by Linda Nagata
“You know a lot about it,” Fadul says.
I pick up on her suspicion. “You’ve done it yourself?” I ask him.
His eyes narrow. “We all make mistakes, but we can’t operate without the skullnet.”
“That’s for damn sure,” Fadul says, glaring at me.
“It was just curiosity.”
“And did you learn what you needed to learn?” Kanoa asks.
“Yes, sir. It won’t happen again.”
“If it does,” Fadul says, looking at Logan, at Dunahee, “no one bother waking him up, okay?”
Logan says, “Give it a rest, Fadul.”
She shrugs and walks out. Dunahee waits for the door to close behind her before he says, “I think she means it.”
I know she does.
After a few more minutes they decide it’s safe to leave me alone. I take another shower, and then I sleep for the duration of Christmas.
• • • •
The next morning, I’m feeling better. I check in with Julian and talk to him for a few minutes. He’s healing, but he tells me the physician has advised him he’ll never be one hundred percent again, and he’s distraught at the real possibility that he won’t be with us on any future mission.
“Hey,” I tell him. “You never know. Look at me.”
That makes him laugh, which hurts. I tell him to rest, and we say goodbye.
The news from the Arctic is mixed too. The shooting is on hold, but fighter pilots are still challenging each other, while troops, no doubt poorly equipped, are being moved to encampments. I wonder who’ll get the blame when they start freezing to death.
After breakfast—after walking to and from the Cyber Center, listening to my feet clicking like a slowly shuffled deck of cards—I decide to see what I can do about it. I get out cleaning wipes, cotton swabs, and a can of pressurized air. Then I sit on my bed, detach my right leg, and start hunting in the joints of the foot for dust and debris. But I don’t find much. I think the joints are just misaligned. Joby Nakagawa, the engineer who designed and built my legs, swore I wouldn’t be able to break them, but he never promised I couldn’t wear them out—and the legs have seen a lot of action.
I’ve switched to working on my left leg when an alert pops up in my overlay. An email from Cory, with the report I requested. I fit the leg back into the knee joint and lock it in place. Then I open the report.
It’s daunting—forty thousand words with no summary. Cory must have hired out the research, because there is no way he could put this much material together so quickly on top of his other tasks.
I push the cleaning supplies out of the way, lie back on the bed, and start skimming.
Over the next half hour, I learn that Jaynie and Delphi invested most of their stolen assets in a holding company they created. Kanoa is right about their association with Yana Semakova. Through the holding company, they have a significant investment in Torzhok NAO, an engineering and supply firm founded by Semakova and operating in the Arctic. My initial suspicion is that Semakova blackmailed them to secure the investment. But the facts dispute that. Torzhok has existed for seven years as a highly profitable company involved in cutting-edge projects in the Russian Arctic. It’s privately owned, much admired, and nowhere can I find any hint that it deals in weapons and armaments. So at least Semakova has not followed in her father’s footsteps.
Jaynie has another significant investment. She’s extended her military experience into the private sector, creating her own legally registered security company. A band of mercenaries, to protect her holdings and maybe her person. I hope they’re loyal.
Larger than either of these investments is a ten-percent share in a company called ShotFusion, Inc.—a privately held corporation created to launch a one-way Martian colonization expedition. They are well on their way to assembling the technology. A massive prototype rocket housed at the spaceport in San Antonio is undergoing extensive testing. The first crew could leave within two years.
My gaze sweeps over a list of twenty-four names: all those who presently hold a seat among the first three crews. Right away, I find the names that matter to me: Larsen, Karin and Vasquez, Jayne. So there’s no doubt. Jaynie and Delphi both are planning to leave.
But at least now I know—and in time to do something about it.
I go over the list in more detail, looking for familiar names, the names of dragons, but I don’t see any. I don’t see Yana Semakova’s name. But then I spot a name I never expected: Flynn, Mandy. My temper spikes. Private Mandy Flynn is no dragon. She’s still a kid, just twenty. Too young to throw her life away on a one-way venture to a dead planet.
I search for Aaron Nolan’s name—he’s the only other surviving member of the Apocalypse Squad—but to my relief, he’s not on the list.
At least one of us has some sense.
• • • •
I go again to visit Cory in his office. This time he’s expecting me. He probably set up an alert to warn if I’m around. “Was there a problem with the report?” he asks when I walk in.
“No problem, but I’d like to expand on one aspect of it. I need a detailed assessment of security at ShotFusion’s facility in San Antonio.”
“Physical security?”
“Yes. Security at the physical location where the prototype rocket is housed. What would it take to run a mission there? One with a viable exit strategy?”
He looks perplexed. “We haven’t received orders for a mission like that.”
“Not yet,” I concede.
“Then why—”
“Look, you know the Red isn’t straightforward. It’s like some fucking oracle, hinting at this, warning at that. That’s why I’ve learned to trust my feelings—and I’ve got a bad feeling about this Mars colonization project.”
He’s looking worried. “What kind of a bad feeling? Are they under threat?”
“No. But the more I learn about the Mars project, the more I think they are a threat. It’s a matter of time before the order comes through. So I want you to work up a plan in-house—don’t contract it out—on the easiest, safest way to end development.”
“No. I … I can’t do that.” He starts to stand up, changes his mind, and sits back down again. “The Mars projects are not an existential threat.”
“I think they are.”
“Why?”
I don’t tell him my reasons. Instead, I explain it to him in a way I know he’ll understand. “Everyone visible, everyone accountable. Right?”
He gives me a reluctant nod.
“The only reason Jayne Vasquez is invested in this is because she wants to be invisible—out from under the influence of the Red—and that’s not acceptable.”
This time, he stands up. He takes three steps across the room. “Mars is the future,” he says, turning back.
“Maybe. But we need to secure this planet first.”
“If you think we’re going to get official orders—”
“I think we are. Orders will come through and then you’ll be ready. I’m just asking you to do the research. I’m not asking for support. Look at ShotFusion’s security. Find me a way in. You don’t need to do more than that. Not until it’s official.”
He’s worried and unhappy. “I’ll talk to Kanoa about it.”
I nod. “No secrets here.”
It’s a simple mission. No reason Kanoa wouldn’t approve.
• • • •
Twenty minutes later, I’m in Kanoa’s office.
“Sit,” he says, glaring from behind his desk: government-issue gray steel with a paper map of North America on the top, pressed under a plastic panel.
I sit.
“You’ve let the incident at Tuvalu Station get under your skin.”
“What happened up there happened for a reason.”
“We had this discussion the night you got back. And you do not get to decide what Vasquez does with her money or her time. You do not get to develop your own missions. And you do not get to u
tilize 7-1’s analysts for your personal research. Is that understood?”
“So just do as I’m told and nothing more?”
“Come on, Shelley.”
“I need this. Karin Larsen’s name is on the crew list—”
“Your ex?”
“Yes. And there is no way I am letting her go.”
He leans back in his chair, crosses his arms, and in a clinical voice he asks, “Are you fucking crazy?”
“Yes, sir. Yes, I am fucking crazy. I wouldn’t be here if I wasn’t fucking crazy. I’d be with her.”
“Tuvalu really shook you up, didn’t it? You need to remember that you left her. You made that choice.”
“Was it a choice?”
“Don’t play that game now, Shelley. Not after all this time. No one forced you into this organization. You knew what was required of you from day one, and you made the choice. I don’t remember that it took a lot of persuasion.”
I want to argue with him: that I was not in my right mind that night; that I’d been too close to death too many times to think I had any right to a real life; that the Red had engineered the decision for me. But I remember how I felt then, both the slow, shaking recovery from hypothermia and the passionate conviction that I had been called to this duty, that it was necessary and honorable, that I would give what I had, do what I could.
I still don’t know if that was my decision. I do know I haven’t changed my mind.
Kanoa speaks in a conciliatory tone. “It could be years before they leave.”
He means I could be dead long before it happens.
He adds, “Sometimes we want incompatible things.”
My gaze has wandered. I make myself look at him again. “I still think we’ll get this mission. And if we do, you’re not going to be able to trust Cory Helms to do his part.”
“I need you to get your head together, Shelley.”
I know he’s right. I do want incompatible things.
“And Shelley? Stay away from Cory Helms.”
• • • •
At 1202, bandwidth vandals jam access to GPS along a stretch of Interstate 35 on the outskirts of San Antonio. Safety overrides programmed into an autonomous tanker truck fail to properly execute, leading to a fiery collision with a semi, also autonomous, that is hauling custom components for ShotFusion’s Mars project. No one is killed, but both vehicles are destroyed, and ShotFusion’s development program is predicted to be delayed for months. Cory is convinced it’s my fault.
I am summoned back to Kanoa’s office.
• • • •
This time, Cory is there, standing to one side of Kanoa’s desk, an angry blush to his cheeks as he glares at me. Kanoa is leaning back in his chair, looking aggravated. He spends a lot of time tracking potential ETM recruits. That’s what he’d be doing now if we weren’t wasting his time on absurd personnel issues.
I sit down in the same chair I used before. “I did it. I hacked those trucks.”
Kanoa rolls his eyes. “For the record, Shelley. Did you have any advance knowledge of the I-35 incident, or anything at all to do with sabotaging ShotFusion’s Mars project?”
“No, sir. I did not. It was a coincidence.”
I watch his focus shift as he checks my physiological status, confirming I’m telling the truth. He looks at Cory. “You satisfied?”
Cory doesn’t believe in coincidence any more than I do. “You wanted it to happen,” he says. “And when you put the idea out there, you made it happen.”
He might be right. I think maybe he is. And if so? I’m not sorry. “Everyone visible, everyone accountable,” I remind him.
“If you think this will stop them, it won’t.”
“It’s enough for now,” I counter. “The project’s delayed. There’s time for a new element to come into play.”
“Or for an old one to be taken off the board,” Kanoa growls. “Shelley, get the hell out of here.”
I go, sure that Kanoa will be able to talk Cory down and convince him that this is just a setback, not the existential disaster he thinks it is. But later that afternoon, a notice goes out to direct all information requests to Bryson Kominski, our senior intelligence analyst, who lives and works off site. Cory has decided to take a few days of leave.
I don’t like it, but Kanoa thinks he needs time.
The personnel van departs in the late afternoon, with Cory the sole passenger aboard.
• • • •
0531. I awake.
The abrupt transition—deep sleep to full awareness in the time it takes to open my eyes—tells me the event is not natural. I’ve been awakened by an alert sent through my skullnet, and that means we’ve got an active situation.
My heart initiates a fast march, fired by a guilty suspicion that the Arctic War has taken a turn for the worse.
I throw off the thin blanket, get to my feet, grab my pants. I’m pulling them on when an order comes through my overlay, spoken in Kanoa’s voice: Squad meeting, 0540, conference hall.
No order to rig up in armor and bones. So the threat is not imminent. I resist the urge to shoot questions at Kanoa. Instead, I link to an audio newsfeed, listening to a summary of world events while I get my uniform on. The lead story is the winter bases being set up across the Arctic ice by the Russians, the Canadians, and the Chinese, while the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff is due in front of Congress to argue for our own “permanent” presence—a request that the non-interventionist wing is expected to vigorously reject as part of their ongoing assault on the president’s wartime powers. The next bit is backgrounded with an enraged Arabic speaker. My skullnet starts to translate, but then the mediot is speaking in English, something about the biowarfare lab in the Arctic—a story that just won’t die.
I drop the newsfeed and step into the hallway. Tran is just exiting his quarters. His dark eyes turn to me in anticipation. “We going out again?”
“I don’t know what’s going on.”
More doors open. Roman and Dunahee fall in with us, but Tran waves off their questions. “He doesn’t know.” We descend the stairs and head outside.
Dawn hasn’t reached us. The night sky is a hazy dark-gray vault set with muted stars. Right away, I am aware of the metallic taste of dust in the cool air—a factor I rarely notice in the heat of the day. No wind blows, and I hear no sound except our own footfalls and the annoying clicking of my feet. Impatient to learn the reason for the call-out, I move into a fast trot. Tran, Roman, and Dunahee keep up, falling naturally into formation, two by two as we follow the illuminated sidewalk to the Cyber Center.
On the way I think map, and the squad map pops up in the corner of my vision. A glance shows Logan, Fadul, and Escamilla coming behind us. We push past the Cyber Center’s light-shielding double doors. The conference hall is just inside.
Kanoa is already standing at the podium, his uniform neat, his expression unreadable. I check his icon as I take a seat in the front row. Kanoa is an iceman. The worse the crisis, the calmer he reads. Right now, his blood pressure and heart rate would reflect well on a Buddhist monk.
He waits until everyone is seated. Then he begins without preamble.
“Forty-two minutes ago, a modified YGH-77 missile was launched from a BXL21 road-mobile missile launcher in Kazakhstan. The missile struck and destroyed a target in low Earth orbit using a non-nuclear kinetic warhead.
“The attack is considered an act of terrorism. The Kazakh government has captured the missile launcher and is currently attempting to recover the terrorists who operated it.
“Immediately prior to the attack, a message appeared across social media attributing the imminent strike to the Shahin Council, a name I’m sure you’ve all heard many times before.”
Too many times. The Shahin Council is a transnational terrorist network—or an underground drug and weapons cartel. It gets hard to tell the difference. “The immediate damage caused by this strike is somewhat minor. The implications are not.
; “An object in low Earth orbit is not an easy target to hit. The satellite in question was about four hundred kilometers above the Earth’s surface and moving at seven and a half kilometers per second when it was struck—demonstrating that accuracy in guidance and targeting is no longer limited to elite militaries.”
His gaze locks on me. “The Semak Hermitage was the target. It’s been obliterated.”
Eighteen months ago I visited Eduard Semak at the Hermitage. Two days ago, Eduard’s daughter and heir, Yana Semakova, spoke on global television, arguing against the Arctic War.
I don’t believe in coincidence.
“They chose that target because she spoke out.”
“According to the posted message,” Kanoa says, “the target was chosen because it was unoccupied. ‘A merciful demonstration of sophisticated capabilities.’”
“It’s more than that.”
“It doesn’t matter,” he says. “What matters is that every satellite at a similar altitude must now be considered vulnerable—a huge section of our communications infrastructure. But there’s more to it. The Hermitage was a large satellite. Some of the debris will fall into the atmosphere, burning up on reentry, but a large part will remain in orbit—a debris field that will gradually expand upward and outward, posing a collision hazard for other satellites. There is a deeper message: that the situation in LEO could get much worse, real fast.
“Right now, most satellites can be moved out of the path of known fragments of debris. But that will get harder if the amount of debris increases—say, after another habitat gets hit. At orbital speeds, every fragment, down to a single screw, has the potential to collide with a working satellite, striking with the energy of a bomb. And every collision creates even more debris. Given time and malice enough, LEO could be filled with a cloud of fast-moving particles so dense that no rocket could be successfully launched through it. It’s called the Kessler Syndrome, and it has the potential to lock us out of all access to space for centuries to come.”
