Free Prometheus and the Dragon (Atlas and the Winds Book 2) by Eric Michael Craig Page B

still do her job in peace. But now that the world outside had settled into a relative calm, she wanted to go home. Back to the White House. Even if it was simply another prison, at least there she could see the sky and grass. She should be able to finish out the rest of her sentence among the living, instead of buried away in this mausoleum.
    Her single Secret Service escort followed her, several steps behind and far more relaxed than he would have been if they’d been outside. The layers of security that surrounded her here meant those closest to her were also some of the safest people on the planet. She envied him his simple existence.
    “Madam President?” A voice echoed down the corridor from the distance, too far around the curve to see who it was. Mount Weather was a huge complex, designed at the height of the First Cold War as a bomb shelter and sanctuary for the entire US Government, plus a whole division of infantry. Right now it was occupied by the White House staff, a small security detachment, and an occasional visitor. Marbles rolling around inside a huge bucket. Silence echoed as far as she could hear.
    One of her aides came rolling up on an electric scooter. “I have a message from General Marquez,” she said. “He wanted you to know that Roscosmos has resumed launching supplies to their lunar facilities.”
    “Good for them,” she said. “Did he say why this was important?”
    “He says they’ve launched four boosters in the last eighteen hours,” she said. “He thought it might be important for you to know, since the last intelligence received said they were still without funding.”
    “I wonder who’s writing the checks?” she said. “Have Janice get William out here for an eyeball meeting.” Company was coming, even if she knew it was only because she’d called for a command performance.
    ***
     
    Unity Colony, Eastern Mare Frigoris:
     
    Thirty-six hours and they still had three bodies out there somewhere. For the first six or eight hours there’d been hope, but after that, even those who might have survived would be running out of air. By ten hours into the operation, it had gone from rescue to recovery, and the morale of the workers had tanked, right along with their hope.
    The two doctors, one from Sentinel and one from New Hope, had worked side-by-side long after there was no possibility of finding more survivors, tending to the injured and trying to patch together those who had been most critical. The triage unit Stormhaven had dropped had been equipped with an adequate supply of diagnostic tools and a small surgical theater. They’d sent for more supplies twice, and finally they’d just waded through the bodies, coming out the other end of the grinder exhausted, but knowing they’d done all they could.
    Twenty-two had escaped with minor injuries, and seven were still in critical condition. Body bags were lined up in rows on the lunar surface, fifty-six of them.
    Jonathon Merrill, the acting Governor of the Unity Colony and the only Director of the combined space administrations who was an active roster astronaut, stood staring at the rows of black bags, his face invisible through his faceplate. His voice, when he spoke, carried the depth of his sorrow and frustration. “Those bastards,” he said quietly. He’d been in his office when the quake had hit. After he’d made the call for help, he’d suited up and joined the rescue efforts, going in only long enough to get new air and to learn the latest on what had caused it. His personal efforts had been nothing short of heroic, and his crews had started regarding him with a certain reverence afforded all great leaders.
    “Excuse me?” Dr. Cochrane said. They’d been so entrenched in their own work, neither of the doctors had heard the cause of the disaster. He stood beside the Governor, bone-weary and on the verge of collapse himself.
    “The Chinese,” he said. “They caused it. The quake.” Merrill’s speech drifted