by Bobby Adair
The lights on our helmets illuminate the shadows. Sturdy steel racks hold rows of what look like torpedoes, at least they’re all that size—eleven feet long, thirteen inches in diameter with pointy noses and thin stabilizing fins on the rear. They’re bombs.
Jill rushes over to examine one closely.
I tell Silva and Peterson to search the bunker for anything inside that might be a danger to us. “Jill,” I ask, as she lays her hands on one of the bombs, “is this it? Is that what we’re looking for?”
“Hold on.” She’s found writing painted in blocky yellow letters down near the tail. She opens up an image on her d-pad and compares it with what she sees. She wipes away three-decades of dust and scrutinizes the print, before turning to me with a grin. “Spitz’s spies were right.”
“The nukes?”
“The jackpot. These are the B61s. Nuclear bombs.”
I comm Brice, “You lost your bet.”
“How many?” he asks.
I glance around. “All we need and more.”
I walk over and lay my hands on the dusty steel. My grav sense mingles with my touch, enhancing it and telling me how solid and heavy the B61 is. It feels like compact power.
From what Spitz told me before the mission began, I know these bombs were intended to be loaded up in B1 bombers stationed at the base and flown over North Korea, or China, or Russia or any other country who had the wild hair to threaten war with the mighty US of A, back in the days when that still mattered. These B61s were designed to bust through a dozen meters of reinforced concrete before exploding. No dictator was going to be safe in his hidey-hole control center buried in a mountain with weapons like the B61 in the US arsenal.
More importantly, no Trog sitting in a hole on some asteroid ten light years from here, drinking Mai Tais and running a hydrogen refueling station is going to sleep well after we show up. Nukes leave an impression on a culture long after the last one has detonated. I know what a runaway fusion reaction can do. I know it won’t take many of these to destroy whatever supply depot the Trogs have set up to maintain their supply line from 18 Scorpii.
“Phil,” I call over the comm. “Wake up Penny and help her guide the ship here.” Turning to Silva and Peterson, “Get outside, find a flat spot close by for Penny to land. This is what we’re looking for.”
Chapter 16
At seven hundred pounds each, the B61s are easy to move once we load them onto one of the two grav carts we brought along. Muscling each of the nukes off its shelf and onto a cart is clumsy work. It doesn’t proceed quickly.
Leaving nearly half our number deployed in the defensive perimeter, the rest of us work on moving bombs and disassembling racks, moving those into the lift, and reassembling them there. We can’t just stack the bombs inside the grav lift and hope for the best.
Well, maybe we could. As it is, every detail of the plan is dripping with lofty hopes.
After five bombs are on board, Jill asks, “How many should we take?”
“How many is Spitz rigging our ships to carry?”
“I think four each.”
“The last number I heard was six.”
Jill laughs. And why not? “You think they’ll use duct tape to put things together last-minute?”
I appreciate the humor, but I can’t completely agree. “The upgrades to the ship so far have been fantastic. Everything has worked.”
Jill nods. “Still, we’re going to be flying a prototype through interstellar space on maybe the longest journey humans have ever taken.”
“Hasn’t every longest journey been taken in a prototype?”
“You’re contrary today.”
I smile because I don’t know what to say. Mostly, I agree with the sentiment she’s trying to get around to putting her finger on. Spitz is using the Rusty Turd as a platform for his research team’s experimental ideas. One day, something isn’t going to work as planned.
Those are the kind of thoughts a commander shouldn’t share with his subordinates.
I think.
“There are another twelve in the bunker,” I say, instead. “One on the cart. Five on the ship. If we take them all, that gives us eighteen.” I look down at my d-pad for the time. We have plenty of night ahead of us. Our goal is to be gone by dawn.
Jill gives me a nod and goes back to work with the crews.
I comm Phil. “How are we doing up there? Any incoming ships? Planes? Boats? Does anyone know we’re here? What we’re doing?”
“Nothing like that,” he answers. “But those people from the coast…”
“Yeah?”
“Some of them are headed this way.”
“Grav lift? Jeep?”
“They’re coming on foot.”
Thinking back to the way Phil described their position, I ask, “They have to come around the perimeter of the crater to get here, right?”
“That’s what they’re doing.”
“How long do we have?”
“They aren’t moving fast,” says Phil. “Maybe forty-five minutes. Maybe an hour.”
I loop Brice in. “Phil told you about the incoming personnel?”
“He did.”
“Set your team up in—”
“An ambush?” Brice asks.
“Yes.” I don’t know if I like or hate when he does that.
“Already done,” he tells me.
“I can send you more—”
“Nope,” he answers. “Keep them busy with the nukes. When the bandits get close, if our plan is to fight, then yes, let’s get everyone in position. Better to overwhelm them quickly than give them a chance to shoot back.”
“Thanks, I’ll let you know.”
Chapter 17
We’re loading our eleventh nuke when I get the call from Brice. “It’s time to choose.”
“Do you have eyes on them yet?”
“Nope,” he answers. “Still depending on your boy to track them for us.”
“Do you have ambush assignments for my people?”
“I do.”
“We’re on the way.”
I turn to Jill. “I’ll be taking Silva, Peterson, and Lenox. Stop loading until we get this sorted out. Deploy your squad to defend the lift. Bug out if things go bad.”
“We’ll come to your position.”
I shake my head. “The clearing where Penny first sat down when we got to the island, get those coordinates to everyone. If we have to bug out, we’ll fly to make our retreat and meet up there. You do the same with the lift.”
“Yes, sir.”
With Silva, Lenox, and Peterson following behind, I take off through the jungle, listening to Brice’s direction as he guides us in. Once we get in position, we’ll have ten shooters, surprise on our side, plenty of battle experience, and defensive grav fields in our suits. It should be plenty.
Minutes later, I’m settling in beside Brice. In front of us, the trees are sparse, but the grass is tall, waist-high. It’s a tropical meadow that borders the rim of the crater, fifty or sixty meters wide, and nearly twice that long before the trees start to thicken again.
“What’s the plan?” I ask.
Brice points down to the far end of the clearing. “They’re coming from that direction, following the rim where the vegetation is thinnest. We didn’t find any game trails through the bush.” He shrugs. “No animals on the island big enough to make one, I guess.”
“And us?” I ask.
He points to the other end of the clearing. “I have four shooters down there in the direction the bad guys are moving. The rest of us are here in the treeline to flank their column when they walk by. The bad guys are traveling single-file, staying close together.” Brice shakes his head, because militarily, it’s a bad way to move. He points across the meadow. “They’ll walk into our crossfire before we open up.”
I nod. It sounds textbook to me. We shouldn’t have any trouble taking out the column in the first few seconds of shooting. In theory.
We space
ourselves out through the trees, leaving gaps of ten meters between us, except for me and Brice. We take up the end position together. We’ll get the first glimpse at our adversaries.
Calmly over the comm, he tells the squads, “Wait for my signal to fire. We want them all in the kill box before we open up.”
The tense moments of the waiting time start.
Phil updates us every minute with a position.
I can’t help but think how much we’ve come to depend on Phil and his Gray and their unparalleled skill at seeing the world around us. It’s a tactical advantage that makes us hard to beat.
Brice points to the edge of the trees near the rim of the crater. “There.”
I see a column of shadows file out of the forest. They’re staying close to the edge of the rim, not silhouetting themselves against the sky—not completely—yet I’m able to make out shoulders and heads.
“I count fourteen,” says Brice. “Phil, is that the number you have?”
“It is,” he answers.
“The rest stayed behind?” I ask, “No more sneaking in to flank us?”
“I can’t sense any flankers,” answers Phil.
“Can you tell who these people are?” I ask. “North Korean soldiers?”
“Can’t tell,” he answers.
“Give it another minute,” Brice comms the squad.
“I can’t tell for sure,” I say to Brice, “but they don’t appear to be in uniforms.”
He stares for a second, and then shakes his head. “I think you’re right. Why is that important?”
“They might not be military.”
“Survivors?” he scoffs. “No way. There’s a naval base halfway down the island. You saw for yourself, not even the rats survived what the Grays did to this place. Everybody knew they had nukes stored here, not to mention the bombers to deliver them. North Korea made sure this place was hammered hard when the Grays started dropping their rocks on us. No survivors.”
“Tell everyone to hold their fire.”
Brice looks at me, disapproval burning hot across his face. “Don’t do something stupid.”
“This is earth,” I tell him. “Not everyone here is our enemy.”
“If you—”
I stand up and step out of the trees.
“Dammit,” he mutters, then calls to the squad, “hold your fire, Kane is going out to talk to them. But if you see one shot from those fuckers, you rip ‘em.”
Chapter 18
I’m halfway across the clearing before one spots me. That’s when things turn from nervous to dangerously tense.
Word passes between them, and in the space of a few seconds, half are down on their knees in shooting positions. Others stand, and a few have dropped to their bellies.
If I’m wrong, I know I’ve turned our quick ambush into a firefight, as all of our easy targets now aren’t.
I flip open my visor, and call, “Do you speak English?”
I hear muted chatter between them as I close in.
“Do you speak—”
“Stop!” one calls. In accented English, he asks. “Who are you?”
“I mean you no harm. Who are you?”
“What are you?”
It occurs to me then that in the dark, with the forest behind me, and my orange suit changing my silhouette just enough to make me look like a space monster, they have cause to wonder. “I’m human. I’m wearing a spacesuit. Can I come closer?”
“What do you want?” he asks. “What are you doing here?”
“I need to ask you those same questions. Can I come closer?”
“If you hand over your weapon,” he tells me.
“Well,” I laugh, “that’s not happening.” I keep walking.
“We will shoot,” he warns.
I’m maybe thirty feet away when I stop. I amp up my defensive grav in case one of them decides to put my questions to an unexpected end. In the darkness, I can’t see them clearly, but I can tell they aren’t military. They’re each wearing something different. Most of their clothing looks a little ragged. Their guns are old, chemical reaction kinetics, gunpowder and lead. I don’t sense any grav shielding. They aren’t SDF, and I’m betting not MSS. Hell, I already bet on that.
“One of you come over here,” I tell them, “so we can talk.”
They confer in soft words that turn loud as threats and promises are made between them about what they want to do to me. The discussion lasts a few moments before the spokesman calls it to a halt. Out of the short silence, he says, “I’ll come over. I’m armed, so don’t think you can trick me.”
Brice connects over my comm. “You’re an idiot.”
“Thanks,” I answer in a soft voice as the wary man comes toward me through the dark.
“I have a bead on that guy,” Brice tells me. “If he raises that antique fire stick, he’ll be dead before you can say, ‘please, don’t shoot.’”
“Noted,” I answer. To the guy coming at me, I warn him, “Don’t raise your weapon.”
“Are you afraid?” He apparently thinks I am.
“I’m not alone,” I tell him. “If you point that gun at me, you’ll find out I’m not lying about that.”
He snorts to show me he doesn’t believe, but his pace slows as he scans the trees, maybe just now realizing how exposed he and his people are, maybe just now figuring out he’s led them into an ambush.
“That’s right,” I tell him. “It’s exactly what it looks like. Your people are in the open. Mine are concealed in the trees, ready to shoot.”
He stops a few paces in front of me, and his clothes tell me he must be a rogue, one of earth’s many people searching for a place to live his life outside the control of the Grays. I also see his hair is thin, not balding thin, sick thin, wispy and patchy. He’s missing way too many teeth to be explained by poor dental hygiene, and his skin is with scabby with lesions.
I’m no doctor, but I guess radiation exposure.
“Who are you?” I ask.
“Who are you?”
“Dylan Kane. What should I call you?”
“Marvin.”
“Marvin, is that your real name?” It’s just a guess.
“No.”
Oh well. "Good to meet you, Marvin. What are you doing here? Do you live on the island?”
“What are you doing?” he asks, starting to raise his rifle.
“Don’t,” I tell him. “Seriously, don’t raise that gun, or you and all your people will die.”
That worries him.
I figure I better give him some info. "We’re here to salvage a few things from the base that used to be here. Leave us alone for another couple of hours, and we’ll be out of your hair.” I bite my tongue on that one, maybe a bad choice of clichés.
“Why should I believe you?”
“Why not?” I ask. “I’m no threat to you?”
“We heard explosions. What’s going on?”
“Salvage. Like I told you.”
“What are you salvaging?”
I’m thinking we’re getting pretty close to fuck-off in our conversation, but I push my patience, because I don’t want to kill these people needlessly. “I can’t tell you that.”
“Why not?”
“Because, just like you and your people being here is none of my business, what we’re doing here is none of yours. So, you get to pick—go back home, leave us alone, or—”
“Or what?” he growls, rising to the unspoken threat. “What?”
"Look," I tell him. "You didn’t sit down to supper tonight thinking you were going to march into the woods just to land your people in an ambush. C’mon. Do the math. I’m wearing a grav suit. The odds of one of the bullets from your guns punching a hole through and hurting me are pretty slim. The odds that I’m not alone here are something you can’t know, right? All you can do is guess. I’m telling you, this is a shit situation for you. There’s no upside. Tell your people to go back home, okay?"
He’s staring at th
e dark jungle.
“Trust me.” I know it sounds like a lie, but what are you gonna do? “You and me, we’re on the same side. I know you can’t know that, but it’s true. And there’s something else you should know, this place is radioactive.”
That gives him pause.
“This whole island is. If you stay here, you’ll all die. I’m guessing you’re not the only one who’s been sick. It’s not going to get any better. There have to be other places where you can escape. Go there.”
It doesn’t take more than a few minutes after the guy returns to his people. They turn around and head back the way they came, shooting nothing but dirty looks in my direction.
Phil comes over the comm first. “That was a good thing, Dylan.”
"It was a stupid thing," Brice tells us. "Playing Mr. Nice Guy will get you killed if you get a taste for it."
Silva opens a private comm link. “I’m proud of you.” And of course, I immediately think of her in the translucent blue. That image has riveted itself to my gray matter. She’s a sugar-shine piece of sex candy, forbidden and unforgettable.
Argh!
Two hours later, we have our nukes loaded, eighteen of them. We’re onboard, and Penny is skimming over the waves again. We don’t shoot straight into the sky because we don’t want to bring any attention to the island. Nine of the munitions bunkers back there are still intact. Many hold nukes that we might want to return for one day.
Chapter 19
“Time for the next tricky part,” Brice tells me as the lift leaves the atmosphere coming onto a trajectory that roughly follows the path of others rocketing out of a mine complex in northeast China.
“Make sure everyone has their defensive grav set.” I turn an eye to the nukes. “And make double sure those are all secure before we start maneuvering.”
“Will do.” He gives me a nod and readies our marines.
I comm link to Phil and loop in Penny. “Phil, it’s about time for you and the Tick to put on your show.”
“Me and Nicky are both ready.”
Nicky? What happened to Nick?
