“And the guy who killed Klyber?”
“Harris, once that fleet is destroyed, you can do whatever you want to Halverson. Get me what I want, and I will make you a very rich, very retired Liberator clone.”
“I’ll need help.”
“You want men?”
“One,” I said. “I have a partner.”
“Freeman,” Huang said. “I’ve heard about him.”
“He’s going to need access to whatever information you give me. And he won’t help me if it means he has to enlist.”
“Do what you need to do. Tell who you need to tell. Spend whatever money you need. I’m giving you a blank check.”
“Okay,” I said. I did not like the idea of working for Huang, but we both wanted the same thing at this moment. He wanted a clean shot at the Hinode Fleet. I wanted the men who killed Klyber. Both of us wanted Halverson.
“Do you know where to start?” Huang asked. I could see him beginning to relax. The plane of his shoulders softened. “Where will you start?”
“New Columbia.”
“Why New Columbia?” Huang asked.
“Because Jimmy Callahan is a two-bit know-nothing, and Billy the Butcher Patel tried to kill him,” I said, only just beginning to put the pieces together.
“What are you talking about?” Huang asked.
“There’s a two-bit thug on New Columbia who thought he was a big fish,” I said. “He sold supplies to the Mogats or the Confederates and thought he was a player. He tried to sell out Patel and nearly got himself killed. Remember the Safe Harbor bombing? Callahan was the one they were going after.
“I figured they wanted to make an example out of Callahan, but now I have another idea.”
“What does this have to do with Klyber?” Huang asked impatiently.
“I never stopped to figure out how they knew about Callahan. . . . Klyber was the one who sent me to meet with him. If Klyber knew about it, Halverson must have known as well. Halverson must have known something else, too, like where Callahan was getting his supplies.”
“Did Patel get him?” Huang asked.
“I locked him up in the local Marine base brig for safekeeping,” I said.
“You think he knows something?” Huang asked.
“He’s too small-time and too stupid to have set up a deal with the Confederates himself. Somebody with bigger ambitions must have used him as a middleman. I need to sweat the name out of him.”
“You’d better get there quickly,” Huang said. “Intelligence says the Confederates are going after New Columbia next. We’re already evacuating the planet.”
Huang thought for a moment. “I told you you’ve got a blank check on this. You can spend whatever you need. I’ll send you whatever equipment you need. And one more thing. I don’t think I need to tell you this, Harris—but just in case . . . feel free to kill anyone that gets in your way.”
And they say that clones have no souls, I thought to myself. I wondered if they would have allowed Huang on a Catholic colony like Saint Germaine.
Part III
WAR
CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE
Earthdate: March 23, 2512 A.D.
City: Safe Harbor; Planet: New Columbia; Galactic
Position: Orion Arm
A fighter carrier and two destroyers floated just a few miles away, guarding the broadcast discs that orbited New Columbia. The carrier brought a compliment of Tomcats, Hornets, and Harriers. The fighters flew in groups of three as they buzzed back and forth, “inspecting and protecting” the solid lane of traffic that stretched from the edge of the atmosphere to the discs. The authorities stepped up security in some areas of New Columbia and evacuated others. After considering the attack on New Gibraltar, the Pentagon decided to evacuate Safe Harbor.
“You’re flying into Safe Harbor?” Colonel McAvoy had asked when I told him my plans. “They’re evacuating the planet. The only people there are going to be Marines and looters. Come to think of it”—he brightened as he thought about this—“you’ll fit right in.”
As I glided out of the reception disc, I saw the line of ships leaving New Columbia. This was a mishmash that included military transports.
From what I had read, New Columbia had a population of over fifty million civilians. Looking down this seemingly endless line of evacuation ships, I would have believed that an entire population was on its way out. Big ships, small ships, just floating there waiting for a turn to enter the Network. As I flew toward the atmosphere, I took one final look at the line of ships. It looked like a kite string holding the discs in place. At the top of the line, the electrical field created by the broadcast discs flashed bright white against the eternal blackness. That distant flash burned ghosts into my eyes, but the ghosts faded quickly.
I traveled toward the planet at the intolerably slow pace of three thousand miles per hour, aware that below me were Marine, Army, and Air Force cannons that tracked my every move. Any suspicious deviation from my specified flight course would be fatal.
By the time I reached New Columbian space, my ship had been scanned so many times that the security computers even knew which of my bones had pins in them. The only worry the military types had about me was that I might be an enemy scout.
“Starliner A-ten-twenty-thirty-four, this is Safe Harbor spaceport. Come in.”
“This is Starliner A-ten-twenty-thirty-four,” I said.
“Starliner A-ten-twenty-thirty-four, we are evacuating this planet.”
“So I’ve been told,” I said.
“I show that you are a Marine,” the controller said. “Please confirm.”
“Colonel Wayson Harris, Unified Authority Marines Corps,” I said.
“You have chosen to use a civilian landing facility, Colonel. Are you aware that there is a Marine base with a landing field just outside of town?”
“I am aware of that,” I said. I was also aware that that base would be a prime target once the Confederates arrived. I wanted my ship in one piece.
“We can offer you landing assistance. Please be advised that this spaceport will close within the next three hours. All traffic control will close at that time. Should you choose to leave your ship here, this facility cannot be held responsible for your ship.”
“Got it.”
“Can’t talk you out of this, can I, Colonel?” the man asked.
“You got a problem down there?” I asked.
“Yeah. I can’t spare the men to check in your ship. Everyone I have is busy sending up transports. I don’t know if you noticed that little line of ships leaving home.”
“Of course I noticed it,” I said. I also noticed how absolutely vulnerable these transports would be if a couple of GCF dreadnoughts happened to appear, but I did not mention it. Shoot a few cannons straight down this line of traffic, and you would likely kill half the population of New Columbia. But judging by the pinpoint tactics the invaders used in their siege of Gateway Outpost, I did not think they were after civilian casualties.
On the other hand, a billion casualties would interest Bill “the Butcher” Patel. Patel was a radical separatist from the Cygnus Arm who was not constrained by morals or religious beliefs.
The line of transports did not extend from the edge of the atmosphere down to the spaceport. In the full gravitational pull of the atmosphere, transports would not be able to support themselves in a slow-moving line without burning tons of fuel.
I flew down through an evening sky, penetrating a thick layer of clouds as my approach slowed to a few hundred miles per hour. The weather had turned bad over Safe Harbor. Mercury-colored clouds formed a washboard ceiling over the city. Lightning illuminated pockets in the clouds with dazzling flashes. Rain fell in heavy drops that burst across my windows. Below me the city was dark. Not a light shown in the forest of skyscrapers that covered Safe Harbor. No street lights shined. The giant billboards on the sides of the buildings were invisible in the blackness.
The city may have looked lifeless, bu
t the air above it fairly bristled with movement. I looked up through the top corner of my rain-spattered windshield and saw the darting profiles of three F-19s passing above me like shadows against the steel wool clouds. Beneath me, three more crossed my path.
The Marines, the Army, and the Air Force all maintained bases around the city of Safe Harbor. Unlike Gateway, New Columbia was a well-protected planet. The Marines of New Gibraltar Outpost had only cannons to defend themselves from attack. Here, on New Columbia, there were squadrons of F-19 Falcons, and the Navy had capital ships guarding the planet from above. The invasion of Gibraltar had been a massacre. An invasion of Safe Harbor would be a battle.
Against the jungle of shadows that was the city of Safe Harbor, the spaceport looked like an eruption of light. Two lines of strobe lanterns clicked on and off along the runway, creating dashes of midnight-blue. In the distance, white glare poured out of a row of hangars at the edge of the runway. Lights shone around the outside of the air terminal and more light spilled from the windows.
I landed the Starliner on the edge of the runway and coasted toward the hangars. Two runway workers placed it in a security hangar. I asked if it would be safe, and they said it would. “As safe as anything else on the planet,” one of them amended. The hangar had been filled with private craft just one day earlier. Now my ship was the only one. The hangar crew drove me to the main terminal of the spaceport in silence.
A few weeks earlier and in another life, I had sat in this very building trying to distract myself as I waited for a flight. Back then I sensed ambition in the air. Safe Harbor attracted businessmen and tourists, people who were glad to travel or glad to clinch the next big deal. This time I sensed something very different—depression and panic.
In the terminal, long lines of people sat silently clutching their belongings. The richest people, able to buy their way to the front of the line, had left first. The last of the New Columbian elite were probably in the queue of transports I passed on my way down from the discs. The people I saw in the spaceport now were the poor and the middle class—people with families and suitcases; little girls with dolls and boys with video games. They formed lines that snaked back and forth the entire length of the lobby—rows of people in perfectly straight lines standing so crowded together that the lines disappeared altogether. I heard sneezing and sobbing and a few whispers, but this population was mostly in shock.
Many people wore damp clothing. Had the spaceport been its normal chilly temperature, these people would have caught colds, but the sheer numbers overloaded the air-conditioning, and the atmosphere was hot inside the terminal and the air smelled of sweat.
“Where do you think you’re going?” a Marine in combat armor asked as I reached the main entrance. I flashed him the newly-minted identification card that Colonel McAvoy gave me. It identified me as “Colonel Wayson Harris.”
The man looked at it and snapped to attention. “My apologies, sir! The private was not aware that he was speaking with an officer.”
He saluted.
I saluted back.
“Carry on, Marine,” I said as I stepped around the boy and left, glad that I was no longer a mere grunt. Stepping out of the terminal, I entered a cold, wet night. The rain fell continuously. Puddles covered the sidewalk leading away from the terminal building. A line of streetlights stretched as far as the parking garage. Beyond that, a shroud of inky darkness hid everything from view. Before stepping out from under the awning, I looked into the sky and sighed. I did not know who I might meet in that darkness, but it did not matter much—this time I was armed.
I stole a car. I didn’t have any other options. Supposing that a city-wide evacuation and naval attack might hurt their business, the car rental agencies had closed for the night . . . and the next night, and the night after that. In honor of Billy the Butcher, I found a sporty little Paragon in the parking lot and wired it. Patel’s Paragon was orange and this one was red, but they both had the same shoehorn-shaped chassis.
I did not bother myself with fables about returning the car or justifications about the owner of the car having cast it away. I needed wheels, this car looked nice. Once I had the engine going, I threaded my way though the spaceport parking lot and drove into town.
There was something eerie about traveling through an abandoned city that reminded me of swimming underwater. It might have been the emptiness or the silence or the lack of movement. The electricity was out almost everywhere. Without their red, yellow, and green glow, the traffic lights looked like misshapen trees. I did not care for crowds, but I found this emptiness unsettling.
Driving down dark streets lined by lifeless buildings, my isolation seemed to amplify itself. I looked into storefronts that were as dark as caves. It wasn’t just that the lights were off—life itself was gone. It was like climbing up an escalator that has been turned off. For psychological reasons, climbing dead escalators seems harder than walking up stairs. It feels like civilization has failed.
I drove past the movie house where I had met Jimmy Callahan and watched The Battle for Little Man. The entrance was a black hole. The holotoriums would be empty and the projection rooms dark. It seemed unnatural.
Jimmy Callahan, I mused, with his bulging muscles and his big, big talk, would be one of the last men on New Columbia. The Mogats and the Secessionists may have chased everybody else away, but Callahan was still on the planet, right where I left him, locked up in a Marine base brig. The irony was that the very spot where I placed him for safekeeping would soon be the most dangerous location on the planet.
I was driving through uptown Safe Harbor and turned a corner. The block in front of me was completely demolished. For a moment I thought the attack must have begun, and then I recognized where I was. This was the neighborhood that Patel bombed. Only three weeks had passed since that bombing . . . two weeks and an era.
Something far more dangerous than Billy the Butcher Patel was coming to New Columbia. Who would have believed it? Jimmy Callahan who had talked so big and gotten himself into so much trouble might just be the key to winning the war.
I expected to see looters hiding in shadows, moving through alleys, and breaking into buildings. Instead, I ran into roadblocks. The Army was out in force. I turned a corner and saw a chrome and titanium barrier stretched across the road. A string of bright blue lights winked on and off sequentially across the top of their barricade. Five soaked and miserable-looking soldiers in camouflaged ponchos flagged me down. They had M27s strapped over their shoulders, and there were machine-gun nests on either side of their barricade.
I stopped and lowered my window.
“Nice car,” a soldier said as he approached. He was a corporal. He was a clone. He had brown hair, broad shoulders and a round chest. He was short and squat, and powerful. He and I might have been raised in the same orphanage for all I knew. Rain poured down on him. Drops hit his poncho and burst.
“You mind if I don’t get out?” I asked. “I don’t want to get the upholstery wet.”
He smiled and nodded. “I don’t suppose you have papers for that car?” he asked.
“How about these?” I handed him my military ID.
He took the card and read it over several times. “Colonel,” he said, acknowledging my identity, but the barrier did not open. “Our scanner says this car belongs to James Walker. I don’t suppose you can prove that he loaned you this vehicle?”
“No, Corporal, I can’t,” I said.
“Then we have a bit of a problem, Colonel. We’ve been sent out to prevent looting. That includes the borrowing of cars.”
Colonel McAvoy had issued me a pistol. I had it under my car seat. I could have shot the corporal. “How far is Fort Washington from here?”
The corporal’s expression tightened. Fort Washington was the local Marine base. If I was indeed a colonel in the Marines, I should have known how to get there.
“I just flew in, Corporal,” I said. “Fleet Headquarters dispatched me to see what I can do
to prepare this planet for an attack.”
“I heard air traffic was stacked up for hours,” the corporal said, a dubious note in his tone.
“Getting out is a problem,” I said. “There’s a line all the way up to the disc and more people waiting in the spaceport. Coming in is a breeze. Who wants to go to a planet that’s about to get smashed?”
That seemed to satisfy him. The corporal smiled and nodded. “Sir, I can’t let you pass in that car.”
“I understand,” I said.
“Tell you what, sir. You park the car over there,” he said, pointing to a nearby alley, “and I’ll give you a ride to Washington in our jeep.”
“You don’t mind?” I asked.
“Base Command, Base Command, this is post fifteen in Sector A, come in,” he said into an interLink microphone that was attached to his poncho. He must have received the response through an unseen earpiece.
“I have an incoming Marine colonel looking for Fort Washington. Requesting permission to drive him.”
He put a hand over his ear to block outside sounds. “That is correct. I said a Marine colonel . . . yes, that would be the equivalent of colonel in the Marine Corps.”
The corporal bent down again and said, “Okay, I’m cleared to drive you to the base.”
“I appreciate it,” I said.
Then, lowering his voice just shy of a whisper, he added, “Leave the keys in the Paragon . . . just in case.”
I couldn’t really leave the keys in the ignition since I had hot-wired the car. “You know anything about hot-wiring cars?”
“No sir,” the corporal said.
“I’ll leave the ignition running,” I said. I turned the car around, backed into the nearest alley, and stepped out into the rain. The downpour was hard and steady, but the air was warm. Sitting in an open-air bungalow on an evening like this could have been very pleasant, I thought, assuming you had the right company.
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