its target. The plane landed safely shortly afterward. There were no casualties on board, but the spacecraft is said to have been severely damaged. Two persons, a man and a woman, were reported dead on the ground, and murder charges are being considered.