"Got it." Nichols nodded. "Guess a lot of things didn't happen today." He looked around. "But I've still got one question. We've already counted about half a dozen dead hostiles. So if nobody was here, then who exactly took down all these terrorist motherfuckers?"
"Well," Armont explained, "we both know Delta Force doesn't exist either. So maybe this Greek sunshine gave them terminal heatstroke and they all just shot themselves."
"Yeah," Nichols concurred with a smile, "damnedest thing."
"Georges, what do you think?" Cally asked. "Can it be saved?"
"Well, first the good news. The Fujitsu is okay." He wheeled around from the workstation. Command was a shambles, but he had managed to find one auxiliary terminal that would still function. That workstation, and the lights, were on, but not much else. "It was buried deep enough in the bedrock that it escaped the EMP, the electromagnetic pulse, from the blast. If we'd lost our sweetheart, we'd be dead in the water."
"Any telemetry?"
"Yep." He smiled. "The tapes were on. We had Doppler, almost from liftoff. The Cyclops computed our acceleration from it, and the results look to be right on the money. The not-so-good news is that the last telemetry we recorded, just before the bomb went off and the Cyclops crashed, showed that VX-1 was about three minutes away from capturing orbit. I think we probably made it, but I still can't say. However, since Big Benny was already reducing power, getting ready to shut it off anyway, maybe, just maybe we got lucky."
She sighed. "When will you know for sure?"