The Trials (The Red Trilogy Book 2)

by Linda Nagata

  “Shelley,” Delphi says with artificial calm. “Jones wants you to move in closer. They need a better image.”

  Despite the chill, sweat breaks out across my skin. I flash back to Black Cross and the nuke that detonated low in the atmosphere. That weapon was ten miles away and it almost killed me.

  “Don’t touch it,” Kurnakova warns. “The old troll probably has the warhead rigged to go off if it’s disturbed.”

  Fuck.

  Although, if it happens, I will never know.

  I press my sleeve against my face to soak up the sweat. Then I grab the rim of the closet and rotate, bringing my eyes closer to capture a more detailed image. There is a serial number on the metal casing. “Stand by,” Delphi says.

  Instead, I back away, putting a little breathing room between me and the nuke. Then I turn to Kurnakova. “Why the fuck didn’t you say something before?”

  “Could I be sure you would still take the mission? Now we are here. There is no choice. You are who you are—and you will do what must be done.”

  She’s right, of course. There’s a program running inside my head, busily defining a new objective, updating the script I will follow.

  Delphi comes back on gen-com, breathless. “It’s confirmed, Shelley. Jones says the serial number identifies the unit as the nuclear component of a disassembled B61 gravity bomb that disappeared from a NATO weapons storage facility in Belgium in 2010—although the weapon is reported as subsequently recovered.”

  The usual lies to cover up security failures.

  “You know what is a dead man’s switch?” Kurnakova asks.

  More sweat leaps from my pores. “Yes.”

  She points to her eye. “He has the warhead rigged so that detonation is always a moment away, but continuously delayed by a program in his overlay. If the signal from his overlay fails because he is taken away from the hermitage or because he is dead—”

  “The bomb will go off,” I finish for her.

  Her voice is soft, but there’s a grim weight behind each word. “Naturally I have not tested his claims, but I have no reason not to believe him. It’s a mistake to think of him as just a criminal. He is more than that. He is a sort of tinkering genius. A paranoid genius. Egotistical. Cruel. If they ever came for him, he said, they would get nothing.”

  “They?”

  “Whoever. He has many enemies, some real, some imagined.”

  “He told you all this?”

  “Yes. He flirted with me when I delivered the cargo. He played the role of a sweet old man. But on my next visit he showed me what he had done . . . what I had done. He wanted someone to know. He wanted to boast about it.”

  Semak floats up against her. She looks at him in distaste. “Delphi?” she asks. “Have you found this program that controls the bomb?”

  “Waiting on Jones. Stand by.”

  “Do not wake up yet,” she whispers into Semak’s ear. She looks at me again. “He told me because he thought I would say nothing. I had taken a large amount of money in payment for delivering his ‘gold,’ so I was complicit in his crime. He also thought he would live forever.” She turns to him again. “But I think you have very little time.”

  The weapon appears innocuous. It is quiet. Lifeless. No glowing lights, no status indicator, no digital countdown to apocalypse. No way to know if Kurnakova’s story is true—but FaceValue tells me she believes it.

  “This is why I needed Shiloh,” she says. “To hack the troll’s overlay and neutralize this little weapon of his that I helped him to create.”

  Semak starts to drift away. She pinches his shirt, holding him close. He looks pathetic, pitiful—just a withered old man. But that’s illusion.

  The illusion fades as the old dragon starts to twitch. His legs jerk. His eyelids tremble. The sedative mask must be drying up. I move in closer. “Delphi, tell Jones we need that program now. Semak’s not going to be out much longer.”

  And if he wakes up? How long before he detonates the weapon?

  Kurnakova takes a firmer grip on Semak’s shirt. “We cannot let him wake up,” she growls. “We will not.”

  “Roger that,” Delphi confirms. “Shelley, you will not let him wake up. Don’t kill him, but otherwise, do what you need to do.”

  “Delphi . . . you’re saying you want me to crack him in the skull?”

  “Roger that.”

  I’ve done terrible things, but I’ve done them in the heat of battle. I’ve never done anything like this.

  “You think you might hesitate?” Kurnakova asks me.

  “No. I’ll do it. Let’s get him strapped down.”

  I know what a nuke in orbit can do. If it goes off, Kurnakova and I die instantly. Millions of others die later. Not only will the detonation destroy hundreds of essential satellites, but at this altitude, the EMP could wipe out electronics across a continent—and start a world war.

  Throwing a punch in zero gee is fucking hard, of course. I brace myself and practice a few times on an empty recliner. And when Semak coughs behind the mask and starts to moan, I put a stop to that.

  • • • •

  “We’re ready to go ahead,” Delphi says in a voice so stripped of emotion I know right away how scared she is.

  “What do you need me to do?”

  Kurnakova is braced in the capsule door, waiting.

  “Nothing. There’s nothing for you to do. I just thought you’d want to know. Jones has found the program. They’re going in through Semak’s overlay.”

  “Now?”

  “Now.”

  The old man is strapped in a recliner, blood bubbling from his nose. I hover over him, listening to his breathing, willing it to continue.

  “Done,” Delphi says.

  I don’t understand. Neither does Kurnakova. We both speak in shared confusion. “What? What’s done?”

  Delphi answers with an uneasy little laugh. “It’s anticlimactic, I guess, but Jones shut down the ignition system. And now . . . Jones has deleted the ignition program from Semak’s overlay. . . . Okay . . . okay . . . and now they have shut the overlay down. So it’s done. Semak no longer has access. He cannot control anything within the habitat.” Again, that weak little laugh that tells me she’s barely holding it together. “I’m going on break, Shelley. Vasquez is taking over.”

  The link closes before I can say anything, but right away Jaynie links in. “Shelley?”

  My answer is automatic—“Here”—but all I’m thinking is that Delphi has never walked out on me before.

  “Scary part’s over,” Jaynie assures me. “But you’re not done yet.”

  • • • •

  My first task is to transfer Semak to Lotus. He’s still out, his eyes closed. The blood on his nose has dried, and with no more bubbles to assure me he’s breathing, I’m not at all sure he’s alive. So I lean close, putting my ear beside his mouth where I sense the faint current of a breath, and then he speaks to me, Russian syllables muttered in a hoarse whisper. My overlay translates, its androgynous voice at standard volume in my ear: “You think you have won. You have not.”

  “Not yet,” I whisper back to him. “But we’ll be back in the world soon.”

  I guide him out of the capsule into the main chamber. He tries to fight me, grabbing the frame of the hatch and then a handhold, but he’s weak. It’s easy to pry his long fingers loose. By the time I get him to Lotus, Kurnakova has pulled a jump seat from the rack and clipped it to the spaceplane’s deck. We strap him into the harness. Then I zip-tie his hands behind the seat.

  • • • •

  Even a small nuke can generate an overwhelming EMP if it bursts above the atmosphere, so the stolen nuke will be coming down with us. I eye it doubtfully. “Jaynie, what about radiation? I just want to know the full scope of risk. What is this thing doing to me?”

 
A pause. Then: “Nothing. Don’t worry. Jones says the radiation emitted by an unexploded weapon is very low.”

  Okay. Good.

  Jaynie puts me to work with an electric saw, cutting the straps that hold the nuke in place. It turns out I’m good at this, because I can grip with my feet to hold my position in the tight space, while using both hands to control the saw.

  Kurnakova is searching the hermitage. From the main chamber come the sounds of Velcro ripping, bin covers squeaking, and Kurnakova murmuring to herself as she inventories what’s there.

  Just as I make the last cut to free the warhead, she announces on gen-com, “Found it.”

  “Found what?” I ask as I stuff both the saw and the metal straps into a plastic bag.

  “The rest of the B61.”

  I go to look.

  • • • •

  Kurnakova has uncovered a large closet behind the chessboard liner. Inside is a collection of disassembled machine parts stowed in clear plastic bags strung together with an elastic cord. The parts include cables, gearing, steel housings, and other pieces I can’t begin to identify.

  “Gather everything,” Jaynie instructs. “We don’t want any evidence of the nuke left behind.”

  “This is a cover-up?” I ask. I want it confirmed.

  “Roger that.”

  Rawlings cuts in, overriding mission protocol. “If this gets out, it will be a major incident, and potentially an excuse for militaries to place their own nuclear weapons in orbit—in defiance of global treaty.”

  Jaynie was wrong when she said the scary part was over.

  I help Kurnakova unfasten the ends of the elastic cord that secures the bags. We hook the ends together in a loop and then tug the bags out of the closet. Behind them are larger parts: the shining silver tail section of the bomb’s housing, decked out with four angled fins; the hollow midsection, marked with a serial number; and a gray nose cone, tipped in black.

  More than the innocuous-looking warhead, these are the symbols of Armageddon. Handling them is surreal, an experience out of nightmare, weird and terrifying. Perplexing. Why are these components even here? It’s no small thing. Every pound of material brought up on the spaceplane comes at enormous cost—but the cost meant nothing to Semak.

  What did Kurnakova call him? A tinkering genius. He might have wanted to do the disassembly work himself—or he might have had no choice. If he had ordered the B61 disassembled and only the critical components sent up, would he have been obeyed? Anyone with the skill to do it would surely have known they were putting themselves and their family at risk. Better to promise riches to an underling with no expertise, one who could be trusted to deliver the crate, no questions asked.

  We move the pieces to Lotus and strap them down.

  There’s only one item left in the closet: a bundle of tightly bound tan-colored cloth over three feet in length. “Is that part of it?” I ask Jaynie. “Or do we leave it behind?”

  “Jones says to take it. It’s the parachute.”

  • • • •

  We load the warhead last. Its mass astonishes me. Kurnakova helps me maneuver it. We take it very, very slowly, afraid it’ll get away from us. It would be easy to crush fingers or break limbs or to damage the interior of the hermitage—or more critically, Lotus.

  Semak is awake, his eyes open, watching us as we bring it in. He’s breathing in swift shallow breaths and blood is bubbling from his nose again.

  In unspoken agreement, we take the warhead to the back, as far from our position as we can get it. Then we strap it down. Just as we finish, the plane’s radio speaks. Kurnakova goes to answer, telling me, “Do a final walk-through.”

  As I exit Lotus I hear her informing ground control that Eduard Semak will be a passenger on the return flight, his poor health requiring him to be evacuated from the hermitage. I leave behind the flurry of questions that follows. This is my last excursion in zero gee, so I make the most of it, gliding unhindered all the way through the main chamber into the cramped capsule. I close all the bin doors, then I grab the bag of discarded metal scraps. I’m about to leave when a voice speaks from the old-fashioned radio. It’s not the woman. This is the voice of a young man. He is demanding a response from Semak, confirmation that all is well.

  Jaynie speaks over gen-com. “New orders incoming. Delay your departure.”

  Kurnakova protests. “We have done what we came to do. We are ready to go.”

  “New orders,” Jaynie repeats. “Under no circumstances is Eduard Semak to be transported on an American plane. He will not be allowed to land on American soil.”

  By this time I’m back in Lotus’s hatch. “Whose decision is that, Jaynie?”

  “It’s from Jones. Relayed from ‘highest authorities.’”

  The fucking president?

  “Do you believe it?”

  “Yes,” she insists, a rare urgency in her voice.

  “I won’t leave him to live out his life here,” Kurnakova warns. “Semak is a criminal. Shelley, you brought Thelma Sheridan to trial. Semak needs to face trial as well. We have the evidence—”

  Jaynie interrupts. “He is to be turned over to Russian authorities—”

  “But—”

  “Shut the fuck up and listen to me! This is not a game. Your orders are to escort Semak to the evacuation capsule. You will secure him there in a reentry couch. You will seal the capsule, and then you will drop that fucker back into the world. Is that understood?”

  Jaynie knows more than she’s telling us. The urgency in her voice makes it clear the stakes have gone higher than I want to imagine, but I don’t need to know the details. The only question is, do I trust her?

  That’s an easy question to answer.

  “Is that understood?” Jaynie repeats.

  “Yes, ma’am, it is.” I move to free Semak. “Executing orders now.”

  • • • •

  As we return Semak to the hermitage, he rolls his eyes and shows his worn-out teeth in a grimace of amusement. “You have lost,” he whispers, in English this time. But when we strap him into one of the capsule’s reentry couches his expression changes. Fear returns to his voice. “What is this? What do you do?”

  “You are wanted back home,” Kurnakova tells him.

  I don’t think anyone really wants Semak. I suspect that, like us, the Russians are mostly interested in the data he keeps in his overlay.

  We close the doors and seal them. Then we retreat to Lotus.

  The launch of the capsule is handled from the ground. With Kurnakova, I watch through Lotus’s windows as it drifts clear of the hermitage. Rockets fire, and it falls away.

  “Our turn,” Kurnakova says. “You ready to go home?”

  There’s regret, knowing I’ll never be up here again. But I’m one of the lucky few. At least I got to experience it once.

  “Yes, I’m ready.”

  She completes the separation, fires the rocket motors, and we are away.

  • • • •

  After consultation with STS ground control, she executes a deorbit burn and we begin our descent. Africa passes beneath us, remote and beautiful. The deserts of the Middle East roll by. India. We enter the atmosphere, the nose of Lotus pitched up.

  The speed of our descent compresses the air in front of us, causing it to heat and glow, a plasma that appears pale pink at first, gradually deepening to red orange. The plasma curtains our view and breaks our link to ground control, but our descent remains smooth. There is no shaking.

  Minutes pass, and then Kurnakova authorizes the AI pilot to roll Lotus on its side and we begin a long bank to control our descent. Another turn, and another. The craft is agile.

  “We could slow more quickly,” Kurnakova says. “At this point we could land in Hawaii if we needed to, or California, or Mexico.”

  A map
on the instrument panel shows that we have flown from day into night.

  “We will follow a gradual glide profile, coming in high and slow over the continent to mitigate sonic—”

  The radio wakes up as we emerge from communications blackout. The now-familiar voice of Kurnakova’s ground control handler speaks again in the same slow, friendly voice he’s used throughout the flight, but his message is no longer nominal.

  “Lotus, your flight plan has been revised. Sending new navigation sequence now. Landing is redirected to facility at sixteen forty-five north, one sixty-nine thirty-one west.”

  Kurnakova leans against her restraints, glaring at the instruments as Lotus parses the instruction, helpfully marking the location on the map. It’s a long way from San Antonio. Just a point in the Pacific Ocean west and south of Hawaii. “Say again, STS.”

  “Landing is redirected to the emergency runway at Johnston Atoll.”

  The red curve of a revised flight path appears on the map, and all on its own, Lotus begins another steep bank.

  Kurnakova abandons the ritualized exchange of communications. “Gene, what are you talking about? There is no emergency. Conditions are nominal.”

  “Negative, Lotus. Emergency conditions dictate an immediate landing. We will reassess once you’re on the ground.”

  The panel lights are reflected in a sheen of sweat on Kurnakova’s cheeks as she glares at the map. “STS, what is the condition of the emergency runway?”

  “Acceptable, Lotus. The runway was rebuilt eighteen months ago.”

  Her professionalism gives way to disgust. “And how many hurricanes have rolled over it since, Gene? Has it been cleaned? Inspected?”

  Gene’s official tone shifts to something more personal. “There are no landing lights, Ulyana. But there will be US Navy helicopters present to illuminate the runway.”