CHAPTER 37
Turkey Economic Exclusive Zone, Black Sea
Tuesday
2:30 a.m. Turkey Time (TRT)
Monday
7:30 p.m. Eastern Time
“That alarm is too goddamned early!” Michael struggled to make himself slap the alarm on his phone. But once he managed to grab his phone and flip the silent switch and look for a snooze icon, he realized that it wasn’t his phone making all the ruckus. The noise was coming from inside his head. “Oh shit.”
Michael scrambled for the glasses at the edge of his bed, knocking them off accidentally to the floor. He threw the blanket back and rolled over to fish around on the metal deck plating that was cold to the touch and a bit dirty. He continued to feel around until he bumped the glasses. He grabbed them cautiously and then rolled back over onto his back, putting them on. The glasses made the handshaking sounds with his implants and then the virtual screens lit up. The full field of view was red and flashing and had a message from Marcus.
M,
We have to go now! U.S. officials are on to our plan and are starting action now.
M
Michael thought about that. His first thought was to wonder just how in the hell they had figured out what they were doing. They had been very, very careful to cover all of their tracks as they made them. Then he switched his train of thought to a more pragmatic one, along the lines of what needed to be done and how much time there was to do it. If the Pentagon or the intelligence community had figured it all out, even if they figured out exactly where they were, it would take hours for them to get a force to them. Even if there were diplomatic ways to convince Russia to move in, the best sonar and radar in the world, which the launch rig had, showed no seagoing vessels within a thousand kilometers except for one, and it was expected. There was nobody currently near them that they didn’t know about. Then atop that, they were in Turkish controlled waters. The Turks didn’t allow incursions into their water or air spaces lightly. They had time. But not much of it.
Knock, knock, knock!
“Comrade! Get up!” Vlad’s voice was coming from outside his quarters. “It is time to go!”
Michael forced himself out of bed and winced just a bit from the cold metal against his bare feet. He slipped on his moccasins and shuffled to the door, releasing the hatch. There was his Russian friend, standing shirtless and only in underwear, socks, and slippers, smoking a cigarette.
“Wait a minute, V.” Michael scratched at his head to stimulate some brain cells. “Socks and slippers?”
“My feet get cold at night.”
“And nothing else, I see.” Michael motioned to Vladimir’s mostly naked body in front of him with a sleepy and grumpy chuckle.
“Georgia has skipped some steps,” Vladimir told him, puffing out his chest as if to show he was proud of his body carrying the joke forward a bit longer than needed. But the expression on his face was more of excitement and focus. “Jebidiah is up. We must go to the preflight room and start taking the intravenous fluids and then suit up. The general quarters evacuation has already started.”
“Yeah, yeah.” Michael waved him off. He had been in the middle of the best sleep he’d had in over a week, or longer. And it had just been cut short by about two and half hours. “I’ll see you there after I brush my teeth and stuff.”
“Stuff? What stuff, comrade?” Vladimir took a last drag on the cigarette and dropped it to the floor and twisting it into the metal hallway deck plating with his house slipper. “We’re going to space, my friend, and you are doing ‘stuff’?”
“I have to pee, V!” Michael laughed and grunted sort of at the same time. He was both joking and annoyed.
“You can pee in the suit!” Vladimir grinned.
“Yeah, okay, five minutes. Meet you down there.” Michael flipped the light to his quarters on and closed the door. He wasn’t going to pee in the suit until he had to.
“We are less than T-2 hours and fifteen minutes!” Georgia was shouting at somebody. “There are still almost two hundred and ninety-six metric tons of LOX that have to flow into the oxidizer tank, and then once it is to the right temp and shake we move the one hundred thirteen tons of kerosene into the fuel tank. We have to keep teams on that cryo pump there and this line here to make certain we don’t ice up! Is that understood?”
“Yes, ma’am!” The technician in the bright orange fire suit rushed away as the three men approached.
“Are we going to make it?” Michael asked her. He looked up at the now completely stacked rocket towering a bit over fifty-four meters above them connected to the gantry tower. The Vyrezka was resting in place at top of the rocket. Someone had spray painted “Demokles Kilici.” Michael snapped a pic of it for his virtual glasses to translate. The response was that it was in Turkish and it meant “Sword of Damocles.” He agreed.
“We will make it barring supersonic jet attack,” Georgia said. “Don’t think they could get permission for that, though.”
“Russians would not have MiGs close enough. Even at Mach two they would be at least two hours out, and that’s assuming there were MiGs available near the Russian border. With the skirmishes in Ukraine, not likely,” Vladimir said. “We have time. Are your crews evacuated yet?”
“Only any superfluous ones, which aren’t many. No. We’ll work up until the T-15 mark. The command center ship is already spun up, but for now I’m running things from the tower.” Georgia looked at the three of them. “The warheads are stored. Sing is up top waiting for you and so is the doc. It’s time to suit up, gentlemen.”
“Been waiting all my life for this!” Vladimir said eagerly.
“You’ve been waiting all your life to take over the space station and drop nukes on the world, V?” Jebidiah asked halfheartedly.
“He probably has, J,” Michael responded. They had started using their initials already to get into the forced habit of no names. “He probably has.”