by Linda Nagata
He’s shaking now, his eyes still closed. “It was a job!”
“A job? And who were you working for?”
“You know already! You know!”
“Who?”
“Thelma Sheridan! Thelma . . . Sheridan. Please. I have money. I was well paid. I’ll give it all to you. Just please don’t kill me.”
“Who took the last two nukes?” Jaynie asks.
“I don’t know. I swear. They were here when I was brought here, but it’s been days since they locked me up.”
I decide to ask a question of my own. “Who brought you here?”
His eyes open. He looks around like he’s trying to decide which of the anonymous faces spoke to him. “The security people.”
“From what company?”
“Uther-Fen Protective Services.”
Jaynie lowers her pistol, telling him, “We’ll talk more later.” As she holsters the weapon, she turns to the researcher. “Could you please have the elevator take us up?”
“I want to stop on every floor,” I say. “Confirm it’s all actually lab space.”
“Roger that.”
The next floor is identical to the ground-level floor where we came in. The hallway is wide enough to drive a van through, but all the doors are standard size, not big enough to admit a vehicle.
We go up one more floor. This time the elevator opens on both sides. One side is lab space. The other is a parking garage. I step out into the garage. Five vehicles are there, but none of them are vans.
“Let’s get the fuck out of here,” Jaynie says.
On the way out through the ground-floor hallway, I pick up a fallen bee drone, holding it gingerly by one intact wing. “What the hell are you going to do with that?” Harvey wants to know.
“Send it to a friend.”
I know Joby will want to see this.
The researcher gets her hands zip-tied behind her back, but after what she’s learned, she’s on our side and makes no complaint. We secure her in the lobby along with the three Uther-Fen guards, but the engineer we take with us.
Thirteen minutes and forty seconds have elapsed since the first shot was fired.
As I get in the van, an icon ignites in my overlay and the video of our operation uploads through the local civilian network.
I don’t mention it to Jaynie.
• • • •
The highway is quiet. No police, no FBI, nothing—because when Uther-Fen mercs call for help, they don’t call the authorities, they call their own.
The interrogation of the prisoner continues in the van. With the squad drone still in the air, Jaynie is linked to Cryptic Arrow’s satellite account, and through that to Delphi, who relays questions from our intelligence team.
Crouched at the prisoner’s side, the anonymous black shield of her visor inches from his face, Jaynie speaks in a low, clipped voice: “When did Uther-Fen personnel take charge of the INDs?”
The prisoner is eager to cooperate. “That was . . . the twenty-fourth. April twenty-fourth.” He’s sitting cross-legged on the floor of the van, hunched over, his hands zip-tied behind his back. He understands his situation, that there is no one in the world on his side anymore, that his only hope is to ingratiate himself with us. “They came in the morning. We had no warning. They killed people.”
“You’re alive.”
“I told them who . . . who I was. That they . . . needed me.”
“What did they need you for?”
“You know . . . if they wanted to . . . to use the nukes.”
“Did they indicate that was the case? That they wanted to use the nukes?”
“No! No. Insurance. That’s what they said. Bring him. It’s insurance.”
“Is it true?” Jaynie asks. “Are you necessary?”
The prisoner hesitates.
“Can the weapons be detonated without your oversight?” Jaynie insists.
He stares at the floor. There’s a tremor in his bound hands. His answer is whispered, but my helmet audio filters his voice and boosts the volume. “I told them how to do it. I didn’t want to! But they were going to kill me.”
I’m surprised they left him alive.
He gives us the vans’ license plate numbers, but he doesn’t have the VINs—the vehicle identification numbers.
The interrogation shifts to Uther-Fen procedures and how the INDs have been handled in the past. The prisoner claims over and over again that he doesn’t know where Blue Devil and Gold Devil were taken and FaceValue indicates he’s telling the truth—but we know Vanda intended to take them to Niamey.
As far as I’m concerned, we have to assume they’re on their way . . . or maybe they’ve already arrived. It’s been days since the engineer last saw the vehicles. The nukes could be anywhere.
At the airstrip, we leave our vans in the hangar. Shima has the jet ready. Our packs and our dead sisters go into the cargo compartment, and then we hustle the prisoner aboard. Flynn is awake but nauseated from the poison the bee drone injected into her. She staggers to a rear seat, and collapses into it. Moon follows with a first-aid kit.
Three minutes later we’re in the air, although I don’t think anyone knows where we’re going. Then, only twenty minutes after takeoff, Shima announces over the intercom: “Our intelligence team claims to have tracked the nukes.”
We are directed to a public airport in Brunswick, Georgia, with the promise that a mission plan is being developed for phase two of Silent Firebreak.
“Eat now,” Shima warns us. “Piss if you need to, because this mission begins again when we’re on the ground.”
• • • •
The new mission plan arrives in my overlay as the jet descends. The introductory paragraph is not what I’m expecting:
Blue Devil and Gold Devil are believed to be aboard the Non-Negotiable, a privately owned Kai-Stratford Ultrafast— a merchant marine vessel leased to Uther-Fen Protective Services and used by that company to transport heavy supplies.
I look across the aisle at Jaynie. “They’re on a fucking boat?”
She’s wearing farsights. The lights in the cabin are dim enough that I can see the sparkle of the display. “Yeah. I thought it would be a plane.”
She sounds as unsettled as I feel. We’re infantry. We don’t do boats.
“Why would he put them on a boat?” she asks. “Why not a plane?”
“Because we took his plane?” That was part of First Light, when we hijacked Vanda-Sheridan’s C-17 and left it in Niamey.
Jaynie really doesn’t like the idea of a boat. “He could hire another plane. Why the fuck didn’t he hire another plane?”
I think about it, and shake my head. “You’d have to hire a flight crew to go with it. I don’t think either Vanda or the Uther-Fen culture would allow strangers that close to a critical operation.”
She shrugs, and we both return to reading the report.
The Non-Negotiable is a roll-on/roll-off cargo-carrying catamaran designed to transport personnel and equipment. It’s a hundred meters in length and built for speed, able to run at over forty knots. Yesterday evening, around the time Carl Vanda was executed in the basement of Cryptic Arrow’s safe house, it completed a domestic run from Virginia to the port of Brunswick. As the Non-Negotiable docked, a gate camera recorded the arrival of two cargo vans that matched the description of the vans known to be carrying Blue Devil and Gold Devil, although the license plate numbers were different. A port worker claimed to have witnessed the vans being driven aboard the Non-Negotiable. Dock-usage records and harbor surveillance cameras agree the ship left the port of Brunswick at 0044—over five hours ago now. Coast guard surveillance tracked it for the first three hours as it headed out to sea.
I pause in my reading to wonder: Who in the organization has access to the port’s surveillance cameras? W
ho interviewed the worker? Who was allowed to examine the coast guard’s records? Of course the report doesn’t say.
The mission plan calls for us to rig up as soon as we land, and then board a contracted helicopter, presently being equipped with external fuel tanks to extend its range. We will be ferried out to sea, in the expectation that the precise location of the Non-Negotiable will be determined by satellite surveillance while we transit.
We will board the ship. (There are no specifics of how this will be accomplished, no indication of the defenses we will face.)
We will subdue the crew and security personnel. (No mention of how many, their training or experience, the arms they will be carrying.)
We will take possession of the ship and return it to port. (I would feel better about this if Flynn were going with us. She’s flown a C-17 and I’d like to see her drive a boat. But Flynn is disabled. She’ll be staying behind.)
There is a closing notation that the mission plan for Silent Firebreak will continue to be revised as we approach the target. Good to know.
• • • •
“Nonlethal ammo, Anne? Come on. That is an Uther-Fen ship. It’s going to be crawling with mercs.”
Shima gives me an annoyed look. “Our intelligence doesn’t support that.”
We’re in a hangar in Brunswick, sandwiched between Shima’s jet on one side and a no-frills Bell helicopter outfitted for industrial work on the other. The prisoner is being held aboard the jet. Flynn, who still feels like shit, is assigned to guard him.
I’ve already rigged up and collected additional equipment in my pack, including a satellite relay to boost signals to and from my helmet, since we’ll be going in without the angel. Though I’ve loaded plenty of lethal ammo, the mission plan calls for us to go in with the stuff used for crowd control and I don’t like it.
Shima thinks I’m being a drama queen. “Uther-Fen is a well-run company,” she says, going over a checklist on a tablet she’s holding in the crook of her arm. “They don’t ferry personnel around the world for the hell of it. That ship is on a mission to deliver Gold and Blue. It will have a security contingent to protect that cargo. We don’t have hard numbers, but a reasonable estimate suggests ten to fifteen security personnel at the most.”
“Ten to fifteen mercs compared to six of us? I guarantee you Uther-Fen is not going to be using nonlethal ammo.”
“No, but the ship’s crew will not be carrying any weapons at all. They are a civilian crew, and you’re far more likely to win their cooperation if you don’t kill them. If and when you get into a battle with Uther-Fen security, you can utilize lethal ammo, but your first goal is to take the bridge without shedding any civilian blood, and get that ship turned around.”
“This is not a mission we’ve trained for.”
She glares up at me. “I am aware of that. And I would not ask you to do it if this were not the direst emergency, and if I did not have confidence in the ability of this squad to adapt and innovate. That said, this is a voluntary mission. Anyone who chooses not to participate, please stand aside now.”
Silence descends as everyone in the hangar stops what they’re doing and turns to stare—at me. Jaynie looks up from loading ammunition into her pack. “What’s it going to be, Shelley?”
Nolan racks a magazine of nonlethal ammo, and scowls. “How sure are we that the nukes are on that ship? When the license tags on the vans don’t match?”
“A license plate is easy to change,” Shima says.
True. But we are about to commit an act of piracy.
“We can’t know with one hundred percent certainty,” Shima goes on, looking around from Nolan, to me, to Harvey, Tuttle, Moon, and Captain Vasquez. “It’s true the vans we’re looking for are common, and it’s possible the ones loaded onto the Non-Negotiable are not the same vans described by our captured engineer. But reason says otherwise, and our chain of evidence is convincing enough that we have allies in this operation. We are not alone. On this mission we are acting as a shadow agency, but our activities are known, and supported.”
“So let’s hear it!” Jaynie barks. “Shelley, are you in?”
I look for the skullnet icon, wondering if the Red is riding me, but I don’t see it. I realize I haven’t seen it the entire mission—maybe because I don’t need help making up my mind. “Yes, I’m in.”
“Nolan?” Jaynie asks.
His scowl deepens and I’m worried he’ll say no—but this is Nolan. “I’m in.”
Where Nolan goes, Tuttle goes, while Harvey lives for crazy-ass missions, and Moon goes along because that’s how our squad dynamics work.
The mission is on.
“You think maybe we should be wearing life vests?” Moon wonders.
“Check the helicopter,” Shima says. “There should be life vests aboard.”
The helicopter pilot pulls them out for us. They’re civilian issue, a brilliant, reflective yellow designed to stand out against the ocean’s vast, textured surface. There is no way I’m going to put one on and mark myself as a target.
“We can’t wear those,” Jaynie says—and the neatly rolled vests go back into storage.
Just before we board, I remember the broken bee drone I picked up on the way out of Reyvik Biosystems. I stashed the device inside a plastic box scavenged from my first-aid kit. I hand the box to Shima. “Do me a favor? There’s a guy, an engineer, in San Antonio who built my legs—”
“Joby Nakagawa.”
“Yeah. Can you get this to him? Ask him if he can build something like it. Tell him I think this one is better.”
“Better than what?”
“Just tell him I said that, okay?”
• • • •
The pilot is alone up front. Two unpadded bench seats have been rigged in the back, facing each other, just clear of the dual sliding doors. I sit between Jaynie and Moon, awkward and uncomfortable in my rig.
It’s past sunrise when we lift off, but we don’t get to see the sun. A spring storm is churning off the coast and rain hammers at the windows. We fly low, beneath the ragged skirts of gray clouds whipped by a gale-force wind that turns the flight into a stomach-churning thrill ride.
Over the intercom the pilot keeps promising everything is fine, he’s handled worse than this, no reason to worry, no reason at all. Then we hit an updraft from hell and shoot straight up, an ear-popping thousand feet, the pilot swearing the whole way, reading off our altitude and having a religious experience—“Holy shit! Holy shit!”
In those seconds I am certain we are going to wind up in the water, weighed down by the bones of our dead sisters.
But we live.
And our unplanned elevator ride has the positive side effect of silencing our pilot. He stops his patter of reassurance to concentrate on flying. Or maybe he’s saying his prayers.
I think happy thoughts, knowing I can’t afford to be exhausted from fear if and when we do find the Non-Negotiable.
What a stupid fucking name.
• • • •
For almost two hours we head straight out to sea.
I feel like we’ve left the world, like we will never see land again.
Every few minutes I turn around to peer out a window, gazing at the gray clouds racing above us and the giant swells rolling below, white foam torn off their peaks.
Even with external tanks, there can’t be enough fuel to fly us back through this storm. Can there?
No one has spoken in so long it’s a shock to hear the pilot’s voice over the intercom: “We’re about three minutes away.”
I turn again to look out the window, but I don’t see a ship, just empty ocean.
“The deck is going to be heaving,” the pilot warns. “There’s no way I can put down on it.”
“So it’s the backup plan,” Jaynie says grimly. “This is a no-choice mission.
We go in on cables.”
It’s probably a one-way mission, but I keep that opinion to myself because she’s right. We don’t have a choice. The nukes cannot be allowed to move beyond our reach. It’s our duty to all those who died on Coma Day to ensure they are never used.
Harvey says, “Too bad we don’t have mounted rocket launchers on this bird. It’d be a hell of a lot easier just to sink that ship.”
That would be my choice too.
But it’s not a choice.
I unbuckle my safety harness. “Harvey?”
“Yeah?”
Jaynie is CO, but I’m assault leader. I go in first, and the initial tactical choices are mine.
“I want you with me on the initial assault.”
“Roger that, LT! I said I’d follow you anywhere—just swear you won’t make me babysit any prisoners this time.”
“I’ll do my best—and don’t unhook from the cable until you are firmly planted on that ship. Got it?”
“Yes, sir! Let’s slam some Uther-Fen mercs. Hoo-yah!”
• • • •
The Non-Negotiable is almost certainly scanning for other vessels, to avoid both collisions and pirates. We are gambling that their security is not rigged to detect a pirate assault that comes from the air . . . in the midst of a howling gale.
As I hesitate in the open doorway, staring down at the gray waves, I wonder if the depth of the water below me is best measured in miles. I don’t consult my encyclopedia, though. I don’t really want to know.
My helmet is on. My HITR is on my shoulder. I’ve got a pistol in a chest holster, a collection of grenades, and a knife on my belt because you never know. One thing is for sure: If I end up in the water, I’m going down fast.
I link into the satellite relay I’m carrying in my pack. “Delphi, you there?”
“Gotcha, Shelley.”
“Moving out,” I say.
And I step out the doorway and into the storm.
• • • •
The wind rattles my sleeves and the legs of my pants. It spins me on the cable. That’s how I get my first glimpse of the Non-Negotiable: As I’m spinning clockwise, the ship appears beneath me. It’s a gray rectangle, the bow as blunt as the stern. The forward third of the ship is a smooth and nearly featureless top deck that ends at the bridge housing. On either side of the bridge are narrow observation decks that span the width of the ship. Except for antennas, the bridge is the highest point. Like the top floor of an aircraft control tower, it’s ringed with windows looking out in every direction—except up.
