Kevin Anderson - Ill Wind

He folded his hands over his hard stomach and stood beside the command tent, watching the preparation of the campfires. “This expedition isn’t merely to go to White Sands and occupy the solar-power farm. It’s also a unifying tactic, a demonstration of how we must hold together. Without our lines of communication, the United States is unraveling. People must not be allowed to think they can just laugh at the law.”

Bayclock narrowed his eyes as he stared into the deepening dusk. “I’m one of the men charged with that responsibility. Often I don’t like it, and it’s a great burden to protect humanity from its own tendencies toward anarchy.” He turned to Lance. “But just because I don’t like the job, doesn’t mean I can shrug my shoulders and ignore it. I have a responsibility to this nation, to the people.

“I am like a great hammer and these people are the anvil. Between us, we can forge the nation again—but it won’t happen spontaneously. Only through effort, strenuous effort.” Bayclock said softly, “Now do you understand, Dr. Nedermyer? Is that clear enough for you?”

Lance swallowed. “Yes, sir.” He was afraid he understood the general… all too well.

Lance awoke to the sound of gunshots breaking through the darkness.

As the troops scrambled out of their blankets, he sat up on the hard ground, wincing in pain from his stiff back and looking around. He grabbed his glasses and tried to make out details in the blurred shadows. He heard horses, but they sounded scattered, growing more distant.

Climbing to his feet, Lance stepped on a sharp rock and hobbled backward. More small popping sounds came from off to his left. Other men scrambled in that direction. They shot their weapons into the darkness, but those shots sounded different—clearer and more contained.

They were being attacked by people from the pueblo! But how could the Indians have working rifles? Lance took a deep breath. The attackers could still use shells and gunpowder to make small explosives, tiny bombs that would shatter the night.

The horses ran the other direction, on the opposite side of the camp from the explosions. A diversion? He heard the general bellowing, but the men were panicked, and even Bayclock could not keep the situation under control.

One of the airmen finally shot a flare into the sky; it burst into an incandescent white spotlight surrounded by glowing smoke streamers. Under the sudden glare splashing across the landscape, they spotted horses running off in all directions.

Two young men rode a pair of stolen horses, galloping off into the night. Bayclock yelled for the riflemen to shoot, but they missed. The young riders vanished into the dark distance. Waving his arms, Bayclock sent his troops out to round up the horses and to search for the attackers.

Lance hurriedly pulled on his hiking boots and went to help, but he knew it was a lost cause.

With somber tears burning his eyes, Spencer stood at the electromagnetic launcher. Although he knew in his heart it was necessary, the beautiful dream he had chased for so long was being torn apart piece by piece to build a defense against “barbarians.” He felt sick at what they were doing to the launcher, possibly destroying his hope for the solar-power satellites—it wasn’t fair, especially now that an expedition from JPL was on its way!

Rita Fellenstein supervised connecting the power-transmission line from the microwave farm to the launcher’s battery facility. He was thankful they didn’t need a transformer to boost the voltage, like the one that had failed at the water pump. Spencer’s other techs were still working on that problem.

Gilbert Hertoya grunted as he helped Arnie, his refugee scientist friend from Sandia, pry open an aluminum side wall of the launcher housing. Spencer glimpsed the two gleaming parallel rails lined with capacitor banks and batteries.

Gilbert’s workers had unbolted and lifted a ten-meter-long section of the launcher, mounting it on a swivel so the railings could turn through a 45-degree arc, horizontal as well as vertical. The launcher looked like a giant tuning fork jutting from the dismantled building, anchored by black cables running to the capacitors. He called to Spencer. “What do you think?”

“This thing is going to save us from Bayclock, huh?” Spencer stepped over the cables, careful not to trip. He sighed, trying not to show his brooding despair.

Gilbert proudly swept an arm along the length of the device. “The hardest part was mounting the rails on the swivel.” He motioned. “Get behind the base.”

Stepping around blue capacitor boxes, Spencer could see the equipment he himself had worked on just a few days ago. Now, timing cables, rail-gap switches, induction lines, and wire from the battery array littered the floor. Gilbert had cleared the area by the base to where they could lift five-pound metal-coated sabots onto the railgun.

Gilbert pointed out the switching mechanism. “The homopolar generator is over here. The rail is short, but we should still be able to launch the projectiles at a couple of kilometers a second. That’ll pack a real punch.”

“I hope so,” sighed Spencer. “But is it worth it?”

“If it works it will be.”

“Does it work?”

Gilbert shrugged. “Let’s see.”

They left Arnie to continue his work and met Rita outside by the transmission line. She pushed back the bush hat she had reclaimed from Lieutenant Carron. “This should do it. I need to get back and help Bobby extract the citrus oil for the explosives.” She nodded toward the electrical wiring. “Gilbert only needs a ninety-second cycle time to recharge his capacitors. With the current we can draw from batteries, he can probably get nine, maybe ten shots before we’re depleted.”

Spencer looked worried. “I’d hate to dismantle our precious satellite launcher for something that might not be decisive against Bayclock.”

Gilbert rolled his dark eyes. “That’s the physicist in you. Listen to an engineer for once. These projectiles are four to five times faster than a bullet—”

“So the energy is 16 to 25 times greater ,” finished Spencer. “But still, what if you miss the target?”

“Wide-area munitions,” Rita said. “Gil’s got us filling sabots with shrapnel, so when we launch it’ll be like a super shotgun.” She turned to the short engineer. “Bobby wants to push the trigger himself when you go after Bayclock. If he’s not flying his balloon, that is.”

Spencer scowled at her eager smile. “Rita, this is going to be messy. We busted our butts to cobble this antenna farm together, but I never thought I’d have to kill anybody for it.”

Rita whirled. “Spence, a lot of people have died since the petroplague. This is a war here! Civilization against the cannibals. The golden age against the dark ages.”

Her voice became quieter. “When I was a kid, I took a lot of shit from gorillas who wanted to pick on a beanpole, egg-headed girl—but now I am not going to let a bully come down here and take our dreams. Not when I can still fight.”

“Incoming!”

Bobby Carron looked up just in time to be hit on the side of the head with a soft orange. Already leaning forward, he lost his balance and tripped into the tank half-filled with ripe citrus rinds. He sputtered and gasped at the bright, acidic stink. He climbed back out of the knee-deep vat, picking clots of spoiled lemons and oranges from his hair.

Rita grinned as she tossed another orange into the air and caught it. “Gotta keep those reflexes tuned up, flyboy. Hate to have a killer orange take out your balloon.”