An air of tense anticipation permeated the command center at NORAD. Davis and many of his officers were gathered around a computer screen. Holly Lewis worked at the keyboard and Davis hovered over her. He half-believed the JPL communiqués were hoaxes perpetrated by the demented ham operator in Taos. Daddy Longlegs had advised them to monitor Clem’s radio signal, so they were gathered to await an astonishing break in humanity’s fortunes, or an embarrassment for having listened to Daddy Longlegs’ ravings in the first place.
Davis sighed. “I hope we’re not just grasping at straws.”
“I’ve got a signal from the spacecraft!” Lewis exclaimed.
Davis caught his breath. Lines of numerical data flashed on the screen. Lewis entered a command at the keyboard. “Translating data to visual. Aah. There.”
A green radar image from Clementine flickered onto one of the large screens on the wall. Buildings on the floor of Phaeon Crater filled the entire view and the pyramid was dead center.
“Look familiar?” Davis whispered under his breath to MacIlvain, who stood beside him with an ashen pallor spreading over his face.
“Too familiar,” Mac replied.
The screen blanked and then showed another stop-motion image in which the pyramid had grown noticeably closer. “That slot on the turret, beneath the gun barrel,” Lewis murmured. “That’s the aim-point.”
In the next image, Clementine’s acceleration toward Phaeon had rapidly magnified the pyramid and the turret slot looked much larger and closer. But the light cannon had swiveled until the dark hole at its end was clearly visible. Davis’s heart pounded. “She’s nose to nose with them,” he said. “Come on, baby!”
The next freeze-frame was streaked at the edges, giving a sense of the tremendous speed with which Clementine was hurtling at her target. The aim-point crosshairs of the image lay precisely on the dark gap below the cannon, which now pointed directly at her. At the bottom of the screen two digital counters rolled with ever-increasing speed. The altimeter reading reeled downward through 0.98 km, 0.76, 0.52, while the velocity counter climbed past 8,152 km/hr.
Then the image vanished.
When nothing came up to replace it Davis asked, “What’s this? What happened to the picture, Holly?”
She turned to him with deep consternation on her face. “We didn’t just lose the image, Matt. We lost Clem’s signal.”
“The light cannon,” Davis muttered. “It was pointing straight at her.”
Mac finished the thought. “If it fired in time, she’s gone.”