Excerpt:
"If
you must blame someone, blame me," Dr. Wei said. "Mr. Cooper takes
his orders from me, as does the rest of my crew. He was acting on those orders,
which the rest of my people were unaware of for obvious reasons."
"Dr.
Wei, you’re our guest, albeit a rogue one at best. It’s about time you and your
crew acted like it. You want NASA on your side and you have it. But this stunt
does nothing except set back relations between us. Our trust has been—"
"Violated?
Whether NASA was aware of Homeland Security’s intentions or not, our
expectations of trust and respect do not stop at your organization."
"We
had nothing to do with this!" She huffed for a moment as if she were
gathering her thoughts. "The feds are not under my jurisdiction."
"Why
not?" Cal replied over the comm. "Seeing as we’re on your base, you
would think you’d know what your other guests are up to at all times,
too."
"I
can’t speak to that, but someone had damn well better tell me who authorized
movement of the pod from the landing site in the first place." That last
part sounded like she was talking to those outside of the MCC and not us. If
she didn’t know about the attempted theft of our pod, then who did?
"The
CIA," an officer said over his earpiece. "We had orders from our
agency to move the pod to a more secure location where it couldn’t be accessed
by any foreign entities."
"You’re
an idiot," I replied. "You can’t get more secure than outer space,
which is where it was going."
Jaxon
activated the thirty-second countdown on the glass and the flashing security
lights to warn people back. He must have finished laying out the course and
double-checking his calculations. I began waving everyone out of the area. None
of them wanted to leave, so I started shoving them to get their attention. It
took a tremendous amount of thrust to get those engines revved high enough to
push the pod through the Earth’s gravity.
"No
way." Several of the officers began to move, but the lead guy didn’t.
"I have my orders. That pod stays here."
"Your
orders are going to get you blown to pieces, if you don’t get out of the
way," I shouted. "There’s an initial blast to give the pod a
jumpstart."
"He
shuts those engines down now or I’ll blow a hole through the glass." He
aimed his gun. "Tell him to stand down! Now!"
Worry
etching his face, Jaxon pressed his hands against the glass at T-minus ten
seconds. Once the engines started, turning them off wasn’t advised, since the
ignition already used up a third of the power cell. Igniting it again, the pod
will never make it back to the Bridgeway without a recharge. I doubted the feds
would allow us to let the solar panels sit in the sun for even six minutes
without trying to steal it.
Since
the stupid officer wasn’t going to move, I raced back and heaved him out of the
way. A blast sent us flying. We tumbled down a small hill. Pain sliced through
my upper arm before we landed in the grass. We watched the pod rocket into the
air.
"Damn
it!" The officer leaped off the ground and stared. He turned his ire on
me. "We had our orders! Keep the pod safe."
"Too
bad your orders didn’t include the Bridgeway crew." Unable to move my
throbbing arm, I crawled toward the tablet, grabbed it, and prayed it hadn’t
been cracked in our nosedive.
Pain
shot through my arm again. When I touched the spot, I noticed blood coating my
palm. It hurt like someone stuck a hot poker through my skin and out the other
side. Thankfully, it was the meatier side, but it still stung like hellfire.
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