and even after he was completely healed and had gone back to work, she refused to let him into her bed. It was over. Even the girls knew it. They knew their father was a cold, unfeeling man.
When he finally admitted that he’d had an affair with one of the women at his laboratory, Sylvia told him to get out. He acted as if he were numb, as if he’d expected them to break up but couldn’t take the first step himself. He left without an argument, without raising his voice even once, which angered Sylvia even more.
But that was all in the past. Sylvia settled down to the task of raising her teenaged daughters by herself and found that she enjoyed being on her own, with no one to contradict her. She could sit up in bed and read all night if she wanted to.
She was still reasonably attractive, she thought. At least that’s what her friends told her. A little overweight, but men liked
Sylvia took a job at their congresswoman’s local office. It didn’t pay much, but with the child support money that Harry paid every month, they were getting by nicely.
Today she was especially happy. She had a surprise for her daughters. She’d made all the arrangements and everything was set.
At the breakfast table she announced, “No school today.”
Her daughters looked up from their cereal bowls in surprise.
“How come?” asked the elder, Vickie. Harry had insisted on naming her after the founder of Anson Aerospace, as if that had made any difference in his career advancement.
“I got permission from your teachers to keep you out of class today.”
“What’s going on, Mom?” Denise asked.
“We’re flying to San Francisco and staying overnight in a hotel,” Sylvia told them. Beaming, she explained, “Congresswoman McClintock has given me three tickets to the big rodeo at the Cow Palace.”
“Rodeo?” Clear distaste showed on Denise’s fourteen-year-old face.
“Horses and all that smell,” said Vickie.
Her smile even bigger, Sylvia explained, “You don’t understand. The President of the United States is going to officially open the rodeo. He’s giving a speech and we’re going to be sitting in the front row!”
“The President?” Denise looked truly surprised.
But Vickie moaned, “That phony. He said he was going to start a big green-energy program and he hasn’t done a thing.”
“Congress hasn’t voted on his energy program yet,” Sylvia said firmly.
The girls looked at each other. “I guess,” Vickie said with a resigned shrug.
Sylvia told them, “You’ll be the envy of all your friends when you tell them you were right there with the President.”
“I guess,” they said in unison, equally unenthusiastic.
Teenagers, thought Sylvia.
Lieutenant Colonel Karen Christopher came through the cockpit hatch without needing to duck and slid easily into the pilot’s seat. It was still misty gray outside, but visibility was good enough for takeoff. She remembered one of the older jocks telling her that when the 747 was first introduced to the commercial airlines, the FAA had to raise its ceiling limits for takeoffs because the huge plane’s cockpit sat so high above the ground it was sometimes in cloud while the ground was clear enough for smaller planes to take off.
As she pulled the safety harness over her slim shoulders, her copilot, Major Kaufman, squeezed into the cockpit and settled his bulk into the right-hand seat, red-nosed and sniffling.
“That’s some cold you’ve got,” said Colonel Christopher.
“Alaska,” he said. She thought it sounded sullen. Major Kaufman did not like the fact that Karen had been jammed down his throat by headquarters, forcing him to relinquish command of the plane.
He sneezed wetly. That’s right, Colonel Christopher grumbled silently, spread your damned cold to the rest of us.
She pulled her plastic flight helmet over her short-cropped hair and plugged it into the communications console.
“You want me to take her out?” Kaufman asked. Christopher realized that the major knew she had only a half dozen hours of piloting a 747. “I’ll do it,” she said tightly. “I can fly anything that has wings on it, Obie.”
She saw his eyes flash again. He doesn’t like his nickname, she realized. But Kaufman said only, “You’re the boss.”
She said nothing. Stick to business, she told herself. He’ll just have to get used to being in the right-hand seat.
“ABL-1 ready to start engines,” she said into the pin mike that nearly brushed her lips. Out of the corner of her eye she watched Kaufman as he pulled up the takeoff checklist on the control panel’s central display and started scrolling it down the screen.
“ABL-1, you are clear to start engines,” said the flight controller’s clipped voice in her earphones.
Turning to Kaufman, she said, “Spool ‘em up.”
With a bleary nod, the major murmured, “Starting one.”
As the first of the plane’s four turbojet engines whined to life, the flight controller called, “ABL-1, message incoming for you from Andrews.”
Colonel Christopher felt puzzled. “Andrews Air Force Base?”
“Relayed from the Pentagon.”
“Better pipe it to me,” she said.
A series of clicks. Then a mechanical voice started dictating a formal military order. Computer-synthesized audio, Colonel Christopher realized. The voice droned through the date, routing, and classification level: Top Secret.
Then it said, “From: Major General Bradley B. Scheib, deputy commander, MDA. To: Lieutenant Colonel Karen R. Christopher, command pilot, ABL-1.
“A nuclear device apparently launched from North Korea has been exploded in orbit. All commercial satellites have been either knocked out completely or seriously degraded.
“You will proceed to a site to be designated over the Sea of Japan and orbit until further orders. Navigational information is being transmitted in a separate order. You will avoid violating territorial airspace of the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea and/or the People’s Republic of China. You will attack and destroy any ballistic missiles launched from DPRK. Confirm receipt of this order immediately.”
Christopher looked at Major Kaufman, who sat wide-eyed and suddenly pale.
Swallowing hard, she said into her mike, “Order received and understood. Please confirm to General Scheib.”
“It’s going to take a little time, Colonel,” said the flight controller’s voice. “The commsats are overloaded with traffic.”
“Send the confirmation,” Colonel Christopher said in the hard voice of command she had learned at the Air Force Academy.
“Yes, ma’am.”
Major Kaufman seemed frozen in his seat. “Shoot down any missiles launched from North Korea? Are they crazy?”
“Get on with the engine start,” she snapped. “Maybe they are crazy, but orders are orders.”
As Kaufman punched up the second engine, Christopher unbuckled her safety harness and got to her feet. “I’d better talk to the chief nerd.”
But as she stepped through the hatch and into the area where the navigator and communications stations were, she wasn’t thinking of the chief of the laser crew or of her surly, suddenly frightened copilot, or even of the
