He looked around. The stars, undimmed by atmosphere or viewport materials, shone in a display that once would have brought tears to his eyes. He glanced to celestial north, in the direction of the Little Dipper. Something about that area of the sky was important to Ralph, but Ivan couldn’t say why, or how he knew. He looked at the Earth, shrunken by unaccustomed distance. His home, his family’s home. He hoped he was doing the right thing.

In some indefinite amount of time, the ferry separated from the hub airlock and made its way slowly toward the Naval base.

He could wait.

58.Detonation

58.Detonation

Status windows flickered on Moore’s tablet as he tracked progress. The installation of the nuke was ahead of schedule; evacuation of personnel was behind. Well, an acceptable state of affairs. Evacuation had three hours of slack, although the sooner they could shove off, the sooner they could detonate.

Lt. Bentley sat at his desk, handling peripheral issues. Bentley had a hangdog look on his face that said very clearly to Moore that he would be having a morale issue there, soon. Bentley hadn’t had a vote, of course, being only a lieutenant, but no doubt he had an opinion.

Opinions were overrated. Opinions were what you had when you didn’t have any skin in the game. Armchair quarterbacks had opinions. Real quarterbacks had decisions, and were answerable for the results.

But Bentley was a good man, and loyal. Moore hoped like hell he wouldn’t have to dismiss him.

A message flashed up from Richards. The last crew had been recalled from their posts. Moore looked at one of the video windows, which showed Pritchard, lying on his bunk, oblivious. Not a bad way to go, really. There would be no pain, no time for regrets.

It took about ten minutes more, and the evacuation complete message popped up on his tablet.

Moore hit the intercom. “Captain, get us under way at your earliest convenience, please.”

“Aye, sir,” came from the intercom, followed by clunks and groans as the Navy ferry released itself from the embrace of the isolation module. A brief bit of disorientation as the ship rotated, not worth commenting on for an old Navy man, and the ferry began accelerating toward Lagrange Four Naval base.

Castillo popped his head in the cabin door. “Got a moment?”

Moore nodded. A pointed look at Bentley, who made himself scarce, closing the door behind him.

Castillo pulled himself into a seat. “It’s ready. The software’s going through its self-check, but that can be overridden if necessary. Full readiness in ten minutes.”

“Which, if we took advantage of it, would leave us with tans that would last us the rest of our lives,” Moore said with a grin.

“Or five minutes, whichever came first.”

Gallows humor. A mainstay of the military mind. The two men chuckled, acknowledging their shared burden, and were silent for several seconds.