Mindscape: Book 2 of the New Frontiers Series by Jasper T. Scott Page A

their jobs. Grekov listened to the thud thud thud of cannon-fire and watched the ship’s combat computer paint converging golden lines of tracer fire between them and the glowing red box of their target. Grekov took a deep breath. “Update the clock with the time for the target to reach us, Lieutenant.”
    “Aye, sir.”
    The clock started counting down from two minutes and twenty seconds. Grekov opened an outer pocket in his combat suit and pulled out a cigar. He held it out to his XO. Clark eyed the contraband for a second before accepting the cigar. Grekov withdrew another one for himself, and then a lighter.
    “You are full of surprises, Captain,” Clark said. “I didn’t even know you smoked. How very degenerate of you.”
    Grekov smiled. “Even Geners have defects, Commander. Not all human imperfection is written into our DNA,” he said as he lit first Clark’s cigar and then his own. He took a drag and savored the spicy flavor of the smoke before puffing it out again. “Some of it is learned.”
    Clark puffed out his own cloud of cigar smoke. A smoke alarm went off with a shrill noise, but he quickly silenced the alarm. Several of the crew looked around and noticed both the Captain and the XO grinning and smoking. Reactions ranged from shock to grim amusement, but no one thought to object.
    The clock hit one minute.
    “I’m glad you had some extra imperfection to go around, Captain,” Clark said, puffing out more smoke.
    Grekov turned to Clark with his cigar pinched between smoke-stained teeth. “It is a pity I left the vodka in my quarters.”
    Clark barked a laugh at that. “I’m going to miss you, Captain.”
    “ Nyet , I’ll look you up in the next life. I’ll be damned if they don’t open the pearly gates for us after this.”
    “Aye,” Clark said. “You’ll be damned indeed,” he said, smiling at the joke.
    Grekov nodded soberly and blew out another cloud of smoke. “To the damned,” he said, watching as the clock hit ten seconds. Cannon fire still streaked out impotently into space.
    One second—
    Lasers lanced out in dazzling blue and red beams.
    Zero seconds—
    The world exploded in a white hot flash of fury.
    * * *
    “Did we get them all?” Admiral Anderson demanded as he loomed over the sensor operator’s shoulders. Myriad control stations ran around the circumference of the room, their glowing holo displays spilling cold blue light into the Combat Information Center (CIC) located fifty floors below the presidential palace.
    “One of the missiles got through, sir,” the sensor operator reported in a quiet voice.
    “Damn it! Where did it hit?”
    “Based on it’s last known trajectory… somewhere in the Gulf of Mexico. A few hundred klicks South of New Houston I’d say.”
    “Issue a tsunami warning for all coastal cities along the Gulf. What kind of damage are we looking at?”
    “Without knowing the weight of the impactor, there’s no way to be sure.”
    Anderson scowled. “Do you know the size of the impactor?”
    “Yes, sir.”
    “Then estimate the weight based on a maximum and minimum density for an object of that size.”
    “Aye, sir.”
    Anderson turned from the sensor operator’s station to find the president standing right behind him.
    “Mr. President—I didn’t realize you were there.”
    “How did that missile get through, Admiral?” President Wallace asked. “We had just one ship at the Moon and we stopped seven out of ten missiles with almost no warning, so how did we fail here with almost an hour of advance notice?”
    Anderson pressed his lips into a grim line. “The missiles went evasive this time, sir. The ones that hit the Moon were maneuvering in straight lines. It also didn’t help that half of our available ships were on the other side of Earth when we detected the missiles. We didn’t have enough time to reposition them all.”
    Wallace blew out a breath and shook his head. “The media is going to make us look incompetent!