by Ilsa J. Bick
Yamada didn’t look much better than Pierpont. He lay in a slowly expanding pool of blood. A sluice of jelly-like brain, pulverized bone, and singed hair sloshed over linoleum as if his head had been an overripe cantaloupe smashed against the floor.
The control room supervisor—a DCMS sergeant—said, “I’m sorry, sir. He was just too fast.”
“Not your fault. No way to know that he was a leftie, too,” Parks said, though he wished he’d known. Two dead men, one of whom he’d hoped to interrogate, had not been on the evening’s agenda.
“Yes, sir.” The sergeant didn’t sound convinced. “Sir, the control room operators?” He nodded toward a corner where they stood with a third man, whom Parks recognized as the shift supervisor his sergeant had impersonated. “They want to check their systems, make sure everything’s okay.”
“Do that.” Parks turned to Bridgewater. “What about this woman you mentioned . . . Dasha, right? Her and this guy Shakir Jerrar, where are they?” As soon as Parks had heard the name, he knew Fusilli was still alive. Shakir Jerrar wasn’t exactly unknown within the Combine.
Bridgewater was ashen. “I don’t know. Dasha didn’t show.”
“Could she have suspected something was up?”
“I don’t know. And Shakir, well, don’t you have him?”
“Have him?” Parks frowned. “Why should we?”
“Well, I just assumed that you must.” Bridgewater explained what had happened in the tunnel.
Oh, Lord. Parks listened with growing dread. No, he can’t be dead. Not when we were this close to bringing him home. When Bridgewater finished, Parks said, “So what happened then? To this . . . Abby woman?”
“When she didn’t call in one way or the other, I think Tony assumed that she was pissed, and Shakir had made it. Otherwise, she would’ve hustled back.” He told Parks the location of the hatch through which they’d accessed the tunnels, then added, “I guess I assumed your people must have taken them. If not, then they’re probably still there.”
“Well, let’s find out.” Singling out two men, Parks rattled off orders and added, “Remember, they’re armed, and at least one of them may not be real happy to see you.”
Bridgewater’s eyebrows crinkled. “One?”
Parks was saved from a reply when he caught sight of a third man clumping into the control room. “Sir Eriksson,” he said, and extended his hand. “Thank you for this.”
Eriksson merely glanced at Parks’s hand, then said, with a revulsion he did not disguise, “You’re thanking me?” His face was florid with anger, and his rime of white hair stood out like a gauze bandage wrapped round a wound. “You gave me your assurances that you would use all caution.”
You pompous, self-righteous jackass, you think we pulled those damned triggers? Perhaps this was uncharitable. Had he been in Eriksson’s shoes, he’d be tempted to lead a few resistance movements himself. But they were not equals, and like it or not, Eriksson would have to live with the fact that he was one of the conquered.
“Sir Eriksson, I know that coming to us after your man Bridgewater here gave you the gist of what Yamada and his cell planned . . . I know that was difficult. For what it’s worth, I believe you did the right thing. No one could’ve predicted Yamada would kill himself and his inside man.”
Eriksson drew himself up. “On the contrary, it was perfectly predictable for a man like Yamada. He wouldn’t want to leave any witnesses behind.”
To Parks’ surprise, Bridgewater said, “Beg your pardon, but it doesn’t make sense for Tony to kill himself and a man he’d already betrayed. What for? Probably Tony would stand up to interrogation, but I’ll bet he figured that Pierpont wouldn’t. Tony killed Pierpont so you couldn’t talk to him, and Tony killed himself because . . .” Bridgewater paused and then said, as if he’d just now had a revelation, “. . . living didn’t matter.”
Parks and Eriksson traded startled glances. “Say what?” Parks said. “What . . . ?”
“Colonel!” A corporal standing alongside the operators’ workstation called. “Sir, I think we’ve got a problem here.” As if to punctuate his words, an alarm suddenly whooped, and a bank of lights flashed from green to bloodred.
“What is it?” Parks rasped, but the operator didn’t look up. Instead, the man hunched over his computer, his fingers flying over keys. Lines of urgent script scrolled in flashes of amber and blue over the operator’s computer screen.
“Status!” the shift supervisor barked. Pushing Parks aside, the man threw himself at an adjacent workstation. “Has the automatic trip engaged? What about the steam turbine?”
“Negative, negative! Turbine has shut down, but that’s a negative on the magnetic field!” the control room operator said. His tone ramped up a notch. “Field reads fully operational! She’s not scramming!”
“Switching to manual override!” The shift supervisor banged out commands. “What about now? Has the PORV vented?”
“No effect,” the operator said. “Pilot-operated relief valve has not opened, and magnetic field has not disengaged! Control rods are completely exposed! Pressure’s spiking! I read two-two-five-five psi and climbing! Fourteen seconds since turbine shutdown!”
“Will somebody please explain what’s happening?” Parks roared.
“It doesn’t get any more basic than this, Colonel,” the supervisor said grimly. “We’re on our way to a meltdown.”
“Meltdown?” Parks rapped. The supervisor had cut the alarm, but both he and the two operators had leapt into action, barking out commands and stats that, to Parks, were gobbledygook. But the way every indicator light was flipping red in an accelerating cascade, he figured a meltdown must be pretty bad. “What the hell’s a meltdown?”
“Exactly what it sounds like,” the supervisor said without looking up. He rattled off a string of commands, didn’t like what the computer said back, swore, spat out more. Waited for the computer to come back at him. “If we can’t stop it, that core is going to melt, literally.”
“How?”
The supervisor rattled through the basics then said, “The system’s designed so that the pilot-operated relief valve can vent steam. Or the reactor scrams: The magnetic field disengages and the fuel rods drop back into the reactor core and stop nuclear fission. But even if you scram, there’s still residual heat, and that has to go somewhere. That’s where emergency feedwater pumps kick in, but they’re not. Nothing’s working, and that reactor’s still going.”
“Meaning what?” Parks asked. “Are we talking a bomb here or what?”
“No. But just as bad. All the remaining water is turning into steam, and there’s no way to vent it. Between that and the core literally melting . . . we’re talking an explosion. It’s going to rip this complex apart, and when it does, it’ll spew radioactive contaminants into the atmosphere.”
What Bridgewater said: Yamada killed himself because living didn’t matter. Horror blasted through Parks like a raw wind. “How long?”
“Ten minutes,” the supervisor said, “and counting.”
58
0300 hours
“McCain, we’ve got to find her before it’s too late!” Fusilli said.
“And I’m hearing you. The problem is it’s a big damn base.” McCain turned to the MP, who’d wisely stepped aside. “How many men can we mobilize and how fast?”
“As many as you need and as fast as you want, sir,” the lieutenant said. “But, like you said, it’s a big base.”
“Then we’ve got to figure out how she got on the base to begin with and fan out from there. You know her, Fusilli. How would she . . . ?” McCain broke off as his comm shrilled. He tapped open a channel. “McCain, go ahead . . . Parks, yes, I . . .” McCain listened, his features going slack with shock.
“What?” Fusilli demanded.
* * *
“I need numbers! How bad? How far?” Parks grated.
“Bad enough,” the supervisor said. “Assume an immediate ten klick radius, enough to con
taminate your base and the outlying suburbs south of here. Depending on the wind, the debris could spread for kilometers. But the prevailing winds are south, Colonel, they’re always to the south. So when this reactor goes, every man and woman on your base will receive a lethal dose. And there is nothing we can do to stop it.”
Parks didn’t need any more than that. “McCain,” Parks said into his comm, “you’ve got less than nine minutes to get as far west as you can. Evacuate the base, and I mean now, mister, now!”
* * *
“No, they’re wrong,” Fusilli said. “Why bring a bomb here if you’ve already set up another explosion that will do the same thing?”
“Insurance? Or maybe they just hate us real bad. I don’t know, I don’t care, and I don’t have time to argue. Lieutenant! You heard the order. Get your men and get our people out of here! Go!” As the MP dashed out, McCain started after, talking into his microcomm: “Sorrel, this is McCain! Emergency evac! Load up our patients . . . Yes, all of them, and right now!”
Fusilli grabbed McCain’s arm as the doctor swept by. “McCain, please, listen to me! Don’t you see it? If we’re evacuating, there’s chaos, confusion. She’ll go wherever she wants. Dasha’s the threat, I know she is. You have to stop her, or we will die.”
McCain shook free as the first alarm klaxons wailed. “Sorry, Fusilli, but I can’t take the chance that you’re wrong.” And then he was out the door: “Sorrel, you copy? Five minutes, or we’re all dead!”
* * *
The alarms were like a tidal wave, curling, redoubling, then crashing over the base, saturating the air with a primal force that was brutal, final. Irrevocable. Dasha was the eye of the hurricane, an island of calm in the midst of the storm. She walked amongst and through them all, not a soul challenging her: this woman, in a DCMS uniform, with hair red as a river of blood and Death as her escort.
Like a ghost. She felt as if her body were already evaporating like a cloud beneath a hot sun. I’m gone, a dead woman walking. I was a fool to believe that it could be any different, that this moment isn’t what I’ve been hurtling toward. This is my destiny . . .
And then she looked up—and Shakir was there.
* * *
For Fusilli, everything dropped away: the alarms, the roar of people movers, the swirl of personnel who did not notice this woman or him. Everything. Except. Her.
Her own words had led him, what she’d said one night in his arms: We’re not disposable. We’re not garbage. But if a woman were going to throw her life away . . . It was a chance he took, and now here she was.
Please, God, please, don’t make me do this.
“Dasha.” Somehow, he’d drawn his weapon, because the Raptor was in his hand. “Don’t make me choose between them and you.”
She was very pale and deathly still, her hands at her sides, the pack still on her back. “Why aren’t you running, Shakir?” Her voice was flat, a little dead already. “Why aren’t you trying to get away?”
“Because I know the reactor’s a hoax. It will right itself. It’s just a diversion, a way of keeping everyone’s attention elsewhere.”
“Except yours.” Her eyes were liquid and very large. “You’re one of them, aren’t you?”
“In your heart, you know that’s true. But I can’t let you kill all these people.”
“I don’t care about them. I don’t care about them anymore than Sakamoto’s men cared about unexploded ordnance in a playground where there were children. My children. What I do now, I do for them.”
“Dasha, your children are dead,” he said. Her eyes fluttered, as if he’d slapped her face. Tears spilled down her cheeks, and he wanted to weep with her. “But I’m here now. Please, give me the pack.”
“At least tell me your name.” Her voice was watery. “Your real name.”
“Fusilli,” he said, wishing that this were not so. “Wahab Fusilli.”
She nodded. Then her thumbs hooked the straps of her knapsack, and she shrugged off the pack. “Thank you for telling me the truth.”
“But that’s not all the truth I have to tell,” he said.
“No?” She smiled faintly, a little sadly. She was on her knees now, her fingers working the straps. “Does it matter now?”
“Yes, it does,” he said. His eyes stung with unshed tears. “It matters because I matter, and so do you. Dasha, would love stop you?”
She stared at him. “No. You forget. I loved my children.”
“But they’re dead, and I’m here, and I do love you. I’ve waited for a place to call home all my life, and now I’ve found one with you. Please, Dasha.” His eyes filled, and her face wavered and fractured. “Don’t take that from me. Don’t make me choose.”
“Make you choose?” she asked. He could see the bomb now, the red smear of a digital readout. Just waiting for the flick of a rocker switch or the press of a button. “What-ever you do now, it will be because you do it even if or because you love me, and for no other reason.” She paused. “I love you, Shakir. But I can still let you go—because this is my choice.”
She reached inside her pack.
* * *
They detected Fusilli’s transponder signal two minutes after the reactor didn’t melt down. McCain and a trio of MPs found him three minutes after that: on the ground, cross-legged, head bent. A woman’s body cradled in his arms, her blood seeping into his clothes and the dry earth. His diamond stud was clenched in his left fist, and there was a pistol, still warm, in his right. An open pack sat to one side, the digits on a readout fixed at 5:00.
McCain knelt. Gently, he eased the pistol from Fusilli’s nerveless fingers. “Fusilli?” He put a hand on the man’s shoulder, and he felt a tremor shudder through Fusilli’s body. “Wahab?”
Then, slowly, as if waking from a dream, Fusilli raised his head, and McCain was moved with such pity that he felt like crying, too.
“Take me home, McCain,” Fusilli said. His face was wet. “Take me home.”
PART SEVEN
Uchikomi: Invasion
59
Katana’s Journal
4 December 3136
The best part about coming back from the dead is the look on people’s faces. The bad thing is you get a pretty good idea of who’s really not thrilled to see you. Like the Kitten: She was not a very happy camper. On the other hand, seeing as how her patron tried to disappear me? Tough shit.
After I scraped him off the ceiling, Andre wanted to know each and every detail: how those thermobarics took out those caves; how Viki was lucky enough to find that little hollow above the sand. I don’t want to think about what would’ve happened if she’d been out in the open. Probably like those guys in the Tamerlanes, who shot right past us after Kamikuro braked, and who ended up buried under who knows how many kilos of rock. When Ito’s DropShip showed up right after, that was the whole shooting match. Pretty much. Kamikuro-san will have some scars, just like me. My hands mainly. But that diacetylsilicate sand really did a number on Ito. Still in the hospital on a respirator. His lungs took a beating from all that hot gas.
So, yeah, Toranaga: I’m not forgetting.
Then it was Andre’s turn. He filled me in on Biham and the other border worlds. For now, we’ve essentially shut down these resistance cells, and Sandoval-Groell, if its him . . . we’ll deal with him sooner or later.
As for how Fusilli came through, I was surprised. Fusilli never struck me as entirely being with the program. I feel bad now for doubting him. Andre’s brought him back, keeping him close for now. That’s a good idea. Beyond the medal he’ll get, we all owe Fusilli. He saved a lot of our people. But, my God, what this must’ve cost him.
Of course, I got an earful about the Kitten. (Andre made me watch that sim twice; he’s still tickled about killing her ass.) Theodore’s on Deneb Algedi, getting ready for an assault on Altair. I’m more than okay with Theodore’s part in this. Plus, you have to hand it to the Kitten. She has gotten things ready to go, and on time, too. We’ll launch
on New Year’s Eve. As Andre said, it’ll be a hell of a New Year.
Ah, and speaking of new:
“He’s O5P,” Andre said. “Emi sent him. He checks out. His ID and authorization codes are legit. I think you need to hear what he has to say.”
The weirdest thing, when this man walked into the room . . . I had this strange sense of déjà vu. Like I knew him. Something about him, those smoke-gray bedroom eyes. And his body: well-muscled but lean, his movements economical yet graceful, a thick shock of black hair shot through with silver. A thin scar jagged through his left eyebrow and curled like a scimitar along his left cheek. A knife wound, perhaps. And his voice was very . . . well . . . sensuous. I know I sound like some infatuated teenager, but he had this presence.
He pinned me with those eyes. “My mission was reconnaissance on the Keeper’s behalf, monitoring the Nova Cats.”
“The Cats?” I sat straight up. Shot a perplexed frown at Andre who only shrugged. “Why?”
“I don’t know, Tai-shu,” he said apologetically.
“Okay.” I had to wonder, though, how Emi knew about the Cats. I’d only told Andre. Unless . . . Bhatia? “Go on.”
The agent hesitated. “I’m sorry, but . . . two Nova Cat mystics, a man and a woman, have been assassinated.”
For a minute, I was so shocked, my mind wouldn’t process. “What? Where?”
“Athenry and Styx. ISF investigated,” he said dryly as he extracted a sheet of paper from a slim brown leather satchel. “This is their final report.”
One stupid piece of paper and five measly lines that read more like a kindergartener’s idea of a detective holodrama: Nova Cat Mystic Tanaka murdered. Nova Cat Mystic Hisa murdered. Bodies brutalized. Agents(s) unknown. Reasons unknown.
“That’s it?” God, I was so angry, I wanted to tear the stupid thing to shreds. “Two mystics are butchered, and that’s it?”
