The Red

by Linda Nagata

  Twenty seconds later, both fighters break off and retreat. It’s like a magic act.

  “Oh my God,” Ilima whispers.

  “LT,” Flynn says, astonishment in her voice, “how did you know . . . ?”

  “I didn’t know. I just had a feeling.” A premonition whispered into my back brain, a certain knowledge of what was ahead. On patrol at Dassari I learned to trust that feeling. I still trust it, and why shouldn’t I? Episode three isn’t over yet.

  The tanker lines up against a background of stars. Flynn gets instructions on how to open the refueling receptacle. Ilima watches her, confirming every move. And we load up.

  Flashing pinpoints of light put the position of the fighters far to the west. They’ve stayed close to us for most of our journey, so when the tanker leaves I look for them to close in again, but they don’t. They keep their distance. It’s the media plane that flies beside us now, its navigation lights bright off of our east wing.

  “Status, LT?” Jaynie asks over gen-com. “Are we okay?”

  I smile. We’re three hundred fifty miles off the coast of western Africa, with enough fuel to go all the way to the city of Niamey, where Ahab Matugo waits to take custody of our prisoner. “We’re good. Everything’s good. We’re going to make it.”

  Harvey’s voice rings out over gen-com: “Hoo-yah! ”

  Nolan echoes her, but as Moon joins in, the cockpit radio wakes up. A new voice comes in over the headset—­a man with an American accent, but not the fighter pilot who spoke to us before. With the cheering going on I can’t make out what he’s saying, so I drop out of gen-com, picking up his communication as he repeats our call sign. “. . . Eight-Seven-Z. Vanda-Sheridan Globemaster Eight-Seven-Z. Lieu­tenant James Shelley . . . are you in command now?”

  Tuttle and Ilima are wearing cockpit headsets, so they’ve heard the transmission. So has Rawlings, because he’s following my feed. He opens a solo link. “Don’t answer that, Shelley.”

  I don’t intend to. But I ask him, “Who is that? You know, don’t you?”

  “It’s not relevant to the mission.”

  “Of course it’s relevant. He knows my name.” No one should know who we are. We are anonymous. That’s why I made Perez talk for us on the radio; it’s why I’ve only spoken to Rawlings on the encrypted connection relayed by the angel. I’ve talked on the plane’s intercom, but that isn’t broadcast. “He knows something happened to Kendrick.”

  “Let it go.”

  The stranger speaks again on the radio. “Lieutenant Shelley, I believe Mr. Lucius Perez came aboard your plane in possession of a phone. Why don’t you get that and turn it on?”

  I know the phone he means. Nolan brought it to me after he searched Perez. My hand slides into my pocket. I find the phone and pull it out.

  “Do not turn that phone on,” Rawlings warns. “It’s a security breach. The signal can be used to track your location.”

  “A media plane is following us,” I point out. “Our position is not secret.” I turn the phone over, examining it. “Who is he, Rawlings? Why does he know my name?”

  “Your only concern is to finish the mission.”

  If Rawlings won’t give me answers, I’ll find out for myself.

  I turn the phone on. It boots in a second and a half. In another second, it’s ringing. I push back one side of the headset, tap to answer, and hold the phone to my ear. I don’t say anything.

  “Shelley?” a woman’s voice asks, trembling, tentative. “Shelley, if you’re there, if you hear me, don’t be afraid.”

  It’s Lissa.

  My heart rate spikes. Despite her words, fear rushes through me, faster than the skullnet can counter. “Lissa? Where are you?”

  “You can’t do anything for her,” Rawlings says. He’s monitoring my feed, so he can hear what I hear, including her voice on the phone—but that doesn’t mean I have to listen to him. I drop the solo link.

  “Lissa?”

  She doesn’t answer. Instead, I hear the voice that was on the radio. “You’ve had a nice run, Shelley, but it’s over now.”

  “Who are you?”

  “You don’t need my name. You only need to know that I’ve been brought in to recover Thelma Sheridan. I trust she’s still alive?”

  A merc. No doubt an Uther-Fen officer.

  Tuttle eyes me from the seat behind Flynn. His lips are moving. I can’t hear him because I’m not on gen-com, but I know he’s relaying to the LCS what he thinks is going on. When he starts to get up, I signal him to stay put, and then I return my attention to the merc. “Sheridan is alive,” I assure him. “Where is Lissa?”

  “Lissa’s with me.”

  “Where are you?”

  “Look out your windshield. You’ll see us out there.”

  I lean on the seat backs and peer into the night, but Ilima is first to spot the lights of a new aircraft, far ahead of us. “Someone else out there,” she says on the intercom.

  “It could be anyone,” I object.

  The merc says, “Tell him, sweetheart.”

  “Shelley? It’s not your fault. We thought we were safe, but they broke in. They shot Keith—Major Chen—I don’t know if he’s alive—”

  “Shh, shh, darling,” the merc says in a soothing, fatherly tone. “Let’s just tell him what he needs to know.”

  I faked my death to keep Lissa safe, but it wasn’t enough. It didn’t fool anyone.

  My senses are supercharged with fear, with dread. When I sense movement behind me, I whip around. Jaynie has come into the cockpit. I don’t have time for her. I turn my back and look again out the window.

  “Shelley?” Lissa asks.

  “Tell me, baby.”

  “They want you to land in Cape Verde.”

  Thanks to our fuel fiasco, I’m familiar with Cape Verde.

  “Listen to me,” Lissa adds in quick, whispered syllables boosted in volume by the phone—“don’t do it.”

  I flash on her, shoulders hunched, head turned aside, lips barely moving against the phone as she advises me on what she sees as my best course of action while the merc looming over her fails to hear her whispered words, lost against the drone of the plane’s engines.

  “Speak up, darling,” he says.

  She does: “I love you, Shelley.” Her voice calm, resigned.

  She doesn’t ask me to save her life. My Lissa . . . she’s analyzed the situation, and she doesn’t believe I can.

  “We’ll land behind you,” the merc says. “And have a nice, peaceful exchange of ladies. You understand, Lieutenant Shelley?”

  No. I don’t understand. Lissa is telling me to abandon her, while that inner feeling that I’ve come to trust is telling me to delay. Delay, delay, put off any resolution for as long as I can, though in my rational mind I know nothing can be gained by delay. I have to cooperate, or Lissa will die.

  The merc speaks: “You are listening to me, Shelley?” At the same time, a familiar icon wakes up in my overlay as Rawlings switches me back into gen-com. “Lieutenant Shelley,” he says, “you will answer me.”

  I answer them both: “I’m listening.”

  Rawlings first: “You can’t do anything for her. Terminate the contact and continue the mission.”

  The merc can’t hear him, thank God. “I’ll need your cooperation, Shelley, if you want to see pretty Lissa again.”

  I stare out the windshield and wonder, What the fuck am I supposed to do?

  The skullnet icon flickers, and I feel it more profoundly: Delay.

  I turn away from the lights of the distant aircraft to find myself facing Jaynie. Beneath her skullcap her gaze is wary, worried, when what I need from her is trust. “Sergeant,” I say, still holding the phone to my ear, “we’ve got a situation.”

  Her voice is crisp, official, coming over gen-com. “Colo­nel
Rawlings has informed me of the situation, sir. I am to remind you that the mission comes first.”

  The mission comes first. I know that. We don’t negotiate with terrorists—but I am not going to abandon Lissa. I can’t.

  The merc doesn’t like what he’s hearing. “What the fuck are you doing, Shelley? Do you give a shit about Lissa or not?” Without waiting for an answer, he hits her, making sure I hear it: the smack of his hand; her short, sharp scream of shock, of pain.

  My skin crawls. I try not to imagine what else he could do to her, will do. I want to get my hands on him. I want to be wearing the dead sister so I can get my arm hooks on him and tear him apart, but he might as well be in another dimension, another world, because there’s no way I can reach him.

  “Vasquez,” Rawlings says, “take the phone.”

  She glances at Tuttle. I eye them both, giving a negative shake of my head, and a warning, Don’t try it. The skullnet picks up the thought, translates it to voice, and sends it to gen-com. The merc can’t hear it, but Jaynie can.

  She drops her chin, glaring at me, but she holds back, and gestures at Tuttle to do the same. On the phone, the merc tells me, “Shelley, I need your cooperation.”

  “I understand.” I hear Lissa in the background: short, choking breaths as she tries not to cry. “You don’t have to hurt her.”

  “Don’t make me hurt her. Change your heading now.”

  Delay.

  I switch on the intercom. “Ilima.” Her chin snaps up. She looks at me from the copilot’s seat, wide-eyed. I worry she’s on the verge of meltdown, so I try hard to keep my voice calm. “I need you to recalculate our heading. Figure out an adjustment to get to Cape Verde.”

  I look up at Jaynie, I look straight into her eyes, and I think, Tell her do it slowly. Delay. My skullnet picks up my intent and translates to gen-com.

  But my changing demands have confused poor Ilima. “Cape Verde?” she asks me.

  My gaze is still fixed on Jaynie when I say aloud, “Just do it.”

  Jaynie is scowling. Her lip curls in frustration. Her questioning gaze demands to know: What the fuck are you doing, sir? Is this some brilliant plan to save the day?

  No, I don’t have any fucking plan, only delay, delay, waiting for what, I don’t know, a lightning bolt from God maybe, to set the world right, because I can’t see a solution as things stand. If I land at Cape Verde I betray the mission along with my soldiers’ lives, their futures, their honor, their resolve. If I accept Lissa’s analysis and don’t land there, then I condemn her to torture, terror, and death.

  Delay.

  Jaynie makes up her mind. Moving quickly, she commandeers Tuttle’s headset, then speaks over the intercom to Ilima, while I shield the phone with my hand to make sure the merc can’t hear her. “Do it slowly, Ilima,” she instructs. “Take as long as you can—and don’t enter the heading without specific instruction.”

  Ilima’s perplexed gaze moves from Jaynie to me. When I give her a reassuring nod, she reaches for the instrument panel. “It’s a fast process,” she cautions me.

  I guess so, because the merc is already suspicious. “You’re bullshitting me, Shelley.”

  “My pilot is working out the route.”

  “Ah, Lissa.” His voice becomes hollow as he turns away from the phone. “Your Jimmy doesn’t love you as much as we thought. Maybe it’s the wiring that gives him a stone-cold heart.”

  I don’t know if she grabs the phone, or if he gives it to her, but her voice is close again—high and frantic—slurred words wrestling past her tears: “No, Shelley. Please, please listen this time. Don’t do it. Don’t go back for Dubey Lin.”

  The merc takes the phone. “Poor, frightened girl,” he says, satisfaction in his voice because he’s made her beg—and he has no idea what she’s talking about. But I do.

  “Are you there, Shelley?”

  No. I’m back at Dassari and I know I can’t save anyone and I know it’s stupid to try—but how can I not try?

  “I’m going to make it easy for you, Shelley. Those fighters shadowing you? Their pilots would rather stay out of our fight, but they are not going to allow you to reach the coast. When I give the order, they will shoot you down. If Lissa’s life isn’t worth anything to you, maybe you’ll play to save your own.”

  I force myself to focus, to answer, to argue, to delay. “You want me to believe you’ll murder Sheridan?”

  “It’s like this: I get a bonus if I bring Ms. Sheridan back, but if that doesn’t work out, I still get paid damn well to make sure she never gets off that plane.”

  I shouldn’t feel relieved. It’s wrong. Jaynie sees it on my face and her eyes narrow in mistrust. But if the merc is telling the truth, he’s given me a way out. I don’t have to choose between Lissa and the mission, because the mission is doomed. We have no defense against missiles.

  “The merc is lying,” Rawlings says.

  The merc offers proof. “The jets are coming in now.” I look to the west to see the fighters’ distant lights begin to move. “They’ll transition east of you to reduce the hazard to other planes in the area. If you have not changed course by the time they come around, it’s over.”

  The phone beeps. I glance at the screen and scowl. The call is ended. The merc hung up.

  To our west, the fighters are coming in fast. We have no choice. I can’t delay any longer. “Ilima, adjust course. Take us to Cape Verde.”

  “Don’t do it,” Jaynie warns. She moves a step closer to me; less than an arm’s length away. “Shelley, we can’t believe him. Those fighter pilots have threatened us over and over, but we’re still here.”

  Nolan isn’t in the cockpit—he’s down on the cargo deck—but he backs Jaynie up over gen-com. “LT, Vasquez is right. It’s an empty threat. They won’t shoot us down, especially not in front of that plane full of witnesses.”

  Moon agrees, saying, “It’s bullshit, LT.” As if this is a democracy.

  But it’s not bullshit; it’s not an empty threat. It’s our new reality.

  “Goddamn it,” Harvey explodes over gen-com. “I am not listening to this anymore. She needs to shut the fuck up right now.”

  “Harvey!” Nolan barks. “Back off!”

  I do not need another fucking crisis. Not now. “What the hell is going on back there?”

  “Harvey,” Nolan says, “you’re relieved. Moon, take over.”

  My gaze shifts. I pull up a menu on my overlay as Nolan explains, “It’s Sheridan, LT. Fire and brimstone. Harvey’s burned out on it.”

  My helmet is in the cargo hold, strapped to a seat with its cams running, collecting video of everything that happens to Sheridan. I tap into those feeds—and right away I wish I hadn’t.

  Sheridan is secured in her seat, but she occupies it like it’s a throne. Her spine is straight, eyes wide, righteous determination on her face as she lectures the cargo bay at a volume bold enough to carry over the engine noise. “—is real I warned him. I told him what would happen. Twenty thousand dollars. Think about that! That’s the trivial cost for the missile that will end all our lives.” She turns to face the helmet cams, like she knows I’m watching. “Do you want to die at a cost of only twenty thousand dollars, Mr. Shelley? Surrender now, or we go together into the fire.”

  I drop the video feed. I don’t need to hear any more. “Goddamn it, Nolan! Did she hear you talking about our situation? Do not discuss issues where the prisoner can hear you.”

  “Yes, sir. Sorry, sir.”

  Jaynie is a step away, glaring at me. I convey to her the ugly truth: “Sheridan is right. She predicted our situation. She knew exactly what Carl Vanda would do.” I gesture at the fighters, outside in the night. “He’s behind this. He held them back this long hoping he wouldn’t have to use them.” Vanda believed Lissa’s presence would be enough to force my cooperation.

 
; It should have been enough.

  Now there’s no choice.

  “Sheridan promised none of us would live long enough to see the inside of a courtroom—”

  Rawlings cuts me off. “Lieutenant Shelley, you are relieved of command. Vasquez, Tuttle, place the lieutenant under arrest.”

  I raise my hand to block Jaynie as she starts forward. Tuttle’s a lesser threat, because there’s not enough room for him to get close to me. “Rawlings is covering his ass,” I warn them. “If the mission is going to fail, then it’s better for him if we’re blown out of the sky. That way we can’t testify against him.”

  Lights looming bright in the west catch my eye. I glance sideways to see the fighters, only seconds away. My hand is still up to fend off Jaynie, but it’s Flynn I should have worried about. Flynn, quiet in the pilot’s seat, saying nothing, doing nothing, in the brief minutes since the merc contacted us on the radio. She goes for the holster on my thigh, snapping it open and pulling out the Beretta. It’s the only firearm still at large on the plane. Every other weapon is locked up in a strongbox.

  I don’t think about what I’m doing. I just react, slamming my forearm into Flynn’s visor, knocking her sideways. She’s strapped in, so she doesn’t go far, but her grip slips. I wrench the Beretta out of her hands just as Jaynie lunges for my arm. If we were wearing dead sisters, it might be an even match, but I’m taller and stronger. I get a grip on her jacket and shove her back hard. She lands on her ass in the tiny span of the aisle between the two backseats, and I’ve got the Beretta aimed right between her eyes.

  Fuck me.

  I am not going to shoot Jaynie. I drop my arm, taking my finger off the trigger just as the fighters shoot past us. “Ilima! Now,” I shout. The jet wash hits us, making the C-17 shudder and buck. We’re still riding turbulence when the deck tilts sideways and we begin our turn toward Cape Verde.

  Outside the windows, the two fighters sweep around and head west again.

  Despite the turbulence, Flynn unstraps. She thinks she’s in trouble, and she’s right. She’s scrambling over the back of the pilot’s seat, in a play to get away from me, when I lose my balance and fall against her. It’s as good a time as any to confront her. I shove the Beretta into an inside pocket where she can’t reach it, then I grab her by her jacket and slam her back into the seat. “Tell me that wasn’t your idea, Flynn.”