to tell them…”
“ Yeah. This sucks .”
“You’ll take care of them? Everyone?”
“ Pinky-swear. Acceleration good, Mesosphere coming up .”
Nearly 100 miles up, it was getting even easier. Lots easier. “Watchman?”
“ Astra? What’s your status ?” He sounded like he was asking how an oh-so-routine exercise was going.
“I’m good and you don’t need to break the air for me anymore.” It was mostly true. “How much more speed have you got?”
“ A bit. Okay, separating .” I clenched my fists and braced as his feet drew away above me. Ten feet. Twenty. Thirty, and suddenly I was making my own bow wave in the thin air.
“ Speed dropping ,” Shelly observed.
“I’ve got it.” Things went fuzzy as I metaphorically leaned in and pushed .
“ Speed steady. Climbing .”
I focused on Watchman, willing his shrinking dot to stay in sight. “Time to target range?” I gasped.
“ Two minutes to effective Gungnir range, three to optimal range . Remember that summer we — Crap on a cracker! The target has separated! The target has separated! ”
The red triangle at the top of the cone split into five red pips, all flashing. Confusion filled the communications links before Shelly shut it all out.
“Multiple warheads? Why didn’t anyone say ?”
“ It’s not! The missile has a single, one megaton warhead. The robots have been changing it, but they couldn’t have split the bomb! ”
“Decoys?”
“ Have to be ,” she agreed, a little calmer. “ Five of us, five of them—it’s adapting .”
“Yippy. So now it’s a shell game.” This was not happening.
Blackstone entered the Dispatch link again. “ Astra, Watchman, vector independently. The Navy is uploading new targeting solutions to your Gungnirs , we’re putting two on each .”
“ Copy, independent vector ,” Watchman confirmed and I hastily echoed him. On my helmet screen one of the red pips flashed green and I turned to move it to the center of my cone. Below me the Earth was turning into a ball, lit along half its curve by distant sunset. All systems still green—good thing since we’d never actually space-tested them.
Okay. Two Gungnirs per “missile.” We could still do this.
“ Targeting range in thirty seconds ,” Blackstone reported. “ Confirm lock and readiness .” The designation Omega Four flashed on my helmet screen as we went down the roll.
“ Omega One, Argonaut standing by .”
“ Omega Two, ArcLight standing by .”
“ Omega Three, Watchman standing by .”
“Omega Four, Astra standing by.” I fought and conquered the insane urge to add May the Force be with you .
“ Omega Five, Rook standing by .”
“ Launch in ten, nine, eight, seven, six—hold launch! Target proliferation! ” My heart dropped into my stomach as the flashing pip in my target-sights split again into five more. Which meant…
“ Twenty-five confirmed targets , image and pattern analysis indeterminate ,” Shelly broke in, tearing into the new data like only she could. “ Greater than 40% confidence is impossible to achieve .”
----
Hurtling into space at hypersonic speeds is not the time or place to lose focus. I listened to the silence as Shelly, the super-intelligent quantum ghost of my BFF, Blackstone, our team leader and intelligence analyst, and what had to be dozens of military wonks on the other end of my radio link came up with nothing . Ten Gungnirs , twenty-five targets, at least 50 million lives riding on worse odds than a coin toss. We couldn’t rely on luck—
Oh yes, we could . “Shelly, is Seven back in Dispatch?”
“ Yeah. So? ” She sounded distracted—probably taking over every CPU available to help her fight some kind of targeting solution out of the data.
“Tell him to look at the screen and pick a number!”
“ Are you kidding? His luck
“ Yeah. This sucks .”
“You’ll take care of them? Everyone?”
“ Pinky-swear. Acceleration good, Mesosphere coming up .”
Nearly 100 miles up, it was getting even easier. Lots easier. “Watchman?”
“ Astra? What’s your status ?” He sounded like he was asking how an oh-so-routine exercise was going.
“I’m good and you don’t need to break the air for me anymore.” It was mostly true. “How much more speed have you got?”
“ A bit. Okay, separating .” I clenched my fists and braced as his feet drew away above me. Ten feet. Twenty. Thirty, and suddenly I was making my own bow wave in the thin air.
“ Speed dropping ,” Shelly observed.
“I’ve got it.” Things went fuzzy as I metaphorically leaned in and pushed .
“ Speed steady. Climbing .”
I focused on Watchman, willing his shrinking dot to stay in sight. “Time to target range?” I gasped.
“ Two minutes to effective Gungnir range, three to optimal range . Remember that summer we — Crap on a cracker! The target has separated! The target has separated! ”
The red triangle at the top of the cone split into five red pips, all flashing. Confusion filled the communications links before Shelly shut it all out.
“Multiple warheads? Why didn’t anyone say ?”
“ It’s not! The missile has a single, one megaton warhead. The robots have been changing it, but they couldn’t have split the bomb! ”
“Decoys?”
“ Have to be ,” she agreed, a little calmer. “ Five of us, five of them—it’s adapting .”
“Yippy. So now it’s a shell game.” This was not happening.
Blackstone entered the Dispatch link again. “ Astra, Watchman, vector independently. The Navy is uploading new targeting solutions to your Gungnirs , we’re putting two on each .”
“ Copy, independent vector ,” Watchman confirmed and I hastily echoed him. On my helmet screen one of the red pips flashed green and I turned to move it to the center of my cone. Below me the Earth was turning into a ball, lit along half its curve by distant sunset. All systems still green—good thing since we’d never actually space-tested them.
Okay. Two Gungnirs per “missile.” We could still do this.
“ Targeting range in thirty seconds ,” Blackstone reported. “ Confirm lock and readiness .” The designation Omega Four flashed on my helmet screen as we went down the roll.
“ Omega One, Argonaut standing by .”
“ Omega Two, ArcLight standing by .”
“ Omega Three, Watchman standing by .”
“Omega Four, Astra standing by.” I fought and conquered the insane urge to add May the Force be with you .
“ Omega Five, Rook standing by .”
“ Launch in ten, nine, eight, seven, six—hold launch! Target proliferation! ” My heart dropped into my stomach as the flashing pip in my target-sights split again into five more. Which meant…
“ Twenty-five confirmed targets , image and pattern analysis indeterminate ,” Shelly broke in, tearing into the new data like only she could. “ Greater than 40% confidence is impossible to achieve .”
----
Hurtling into space at hypersonic speeds is not the time or place to lose focus. I listened to the silence as Shelly, the super-intelligent quantum ghost of my BFF, Blackstone, our team leader and intelligence analyst, and what had to be dozens of military wonks on the other end of my radio link came up with nothing . Ten Gungnirs , twenty-five targets, at least 50 million lives riding on worse odds than a coin toss. We couldn’t rely on luck—
Oh yes, we could . “Shelly, is Seven back in Dispatch?”
“ Yeah. So? ” She sounded distracted—probably taking over every CPU available to help her fight some kind of targeting solution out of the data.
“Tell him to look at the screen and pick a number!”
“ Are you kidding? His luck
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