Fear the Survivors

by Stephen Moss

  They did not speak. They watched in silence as the view slipped to the chase still going on a mile away. They could not know it was Ben running, just as he could not know he was alone now. They could not know his intentions. They could only see the swath of destruction that followed hot on his tail. And they could see the futility of his flight.

  He ran, hoping he was giving the last two members of his team a fighting chance. And indeed they had made their assailants pay a hefty butcher’s bill. But he was alone now. Hunted by a relentless killer.

  He knew the gully was ahead. He knew he would not make it across in time.

  Ayala, Neal, and their friends watched as he leapt, spinning in midair to look skyward and zeroing in on the satellite his systems had calculated was above. As he found his target he lasered a signal directly into its lens far above. The signal contained a data packet that confirmed what they already suspected. It relayed, perhaps, some finer detail of the true militant capability of the foe they faced, and it told them what Quavoce had already surmised.

  In an otherwise subspace silent world it was possible to triangulate a subspace signal. You needed two subspace-capable units, and you needed your target to be broadcasting. The Russian Ubitsyas had used their own technological advantages against them. Ayala did not watch as the final Ubitsya caught Ben in midair. She closed her mind’s eye to the view as he turned to dust in the whirlwind of its weapons fire. Ben had been a good friend, and one of her best commanders.

  With solemn gravitas, she said to the gathered group:

  Ayala: ‘i have more to report. minnie was smart enough to notify the other teams as soon as the attack began. thank you for that, minnie. that said i am afraid to say we were too late to help team 3 either, they were blitzed at the same time ben’s team was, and i am afraid they did not exact nearly as much damage on their attackers as his spezialists were able to.’

  She paused as she got her emotions under control, turning her fury down to a simmer by force of will.

  Ayala: ‘as of last comm. team 2 remains undiscovered, though. satellite tracking confirms that though there are two russian fighters in their vicinity no hostilities have commenced, and they have gone comms silent. hopefully they can evade their attackers.’

  Neal: ‘¿i assume we can still talk to them, even though they cannot reply?’

  Minnie:

  Barrett: ‘¿are we absolutely certain that we do not risk their discovery by continuing to send information? i do not want to risk losing even more men today than we already have.’

  Quavoce: ‘when not transmitting, the subspace tweeter is a completely passive device. we can transmit as much data as we desire to it and they will still be able to hear us without revealing their location. but they cannot reply, and, of course, they cannot use their suit-to-suit comms either.’

  Neal: ‘very well. that we can still talk to them is some small consolation. minnie, please configure an ai to begin a running track of all force dispositions in their area. as best we can, i want to keep track of their movements, and supply them with as much intel as we can on activity in their vicinity.’

  Minnie:

  They all tensed. Was Recon Team 2 already under attack?

  But it was a greater threat even than that.

  Minnie:

  It was happening. The attacks on the Recon Teams had been the first step in the greater invasion.

  Minnie:

  Neal: ‘ok, that changes things even more. minnie, send new orders to recon team 2.’

  Ayala: ‘neal, you can’t send them into that, they’ll be ripped apart.’

  Neal: ‘no, ayala, i have no intention of sending them back to do force recon. that is all moot now. we know they have mobiliei tech, we know its limitations, but we also know they have a good deal of it, enough to blanket three separate teams of our best equipped soldiers. no, the invasion of the crimea is a reality now. we will see that on the news, not through eyes of a recon team. i need recon 2 somewhere else.’

  The team waited, and Neal did not disappoint.

  Neal: ‘minnie, determine a lowest exposure route for recon 2 heading east. it is time we knew who is pulling the strings. and i want to know where the hell they are making those goddamn planes. i want hektor and his team to head toward moscow, now.’

  Neal at Minnie: ‘and while you are at it, minnie, get me the uk prime minister, german chancellor, and french president on the line. whichever you can get hold of first. i think i need to talk to them.’

  Chapter 36: On the Brinkmanship

  The scene across Eastern Europe was a tempest of unrest. Watched by the world, the ancient nations of Poland, Hungary, Romania, and the Czech Republic were up in arms. Riots and demonstrations rocked the ancient plazas and cobbled streets of Warsaw and Bucharest. They had seen life under the Soviet Bloc before, and had no intention of falling under such rule again.

  In Ukraine and Belarus, the countryside was divided. Ethnic Russians were running roughshod over shaky democratic institutions, while governments tried to enforce a measure of rule against a wave of propaganda, demagoguery and violence.

  Neal sat in a wide conference room in Luxembourg, high in the walls of the old city, sitting as it did above the broad moat that surrounded the entire citadel. Its peaceful reputation as a center of diplomacy in recent centuries had been a luxury of the impregnable fortress that was its cliff-bound capital. Nowadays, though, it provided more of a fiscal shelter than a physical one, and today it would be the site for a meeting of European powers, a group under siege of a very different but no less lethal kind.

  The first to join Neal was the French president, an early and determined supporter of Neal’s cause, not least of which because of the damage the late Agent Merard had done to the sanctity of his military institutions. He did not stand on ceremony, and he did not bring with him an entourage, such was the nature of his growing friendship with the American scientist.

  Almost before he had finished shaking hands with Neal, he was speaking, his lilting French translated briskly and efficiently by the ever more multilingual Minnie, and transmitted directly into Neal’s sub-cortex via the mobile node he now wore more often than not on his spinal interface.

  “Monsieur Danielson, I would say it is a pleasure to see you, but I am afraid our relationship has been forced to grow in very bad soil,” said the president, the colloquialism bringing a wry smile to Neal’s face.

  Neal used a new technique in order to reply, thinking the words in English, and allowing Minnie to translate and manage his vocal responses directly, so a fluent, if halting, French escaped his lips. It was a profoundly disquieting sensation, made bearable only by the look of surprise and eminent respect it brought to the eyes of the French leader.

  “Monsieur le President, it is sad I agree, but I am thankful nonetheless that it has offered us this opportunity to work together toward achieving our common goals.”

  The Frenchman bowed his head ever so slightly, a mark of respect and appreciation for what he perceived as Neal’s efforts to learn his mother tongue. Neal would not disabuse him of this misinterpretation, and further conversation was halted anyway by t
he door opening once more. The German chancellor and British prime minister were announced.

  The four greeted each other like the dignitaries they were, with the rare informality that was reserved for other heads of state and the few citizens that could count themselves among the same upper echelons of power.

  “Thank you again for coming, all of you,” said Neal, first in German, then again in French. He winked at the British prime minister. They had met enough times that he need not worry about a token English greeting for the man.

  “We have much to discuss, my friends, I have brought with me earpieces for you all, they will aid in easy communication amongst this small group, and eliminate the need for a larger entourage of interpreters.” Again, he repeated the line in French and German, as he handed them all small, transparent earplugs with tiny tubes mounted to their sides. As they both studied them briefly, Minnie was already assigning them to the appropriate language based on their holders.

  The German was the first to place the small plug in her ear, feeling the thrum of its tiny subspace tweeter, she mistook it for a bass hum, and so was pleasantly surprised when she was greeted by a pleasant feminine voice once it was in place.

  In perfectly lilted German, something Minnie’s AM Parent Birgit had given her from birth, Minnie said, “Good afternoon, Chancellor, I will be you translator, Wilhelmina.”

  The chancellor seemed surprised to be greeted so, and looked around, only to see the same wide-eyed look on her counterparts’ faces.

  “No need to be alarmed, my friends,” said Neal placatingly, his voice echoed in their ears, “that is only my communications team, they will be giving us comms support, as well as answering any data related questions we may have during our discussion.”

  It was the first time for most of them that they would have a conversation with a machine, and Neal did not feel the need to burden them with the details of Minnie’s less than natural birth only a couple of months beforehand, or the extensive processing capacity by which she was able to speak to all three of them, in three different languages, at the same time.

  “Now, to business. Let us talk of the Crimean Peninsula, shall we?”

  Stern looks crossed all their faces, and they did, indeed, not waste time with pleasantries. They had vitally important matters to discuss, and no audience to pander to. Without further ado, they got right to the most important topic on everyone’s minds.

  - - -

  “Of course, Prime Minister, I hear you, but surely we must fear this is not the end of their advance?” said the chancellor.

  “I don’t suggest it is,” replied the British man, “but it is also not anything close to a full scale invasion. They have stopped at Melitopol and Armyans’k, and, to date, we have no evidence that they are not being welcomed with open arms there.”

  The chancellor scoffed at this, but the French president spoke more diplomatically, “If I may, Prime Minister, we had no such evidence during the fall of the Stannic Bloc, or even back in Islamabad. Surely you see that we must hold our information sources on the other side of the Steel Curtain in some … skepticism.”

  Neal, of course had less spurious information sources, and as the conversation slogged on, he was starting to see that he would have to reveal them soon. What he was seeing was not pragmatism, and not even fear, but inertia. He had gotten their support for his work because its very secrecy removed the need to garner public support. Now the opposite was true, and he feared they needed to be reminded of the scale of the threat they were facing.

  “If I may,” Neal said politely, “we do have some data that we can rely on from inside the New Federation.”

  They were understandably curious, and the room’s attention moved to him.

  “As you know, my taskforce has access to some … new technologies, given to us by our allies in the greater task at hand.” It was shockingly easy for them to forget what they had all learned in the aftermath of the missile conflagration five months ago.

  His discreet reminder brought it back to them, and he went on, “While I am aware that there have been many attempts to place intelligence assets inside Russia since the coup, we were able to utilize said technology to get further than most.”

  The German and English leaders went to interject, clearly disturbed that they had not been informed sooner, but Neal glossed over their indignation with news of his own teams’ eventual discovery.

  “I would love to tell you they were able to move with impunity once behind Russian territory, but unfortunately they had a far from easy time once over the border. I will not belabor you with details, though I will provide you with full reports,” he was already pinging Minnie to create them. He longed for the ability to send them directly to the minds of the three world leaders, but sufficed himself with having Minnie send it to three iPads he had brought along just in case he needed them. Such blunt tools, he thought, compared to the real thing.

  As the data flowed to the tablets, Neal reached down, still speaking as he pulled them from his bag and handed them out. “What I will stress, however, is that while we were there, I am afraid to say we encountered teams with some measure of the same technology we possess.”

  They were initially confused by this statement, then the French premier voiced the conclusion Neal was leading them to, “The Russian Agent, Mr. Hunt’s counterpart.”

  “Yes, Mr. President,” said Neal, as they all sat back, stunned, “he would seem to be very much alive, and very much behind the resurgence of the Russian Empire, as we had assumed. It would appear he has also enabled some small section of Russian special forces with a less advanced, but still very potent version of our own combat armor, or battleskin, and that he also has some air units. Not as large as our StratoJets, but capable nonetheless. We do not yet know the scale of these forces, but we are attempting to ascertain that now, along with location of their source.”

  “This new information is very troubling,” said the chancellor, clearly rethinking her initial position on the topic. “Standing against the already advanced Russian Army and Air Force had been a formidable challenge already. This new factor … I don’t know …” her voice trailed off.

  Neal was disconcerted. The chancellor had been the voice of reason, the only one truly calling them to arms, to respond with force, as they must. But his play to support her had instead served to soften even her resolve.

  “No, Chancellor, please, you misunderstand. I came here to tell you that this army is indeed a great threat, but that if you study the full data we managed to compile during our reconnaissance mission, all indicators point to this being a very small part of the greater Russian force.”

  He looked at them each in turn, “Chancellor, Prime Minister, Mr. President, I have come here to tell you that you indeed face a terrible threat. But I mean this not just to frighten you, but to galvanize you. You must stand firm against the Russians. You must show them that you will not tolerate further incursion.

  “We must hold them here, and avoid further conflict until we can complete the next stage of our defense construction.”

  They looked at him.

  The Frenchman spoke, “Next stage, Dr. Danielson?”

  “Yes, Monsieur le President, the next stage. As you all know, we have been working hard to build up the Terminus One and, of course, to build and launch New Moon One. While we have built a basic complement of StratoJets and ground-based forces, we have not been able to work on anything more potent until we had completed the elevator.”

  “More potent?” said the prime minister. “I assume by the looks on my colleagues’ faces that they have also not been made aware of any new military capability you were working on.”

  Neal really had not wanted to say that. He cursed quietly, and Minnie queried his anger. Neal did not respond to her. This was not going as planned. He was not a happy camper.

  “Prime Minister,” he said, trying to seem calm, “when I talk of a more potent weapon, I am talking of the larger defense systems
we are going to need to build, as we have discussed many times. While these are mostly limited by design to space, some of them will have application here on Earth, and it is the first of those that we are hoping to complete in the next couple of months.”

  “I think I speak for everyone when I say I would like to know more about these … ‘systems,’ Dr. Danielson.” said the chancellor, almost threateningly.

  “Of course, of course, Chancellor, I will share the designs immediately, though they are outside even our advanced capabilities for a while longer. And it is just that delay that concerns me. Until we have these tools at our disposal, we remain exposed to the threat of the Russian forces even now amassing in Eastern Ukraine.”

  At the mention of the Russian forces, their attention naturally moved back to the analysis on their iPads, and Neal concealed a sigh of relief.

  Focusing on the photographs from Recon One’s demise, the French leader said, “What am I seeing here?”

  He was pointing to a picture of Ben’s final two team members coming to grips with their assailants.

  “What you are seeing there, Prime Minister, is forty-four Russian assault troops assailing two of my Spezialists,” said Neal, sadly, but with an appropriate amount of pride in his two men. “The Russians won out, but my men took out more than half the Russian troopers and one of their attack planes in the process.”

  They all thought for a moment.

  “So,” said the chancellor, seeming to gather herself, “if what you say is true here, we already have the military advantage, Doctor. Why would we not deploy our greater weaponry in force against them and deal with this now?”

  The French and British leaders both nodded emphatically, and Neal began to become flustered once more, “No, no, please, you misunderstand me. While I could certainly support a ground offensive with my limited, but admittedly very capable, shock troops, in order to engage the Russians properly would require a force redeployment of my StratoJet fleet away from Rolas. Until we have completed our next level of construction, defending the SpacePort must remain my top priority.”