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General Ullman, who had come to see them off with a short, official message,
watched with some of his aides. Keene stood with Colby, Mitch, Penalski, the
Launch Supervisor, and others from the launch crew. He shook Gallian's hand
solidly, then took both of Sariena's. "Well, I guess this is it again. . . .
How many times have we done this? Saying good-bye to you is getting to be a
habit."
She nodded, unable to do more than whisper a low "Good-bye, Lan" in reply. Her
expression and her manner conveyed as clearly as any words could have that she
expected this to be the last time.
Keene didn't want to dwell on it.
The technicians directing the boarding ushered through a mixed group, among
them Charlie Hu, carrying a canvas bag slung over one shoulder. He stopped in
front of Keene and regarded him evenly.
"Well, Lan. . . ."
"I guess it's time, Charlie."
Hu looked past Keene, and his brow knotted. Cavan and Alicia were standing
watching, but with
Colby and the military officers, not with the line that was moving forward to
board.
"I changed my mind," Alicia said in answer to the question written across Hu's
face. "I'm too much the romantic. . . . Lan going off all the way to Texas to
find this woman. I have to see what happens."
Hu looked at Cavan. "I can't do anything. She's crazy," was all that Cavan had
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to offer. Hu frowned; then his eyes moved to Keene. Keene said nothing.
Theirs, along with Keene's, meant three extra places available.
"We do have a couple with two young sons," the Launch Supervisor said, keeping
his tone neutral.
"They're next on the draw, but we had to put them down for the second launch."
Sariena and Gallian had gone. The remaining passengers were moving through
quickly. Charlie looked from Keene to the others, and then around. The family
was standing anxiously a short distance away, where they had been told to wait
in case something changed. "Shit!" He unslung his bag, and stepped aside to
join the others. Without further ado, the Supervisor waved the family forward,
and a technician followed them into the access tunnel. Keene and the others
began making their way up to the control room where they had talked to Idorf
earlier, from where the launch would be initiated.
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Thirty minutes later, the first Boxcar roared skyward trailing a plume of
flame and quickly vanished into the turbulent overcast. There would be no
guidance from the ground, or even knowledge that it had reached the Osiris
unless a contact was reestablished through Amspace or via some other means.
Piloting would be entirely manual and rely on the homing signal that Idorf had
promised. It would take about an hour for the Boxcar to climb to the distance
that Idorf had pulled the Osiris back to and match its orbit.
With the first launch completed, the crew that had been working to free the
doors of the second launch bay was able to go back outside and resume. Until
they were through, there was little for anyone else to do. Charlie Hu and
Colby remained in the control room with the engineers keeping the
communications vigil. Alicia, who was a trained nurse, was helping with the
casualties. Keene and Cavan, the leaders of the two military squads and their
aircrews, accompanied by six of
Mitch's twenty-two Special Forces troopers, went out to the hangars by the
runway area to check their aircraft.
* * *
Most of the buildings had sections of roof or wall torn away, and all were
missing windows. The spaces and roadways between were covered with rubble and
broken glass. One office block had been cleaved through the middle by a
steel-frame tower which now lay twisted amid piles of desks, file cabinets,
wall sections and other wreckage that had spilled from the sagging floors. A
number of cars, some turned over on their sides, were buried under wreckage,
two more thrown against the chain-link fence separating the runways from the
launch complex. Medics wearing helmets with red crosses were tending a
blood-covered figure on the ground, while APs and others struggled to
extricate another. Three more forms laid out nearby were not moving.
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