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  "I don't like the thought," Esme said. "But... okay."

  "Nobody likes the thought," Barnett said. "Just some people can think about it without their brains turning off. Some can't. You still with me?"

  "Yes," Esme said. "Dark room. Killer wasp."

  "You have in your hand a laser pointer," Barnett said. "The light doesn't scatter at all but if you hit the wasp, it kills it. How hard is it to hit the wasp?"

  "Impossible," Esme said. "But is it really..."

  "Harder," Erickson said. "Much much harder."

  "The wasp makes a little bit of sound when it first enters the room," Barnett said. "And then when it gets about an inch from your skin. And you actually have a bunch of laser pointers, too many for a human to handle, and a whole bunch of wasp sensors that if the wasp nearly hits them can detect it. And the room is about the size of a football stadium."

  "The fact that we get any of them is the surprising part," Father said. "And by 'we' I mean Athena and Paris."

  "Hey, we do some stuff!" a guy on the other side of the bar said. He was tall, black as the ace of spades and probably in his mid thirties. Also, Dana had to admit, pretty good looking. He was accompanied by a brunette who had to be at least five years younger.

  "Who are you?" Erickson asked.

  "Jim Sharp," the guy said. "I work in the command center. And, Chief, was it?"

  "Yes, sir," Chief Barnett said.

  "That was a pretty good analogy."

  "I've been working on it, sir," Barnett said, precisely.

  "What's with the chief?" Rammer whispered.

  "Dunno," Dana replied.

  "No rank in the mess, Chief," Sharp said, grinning. "Definitely no rank at the Acapulco."

  "Yes, sir," the chief said.

  "I'm the chief tactical officer of the Troy," Sharp said. "Since the chief clearly recognizes me, being incognito is out."

  "Wait," Dana said, blanching. "Captain James Sharp?"

  "The same," Jim said, shrugging. "Hey, I just came down for a beer and a swim. Like I said, no rank in the mess. Please. And you are the famous Comet Parker?"

  "Famous?" Esme said.

  "Uh, yes, sir," Dana replied.

  "That was an amazing display of boat handling, Comet," Sharp said. "Even the admiral thought so. We weren't quite taking bets on whether you'd make it, but everybody was rooting for you."

  "Thank you, sir," Dana said.

  "So about the problem of the missiles," Sharp said. "The chief's analogy is pretty good. The Rangora threw one hundred and thirty-eight missiles at Earth, more than any of the Horvath attacks. Ninety-three made it through Troy's pocket, the area around the gate. While, I might add, we were having to fight more throw-weight than anyone had ever seen in this system. We had to divert some of the SAPL to engage the missiles, which slowed down stopping the Rangora who were still throwing missiles... It's a tough call every time. But ninety-three made it through.

  "Athena stopped all but twenty-five of those in their coast phase, when they're nearly impossible to detect. Which was way over what we thought she could do. Our estimate was that sixty to seventy should have survived to secondary boost phase.

  "Sixteen initially targeted U.S. leadership and went active. The orbital BDA clusters got seven. The other nine hit the top four leadership targets, three of our remaining cities and two bases. Of the remaining nine, three targeted the British PM who was on the 'protected' list under the Alliance contract. Only one made it through but it unfortunately got the PM. No other damage in Britain.

  "Six targeted other world leaders. Three of those six were destroyed by the BDAs. Of the remaining three, one got the premier of China, one the PM of Russia and one the PM of France. The targeted countries of those remaining six were China, Russia, India, France, Brazil and Australia, presumably all going for leadership targets. All the Allied country missiles got stopped."

  Dana thought about that for a bit and then frowned.

  "That sort of looks like we deliberately let non-Allied leadership get killed," Esme said dubiously.

  "Just what I was thinking," Dana said.

  "When we lost our own President?" Erickson said angrily.

  "The point is being made by the international media," Sharp said, shrugging. "And the response is what... Sorry... you are?"

  "Bill Erickson, sir," Bill said. "I work for Apollo."

  "What Mister Erickson said," Sharp said. "We lost our entire upper leadership, more cities and two bases. We sure as hell were trying to stop the missiles. But the Alliance contract is precise. First defense goes to Alliance countries. Which is why when single missiles were targeted on Alliance leadership, we were able to stop them."

  "That should put some teeth in the choice to join the Alliance or not," Bill said.

  "It was not a deliberate choice," Sharp said. "The fortunes of war and what we'd said were the parameters of the Alliance, yes. So... yes, it puts some teeth into it. The fact is, though, that three of those last missiles were going to get through. And they got the President and the PM of Britain, both Alliance countries. Being part of the Alliance is no surety of survival for leadership."

  "Has..." Chief Barnett said thoughtfully. "Has anyone analyzed the targeting parameters, sir?"

  "You hit the nose, Chief," Sharp said, grinning. "Squarely on the nose."

  "What do you mean?" Esme said.

  "The Rangora don't like the U.S. and Britain," Father Patricelli said. "They want to get Terra to surrender by targeting our leadership overall. But they really hate the U.S. and Britain."

  "Ta-da," Sharp said, nodding. "That took a team of analysts about a week to agree upon. And it's less hate than have a rational view, a surprisingly rational view, of the relative dangers to them of the different nations of Earth. China and Russia should have been equally valid targets. The Rangora, though, don't view them that way."

  "So by fighting them, we're making ourselves targets?" Esme said. "I'm not sure it's a good idea to fight, then."

  "Fight or be slaves," Patricelli said, shrugging. "Live free or die."

  "But people are doing both," Esme said. "And in case it's not apparent, nobody here is dying! People on Earth are dying!"

  "We lost three boats in that last action, miss," the chief growled.

  "There has to be an answer," Esme said.

  "There is," Sharp said. "A really easy one except there's no way to do it."

  "Which is?" Dana asked. "Sorry, which is, sir?"

  "Load the Troy up with enough internal systems that she can fight without the SAPL and hold a system against a Rangora fleet of any conceivable size," Sharp said. "Then, somehow, move her through the gate into the E Eridani system and hold the gate from there."

  "So... Why aren't we doing it?" Esme said.

  She looked sort of cross when all the military personnel started to giggle. Even the brunette with Captain Sharp was giggling. BFM, to his honor, was simply chuckling.

  "What's so funny?" the accountant asked angrily.

  "Heh," Chief Barnett said, wiping her eyes. "You're an accountant, right?"

  "Yes," Esme said.

  "So you can do math," Barnett said. "You pretty good at doing it in your head or you need a calculator?"

  "I've got implants," Esme said icily.

  "Is that what those are called?" Barnett said. "Okay, here's the numbers. The Troy weighs two point two trillion tons. That's two point two followed by—"

  "Nine zeroes," Esme said. "I know it's large..."

  "Wait, wait," Barnett said, holding up her hand. "You asked, I'm letting you figure it out. The SAPL, furthermore, is up to... What? A hundred petawatts? Is it classified?"

  "It is not," Sharp said. "One twenty."

  "One hundred and twenty petawatts," Barnett said. "Now, a watt is one joule per second. A joule is a Newton meter and a Newton is a kilogram meter per second squared."

  "What?" Esme said.

  "I need a whiteboard," Barnett said.

  "You must have been a
n A school instructor," Dana said. "Esme, you know the Myrms we drive?"

  "Yes," Esme said.

  "And you probably know to a cent how much they cost," Dana said. "Chief, how many Myrms would it take to give the Troy one gravity of acceleration?"

  "Easy," Barnett said. "Eighty-four million and change."

  "Impossible," Esme snapped. "You made that up."

  "Okay, genius, you do the math," Barnett said. "Two point two trillion tons divided by the weight of a shuttle..."

  "Sixty tons," Dana said.

  "Divided by four hundred gravities of acceleration," Barnett finished.

  The accountant closed her eyes for a second then shook her head.

  "I still can't believe that," she said, her mouth tight.

  "It's fricking math!" Barnett said. "You're an accountant! Don't tell me you can't do the math!"

  "I'm leaving," Esme said. "I don't have to put up with this."

  "What?" Barnett shouted to her back. "Logic? Sorry, Bill."

  "It's okay," Bill said. "I was getting tired of her attitude anyway."

  "People like that just piss me off," Barnett said.

  "What, Democrats?" Rammer asked.

  "I usually vote Democrat, sonny," the chief said. "And not liberals, neither. You find people who just will not follow the logic everywhere. They don't like the answer so they think wishing makes it so. Conservatives have got the same problem. Talk to one of them about prostitution, gambling or drugs."

  "Abortion," Dana said.

  "There you go," the chief said. "My body, my choice. Cannot do the logic. It's not just a liberal thing. Moving the Troy? Cannot do the math 'cause their brains shut down."

  "I wasn't laughing because you can't get the Troy to move," the brunette with Sharp said. "You can. You can even build a drive for it. One that would give it... oh, up to six gravities of acceleration."

  "B—what?" Barnett said. "Impossible!"

  "Do the math, Chief," the girl said, grinning. "Or, rather, I can do the math. And, no, it's not impossible. Difficult? My dad would refer to it as 'fiddly bits.' There's just one problem."

  "Which is?" Dana asked.

  "Hello!" the girl said, waving her hands around. "We're in a pool! In the middle of the vessel, for want of a better word. Can you say 'Slosh,' Chief?"

  "How in the hell are you proposing to move the Troy, honey?" Barnett asked. "You sort of skipped that bit."

  "That's for me to know and you to figure out, Chief," the girl said, grinning. "And when you figure it out, try to figure out how to install inertics on the whole system. That is the biggest issue. All the rest is... fiddly bits."

  CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT

  "You're kidding," Nathan said.

  "No, I'm not," Tyler replied. "When have I ever kidded about something like this?"

  Tyler was not much of a draftsman but Nathan was by now used to working from his very rough ideas. And it wasn't like the former "Minor Planetary Objects" expert didn't know the idea.

  "Tyler," Nathan said, carefully. "The Troy is not designed to move."

  "It's got to be moved sooner or later," Tyler said. "It's already nearly completely out of position. And not just the Troy. I want the same system on Thermopylae."

  "Two Orion drives?" Nathan practically shrieked. "Okay, I give up. Everyone's right. You're not kidding, you're insane!"

  The idea was simple and went back to the early days of the space program, and the nuclear program, back when people were just fine with thinking big. And scary.

  Orion worked best large. Make a very big platform, which they already had with Troy. Put a scary large plate under it. Orion was originally conceived as a lift drive to get out of the atmosphere. Connect the plate to the platform with some very large and robust springs.

  Then set off a nuke on the plate.

  The plate, obviously, had to be large enough and robust enough to survive being hit by the blast front from a nuclear weapon. And the springs had to be... large. But it would recoil, push the springs, the springs would push the platform and you had acceleration.

  Repeat, quickly, and the platform moved.

  "It's really simple," Tyler said, pointing to the diagram. "We cut off the inside of the door for the pusher plate. It's already curved. We'll have to install a chute for the nukes, but that's just fiddly bits. Install it on the outside of the door. It's big enough to take the little bit of accel we're going to get. We'll need to put in more locking bars to handle the pressure. The springs are going to be sort of challenging..."

  "Tyler..." Nathan said gently.

  "I want it done in a month, so you'd better quit talking and get to work," Tyler said.

  "Now that's just silly," Nathan said. "I mean, I don't even know how we're going to make the springs. Steel, sure. Spring steel? Wound?"

  "Ah-hah!" Tyler said. "You're already starting to figure out how to do it! Knew it!"

  "That doesn't mean I think it's a good idea!" Nathan said. "The impact is—"

  "We're not going to use big nukes," Tyler said. "Not at first. Just a bit of a tap. Repeated. You know a good guy for pumped fusion bombs?"

  "Sure," Nathan said. "Dr. DeWolfe, same guy we used when we— Hey!"

  "Seriously, Nathan," Tyler said, waving his hand at the door. "This is a big project. You're going to need to get going. Oh, and we're going to have to accelerate production on the large vessels bypass and the heavy laser program."

  "Oh, that's all," Nathan said. "Like two major projects aren't enough?"

  "Nathan," Tyler said, smiling thinly. "The Rangora have apparently conquered the Glatun. We wiped the floor with one of their task forces. They're not going to take that lying down. So the quicker you stop talking, the faster we can get this done."

  "It's going to cost a lot of money," Nathan said.

  "I'll get the money," Tyler said. "I want the drives, the lasers and the bypass done in no more than three months. I don't care what it takes. Just get it done."

  "Right," Nathan said thoughtfully. "Right. Orion. From scratch. Rebuild the door system to take the delta. Springs the size of... Bigger than anything I can think of off hand. Increase the rate of installation of the internal laser systems. Large vessel bypass. Yeah, that's going to be a necessity. We're going to have to remove all the power systems and grav plates we've already installed on the door..."

  "There you go," Tyler said, pulling him to his feet and walking him to the door. "Now you're cooking with fuel oil. If you need anything, you've got my number..."

  "There," Tyler said, shutting the door and brushing his hands. "It's all about people. Speaking of people..."

  —|—

  "Butch," Price said, looking in the welder's room. "We got a hell of a thing, here."

  "What's up?" Butch asked. The older welder hadn't been around a lot lately. Butch didn't have many other friends among the welders. Not really people to hang out with. He was feeling sort of put out.

  "They're bringing in the damned Indies," Price said.

  "Well, there goes this job," Butch said, angrily. "It's always like this with corporations."

  "Maybe," Price said. "Purcell wants a meeting."

  —|—

  "We don't have enough people," Purcell said to the group of assembled welders, fitters and other EVA artisans. "We just got orders to speed up installation of the large vehicles bypass, the power center and we've got a new door project. That's on top of the work being done on Thermopylae. What's going to happen is each of you is going to be assigned a group from the salvage operation we're hiring on contract from E Systems. They're not going to know diddly except how to cut out stuff and it's going to take a lot of work. The upside is it's a bump in pay across the board. Probationary employees with sufficient experience to manage a team are going to be paid as team leaders. Team leaders that get bumped, which is pretty much all of you, are going to be paid as group leaders and so on. Pretty much everybody's going to up their pay by at least fifty percent."

  There was a m
uttering of agreement to that at least.

  "They going to be staying?" one of the fitter leaders asked. "I don't see Apollo giving up cheap labor."

  "Everything, and I do mean everything, that I've seen says this is a temporary situation," Purcell said.

  "They'll stay," a voice from the back said. "Some of them. The good ones. Or they'll be back. But that's not a bad thing."

  Butch turned around to see who said that and blanched.

  "Crap..." Price muttered as Mr. Vernon walked through the group.

  "Hey, guys," Tyler said, stepping up on the podium Purcell was using. "Let me give you the skinny. First the part that nobody has really been talking about. We are, in case you hadn't noticed, at war. So when it was apparent that Apollo couldn't handle the salvage, and we need that salvage for some reasons I'll get to in a minute, we hired E Systems to work on it. And I know there was some muttering about that at the time. You guys make a nice chunk of change off salvage and you felt like you were getting cut out. I couldn't at the time, and can't now, think of a good way to make that up. This is one way, sort of.

  "The point being, as you know, they hired a bunch of Third Worlders, showed them a suit and put them to work. And those poor, and I do mean poor in every meaning of the term, bastards have been dying like flies. I nearly pulled the contract, they were taking so many hits. But I didn't. 'Cause we need the salvage. Why?

  "'Cause the 'power center' isn't a power center. We've been pulling all the power systems off those wrecks and been installing the ones that aren't totally trashed. Sure. But we've also, as you might have noticed, been installing all their laser systems that are in good condition.

  "That's the laser power of a whole fleet in one place. And we've been bringing in more as Granadica and Hephaestus can make them. We are trying to, as fast as we possibly can, duplicate the power of the SAPL internal to Troy. Because if we've got Thermopylae on one side with SAPL and the Troy on another with the same power, we're going to shred anything that comes through that gate."

  He looked around at the workers with a hard expression on his face.

  "Any. Thing. So I had you guys working on installing the systems and those poor bastards from Indonesia and the Philippines and Pakistan and Ghana and wherever ripping it out. 'Cause you guys are trained and prepared to build and they didn't know anything but how to cut it out. And not much of that. We needed those power plants, we needed those lasers, and we needed those relays. And we are going to use them to teach the Rangora a lesson they won't soon forget!"