Iron Empire

Thirty-Seven: Orbital Ordinance

The room was dead silent for a moment.

"That is utterly insane," Lucas breathed.

"We're standing inside an invisible tower and we pilot walking tanks as a profession," Dan replied. "Our lives are insane, Lucas. This is just normal by now."

"How the hell did Centrepoint get ahold of this?" Alyx demanded. Although her gaze was sharp, I knew her well enough now to recognize an uncharacteristic tinge of panic in her voice.

"I'm afraid I don't know," Mallet replied. "Centrepoint has been anonymously helping the Alliance since the beginning—in fact, they were the one to help Laura and I contact the other founders." She tented her fingers thoughtfully. "We suspect that Centrepoint is an Axion mole, but have no way to know for sure."

"You've trusted an anonymous source for years?" Dan exclaimed. His disbelief seemed to override his normal respectful demeanour. "There are so many problems with that!"

"I'm aware, Doctor Stonewood," Mallet snapped. Dan seemed to shrink a few centimetres. "There is nothing we can do about it. Centrepoint has never once been incorrect about Axion's operations, so we have to believe that the object headed towards us is Terminus."

Martin remained hunched over the computer screen, his one good arm running through his greying brown hair.

"This is..." he began, and his hand made another pass through his hair. "This is beyond anything I could have imagined Axion was capable of. Seven hangars containing dropships capable of functioning in the vacuum, an array of no less than ten Killswitch cannons, and to top it off, a damn energy shield." Dan looked up from the screen, a look of panicked disbelief on his face. It was sobering to see him so worried.

Kedrick glanced around wildly.

"But Draco just got the blueprints back yesterday! How could he have built something that large in such a brief time?"

"The blueprints were a trap, Kitt," I replied. "I think Axion has been building this warship since the start of the Iron War."

"What the hell do we do, General?" Lucas asked. "It's not like we can just hop in a mech and shoot down something of that size!"

Dead silence followed this question.

Suddenly, Dan turned to his brother with a mad-genius grin. "You know what, Luke?" he beamed. "We actually can."

"Don't call me that," Lucas snapped.

"What are you talking about, Dan?" Laura inquired. "Orbital ordinance hasn't existed since the Third World War."

"Exactly," Dan replied. "After the war, all remaining orbital weapons were supposedly decommissioned or destroyed. But I believe I know where a few may still remain."

Kedrick's jaw hung open.

"You're saying that you know where we can find a nuke? How the hell can you be sure?"

At this, Dan looked sheepish. He turned towards me.

"Lucas told me about everything he overhead on the comms during Frostpoint," he informed me. "Draco told you my secret before I was ready to, but I guess it doesn't matter now."

The room was silent, our attention focused on Dan as he began his explanation.

"When I first started working for Axion before the Iron War," he began, "I was placed in Axion's Vietnamese research base, The Crater, under the supervision of Doctor Obadiah Quinn."

I could hear the surprised intakes of air from everyone but Lucas. Even Mallet seemed shocked at this revelation. Dan was notoriously guarded about his experiences at Axion—he happily shared his designs for Axion weapons and mechs, but he almost never mentioned his personal experiences.