Kevin Anderson - Ill Wind

He wished he had paid more attention to the lectures at the National War College. He had blown off theoretical discussions on ground attacks, interested only in the methodology of air superiority. In his blood Bayclock was a fighter pilot . But right now he’d trade almost anything for a copy of von Clausewitz.

“Sir?” said Sergeant Morris. “Is anything the matter?”

Bayclock handed the binoculars to Colonel David. “A balloon —can you believe it? What the hell are they doing with a hot-air balloon?”

The colonel searched the sky. “Dr. Nedermyer insists that Lockwood’s people are completely focused on that solar-power project. At the Phillips Lab I’ve worked around scientists like that for years. My bet is they’re using the balloon to gather information about the weather.”

Bayclock turned to the other colonel. “And what do you think, Tony?”

Colonel Nachimya stared across the valley, but he made no move to take the binoculars. “Observation post maybe? You could see our troops approaching from a long way off, sir.”

“That was my own thought. If that’s so, they already know we’re here.” Bayclock studied the area around the distant, glittering antenna farm, unable to see people from this range.

He struggled to his feet and handed the binoculars back to Sergeant Morris. “Assemble the troops. We’ll get this over with in a hurry, attack under cover of darkness. I don’t trust any of those bastards we’re up against.”

As the sun set behind the broken mountains, shadows extended across the valley like fingers of death toward the rebellious scientists. By this time tomorrow, Bayclock’s troops would have engulfed Lockwood’s group and reestablished order, at last.

In the radio trailer, Juan Romero concentrated on a circuit diagram he had sketched himself; he hoped it would improve the microwave satellite switching algorithm. Before the petroplague, intricate new designs had been constructed on workstations optimized for specific configurations. But the overrated software annoyed Romero—why spend so much time studying electrical engineering if you were just going to be a computer jock? He felt a rush of pride to see that he could still do a circuit diagram the old way, with a brain and a pencil.

Static clicks from the telegraph interrupted his thoughts. He grumbled about Bobby Carron picking the worst time to run a test from his observation balloon. Romero listened to the first few lines of code, and then his face tightened. “Hey, Spence!” His own hoarse voice surprised him.

Gilbert Hertoya trotted out of the blockhouse, ducking around an array of cables. “What you got?”

Romero glanced up, but continued relaying Bobby’s message to the microwave facility five miles to the south. “It’s Bayclock. He’s here already! Where’s Spencer?”

The short engineer blinked. “Oh, crackerjacks! He and Rita headed off for the microwave facility before dark. They should get there within an hour.”

“Bobby’s got Bayclock’s troops pegged at ten miles out. No solid count on the number, but there’s at least a hundred.” Romero felt panic clogging his voice. He tugged on his drooping moustache. “What are we going to do?”

“Do you think they’ll attack after dark? Can Bobby estimate how fast they’re moving?”

“Just a minute.” Romero tapped furiously on the switch. The telegraph line from the balloon came back to life. “They’re still coming down from the foothills. He estimates they’re traveling under three miles an hour.”

“Okay.” Gilbert set his mouth. “Keep relaying everything to the farm, and let me know when Spencer gets there. I’ll set the railgun up for a pre-emptive strike.”

Romero looked up at the other man. “You mean, go on the offense? Shouldn’t we give them a warning or something?”

“Ask them to surrender? Ha!” Gilbert’s face was grim and looked very old. “We’re not playing by parlor rules. Bayclock is the aggressor. Time to scare the hell out of him.”

The memory of the capacitor banks pre-firing on the first railgun test nearly smothered Gilbert’s optimism. Now that Bayclock’s army was breathing down their necks, he knew it could easily happen again. Or something even worse.

Gilbert refused to wait for Bayclock’s army to start shooting at them. The general was on the move, marching closer. As far as Gilbert was concerned, there was no point in negotiating—they hadn’t asked for the invasion force, had done nothing to incite the attack. But Bayclock had come strutting in, uninvited.

If some tin-pot Napoleon thought he could march down here with an army, Gilbert intended to send him back home with his tail between his legs. If the White Sands group lost their advantage of surprise, Bayclock could move his troops to safety and come at them from a different direction.

A cloud of metal shrapnel flying at five times the velocity of a bullet would surely demoralize Bayclock’s troops—especially coming from a bunch of supposedly defenseless scientists. If nothing else, the railgun would make the army wonder what else Spencer’s hot shots might come up with.

Arnie poked his head out from the launcher command post. “Ready for the bank to go hot, Gilbert.”

“Has the projectile been checked?”

Arnie sighed. “Twice by you and three times by us. We loaded Rita’s special shrapnel mix of chopped up razor blades, nails, and broken glass. If we pop it now, it should spread out to hit their camp. It won’t be pretty.”

“It’s not supposed to be pretty.” Gilbert looked around for Romero. “Heard from Spencer yet?”

The radio man shook his head. “The farm says they’ll contact us when he gets there.”

Gilbert thought fast. He had to go with it. Command decision. Spencer and his crew had been anticipating this moment ever since Bobby Carron had deserted and stayed behind.

Years earlier, Gilbert had been yanked from his work at the Sandia National Lab, sent over to the Middle East as a military consultant during the first Gulf conflict. He had left Cynthia and the kids behind in Albuquerque, unable to tell them what he was doing—much the same way he had left them in Alamogordo during the past few weeks. He hadn’t protested then because he believed in his work. And now, he had never felt stronger about anything in his life. Spencer’s solar power farm must not fall into the hands of a military dictator.

He drew in a deep breath. “Okay, charge the banks. Launch on my count.” He twisted his head. “Romero! Get an updated range from Bobby.”

“Right.”

Gilbert scrambled over a thigh-thick cluster of cables to position himself at the railgun’s crude rangefinder—optics from a high-powered rifle juxtaposed with a protractor and a plumbline. Within seconds Romero relayed elevation and landmark information.

Grunting, Gilbert reached up to rotate the unwieldy device with the hand crank. When the starlit peak across the valley was in sight on the crosshairs, he elevated the long metal railings until the plumbline registered the correct position. “Talk about spit and chewing gum,” he muttered.

“Bank’s hot, Gil. Your call.”

Gilbert eyed the crosshairs one more time, then gently moved away from the device. He slapped Romero on the back. “Get some cover.” He nodded at the tech in the control room. “Light it!”

“Roger!” Arnie yelled into the blockhouse. “Hit it!”

Fifty feet away from the railgun, Gilbert turned to watch. He saw a weirdly ionized ball shoot the length of the rails, sparking across the gaps as the heavy shrapnel projectile accelerated upward. He had never seen a nighttime launch, and it looked beautiful.