The Red: First Light

by Linda Nagata

  At least I’ll never get frostbite in my toes.

  For most of the first hour we hear wolves howling, not all that far away. It’s a haunting sound that keeps me alert. But when snow starts falling, the night goes quiet and my senses contract. Nightvision shows me where to step; it shows me Vanessa Harvey six paces ahead; but that’s all I can see. For the next two hours we stride through a collage of trees and snow that looks so much the same everywhere we go, it’s easy to feel like we’ve gone nowhere at all.

  But high above us, an angel watches. If anyone wanders more than a step or two off the line, a red warning dot pulses on the map of our route that I keep projected onto my visor. So no one can get lost—but going mad from boredom? By the time we’ve done 16K it seems like a real possibility.

  At 22K, the angel detects an electronic signature that doesn’t belong to us.

  We all drop into a crouch, our weapons ready.

  Arrays of electronic sensors keep watch in the Apocalypse Forest, on guard for movement, heat, electromagnetic events... but the engineer, Lucius Perez, controls them and tonight, for a window of a few hours, his task was to switch them off.

  If he’s failed to do that, our mission is doomed.

  My heart is hammering as I wait for the angel’s analysis of the signal. I miss Delphi’s voice; I miss Guidance.

  An update scrolls across the screen of my visor: the transmission came from a small fishing boat passing just off the coast. With luck, it has nothing to do with us.

  ~~~

  Midnight finds us clambering around the foot of a ridge, just steps from the ocean. Snow is still falling, accumulating on the steep slope and weighing heavily on the trees that tower above us. We go quietly, because we’re close.

  Before long, the coast levels out again, and soon we come to the verge of a road covered in deep snow. Jaynie raises a hand, and the signal to stop gets passed back down the line. We’re staying off-com, passively receiving only, to minimize our EM signature.

  I make my way to the front, with Kendrick following. We stand with Jaynie, looking back toward the ridge we just skirted. Two long switchbacks climb its side. Up there somewhere, the Apocalypse Fortress looks out on the sea, while in the other direction, the road follows the coast for 800 meters to the airfield.

  I hear waves lapping against the shore, but they’re not loud enough to drown out a distant rumble of engines. Looking through the angel’s camera eyes, I’m expecting to see a snowcat maybe, or a plane daring the snowstorm. But the rumbling engines belong to two robotic snow plows driving up and down the runway at midnight, working to keep it clear.

  ~~~

  We stormed Black Cross because on that night every minute mattered. If we have to, we’ll storm the Apocalypse Fortress too—but with our ally Lucius Perez helping, we’re hoping we can lure Thelma Sheridan outside. Finding a traitor to roll back security is always a factor in the best assault plans.

  ~~~

  Kendrick gets the robo-rats out of his pack and hands the box to me. “Take them up to the top of the ridge. Don’t worry about getting close to the house. The risk isn’t worth it. Release them, and get back down here before the snow stops.”

  I debate who to take with me. Ransom is too big for sneaking around. Flynn is too small. Kendrick needs both sergeants with him, so I tap Moon on the shoulder—he’s closest—and crook my finger. On the map displayed on my visor, the angel draws me a path to follow. I look at it, and feel the hair rise on the back of my neck.

  Signaling Moon to wait, I wade through the snow until I can tap Kendrick on the shoulder. “Colonel.”

  He turns the blank face of his visor in my direction. “Why are you still here?”

  “We’re not hooked into Guidance, and we’re passively receiving only, so who the hell told the angel to plot me a route up this ridge?”

  Several seconds pass before he says, “We need to move. It looks like a good route... and if the Red’s looking out for you, all the better.”

  He’s right, although I can’t forget it was the Red that walked me out the door at Black Cross, and not because it was looking out for me. I think it wanted a witness to the last moments of those two fighter pilots and I was the only available option. I know the Red is not on my side or anyone else’s, but I’ve trusted it in the past and lived, so what the hell.

  I grab Moon again and we follow the plotted route.

  Our dead sisters make it an easy climb.

  ~~~

  A light comes into sight above us as we near the top of the ridge. I signal Moon to slow down. We creep another three or four meters. Ahead of us the trees thin out so that I can see the light is coming from the curved bank of windows on the sea side of the Apocalypse Fortress. There are no blinds, no privacy tint. I can see inside to where a fire burns on a hearth, white in nightvision. Someone sits in a cushioned chair beside it, head bent, reading a tablet. I imagine it to be Sheridan, peacefully contemplating the deaths of millions while her husband, Carl Vanda, recovers from his injuries in a hospital bed somewhere in an underground room.

  Moon puts his helmet close to mine. “You want to go farther?”

  “No.” I can’t risk being seen. If we lose the element of surprise the mission will fail, leaving us to face a robust counterattack, with no means to evacuate from the Apocalypse Forest. “We’ll let the rats go here.”

  If Kendrick knows how to control the rats, he hasn’t told me. I don’t know anything about them. I’m just hoping they’re trained to certain behaviors. We kneel on the snow, set the box down between us, and open it. Three rats show their snuffling noses. I tip the box, dumping them onto the snow. Just like the rats at Black Cross, each has a camera button between its eyes and a whip-wire antenna sticking out of the back of its skull. The rats will violate the EM silence of our operation when they uplink to the angel, but in the vicinity of the house, with all its electronic equipment, their signals won’t stand out.

  Watching them, I’m not sure they’ll make it to the house. They really don’t like the cold. One stands on its hind legs; another runs onto Moon’s boot. “Son of a bitch!” he whispers as he shakes it off and stumbles backward.

  “Don’t step on them!”

  They cluster close together, shivering.

  Should I try to take them closer to the house? I crouch, and cautiously extend my gloved hand. They don’t act shy, so I pick one up. Its head turns; its tiny black eyes fix on the light from the building and I hear a faint squeak. “Hey, I think it’s attracted to the light.”

  I put it down again. From the ground it can’t see the house lights, but it must remember where they are, because as soon as it feels the snow underfoot, it takes off, scampering away up the hill. The other two rats follow.

  Movement draws my eye to the side of the house. Is there something in the shadows? Even with nightvision, I can’t really make it out; it’s just motion, an undefined shape. I switch to the angel’s view, but the drone is near the airfield, too far away to get a good look at the house.

  “Do you see that?” I whisper to Moon.

  “Is that a dog? It looks like a huge dog... only weird.”

  At least there’s no wind to carry our scent uphill.

  “Come on. Let’s get out of here”

  Moving as quietly as we can, we retreat.

  ~~~

  We’re halfway down the ridge when I hear a loud crack from below: the snap of a branch breaking under the weight of snow? or a muffled shot? Concerned that we’ve been discovered, I hold up a hand for Moon to stop. Gripping an icy branch, I lean out over the slope to look down. The angel has drifted partway back from the airfield. It tracks each soldier by sight, marking their positions on my display, whether or not they’re hidden beneath the trees. All seems calm. Only Nolan, Tuttle, and Flynn are in motion, moving away from the road at an easy walk—and then I make out a glimmering thread strung across the road.

  “We’re okay,” I tell Moon. “They’re stringing the spiderline.” The
crack we heard was the bolt, shot from an air gun, embedding itself in a tree.

  When we reach the base of the ridge, we find Flynn sitting balanced on Aaron Nolan’s shoulders while she secures the near end of the spiderline high in a tree. The objective is to transfer most of our squad across the road without leaving footprints.

  Nolan’s team needs to cross first. He’s tasked with leading an advance group to the airfield, where he’ll be in a position to take control of the concrete blockhouse, securing the on-site employees who are housed there, to preempt any resistance. He’ll also make contact with Lucius Perez. So as soon as the spiderline is taut, Flynn, the first of his team, ziplines over.

  I catch Nolan’s arm strut, tugging him around so we can conference with Kendrick. Jaynie steps forward to listen. “Moon and I saw something moving just outside the house. It looked strange. At first I thought it was some huge dog—but I don’t really know what it was.”

  “Stay alert,” Kendrick says. “If it comes down here, blow it up.”

  Tuttle zips across, and then Moon. I boost Harvey, and she goes next. Kendrick has his helmet next to Nolan’s, imparting last second instructions. “Remember, hunker down but keep your eyes open. Do not announce your presence. But when the shit hits, you need to hit back hard and fast.”

  “We will, sir.”

  “And if you get in trouble, we’re just a few minutes behind you—but don’t get in trouble.”

  “Got it, sir.”

  I help Kendrick boost Nolan up. He slides across. As soon as he’s on the other side, he takes off through the forest, with his team following single file.

  Ransom and Kendrick cross next, taking up a position on the other side of the road. That leaves Jaynie and me. I boost her into the tree to unhook the spiderline. Across the road, Kendrick gets out a string of explosive charges—small white packets distributed along a length of white wire—which he secures to the end of the spiderline. Jaynie reels the line in, and a row of explosives is laid across the road, invisible against the snow.

  I check the time. It’s 0053. The next step in the assault is to lure Sheridan out of the Apocalypse Fortress. This task falls to Lucius Perez. In exactly fourteen minutes, he will call her to ask if her husband—injured ex-mercenary Carl Vanda—is asleep.

  She will say yes. She will remind him that her religious beliefs forbid a divorce, and then she will get into her snowcat and come down to the airfield to spend a stolen hour in his company... because even a dragon’s reptilian heart can revel in the passion of a secret lover.

  It won’t be the first time an empire falls over an indiscretion.

  ~~~

  The snow has stopped but the clouds linger and there are no stars to be seen as I stand motionless, waiting in the shadow of the trees. The angel shows me the airfield. The runway is clear of snow, and the robotic plows are on their way back to the garage. Nolan is making his way through the last stretch of forest verging on the hangars; Harvey, Tuttle, Moon, and Flynn follow close behind him. Across the road, Kendrick and Ransom wait out of sight, while Jaynie holds a position beside me. There is no chatter. We know our roles. It’s only a matter of time.

  At 0102 I check the feeds from the robo-rats. The first feed shows only a black screen. Using my gaze to highlight commands, I run the video backward at speed until I get an image. It shows a viewpoint high in a tree. Running it back farther, I see the house and surrounding snowfield dropping away as the rat is carried into the air. An owl must have taken it.

  I switch to the second feed. This one shows what I think is snow, close up, with the horizon running vertically. My best guess is that the rat is dead. When I run the feed backward, it’s clear the rat didn’t get more than halfway to the house. Whether the owl killed it, or the cold, or something else entirely, I don’t know.

  Judging from the trembling of the image, the third rat is still alive. It’s backed into a crevice, outlined as a black triangle around the view frame. The camera it carries is pointed across a snowy field, likely the one beneath the bank of windows. As I watch, something slides past beneath it. I can’t tell what it is.

  I check the time: 0107.

  Lucius Perez should now be making his call. I wonder if he ever loved Sheridan, or if he only pretended to love her, to further his career.

  The digits on my clock shift, increasing minute by minute, until it reads 0111.

  Through the feed from the surviving rat, I hear an engine rumble. Lights shoot into the tree tops and then swing down across the snow as a vehicle climbs up a ramp from an underground garage. I turn and look up at the ridge just as headlights appear on the road.

  Sheridan believes herself safe. She bought her innocence, spreading enough wealth and favors around to keep her name out of all official accounts of the Coma, and anyway, this is the Apocalypse Forest. She knows that a squirrel couldn’t scamper here without a sensor detecting it. She will have no reason to suspect an ambush.

  The snowcat’s engine growls louder as it reaches the bottom of the ridge. As it levels out, its headlights sweep the road in front of me, flaring in my nightvision. My visor compensates, and I can see Sheridan inside the glass-enclosed cab. She must have the heater cranked up, because she’s not wearing a parka, just a light, long-sleeve pullover, ghostly white. She drives at a cautious pace, spraying feathers of snow behind the cat’s fat tracks. Just as she reaches our position, Kendrick blows the explosive charges.

  A blinding flash, a geyser of snow, flaring brake lights, and the cat rocks forward, sliding down into a channel blasted out of the snow. We’ve only slowed the machine, though. We haven’t stopped it. In seconds Sheridan will coax the cat to climb out of the ditch—or she’ll put the vehicle in reverse and back out.

  I sprint. With the dead sister powering me, it’s easy to bound through deep snow. I launch myself at the snowcat’s passenger window, hitting it with the elbow joint of my dead sister. The window explodes inward as Sheridan swings the muzzle of a large-caliber pistol in my direction. Fragments of safety glass spray in her face, causing her to flinch back just as she pulls the trigger. The bullet rips through the snowcat’s roof.

  Ransom pops up on the other side of the cab. He hammers with his arm hook at the driver-side window. Sheridan ignores him long enough to fire two more rounds meant to discourage me, but when the window shatters behind her, she twists around to aim her weapon at Ransom. I reach through the broken window, unlock the door, wrench it open, and drop, kneeling, onto the seat.

  Wearing the dead sister, it’s cramped in the cab. I move carefully, but I move fast, seizing Sheridan by the wrist just as she swings her weapon back toward me. Her finger is still on the trigger. She fires off two more rounds that go through the roof. My helmet’s audio muffles the bangs, but it conveys the wail of a siren screaming up on the hill. Sheridan must have hit a panic button when the explosives went off.

  Keeping a tight grip on her wrist, I use my other hand to wrench the pistol away. Ransom gets the driver-side door open. He’s shuffling to stay in place on the moving track, but he still makes quick work of grabbing her in a bear hug. “Take her out!” I order, letting go of her wrist. He jumps backward, hauling her with him out to the snow.

  I crawl into the driver’s seat, where I pop the cat into neutral and set the brake.

  Gen-com activates in my visor. No point worrying about EM signatures anymore, so Kendrick has switched us all on. We can send and receive again.

  I jump out the driver-side door.

  Ransom has Sheridan face-down in the snow. He’s kneeling beside her, holding her wrists pinned against the small of her back while Kendrick works to secure her in plastic handcuffs, but before he can get her trussed, Jaynie is yelling over gen-com. “Cover! Incoming!”

  I look up, to see a fleet of tiny rockets illuminated by fiery tails—I count six—arcing toward us from the top of the hill.

  “Expect surprise package!” I warn. “Those probably aren’t explosives.” Because if they were, they�
�d be just as likely to kill Sheridan.

  “Fall back!” Kendrick orders.

  He hasn’t got Sheridan cuffed yet, and there’s no time now. He and Ransom each grab one of her arms. They haul her to her feet and carry her into the trees.

  I’m about to follow when something else catches my eye, something on the ridge: a metallic sheen racing down the steep slope at incredible speed, not following the road at all.

  “Enemy on the ground!”

  Using the leg strength of the dead sister, I make it to the trees in one jump. Jaynie is there ahead of me, maybe fifteen feet away. We both turn and look up, as rocket glare sets the snow in the road ablaze in nightvision. No explosion though. Just a series of pops, like the sound Jaynie’s chemical gun made at Black Cross.

  “Facemasks!” I bellow, but as I reach for the pocket of my vest where I keep mine, a buzzing whine fills the air, and I know I’m wrong. The rockets haven’t delivered chemicals. “Microdrones! Prepare to defend!”

  Goddamn all defense contractors, and their experimental weapons.

  The facemask stays in my pocket. I grab my rifle instead, raising the muzzle as three, then four, then five little helicopters descend below the tree branches. The drones have a narrow, cylindrical body suspended under a rotor with a three-foot diameter. Beneath the body, which I assume contains the power source, is a rotating gun. I see two muzzles turning to bear on me.

  I pick one, and shoot it. The microdrone goes up in a blinding white explosion—but at the same time, a round slams into the top of my helmet, putting me down on my ass in the snow. I hear another explosion and another, along with an ongoing fusillade of shooting. A round pings off my leg. Another pancakes into the armor over my shoulder. I’m screaming incoherently because it fucking hurts, but I keep my head up, and when a targeting circle appears, I cover it and shoot. Another explosion. I aim again. Shoot. There’s a double whump... and I can’t find another target.