Chapter 2: Atlantis

"Isn't Commander a high rank for such a small command?" asked Lieutenant Tanaka, puzzled.

"Normally yes, Lieutenant, but if this project proves a success Commander Koenig is destined for command of a flotilla of these boats. It's always good for the Fleet Commander to have experience with the ships he's ordering out — maybe he won't try to order them to try operations that will only result in shattered hulls and dead crew."

"Yes, Sir, I think I understand."

"If this voyage is successful," Marcie advised, "we're prepared to go into a crash building program. Between three colonies, we can turn out over twenty a month."

They were walking down the corridor toward one of Fort Drum's cavernous hangar bays, where they'd catch a Galileo-class shuttle for the surface. The Admiral had wanted to see more of Atlantisat's defence system close-hand rather than simply transport down to the surface. Bells rang indicating two bells on the forenoon watch, sailors hustled and through the windows Hangar Bay Five was a mass of carefully controlled chaos.

As was Navy protocol since before Lord Nelson's time, Lieutenant Tanaka boarded the shuttle first, followed by Marcie and then by the Admiral. Marcie took control immediately — by this time in the tour the Admiral took it for granted that a 13-year-old Commander could fly a shuttle — and went through the standard checklist. As the shuttle was hurtled by the launch catapult into space, it was joined by two F105 Arrows from the 219^th Squadron, the 20^th Space Wing's "Golden Hind" crest emblazoned on the nose. "Feer the Deer", the deliberately-misspelled crest advised the Sa'arm.

He took a close look at their escort. The new Arrows were hulking beasts, carrying two crew, a pilot and a bombardier, in tandem. Inside the cavernous bay between the engines was space for one of the same type of missile the Archerfish carried, or any other ordnance they cared to mount. It could also carry tanks to extend the Arrow's range far beyond the star system she was launched from. It also carried an internal Gatling gun firing DU rounds and a sensor package that guaranteed its lethality against anything smaller than a Hive ship. It was not an aircraft, it was a true spacecraft never intended to operate in an atmosphere, but those massive engines could allow it to deliver its crew safely to the ground on Earth if it needed to.

The Galileo class shuttle entered the atmosphere so smoothly that the transition was unnoticeable. Marcie glided the craft expertly over an empty expanse of ocean. Suddenly in front of them, the water boiled in eruption in two places. The impressive sight of a Comedian-class submersible carrier and a missile-carrying A-1 class attack submarine. "There's the Lucille Ball, and I think that's A-1 herself, the Class Boat," Marcie pointed out. The carrier launched a pair of A-20 Super Warthogs and two F-50 Space Sabres, and the attack sub contributed her stubby little nose-mounted F-109 Yellowjacket interceptor/scout. The five planes came up to escort the Admiral's shuttle.

Marcie made a gentle banking turn to bring the shuttle and its escorts around behind the pair of submersibles. The A-1 had advanced beyond the Lucille Ball, whose thrusters were apparently on station-keeping. The attack sub opened up two of her vertical launch tubes and fired off five cruise missiles: an Ursa Major and four Ursa Minors. The ordnance flattened their arcs toward the horizontal, pulled far ahead of the little squadron and smacked powerfully into a tiny islet within ten centimetres of each other. The Admiral was impressed, both by the accuracy and by the firepower.

The shuttle landed in one of the larger islands — not "on", but "in". The landing pad was located in a cave with a bit of an overhang. "We don't want any sign of habitation visible from space," Marcie explained when the Admiral shot her a funny look.

The hangar cave was bright, well-lit, and surrounded by workshops. Behind a fence, a stack of pods functioned as housing for the ground support crews and their families. He could see children playing behind a pod that had been set up as a school. He didn't get particularly close, which preserved the surprise he would encounter at the end of his tour.

The transporter nexus deposited them deep in the planet's crust, in Geofront Three, the headquarters for Naval operations. The entirety of Geofront Three consisted of Navy and Marine installations, with quarters for all but transient troops located in other geofronts. "How many of these geofronts do we have?" Admiral Bickerton asked as they strode toward the system headquarters.

"At the moment, four with three more under construction. Geofront Two is earmarked for the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, and their buildings are being replicated in there right now. It will actually resemble the old MIT campus." Marcie looked a little smug at that thought. "Geofront One contains administrative offices and about half the permanent residents, the other half are in Geofront Four. We should fill up the other half of Four within six months and by that time the next geofront will be in the structure setup phase. We also have one underwater city with a capacity of a quarter of a million, with more under construction."

After a luncheon at the Bauhaus-style Base Headquarters, Admiral Bickerson spent the rest of the afternoon inspecting the rest of the facilities in Geofront Three. He was amazed by the work that had gone into the place, which fooled the eye quite effectively into believing that rather than being in a bubble deep in the planet's crust you were really on the surface in some valley somewhere. The ceiling was high and polished smooth, with the illusions of a sun and white fluffy cumulus clouds, and the far walls were designed to hide the air filtration behind a faux rocky ridge. Grassy lawns grew lush and palm trees had been planted in every corner imaginable. A merry stream danced and gurgled its way across the floor of the geofront, and a closer examination revealed koi swimming among the reeds and weeds, and automated fish-feeding stations scattered along the riverbank. At one point shortly after lunch, the sky grew dark, clouds moved in, thunder rumbled and with a rush the rains fell. He shot a questioning glance at his diminutive guide. "Keeps the dust down and the air hydrated," she explained. "We do it once a day in all geofronts. If you've got to do it anyway, might as well do it right."