John Sandford: Saturn Run

Santeros: “So now we’ve got two reasons to get out there. To get our hands on next century’s technology before the Chinese do, and to find out if the aliens plan to ram us.” She turned to Vintner, her science adviser: “Is that even possible, Jacob? For us to get out there?”

“I’ve been talking to Janetta Jojohowitz, and Gene’s been talking to his people. They’ve pulled in their smartest guys, made it entirely clear this is at the absolute highest level of classification, fed them a cock-and-bull story about wanting to one-up China’s Mars mission, and then asked them if they had any ideas for getting a mission to Saturn really fast. What they’ve brainstormed at the moment are broad concepts, half-baked ideas. But, yeah, they say it’s doable… given the highest priority and a year or so to prepare.”

Fletcher jumped in. “Ma’am, I’m no intelligence operative, but are we sure that the Chinese ship is going to Mars? Is there any possibility that they spotted one of these aliens five years ago, and are on their way to Saturn? I mean, are we really, really sure it’s going to Mars?”

White said, “Yes. We’ve seen their specs and their engines and we’re watching the work in great detail. This is all… secret… so keep your mouths shut, but yeah: it’s going to Mars. In fact, the mission’s purpose is to establish a permanent colony there. Which is the reason they are being so secretive about it.”

Fletcher leaned back: “And they don’t know about this, this thing out at Saturn?”

Emery: “Apparently not.”

Crow reminded them, “Not yet. They will.”

Santeros turned back to White. “So, from our perspective the immediate problem is the Chinese, not the aliens.”

“As we see it,” said the chairwoman. “But really, it’s all guesswork. We assume that any race that could build a ship like this, is at least rational. You’d almost have to be, to do the work involved in building the ship. What isn’t guesswork is that we have this competition going with the Chinese. Japan, Russia, and Brazil are on the fence… and boy, it’d sure be nice that if somebody gets a hundred years of new tech, it’d be us. At least, you know, until we transit into the post-conflict world.”

Lossness nodded. “As Crow said, it’s gonna leak. The Chinese are just over a year away from launching their Mars mission. Their ship could be rerouted to Saturn without much work. Basically, they were already planning a long-duration mission to Mars, what with all the equipment and personnel needed to establish a permanent facility there, so they’ve got the supplies and the crew. If they rerouted, well, they’d be nearly ready to go. Offload a bunch of colony equipment, throw in a bunch more mission-relevant supplies, that’d be most of it.”

“That’d be a hell of a long mission,” Fletcher said. “Mars is a fifty-million-kilometer run. Saturn is a billion and a half. Two, three months to Mars’d become, ummm, five years or so to Saturn.”

Santeros said, “That would give us some time, right, Gene?”

Lossness said, “Well, my guys were tossing around trip durations of under a year. The thing is, if the Chinese find out what’s happening before they launch, they can soup up their ship. They’d need a longer initial burn, so they’d need a lot more reaction mass. But they’d be offloading weight by not taking the colony along. Strapping on additional mass-tanks in space isn’t as big a job as it is here on Earth.”

Fletcher said, “We’re a little unlucky about the launch window here, if Mr. Crow is correct. If we could keep this secret until the Chinese launch for Mars, then it would be too late for them to recover. We could take our time building a ship, and there’s nothing they could do about it.”

“Except shoot it down,” Emery said.

Santeros said, “Based on Mr. Crow’s best guess, we can’t assume they won’t find out. And we can’t afford a gamble. We have to win this one. Jacob? Those half-baked ideas? I want them fully baked by this evening’s meeting. I don’t care what kind of carrots or sticks you have to wave to get the answers, I want to know exactly what we can do and how fast we can do it. Clear?”

Nobody said anything for a long moment, then Santeros looked over at the politicians, Sweet and Cline, who’d been listening carefully, but carefully not making notes. “If we build a ship on a crash basis, can we get the funding through on the black budget?”

Sweet said, “Yes,” and Cline nodded.

Sweet said, “Francie and I had a word before the meeting started. You can have as much as you want. We should talk to McCord over at the Treasury and Henry at the Fed. It may be possible to do it completely off-budget, though we might have to do a little… creative bookkeeping.”

“The security circle’s getting pretty large,” Crow said.

Santeros: “You see any way to avoid that?”

Crow thought a moment. “No. I’m just sayin.’ I need to create a security group, right now. I need the authority to pull anybody I need out of the security establishment. I think I know enough smart guys to do this—at least, I know enough smart guys who know enough smart guys. But I need a budget and I need a letter from you. I need the authority to kick whatever ass needs it, and I mean up to Cabinet secretary, four-star rank.”

The President tapped out a note on her pad: “I’ll get the letter to you within the hour. We’ll want to launch your group no later than tomorrow.”

Crow nodded: “Yes, ma’am. No later than.”

Santeros stared down at a briefing paper on the desk in front of her, then said, “Ladies and gentlemen, this is the biggest thing since the atomic bomb, in terms of turning the world around. We need to stay all over this, all the time. This becomes the number one national priority, and you eight are my working group. We’ll bring in more people as we need them. I’m going to ask Jacob to act as the chief of staff for the group, at least for now. Everything should go to him, and he’ll talk to me. I’m going to clear my schedule for tonight, and I need all of you to come up with outlines of what you can contribute to this project, and I need to be briefed again, then. That includes exactly how we’re going to get to Saturn before the Chinese. We need that settled. Not tomorrow. Tonight.

“As I see it, Dr. Fletcher, you’ll be in charge of monitoring the Saturn site with your telescopes. You military people will build the ship: work out your system. Paula and Richard, work with Gene on this. Senator Sweet and Representative Cline will take care of the money. Crow will handle security. Is everybody good?”

Fletcher lifted a hand and she nodded at him.

“There is one tiny problem with my group. The intern who spotted this… object. He could be a security issue.”

“The incompetent one.”

“Scientifically incompetent,” Fletcher said. “Unfortunately, he’s not simply dim. He seems to be quite knowledgeable about the media and he’s somewhat irresponsible, in my view. I don’t think he was as impressed with Mr. Crow as the others were.”

“He’s a loose cannon,” Santeros said. “Mr. Crow specializes in loose cannons.”

“With all due respect, ma’am, Sanders Heacock Darlington—”

“Are you shitting me?” Santeros said, showing surprise for the first time. “Barron Darlington’s kid?”

“I’m afraid so,” Fletcher said. “He’s got an ocean of money, he’s about to inherit a lot more, and nobody has ever taught him that he has to be responsible about anything. You can’t scare him, because he’s apparently never encountered anything that he needs to be scared of. And his father, as you know, is heavily wired into Washington.”