Lifeline

Orbitech 1, with Curtis Brahms at its head, was setting itself up as the center for a new order, a new America to swallow up all the other colonies. With Clavius Base and now the Filipinos joining forces, nothing would remain of the old ways, the dreams she and others like her had had. She would not allow her dream of the Mars colony to be stolen away once again.

Who could know what Brahms’s new order would decree about what remained on the Kibalchich, the assets that could be distributed to the highest bidder? Her station at L-5 would become nothing more than a salvage yard to fuel the collective power of the other groups that were even now joining forces.

Tears flowed down her face.

Orbitech 1. She had an out.

Now Anna knew that from the first construction of the Kibalchich, the designers had prepared for the possibility of outside aggression. They had taken advantage of the Kibalchich’s configuration to include their weapon.

The other colonies could not be permitted to join forces against her. Earth still smoldered by itself as a testimonial.

She had a chance to prevent that from ever happening again.

She couldn’t.

But yet … she had to.

Anna’s voice wavered when she spoke again. “Computer: begin detonation sequence Alexander.”

“{{AFFIRMATIVE. PLEASE PROVIDE AUTHENTICATION.}}”

“Authentication phrase Narodnaia Volia.”

“{{GIVE CODE NUMBER.}}”

“Eighteen eighty-one.”

Anna allowed herself a small smile at the quaintness of the procedure. The Narodnaia Volia, or “the People’s Will,” was the radical group to which the original Nikolai Ivanovitch Kibalchich had belonged—the group that had assassinated Tsar Alexander II in 1881. Which had led to Kibalchich’s arrest and imprisonment. Leaving him free to dream of rockets carrying people to the stars.…

“{{DETONATION SEQUENCE ALEXANDER INITIATED. PLEASE STATE SPECIFIC OPTIONS.}}”

Anna’s voice tightened, but she swallowed and kept going, reciting what she had planned after studying the specifics of the weapon. “Prepare for a one-burst sequence, use normal procedure. Limit yield strength to seventy-five kilotons. Firing coordinates to follow. For now, prepare a radar lock on the object approaching Orbitech 1 from lunar orbit.”

“{{AFFIRMATIVE. ALEXANDER SEQUENCE IS ACTIVE. WEAPON PREPARATION ACTIVE AND PROCEEDING. DETONATION IN TWO HOURS.}}”

A warning siren ran up and down the scale, startling Anna. As she recovered her position, she kept her eyes riveted on the holotank as an image of the yo-yo vessel came into view, reconstructed by Doppler radar imagery. The craft’s image shined a false hue.

As she watched it hurtle toward Orbitech 1, she imagined the sequence of events occurring deep within the Kibalchich: robot arms removing a thermonuclear warhead from storage at the bottom of one of the pools of water. The nuclear devices had been undetectable, their characteristic neutron and gamma emissions hidden by the water that covered them, and masked by the tons of shielding rock that filled the outer, nonrotating hub. The preprogrammed robot arms automatically prepped the warhead—a two-hour sequence necessary to activate its detonation mechanism, set the yield to seventy-five kilo-tons, and perform other detailed checks. And after the warhead had made the journey down the central core to below the massive solar shield, it would detonate, channeling its awesome energy up the Kibalchich’s core to power an x-ray laser. The Kibalchich’s mirror would provide the final link. Even as the mirror itself melted under the huge energy flux, it would direct the coherent radiation toward its target. Down at the opposite end of the core, the solar shield would provide partial protection from the nuclear explosion; the tons of lunar scrap rock in the outer hub would provide the remainder. The system was designed to be used only once—it was worth the two-hour wait.

The approaching yo-yo vessel from the Moon would be stopped by the x-ray laser, vaporized by gigajoules of radiant energy. Orbitech 1 would probably survive the burst. This action was to stop them from their grandiose plans—a warning shot—not to destroy them.

“History,” Anna whispered to herself. “I must make a record for future generations. For what they do not remember, they are doomed to repeat.”

The warning siren reverberated throughout the station. Speakers set into the bulkheads rang out words that at first made no sense. Karen recognized Anna Tripolk’s voice.

“There is nothing you can do—I control the command center. Do not attempt to communicate with Orbitech 1.”

Ramis bolted upright from his nap. “Karen!”

Karen met him outside his cabin. “I don’t know what she’s doing.”