Delta Green

Chapter Seventeen

Marvin Brackman had not been home in a week. That wasn’t anything new in his profession, but he found himself thinking about sitting in front of a good log fire with Sheila, with the lights turned low, and with that bottle of Napoleon brandy he had bought fifteen years before finally uncorked. His Irish setter, Sparky, would be curled up at his feet, keeping a wary eye open for the possibility of a treat.

That homey scene was on his mind when he went to bed at the Mayflower at five in the morning, after leaving a wakeup call for 10:00 A.M.

The same scene was on his mind when the phone rang at 8:20 A.M.

He let it ring twice as he sat up on the edge of the bed and scratched the top of his head. Then he picked it up, knowing it was not going to be good news.

“Brackman.”

“Sir, this is Captain Johnson, duty officer, Office of the Air Force Chief of Staff.”

“Go on, Captain.”

“Sir, you have an urgent message to contact Colonel Kevin McKenna on a secure channel.”

“Damn.” It meant driving out to the Pentagon.

“Sir?”

“Send a car for me, will you, Captain?”

“Right away, sir.”

Brackman had taken a shower and had half his face shaved when the phone rang again.

“Brackman.”

“General, White House Chief of Staffs office. You’re wanted in the Situation Room in twenty minutes.”

Something was really going bad, he thought.

“I’ll be there.”

He finished shaving and dressing in a clean uniform, then grabbed his topcoat and briefcase and took the elevator to the lobby. The military sedan was waiting for him directly outside the front doors, the driver standing at attention by the open rear door.

Brackman returned the salute and said, “Change of plans, Sergeant. We’re going to the White House.”

“Yes sir”

His name had been left at the gate, and the driver whisked on through to let him off at the East Wing, right behind the car depositing Harvey Mays.

“What’s up, Harv?” he asked as he got out and joined the Chief of Staff.

“McKenna sent a message about Soyuz Fifty having potential nuclear capability.”

“Shit.”

“My thought, too. Then, I got the call to come here, so I haven’t talked to him.”

As more cars drove through the gate behind them, the two generals entered the door and were met by a Marine who led them downstairs to the Situation Room.

Technicians were coming in, firing up the consoles at the back wall. The Chief of Naval Operations and the National Security Advisor were huddled with a deputy secretary from the State Department. Military aides circled the room like vultures. The buzz of background conversations was ominous. The chairmen of the armed services committees, whom he had spent most of the previous night with, were also in attendance.

It looked like it might be a few minutes before whatever was going to take place did take place, so Brackman headed for a console tended by an Army lieutenant.

“Sir?”

“I want a secure line to Space Command, then a patch to our Tactical Two frequency.”

The connection took less than a minute.

Brackman took the handset from the lieutenant and said, “Delta Blue, Semaphore.”

“Semaphore, this is Alpha,” Pearson said. “PH get him for you.”

Brackman checked his watch. Time seemed to be running by much faster.

“Semaphore, Blue.”

“Tell me.”

McKenna related the details of the Mako wreckage as well as those of their assault on Soyus Fifty.

“Colonel Volontov?”

“We found his helmet.”

“Goddamn. FU have to call Sheremetevo. You think it’s nuclear?”

“The G-2 identified it on the video tapes as the payload and second stages of an SS-X-25,” McKenna said. “Ten MIRVs, five hundred kilotons each.”

Hannibal Cross arrived and was apprehended by the deputy from State.

“Right now, you think it’s disabled?”

“For maybe another hour, if they have a replacement cable. Tony estimates another three hours if they have to repair what we tore up.”

“Recommendation?” Brackman asked.

“I’m taking Blue and Yellow back, and we’ll see if we can’t capture it intact.”

“Themis?”

“Still covered,” McKenna said.

“Approved. Stay in contact.”

Brackman gave the phone back to the lieutenant, then turned to the big boat-shaped table that dominated the middle of the small room.

People were taking seats, security council people and service chiefs at the table and aides on chairs at the wall. Harvey Mays signalled him, and Brackman walked over and sat at the table next to Mays. He quickly and quietly recapped his conversation with McKenna.

Hannibal Cross sat across from him, next to the National Security Advisor who was at the head of the table. He called the room to order, and the buzz died away.

“The President has been at Camp David and is now on his way back, gentlemen. I will go ahead and open the meeting.”

Everyone waited patiently.

“Half an hour ago, a package was delivered to the State Department. It is, supposedly, a copy of a video tape which was to have been delivered to the General Secretary of the United Nations, but we have not yet been able to confirm that. The deputy secretary viewed the tape, then called me. Right now, I want you all to see what’s on it, then we’ll open it up to discussion. Major?”

A Marine major at a podium dimmed the room lights, then started a video tape machine. A large screen against one wall filled with the image of a man seated in a wing-backed, brown leather chair placed in front of a wall papered with a bamboo design.

Because he had only recently reviewed the dossier, Brackman knew the face. It was chunky and hard, the cheekbones padded with extra flesh. The hair was smoothed back from the forehead, and the bright blue eyes were framed by wire-rimmed glasses. He was dressed in a severe dark gray suit, white shirt, and maroon tie.

Brackman leaned toward Mays and said, “Shelepin.”

“No lie? I’d have thought Brezhnev.”

“Same philosophy, Harv.”

The audio was a little scratchy, which detracted from the force of the words, delivered in a stiff English. But not by very much.

“My name is Anatoly Shelepin. I am the General Secretary of the New World Communist Party, and I am Chairman of the Politburo.”

Somebody’s assistant something-or-other at the side of the room laughed. And someone else hushed him.

“By way of this video tape, I address the community of nations so that you will know of our existence, our sincerity, and our resolve.

“The New World Communist Party is now assuming the leadership role for international communism that was abrogated by the traitors of the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics. We will serve as the rally point for our comrades everywhere in the world.

“Our geographical location should concern no one. We are as much a spirit of the word of Lenin as we are a physical presence. Believe this, however. What we have, we will defend. The New World Communist Party will not lie down in defeat as did the Communist Party of the Soviet Union. We have taken nothing which did not belong to us by right, and we will use whatever force is necessary to protect that which is ours.”

“Like a MakoShark?” Mays asked Brackman.

“I’m waiting for the punch line.”

“Toward that end, and in demonstration of our resolve, we have assumed control of the space station Soyuz Fifty, which was designed and built by communists, and which belongs to communists. Soyuz Fifty is the command center of the New World Orbital Command, and the station is currently home to forty nuclear warheads of five hundred kilotons destructive power each”

“Forty?” Mays asked.

“That’s four missiles,” Brackman said.

“We will go our way in peace,” Shelepin continued, “but should any nation threaten our existence, please know that forty capital cities of the world are already targeted.

“You will be hearing more of the New World Communist Party.”

The man faded from the screen.

“Forty!” Cross said from across the table. “Damn it! What more do we know?”

“You tell them, Harvey,” Brackman said. “I’ve got to get hold of McKenna.”

Coming up the corridor from Spoke One, Pearson noted all of the activity.

In her hangar, Delta Yellow appeared ready to go. Conover and Abrams were doing something under one wing.

She peeked through the window into the Maintenance Office and saw Tony Munoz wafting behind a computer console, sound asleep.

At the next hangar, she slowed herself to look through the window over the control console. Bert Embry and two techs had mounted four pylons on Delta Blue, and they had four Phoenix IIs rigged to the outboard pylons. They were installing the last of eight Wasp IIs on the inboard mounts.

Benny Shalbot and his big floating black box were hooked into the MakoShark, running final diagnostic checks on the electronic systems. He was also profanely overseeing a technician who was double-checking the grappler arms in the forward cargo bay.

McKenna and Polly Tang were just inside the hangar hatchway, talking. When they, saw her, Polly’s face flushed the tiniest bit, so Pearson figured they had been talking about her. Tang is too damned concerned about my social well-being.

“Amy?” McKenna said.

“General Overton just talked to Brackman.” She told him about the Shelepin tape and the group in the Situation Room. “We should have a copy of the tape soon.”

“Confirms your theory, doesn’t it?” McKenna said.

“It makes me very happy,” she said. “More important, General Brackman says there are supposed to be four SS-X-25s, with forty MIRVs.”

“Where?”

“Soyuz Fifty. That’s what Shelepin claimed.”

“You saw our video tapes, Amy. We count one. Maybe three of them are in ground-launch profile?”

“He said they were in orbit.”

“Damn, he’s never lied to us before.”

“Don’t be smart, McKenna. Brackman wants you to be extremely careful approaching the station. He wants the other three rockets located before you take action. He also wants to know how long it will be before you get there.”

“Off-hand, I don’t know. I can’t keep up with the orbital characteristics of Soyuz Fifty. Tony’s down-loaded them from the mainframe to Delta Blue’s computer, and we’ll know as soon as we launch. It could be up to an hour, probably a little more.”

“Well, all the honchos are in the Situation Room, and they want information fast.”

“Funny. Last night, they wanted us grounded.”

He smiled at her, but she didn’t smile back. Damned fighter jock, trying to make light of an intensely serious event.

“They also want to know more about the airstrip in Kampuchea,” she said.

McKenna clucked his tongue. “I’ll leave Dimatta and a couple Makos on Themis, and send Lynn Earth-side.”

“You’d better get going,” she said.

“Yes, ma’am. I’ll go rouse Tony the Tiger.”

McKenna shot away.

Tang said, “Amy, could we talk for a minute?”

“Not now, Polly, I’ve got a lot of work to do.”

She turned and put her foot against the hatchway jamb, as Tang said, “Of course, Colonel.”

“You are becoming very proficient, Boris. Your calculations are perfect,” Maslov said.

“It is becoming easier, Aleks. But to be honest, one should really have months in which to learn all of these systems.”

“We will take it one step at a time. And your steps have all been certain.”

The problem Nikitin had been faced with was to calculate the velocity necessary to maintain pace with Soyuz Fifty while in an orbit thirty miles (forty-eight kilometers) above the space station. They had achieved it with only mild jockeying.

They were, in fact, slightly ahead of the station, and the MakoShark was traveling backwards with its nose aimed downward. They were far enough away to elude visual sighting, and in a matter of seconds, Maslov could ignite the rocket motors and blast his way down to the station.

The attitude of the craft allowed them to maintain surveillance of the satellite with the video camera. The magnification gave them a clear and concise picture. From time to time, Nikitin swiveled the camera in order to search the regions close to the station.

In the view now on the screen, Maslov could see two ants — Bryntsev and Filatov in the white space suits — as they floated between the rocket and the station and installed the new umbilical cable that Maslov had delivered along with the new warhead. The second warhead was tethered by rope to the opposite side of the station. It awaited its propulsion stage, and Maslov was beginning to worry about when he would have a chance to retrieve it.

It was important to have the first rocket operational, so as to stave off intrusions by the 1st Aerospace Squadron. Silently, he urged Bryntsev to greater speed.

His communication with the station was encrypted, but the link from the station to the men in the space suits was not. At this point, however, with Chairman Shelepin’s announcement already released, simple communications being overheard was probably a moot point. The world, or most of it, now knew the ownership of Soyuz Fifty.

Maslov keyed the transmit button. “Commodore, this is Captain.”

Bryntsev’s voice contained a trace of stress, and his breathing rate seemed accelerated. “Commodore.”

“Progress?”

“It goes well. Another twenty minutes perhaps, then we will return.”

“Good.”

Maslov and Nikitin were falling behind on sleep, and that was not good for either of them. A groggy mind made fatal mistakes.

“Boris, I will keep watch for a few hours. You must sleep now.”

“Sleep comes hard when one is on the edge of hostile action, Aleks.”

“I know, but try.”

Maslov loosened his straps a little and resettled his body in the reclining couch.

Most of the systems were in a passive mode, reducing the draw on the batteries. The armaments panel displayed all green LEDs. All of his Wasps and the remaining Phoenix missile were armed and ready for launch.

Now it was a matter of waiting.

He knew they would come, especially after the amazing feat of severing the umbilical cable. The saving grace, as Maslov analyzed it, was that the attacker had not been armed. It might have been a Mako. Otherwise, there would no longer be a rocket or a space station to watch on the video.

And there would no longer be a New World Communist Party. The station was essential to maintaining the Party’s balance of power in the world. With the station and its nuclear capacity, the NWCP was the equivalent of the United States or China. The party did not yet control the same geography, but that would come with time.

He and Druzhinin had agreed that Maslov would not attempt to take on any of the 1st Aerospace pilots at Maslov’s own instigation. The American pilots had far too much experience in the aerospace craft for him to engage in direct combat just yet, and they could not afford to lose their only transportation between New World Base and Soyuz Fifty.

It was better to play the wait-and-see game, to allow the fly to come to the spider.

They would come and the spider would unleash its missiles from ambush.

He looked forward to it.

General Oleg Druzhinin and Sergeant Nikita Kasartskin had been in the Global Communications room for hours. The communications specialist had all of the scanners operating in tandem with the tape recorders.

Kasartskin had been jumping in at intervals, randomly testing frequencies in the HF, UHF, and VHF spectrums.

Once every hour, Druzhinin had left the center to walk the runway. All of the air crews were in the cockpits of their MiG and Sukhoi fighters, and their ground crews and start carts rested in close proximity. The teams who winched the camouflage hills from the runway remained close to the winches, slapping at mosquitoes. Druzhinin had called the alert as soon as Chairman Shelepin had gone public.

But now it seemed the grand announcement was less public than planned.

“Nothing, Comrade General,” Kasartskin said for possibly the twentieth time. “None of the major networks has broken the news to the world.”

Druzhinin picked up the telephone beside his chair and called Phnom Penh.

After the formalities of code recognition, Sergei Pavel asked, “You have heard something?”

“No, we have not. I suspect the recipients of the tape are attempting to verify conditions before calling press conferences.”

“The problem,” Druzhinin said, “is one of feedback. We do not know whether the intended recipients actually received the tapes, and if they did, whether they have bothered to view them as yet.”

“Or if they believe their eyes,” Pavel added. “They may simply be trying to verify the information. Hold on while I talk to our friend.”

The telephone transmitter on the other end of the line was muffled while Pavel spoke to Shelepin.

Druzhinin was very concerned that the Americans did not yet know of the nuclear threat. They had already attacked the space station once, according to Bryntsev. They might foolishly attack again, precipitating a launch. Ten cities might die. London, Paris, Washington, New York, Los Angeles, Tokyo, Beijing, Rome, Bonn, and Geneva were the first targets.

And that was not the intent.

The intent was to maintain that precarious balance of power. If they were required to expend their first ten warheads, everyone lost. Certainly, before they could bring the next rocket on-line, Colonel McKenna’s raiders would overpower Maslov and destroy Soyuz Fifty.

They desperately needed to have the world’s governments in a state of disarray and fear, giving them the time to lift the remaining rocket components into orbit.

Pavel came back to the telephone, “We are going to send tapes to the major news services.”

“Excellent. We should have done that in the beginning.”

“Yes. The media has less restraint than diplomats.”

Wilbur Conover watched the HUD as the rocket motors shut down, seeking the proper green indications and the expected readouts.

“Altitude three-one-one miles, Con Man,” Abrams reported. “Velocity two-two-point-nine. That should do it.”

“Roger, Do-Wop. I’m giving you two Phoenix IIs and four Wasp IIs. Be careful with them.”

Conover reached for the armaments panel and activated the missiles.

“Got ’em,” Abrams said. “Going visual.”

The video came up on the screen. Just stars.

“Delta Blue, Yellow,” he said on Tac Two.

“Blue.”

“We’re in position, tracking.”

“Roger that,” McKenna said. “We’re seventeen out.”

“Copy seventeen minutes.”

Delta Blue was on a direct course for the Soyuz space station, exposing herself as bait. Delta Yellow had taken an odd-numbered orbit. People — and hopefully the opposition — generally and subconsciously selected even numbers, 280, 290, three hundred, and the odd orbit might give Conover and Abrams a slight edge over being seen or expected.

“We’re sixteen-point-two away from the coordinates,” Abrams said.

That put them a long way ahead of Delta Blue, but because of her lower orbit, Delta Blue had a shorter track to follow and she was moving at a slower velocity.

“I hope the son of a bitch is there,” Abrams said.

“Roger that,” Conover said.

According to Pearson, the pilot was likely some ex-Soviet named Bryntsev or Maslov or Nikitin. She had put them in alphabetical order.

“And it’s nice to finally know who the bad guys are,” Conover added.

“New World Order? Stupid name, Con Man.”

“Are we on full magnification?”

“Hey, guy. Right beside the screen is this…”

“I know. It just doesn’t look right.”

The screen still displayed only stars.

They were inverted, and the Earth filled their overhead view. With the sun currently on the bottom of the MakoShark, the canopy and upper wings were in deep shadow. He could barely see Shalbot’s markings.

The ID factor had been Benny Shalbot’s idea. Just before they had launched, he had approached McKenna, “Colonel, you guys may fuck each other over.”

“How’s that, Benny?”

“No markings on the birds. You get in a rough-and-tumble dog fight, Delta Green looks like anybody else. We need to splash some paint on you.”

“Not very stealthy, Benny,” Munoz had said.

“If you got to see each other to fight anyway, Major, who gives a shit about stealth?”

“Do what you will, Benny,” McKenna had said.

Since painting didn’t work well in a weightless environment, Shalbot had used six-inch-wide white tape. On the top and bottom of each wing, he had created a large symbol, visible for miles in sunlight. Delta Blue was adorned with triangles, and Delta Yellow carried squares. As Red and Orange docked for service and rest, Shalbot would dress them up, too.

“You ready for this, Do-Wop?”

“Soon as I find a decent radio station,” Abrams said.

McKenna rolled the left wing down toward the Earth.

“Good damned idea, jefe. I wouldn’t have thought about it.”

“It just now crossed my mind, Tiger”

With the wing-down attitude, the sun didn’t directly light up the symbols on the wings. The upper wingtip was directed at the sun. If Bryntsev, or whoever it was, was in the area, and above them, the symbols gave away the strategy They were there only to identify the spacecraft to an ally, and therefore, there must be another American MakoShark around.

It would make the New World Order pilot suspicious and more cautious.

If he was even there.

“Delta Blue, Semaphore.”

“Go Semaphore.”

“Sitrep?”

Munoz responded, “One-one-two miles to target, based on expected celestial coordinates of the target. We’re not using radar. Closure rate ten miles per minute”

“Roger approximately ten minutes to contact,” Brackman said. “We now have a crisis committee, Blue.”

Wonderful, McKenna thought.

“I am the liaison with you.”

“Some wishes are granted, Semaphore.”

“Don’t get persnickety.”

“That’s a current-usage word?” McKenna asked.

“Dates me, doesn’t it?”

“Has the committee looked at Delta Orange’s daylight pictures?”

“Roger. They acknowledge the existence of a clandestine base in Kampuchea. They have asked the United Nations to send a direct message to the Kampuchean government, requesting that Shelepin and the New World Order be expelled. They’re also weighing some other pros and cons at the moment.”

“Whether or not the airstrip belongs to New World?” McKenna asked.

“Less that than the proximity of the hospital.”

“Copy that, Semaphore.”

It was a concern, no doubt. McKenna didn’t relish the thought of an attack run on the base that had to dodge little kids on crutches and in wheelchairs.

“Four-one miles,” Munoz broke in. “Let’s retard velocity some, Snake Eyes.”

“Semaphore out,” Brackman said. He was good about not interfering in a local commander’s decisioning.

“Yellow, go hot mike.”

“Yellow. We’re hot.”

McKenna tapped the forward thrusters several times, slowing their forward momentum.

“Got a visual, Snake Eyes. Tally the station.”

The tube of the Russian station — now the New World Order station — was on the screen. It was still too far away to make out very many details, other than the single rocket parked near it.

“I’m gonna abandon that shot for a moment, compadre.”

“Go ahead.”

Munoz used the camera to scan the area around the station. Nothing showed up.

“Go high, Tiger. They always like to come out of the sun, remember?”

Munoz aimed the camera lens upward and panned back and forth.

Nothing.

“I never realized how invisible we are, Snake Eyes.”

“Wish to hell it was only us, Tiger. Try the station again.” McKenna retarded his speed once again as Munoz trained the camera.

When Soyuz Fifty slid into view again, the magnified image was much closer.

“New umbilical in place,” Munoz said.

“Roger that, and just below, you see the nose cone?”

“Another warhead?”

“Could be, Tiger. You recording?”

“Roger.”

McKenna leaned forward, as if that would give him a closer view of the station.

Tac One sounded off.

“American spacecraft, you are trespassing the defense zone of the New World Order space station, Soyuz Fifty. You must retreat to a one-hundred-mile limit.”

“Jesus!” Munoz said, “Where did that come from?”

“I repeat, American spacecraft. You must immediately reverse your course.”

Munoz was swivelling the lens, searching space for the source of the warning.

“Maybe from the station, Tiger?”

“Maybe.”

McKenna didn’t reverse course and didn’t slow his closure rate.

“Two-nine miles, Snake Eyes.”

“Hot missile!” Conover yelled.

“Where, Con Man?” McKenna asked.

“Hell, I can’t see you.”

McKenna rolled ninety degrees, putting the Earth directly below them and the sun directly on the taped symbols of the upper wings.

“Gotcha!” Conover said. “Your one o’clock. Do-Wop painted it at Mach two-point-five velocity. We’re accelerating toward the origin of ignition.”

McKenna scanned the ether above. He couldn’t pick out a missile trail against the background of stars.

“See it, Snake Eyes?” Munoz asked.

“Negative.”

“Me neither. We probably ought to do something else. Real quick.”

“Ignition point locked in,” Abrams said. “Four away.”

As soon as he had seen the missile exhaust flare, Conover had put the nose down and slammed the throttles forward. Abrams had pinpointed on the computer the point in space where the missile had ignited.

The hot trails of four Wasp IIs snaked away from them.

“Five-four miles to target, Con Man. We’re closing fast.”

The Wasp IIs were flying independently of each other; none were slaved. They spread apart as they closed on their unseen prey. Conover’s screen seemed to have gone crazy as Abrams jumped from one missile’s camera view to another, guiding each Wasp, attempting to find Delta Green in the eye of one missile or another.

View of stars.

Another view of stars.

One more view of stars.

Another… delta-winged space craft. “No symbols, Do-Wop.”

“Got him, babe.”

The approaching MakoShark had been thirty miles from Soyuz Fifty when Maslov had spotted it on the video screen and pointed it out to Nikitin.

“Eight-one miles, Aleks.”

“Use the Phoenix.”

Nikitin launched their last Phoenix.

The image on the screen changed to the view from the lethal missile.

The MakoShark grew larger and larger on the screen as the missile closed.

The MakoShark rolled upright.

Maslov noted the white triangles on the wings. Triangle for Delta?

Closing.

Growing on the screen.

Soon.

Then, abruptly, the MakoShark flipped end-over.

Its rocket motors fired whitely.

Its velocity toward the station immediately slowed, and the MakoShark disappeared from the picture.

Nikitin tracked the Phoenix upward.

The MakoShark appeared again, larger.

And suddenly went end-over-end again.

The rocket motors ignited a second time, the MakoShark back on its original course, shooting out of the picture.

Nikitin tried to track the Phoenix down, to capture the image again, but it was gone.

“I have overshot, Aleks.”

He looked through the canopy, but couldn’t spot the MakoShark or the Phoenix.

And then a tiny white explosion indicated where the Phoenix, its fuel expended and its proximity detector not finding a target, had detonated itself.

“Four missiles incoming!” Nikitin yelped. “Eleven o’clock high!”

Maslov shoved the throttles in and felt the rocket motors surge into life.

Then he looked up.

Four white streaks.

Three would clear them.

One was dead-on.

“Five miles!” Nikitin warned.

Maslov slapped the control stick left and stomped hard on the left rudder pedal, and the Orbital Maneuvering System shifted his attitude into a head-on position. He countered the thrusters to neutralize the turn. He kept the rocket motors at full thrust.

“Three miles!”

He had provided the weapons system operator guiding the missile with a tinier target. The aggressor would be watching his screen through the missile’s eye.

“Two miles!”

Maslov tugged lightly at the controller.

Through the Wasp II’s view, the weapons operator saw the MakoShark’s upward thrusters flare.

And turned the Wasp II upward in anticipation of the move.

Maslov slammed the controller forward.

And dove beneath the Wasp II.

“Shit!” Abrams yelled on the hot mike. “Lost him.”

McKenna said, “Anyone got an eye on him?”

“Negative, jefe.”

“He’s above the station by about thirty miles, but I’ve lost him,” Abrams said.

“Take two Wasps, Tiger. We’ll take a shot at the station.”

“Two ready, Snake Eyes. Distance to target, two-two miles and closing.”

Delta Blue’s nose camera steadied on the station, the image magnified enough now that the fore and aft ends of the station were off the screen.

“The station itself, or the warheads?” Munoz asked.

Tac One, which was not scrambled, sounded off. “Soyuz Fifty, this is Captain. Launch now!”

“Secure weapons, Tiger. Yellow, veer off.”

McKenna turned hard ninety degrees to the left.

“Deltas, Semaphore. Abort, abort, abort!” The tension in Brackman’s voice was apparent to McKenna.

“Aborting now, Semaphore.”

During the hard turn, Munoz tracked the station with the camera.

“No launch, Semaphore,” he reported.

“RTB Deltas,” Semaphore ordered.

“Return to base, copy,” McKenna said.

“Yellow copies RTB,” Conover called.

On the ICS, Munoz said, “Damn, amigo, I think they’ve got us now.”