"The evacuees must be yelling their guts out into the radio aboard the medivac ship right now," Kinsman said. "Washington should be sorting out the story very shortly."
"Yes, but do you realize they are on full alert down there? They could send off their missiles before we are ready to stop them. We must make some sort of announcement jointly so they won't bombard each other."
"I know, Pete, but I'm afraid if we make the announce- 466 ment before we can really control the ABM satellites, they'll either shoot at us or send troops up. I'd rather wait until the reinforcements get here from Selene and we have enough people to man the ABM control centers properly."
Leonov slowly blinked his eyes. "I understand. But it is much faster to launch a missile or troopship from Earthside than to get extra technicians down here from Selene. Even with our ships accelerating at maximum energy ..."
He stopped. Someone off-screen had caught his atten- tion. Leonov snapped a few words in Russian, and an excited voice babbled breathlessly at him. Leonov's face went white.
"Chet, it's too late! One of our ... a Russian submarine has been torpedoed and sunk off the coast of California. The war has started!"
Tuesday 14 December 1999:
2148hrsUT
"THEY'VE LAUNCHED THE missiles?" Kinsman's voice was a shocked, high-pitched little boy's squeal of fear. His guts were frozen, a block of lunar ice. But his mind was racing.
Got to tell them right away that we've taken over. Got to! Got to scan the missile farms—Idaho, Montana, Texas, Siberia, China. Jesus Christ! The oceans. The subs. We'll need every sensor on every satellite. Got to be in touch with Perry and the others, make sure we can fire the lasers, get the radars tracking, all the sensors—get 'em ready to shoot at anything that moves. Fast!
"No," Leonov was answering. "Nothing has been launched yet. But the standby orders have gone out. It's only a matter of hours now. Perhaps minutes."
Can't do it from here. Kinsman realized as he watched the Russian's dismal face in the tiny display screen. Got to go down to the comm center.
A clattering noise made him jerk his attention away from 467 the screen. One of the young officers had let a plastic food tray slip from his hands. He was visibly shaking as he knelt to pick up the mess. The others were fixed on Kinsman: standing, sitting—one of them leaning his fists on the comput- er terminal, his face a tense death mask, white, taut, unblinking—all of them staring at Kinsman, waiting for him to act, to tell them what to do.
"Pete, get on all the broadcast frequencies you can manage and tell your people Earthside what we've done. I'm going down to our comm center and do the same thing. We can stop 'em if we yell loud enough." You think! "But we've got to tell 'em now!"
"Yes, yes, of course. But do you think—"
"Tell 'em we're prepared to shoot down any missile launched from anywhere on Earth. Make 'em believe it!"
"But can we really do it?"
"You tell me!"
Leonov rubbed a hand over his forehead. "I don't know! We have teams of technicians working, but how can we be certain that all those satellites will respond correctly?"
Forcing a grin, Kinsman answered, "The machines don't care what your politics are, Pete. If the lights come on green, then everything's working."
