an omnidirectional digital microwave transmitter. The satellite connection would be lost for now. But the omnidirectional signal would last as long as we could see a TDRSS satellite. The screen only flickered a few times but we maintained communications. Amazing!
'Calvin, you there?'
'Doc! It just got pitch black out here and the outside lights came on!'
'Don't panic, Calvin; that is a good thing. Listen, is your GPS still working?'
'Uh, yes. It looks fine.'
'Great, just a minute.' I turned to Annie, 'Annie go help 'Becca get those missiles ready. Tell them that they have to carry them up to where Calvin is.'
I punched the talk button again, 'Calvin what are our GPS coordinates?' He responded with a set of numbers. I typed them into the program as zero point. Then I entered the command to increase the radial axis by one thousand kilometers. I pressed enter.
The images on the view panel were suddenly dark and then I could see star fields. Good thing the Sun would be to the east of us or we could have fried the cameras. I also started thinking about the amount of oxygen we had trapped in our warp bubble, but I quickly put that out of my mind—as big as our warp bubble was more than enough atmosphere would be trapped in it to keep us going for days or more.
'Tabitha, where is that oncoming traffic?'
Tabitha looked at the data a bit longer. 'Anson, I think we're about a hundred kilometers too high and about eight hundred kilometers east of it.'
I adjusted our location accordingly and pointed the left camera in that direction. Before long we could see a shiny spot in the view panel.
'There!' Tabitha pointed it out.
'Got it!' I put the software in joystick mode and guided the warp field with the tiny joystick on the laptop keyboard. I flew us to within a few thousand meters of the spacecraft. I called up to 'Becca, 'Where are my missiles?'
'The first one is ready, Anson. I'm turning it on . . . now.' Immediately following her reply an icon popped up on my desktop.
The RF link in the MWM was working! I grabbed the warp field oscillator program and dropped it into the MWM icon. This loaded the lights-off lights-on software into it. Then I opened the icon for the MWM, which looked identical to the control panel for the larger warp system of the facility spaceship. I clicked the pointer into the MWM control stick mode and activated it.
'Anson, the MWM just lifted a meter straight up and is hovering there. Nothing there but a faintly glimmering blue and red bubble,' 'Becca called over the talkie.
'Great, that means it works.' We hadn't had time to develop a nose camera for these things yet, so I was going to have to guide it from the facility cameras. Making sure the North camera had the enemy rocket in central view, I lifted the little warp missile straight up another twenty meters or so until it was in the north camera's field of view and then I toggled the main facility warp field.
'Lights off!' I said and pushed the stick full forward. The MWM shot straight about five hundred meters per second out of the realm of the facility, 'Lights on!' The atmosphere outside never had a chance to realize it was in a vacuum.
'There it is,' Tabitha pointed at the screen. I had over shot the rocket by several kilometers, which was apparent by the faint red plasma trail that shot out in front of the Chinese rocket.
'Just like Beggar's Canyon back home!' I told her and yanked the joystick left, right, forward, a little left, then forward full, and BANGO! The little warp missile zigged and zagged and left the light red plasma trail behind it where it ripped through and ionized the few atomic oxygen atoms per cubic meter in the upper atmosphere. A fireball filled the screen and the rocket was destroyed. Unfortunately, the MWM's power supply was dead too. 'Take that you sons a bitches!' I shot a bird at the view panel.
'Tabitha, what's going on?' Mike the general asked. I didn't know his last name. It didn't dawn on me to read his nametag on the right chest of his uniform. Okay, okay, but I was busy.
'Mike, we just waxed track four's ass and we are headed for Track Six. Can you tell me where it is in GPS coordinates right now? I need lat, long, and altitude.' Tabitha answered.
'Gives us a second, Tabitha.'
'Anson this is 'Becca.' My walkie buzzed.
'Go 'Becca.' I depressed the talk switch.
'We have the second MWM ready and are sitting in the parking lot next to Calvin. Where are we?' I realized that since the human eye couldn't see fast enough, none of our crew upstairs could see through the bubble. They had no idea we were in space.
'You're asking me? Calvin is right there beside you with a GPS system. Ask him.'
'Those damn numbers don't mean anything to me, other than the altitude. Are we in space?'
'Yeah. High LEO. I'm kind of busy right now. I'll call you back in a second.'
The general was talking to Tabitha again. 'Tabitha, what is left of Space Command is picking up a huge mass above you on radar.'
'No, Mike. That's us. The mass is actually the facility we were using at Roswell. We turned it into a spacecraft. Hey get the radar guy at Space Command directly in contact with us here. We will have him guide us right to the other missiles.' Tabitha took the time to smile at me.
'Great work gorgeous!' I smiled with hope we would win this thing, trying not to think about the fact that we only had one more missile left. I began steering toward the west coast of the U.S. If Track Six was one orbit away from the capitol, it would be somewhere over Asia about now. The voice of the radar operator came on the speaker
