Kevin Anderson - Ill Wind

“He’s crazy enough to do it, too,” Bobby said. “Your wagon train carrying the smallsats got out of the Los Angeles area just in time. The mayor of LA has taken over the national guard and is declaring southern California a free state. Bayclock wants to stop the JPL people from getting to you.”

Spencer shook his head. “This is ridiculous. Does he think the expedition from JPL is some kind of armed force? How paranoid can he get?”

Bobby said, “I know the general has been monitoring radio transmissions from White Sands—that’s how he discovered you have a working power station.”

“Yeah, for all of twenty minutes a day,” said Spencer, “and a bunch of leftover battery power.”

“That was enough for him to send me down here after you.” Bobby’s face tightened. “He’s serious about enforcing his martial law, and he must have gone nonlinear when you guys didn’t roll over and cooperate. He probably thinks the group from JPL is part of a conspiracy to subvert his authority. With the White House backing him, I bet he’s decided to make an example of us.”

Romero laughed, but Bobby spoke in a level tone. “In Albuquerque, he was hanging teenagers for stealing cans of tuna or staying out after dark.”

The trailer fell quiet. Bobby looked from person to person. Spencer placed a hand on his shoulder. “Look, why don’t you finish taking down the sunscreens outside. I’ll have Romero run through the FEMA frequencies and see if we can find any other information that confirms what we’ve heard.”

Bobby stopped at the door. “You know, I’d feel a lot better if we could just see what that bastard Bayclock is going to do. I’d hate to have a few thousand fanatics sneak up on us without warning. No telling when he’ll make his move.”

Spencer pictured the state of New Mexico in his head. “It’ll take him at least a week to get down here, even if he started today. I’ll notify Alamogordo. Maybe some of the ranchers can help us out. Give us quarter, if nothing else. We can get away.”

“But that means abandoning the antenna farm, man!” Romero cried. “Spencer, you can’t do that!”

“Maybe we can station lookouts on Oscura Peak, use smoke signals to warn us like we did for the substation test,” Rita suggested.

“It would be more effective to have lookouts nearby,” said Bobby. “What would happen if the peak got socked in with clouds? Of if Bayclock decided to attack at night? What you need is a thousand-foot-high tower, or an airplane.” He grinned half-heartedly, his mind obviously elsewhere, as if knowing he would never fly again. “Nevermind. I’ve got to finish packing the parachutes.”

Spencer had a sudden thought. “That’s not such a crazy idea.”

“What?” Bobby turned around.

“The parachutes,” said Spencer. “I bet if we sewed some of them together, we could make a hot-air balloon, just like something out of a Jules Verne novel. Fill it with hot air, and up it goes.”

“The fuel, Spence,” Rita reminded him with an elbow to the side. “In case you haven’t noticed, there’s no propane around for the central heater.”

“The Montgolfier brothers didn’t have propane,” Spencer said, “but they did have wood, and even better, we can make charcoal. Hot air is hot air, right? You take along some charcoal and burn it in a big metal hibachi—presto!” He put a finger to his lips and started muttering. “In fact, we can loft a series of balloons, even equip them with weapons….”

Rita sighed and got a faraway look in her eyes. “I can just see it now—the first Aeroballoon Squadron of the White Sands Regiment. Risking their lives, tethered a thousand feet up, keeping watch over the advancing barbarian hordes.” She motioned for Bobby to stand back. “Better stand back, Lieutenant.”

Bobby looked from Spencer to Rita. “What? What’s the matter?”

“He’s thinking so hard you might get splattered when his brain explodes.”

Gilbert Hertoya rode in from the electromagnetic launcher, looking even smaller on the back of a big horse. The group frequently got together to coordinate technical directions, but this time they had more serious matters to discuss.

“Okay,” said Spencer, “the first question is if we should even try and fight these guys.”

Bobby Carron snorted. He folded his arms and looked around. “If we don’t do something against Bayclock, he’ll institute the same type of bloody martial law down here.”

Spencer looked around, but no one spoke. “I think we all agree about that, so we don’t surrender. But what’s the consensus? Fight or run?”

“Bobby’s right. If we run, we’ll never get this facility back,” said Rita. “No telling what Bayclock would do here.”

“That’s the crazy part,” said Bobby. “What is he going to do when he gets here? I mean, I’m a one-each, Navy-issue, real-live aviator and even I know you can’t just pack this place up and take it back to Albuquerque!”

“But how do we stop him?” asked Romero. “Our guns will only fire a few times, if they haven’t seized up already.”

“The ranch hands will help,” said Rita. “They aren’t going to let the general waltz down here and take this place.”

“Romero’s got a point,” said Spencer. He looked around the group. “Even with the ranchers helping, we’ll be fighting military troops, not a bunch of scientists. Anyone here besides Bobby know anything about the military? I mean, we aren’t even weapons scientists.”

Gilbert Hertoya cleared his throat. “That’s not entirely true.” The small man ran his fingers through his salt-and-pepper hair. “I haven’t been working on the EM launcher all my career, you know. Sandia lab is a pretty big place, and I’ve been involved in a lot of different areas, including weapons.”

“Do you have any ideas? Will they enable us to win?”

Gilbert grinned and shrugged. “Sure, I’ve got ideas. Ask me in three weeks if they’ll let us win .”

“Okay, let’s hear what you got.”

“Well, first idea. It won’t take much to build a homopolar generator—”

“A what?” said Bobby.

“Homopolar generator,” said Rita, batting her eyes mischievously. “Don’t you know nuthin’?”

“We can cannibalize some rails, capacitors, and batteries at the launch site and build a railgun,” Gilbert said.

“Railguns haven’t been too successful even under normal circumstances, have they?” said Spencer.

Gilbert looked hurt and slouched down in the chair. “We were able to build our satellite launcher, based on the same principle. We won’t try to get orbital velocities this time, though, just enough to make a crude weapon.”

“Okay,” said Spencer. “That’s one then. Anything else?”

“Well, we can produce explosives, or at least gunpowder. You know the old formula: one part charcoal, two parts saltpeter, and four parts sulphur.”

“Where are we going to find that ?” said Rita.

“Muck, piss and beer,” recited Bobby. “They used to feed saltpeter to us all the time at Annapolis. Dampens the sex drive.”

“Great,” Rita sounded disappointed.

“I agree that might be a bit problematic,” Gilbert said, “but we can try other explosives. Seems that in World War II they ground up citrus fruit rinds and extracted the oil for explosives.” His eyes widened at the skeptical looks he was getting. “No kidding! It’s actually pretty easy to make: one gallon of orange rind oil to a hundred pounds of ammonium nitrate, kind of a distant cousin to the explosive ANFO, used all the time.”

“Ammonium nitrate? Where do we get that?”

“Simple,” Gilbert said with a grin. “Otherwise known as fertilizer. Southern New Mexico has plenty of orange and lemon groves. It won’t take much to extract what oil we need. And I know there’s plenty of fertilizer around. All we have to do is use a little TNT to detonate the stuff, and kablooie! , we’ve got homemade bombs.”