FENRIR: Chapter 34

[seawasp]

Bad things had happened...

 

Chapter 34: Recovery and Purpose

Days to Launch: 19

Stephanie became aware of pain everywhere, particularly where something edged and rigid was crushing into her lower back, another hard surface being squeezed against her head, with a massive weight on top of her. Her ears were ringing and other sounds were muffled. What happened?

She remembered the explosion of the tanker – something she'd half-expected, but had hoped wouldn't happen – but then there had been several simultaneous shouts, something smashed into her, and then a blast that made the first seem quiet.

She pushed at the weight on her, realized how it gave. It's someone else lying on me. The jacket, and a faint smell of deodorant overlaying the smell of fire, explosives, and shattered stone, identified the inert mass as York Dobyns.

"Oh my God. YORK!" She wriggled, struggling to get out from under the much larger man. Suddenly other hands were there, lifting, pulling, and with a rush Stephanie found herself standing unsteadily on the bleachers, which were themselves unsteady, slanted backwards to a noticeable level.

The bright sunshine was diffused and blurred by a massive cloud of dust, so vast that in the fog Stephanie couldn't even guess how far it reached. As her eyes adjusted to the light again, she realized there was a bright red stain spreading across York's jacket. More of the sticky crimson was on her blouse lower down, where most of York's weight had rested. Blood. York's blood.

Muffled words finally penetrated to her. "… all right? Stephanie, are you all right?"

She shook her head in disbelief, then looked over, seeing the pale and horrified face of Audrey Milliner. "I… I think so," Stephanie finally answered, her own words dull and distant, as though her head were wrapped in pillows. "York –"

"Let the paramedics check," Audrey said, voice shaking. "Nothing we can do. We have to get you down off this thing!"

Stephanie took a breath, looked around.

All of the stands were tilted at some angle; one set had collapsed entirely, plunging the press section into a welter of metal, wood, and plastic. Jesus, how many of them died there?

Worse, though, was the sight of multiple knots of people clustered around red-splashed areas in the project and diplomatic stands. Controlled chaos made it hard to immediately make out who was in the center of each.

She swung her gaze skyward. To her unutterable relief, Carpathia still loomed above, a mountain of gleaming steel. Stephanie thought it might be in a slightly different position, but the immense vessel looked stable and, at first glance, unharmed.

She recognized another dust-covered face. "Werner! Werner, what happened? Do we have coverage?"

Carpathia's project engineer held up a hand; she saw he was listening to someone on his earbuds. "Ja? You are certain?" A pause. "Well, that's something, anyway. Hold on, have to report to the Director. Yes, she's all right." He touched his phone and looked down at her. "You are all right, yes? Please tell me you're okay, Steph."

"I think so." The dull aches across her back, chest, waist, and legs, and the bruised pain from her head, didn't seem to matter. "What happened?"

Werner's chuckle held only the ghost of humor. "Mix and Match proved itself, first of all."

"So that was a decoy that blew?"

"That part went perfectly," Werner said with a nod. "Pulled off the sleight of hand, all the trucks looked manned but weren't. Simple platooning with some remote control, detonated when one of the hacked drones fired on it. All three of the antimatter storage units are safe." He glanced towards the first explosion site. "A good thing, as the gamma burst from that much antimatter would certainly have killed us all, assuming we survived the detonation, which we probably wouldn't; ten tons of high explosive a couple hundred yards off is no joke. Pretty sure it fooled the attackers, though; most people can't figure scale and that blast was plenty big enough."

Stephanie coughed, waving dust away. "But what's all this? And what happened to York and the others?"

Werner shook his head.

"That was just the first part of the attack," Hàorán Lin looked grimly down at York, who was surrounded by EMTs, then transferred his gaze to Stephanie. "The explosion of the tanker was a signal for two other sets of saboteurs. One had carefully planned to damage or destroy Carpathia by making it fall over; the impact sideways would likely cause considerable exterior damage and a great deal of internal breakage and stress. They triggered detonation of the launch charge only on one side of the ship, while the shocks were locked for stability."

Stephanie stared up at him, glanced back to the reassuring mass of Carpathia. "Why didn't it fall?"

"Call it a stress test of the gyro system; the gyros were already running and they kept Carpathia essentially vertical, so the ship just hopped sideways a bit, and the drive plate kept most of the blast from getting to this side – or we'd all have been dead so fast we'd never have known it."

The paramedics were speaking more urgently, and she saw a sealed package ripped open, the injector inside applied. "What happened to York?"

Captain Lin shook his head. "That was the second prong of the attack. Multiple snipers, firing essentially simultaneously."

"Why did they target York?"

Werner's eyes closed and his lips tightened; after a moment he met her gaze. "They didn't. They were aiming at you."

"Exactly how it all happened is still being unraveled, Director," Hàorán Lin said in answer to her mutely horrified expression, "but someone apparently caught a last-instant hint – a distant movement, a glint – and reacted, causing several other people  to do the same thing just as the snipers fired."

As Stephanie opened her mouth to ask the next obvious question, the EMTs quieted, and she heard "… calling it. Time of death, 3:24 PM."

Her knees gave way and she sat, hard, on the bleachers, staring at the broad, still figure. "Oh, god, no."

One of the paramedics looked over, then stood. "I'm sorry, Director. The bullet went completely through; we'll need an autopsy, but I think it nicked the aorta."

She felt dizzy. York gone? Who else was targeted? Is Carpathia damaged? Can we even keep the site secure now?

The EMT, a lean man with the dark and angular features she associated with several Native American tribes and wearing a nametag that simply said "Gage," leaned suddenly closer. "Director?" he said, eyes looking sharply at her waist. As Stephanie felt herself sagging sidewise, Gage caught her and shouted, "Get over here, people, I think I found the bullet!"

This time the motion around her was purposeful and swift. Aching, pulsing pain radiated from her lower left side as the EMTs lifted her onto a stretcher. "Dr. Bronson," said another of them, "looks like you took a secondary hit from the bullet that got Dr. Dobyns. Doesn't look too serious but you're bleeding pretty bad. We're getting you to the base hospital. You understand me?"

She nodded. "I understand. How about everyone else? How many people did we lose?"

He exchanged glances with Gage, then shrugged. "We've got a lot of injured, but I don't think anyone can answer that for a while. Let us worry about you first, okay? We can only save one person at a time."

She swallowed her panic and worry and managed to nod. Nothing I can do right now.

Once they reached the ground, the ambulance ride was a short, swaying five minutes, and then her gurney was lifted out and run into an operating room. Already gloved and masked, nurses and at least two doctors transferred her to the OR table, something was injected into her IV, and her worries fragmented and faded into a measureless interval.

*****

     There were brief moments of consciousness, with people asking her if she remembered her name, knew where she was, what the date was, but it was a while before she finally woke up with her head reasonably clear. An attempt to sit up sent a screaming warning from her side, so she lay back and looked around.

     She recognized one of the rooms of the base hospital – she'd toured it, like all the other major buildings, and the bright, new color scheme was unmistakable. We didn't have too many illnesses or injuries; I might be the first patient using this room.

     Despite the newness and the faint undertone of fresh paint and plaster, the overall scent was still the antiseptic, purified smell of any good functioning hospital. As Stephanie looked for the call button, there were swift steps in the hallway, and after a pause the door opened.

     "Thank god you're awake," the President said as she entered, trailed by two Secret Service agents, a doctor, and two nurses.

     "You had me wired, I guess."

     "Every room in this hospital is," the doctor, a small, neat looking, dark-haired woman with "Habib" on her nametag. "No, don't talk yet," she said before Stephanie could speak. "And that means you too, Madame President."

     Her examination was, thankfully, brief. "You came through the operation well. We removed the fragments of the projectile, which fortunately did relatively little damage. You lost quite a bit of blood but we've addressed that, and the main concern now is going to be possible infection," Dr. Habib said. "Barring complications, you will be out of here and back into your own quarters in a few days."

     "Will I recover in time for launch?"

     "I would certainly expect so. The area may still be tender, but there should be no physical restrictions by that time."

     "Thank you, Doctor," the President said. "Now please give me a few minutes with Director Bronson." She glanced at one of the agents, who nodded and followed the doctor and nurse out.

     "I was afraid they'd shot you," Stephanie said. "When I heard multiple people had been targeted –"

     "I was," President Sacco said quietly. "Roger was my York."

     "Roger… Is he all right?"

     "He's still in critical condition," she answered; Stephanie could hear her worry in the undertones of the otherwise controlled politician's voice. "Apparently he body-blocked me out of the way just as the assassin shot."

     Stephanie closed her eyes. "How many did we lose?" she asked at last. When the President hesitated, she went on, "Jeanne. Please."

     Jeanne Sacco nodded. "Kier Sunak, the UK PM, is the highest-profile victim. We lost twenty-four Project members, mostly to fringe effects from the detonation under Carpathia, half a dozen members of the press, including Gerald Walters of NBC and Marcie Amour."

     "God."

     "Angus Fletcher's in surgery right now but they expect him to be all right; it was a near thing."

     "Angus? Why was he shot?"

     "From what he said before he went out, they were trying for Pete, which makes too much sense," the President answered. "We have about three dozen more people in hospital and others with minor injuries."

     Those sons of bitches. Stephanie ground her teeth and tried to sit up again, finding it still too painful. But there was a last and utterly vital question to ask. "How is Carpathia?"

     "We're doing a full check, Steph, But… good, so far. If we don't find anything surprising, the ship should be good to go." Her brown eyes studied Stephanie. "How about you? Are you good to go?"

     "Good to go?" She grabbed at the bed control and found the right button, ignored the pain as it lifted up to face the President. "Is that even a question?"

     A smile touched the President's face – one with new lines that Stephanie hadn't seen just the other day. "Of course it is. We were hit hard, Dr. Bronson, and both you and I lost someone dear to us. It wouldn't be so surprising if you decided you couldn't go forward yourself."

     "Then I might as well have had York stand still and let me get shot," Stephanie said bluntly. "That'd be just what these murderers want. Do we know who they are yet?"

     "We captured quite a few of the operatives, and Hailey's pretty sure we'll make some real progress now… but no, not yet."

     "Fine. Jeanne, I don't know how you feel about it, but me? I want Carpathia fuelled up now. I want that ship ready to launch now. And I'll be on her if I have to have the rest of the Project carry my hospital bed inside. I am not letting those fucking bastards murder York and all those other people and get to take their high-fives as the project stops."

     A cold smile was the President's answer. "Director Bronson, you have my full support."

  




Oh, yes.