"No, but we can't move without orders."
"A red alert gives the captain of a warship discretion to act on his own initiative in case of communications failure."
"But we don't have a communications failure," Rizzo said, his voice a bit hollow.
"We do now," Captain Ryan answered.
No one argued against him.
The rec room looked more like a real command post now. Men going in and out constantly. Several small tables and chairs had been moved in. A computer terminal hummed at one table, a communications console with four small display screens lapped over the sides of another.
Kinsman was wolfing down a hasty sandwich. It was well past 2100 hours now. The medivac shuttle had taken most of the civilians off the station. Word of what had happened was screaming up the chain of command to Washington.
"Sir, we have Colonel Leonov on screen four," said one of the technicians, a woman who had volunteered to stay aboard the station with the Luniks.
Washing down a mouthful of unidentifiable soybean 465 product with a gulp of synthetic coffee, Kinsman made his way to the comm console.
Leonov looked triumphant on the tiny screen. "All three of our orbital stations are completely in our hands!" he reported. "There was amazingly little shooting. Surprise and a good deal of agreement with our aims carried almost everyone. I was very eloquent." He arched his brows, daring Kinsman to dispute him.
"Good work, Peter," was all that Kinsman could think to say. "We had a few bad moments here, but everything's under control now. Beta and Gamma are secure, and our people are checking out the ABM control systems on all three stations."
"They are bypassing the controls in the Earth-based stations?"
"Right. I presume your people are doing the same."
"It is already done. Our network of satellites can now be controlled only from the space stations. The Earthside con- trol links have been removed from the circuits."
"Good work," said Kinsman.
"You have sent the prisoners back to the States?" Leonov asked.
"Most of them. There wasn't room in the one medivac ship for all of them, so we still have a few here. And there are more coming from Beta and Gamma. We'll hold them here until they send another ship up from Earthside."
"If I were you. Comrade, I would hold on to the remaining prisoners. They might be valuable as hostages. That is what we are doing here."
Kinsman nodded. "You might be right."
"Now then," Leonov broke into a smile, "what about announcing our actions to the former owners of these space stations, eh?"
