by John Lumpkin
President Lawson Conrad felt a faint twinge of emotion when Park told him his daughter had been found dead, not far from the nightclub he had given her on her twenty-first birthday. She had been shot once, in the back of the head, and dumped into a ditch. Her bodyguards had vanished.
He also appreciated the efficiency of it. She was a potential claimant for the presidency if he died, a figurehead for any rebel movement that wanted to challenge whatever new order that would take his place. He wondered briefly how her mother, back on Reunion, would take the news.
He quickly dropped that line of thought after the communications officer with him in the command bunker told him the British were withdrawing their small group of advisers from the island, and they would not be sending air support from across the ocean. He was, once again and as always, on his own. He transmitted the order to his forces to evacuate and head to the highlands.
But the transmission was the final clue the Chinese electronic warfare techs needed to locate his bunker’s position, not far from the government house. A high-altitude bomber drone launched a series of penetrator warheads at those coordinates, which drilled through metal, stone and earth to incinerate him and everyone around him.
Six days later, Katherine Naima sipped a vodka tonic on her yacht’s fantail, taking pleasure in the bright sunshine and watching birds wheel off the southern cliffs of Ardoyne.
The boat was one confiscated by her department several years back, after its owner had been accused of running weapons to the rebels. Rather than disposing of it, she had quietly put it on the books as a patrol boat under her department’s control.
When she reached the government’s small executive dockyard, she had been happily surprised to find it crewed and ready to launch. As they cast off, she had promised to reward the captain with half of the boat’s sale price to divide between the crew. That would be a high amount, as the hurricane here had destroyed a number of executive yachts, and Ardoyne’s moneyed would be thrilled to locate a replacement on-planet. But she knew she couldn’t stay on the island, either: A couple of crew members had families in Tecolote they wanted to return to, and they would very likely tell someone looking for revenge how to find her.
She doubted the others would let her get away with killing those two.
It is time to leave Entente, she thought. Perhaps I should go back to Commonwealth. There’s room there to do it right, to carve out a real country in the wilderness.
Once San José was in rebel hands, Kao Tai was told to bring her former source to orbit. Second Bureau operatives who had arrived with Pan’s fleet would take over on Entente; the work there – interrogations, resistance suppression, and so on – was not her specialty, and she was left with little to do but try to break into Irene Sato’s handheld, which the NSS officer had failed to wipe before her capture. Xun would know what to do, she thought, missing him. But she made progress: She found a monitoring program, set to mirror all incoming and outgoing communications on another handheld. The target computer was no longer in the Beta Comae Berenices system, but the program plugged away anyway, pulling in messages from across the interstellar network of wormhole comm buoys. The program itself was not unusual, but its target was. It might be a useful source, at least until someone found relay program on the target handheld, or upgraded to a new machine. Such hypocrisy, she thought. They spy on each other as much as we do.
A few days later, she was summoned to meet with the Second Bureau subdirector who was managing operations in the system, and she learned that she and Irene Sato would be dispatched on a fast courier vessel back to Chinese space, ultimately to join the main Chinese fleet at Sirius.
“A fine catch, Officer Kao,” the subdirector told her. “Your prisoner will be turned over to our senior interrogators in the fleet. Given your association with her, you will be expected to advise them.”
Kao Tai bowed her head.
“We also plan to pair you with another operative, whose skills we believe complement your talents, on a special project.”
“I previously have worked with no one except my brother,” she said.
The subdirector ignored her. “It is, in fact, the rogue operative you inquired about several weeks ago, the one who left us at Longshan. We traced him to Kuan Yin and got in touch. He has agreed to return to the fold by the end of the year. We expect you will be an effective pairing.”
How interesting, Kao Tai thought. The man I just betrayed to the Americans.
The rebels did all the things rebels typically did; they set up a revolutionary command council; they promised a constitution and elections within the year; they executed perceived threats to the new order and sought accommodations with those who would support it. The council appointed Colonel Tan Pierce’s partner, Joshua Moro Rodriguez, as acting president until the crisis had passed, and he was expected to run for the office when and if elections were held.
The rebels also accepted a package of military and economic aid from the People’s Republic of China, whose officers told the ruling council in no uncertain terms that their foreign policy was subject to approval. If the rebels strayed, China would replace them with someone with more foresight about the consequences of their actions.
Colonel Aziz lived several days certain each would be his last. In rebel eyes, he was the butcher of the U.N. station where a number of their families had lived. But their Chinese overseers learned of his capture, and took a more pragmatic stance: Aziz was popular among the surviving members of Tecolote’s military, and the troops needed to be folded into the new regime. Aziz played along, pointing out ideologues in the officer corps, who were extracted and imprisoned. In the end, he found himself named deputy chief of staff of the reformed military, and he was provided all the benefits of Chinese-produced propaganda, which led some to forgive and forget his role in the massacre.
Still, he never went outside without his sidearm.
Tippy Griego returned to his home, which had only been vandalized. He cleaned up for a few weeks, located many of his workers and his equipment, and let the right people in the new government and some of the big companies know he was again ready to serve food and drink at their events.
Then he went fishing.
Ten brigades of the People’s Liberation Army landed on New Albion three weeks later – some on the shore and others inland, dropped from orbit. The British Army had repaired its defenses since the last attempted invasion, but the Chinese made rapid gains, conquering the adjacent Canadian colony of Laurentia, besieging New Sydney, and bombarding the allied positions from orbit. The defenders retreated and dug in on the outskirts on New Albion’s largest city, often in the same bunkers they had used before beating back the prior siege. The Long Night had begun anew.
Chapter 17
QUITO, ECUADOR – Much of the nation plunged into darkness after debris from a destroyed Japanese warship collided with a major orbital solar power array serving several Andean states. Several governments called out troops to quell looting, and President Andrea Montalvo pledged to restart several mothballed synthgas plants to provide electricity, prompting criticisms from environmental organizations about the risk of upsetting “nascent and fragile climate norms” with the pollution they would create. Officials in Europa and Brazil, in a rare moment of agreement, called on all warring nations to fund repairs to the solar stations.
USS Valley Forge, 11 Leonis Minoris
The trick, Erin Quintana thought, is somehow making an eight-thousand-ton destroyer look like a frightened rabbit.
Convinced that long-departed Vincennes wasn’t coming back, the three Chinese destroyers had at last made their move, thrusting to chase Valley Forge through the wormhole and out of view of Kuan Yin for good.
They must have no fear of what may be beyond the keyhole, Erin thought. Certainly they had received intelligence about dozens of American and Russian warships departing Wolf 359 some weeks back, but it would have been cowardly not to pursue a single ship because of suspicions of a gho
st fleet in the adjacent red dwarf system.
Captain Mallett did her best to draw the three destroyers close. The ship made a show of trying to get in some final observations of Kuan Yin, launching a variety of sensor and communications repeater drones, and turning her long side toward the planet and coasting to appear as if she was employing sensors at her nose and tail as an interferometer.
The destroyers closed, launching sporadic shells at Valley Forge. They were easy to dodge, but they slowed the destroyer’s advance toward the keyhole.
Inside the ship’s CIC, Erin stole a glance at General Grogan, seated at one of the Aux consoles. His usual grim frown looked deeper; he clearly did not like his command put at risk for a cat-and-mouse game with what he regarded as a minor enemy space force. Erin allowed herself a moment’s pleasure in his discomfort.
“Diaz reports ready,” said Valley Forge’s communications officer.
“All right, let’s run for it,” Mallett said. “Bear toward the wormhole, one-quarter gee. Lasers, maximum power to point defenses. Guns, give ‘em some metal, but not too much. Just make it look like we’re trying.”
“Aye, ma’am,” Erin said. Only one of the three enemy destroyers was not obscured by Valley Forge’s candle. At Erin’s command, both of the primary coilgun turrets rotated and launched shells at her. They closed at more than seven kilometers per second.
That destroyer dodged and lost ground, but the other two kept coming.
When they were 1,500 kilometers distant, Mallett said, “Flip and continue at one-quarter gee.” Now Valley Forge was decelerating relative to the wormhole, at a thrust that would put her at rest in eighteen minutes. Her nose was facing the Chinese ships, so she could no longer use her drive to burn up incoming kinetics.
We’re cutting it close, Erin thought. The Chinese could try laser shots at this range and probably do some damage, but they risked losing them to Valley Forge’s counterbatteries. They could also attempt to close to point-blank range, where even a single laser strike was likely to destroy something vital.
As she watched, they launched missiles, which closed rapidly. Valley Forge’s point defenses dispatched most of them, but three flechettes dug into the destroyer’s hull.
“Not showing any systems affected!” called the damage control officer. “I think the nose armor stopped them.”
The cluster of ships slowed, with Valley Forge’s nose facing the tails of the Chinese ships. The keyhole and its attendant infrastructure grew closer.
“Sierras-8, -9 and -12 undergoing turnover! They’re bringing forward lasers to bear. Range five hundred kilometers!”
“Bring up the nose, five degrees, and fire at one gee for twelve seconds, then cut to coast. Guns, Lasers, rake the enemy,” Captain Mallett said.
Everyone felt the sudden weight for a moment, their confused bodies telling them, briefly, they must be back on a planet. As the three Chinese destroyers briefly presented their long axes during their turnover, Valley Forge altered her course slightly, and she passed above the keyhole’s first guidance ring …
… and the battlecruiser Javier Benavidez y Diaz emerged through the mouth, her teeth bared. Her main lasers punched into the exposed belly of the lead Chinese destroyer and burst through the ship’s far side. Shells from her spinal mount raced toward the vessel. She spun, out of control.
The remaining two Chinese destroyers did not react in concert; the nearer one completed its flip and fired its drive, apparently trying to pass beyond the Diaz as quickly as possible, while the further one reversed its turn and pointed its nose toward Kuan Yin.
Erin aimed her guns at the nearer one, leading it. If it wanted to avoid the shells, it would have to slow down, which would keep it in the firing window of the Diaz’s forward weapons that much longer.
Next through the keyhole arrived one of those little Kiowa-class escort frigates that big ships like Diaz relied on to cover their flanks. Two more Kiowas followed; the trio pivoted in near unison and fired into the Chinese destroyer, now racing by the wormhole. Little white sprays of gas emerged from the hull as the ship vented atmosphere. The ship raced away, a cloud of missiles chasing it.
“Impeccable timing, Diaz,” Captain Mallett transmitted.
“Sorry we forgot the cavalry bugle, but you served them up nicely, Valley Forge,” the battlecruiser’s captain replied. “The admiral says you get the assist for Sierra-12, as long as you direct the search-and-rescue for any survivors. She asks you and your officers to join us for briefings once we get the entire fleet through the keyhole and launch for Sequoia. We won’t waste any time.”
Near Sycamore, Sequoia Continent, Kuan Yin
Even with all his new responsibilities, Rand insisted on doing his old job – watching the sky. Aguirre, the only other space defense artilleryman in the guerrilla company, usually joined him.
“Days gettin’ shorter,” Aguirre commented as they set up the battered telescope. “Time to get some nightlife rollin’.”
Rand chuckled. It was late summer, and they would have roughly ninety minutes of darkness while the sun dipped below the horizon.
He checked the American keyhole, in the leading Trojan point of the second planet in the system, Amitabha. It had been obscured by the sun for weeks and now was only barely above the horizon, but Rand had looked every night: It was where help would come from, if it ever came.
The scope centered on the keyhole’s position: He expected to see nothing; it was too small and dark to register anything. What he saw was a fuzzy white blob, the combined light of a great many terawatt-strength fusion candles, thrusting toward where Kuan Yin would be in about a month.
Someone is here, again. He had felt this fear-tempered hope once before, when the Space Force tried to retake the system last year. That had failed. At this distance, with this equipment, I can’t be sure they’re friendlies. But might as well assume they are.
“Mission just changed, Hal,” he said. “Get the word out to the clans to stop striking the Hans and start gathering intel on them. And get somebody to recharge the damn transmitter; at some point those Space Force pukes might break through the jamming, and I want to make sure we have some stories to tell when they do. Then we can welcome the invaders and have them pull us the hell out of here.”
USS Carpenter, 11 Leonis Minoris
Neil had never been on one of the Armstrong-class assault carriers before; they were the biggest ships in the fleet and carried close to two thousand Marines between the stars. Carpenter’s cavernous interior and many decks also made the ship best suited to host all the meetings for the troops and astronauts preparing for the coming battle.
Neil attended the intel briefings, which focused on Chinese capabilities as revealed by nearly two years of fighting. Even now, they faced so much uncertainty: Was the Chinese admiral defending Kuan Yin still the reviled Kong Ruchang, who defeated the allied fleet here eighteen months ago, or had he been replaced? What sort of general was Xie Quanyou, the putative commander on the ground? Mostly Neil listened, and let his brain soak in the information, trusting he would recall it when necessary. He did take part in one panel of intel officers who had fought at Kuan Yin before, and he answered a few questions on the Deng Shichang-class cruisers that had contributed mightily to the allies’ previous defeats.
After that briefing, he went to lunch in one of the ship’s chow halls; Carpenter had won awards for some of the best food in the fleet, and Neil quietly suspected that was why the admiral had the briefings held here, instead of on any of her sisters traveling with them.
He sat, alone, absentmindedly spearing vegetables while reading a report inside his eye. He didn’t notice two familiar female forms float in front of him.
“Lieutenant Mercer, you didn’t tell me you had a thing for weapons officers,” Jessica said.
Neil started, sending a disc of potato au gratin spinning toward the ceiling, throwing off little bits of melted cheese at it went.
Beside and slightly behind Jess
ica was Neil’s old flame Erin Quintana, her thin frame and demure smile an easy contrast to Jessica’s broad-shouldered, boisterous presence.
Think fast, Mercer. “I like to live on the edge. After all, if you piss them off, you end up being target practice.”
Erin’s smile deepened, and Jessica laughed and shook her head. “I have to get to another briefing,” she said. “You two old shipmates should catch up.”
She departed, and Erin pulled herself into a seat. Neil heard slight “thunks” as her boots attached to the floor magnets.
“She seems nice,” Erin said.
“Don’t know what she sees in me, but, yeah, it’s good. She’s good,” Neil said.
“I hadn’t heard where you went after Kitsinger,” Erin said. “When they told us the fleet was coming, I messaged Tom to ask whether he was in it. He said no, but he said your ship was, and that we ought to catch up.”
That’s telling. I knew you were on Valley Forge. Keeping track of your friends felt too much like leisure, Erin? Can’t have that.
He wondered at the bitterness in his thoughts, and he saw her giving him a brief, appraising look, and then her mask of professionalism returned.
“Apache’s no San Jacinto,” Neil said. “But we’ve been through a couple of scrapes.” He felt like he should ask her a question, but nothing occurred to him that wouldn’t sound forced.
He was still thinking when Erin said, “Are you able to access information about the Army guys still fighting on Kuan Yin?”
Neil blinked. “No. I tried, but no need-to-know for an intel weenie like me, I guess.”
“That’s what I thought,” Erin said. “I’m sure I’m violating a reg, but your friend Rand is still alive, or at least was, a few months ago before the Chinese put out so much jamming we lost contact with the guerillas entirely. Last we heard, Rand was pretty high up in the chain of command down there.”
Rand’s still alive. “Someone put him in charge? We must be in more trouble than I thought,” Neil said, smiling to show he was joking. It was the kind of razzing he and Rand would have thrown at each other back when they were roommates. She tilted her head slightly, a movement that triggered memories of their not-quite-relationship. “Seriously, thanks, Erin. That means a lot,” he said.
