(eng) Mackey Chandler - April 05 by A Depth of Understanding

Author:A Depth of Understanding [Understanding, A Depth of]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Published: 0101-01-01T00:00:00+00:00

Chapter 17

"Heather, Tim Houston in the Flash Gordon reporting. We just had four vessels cross our position almost directly overhead, but about three degrees inclination to the equator. So they will cross you nearly overhead too in about twenty minutes. We waited until they were below our horizon to relay to you through the lunar sats. I'm attaching their orbital elements as closely as we could read them. We did not illuminate them, they were running their own radar so it was easy to get a fix on them."

"Thank you, Tim. We'll hail them when they come around. If we still have any antennas left above ground I'll tell you how that went."

"You really think they'll fire on you?"

"You better believe it. And if I fire on them, don't be a hero. I might not get them all and you only have two missiles. I suggest you keep them to defend yourself."

"If we can't contact you, we'll return to Home. We shall be cautious," he promised.

The clock runs slower when you are waiting Heather noticed. Even more so when you are the one who will have to take action or stand down. The Chinese ships, well almost certainly, to nine nines, would be coming over the horizon in three minutes now.

She was well below the surface, a kilometer and a half down, offset from the center of their properties by almost fifty kilometers. Their shelter was divided into small niches carved out of solid rock and designed to pass a shock wave around it without collapsing or material spalling from it's surface. A metal liner added to security from that possibility. She was in a seat anchored to the ground, wearing a helmet and strapped in just like she was in a ship.

There was a radar set sitting exactly at the middle of Central, not emitting at the moment. It was removed from the rover that didn't carry the cannon and several antennas and one actual radio transmitter, were beside it. The radar and radio feed were all fed to her down two optic fibers. They didn't have separate tunnels to run them in, but they put them in a slot at the bottom corners, on opposite sides of the same tunnel. It was as good as they could do under the circumstances.

Heather refrained from using the radar still, but called on the emergency frequency. Trusting they hadn't maneuvered since the report from the Flash Gordon and were in her sky.

"Hail the Chinese ships in orbit. This is Heather Anderson at Central on the moon. Unless you inform me otherwise, I am going to assume you are armed and here to enforce the United Nations decree. If you are armed in our sky you are in violation of the resolution of the Assembly of Home and my decree."

"Ships of the People's Republic go where they wish and your Assembly and your decree are less than nothing to us."

"Then a state of war exists between us. Which will mean your nation on Earth, not just beyond L1," she told him.

Download

Copyright Disclaimer:
This site does not store any files on its server. We only index and link to content provided by other sites. Please contact the content providers to delete copyright contents if any and email us, we'll remove relevant links or contents immediately.